Episode #235: Ending Abuse In Mormonism W/Justin Francom

0:11 Justin, how's it going? Dave going pretty good. Okay, so before we get started, I want to throw this out here right now. This is a heavy heavy topic and this is geared towards the listeners. This is a heavy heavy topic. This is about abuse. And so if you normally listen to this in the car, with your kids, not that episode. So I'm going to give you just a few minutes here for you, to be able to, you know, Push pause or do whatever you have to do, but this definitely isn't for little years. Also, we're going to be talking again, about abuse. So, there could be some triggers in here. But nonetheless.

0:57 This is a conversation that has to be had. I think all of us who are honest dealers in fundamentalism, Want to live. With happy. Thriving families and we want Happy vibrant communities but that means we got some stuff that we have to do first. Now, as we talked about this, the last thing I want to Witch Hunt, nothing like that. But there are some things to keep a hold of right. Look, I don't care if it's Mormonism. Or protestantism. Catholicism. You get enough people together and there's bound to be some sort of abuse.

1:39 It's part of the human condition, we don't excuse it. We don't make make reasons why it's acceptable. It's our job just to find it and kind of root it out. and so now that I feel like we've kind of set the table here, Justin, this was Heavy when when we were talking This was one, I understood where we're going to have to do it, right? But with you here, I feel like we can get. We can definitely get this pulled off. All righty. Yeah, so what, you know? Why this topic right? I, I guess, I guess we hear the horror stories, and we're thinking how that happened.

2:22 How did someone get to the point where they thought that was I did this and so I'm really looking forward to it. And let's, let's go ahead and Let's get going. There's there's not much more I can say other than here we go. Yep. Yep. All right. So um I first ended up going down this rabbit hole. as I was just kind of perusing, the news and one of the kind of trending things recently has been How safe is the internet for children? And this is this is a big topic that's kind of spilled into everybody's life in a way because there's legislation and stuff coming around. That is trying to Maybe protect children through age verification and, and all of that. And You know, I've got my own concerns and and doubts about maybe these solution is being effective and not being overly intrusive in ways that can be bad for for all of us. But nonetheless, it got me going down a little bit of a rabbit hole and one of the first things, I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this but I think it's important to talk about One of the first things was online games for kids. There's a lot of people haven't heard, there was a very big scandal with roll blocks.

3:44 Which is kind of like a, it's an online Minecraft type game where kids can design their own games for the play online with their friends chat. And I mean, I get why it's popular when I was a kid, I would have loved that. That would have that would have been my life and for a lot of kids that is their life. Mm-hmm. You know, I I saw Sean Ryan episode about this actually. And this was like the game where like most petals are hanging out, right? Um, is is right there and the game itself is fairly innocuous, right?

4:25 It's not a first person shooter game it's you know nothing nothing that most parents would raise an eyebrow out and it's it you're to your point it was it was brutal listening to that episode and hear about what goes on in their Right. And that's this is the problem with the game. It's it looks innocuous, innocuous the base game, pretty much is, but it's got tools so you can design your own games within it. And that's, that's where the problem starts, because some kids are like, all right, let's make a capture the flag game. All right, that's fun. Let's make a race car game. Okay, that's cool. That's cool. That you have an online game that you can design into other games, right, right.

5:06 The problem comes along when adults come into the game and they're like, let's create a bathroom simulator level. Let's create a cuddle house. Simulator level let's create a diddy party. Simulation level. Oh and there's nothing preventing kids from wandering into these, these these adult created worlds, with all this mature content, in fact, The adults designed them that way. To attract kids in. And then they can get in there and they're, they're chatting. With the kids. Sometimes even voice chatting, they can upload their own graphics and stuff so you can have adult material adult animations and it's it's really bad and when kids you know their parents think they're just playing Roblox.

5:55 It's fine. It's like Minecraft, right? Right. Well. At a certain level. Yeah, but Minecraft doesn't have bathroom simulators in it. Right. Yeah. where you have kids playing with adults in bathrooms and so there's there's been a there's been a big problem on Roblox and I started following some of the victims actually, so who have who were victimized themselves in these games, and kind of blew the whistle on it and came out, and one of them in particular now, Was using the game itself to hunt down, these predators to try to kind of trap them and get that information over the police. And so I started following some of these, these new generation of creators that were exposing some of this stuff. And they're coming from a very different world than I grew up in, right?

6:47 And with very different kind of, normals and values and something something really stood out, to me, was there's a really interesting connection between the Predators the children and freeze. Which hopefully ideally nobody needs to free is. But a furry is, you know, these are people that like to dress up as animals and role play that their animals and You know, it face value, it seems kind of innocuous, not innocuous, I mean like my kids, sometimes will play games where they pretend their cats or something, right?

7:27 And I think it's fine with kids but you get adults into this culture. Right. And there were on these really elaborate costumes and then it becomes very not safe for work very well. Safe for work. Yeah. And look. It's more than just like Role-playing, right. Like They say that that is their identity right? And you hear about things in some public schools usually on the coasts where you know they have a litter box in the bathroom so to speak, right? I mean it gets to the point of insanity. and rather than get get Get them help. Like we should we then cater to the mental illness. Yeah, exactly.

8:16 So obviously that's a problem but the bigger problem is this kind of becomes a Gateway for children. Because I think children it's just, it doesn't seem like anything other than imagination and role play and cute cuddly. Cute. Cuddly characters. A lot of times the, a lot of times the theory Community or, you know, they have, you know, it's kind of was a spin-off from, the, My Little Pony Brony epidemic, where you had a whole bunch of adult men getting involved in My Little Pony cartoons, and fetishizing a sexually. Right. And to the point where, you know, you can't you couldn't take your children, you couldn't take your daughter to a, My Little Pony convention because this it's gonna be 90% adult men with with weird sexual Kinks.

9:03 Right. Yep. And it shouldn't be. That should be a safe place for children. That should be a safe Community or a cultural icon for children. And fetishizing adults took it over and it becomes this Gateway where, you know, kids and My Little Pony. And that's fun and then dressing up as My Little Pony. That's kind of even cooler. And then, oh, there's a bunch of people that like to do this, just like, and then, I want to do involved in that. And then, you know, you go from a little kid involved in a car children cartoon. Suddenly finding their way into a community of as a sexual fetish community and bad things happen when that when that happens, right?

9:46 so, I started following some of these, these younger generation survivors and, I watched a video that just blew my mind, it just absolutely blew my mind. It was he basically was the creator basically made some statement like if you were locked in a room and somebody was going to come in and kill you and 10 minutes. Do you think you could get out? Could you find a way out of there? Jump to the window tariff through the wall. Whatever it takes, right? I think and yeah, sure. Absolutely. Okay, you don't know anything. You are still exactly who you are now, but you're giving a phone, and if you can't find child abuse material, On that both in 10 minutes, somebody's gonna come in and kill.

10:33 You would you be able to do that? He's like, yes, you could like know you could, no way, no. I I know there's bad stuff on the internet, right? There's the Dark web. There's there's unsavory websites, you know, we hope that our government is monitoring that kind of thing and actively shutting it down. But we know that there's that this is this is the the internet has become a medium of exchange of some really bad stuff and there's some really bad places out there. and, but it's surely. It's secret, right? Surely it's hidden. You gotta, you gotta know the secret password, she got to, you got to be a, you know, a member of the of the PDF Club to know what's going on there. You gotta be one of the Getty and Roberts to get in to that, right?

11:18 Surely surely Surely not just a normal person would find their way there. unintentionally, I couldn't find it if I wanted to I would I would I would have expected but he lays out this case and and I thought you know what Based off of what he just described. I want to try this. I want to find out if he's telling the truth, like Is this real? and, I I'm a little concerned about maybe sharing this, I think people need to know how big of a problem this is. So this is what I did. I traded a new tiktok account Completely fresh or not.

11:59 I will actually it's my it is my only tiktok but I'm not following anybody. Don't like anybody, don't know anybody, I don't share any of my contacts, nothing blank slate. And I just start scrolling through the videos And doesn't take too long and you know, there's a video and he talks about this, he talks about how you it will funnel you win. And so I come across the first video and it's slightly sexually suggested, right? You got maybe somebody. Showing how a cooking recipe. But she's wearing kind of not a whole lot on top, right? A lot of Skin showing And I let instead of keep scrolling, I paused.

12:48 Let the video play through and then kept going. And every time I see something that was a little bit, you know kind of suggestive. I'd stop for a minute. Then keep going. Scroll, scroll stop it didn't take 10 minutes for the algorithm to start filling everything with a pretty graphic stuff. Now, granted, it's not safe for work, but nothing in the old Eagle, right? Adult stuff that not necessarily illegal. But again, not something I'd want my kids seeing either, though. That's something that I didn't want to be seen to be honest, I wasn't but by pausing you're telling algorithm that there's some interest there. And the algorithm starts recalibrating to feed you more of that content.

13:33 Well all of a sudden, I see a video of animals. Doing it graphically. And, you know, Oh look, it's natural animals. Do that kind of thing. But why would you record it? And stick it on tiktok, right? Right makes no sense. That that doesn't seem right, that seems that seems disturbing to me. Especially yeah yeah. It seemed kind of disturbing. And I paused on that one and kept going and then I start getting more, and more and more. My feet is just full of just the sickest stuff you can imagine almost.

14:15 Well, not even close actually, I'm just getting started, but it was bad, it was bad. And at that point, I'm like, okay, let's dig a Little Deeper. I just who posted this video. It pulls up at the count and all of the videos are similarly clearly sexual fetish stuff. All right, none of that very pretty and I'm like, all right, who's this guy following? and who's following this guy and I start a count hopping and, I don't go very far at all. Like I'm literally just two or three steps in From just one sexually fetishized video on tiktok, right? And I start finding some stuff that It was very confusing. I don't want to show any of it, but I do want to describe some of this stuff, okay?

15:07 so, There's a profile account and a user names given 1,000 followers, following about a 1000 people. A lot of likes and in the description. We just have the number 15. That's it. Well there's more but just the number 15 just out just kind of by itself. Doesn't say what that 15 represents doesn't say what it means. But the number 15. And it doesn't take a genius to figure out that this person is saying that they are 15 years old. Without saying they're 15 years old. And I start looking through the posts. And it looks like it does kind of look like, this is probably somebody who's 15.

16:01 Oh the cultural stuff at least and I'm having a hard time understanding some of this because I don't apparently I don't know the language. but one of the things that was all over most of this person's post was the the initials sh and I'm like, okay, sh like What is that mean? What does that mean? So you know, I started Google searching trying to find this and it's not that easy because it's so it's so generic, right? But then I, but then I actually know I, I didn't I couldn't find it on Google. She had a post or he had a post. I don't know.

16:41 It's hard to tell. and it said, self-harm. and, emotional and some sexual. Abuse. Who and it seems to be saying that this is them. This is their identity and all the sudden SSH. Okay, self-harm. That's what he talked about. Starts coming together, right? Now, this is supposedly somebody who's 15 years old. On tiktok admitting. to these things, and They have. Over 1,000 followers.

17:32 Who are these just friends from from high school? Who's following this 15 year old on tiktok? Who's admitting to being a victim? And having mental problems, that they're struggling with. Well, it got worse. It got worse. It got a whole lot worse. Real quick. I found another one and this one was a little confusing but, you know, the person's profile picture is of the Mario character, Princess Peach. So again it's an appeal to youth, she's wearing a bikini. and the colors on the bikini are of the What they call the map? Lgbtq flag and map, stands for minor attracted person. And while this isn't necessarily accepted and all of the lgbtq Ia plus, you know, however, long that goes. It is they do they consider themselves a part of that? Whether or not the rest of that organization does, they've got their own flag.

18:46 Just like you've got, you know, a million, lgbtq flags for different things, they've got their own and that's, and that's what this Princess Peach is wearing. The person's profile. Name is pink. Heart blue, pink heart. A icon of a map. I can logicon of a map and in a pastel blue heart. His map for minor attracted person. Yes. Oh geez. Yeah, yeah. And again, like, I'm not I don't even know this stuff and but it wasn't that hard to figure out and again I didn't look it's not like I went on tiktok and I'm searching. I want to find You know, do you abuse material? It came to me, 10 minutes of scrolling with a blank account. And I'm already there.

19:41 And what is this person's? Got videos. Well, he's reposting videos from other people. All showing a bunch of young children. It's nothing. Nothing graphic. Nothing explicitly sexual. But it's weird, it's uncomfortable, it's really uncomfortable, right? Like kind of like the what was that movie? That was really Scandal. The cuties That Netflix movie cuties. Okay I don't ever remember watching it but yeah I remember hearing about that. It was a big Scandal. It was a it was a Netflix documentary about Young Young girls. Dancing. Oh, I remember hearing about this. Okay.

20:23 Yep. And the movie, the movie supposedly was claiming to, to be trying to expose. This is a bad thing and warned about it, but nonetheless, the content in the movie, was what was the Scandal because they hired actual actresses, that were very underrated and had them wear and, you know, not a whole lot of clothing doing very sexual dances and that's why it was very, you know, that's why I think it was a really big Scandal the time in and write So there's this person has the bunch of videos of this kind of stuff Toddlers and Tiaras and and stuff. And it's it's not it's very clear exactly what this is. So this person's advertising out in the open.

21:05 Saying, what they are and what their interests are you? would think that realistically, like if If algorithms can cater. To what you like. I would think in algorithm should be able to spot the word map somewhere. And like yeah, get this dude offline. Right? Like right? Honestly, I I'm not a computer programmer. I'm barely like I'm barely computer literate enough to jump online, post some podcasts and do some work with CAD, right? And that's about like the extent to what I do. But even me I'm like okay if you can like deliver curated content people certainly you can put out a crawler that will identify certain problematic words like map, right?

21:55 Absolutely, absolutely and it is it is subtle but it's all so explicit, right? Another one is some video game Corpse Party and I don't know if that is looks like I'm sure Japanese horror game. With a bunch of anime girls. But the caption on it is, I love and set of using horse party, it's the initials for the game. Which would be CP. I love CP. which, Again. They, they are saying they like this video game but CP actually has a different meeting. Child and it Warren. Yep, child coronagraphy.

22:41 Oh boy. And this person just saying this right here on tiktok. How is this not? How is this person? Not man, how is this not, I mean, Yeah. There's no there is no of that right there in the tiktok feed, of course. But nonetheless. Yeah, let me ask you this because I do know that there are groups that go around kind of, you know, non-government organizations that go around and try to expose some of these any possibility that some of those accounts are from those people, right? Throw the baby. Yeah. That was I had that suspicion to I like maybe maybe tiktok's just right. Maybe this is all a whole bunch of Honey Pops to bust these guys, maybe that's a fake account made by the FBI waiting for somebody to DM them and so that they can bust him. Or maybe protect some children.

23:42 I don't think so. Okay. I don't think so. The reason why I don't think so is because when you look at the accounts that they're following and they counts following them, they've been, it's an account. So that's been there for a long time. And I know that a lot of the accounts that they follow and accounts, following them have already been banned on tiktok. And the interesting thing is, It, I don't know what those accounts, I don't know who those accounts, know, you could see, you could see the names of the accounts that were banned. But they still showed up as in the falling and followers list. And just reading the names of these accounts that were following them. Okay. Well, there's somebody who's just like this person, it's just as explicit. It's a wink, wink, not account.

24:28 That's been banned. And another one that's been bad. And I don't know, maybe you could argue that maybe that's a Honeypot and they're going after. But the thing is this these are just some examples it did and I had to stop. I got I got violently ill as I was going through this and I and I had to delete the app and I'm never touching that awful thing again. but, Here's another profile. They got LinkedIn to all this. Deranged NB, gooner. And be non-binary. I looked at up to. DMS open. No Limits, wink. Oh geez.

25:11 Usually, inactive tongue stick out. and then, The number seven. And the word team. Being. Teen. so, the number seven and the word teen, so, this looks to me, like, this is a 17 year old Asking for trouble. Yeah, look for trouble. And again, this isn't bad. This should be banned. There are counts, full of a bunch of furry free corn. she's, And then this is the one that that that just scared the hell out of me and it and this is one I was done. I followed off of that one and I found an account. Um, nothing explicit in the name, no obvious signs of anything.

26:04 However, they've only got two videos, a repost of a video of a fully clothed, child of a very young age dancing in a way that seems kind of inappropriate. And then another picture of telegram. With. a lot of a lot of the censored out, but some telegram messages showing 100 gigabyte files. Do people. What telegram what the app telegram is, so telegram. Yeah, Telegraph is a private messaging app, kind of like a way to send texts to people, however, normal text go through the cellular services, and our visible to the cellular Services. They're available to police have police were to subpoena those text messages.

26:56 Those are going to be their telegram is a secure private communication and an encryption that right. Yeah. And to end encryption, meaning that even if The police were like, hey we've got a warrant, we know that something bad happens. We want to know who owns this account, or what was said, Even telegram can't provide it. It's end encrypted, right? Well at least supposedly it is I don't know there's rumors that maybe the government secretly can peek at that stuff still And it makes me conflicted because I do think privacy is important. I think it's really important that we are able to have private conversations with people and not have the government watching over our shoulder 24/7. Right. but you need to be aware that that also creates a environment for for this.

27:47 Somebody showing a screenshot of hundreds of gigabyte files being shared over Telegram in a private message. Most of it being censored. But the big caption over this photo saying got new stuff. Check my bio and a emoji icon of pizza. Slices. Oh, Yeah. Now, anyone you read the Epstein files knows exactly what that is. Yeah, and here's something you understand, too, like, I don't necessarily believe all these conspiracies of of any tdf ring in Washington, that's running the world.

28:29 And there's the whole thing with the comments said, there's definitely I looked into it. There's definitely some weird stuff. I don't know that. I completely buy it, but here's what you understand, you don't need to buy it. Whether or not they're really was an elite PDF ring doing this with using Pizza as a code word for something. It has caught on culturally at this point. Right, right on Colby happened, right? And so let me just sum this up so people can kind of follow this. on tiktok, they kind of soft advertised for this, right, those who are in the know and these communities they know what the keywords are, what what they are, and then, they are able to then link to an end, to end private Communication, Service where they can, then view all the material Right. And so what this account in their bio, what it says is got new content at best qualities.

29:31 My new account and then they've got their telegram account. And then it says, ask for menu. Oh boy. And that's what I was done. That's when I was done. I mean, I I only spent like 15 minutes on this with the completely fresh tiktok account. I wasn't looking for this. Yeah. 15 minutes. I could probably do. I probably done it for hours. I don't know if I would have had a soul left afterwards. I would have hoped that I almost would hope that the FBI would be, you know, kicking down my door and like, hey, what were you? What we Were you doing? Look in this telegram page because I would like to believe that this is all just hundreds and hundreds and hundred thousands.

30:18 Of FBI honey pots on tiktok. I don't think it is, though. I don't think it is because I've heard stories and you do see eventually sometimes, there are cases where this stuff gets exposed and this is exactly. Like I said, these these, these roadblocks, kids, these roadblocks victims or let's say, I'm gonna say survivors these roadblocks survivors. Are saying this happened to them. And then you go on tiktok and own the hold. You're not even looking for it. You could just be a teenage boy. With, you know, with some hormones going.

30:58 Right and okay well he kind of oh that looks kind of cool. That looks kind of cool. Oh yeah and before you know it you are you're being exposed to Illegal. And Just awful, awful awful things. You you are now in the world. You are in the worst. Hell hole of That you can imagine, and you're being groomed. And you're and you're being exposed to this kind of stuff. This is real and it's dangerous. It is really dangerous. I I was, I started doing this because I didn't believe the guy Right?

31:43 I didn't believe the guy he's like, if you were locking room in 10 minutes, would you be able to find some abusive content online, if your life depended on it, within within 10 minutes, 20 minutes Of course, not, of course, not. Right. But I tried it. I tried it. I wasn't even looking either. I wasn't even looking like I'm not throwing I wasn't doing telegram searches throwing in keywords? None of that. I'm just letting the algorithm know that I'm a male and maybe I am interested in the female body a little bit and 15 minutes later. I'm getting advertisements for child abuse material. you know, and Here's part of the problem, too, right?

32:31 Is that, we essentially ran a social experiment On ourselves and our kids that we had no idea what it was capable of, right? And so social media we just threw it out to the masses and said, how that it And now I want to say this, it's not all bad, right? We have the ability to connect to get unfiltered information, that's all great. but in the time that we've had these apps, it's trained. Our kids to be it is taught our kids instant gratification. There are no reason now to delay gratification. It's all right now. In the moment.

33:13 And so, you got a young man? Like you were saying, right? Hormones are pumping, right? Stops for just a second and that's it. So, right? Yeah. So in some ways we have because of social media, we have a generation that as they've grown up, they haven't matured at a normal rate, right? If we look at just 15 year olds, right? You're roughly from the same time frame. I am, I think you're in your mid-40s. I'm in my life for these, right? if you look at a 15 year old today, they are vastly vastly less mature than what you and I were And that was just a few that was just just 30 years ago.

33:57 Right. and now, It's, it's completely different. Right. So we've given instant gratification and trained a less mature. Set of young people who can just glom on to this. Absolutely absolutely. And I'll be honest. Like so we're both jedex right and so right you know we we would play outside with our friends. Tell the streetlights came on, there was no concern. There was no questions we drive right around on our bikes. Go through town. Just we kind of grew up with out, leashes, and observations. And for the most part, I think we turned out, okay? Yeah.

34:44 But it's a different world. It's a different. It is a different world today as well. I don't know that I'm comfortable. I would like to raise my children to be able to have that much freedom. Right. I don't know if I'm actually comfortable allowing that though because it is a different world. Now I'll tell you, I got into the video games when I was, when I was young as well, I was an early adopter on computer science for my age and I remember I was on the brand the breaking cut. So when I first got into video games to play multiplayer games, you had to drag your computer over to your friend's house and and wire them together and that's how you played multiplayer games. Either that or you connect to these things called Bolton board Services, where your computer calls uses your phone line and makes a voice call to another computer and sends data and I can get on there and I could take a move on a game and then I then I hang up and then a friend can call in and they can make a move and hang up.

35:41 And I can, I mean that was that was it. That's what we had. And then the internet happens, the internet comes to town finally. And online video games. Was this brand new thing and I was there for it. I loved I loved video games as a kid and I remember, I'm in these, I mean I was playing online and these communities it was mostly adults. Because mostly adults had the, had the money in the resources for these computers, like I was kind of early adopter. But I was still pretty young. The worst, the worst I ever encountered was was just like adult language, you know, swear words and stuff and in the chat sometimes when somebody lost a game but everybody was there to game, they were all gays.

36:28 And there wasn't even I can't there wasn't really even any not safe for work stuff going on in these communities. Right? When I was a kid. But we live in a very different world. Very different world and I would love to say that it's just a problem on tiktok. I don't think it is, I don't think it is. I in fact, I do spend a lot of time on YouTube and I've never encountered anything that really of a problem there before but I did want to maybe try and repeat this one more time so I created a brand new You Tube account Completely clean. Started scrolling and it started going the same direction. I didn't follow it through all the way. I just I found a channel where you have these girls doing acrobatics. in a way that was just wrong. Just wrong. and I saw that, okay, this rabbit holes even on YouTube, It's on tiktok, it's on YouTube. Is it on x?

37:34 Yeah. Yep, it's on next two. It's on EX on Facebook. Probably I I don't think social media is safe for children anymore. I don't even know that safe for adults because like I said, Okay, back in the back in back when I was a kid, you're right. If you wanted to find some pornography, You have work, you had to work for it, right. There weren't a lot of options, unless you lived in Vegas. Right where you can find stuff all over the streets. Yeah, right. Just I remember as a kid being in Vegas, my parents like, Don't Look Down, Don't Look Down. I took a peek down.

38:15 Whoa. Yeah, okay, don't look down. Yeah but outside of Vegas. You were safe, but today the internet is pretty much like the floor of Vegas in the 90s. It is, why littered? Which is why if you jump on YouTube, you should only be searching the Mormon Renegade podcast and it just breaks that Rhythm. So yeah, well the good news is algorithms can protect you too because I said I'm not a teenage boy with hormones. Raging, you know, I have, I'm married. I've got a wife. I'm not I'm not as interested in that stuff is maybe I would have been as a teenager Right? And I don't see any of it because the kind of things that I'm interested on YouTube, feed, and algorithm, and then it zooms in on the things that I'm interested in.

39:03 But again, clean clean account. Show some show some nail hormone interest and it gets really dirty really fast again and it doesn't just get dirty. I'm not just talking pornography is bad. Let me just say a pornography is bad. It's harmful it is not good. It is destructive. But this is way beyond that, right? This is way beyond that. Right? So I don't know. The answer is, to be honest. I On the one hand, it seems like we need the internet to live nowadays and our children need to know how to navigate it. On the other hand. because of the power of technology and lack of moderation of this technology, Right. That what used to be, you know, is a kid, you know, watch out for the guy, you know, with the guy with the big black van offering to give you candy.

40:03 Right. Is literally on every street corner on the internet. Right. Every street corner. It's not it's not a question of if your children run into this, it really is going to only be a question of when Right. And I wish I had a good answer. I wish I could say that. Um, if you do this and this and this you can you can avoid it. If you do this you can protect your family from it. If you buy this program or set up your computer, this way, it'll protect them. It's, it's not true. There's nothing out there that can that can do that. Not at least not to not to a determined child with a much better grasp of Technology than their parents probably have. That's certainly where I was and I know enough about technology is an expert in it to know that there's no such thing as as a safe internet.

40:56 Right. Any kind of safeguards can be circumvented. Usually, with minimal effort. Just just ask your friend. How do I get, how do I get through this filter? How do I get on? I want to get on tiktok in my parents won't let me and they blocked on my phone. Their friends will show him how so I don't know what to do about it, but it for myself and I guess for my family, I think I have to take a As a zero social media policy, at the very least. It's got to be supervised constantly. When my kids want even just YouTube. If my kids, and they and they learn, they my kids love learning on YouTube.

41:38 My kids have learned that you can ask any question you can ever imagine. And while my dad have no idea, Somebody on YouTube's done a video on it right? Yep. Yep. And my kids love to learn all kinds of amazing things on YouTube by by asking those questions that I could never answer. But they've got to watch it with Mom or Dad, even the ads sometimes. Are just explicit exclusively pornographic ads, just you're watching little video. Next thing, you know, it's, it's a Viagra commercial that should be X-rated. I was gonna say when I turned 45 because you know all those apps you put in your birthday right? You turn a certain age and they start tailoring content to what 45 year olds.

42:27 Would be so just be, oh, and so, you know? Yeah. If they're using any. Yeah, no. It's, it's just so dangerous, right? And again, back when you and I were kids If you wanted to watch a risque movie not even not even a really bad x-rated movie. Just a risk game movie. Will you had to do a couple things? One is you either had to have cable or go over to your buddies house that had cable. Then you had to wait till about 10:30 or 11 oclock and then you could watch the risk game movie. And yeah, friend. You had a TV in their room. Because you can't do that the living room, right?

43:07 Right. And so like it's it's such a different world. And even that risk game movie, that you were watching, is probably the equivalent of a PG-13 movie today, right? And so, It is such a different world that we live in, and we haven't trained our kids, how to be mature enough to handle this responsibility, right? How to step away from things and quite frankly, What we've ended up with is, like I said disaster. We have the probably the less mature generation that we've ever had. With instant gratification throwing in the mix. It's a it's like, mixing.

43:51 Up a Molotov cocktail that's going to have horrific repercussions for society. When those kids start getting married having children of Their Own, well, I if if you start having children, yeah. Um, that's that's another big concern. And that's part of this is a part of that problem, as well. this is directly a part of that problem as well, when you've got a generation of abuse survivors, Yeah, and look. I don't I can't blame it, right? Like if you were a young teen girl and something traumatic happened. I can't, I can't. I can't blame you for being like, I don't I don't want to ever get married. I don't, I don't want to.

44:33 I don't want to be right? I don't want that. I don't want that. It's sad because that's not what they're rejecting. But when you've been traumatized, That can be a really, really hard thing to deal with. Yeah. Oh, that's impact. You know, I'll just I'll share a personal story here, actually. So what I was going to call College in Korea after my mission, I was still single. And I was dating around and I met somebody and in the State Choir. And she was a Korean. What do you call it? Korean.

45:18 Genetically, like she was a she's full blooded Korean, but she was born. In Korea and then moved to like Canada when she was three. So she's an ethnic Korean right? And then raise in the in the West in Canada and then went back to Korea. Okay? Right exactly. So she didn't really speak Korean very well her parents did that she didn't she was there teaching English for work? and I was there going to school and, you know, as the As the closer culturally than that, then either of us were with actual Koreans. You know, there were some natural interest there, right?

45:59 and so, we started dating and I thought everything seemed to be going. Okay? I thought things were going, okay, and we really seem to like each other and then something happened. And I didn't understand what was going on but she started. I don't know, any better way to say than crashing out. Crashing out. And it was really shocking and bizarre to me. I didn't I never seen this kind of behavior before but I hadn't been in a whole lot of relationships before either, so maybe I'm like, is this just is this is this women? Right. Right? No frame of reference. You're just I don't have a reference.

46:40 I am maybe this is, this is maybe this is how women neck when they're getting really serious. And we were getting serious. We were talking about getting married even and I told her I'm wanting to get married in the temple. and she said, I'd like to get married in the temple too. But I don't think I can. And I was too afraid to ask her at the time. What that meant I just assumed that. Oh, maybe there's some things she needs to work through, right? Maybe there's some right. I don't know. I didn't want to ask, but as we got closer and closer and more committed, it got to the point where her behavior was getting worse and worse.

47:20 And the last straw was. We had gone on a date one night. and, We're about to head home and I we didn't live nearby each other. I'm living on the you know, by the college and she was off living near the downtown where the school, where the English schools were and, We part ways. And I get home and then she calls me. And she says, I need you to. I need you to come over here. or I'm gonna, I'm gonna End my life. Oh boy. And she was a rack, I rushed over, and she was a rack. And I didn't understand what was going on. but, I wanted to be there for I wanted to support her and and she told me a story of and she told me, this is the first time she'd ever told anybody.

48:23 But she had a, an uncle. Non-biological. who has been staying with her family and had been since she was like eight years old. And abused had been happening since she was 18 year old. 18 years old until she was 18 and went to Korea. Boy. And it can continue that whole time. And she never pulled a soul and I'm the first person she'd ever told. And all the sudden, I started understanding why. What was going on the stuff that seemed off. So like, but one of the things that really, really shocked and surprised me was She blamed herself. She said that this guy had also told her when she left that he was gonna come to Korea someday secretly and kidnapper. And it was one of the things she's been worried about she's worried that this guy's gonna, maybe would kill me. if he found, if he found out that she was dating me, she also thought that it was her fault.

49:44 This is why she said that she can't get married in the temple. so, I was at a loss but I I still, you know, it didn't change my that the facts of her past did not change my feelings for her, right? And I still wanted to move forward. With stuff. And I also knew she needed to get her help. Get some help. So I I was able to convince her to. She had a sister who was living in Korea, an older sister And first, I got her warmed up to the idea of talking about this with her sister. So we had her sister, come over and, and, and we love the sister know. And then the sister helped her helped. Convince her that she needed to let Mom and Dad know because this guy was still living in her parents house at the time. Oh geez and mom and dad need to know, right? Oh yeah. so, She has a call with her parents and Walter's sisters there and we went and she told them when it happened. And you know her parents were crying. it was a very Very sad. Realization right.

50:55 Her parents wanted. Her parents didn't speak English and my Korean was not perfect. Certainly, didn't have not had the vocabulary to be discussing all of this kind of stuff. But done the last parents gave me or their contact information. They wanted me to have it so that I could get a hold of them if I needed to. And then I started being like, well, let's, let's talk to the bishop. Let's go to the church and let's go to the bishop next and and see what what we can do here. So we, you know, we can get you some help. And in my mind part of me is also I need the bishop to help you understand. That you are a victim. You are, you are, you're not disqualified and unworthy you go to the temple because you had been abused your victimized. This isn't that's not how that works. And even just because the abuse continued past, Well what age? What age is this person?

51:50 No longer a victim, right? I would say as long as they're with that person and they're still doing it, they're still a victim. Absolutely. It's their 20 if they're 30. They're 40. Because it was really clear to me that she was well on. This is the problem started to becoming clear to me that she was not an adult. Right? She was not an adult yet. This had done something to her. And she could put on this appearance of I'm an adult. But then sometimes she couldn't wear that mask of being an adult. And she wasn't Right. And the bishop was trying to help her understand that.

52:32 No, you haven't you not? You haven't seen. You're not you're not going to go to hell. You're going to be okay and you need to rely on the atonement in Christ to heal for this kind of stuff. And that you can certainly get prepared and ready to go to the temple but this is what then really dawned on me. Because I wanted to get married, but I also wanted to have a family. Right. and, Like I said, she'd wear this mask of. I'm an adult. But I could see that there's all a part of her. That's not an adult. There's a part of her. That's still a child. And is incapable of being an adult. And it's like, you start wondering like, how, what if we had children?

53:19 Could she be a mother? Like what if I thought work and she's home with the kid and suddenly, she has a suicidal thought or feelings or how can she be responsible parent? if she hasn't really healed from this stuff, And in one of the the absolute most heartbreaking tragic moments of my life. I I called her parents and I told him that she needs to go home and she needs some serious help. And that she doesn't need a husband right now. She doesn't need to become a mother right now. She needs. She needs her parents. She needs some help. And her parents helped me. I told her that I tried talking to her about it and that's where the mask would come off. And I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't convince her that she needed to go home. and she was behaving like a like a little child, throwing a tantrum and No, I'm I don't, I'm okay. I don't, I'm not, I don't want to go home. I don't want to go home.

54:19 I think partially out of fear that he was still there but I end up calling her parents. I talked with them they told me that they've dealt with him. I don't know exactly what that means today actually I'd be a little bit worried. I want more information than that today but there's some situations sometimes we're Look, if the dude has an accent, dude, has an accident. I don't know what to say. No, I want totally down with that. I'd be totally down with that look, Justin. There's lots of people that fall on a knife, 7 times, it happens. Yeah. Yeah. If I knew that happened I would be very comfortable. I was more concerned that maybe the guy went and told his Bishop what he had done and now he's and now he's okay again.

55:07 And it's dealt with it's been dealt with. So like I said, today, I'd be a lot more inquisitive on what you know that's been dealt with meant Right. Hoping they've got some old-fashioned Korean blood in them and they and they knew how to deal with that properly. You don't you ever hear of rooftop Koreans? You know, those Koreans, those old school, Koreans were based. Right. Right. Right, right? Yeah. No. 100% So anyways, the reason I'm bringing this up though is because she was not ready to get married, she was not ready to become apparent. I, I hope things worked out for her in her life that I had to. I had to send her away.

55:48 I had to, I had to send her home, her parents had to had to take care of that because These things can break people in ways that. Take time to heal. oh, I'm just saying, I don't just, you don't just get right up and and you're better again and and meanwhile the life's moving life's moving on and so I look around the world and, you know, you see the fact that this abuse The material is just so accessible, it's it's being advertised at you. And it just makes me not wonder if and then you shouldn't seem to generation of the roadblocks generation come out and say yeah we were we were we were all being victimized and it makes me not wonder if that's might not be part of the reason why people aren't my young people aren't seeming to have desires to reproduce and and get married and have families anymore.

56:42 Right. Well, it would make sense right? Because Look, I've never been abused that way. So I wouldn't know. But I seen it from a few people and both of the things that you just described right? The where you're not quite an adult, right? You see that quite a bit there's something about when when that happens from my understanding again never having experienced it. It kind of freezes you in a spot. So that when crisis or conflict comes up, you almost revert back to that age in which the trauma happened. and then, on top of that. I mean, yeah, if you've been victimized In that way.

57:28 If you're a young woman, it's going to make it awfully hard to trust demand again. And I could see where that would definitely cause problems and if you're equating normal marital relations with the abuse that you suffered, it's going to raise all sorts of problems. In inside the marriage and inside the family. Yeah. Yeah, it is and if anybody out there is dealt with this. And obviously, you know, seek help. There there's resources and ultimately, I do have a testimony that that you can be held to the atonement and this particular girlfriend I found out you know many years later.

58:10 did some Facebook stocking and and It was probably like 10 years later. And she was newly married. And and was ready to move all the lights. So I mean, it's not the end of it's not the end of your life, but if you're struggling with that kind of stuff, you don't have to keep struggling with it. There are ways of being healed and reclaiming your identity. And so, While what happened. Well, this stuff is really bad. And and the effects are, are catastrophic a lot of times in life, it's it's not the end.

58:51 Right? And it certainly wasn't in the case of of this fiance, this ex-fiancee of mind. Right. so, Yeah, heavy topic. Yeah, so that that's kind of just in the world today, right? It's almost like people are being groomed in many ways for this Behavior. Yeah, so normalized. and, It's and this is where I want to go into the next topic. Are you ready to raise your hand? Okay. Yep. Because This kind of thing is out there and it is normalized. I think it's happening far more than we realize. But what it is not it is not a A satanic cult, that's going around abducting children, and doing the storm. This is happening to the online.

59:45 This is happening to the Possibly in their own families or in their own closed circles like it had with the woman, I was just speaking about. and, but it's, it's it's I'm not saying that's horrifically, sensational. Abuses have not happened. However, I am concerned. Because another thing that I've been seeing recently is a trend towards What's the best word to describe that? Nearly three. Kind of fantastic stories.

1:00:28 Of abuse, right? and, I, I think I think we need to talk about this a little bit because There is somebody right now on YouTube. That's heavily promoting this idea. That the LDS Church. Has. It's at the top. Leadership, levels is running some kind of an abusive Secret organization that everybody's in on, and this is happening to people. I don't. I don't believe that's happening. I think there are there is systemic abuse cover-up.

1:01:10 Maybe happening in the LDS Church. But I don't believe that there is systemic abuse happening there. It's not. I've never you know, through all the years I was in the LDS church. I was never taught anything over the pulpit that would indicate that this kind of thing is, okay. Right. and, so one of these stories in particular, there's something called this this the Hamlin case Yes. And I did a deep dive on that one. Because I had previously read a different book called paper dolls.

1:01:51 And it's a terrible. It's a terrible story of the abuse. and, It's seems very corroborated, nothing in there made me wonder like, did that really happen? A lot of it seems highly corroborated. and was giving with evidence and And I wondered is this another case of that? so I I was I I kind of deep dived into it and and it was really, really awful, but I read the girls testimonies and, I ran into a bit of an issue when I was doing that, it would be very easy to get carried away in the story emotionally and just, you know, and Fall to Pieces. But there's I'm a very analytical person, you know, that's why I'm usually on the podcast. Talking about, you know, deconstructing wrong things. I mean our record.

1:02:50 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well we in full disclosure right nationalism. Right. Right in full disclosure and I don't know. If this is what causes you go down that road. I had done a podcast with a guy and who shall remain nameless on this subject. And about halfway through I'm like okay there's a lot of holes here. And yeah, no, it, there are so many of those accounts that just they don't hold water, right? I mean, the timing's all off. Yeah. Well, even the documents I was giving, right? So he comes to me and says, I want to do a podcast about this. Not like to come on your show, And so, I'm like, sure.

1:03:33 Send me over what you got and then he didn't do it and he didn't do it. Finally, he did it the day. That's podcast. We're supposed to happen. And the first thing I notice is that all these quote legal documents are Word documents, right? Well, look, a legal document is never sent out as a Word document. There are always sent out as PDF that have been locked down, so you can't edit them. And so right then I was like I see what you're doing, right? Like and then sure enough he can't he is later kind of exposed, as kind of, you know. A grifter, who's locked onto this and has a ax to grind with the LDS church over plural.

1:04:15 Marriage of all things, right? Their history with plural marriage. But yeah, I mean it's sensationalism, right? And it is Sensational. That's the word I was looking for before since sensationnel, where it's just a little. It's just seems a bridge too far and when I read the accounts, I'm like some of this just doesn't add up like That's horrible. But at that actually happened to somebody, I think they'd be dead. Right. They would be dead. This, this extreme abuse. She's me and this kind of extreme abuse was happening.

1:04:55 Hey guys, I'm in my throat. To the degree. It's being described. I don't see how you wouldn't have been permanently named and damaged. By this kind of thing. And so, it got me questioning, you know, If there are real, if there is real abuse happening, sensationalized abuse is doing in a disservice. Yep. If you're being told that the LDS church, it's a prophet of the church is running around and doing terrible. Things to kids. then you need to walk out for the leader of the church but that doesn't tell you you need to be walked what you really need to be watching out for is signs of this kind of thing happening within, you know, within the family within people close to the family and especially online. Yep, that's where you need to be focusing, your attention, not worried that that you know the president of the church is going to show up at your house and do something to your to your children.

1:06:00 It's a false expectation. Two when when the stories are so sensationalized. Then other stuff suddenly doesn't seem as a big of a deal, right? Right. when when, when you've got these stories of the, the worst kind of Abuse. You could that any I mean more than I could have ever imagined being described then suddenly, you know, a little bit of inappropriate touching doesn't seem like, The same thing. And that's not true and that's not, that's not okay. Right. It's kind of like what, you know, the one of the problems with with with with with with pornography?

1:06:44 When it. There can be what you know, called Soft. Or not, right. Right, you know, maybe a PG-13 movie or an R rated movie with a few frames in it showing something, but it escalates. And gets more and more extreme. And so, you've got to be able to Recognize that even even if it's not what the hamlan girls reported. It can still be abused and it needs to be treated with with that kind of with the same severity. 100%, you know, and and you brought up a good point that I think it's worth bearing out here.

1:07:27 Is that people who get wrapped up in this into this stuff? They usually it usually doesn't start like you said it's more soft than anything else. Right? But because it creates a dopamine hit in the brain. Your tolerance will go up, right? It's every bit as addictive as any other substance out there and this is important to understand that. You. It's not really as easy as just like, oh well boys will be boys, right? No, this in this. This goes much deeper than that. And it has, it affects your brain chemistry.

1:08:07 It affects how you look. At women in general. It's it's bad stuff. Right, right? And so even just a little bit of inappropriate touching Which maybe to the child wasn't registered as, as directly abusive right there in the moment, it could still be registered as abusive when they're adult and they can put that into contacts and she just as if it had happened to them as a adult but it also can be a sign of bigger things happening too. For things happening. So, but again with with some of these Sensational stories, I like I said I I think that there's probably a high likelihood that these hamlan girls probably were abused.

1:08:54 But these stories don't make sense. They don't add up, they have parts of them that are inconsistent. that are directly contradictory and and and there should be like physical evidence that anybody could go and reclaim right now based off of some of these things that shouldn't be that hard. This is we could we could prove we could factually prove this these stories and yet I haven't heard any evidence come out that they've been factually proven. Which leads me to have some doubts. And write what I started going down another rabbit hole with this and this is the topic of repressed memories.

1:09:39 Now. I had. I guess to a certain degree grown up just thinking of this was a real thing. That repressed memories were a real thing. Why? Well mostly because of the media actually write the Books, the TV, the movies, you see these themes come up, right? And then you hear these you hear cases and stories. And there's people there's psychologists with phds that, that believe in this stuff. So, surely, this must be a real thing. And the explanation for it. Kind of makes sense too. In a way. but I did a deep dive and I want to share some of this research by this doctor Lauren's Patisse. Let me Grant you permission here. I don't have a screenshot.

1:10:29 I'm just gonna oh okay. I would I would, you know, anybody who's interested though? He's on YouTube, you can look him up, he's got all kinds of content where he talks about. well, he's a professor of psychology and so he's got a lot of content in Psychology in general, which is a topic I find interesting and fascinating anyways, but this one, some of this stuff here really blew me away and I think people need to know about this because in order to prevent abuse we need to understand what it is. We also need to understand what it isn't. We got to have some tools to to be able to evaluate this and repressed memories.

1:11:09 Is a bit of a can of worms turns out. So the history, excuse me, the history. Of this actually begins with hypnotism. Yep. Well, so Freud had some ideas that that, you know, pathology and adults psychological, pathology and adults is caused by traumatic experiences in childhood, right? And this is kind of was a common idea and what they notice is the psychologist for started to play around with hypnotism, is that people had lost time in hypnotism. so, if you hypnotized During that time when you're hit the ties and when you come out, you tend to not remember.

1:11:54 Which lead to some questions of. Okay. So if you can have lost time within noises, can you have maybe lost time within trauma? Around this time. Also, though it was all observed that through hypnosis it was possible to transmit. False memories. Through hypnosis. Nonetheless, that people who did that same research were still leaning towards this idea that they think that that trauma would leave to a susceptibility. Of disassociation. And it may be as important to talk about disassociation a little bit.

1:12:35 This Association is not necessarily a full-blown multiple personalities, kind of a thing disassociation. Is can be, it can be not remembering something, not like I'm not talking about repressed memory of just not remembering like I'm here right now. What was? I do an earlier today. I can't really remember. What I was doing and I don't feel like I'm myself. I feel like, I don't know who I am. I feel fragmented. I feel ungrounded. I I'm feeling up in the air and lost. That these are that that's disassociation, right? Right disassociated, just identity disorder is actually also a contested Theory. in Psychology not everybody, not everybody agrees that that actually happens where you have flip a switch and personalities change but nonetheless, There was a belief that made me trauma through the not hit, you know, because of this experimentation experimenting with a delicious.

1:13:39 They started thinking maybe trauma can lead to a susceptibility of disassociation. And then Freud just came out and said it that he thought that trauma would lead to repressed memories. He did walk that back a bit later in his life. But nonetheless, it kind of stuck at that point. and so, But so, this was the early Research into repressed memories. And it's important to understand though that this was not done with scientific Burger. These were basically anecdotal stories, you know, researchers would run their little experience. These are not clinical trials. They were doing, they were working with Disturbed people and experimenting. And seeing what happens?

1:14:24 and, That's where that that's kind of the origins of where this idea that were pressed. Memories are a thing comes from. And so the repressed memory idea would be that you'd had a trump in the past. It's so great that you you successfully stored in your mind. But it's put somewhere where your mind can't access it and it causes later. Problems in life because it's still there, but you can't see it. and so, you know, Well, okay, let me keep going with this though. So, there was some research done by a man in Harrison Pope in 2007. And he had this question about.

1:15:07 Their in Psychology, they have something called culture bound syndrome. and this is something that is, it's not like a psychological disease per se And that's inherent to human kind. It is something that is specific to a specific culture Place. Something that seems to be more. Man-made. So, you know, like sex is biological, right? You're male and your female that's actually it's very, very clear cut. But you know how, you know, how the how the how the rainbow Brigade likes to say that the gender is a spectrum, right? Well, our cultural construct, well, there is actually Some legitimacy that.

1:15:59 Certain mental illnesses can be a cultural construct. Which I actually find fascinating. Given the Surprising rise in a lot of things that were once considered psychological pathologies like homosexuality and transgender or gender dysphoria, right? Right. There is precedence in the field of psychology that there can be cultures that creates psychological illnesses. And that reinforced them in that increase them. So this is called a culture bound syndrome. Probably the most well known in America would be this old. The old idea of hysterics in women Right. Mm-hmm.

1:16:44 Which in reality was a whole bunch of different things, but it kind of got all pushed into this one label. And it's something that women suffer with. It's not a human thing. It's a woman thing. And it's and it's only a woman thing because of their female biology, right? And that became a standard belief and And a commonly in the common Collective conscience. This was a real thing, everybody really believed it and it would manifest but it kind of what we know now is kind of manifesting because everybody believed in it so the question came up is our repressed memories real or is it?

1:17:32 I mean it is a real phenomenon, right? But is this a phenomena that's that's General to human existence or is this a cultural thing? And what he did was, he did a study to study and he went through all the stories, literature writings books in the past. And he found something really fascinating. There is so for something like, schizophrenia. We've got schizophrenia today. Did we have schizophrenia in the past? Absolutely. You can find it there, you can find the exact same things being described by the Greeks. 1000s of years ago, right? So we know that.

1:18:19 Okay, they saw this. They talked about it. They would write about it. We can find schizophrenia. It's a real thing. Can we find? Repressed memories. In the literature, in the past in the history? Is this a real? Is this a real thing? What he, what he found is that it it begins with hypnotism. And you can't really find this. Phenomena in the past. Which would lead Credence to get and this could be what we call, like said, what what's called A culture-bound syndrome? Not an actual reality, but something that just becomes trendy and then somehow normalizes Behavior. That normally wouldn't be happening, right? So like with gender dysphoria, everybody's convinced that they got gender dysphoria that they were born in the wrong bodies today.

1:19:16 Right? There are very few people claiming that in the past. They're still worth some, but there were very few while all the sudden today, it's an epidemic. What happened did? God did God forget which body's going? Which bodies you leave for one coffee break. Yeah. you left Metatron in charge for 10 minutes and exactly. Yeah. All right. So there's I would argue that there's evidence that you know, gender dysphoria is another maybe culture bound syndrome but regardless it's important to understand that this is a new thing and this newness of it happens to directly coincide with the rise of research into hypnotism. And directly.

1:20:08 And the evidence is of it to directly support the hypothesis of the day. That trauma could. Cause repressed, memories and then lo and behold, they start finding people for us memories. And it becomes a thing. So you know you gotta wear some you gotta you gotta do some critical thinking here. The other important thing is some of these early case studies are are pretty interesting. One of the, most one of the earliest here is was a 1980 book written by. Or written by the title of books called Michelle remembers. And she describes as an adult.

1:20:49 suddenly, you know, seeing a therapist and suddenly having all these memories of horrific Like a lot like the Hamlin's sister stories, abuse. SRA, right? This is a satanic virtual abuse accounts. and this book kind of Catches fire, it becomes interesting. It brings this topic to the to the awareness of the cultural at Large. Um, but the interesting thing is, there's some problems with the book too. because she actually describes Satan literally being Satan summoned in some of these ceremonies and, She says that she forgot because because Satan had made her forget until the time would be right. That some of this horrific abuse that would have normally left scars on them on the body.

1:21:41 Well, he used his magic and made the scars go away. So I'm not saying that there's that Michelle this Michelle clearly wasn't you know Disturbed and I don't mean that in a judgmental way. I just mean that like, you know, she's she's got she's got something she's struggling with right and it might be very real to her. But I don't think that really happened, right? Which would suggest that what she's recalling might not be true. Or at least not, I might not be completely true. Oh, The yeah, yeah, you got something. You know, I, I do want to ask this question. I can think of one person did.

1:22:27 I know personally who said that? They did have a memory called not through, not through hip noises? But it was the oddest thing that set them that that brought it to the Forefront again. and when the perpetrator was, Asked about it. I can't remember if this person actually said, yeah, I've been doing it or other victims. Kind of said, oh yeah, no, he did that to me, too. It was all within a family. At some point, he does admit it to what he's done. And so like where would that fit in? Right. Well, I hadn't quite gotten to that, but basically that's just a that's just a memory. That you didn't retrieve for a long time. That was just sitting there.

1:23:18 Okay. It's not it's not sealed off if she had tried to remember She would have remembered. Now what were repressed? Memories are that the hypothesis round or press memory is your brain? Won't allow you to go to those memories? Right. Um, that's a little bit different. Than A Memory that you just have a thought of in a long time. Like, for example, I was recently, I saw somebody posting on about books and it made me think about stuff. I read as a kid. And I had this, I remember, and I just this meant just today for the first time, since I was maybe like, maybe 10 years old. Or even young girl. I don't even know how old I was.

1:24:00 I have this memory where I was reading a book and it was a fantasy novel and this guy gets injured and his friends make a litter for him. And my 10 year old brain is thinking a litter. That's what you call a bunch of baby puppies. Right? And being really confused about the story at that point. Right, I hadn't thought of that. Since I remember being confused about it as a kid. Was that a repressed memory though? Or is it just something that I hadn't thought of because nothing has triggered it until I decided like, oh, what do I remember about reading as a kid? And then, when I thought about that, oh, I remember that.

1:24:43 I remember a couple of other things, too, that came to mind, right. You got you. Yep. So that's a little bit real phenomenon but not quite not quite the same thing, not quite the same thing that would need hypnosis to bring those to the Forefront, right? And or, you know, therapist intervention to bring up for it, right? And that's where, you know, another one of the big case, big case studies for this was the Nick Martin preschool trial of 1984. And this is a trial that lasted six years. Had no convictions.

1:25:23 And was the longest most expensive trial in the country at the time. Oh yeah. So this was a big deal. And what happened were was the students were being interviewed from this preschool. And there were, I think there was 600 300 362 children. Were claiming to have been abused. Whoa. That's a lot. That's a big number, right? so, Surely with that many victims. They got him. They got the bad guy, right? No, no conviction.

1:26:05 No conviction in the end. So here there's some things that need to be understood the students were being interviewed. With highly suggestive instructions. um, so they're pulling these kids aside and saying asking them to literally imagine. They were being guided to imagine things. and, some of the stories that they came up with included things like secret tunnels under the preschool, It included, things like some of the abusers, having the ability to fly around. And, and then also toilets, that would flush children down into secret rooms where they would be abused, but then cleaned up before their parents arrived.

1:27:01 Oh, so again, right like Clearly that didn't. Yeah. Yeah. No one gets flushed down a toilet. Yeah he got to be pretty small to fit. so, The initial allegations, they were all they were all fantastic, right? And then down years later, one of the victims actually came forward and retracted their statement and said that they lied. here, they lied because the interviewers would ask questions again, if they didn't get the answer they wanted, Right. And then they started being rewarded when they gave the answers that they did want to hear. And They thought bad to a little bit degree that they were relying and making things up, but they thought like it was okay because well everybody was, it was being encouraged and so it was George by an authority figure right now. I'm gonna say something here.

1:27:58 That's abusive. Yeah. To take a child, sit him down and make them Make up. An abuse of a story of them being abused. That's abuse. Yeah, that's abuse in and of itself. They're worth 360 children victims but they're not victims of the preschool. Right. They were victims of this system. That pulled them all aside and told them that they had been victims and to make up stories. Right. so, One last thing here is there's a, there's a into bringing this. Why?

1:28:40 Why do we all believe that? Repressed memories are a thing. There's a book published in 1988. Called courage to heal. The authors have no formal training in psychology. it was a bestseller, and it was Found to be the leading cause of false allegations of child abuse. In its day. Where are they verified? That no abuse did happen. But allegations were made in response to people reading this book. And it it brings up a really important thing that we need to understand when we were, when we're evaluating this kind of stuff, just like in here. Which is the scientific process.

1:29:26 And I want to kind of cut into the science here real quick before we change topics. So, This book courage to heal has a big list of symptoms. That might indicate that you have a repressed memory. Of abuse that's affecting your life today. I want to go over some of these effects, okay? Deep-seated, shame guilt or self-blame. Depression and anxiety. Fear. Self-hatred and lowest self-esteem. Anger. Difficulty managing emotions. Disassociation and numbness.

1:30:08 Addiction and self-harm. Nightmares and flashbacks. Sexual issues. Self-sabotage. Trust issues. People pleasing. Strained relationships. Isolation. so I want to do an experiment here, we're not going to see it but anybody that falls into one of those categories, raise your hand. Right. I'm listening to the audience. Raise your raise, their hands. Okay, we are all. Possibly. Victims. Of traumatic abuse in our childhood, and we've repressed the memories. If we use that standard, if that's the standard. So I want to talk about science science, when you propose a hypothesis in science, it has to be falsifiable So what that means is, let's say that I have a hypothesis. Trauma in early childhood will directly lead to psychological pathology as an adult.

1:31:11 Mm-hmm. Okay, that's my hypothesis. Can we measure this? Yeah, we can write. Let's, let's find people who had trauma and their childhood. And let's see how many of them as adults have issues. Let's find adults who have issues and see how many of them had traumatic events in their childhood. We can measure this, we can, we can do research on this. We can figure out what these correlations are. If there is a correlation and how strong of a correlation, it is the nuances of the correlation. We can do real research with a question like that, right? But what if what if our definition of trauma? I mean, if our definition of a psychological pathology becomes, Anything wrong with you, emotionally physically or relationally? there's so many problems with that, because Look. Sometimes you are an actual victim of something. Right.

1:32:20 But you can't stay there. And let me explain this at some point. You have to kind of try to own it for lack of a better word because it's only once you own it that you can start to fix it. and so by by assigning all these things to people you're making them in the into the victim instead of somebody who's responsible now and can say Okay. Is this okay? This depression I have. Can I do something about it, right? If you're a victim and you choose to stay in the victim role, You're never going to change it. You're going to be Reliant upon some form of pharmaceutical temp, down chemicals, in your brain or your going to constantly, blame somebody else for being triggered. Like and again this isn't putting This isn't saying that people who have been actually victimized aren't right for staying in that space for a time, you have to be there, you have to sit with it, but you can't stay there at some point. You gotta own it, so you can beat it and move on. Absolutely.

1:33:28 Here's how I like to look at that. You have. You've got you can be a victim. In the facts of experiences that have happened in your life. But that is not an identity. Right? That's not an identity. That's a description of your past. Yep, it's not a description of you. And it's very important not to cross those lines, right? Yeah. Because if you cross those lines, then then if that becomes your identity, then you're stuck. For someone who wasn't truly victimized, all the ends up happening, is that you're stuck in that space. Right? I mean you can't you can't break through it, um, Yeah, I could see where that would be.

1:34:14 Highly problematic for people's. Ability to just function in the world, right? So talking about falsifiable hypothesis. When abuse becomes everything. Or not be just when the when the when the symptoms when everything falls within that symptom of of a pathology, right? We can no longer measure this but it gets worse. because if you bring repressed memories in We can now we can't validate. We can't validate trauma either. Right. Now neither we've got a hypothesis with two parts. That are invalid that we cannot validate. We cannot Define. that's, that is not the scientific method, right?

1:35:01 We call that we call that junk science, right? And that's where this book Falls in junk science because that's what it's setting forth. As scientific research as it's like you said, it's, it's claiming you're going to read through this and it's like headaches. Oh, I have frequent headaches. and then, that means that Well, maybe the cause of my headaches is abused. Well, I wasn't abused. Maybe I forgot. Right, and if I remember, maybe my headaches will go away.

1:35:41 Yeah, but then you gotta go on The Witch Hunt looking for an abuser who what maybe was never there. Exactly. And that's That's bad. That's really bad. It's bad to you and a bad to whoever you might end up pointing the finger at and I want to be clear. I think that sometimes people, let's go to the explanation, so, where does this come from? Why is this happening? Well, false memory is, is a very likely culprit here. It's not that these people are all liars. Maybe, you know, I guess another possibility is you've got deliberate manipulation by therapists? That's a possibility, right?

1:36:22 And you also have potential the possibility of deliberate lies from supposed survivors. But it could also be believed. and I think in most of these cases, The victims do believe that there were repressed memories recovering, those things actually did happen, the way that they were remembering them. So what's really going on here? Well, so memory is a very interesting thing. You have a couple things that a couple interesting experiments in one is the suggestibility exaggeration. They've done these. They did this experiment when they showed people this video of cars colliding, and, And they watched the video. Then they'd be giving them space to forget details. And then they were asked questions. And when the question was, when the cars crashed, how much glass, how much Glass Broken Glass was there? And they'd asked one group of people that question. the other group of people I'd say, so when, when the cars, when the cars hit, How much glass was there? And what they found was the memory of how much glass was in that wreck.

1:37:44 Was reportedly exaggerated at a higher degree among the people who were told the cars crashed versus the ones. Where The cars where the Collision happened. And so, using even just the word you use can influence somebody's memory. Of an event that happened. It gets even more interesting though. You get these faults details where you know you have a car drive and you have a car drive and it and it stops. At a, at a at a stop sign and then continues on, right? And people are showing this video, they don't know what they're watching, they don't know what they're looking for.

1:38:26 Then they're giving us to forget. And then the researchers. Tell them what they saw. Mmm and say, do you remember the car stopping at the yield sign? I see. Oh yeah, I remember that. What color was the yield sign? Oh, it was a, it was yellow. Was it look like a yellow triangle? There was no yield sign. It was a stop sign. Right? But when people were given a minute to forget, get it out of the out of their immediate memory into long-term memory, and then questioned with assumptions, people remembered the assumptions as if they were facts. Yeah.

1:39:07 Yeah. So the human memory is suspect anyway right? Yeah I mean that's why Quite frankly, that's what when's a lot of credence to the gospels of the New Testament is the fact they don't think of person perfectly, right? The the gist of the stories are relatively the same. However, because they're told from different authors, They are going to be different in the things that they remember and put emphasis on. Right? Why why aren't the gospels, the same? Why are there differences in the accounts? They should be exactly the same, right? Have you ever played telephone Right. That would be kind of. That would be the sign of the falsification.

1:39:50 Right. Absolutely. Okay, interesting, but you might say, are you sure that you can get facts wrong? But what about trauma? Surely, you know, trauma, you couldn't misremember, trauma. You could imagine something really dramatic happening. Well, there's no ethically. There's no ethic way to test that one, but they did. They did do a test. Okay, this is an interesting one. They got some people in their parents together. And they interviewed the parents separately and then they went and interviewed the kids. Not kids adults. But they had their parents as part of this study.

1:40:30 And they would. Be asking the kids things about their childhood things that they remember that their parents had had shared and they share some real events. And then the researchers would insert events that did not happen. According to the parents even verified with the parents. So for example, there's like three main things that they did here. One of them was Jeremy that time, you got attacked by a dog. And they had asked us to somebody, whose parents said they were never attacked by a dog. And they throw in the questions. You remember that time you got lost at the mall? And this is the somebody whose parents said they were never lost at them. All, do you remember the time? You spilled that punch at the wedding? And this is why wild 25% of participants. Recall.

1:41:19 I percent 25% of participants remembered. The false trauma and could even. Describe it. Like, oh, I do remember that and and they could and they had details. They can describe it. That is nuts and it's not like the line, it was just no kind of almost an implanted memory. And then I built a narrative around that an authoritative person suggested that this memory is true. Your parents said, and then the mind creates it. And it's not a true memory.

1:42:02 That's both fascinating and messed up, right? Like the fact that we can be that susceptible, but again, and I think you bring up another good point in the authority figure, right? Look, we go to the doctor all the time when we go to get a checkup or whatever and they they draw our blood. And we basically have to be like well I'm gonna take your word for because you're training professional, right? Hey, you got cancer? Well, I don't feel sick. Yeah, it doesn't matter. I can see the tumor. You are sick, right? And and so, yeah, we've, we need a certain amount of trust in In you know authorities in their field for our own betterment at times, right? I mean look, yeah, I don't have the time just in to go and you a bunch of work on thermal nuclear Dynamics, right? but nonetheless, I know it's true because Hiroshima tells me so Right.

1:43:01 Right. And oh yeah, she did you? Know, right, I guess this. Way leads now. If you can't trust, anybody, you are going to go crazy. Exactly. So at some point we got we we do trust. People who are authorities in their figure, excuse me, in their field. And so if we look at a person going to a psychiatrist and saying gosh I just don't feel right, blah blah blah. And that. One therapist happens to be somebody who's looking to be published somewhere. Make a name for themselves in the field.

1:43:42 This would be a good way of doing it. Yeah, so I want to leave this topic with just a few statistics here that I think people need to understand just for context because look this isn't settled. This is still an ongoing debate in the field of psychology. There's people who believe in repressed memories, there are people who don't But let's talk about the statistics. So again, this was his name, doctor This is from Dr. Lauren's patches. His research here. They did some interviews and they asked the question. For the question is repressed, memories can be retrieved in therapy accurately.

1:44:28 Yes or no. Yay or nay. when the general public was asked in America, 77.7% said, yes. Okay, so that tells us what the common belief in America is right now. Three out of four people believe that repressed memories. Can be retrieved accurately in therapy. They asked undergraduates. In the field of psychology. 64.5%. Goes down a little bit, right? Goes down a little bit. This is where it gets really interesting though. Psychological professional professionals with a research or Science Focus. And it breaks into three categories. I don't know if these categories are because it's too technical for me.

1:45:18 I'm not in that field but numbers of different schools of thought, right? 24%. 17% 9.7 percent sscp members. Who so it's almost like the industry is correcting itself. Well. Almost see. These are, these are the researchers. Write specifically science focused researchers. These are people who run an experiments all day and they're trying to figure out how the brain works. Alright. Alright, let's dip into the clinic clinicians and there are clinical researchers as well. The clinical research, the difference is, the clinical researcher is focused on is the is the clinical practice effective or not effective, is this helping people is this helping people more.

1:46:07 That's their Focus, right? The experimental researchers, those get more. Like, how does the brain even work? That's their research. So it's a little bit different. This is practical research, right? So we've got researchers practitioners and cycle analysts. and clarify a psychoanalyst with a general practitioner is the cycle analyst is Believes in a sub-conscious cause that needs to be addressed and they tend to deal with people. Like what's that, What About Bob? Remember that one Yes, I love that movie. Okay, Marie was awesome in that movie. Yeah, that's more cycle analyst stuff that to deal with the kind of things that Bob, had long-term serious stuff that doesn't go away. A practitioner is like, you know, hey, you know, a friend of mine died and I'm feeling depressed. Now you go see a practitioner right, okay. But I don't I I don't dare leave my apartment and I've been in I haven't I haven't seen the outside in 10 years. that's a cycle analyst generally, you know, kind of Focus and Specialties right.

1:47:14 So knowing that, psychoanalysts 46.9% believe. Oh, So, about half. But a little less though, still less than half. Right. Practitioners, it's 43.1. And then researchers the clinical researchers. 16%. Oh, only 16%. So the researchers would kind of stress test cases, right? They'd go in and take a look at them and say these good we're these good practices that sort of thing and is the researchers are getting in there and kind of doing a, a post mortar.

1:48:02 And excuse me, a post-mortem autopsy on the therapy that was giving, they're seeing the problems and then drawing out their conclusions saying, Okay, with that in mind, this seems to be this. This one form of therapy seems to be very suspect. Exactly. That's exactly. So you see the general public seems to as a consensus agree that this is a thing. When it comes to, when it comes to therapists, actually trying to help people whatever their problems are. It's closer to half a little less than half. And when it comes to the people, whose job it is to see is that effective or what the clinicians doing effective. The people trying to understand how the brain works.

1:48:43 The people using the scientific methods running clinical trials These people don't generally tend to believe in this. By a long shot. And I think it's important that people understand that. I think it's important because most of us fall in that 77.7% and I think it's important to know that that falls to 16% when it comes to clinical researchers. You know? Yeah. Oh and that's so important to keep in mind that not only because we're going to cover some stuff later where Where, you know, we don't want to create a Witch Hunt, right? And and that is super important.

1:49:26 I will say this too. Some of the more reputable guys, I have found in in Mormonism. Have been victimized that one point or another by this very thing, right? Just a few weeks back, talked about Joe Thompson. This was all things that were leveled against him by where repressed memories and and Have Nots. You know regression there. Yeah where they hypnotize? You back to a day and then they draw forward. All the things that happened to you while on that day and you know, he nibbly. Absolutely was was a victim of this even by his own daughter. And so so it's super important that that we put this science into correct.

1:50:16 Perspective. Because certainly, I think every allegation deserves to be looked at Yep. You think that every allegation has to be waiting, the balance of the circumstances are there. And how How those quote memories? Remembered. I've got one more data table that I think. Yeah, kind of puts the final. Final point on this to understand this, what you should know to be able to evaluate this correctly, this is a question that was asked to patients. The question is during the course of therapy.

1:50:56 Did you come to remember, being abused as a child when you had no previous memory of such abuse? That was the question. And these are organized by the type of therapy. They received Okay. At the very top, we have attachment therapy. With a 57%. Yes. What's attachment? Therapy. Yeah, so attachment therapy is so these are all different modalities. Right? Attachment therapy is where you look at yourself. and what you're going through from a perspective of do, I think of myself, positively or negatively, Okay.

1:51:40 And do I see my relationships with other people do? I see them positively or negatively? So if you have a positive view of yourself and you've got a positive view of the other person you're good, that's where you want to get to. And that's going to create a stable, stable psychology, a stable mental state, right? But if I think of myself negatively, but I think of them positively then I can fall into, maybe dependency behaviors, right? Where? And you got problems that come from that on the other hand, if I see myself positively, but other people negatively, then you might be leaning towards, you know, maybe some narcissism or, you know, other types of orders, right? So attachment therapy has to do with relationships, you're attachments and it's evaluating whether you see yourself positive negative and then positive negative.

1:52:28 Okay. So nothing about that, really screams repressed memories, does it? Know. So let me share some more. Exposure therapy. Okay, that was 57%. The next one after that is attachment based therapy at 60 at 36% I'm not sure it's some sort of variation on on that one. Drop down below. Emotional Freedom techniques. 30%. And I do have to say something about this. I have seen this. It was, this is, this is, this is 10 file hat stuff. Okay, but when I was living in Utah, I was dating a girl who was going to a school, a special school unlike since Not not clinical.

1:53:18 They did they trained you in emotional healing. And I saw something there. I don't know if that's what this emotional. Freedom technique says, maybe it's something legit. This was not very legit. They would bring people up in the room. She invited me to one of the classes and I came to the class They invited somebody random person in the audience up to the room to come up to the front. And they started showing some Kinesiology and they're like, look, hold the Book of Mormon, and then we'll hold the book before, and she personally, arms, like that's really strong. It's really strong, right? Okay. Now, here's a Vanity Fair magazine. Oh look! It's super weak. It's super weak. So here's how we're going to figure stuff out.

1:53:58 And they're like, all right. What do you need? Something happened in your past, it's always something happening in your past. So was it when you were 50? Was it when you were 30, was it? When you're 20? 10s. Okay. Ten Eleven twelve, Thirty your 13. Okay. Close your eyes and imagine when you were 13 and think of a color. What color would you remember? Blue. Okay. Blue. And it's attached to an object. What was the object? Oh balloon, okay, balloon. And these people are just making stuff up as they're going, right? Like okay 13, color blue, an object, a balloon.

1:54:42 And and this person almost has them like in a hypnotic State like they didn't pull out the watch and all that. But the guy standing out there, he's not behaving normally he's not, he's not acting very normal. and she drills down and and they together concoct this story that when he was like 13 years old, His dad was angry with him and blew his temper and and popped his blue balloon and it was a treasured thing to him. And he's been holding this pain, his whole life. And then this guy starts bawling. He's bawling, he's sobbing uncontrollably.

1:55:23 He's just like, it's like a, like a charismatic, Jesus meeting. He's like falling to the floor and he's crying and she helps him up. And then she's like, okay, take that pain and and now we're going to give it to Jesus. Any gives it to Jesus and he comes out. And so how do you feel is like wow, I feel I feel amazing. And everybody Applause. And I'm saying here like, Yeah, you know what? You know what? I need to find somebody else to be interested in. You know what? That reminded me up. Like when you go to the psychic right in the sidekick goes I you know, see a bluish greenish purplish. Oh purple yeah.

1:56:11 Purple and woman early 20s 30s maybe four? Yeah, Four Seasons. That was it, right? And oh, I think you had an uncle who was in his 40s? Who who wore a greenish shirt? Yeah, that's him. That's him. That's exactly what it sounds. Isn't that right? It is the psyche. It is the methods that that the sideshow cycle uses to wow, you out of your money. Yeah, and all these I was not impressed. I was not impressed and I asked her about the world signing up. I was not signing off and I was actually kind of, she was an into this enough that I was kind of done looking in that direction to be honest if yeah.

1:56:52 What I'm laying down. Yeah. Um, But I did ask her. What happens next, right? Like so you want to learn how to do this is like yeah I'm going to school so I can learn how to do this. Like oh okay. So people pay you to do this. Yeah yeah people pay you and I'm late. So people come back Oh yeah, usually you have clients for years and years, it takes years and years to to get through all of it. Well, look at how tall is Carlos, anything, it's you gotta have a next tier, right? I mean, you can't just go clear all at once. Justin? Right. Well, look, I I'm looking at this and I'm thinking my thoughts are, okay. This is an emotional catharsis their experience in that does create.

1:57:36 That does create a high. Yep. Right. Don't you? Yep. Yeah, you're you're but it's gonna wear off. Its not real. It didn't change you. It didn't transform. You, it's gonna wear off and you're gonna want another hit. And who's your drug dealer now? Yep. Yep, 100%. So anyways I'm not saying that's what emotional Freedom techniques is because I didn't Google that one, but whatever it is. It's got a 30%. That's the therapy modality that you you you received there's a 30% chance. You're going to find a repressed, childhood memory and interesting. Now this one might shock you hypnosis 21%. I'm surprised, it's that high.

1:58:22 I think it would be higher, right? I think henosis would be at the top. Like wouldn't hit noises be the most likely modality where you would have maybe a false memory come forward. Would think, right? Yeah. I mean, right? Yeah. So, I would think that would be higher, not lower. But it's some reason attachment therapy is at the top and I'm like, how do you make sense of this? This doesn't make sense. Now you go down, lower Christian, Base therapy, only 16%. 12 step program. 15% marriage counseling, 12%. And now here's the most wild, one of all because there's all started from Freud.

1:59:04 Write cycle. Dynamic therapy. Okay. What's psychodynamic Theory? It's Freud. It's basically talk therapy. It's the modern iteration of it. Okay. All right. So it's Freud it's Freud's stuff with all the modern enhancements as far as a modality. They are therapeutic modality goes, right? So you talk about your trauma and and that true talking about it, you're going to release it and you're going to get better. I'm guessing I'm guessing. Gotcha. Okay. Um, So, why is that at 5% yet? Attachment is at 57% and then you've got like hypnosis in the middle of 20. I'm not a professional.

1:59:45 I don't I can't answer this right? I'm this isn't my field right? However I think this has more about the practitioners than it does about the modalities. Oh, I see. Because the psychodynamic practitioners. These are these are by the book kind of guys. Alright that's where I mean Freud wasn't very by the book. Right. Compared to Modern standards. Right. But for his time he was And there were some really crazy Cooks back there with some, even even cook your stuff. And Freud actually was trying to be somewhat scientific and I think that modality appeals to people scientifically minded Know, it makes sense. And then you got attachment Theory. Why 57% that's wild to me.

2:00:36 I mean that means if me and my wife, both go and have attachment therapy one of us are coming back with or repressed memory. Ooh. That seems like a problem that's I was gonna say that's problematic. Yeah. And again, I don't want to blame the modality, but different modalities appeal to different types of people. Right. See my sister's in is in is in these fields, right? And right different things, appeal to her based off of her background and her life experience and the kind of therapy that she does, she helps she helps people deal with grief and and that kind of the trauma of lost loved ones. And I think maybe some of that kind of sense from, you know, personal experience as right.

2:01:24 Right. Well, what's really interesting? Remember that There's some of these cases. I only showed that cast case study. I should there is a case study where somebody had a love of a repressed, memory of abuse of childhood. It was it was shot down, it turned out to not be true. But she went on and became a therapist. And was involved in some of the later Cascade studies advocating for a repressed memory case that didn't wasn't actually true either. Oh wow. And interesting because she's almost repeating. Look. I'll just call it like I see it, right? If you go to a practitioner that through suggestion, kind of important kind of in parts of false memory, that's form of abuse, right?

2:02:18 And it is interesting that this woman seems to Like, we see another abuse cases. She ends up becoming the abuser at some point. Right? And that that brings up a, really another really important point. I'm not necessarily going to blame her because she was victimized by her therapist. And really does believe that. Then she really is dealing with the trauma of it, whether or not it happened or not. She's she's got to deal with that trauma. Now, and here's the thing, if somebody actually has been abused, The abuse is real. and, They get better through therapy, right? Right.

2:02:59 And they recognize that the dysfunction they had in their adult. Life was caused by the not the represent, the actual abuse. They remembered Right? And you then get in the field of psychology yourself. Because you want to help people the way that psychology helped you. And the way psychology helped you was by identifying, the abuse in your past, that was triggering the Right? Well, when you when your tool is a hammer and when the hammer is what saved your life, Everything looks like a nail. Everything looks like a nail. Yep. Yeah, so this might explain why there's such a discrepancy on the beliefs on this between practitioners, why it's not settled.

2:03:44 But also why researchers seem to say? They don't tend to believe this at all, and it's the practitioners who seem to be like, no, I think this is real. I think this is a real thing and it's really happening. So, take with this information. What you will? I'm not here to say. It's all bad, it's all fake and it never happened. I don't know. You don't know either though, right? Right? But you've been told something you've been, you've been hearing a narrative and I want to clear the air on this because I think it's important that people understand the other side of the story so that they can make proper judgment. And This is what I gained from it. if if I encounter somebody claiming or repressed memory, Of abuse. I am going to treat that the same way as I might with a spiritual confirmation.

2:04:35 Of somebody doing something bad. Right. Meaning it can be a cause for investigation, but it is not evidence enough to condemn or judge. Right. So I'm not saying, don't believe people that claim this But I'm saying, I don't think we can righteously judge people. On this evidence alone because there's it's two unsettled, there's too many problems of potential abuse of this type of the system too, right? So yeah, that that's kind of why I wanted to clear the air on with that. well, you know, I again, I think it does allow us to set some parameters here To talk about what we're going to talk about next and this is really where this this episode I think is going to get a little spicy.

2:05:26 So to speak, right? We've kind of set the parameters on on, you know how, maybe a whole generation has been Been kind of groomed for this now. And also, some of the, the pitfalls that we find with the more Sensational stories, right? And and how to judge, and discern between between what's real and what's, Suggested. Yeah. Yeah I think we got the tools now to look at what I really wanted to talk with you about today which is also something that I didn't want to talk with you about today because right So it hurts. Yeah, it hurts it, I'll be honest. It's a, as I have researched this, it feels like a bit of a betrayal.

2:06:17 Akin to the trail experience when. when I found out that who was it? Bruce R mcconkie had lied to me about out and got right. I I felt kind of misled and so, In my own personal parade, in the fundamentalism. I very quickly decided that the right thing for me in my family were to be independent fundamentalist. I I believe the doctrine Um, I investigated a few groups, like The AUB and the branch. But I in the end I felt like I needed to stay independent. That was the right thing for me, right? And most of the people that I've come to know are Are either some people I know who are in some of these groups. and individuals though within the group it's not I don't know the groups as a whole and, And and just other friends independent, like you. Or like, maybe you were like Sean, like my brother, right? These are, this is these are the circles that I ran in and fundamentalism.

2:07:27 And I had. I had always I always heard some bad stuff going on. Right. You got the flds situation and I I thought that is terrible. That is absolutely terrible. What Warren just did is an inexcusable Yep. And that is not. What Mormon fundamentalism is. But what are my making that clean? That that's not what Mormon fundamentalism. I'm making that claim from my experience. And my experience has been a whole lot of really good people, and some really good families.

2:08:09 um, My. I'm kind of concerned about stuff that might have been happening in the past. It might still be going on. And I think we need to talk about it because I stand by that that this is, this is not Mormon fundamentalism know, you're you're ingest is not Mormon fundamentalism and anything like that happening today or that has happened in the past. That's not Mormon fundamentalism. 100%, I have had the opportunity because of the podcast to talk with many people from the fundamentalist communities, right? And the vast vast overwhelming, majority of them are just good people doing the best they can.

2:08:54 To raise good families. Where abuses at absence but nonetheless, we know that it does exist, right? And I want, I want to set the table here before we get too much further in again that we have to recognize that. We are right now, having kind of a Mormon slash Mormon fundamentalist moment, right? Where Where we've seen TV show reality TV, I use the term reality and air quotes reality TV shows with Mormon fundamentalism. We've had TV shows about them. We're seeing documentaries now, on Netflix and the Ghost of that abuse is still there, and it's something that we have to work against to to essentially say that's not us, right? Those are outliers.

2:09:52 So those aren't aren't that. And that's the purpose of this conversation, right? Is is to, to be able to kind of cleanse ourselves of that a little bit and be able to say, no that's not us but that means that we have to deal with the problems that are in front of us. Right? And that uncomfortable place to be. But nonetheless, that's where true healing happens. Exactly. And I imagine, maybe many people, I don't know, I can't say but for me, I had heard rumors and stuff maybe happening in here or there among some of these more unsavory considered groups. But I never, I never took the time to really research it because I said that the people that I met the people that I knew the people I hung out with this is nobody, nobody's doing this kind of stuff or agrees that it's acceptable, or has, Or as perpetuating ideas that can lead to what. And so to me, it was mythical.

2:10:50 It was mythical, it probably happens because there's no there's bad people everywhere. Yeah, there's going to be bad people, doing bad things in the LDS church, and the Protestant church and the Catholic church and fundamentalism among atheists. It's There's bad eggs in all walks of life. There's no One true social institution where there's never, anybody who makes bad decisions. Yep. So with that, what is abuse? That was this is the first question you got to ask is what is abuse. I would say in the terms were talking about, right? We're religious abuse.

2:11:33 It would be anything that. Is thrown your way. that is damaging to yourself or Compromises your agency. How? In religious verbiage or forever. Okay, not bad. Not bad. And I did talk to you a little bit about this earlier, right? Yeah. The thing is they give you the let me give you a dictionary definition of abuse. Okay, Marion Webster. A corrupt practice or custom? Okay, improper or excessive use or treatment. Okay.

2:12:18 Language. That condemns your vilifies unjustly. And physical maltreatment. Okay. I don't think any of these work. I don't think it is work. I found another one that you know, basically says, you know, abuse is causing harm to somebody else. so let me ask you, David, if I go over to your house, And I pop you in the face. Did I abuse you? Kind of depends on if I had it coming, right? I believe I'm broke out. So sometimes, you know, you just got to take one to the face, know, that would be abused, right?

2:12:59 I mean, no doubt that you come over out of nowhere, punch in the face. I suppose that's a form. I'll tell you what I think I think that's harm but I don't think that's abuse not the way we wanted to find it. Let me explain why. For one thing you're a bigger guy than me with more experience fighting than me, right? And if I swing that punch at you you could You could probably deflect it or dodged, it sure. You also could punch me back. Right. Right. Yeah, yeah. I could see that. Yeah, yeah. You might have deserved it, I guess, right? But you can also go to the police and I'll charge it and kick me out of your house.

2:13:41 What the hell? You popping get the hell out of here? Right. You've got options. Right. So I wouldn't call that a beast that might be harm, but that's not abuse. When we think about abuse, we're thinking of something. Deeper even more prop, way more problematic. Something way, way more serious. Than that and here's how I hear, how, I would Define it first, very similar, but I say it's systemic harm enabled for a violation of agency. Okay. I like that. See now. You're a free guy, right? Yeah.

2:14:22 What if I what if I pop my kids in the face? Look at you. Is that yes. Well, what can my kid do? Is my kid does. My kid know that they can call the police on me? If I do that, right? Can my kid pop me back. Not really can my kid dodged that, or avoid it. Not really, right? So that's why I wanted to find this differently, right? Like, look, I can pop somebody in the face. Is that abuse? Well, If it's, you know, right if it's my kid absolutely. And notice how it just. We just went from A dumb idea, a bad thing to do to actually abuse.

2:15:05 By just changing the person same action. Same action, different person. Yeah. And so this is this is why I mean, by violation of agency You've got agency. What does that mean? That means you could negate. My actions potentially. You can remediate my actions and you can prevent my actions. There's no, there's no Authority ship here. Right? We're things are a little bit different. Things are uneven. Like imagine, you know. Imagine you're walking down the street. You see a pretty girl?

2:15:47 And you're like hey sweetie, give me a kiss. Is that abuse? Well. It's maybe harassment, right? But is that abuse? I it's you shouldn't do that. I don't think she should behave that way. That's but I wouldn't call that abuse. Okay. What if your boss What if her boss calls are in to the office, closes the blinds. Hey sweetie. Give me a kiss. Is that abuse? I would say yes, based on the fact that the power Dynamic is different, right? Which makes the agency different, right? She's got a dependency on her boss for her job, which he needs to make the money to pay her bills. To take care of family.

2:16:32 All these other kind of stuff. That's that potentially can subvert her agency. Gotcha. So power is a, is a an aspect of agency that I think needs to be considered and measured power to negate power to run remediate and and power to prevent Okay, the other the other aspect is information. Right. Because False information or beliefs lack of information. Of, or a lack of information of consequences.

2:17:12 Is also. A potential violation of agency. Well, yeah, because it would change the power Dynamic, right? If you don't know that, you can see kelp, or you think that your agency is inhibited because of a loss of blessings or something like that, the power dynamics are different. Right. So information. And power together, I think need to be considered when we talk about agency and how abuse is harm enabled through a visualization of agency. And the last thing I want to talk about is systemic because there are cases of abuse but generally when we talk about abuse when this kind of thing happens, it's usually not a one-off.

2:17:59 It's usually a pattern of behavior. Right? So kind of like, And I'm not picking on them, right? Like I said, we're about to go over our own skeletons and our own closets. But if we look at like what the Catholic Church went through a few years back where there was a discovery of systemic abuse, meaning that Not only was was there a cover-up? But they left the the perpetrators empowered to do it again somewhere else. Yep, exactly, exactly. Institutional cover-up can perpetuate systemic abuse institutional beliefs. Could potentially create systemic abuses as well. For example, if I'm the one man, if I'm the prophet, right? And I've got my congregation and I say, In order to go the Celestial Kingdom.

2:18:51 You have to marry a 13 year old. Right. And we stick that in our Doctrine and Covenants. That is going to create systemic abuse. Yes. Well, he might not have. Told anybody specifically to do anything wrong? True. True. But you have now molded this institution. With rules and beliefs and information. That creates. For not just a one-off situation of abuse, you can't control for a one-off. But a system of abuse. right, where it repeats and the pattern will continue to happen again and again and again, Right.

2:19:39 Makes sense. So yeah. This is the framework and I'm not saying this is, this is, this is me speaking and I'm saying this because I couldn't find a very good explanation for what abuse is online. Here's the other problem, some definitions are so minimalistic That. They don't mean anything right. Everything's abuse, right? But my wife earns dinner, it's abuse. Well, if it's a state there, there is a case to be made there. So Oh, well done. Well, maybe the steak was abused, doesn't mean you're abused because you deserve that state, right? Right. Here's a here's another definition I think.

2:20:19 This one looks like I think comes from the United Nations. Okay, abuse is physical sexual, emotional economic or psychological actions or threats of action, that influence and other person. This includes any harm. Any behaviors that infringe intimidate, terrorize, manipulate hurt, humiliate, blame injure or wound. Someone Hmm. That seems a little far to the other side right? Where it's like really wide open. Right? Humiliate. I mean Like, what are we talking about here, right? Right.

2:21:01 Yeah, talking about burning your buddies is you, you know, it's just dudes out talking smack, right? I mean like to me that how many leftists have said something humiliating about President Trump? Oh, and what are we gonna arrest them all for abuse? Exactly, exactly. Well, no, we all recognize that. That's not real abuse. You know what I mean? It's right. So we kind of talked about this a little bit early, right? But this is a definition that is so Broad. Yeah, they get everything in it. Everything is abuse. And there's there's problems with that. Ultimately abuses gonna be someone subjective. Because definition of harm is subjective you and I both agree that pornography is harmful, right? But I know that there's somebody out there who says, no way, Nothing wrong for photography.

2:21:55 It's not harmful at all. Right. So I think we need a framework for this where we can where we can judge and it's not just purely subjective. But this is kind of sets forth, a framework where we can evaluate stuff. Because we're going to get into some topics here and some of them are more historic. And we need to be able to evaluate that and so a broad definition will do us. No good a super narrow definition does us no good. I think this definition or service will serve us well so Um, one last thing is in order to have systemic abuse, there has to be an institution.

2:22:38 Right. Because systems exist institutions. Example institutions can be like family. Church. Community. Education and work. And there's more, you got government and all that but this is just just some ideas. Like this is where we need to be. These are the these are the places where systems happened. So these are the places we need to look for systemic abuse. And we need to say what is wrong with the institution? That is systematizing the abuse. Because like I said, you know, John C Bennett seems to have been a really depraved individual from the history that I've read. Is that Joseph's fault.

2:23:21 Is that is that the restoration's fault? Well, I say it's not but it could be it could be We've got to be able to evaluate that right. How do we decide? Because institutions, consistent advice. Stuff. Was there a system in place for John Cena to do that? I would argue no, there was not. Know, there are some people that Twisted history, and they think that John Cena was Joseph's right hand secretly. Give me man, but the actual history shows that no John Cena learned about it. And then without permission started using it to to lie in manipulate. And she Right.

2:24:02 I think it's all important to point out, that all those systems that you just said, usually come with hierarchy. Right. Right? And and the kind of abuse. We're going to be talking about today, cannot happen. Let me pray that. It's less likely to happen. If there's no hierarchy, but hierarchies are absolutely necessary to keep Society functioning right. I, I hate to break it to people. There's no such thing as a society or a company or anything or a family that's leaderless, right? If it's leaderless it's off the rails and it's something different. And so hierarchy is going to exist in all these structures and hierarchy in and of itself is not bad. Like I said hierarchy is needed but we have to understand that they're it does.

2:24:53 It can come with some inherent risks that all the infrequent still deserve to be looked at Right? And with those rests because of those risks comes a certain amount of responsibility. Yep. So, and I say that responsibility lands on is a systemic or isn't it? And yep. Again, systemic means the institution is facilitating or facilitating the cover-up of or the perpetuation of abuse. Whereas otherwise it's a one-off, you get bad eggs and you deal with them. Appropriate. With what chippers? Would sell.

2:25:34 I like it. I like it. Anyways um topics I got a few topics. I thought we could Kind of look at here and let's talk about the history and let's talk about how that fits how these things, how these things fit in our framework, right? so, First of all, plural marriage. Let's talk about plural, marriages as a whole. Okay. Is plural, marriage. A systemic harm enabled to a violation of agency. Know. No, I don't, I don't think plural marriage in and of itself.

2:26:16 Is a system of harm I think there are men or women that do harm through that system. At times. Right. Right. But in another itself it's it's it's it's it's no more abusive than Menagerie. It's right. It's, it's a choice. It's a force choice. And that's a, that can be a problem, right? If the relationship is abused, that can be a problem. But in and of itself. A man having more than one family. having a wife and children that he raises supports, Provides for. There's nothing, there's nothing inherently. Immoral or abusive there, right?

2:27:02 but, Just as with monogamy. Within that some things can come up, right? And so I want to review some stuff here from this book. It's called God's brothel. I'm not going to endorse it but fuzziness won't go away. We got it. Yep. By an Android more and it and I'm not gonna endorse this book. Because I can't vouch for what it contains. So, I'm not telling everybody you need to go out and read this and jump on this bandwagon. What this book has is the beginning. It has some Ideas on Pearl, marriage. And then it has a whole bunch of case, studies, of of individual survivors, telling their stories. Unfortunately, most of these stories cannot be validated. We cannot know for sure.

2:27:58 Some of them are more. Reliable than other than others though. Nonetheless. And I think you'd have to be foolish. Very, very foolish to believe that. This isn't probably happened at some place at some time within Mormon fundamentalism. Write the specific stories might not be true. But the situations described are certainly possible, right? We should get it. And and that's the that's the that's the Creedence I want to give it. Um, and like I said, this is a, this is an anti-polygamy book. Right now I you know, I'm not plugging this. In practice, but I do believe in the principle and I have a testimony that principal.

2:28:46 I do not believe that it is inherently abusive. however, there are women in the world and men that believed it is. And the reason they believe it is is because of Some of the things that have happened within more than five animals and this is why I want to talk about it. It's really there's two parts. on the one hand, I feel like it's important that we defend. And speak up for any potential victims. Where there has been abused, we that needs to be called out. We need to Help those people. Yep.

2:29:28 And and help prevent future situations like that arising. But we also need to defend the institution of pearl marriage. Right. Because This these stories of abuse are going to become the dominant narrative. and people are going to start believing that and so, I want to go over this, not because I'm saying these things happen and I know that they happen and all these stories are true. I want to go over to show that. First of all, there's there are some things we need to talk about in Mormon fundamentalism, unfortunately. And we do need to have those discussions. And I also want to bring it forth. To show that these are the things that are abusive and that's not inherent to plural marriage. These are inherent to other situations that we can all agree are abused and As as Mormons, I think we can identify and declare.

2:30:33 Yeah, that's wrong. That's abusive. We don't, we, we don't tolerate this. We don't accept this. We don't allow this. That makes sense. Not in our name. Sort of a thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. So Again, not not trying to. Share, not trying to attack anybody here. However, in this case, and I want to go over one of these stories with you. And in this case, I might call out somebody because this is, this is a story from one of Tom Green's victims. Okay, real quick let's tell for those because you know I got I got about 60% of my audience that is our fundamentalist 40% that are LDS and then 10% that we're never more, right?

2:31:21 Or I guess it's 540 10. My point here is there's some that don't know who Tom Green is. So let's let's talk a little bit about who Tom Green was first and set the table. Right. Right. So yeah, Tom Green. I believe he came into fundamentalism from the LDS Church. Or somewhere. I don't think he was born in it. He got generational know he's not generational So he's not generational, he comes in from somewhere, and he comes in with under initially under Ross, LeBaron. Right. And when Ross ultimately dies, I believe there was a point in time when he was with Fred. But I think more so that he kind of decided he's he was the he was the one man to continue Lebanon after after Ross Wesley labaran.

2:32:20 So he's a, he's a branch off from the Ross West Wesley line of Labyrinthian. Or a success. Well, a claim successor, right? There's multiple. It's not just Tom Green, right? Fred call your makes that claim. I believe Ross, LeBron's son. Also, yes, named Ross made that claim, and there might be more. I don't know about that, at least, at least there were three. People who claimed to be Ross, liberians successor and rossella. Baron is basically the Utah American side of Labyrinthian. Yes. Yup. so if you're in the states and there's liberians, that's probably somehow connected to that, where if you're in Mexico, It's probably more tied to Joel or herbal or some other guys that stay in Mexico and it. I, you know, they're all descendant from from Al Madera, but Well, maybe not descended, but Branch like Fred's got. No biological descendants of theological defendants, right? And it's hard to say where where what it what came in and what left.

2:33:23 So again, I'm not making any judgments here on anybody other than maybe Tom, Green, specifically. And again this is a testimony. I don't know that this is, I don't know that this is true. But when we get to the end of the story, there are some facts that lay out. This is very likely true. And that if even if this specific one wasn't true, there's there was probably a very similar story with some other people that absolutely is true. So, let's Let's dig in. Let's dig in and do this. Yep. Okay, and I'm just gonna read this chapter on the books, not that long. All right, with the passage of time, Allison Ryan now has a certain perspective on her personal nightmare of having been married at the age of 16 to the media hungry, polygamist, Tom Green. but there was a time when she was tormented by years of guilt, Quote, it was what he made me do sexually, I just couldn't believe I did it and quote. The guilt became so overwhelming for Allison. Eventually that Alison.

2:34:32 Eventually attempted suicide. I couldn't live with it. That I done what he wanted me to do with him. She says, it's horrible to be treated that way. Hmm. So We already found something. We already found something. So, let's talk about this. She's suggesting. And again, we're just gonna take this at face value, but we can apply this principle, right? She's implying that she did something. That something happened non-consensuality. Right. In a sexual manner. She doesn't tell us the details. She doesn't tell us what that is. But regardless.

2:35:16 Regardless of what that was. We can ask this question. Is it abusive for a husband? To have an interaction with their, with their wife. That she is not okay with. Sexually. No, no, no. I I don't think that being married. Is one of those things that justifies. Abusing Your Wife by basically. Telling her she just has to do whatever it is. You tell her to do in that moment, right? I am a believer there there, can be there can be raping inside of a marriage.

2:36:00 Right. Um, and that's, that's just what we're looking at here. Yep. I agree. So there's our first example, we can see that. That would be a violation of agency, right? If she was, if she doesn't want to do that, And you are forcing her to because of your relationship as her husband and her belief that she needs to obey her husband. And that qualifies as abuse right there, right? Right. So we already found one. Let's keep going. There's there's plenty more. um, before her encounter with green, Alison had been Abused at age 11 while living in North Carolina?

2:36:42 Quote, being raised LDS. I thought I was dirty now, and quote. She says, quote guys at school would grab my chest and that just added to me to my becoming very vulnerable to a predator and quote, Okay, we found something else already. If you were like, this is not she's 11 years old. Something non-consensual happens. Sexually Is she dirty before God? No. If it was against her will know. Right?

2:37:22 No, that's that's she violated a lot of chesty, right? oh, No, no, no no. But here's the thing, right? I told you about that fiance that I had. Yeah, she believed she violated a lot just yesterday. Right. I told you about this book paper dolls. the victims there also, part of part of the control of the whole situation, Was, was that these girls were believing that they had? Violated the law of Chastity and also violated the word of wisdom. And that kept them from reaching out for help sooner.

2:38:02 And Reporting some of the things going on. So I've got another thing. Is it. Is it is promoting a Doctrine? That. Victims of abuse. Are dirty. or unclean before God, abusive Yeah, I'd say. So if the doctrine says, hey did it doesn't matter if you consented or not you're dirty. Because of this and you just woman was forced upon again. Again against her will know that's Right. Yeah. And this is a hard one because I don't believe the LDS church teaches that it is either.

2:38:45 But culturally, it's kind of believe that it is by a lot of young people. Write a lot of young people and a lot of the victims. and, While I don't say that the LDS church is necessarily responsible or that fundamentalist or necessarily responsible for a misinterpretation of the doctrine. knowing that this is a common situation and it is I've Like I said, personal experience. I think it's really important when you teach the law of Chastity. To teach that abuse is not you violating the law of Chastity and that doesn't make you unclean. It doesn't make you less worthy.

2:39:28 It doesn't make you chewed up bubble gum. Right? Because that was taught the LDS church, right? Yep. And look, there is a certain truth to if somebody is being promiscuous. Yeah. That it does lower their value, not to God, but certainly to their fellow beings and how they will be treated. It's not a good thing to do, you shouldn't be promiscuous. It will lower. Right. It will lower the woman's value. However, that doesn't mean she's valueless doesn't mean. She can't repent and change and be just as valuable again. but the worst part of that story is when things happen unconsensually because the chewed up bubble gum is chewed up bubblegum, it doesn't matter whether you ask for it or not, right?

2:40:18 And when you've got that analogy in your head, that if you have relations outside of marriage or chewed up bubble gum, and this happens to you involuntarily, How can you not think that? Now, I'm chewed up bubblegum. Sure. I didn't choose to But now, I am nonetheless. Alright. Alright. Yeah, and that was the thing that was always missing, right? It wasn't. And, you know, I want to say this, I don't think they said out. To. to teach the principal that even if you are forced, you're that chewed up bubble gum, right? It was just something that they overlooked in trying to give context to the rest of the lesson.

2:41:02 Yep. And and it's something unintentional unintentionally. It's not yep. Yeah, it's not something they set out to do. And look, I've taken I've taken my my share of umbrage with the church, right? I've called them out when I felt like they were, they were in the wrong. But on that one I don't necessarily see that as a A grooming of victims, right? I think that was just a lesson that maybe needed some further context, right? A lesson that needed further context and that holds me if it's still being. Repeated is given the full context with those disclaimers every time.

2:41:46 Because if you're going to teach Loft Chassidy, You got to talk about? That it's not a violation of law of Chastity. If you did not consent, right? Absolutely. And this is not just the LDS Church. We have to deal with this and in fundamentalism as well. because, This all so exists in fundamentalism, I'm not gonna go on the details, but I know that this exists in fundamentalism as well. I know for a fact that it does the same belief culture. I'm not saying that the fundamentals organizations are promoting this and teaching it that that you are just as bad rather, whether it was consensual or not, but the belief among victims is that they are just as bad.

2:42:28 Yep. So, all right. Glad we address that. How do we address that? And this this leads to another problem, too. This is telling the story after the fact, right? Right. There are certain and I have done a little bit of research into some of this and people that are predators, that have bad intent, that desire to abuse. They know that they look for victims that will keep their secrets. Yep. And or they produce, they groom victims that will keep their secrets. And they know what kind of personalities and struggles to look for and children children with low self-esteem.

2:43:14 Yes, and she's describing. That's, that's a potential victim. Those children need extra attention. They need extra attention. If you've got a child in your family, that's maybe struggled with himself as Steam. You got to keep extra closed eyes on those ones to make sure that nobody's taking their vulnerable state and manipulating it. 100%. So just as Alison was celebrating her 16th birthday in 1989. This is important in the Years 1989 too. Right. I'm, I'm eight years old, at this point. so, She's 16, I'm 8.

2:43:55 So this isn't that far off this isn't that, this isn't this isn't Generations in the past. This is that way, way back. This is, this is this isn't way way back. Yeah. Her parents moved their family into a trailer park in Sandy Utah and an effort to be closer to the Mormon church. Again, too trailer park. So family doesn't have a lot of money, right? Right. Maybe another Advantage a little bit that way. Yeah yeah that does not. You got to keep an eye on on these people and that they need extra protection. Anxious to make new friends. The Ryan's sisters soon. Discovered the large green family living next to them. They had 20 people in a single wide trailer. She says, oh, All right, time to talk. It's time to stop.

2:44:42 We gotta we gotta discuss this. We got to talk about this one here too. I believe. In Pearl marriage, I believe in large families. but, There. Are exceptions. it is not responsible to have children or take wives as a man that you cannot provide for Yep. And men need to be providers. It's I think there's nothing wrong with a woman finding ways to help out. I'm not saying that it's that women have to stay in the in the kitchen cooking all day. I think it's okay for women to have jobs even but, but, It's the man's responsibility to provide, yes. and if you've got 20 people piled into a single wide, Trailer. Before having any more children and before taking on any more wives and that situation you need to get your stuff together. Absolutely, absolutely.

2:45:55 And look, I'll go so far as this. If? if it's is, I do believe there's more to look at in a In a husband, or a wife and their financial standing, right? And so if If a man takes plural wife and she knows, hey, he's not, he's not exactly, you know. Jimmy and Warren Buffett, excuse me, wrong Buffett, not exactly Warren Buffett. Um hey, whatever their consenting adults and I'm down, right? But as a dude, you should probably be in a position to where You have a desire to provide the best that you can there, right? And likewise, if that man was doing well before but then goes through financial hardship.

2:46:51 Based off of, you know, a downturn in the economy, right? That's not a reason to blow up plural, family, either of course. And so, just just a little bit of context there on on what we're talking about. I would hate for someone to be like, well, Yes, my husband lost his job, I guess time for me to move on right now if you're if he's if he's a deadbeat right? If he's not trying, if he's not doing it what you know making the effort pulling out all the stops, I think there is a conversation to be had. But by and large I think, I think, you know, we're not talking about Ditching a family. Because Financial hardships come, I know, I know I know a few poor polygamists and sometimes that's just the nature of things.

2:47:41 Yeah. It's not going to. I was raced in a portion of your point. Yeah. Yeah. To your point. That's okay. Yeah, to your point though. You should try to be in the best position you can be. Before you enter that principle because it is going to be on you at some point to provide. And you need to you, you need to have a plan, right? Sometimes, I think the Lord really spoiled me. I don't, I don't make a million. I do. Okay, right. But I also, you know, Amber was done having kids and wanted to go back to work by the time Tonya came along right and that makes that a little easier, right? Um, and I'm with you there's there's nothing wrong with with a woman holding down a job.

2:48:29 If she desires I you know I I do think that while the kids are young, it's probably a good idea to have. At least a moment at home to look after the kids. Yeah. But, you know, I think that is one of the beauties of plural marriage that is offered. Is it, you know? And I believe it was either Martha, Hughes Cannon, or Eliza R snow, or maybe both. I can't remember who basically said as much. Right? That that, you know, plural, marriage offered her an opportunity. To do something other than baked bread. All day. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah, so let's keep going. But again there that's a sign. That's a that might not be just an outright abuse but that's a red flag.

2:49:13 That's a red flag. Yep. She says, I became friends with his kids that summer and when Tom and His Four wives went to Amway conventions, they would have me babysit even though they had kids my age. Afterwards like to. Yeah, another red flag. Why, you know? Look. I think this is just me, right? Courtship should be courtship interaction, should be interaction. If you need a babysitter and you got somebody come over, they should be there to babysit. Yep, if you want to date that person, you should ask them out on the date.

2:49:59 Not asking to come baby set. Right. Right. Absolutely. Keep keep your motivations clear and up front and again red flag. I wouldn't necessarily call that abuse that you're you're walking a line though. You're walking the line because that can become abusive because that person could have different expectations well, look in this scenario, like I get this probably 20 bucks to pay that babysitter, but if your whole family is living in a single wide trailer, hmm, you could probably save the 20 bucks for some other things, right? Especially if you got it just said that there were kids at home. There were kids at home that were there. That was this babysitter's age?

2:50:42 That's a red flag. Yeah, like yeah. That's a red flag. It makes me think he's got other intentions for her being there and he's not being up front with her about them. Right. Absolutely. So the babysitting became more and more. Regular as Greensboro wife, took an interest in Allison. An interest that was instigated by Green. quote one time when my little sister and I came to the babysitter Tom turned, his 16 year old stepson and said, either you marry them or I will Oh, jeez.

2:51:22 Whoo. Okay, okay. Now, we've left red flags and started going into creeper territory. Right. And as a parents, anybody out there was her parents right? You're always Right. Hopefully hopefully if you're a parent, you didn't just go then. Um, yeah. Then pay attention, pay attention. What happens here. Absolutely. Because that should trigger a survival. Instinct, a defensive Instinct in your children. If you don't have children. You're imagined. Future children should Absolutely, what kind of the joke is that? And it's them right?

2:52:09 And you know, she's she's 16 there with her younger sister and And again. This is not way way back when. Know this is this is the late 80s, early 90s. Yep. This is early 90s. Late 80s. Really nice. All right. Suffering with untreated depression and painfully self-conscious of her weight gain. Allison began alcohol, high school as a friendless unlovable new kid in town. Her solution was simply to drop out of school quote, my mom told me to get a job, but I ended up having a lot of free time. She says, so I spent it with the only other kids around the green kids Mm-hmm. so, One evening. Green asked Allison on a date.

2:53:02 Tom greens. And Allison 16. He said, 16. So let's talk about this. Let's talk about this right now. We were gonna have to deal with this at some point. Just let me pause for just a minute for a quick break. Okay. So yeah, let's talk about this age difference for just a bit. I think that's where you were going. Yeah. Yeah. And look I don't necessarily have an issue with an age difference. But I do have an issue with. An underage. Right. Um, participant in a relationship.

2:53:45 Right. So, in America, today in the world, we live in today. You generally speaking need to be 18 to get married. Right. Right. Yep. And having relations under 18 outside of marriage. With. Somebody. Old enough to be too old, usually two or three years. Is illegal. It's called statutory rape. Right. Why do these laws exist and are they and should they exist? Let's wrong with the 15 year old bride. What's wrong with the 13 year old bride? Well, they're not look.

2:54:41 They're not mature enough today. Okay, and I'm just gonna call like, I see it because look, we can't have this conversation without addressing. What Joseph did during the novel period, right? Right. I do not want to to not address that. I think it's super important. Here is the difference, right? And look, you know, I'm a student of History. I love history, I love American history, I love Mormon history, I dig it. But one of the things that we, that a lot of people fall, victim of is what's called presentism, right? Where they will take their own social, and cultural more leanings, and apply that back in the past to other individuals, right?

2:55:30 In this case, it'd be just Smith and we hear it a lot from those who are antagonistic to the restored gospel that Joseph was a pedophile because he he married the 15 year old girl. They are practicing presentism in that very moment. And here's how I know. Because during that time period, there was a lot of single men who may be were widowers who married a woman. And I used the term woman here because of the time period who was significantly younger than they were 15 16 years old and it wasn't to Scandal.

2:56:12 It only became a scandal because plural marriage was involved, right? If we went through the thought, exercise that if Emma would have died and Joseph never would have introduced plural marriage. There may have been a few eyebrows that were raised, but it's not the Scandal. It is We don't, we wouldn't hear about it. We wouldn't think to twice about it. We'd read it. And go. Oh, that seems a little young, but where it's not in polygamy, it wouldn't have been such a big deal. So, my contention is this, when you look back at history and you look at that time, period. What do you find? Will you find that that a young? A young person was becoming a, an adult much sooner. They might still live with their family. If it's a young woman, but for the young men, it was nothing to be out on your own at 15, 16 years old, learning a trade or working with Dad on the farm or something like that. And so taking a 15 year old today and superimposing that 15 year old on Helen Mark, Kimball doesn't hold water, it's not, you can't do that, it's a false measurement and to me, this is where where the rub comes in.

2:57:22 Yeah, absolutely, and this is this is where we need to. I think we need to be careful. because, it was a different world, it was a different circumstance, and when you look at families back then, Yep. Families were struggling to survive. Yes, it wasn't like the world we live in. It was life and death out there. And you were always just one mistake away from death. Yep. It was a hard life children, had to grow up fast, they had to grow up fast because the life expectancy wasn't that long either, right?

2:58:04 Oh, you were old and you're 50s. yeah, and so similar to the way that, you know, as Gen X, we were raised with the lot of a bit of freedom. Nothing like those earlier Generations, though. No nothing like those earlier Generations. They had even More freedom to be adults. when at what we're looking at today saying those are just kids know, they told me they were adults. George Washington at 16. 17 years old is leading a whole party passed the front here into the Ohio to perform a survey.

2:58:44 In Indian infested country. crossing rivers like, That's a different 1617 year old that's operating, right? Yep. Exactly what in perspective. It's less than 100 years. From when Washington's doing that. To Joseph Smith, it's about 50 years. Yeah. So, but clearly something has changed from Joseph Smith, Stay? to now, yep, because 14 year old boys are not prepared to leave home and make their Mark in the world.

2:59:24 They're not prepared, they don't have the experience the skills, the maturity, none of it. Nope. Neither are the young girls. They're not ready to become mothers. They're not ready to run a household. They're not ready to. They have other things. That need to happen. And we have a system that goes very slow. Part of this I think is a cause of the education system. We created this one. This fit all education system that you go through and you graduate high school around 18. and, you compare high school students today to 12 year olds in the in the early American period and And you will find them about equally educated. If not the 12 year, olds being more educated, Yep, we have dragged it out and we have lowest common denominator systems where we don't allow children to mature either though because you can't really get ahead in the system. It's designed to get everybody on that conveyor belt and you're going to come off that conveyor belt at 18. And then you're ready.

3:00:33 But everything's been planned out. We're going to teach you this. That you need to know at 17. We're gonna teach you this. That you need to know 16. We'll teach you this at 15. So if you're not 18 yet, you're not done growing up. It wasn't, it's not part of the system anymore. You're not an adult and because you're not an adult. You don't have the same agency. And that's that's the kicker, right? I'm gonna, I'm gonna share a personal family story here, the little embarrassing maybe in some ways, but so, My grandpa. His dad died when he was five. Because again, just to clarify, you're not a generational world, right?

3:01:17 And, and I want to clarify because I think this is going to be important, your grandfather and your grandmother were not fundamentalists know their LDS. They were earlier they were LDS, okay? I just want to get that out there because that is an important part of the story. This is it is important. It's important to understand that. So, yeah, their LDS, they're not fundamentalist, I'm the first fundamentalist in my family line since, since since Well, Israel Barlow was kind of the fundamentalist. I mean, he didn't break off from the church. He didn't need to but right. Right. Yeah. So anyways, so, um, So Grandpa's dad dies at five because he's working double shifts, they're struggling to make ends meet in California, and it's a hard life.

3:02:09 Right. He gets a step. Dad, his stepdad, doesn't treat him very well. I think and he's off at a very young age. He does not wait till he's 18 to leave home. He is out of there. I think it was around 14. Off making his way in the world. It's already an amped again. Starting up again about what year would this have been Oh, geez. This I think would be some probably somewhere in the 30s or 40s, 1937 40s. That's kind of what I thought, but I just wanted to throw it out there. Yeah. So anyway, like Grandpa moves to Utah. and he's going to the dances and stuff, right? and he sees this pretty young girl, and About his age and they start, they start dating.

3:03:02 And they quickly just and she quickly decided that that's this is the guy that she wants. and, They're engaged. Short while later they're married. He was 16 at the time. My grandpa was 16. And he was starting to family. Well, um, my grandma. She had told my grandfather that she was 15. So, they could get married. And it was after they were married that that my grandma. Comes clean and admitted she was 13. When they were married. she lied about her age and convinced her parents to lie about her age because she She knew the man that she wanted and and was worried that he might think she's too young and somebody else might get him in the meantime. so, It was a different world. It was a different world.

3:04:05 And your grandmother's grandparents and this is worth bearing out. Did this was a marriage. Yeah, yeah, didn't say she family was involved. This wasn't something done in some secret back room in the desert. This was this was an open marriage ceremony, they got married in the temple. They were married in the temple. Yep. Yep. And my Grandpa and Grandma were faithful to each other till the days, they died. Yeah. And in my grandma's case, that was just a year ago. So, They had a successful marriage, they had. Brought forth children.

3:04:48 Large family, they had success, they they had education. They had. A certain amount of wealth, they were never really well, but they were, they were doing pretty good by the end, right? They lived the American dream. My grandma's only 13 when she's married, that's still blows my mind. And I've seen pictures of her. She doesn't look for her team to me. Right? She doesn't look 13 to me but my grandma has always had this funk Personality in that marriage, you know. You know the one I'm talking about. She's a redhead. Yeah. Oh I I know a little something about redheads, right? Yeah.

3:05:29 Yeah, no, I'll get it. Like, you've got to be a brave man to want to go down that road. Yeah, it's gonna be funny at times and other times you're going to say the wrong thing and you're gonna know you said the wrong thing. Yeah, there was never anything abusive in their marriage. Right. Never once that was a successful. Happy marriage. They made it work. They had some challenges but there's never any semblance of abuse. Right. But that was back then in the 1930s 1940s. Right. We live in 2026. like I said, children aren't the same. No, they're not learning things that they used to learn. They're not having the they're not having worse adult responsibilities on them for survival necessity at a younger age.

3:06:19 Right? So you've got that going One Direction but then you got on the other direction, you got when I was telling you about this tiktok stuff. You have a epidemic. and actual epidemic of people who are of men, Who are so messed up in their heads. That. They have. a sexual desire to corrupt innocence. Yeah. Yep, they want. A lack of agency and lack of maturity, a lack of consent. In their sexual relationships.

3:07:08 Right? And they're being exposed to this online, they're seeing videos of this stuff, Sharon pictures of this stuff. They're depraved. These are these are, these are monsters. And there's an epidemic of them more than any time before. In right, there's always been men with bad intentions and with bad who would act on baser desires and to a certain degree, we got it. We got to understand and admit that we are following human beings. We are all Fallen. We all have baser desires that we were that came with came with mortality.

3:07:50 Hopefully, hopefully we are doing everything within our power to fight and subdue. Those things to to surrender, those desires and receive new ones from God. That's what it means to be. That's really what it means to be a Christian. As we put our hearts on the Altar and God gives us a new one. Right, a Christianity is on the decline. and, With at the demonics. at the Dynamics of this, most abusive, horrible things you can imagine being thrust upon Voice girls. Teenagers. And adults.

3:08:32 We don't live in the same world. So when we first started talking about views, I asked you what happens if I punch you, Dave, is that abuse? Well, we've just we've decided that doing harm. It might be doing harm right but that's not abuse. Right. but if I do that to, My my infant because she's crying too much. Then, you know, I should be taking away. If you lock me up, right? Yep. Because there's a difference in agency. Yes. There's a difference in the agency and there's a difference in the agency that the youth have now. And there's a difference in a desire to cropped that there's a increase in wickedness of hearts. and then today, therefore, therefore, I am not saying that what Joseph Smith did was wrong.

3:09:27 I am not saying what my own family did was wrong. But if I were to do that, I should be in prison. Is the times have changed times and the power dynamics are different. The maturity level is different, we know longer live in those times. and, you know, I I want to say something else here because I have read stories, where people say, well, she was old enough to know what what was right and what was wrong. Maybe. But again, you're dealing with a far less mature young woman now, right, right? And you can't really consent unless you're cognitively. And adult.

3:10:16 At some level, right? Maybe not understand what you're getting yourself into, especially right, you marriage, right? And and my contention today is Most girls at the age of 15 or 16 do not understand what that is. Right. And because of that, You've got to leave them the hell alone. Yeah, and I don't want to hear about what Joseph did. I don't want to hear about what was practicing in the Old and New Testaments. It does not matter. Because we are dealing with a different time and using good men as an excuse for your depravity. Is. Is horrific to start with in this life, but I promise you. I promise you, you use as an excuse, you're going to answer to God and some very uncomfortable ways because he does know the end from the beginning and not only that you are, you twisting something, that is divine, that is beautiful for your own gratification, and that's a problem. and if you're convinced that she's the one and she's 16 week, two years Wait, you wait two years? Right.

3:11:32 Oh, if so, if you're that sure of your quote revelation. Let's let's, you know, then I'm sure that that will hold for two years. Yeah, the time to play out there Yeah. Okay. Okay. So here's the problem. Here's the issue, right? Back in the 1930s and 40s were there girls that were 13 that were not ready to be married. I'm sure there were I'm sure there were Sure. There were I think my grandma was probably more on the exception side and that's why she was lying about being 15. Right. How about 15? We're, we're 15 year. Old girls. Ready to be married as in general in that age.

3:12:15 I'm sure there were some I think there were probably a lot, I think there are probably a lot that were because you'll notice statutory rape laws and a minimum age laws. This is this is a newer thing at some point. Between World War Two, and now various states start dropping in rules about this, because they start identifying a shift in the demographics. And that's what this is. This is a ship. Is it possible that there is a 15 year old out there today right now, ready to be married. Yes, it's possible. It's lightly. I'm sure it's even likely. but, but yes, that's the butt.

3:12:56 So let's let's do a hypothetical. It's 1940, she's 15 years old. 80% of girls, 15 year old are ready to be married. And so this is not, this is not abuse. Right fast forward to 2026. There is 0.001% of 15 year, old girl's ready to be married. Right. That's why they had to draw a line in the sand on this. This is why these laws came into existence. because it went from, we don't want infringe on the people's right to make their own decisions and judgments to this is irrational. Now this is there's no case where this is really lining up and we have to sacrifice the two years of the 15 year old. The 16 year old, you know who actually is ready that 0.001? We're gonna have to make them wait just a little bit longer so we can protect the other 99.

3:13:57 Right. Because if you allow exceptions, On this. And you're the exception. Well, then everybody gets to be dick. Exception and there is no protection. Right. Right? There was a recognition somewhere, like you said between World War Two And whatever the date was, when these lost start getting dropped that, you know what? Are youth aren't quite as mature as they used to be. And so per your point there has to be a line drawn and It is where it is. But if you Do not.

3:14:45 There's no reason to cross. That line is what I'm saying? Yeah. There's no there's no need to cross that line. There is no excuse. There's no justification. As you even if you are the exception, there is no excuse because by doing that, you normalize and open the door for the non exceptions to be abused. Well, and here's the other thing. You're going to do damage to the rest of the community of fundamentalists. Right, we're like I talked about earlier, we're still trying to shake off the ghost of what happened in Colorado City. Yeah, let's not give them any more fodder than what they already have.

3:15:28 On top of it being more really wrong, right? Like there's there's there's several places here where this is a bad thing. Yeah. Yeah. And so even if even if it's your parents you grandparents and it was okay and it worked out it, had a happy ending. That's okay. But you don't have to hold to that standard and you need to come and realize that there are, there is abuse happening. There has been abused. There is abuse happening now. And the way we protect that is we say that enough is enough. Right. You wait till you're 18. Yep. Nobody's nobody's gonna get condemned to hell because they waited till they were 18. but, You might save the life of and and some horrific things from happening to somebody like Allison here.

3:16:18 Right. Is that not worth it? I would think it is. 100%. So that was a tough one. That was a tough one. Um, the age thing, right? But let's let's finish through this. There's not a whole lot more. That we need to really address here on this. So one evening green asked Allison on a date. He took me to Park City and we talked about sex while running my leg. He told me he wanted me as a wife. She said, I had such low self-esteem, I thought this was probably the best I could get and told myself, I would probably be good for it would probably be good for me. After their date. The greens had Allison moving with them. And Arrangement that her parents agreed to since Alice was not getting along with her mother at the time. Oh, we found some more.

3:17:05 Oh yep. There's nobody yeah, this isn't even coming from. From the the evil fundamentalists. This time but you know, her own mom. That's not an appropriate thing to let happen. If you have 16 year old daughter, you do not let your 16 year old daughter move in with another man and his family who is dating her. Also, don't let don't let men date your 16 year old daughters, right? I mean. Yeah. Tom was controlling and intimidating. He treated me like one of these kids but he was mean to a step kids.

3:17:47 She says Leanne his stepdaughter, would go cry out back. And tell me Tom was molesting her. Without Allison in their trailer greens for wives began persuading. Her telling her, they wanted her to marry Tom and be a part of their family. Allison's mother new green. Wanted to marry her daughter. And according to Alison, she went to the Mormon. Bishop and asked his advice. She said, he told her to support the decision or it might end up a runaway. What what? Yeah, so I thought what I don't know. Regardless, just taking it a face value, right? We're not we're not necessarily judging here, right?

3:18:30 But that is not okay, either. That's not okay. Either bad. Bishop bad, Bishop, hypothetical Bishop that. Hypothetical Bishop. If you are a bishop and in You do not, you do not say that you, you call the police. Yeah, you call child this, you know, maybe even back then. No there was there was I know we had to go on the run from CPS once. Neighbor's didn't like our dog. And no and we were all. So the only non-active members on the Block, And so we couldn't play with the neighbor kids. Got and then something happened with the dog. And there's got said because our dog and they wanted us out of there.

3:19:11 And then and so they called CPS and it was stupid, it was stupid. There was no music that anyways, but that existed back then, it did exist back then I know what did? Yeah. You know, you know. You do not. Yeah, better letter. Otherwise she might run away. Oh my gosh. Okay, so after living in the green trailer for two months is one of the kids Allison was on her way to becoming one of the wives to understand how it happened to me. You would have to know about my mother. She says, Was married to my father at age 16. He went along with everything she wanted and she wanted to get us girls out as soon as possible to be free of child-rearing duties.

3:19:52 Which again shows that there might be a misunderstanding here, right? I'm gonna I'm gonna give the mother here, maybe a certain amount of Grace because maybe her being married at 16 was kind of okay. Although she does seem to have some issues, doesn't seem to be very good mom, but maybe she could be an okay wife at 16. And she's projecting that on to her children. Yep. I was okay at 16, they'll be fine. Yep. It also sounds like she was wearing the pants in the home too, which again would indicate that her marriage probably wasn't abusive. And that she could get her husband to support her. He listened to her, he did.

3:20:34 And this case, it's a bad situation though that she has that influence on her husband, right? So indeed. Green 16 year old stepson. Jim was dating Allison's. 12 year old sister Andrea. Holy cow. With one wedding on the burner, their mother then granted permission for Andrea to marry Jim at the same time that Allison married green. Unbelievable. Andrea was crying that day. We both changed our minds. but Mom didn't stop it or announced that we didn't want to go through with it because Tom intimidated, her Allison says. I remember that day in the trailer park Clubhouse, getting married.

3:21:17 Just two minutes before he married his own stepdaughter, Leanne. Kids were looking through the windows and I wore a plague dress that Leanne's mother made Allison became Green's sixth wife. 12 year old Andres marriage. Ended within two weeks. The couple had moved in with Andrea and Allison's parents. Who. Kicked Jim out for being lazy. Go figure 16 year olds. Not ready to hold down a job or right times have changed. Times have changed times.

3:22:01 Have changed. Six 16 year old boy isn't prepared to take care of a 12 year old wife. oh, Gosh. It sounds bad now, but it was just as bad. Then I want to point that out again. This wasn't that long ago, and as bad as that sounds right now, imagine that today it was it was not different back then. Justin can I can I just say something right here right now? Oh, yeah. I have had more than one person. Come to me at times and defend. Tom Green.

3:22:41 Tell me that, you know, he got a bad rap. Because one of his wives, the one that was 13 and ended up living with him, his whole life. Well, you know what Stockholm syndrome is a thing? Hey. Right. Um, and I don't want to hear it because there is no intellectual or spiritual quarter. I will give not one damn bit. That's abusive. That is wrong. That is sick. And it is disgusting and Tom Green is not a full hero. He's a He he's a pedophile that's what he is, just call it what it is. And you can say things like, well gosh she did some good things.

3:23:25 Well you know what that's a lot like saying no one ever talks to, you know, except for the the you know. All the millions of people that Mao killed, he did some really great things at some point. Certain actions outweigh anything else you're going to do that's good and this is one of them. All right. Well, I got a question for you, Dave. This is a hard. It's gonna be hard question, too. Why are people why are people in front of fundamentals and defending him then? You know, I thought about this at length. and I want to say this, And again this is gonna get oddly specific. So if you're on the side of the fence, sorry you're gonna hate the hell out of this. but for whatever reason, there seems to be a strong propensity of this in Lebanon.

3:24:14 And I think that you have to ask the question, right? And look, I'll say this. There are certain doctrines that you can find that were drugged Straight From Hell into that movement. That. Would attract that kind of person. and, You need to be cognizant of that. and, That needs to be exposed for what it is. Gross abuse. And pedophilia. With a religious bent.

3:24:57 Yeah, and most of the people I've heard defend, Tom Green have been some who have come from that priesthood line. Now, I want to be careful. Not every LeBaron engages in that or I shouldn't say Lebanon, anybody, who follows, there's many people who follow the baron ISM, right? That priesthood, line, that haven't done those things. And I'm not calling out every one, but I will say, there is something inherent when you start reading certain things where that is drugged out into the light. Yeah. And you know what, you know, maybe some people didn't know Tom Green did this. I didn't tell I read it. I still ashamed though, because I have heard rumors. There were some weird stuff there. I didn't take the time to look into it. Just to see for myself what's really going on here. Now that I have like I said at the beginning, if I feel a little bit betrayed, I feel a little bit, the trade, my Mormon fundamentalism, as a whole, That this has not already that the Tom Green wasn't strung up.

3:26:10 there was that he wasn't hogtied strung up and and and and Everybody knew, but nobody knew. Well, maybe people know, but they don't want to offend so-and-so. Well, maybe they'll do. But, you know, yeah, those girls were young, but my grandpa married, a young. I had a young I don't know what the excuses are, but there were. There had been excuses made at some point. And at some point we have to recognize that we have a responsibility. We have a responsibility. To Define to gatekeep. As you could say, what Mormon fundamentalism is. And this story I am reading here. This is not the Mormon fundamentalism that I've seen. No, but I do think that this is the Mormon fundamentalism that some people have seen and that should not be okay with the Mormon fundamentalists.

3:27:08 Right. We don't like it when other people come into police our communities. So to speak, right? The folks that come in to critique Well, if we don't want others to do it, we better get damn used to doing it ourselves. Or. Someone else will do it for us, but they won't understand our culture. They won't understand who we are. So when we see this sort of stuff, Giving it a pass with Lincoln and not is not the way to go. Yeah. So let's finish this. I know it's rough. But I think we need to see it through.

3:27:50 We have. Let's see it to the end. So 12 year old Andrews marriage had ended within two weeks. The couple had moved in with Andrea Nelson's parents. Who soon kicked Jim out for being lazy. Allison mother maintains the Andreas marriage was in a serious marriage. um, Said it was just something polygamous Duong themselves and we all played along with it. That's just, you know, just kids being kids. That's is that. Is that okay? No. Listeners is this okay? Correct. Yeah, it's not.

3:28:30 Okay this is not this is not something that we do among ourselves and fundamentalism. This isn't what polygamous do. This is not acceptable. This is not okay. That was that was gross. Yeah, that was absolutely gross. and I guarantee you that, yes, screw it. I guarantee you Tom was getting off on the idea of his steps on what the 12 year old. Absolutely. He's pushing no other reason to 16 year olds more. The 16 year old is a victim himself. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. That is just looks interesting. I, I just want to say this, right?

3:29:10 Once she's of legal age. Look, there's 10 years difference between Tanya and I write once, or if legal age, I'm hands off. I don't care at that point right there. There are adults and if they consent that way, that's fine. Whatever. But I don't care if you're fifth, I don't care. If its 20 year old man who was courting a 15 year old girl. that is wrong and I think we can all establish it as being wrong at this point again, because the times have changed and if 15 year old is not mature enough to make those decisions, Yeah, so again Allison's mother maintains that Andreas marriage wasn't a serious marriage. Tom said it was just something Pokemon is doing among themselves and we played along with it. She says this is Allison's mother. This is her mother's testimony too by the way. So again, I don't know if all the stories in here are true. But this one's highly corroborated. Highly corroborated.

3:30:11 So, and then the mother continues. I admit I was intimidated by him. It was a sickening Time Of Our Lives. That I wish had never happened, and I'll always feel a lot of guilt. As you should. Yeah. After the wedding. Green drove Allison to Las Vegas for their honeymoon. Quote, he got a hotel room where he got me drunk. And had sex. She says, quote, it was humiliating, I felt dirty. Because she was abused. Yes, she knows. This is wrong. This is abuse. She knows exactly what's going on here. And so does everybody listening? So all the fundamentals listening, we know that this is wrong. Yep.

3:30:57 Back in Utah. Green began the business of his wife began the business that his wife's continued to operate today. He started his magazine sales and made all the school door to door and do telemarketing. She says he thought heard laundered money through a friend of his under an assumed name. This enabled the family to continue receiving Public Assistance part of greens Delight in bleeding, the Beast or working to bring down the government. The family continued to live in the single wide trailer in Sandy. We all just left wherever on the couch on the floor on top of clothes I never saw any homeschooling or scripture reading like they tried to show you like they tried to show people on TV. She remembers that should be a good giveaway. Is this is this Mormonism?

3:31:45 You don't you're not even reading scriptures together. This is an excuse, this is an excuse for us, sex cult. Yep, this is not. The wives fog all the time and the fridge was locked so Tom and the wife could eat the good food. He got out, he got food out of the dumpster at an Albertsons for the kids to eat. Its. Within weeks, green decided to take his two. Newest Brides to another trailer. He had an Elko Nevada. One of the other wives had a friend there selling magazines and he wanted to bring them back to Utah. When we arrived to found the friend really sick near death but he wouldn't take her to the hospital.

3:32:30 Allison says, I finally convinced him she would die. So we took her. I thought it could be me and he wouldn't care. With green gone. To the hospital, Allison called her mother to drive out to get her when her mother arrived. Alison. Jumped out a window of the trailer and fled, she had been married for six weeks. quote, after I left, I wrote a letter to him saying, I loved the wives and kids but I hated the living conditions and quote, she says Well, what I didn't write was how evil he is and how he terrified me.

3:33:10 Green and quote. Green still keeps Allison's letter using her. A missions to lay claim that she was happy in his family. She ran away six weeks later. But because she wrote a letter. She was happy. Allison is found happiness, with a new husband with whom, she has three young children. She obtained a high school equivalency diploma quote is taking me many years to get where I am, but I'll never be entirely over it. And quote she says After 10 total marriages green has remained married to five young women for more than 10 years.

3:33:51 At the time of their marriages, his wife's range from the ages 16. A 13 to 16 and two were stepped daughters. Cheese. Through the Five Wives are now no longer pre-pubescent or teenagers. They remain in a childish date forever. Dressed and little girl, Philly locks frocks and pinafores White Sox and long hair and curls and bows. As of February 2002, this is outdated. Green his father, 30 children green loves to be in the national press. tapestry scent tapes of greens, media appearances to the County prosecutor, David Leavitt, which led to charges being brought against him. He was convicted on four, counts of bigamy and one charge of criminal non-support on January on August 23rd 2001. The sentence was five years in prison. Green and his attorneys successfully won a battle against having to go on have against having to undergo a cycle sexual evaluation to determine whether he was a pedophile.

3:35:01 I'm saying was, Yeah, he was. He was. On August 20th. 2002 green was sentenced to the minimum sentence. Of five years to life in prison for first-degree felony conviction of child rape for having sex with a quote unquote wife when she was 13. On the last day of Green's bigamy and non-support trial Allison stood in Pat Court, your courtroom and face green for the first time since she fled him that night and I'll go 13 years ago, nowadays, 28. She was finally seeing him in a vulnerable position during cross-examination. Prosecutor, David Leavitt informed. Green's numerous wives and called allicin to the bar.

3:35:44 Quote, I looked him straight in the eyes and quote, she says with Triumph. Nice. So look. This, this story is highly corroborated, right? This isn't This isn't maybe it happened. Maybe it didn't. Write. Some of the stories in there, maybe they didn't, maybe some of them are exaggerated. but the fact that these stories are exist, And they exist. Not just in Lebanon. Their stories from the death LDS to a course, right? And you know, that's the thing like I understood that the flds was the boogie man.

3:36:26 Coming into fundamentalism. I knew about the wrongs that had happened there and that was and I thought understood that was unacceptable. Right? But we get other stories, we get stories out of out of the rock. We get stories out of the AUB. We got stories out of the branch. I don't know if these stories are all true and they have varying degrees of severity. Of the things being described in them. But nevertheless. I feel like something needs to be done. and, There is a. So there was a book called Gulag archipelago, by Alexander Schultz, and he talks about his time in the in the gulags in Russia.

3:37:17 And surviving them and he kind of became a philosopher from the things that he experienced. And one of the points he makes in the book, talking about the future of Russia. Because the Soviet Union fell. It was a Soviet Union that did that to him that that made this horrific meat grinder and started shoving its own people into it. Right. That happened under the Soviet Union. It is now Russia again. And the people are free and Alex and Alexander, Alexander Schultz. And it's like her. No, he's not. He's saying we have problems, still. Yep, the Soviet Union fell. But there was never. A national repentance. 100%.

3:38:06 Things that happened, maybe they weren't intentional. The things happened. and this was his concern with that without a without a public without a seriously, be public. But without an internal recognition that you know what? Yeah, it might have been it might have been those communist leaders that that set this machine in motion, but we kind of stood by We didn't, we didn't we didn't raise up and put a stop to it. that, that To use Mormon clerk that the blood and sins of that generation were on them, too. Right. This is a guilt that Germans experience and they did experience this Guild have the World War Two because the world made sure they did.

3:38:53 All right, we had the Nuremberg trials. Yep. And we made sure as much as possible that Justice was served. And the truth. Of the whores would come out. Yep. I don't know how widespread this is. I don't know how prevalent it is, but the fact that it exists at all, one of my biggest criticisms of the LDS church is that they will not come clean. About their covering up of abuse. Yup. That they think they can just ignore that that happened. They can ignore that christopherson's brother was caught as a PDF.

3:39:37 And then they put him back in a bishop brick and he did it again. Yeah. You don't get a sweep that under the rug. You don't get to say in our church. We don't apologize. Even when we're wrong. You don't get to say that there has to be a understanding. Or the festering wounds in that pain, the blood and sin of that generation ends up on your garments. and, The dead cry out. For justice. I want to see fundamentalism succeed because I have a testimony that Plural. Marriage is a Divine form of marriage. It is not for everybody and it probably does damn more than than it exalts. But nonetheless, There is nothing. Inherently abusive in plural, marriage. But there is so much abuse in some of the ideas or the possibilities of abuse in some of the ideas and the culture surrounding it.

3:40:39 That it needs to be separated, it needs to be called out. I remember when I first came into fundamentalism, And I thought a good listener. Test was tell me what you think about Warren Jeffs in my Naive, you know. Searching around, right? and, I talked to some of the people who had been fundamentals for a while and they all said the same thing. Well, we kind of knew that what was going on down there, right? We understood that there were some things that weren't quite right. And I couldn't help ask the question. Well why why didn't you do something?

3:41:21 Why didn't you why didn't you say something? Right. Why why Let It Go? Why not reach out to the members and be like, you don't have to live this way? um, why not? and I want to say this, when that all went down, For fundamentalists. That should have been like. The moment we discovered the Holocaust and would we say never again? That should have been our never again moment. And my favorite is. My fear is is that we have had that moment collectively yet. But that should be the moment that we look back on.

3:42:03 Now, you still time. That you can look back on it and Say, Never Again. Never again. And not my name. We are quick to denounce wickedness as we should. but, We do ourselves, no favor. If we don't clean up our own ACT first, And look, I want to say this. in, in most of the people I associate with the vast majority of fundamentalists that I have, well, all the fundamentalists I have coming to contact with For the most part have been upright, good people. But some of this is still going.

3:42:50 Right. It's still going on, right? I know leadership of several different groups who love their people who want nothing better for their people. There are times when I think about those men, I am moved to tears with the amount of love and concern, they express for their membership. but we still, Have a little bit of work to do to stamp this out and remove it but we have to have the courage to look first and have these uncomfortable conversations so that we can Purge this from us and we we can deal with it in a way that allows for forgiveness and Grace and repentance and then allows us to move forward so that we can we can be those those you know, families that are and communities that are happy and vibrant and alive and going forward.

3:43:49 And this is one of the things we've got to get rid of if we want to take that next step. Well yeah, let's get specific because I having gone through this book. I don't think this is. I said this is not a polygamy problem, but there are other problems. And I think that when these other problems are addressed, then plural marriage can be free of this game. So let's get it free. What are the issues then? I I read the book. I was analyzing. I prayed about it. And I have six points. I want to share that. As fundamentalists.

3:44:32 Our families and our organizations. I feel need to be able to say this is wrong. On these six points. And some of them might be hard to face. And they're not all necessarily none of them are inherently abusive. But like I said, we live in a day and age and when when you have a system, and these are accepted beliefs, there will be abused. And none of these beliefs to be clear either. I don't think they were all introduced with Mal intent. Let me say that too.

3:45:12 I don't think that the people who introduced some of these things were were gunning for for an opportunity to abuse children. No, I agree. They were brought in for a reason, there's cultural stuff, there's historical stuff and they were wrong. But that's the thing, they were wrong and they need to be abandoned and they need to be disavowed. Yep. That doesn't disavow the people who did it. Just like me saying underage, marriages should be illegal is not me throwing Joseph Smith under the bus. It's throwing Tom, Green under the bus or your grandparents? They're different, yeah, or my grandparents, these are different situations. Yep. So with that.

3:45:54 I want to go over six points with the audience. You want to share screen for this? Ah, I should have said that way. I Don't have visuals necessarily, okay, but they're short, they're short. And then we're going to or we can discuss. Why though? It was when we need, okay? So number one, underage marriage. We are already talked about this but underage marriage has to be that has to be a no has to be a know, even if even if you pray about it and you know that it's okay because that's the right one and they're ready, it has to be a no Right. No exceptions. Yep.

3:46:35 Okay, if you're sure that 16 year old is supposed to be in your family and you are so sure about that that you've quote received a revelation. That Revelation can steal for another two years. Yeah. And if you're talking about, and if you think God saying otherwise, then you are the problem. Yep. If you think God's saying otherwise, you can't wait two years. You can't wait three years. You can't wait till this can be done legally. Know. Yes, not how God operates. Yep. That's not how religions function either and when you start saying that is how God operates that is, how religions function. You you are you are founding a cult. Yep.

3:47:18 Okay. Point number two, Placement slash arranged marriage. Mm-hmm. I know this is a thing places. I didn't understand it until evaluating it in context. It's easy to think that this could be an inspired thing, right? Because if you've got, if you've got a prophet like Joseph Smith. Surely surely, it could be okay to go to Joseph Smith and be like, who should I marry Right, what's wrong with that? Well. There's some issues even even there, I'd say there's certain potential issues, right?

3:48:03 But here's, here's my take on this, okay? because, who you marry is the most Significant important life. Any eternal life determining decision. You will make in your life. You all parties involved, both parties involved and down the road. Maybe three or four. They need to be able to own that decision. Yep, they need to be able to own it. Yep, I'm not saying that there's not place for for parents. And the community and religiously leaders to give advice and inspiration and Direction and help to bring people together.

3:48:44 There is nothing wrong with that whatsoever. That's not what I'm talking about. what I'm talking about is when, if you do not ask The prophet to assign you a husband, you don't have a Celestial marriage, right? Exactly, exactly. I'm talking about here here so tooth. Why is it wrong? Explain? Why it's wrong? Dave? Yeah, that was just gonna say there. There's a couple things here that we need to talk about on this. One, I want to say just like you did at the beginning of this, I have no problems with a young man or a young woman going to their ecclesiastical leader. And then saying something to the effect of gosh, you know what I've been trying to pray about who I should marry, and I've just been drawing a blank.

3:49:36 Can you help me? I think that's great. I think that's great, right? As long as That leader doesn't give the the Sith the Lord Revelation that goes along with it. Alright? Hey this is what I prayed about, this is what I feel, but you really need to have your own witness of this go. Let's start the courtship process and see if this works and if it comes back, hey this isn't going to work. The first thing that religiously should not say is well the Lord said so so get over there right, right? Doesn't doesn't work that way, okay? Here's the other way, it's bad. I know of a situation. where, there was a young woman who got married to the young man.

3:50:28 Who. Um, was arranged, right? Sanctioned blessed. By the man. It doesn't work out the young man turns out to be. Blessed than what was advertised. Young woman wants a divorce. Goes to. her leader and said, We're getting a divorce but I would like to be remarried. And here's what came back. Well this was the Lord's will for you. This is just a trial that you're called to endure. Go and enjoy it and I'm sure things will get better. That is the wrong answer.

3:51:08 Yeah, and basically saying I'm not going to see you to anybody else. Right. And I hope that situation has been rectified. But nonetheless. If it has, that's great. But nonetheless, that's the wrong answer. That is depriving somebody of their agency. Now, exactly could be what could be the outgrowth of that. Well, if you're putting so much stock into this one guy who talks to God and God talks to him, And they arrange that marriage. And then that marriage falls apart. Now you've created a faith crisis. On top of another Faith, crisis of Justice, dude, being less than than optimal, right?

3:51:54 you've created another Faith crisis, as in Why would God do that to me and does God really talk to that man. So as a leader it's not a great, it's not a great thing to be taking that stance and I watched it happen. Should say, I watched it, I heard about it happen. Dave, okay, was David called of God. The King. David King David? Yeah. Was David called of God at, yeah. Yeah. Did he fall? Yeah. Yeah, that's why that's why you've got to be able to own that. Right. Yeah put that on somebody else. Even a good guy. Even somebody like King David, a man after the Lord's own heart can fall. Can you take responsibility?

3:52:39 If you are a parent or you are a priesthood head assigning marriages. Can you take responsibility? If it doesn't work out. Yeah, I only know one person who can take responsibility if it doesn't work out. That's, that's Father in heaven. Well yeah, I thought you meant like take responsibility and own your own. Crap on why it fell apart? Know, make it better fix it. Fix it. Right. Right. Actually make things rectified right. Sorry, I misunderstood what you were asking their But yeah, sure that as well. the, the next thing that I would say about this, Is that?

3:53:22 When we engage in those practices. Like it or not. We are. Taking away. Somebody else's agency. Right. And look they may say well you can do what you want but it may or may not be a Eternal Marriage. Well, that's that's not right either. Because what you've done is you've been, you've put a cloud to dispersion over a brand new marriage and what which one of us is Mormons would want to start out a marriage, with maybe we're sealed, and maybe we're not. Because this may or may not be the Lord's will. know, you want to walk into that, pretty certain because you received your own personal Witness And finally, here's the other bad thing that comes with this.

3:54:13 And that sort of system, you know, who gets married. He who kisses the ass the most. Of the one man that's who gets married. and so, and it turns women into chattel to be To be dispersed to. To the Yes, Men. And so it's got problems written all over. Again, I have no issues with a young man or a young woman of their own volition. Coming to a priesthood leader. And saying gosh, I'm just drawing a blank. I don't know who I should marry. You are doing a good thing as an ecclesiastical leader and praying about that with them in praying about that yourself and then coming back with a few ideas. But if it doesn't work out during the courtship process, allow the process to play out.

3:55:05 Do not force a marriage. Yeah, that's what I have on it. Don't first marriage and don't lie. Don't lie that it's gonna be a lesser marriage. If if it's not done by your inspiration, that's not true, show me, show me the scriptures where it says that Your marriage is not Celestial or less than if it was entered into by two. Consenting adults. Instead of two consenting adults obeying a priesthood head. Right, I'll wait. again, we don't see it and let's go back to David because What was it? The prophet told him, I can't remember which prophet it was if it was Nathan or Samuel at that point.

3:55:48 But but what did the prophet tell him when he confronts him? About what he's done? Considering Uriah the hittite he said, how did you just ask the Lord would have given you more wise, right? Meaning, that David had a choice there, right? Yeah. If so, they weren't arranging things in such a way like that. Even in ancient Israel. So, Where, where is this? Come from, right, I understand that. Brigham Young did a couple of times But those seem to be outliers, those don't seem to be the norm. Now Joseph Smith, there's one incident I can find and that incident is a guy who if I'm not mistaken had been widowed.

3:56:34 Joseph is at a social function. And the way it sounds from the historical record. It's not thus saith the Lord. It's like, hey, bro, I see sister. So, and so eyeballing you over there, you should go. You should go say hi and chat her up and asked her to dance, right? That's much more of like a brother trying to help a brother to get him back into the game, so to speak. And so right? This and look I want to say this, this placement marriage thing. It was started with the best of intention, right? If I'm not mistaken, this gets started down south because you have a bunch of old men running around trying to snatch up every girl that is about ready to turn of age, right? And they they do this to try to protect the girls but we see what it more into right when maybe the thing to do is just have a priesthood meeting and have the leaders that are there being like knock it off, you're being you're being discussed in stop how about reprimanding the men who are being abusive and instead of instead of still engaging from the women, That's exactly what I was saying, right? Have a priesthood meeting chastise. Those boys who are doing it and be like, knock it off. Um, there were other ways of doing it, but I do want to give give that bit that it started with every bit of good intentions there.

3:57:57 If that I have no doubt. Yeah. But and and I am sure that his produced many successful marriages as well, where it did work out, they made it work it, maybe it wasn't even inspired and it but it didn't have to be that way. And if you are in one of those marriages, and imagine how much more faith and confidence, you'd have in yourself in your relationship with God. If you had made that decision, Or look just being able to look at your spouse in the hard times and say did you get your confirmation? Yep, I got my confirmation. You get your heart confirmation? Yep. Okay, great, let's sit here and make it works since we both had a confirmation from God that that this is a good union.

3:58:42 Right? Um, because you can always fall back on your own testimony, rather than relying on the testimony of somebody else. Right. So in this category I am including maybe it's not coercion but if you if you are presenting a theology that this is superior this is better. You don't get into the highest Heaven's you. Are your your marriage is going to fail otherwise that those are those are damned lies. Stop lying about that stuff. Repent. and, We need to do better. Call this out. You don't have to throw, you don't have to throw your parents, your ancestors, or your own marriage, under the bus to do so. But you can say, this is a problem. Now, we are not going to continue this because we are aware, we tried it as Alma talks about. In The Book of Mormon, we've planted that seed in the ground. We looked for the fruit.

3:59:37 It never came, it did not grow. So we're casting out the field so we can plant something there that needs to be there. So put the right. The right tree in the orchard. Because this is a dead branch. Yeah. Oh, excuse me. I want to say one other thing here on this before, before we move on from this, and that is if you are a good actor, if you are a leader that loves your people, And you honestly think you were doing God's work. good on you, but understand this, we have examples out the Book of Mormon of good Kings and bad kings.

4:00:19 Right. King Benjamin. He was awesome. King Noah, not so much. Now, you might be a good guy, doing your absolute best in this sort of a system. but, How confident are you that you'll never have a bad profit at some point? Yeah, you that's why that's a problem, right? That's what the systemic abuse and why it's so hard to stop. Once it gets rolling. Yes. And it could have been a good thing. It could have been a really. It could have been better, right. Maybe it was things were really bad and then they introduced this and things got better.

4:01:02 Right. But then you get some less than ideal Leader's and now it's even worse than it started. Because now now men are Barbering and trading. They're underage daughter's, his wife's. To get financial gain and, and positions of authority and, and Prestige, and the organizations. Yeah, it's systemic. Now is what it is. yeah, and and look. Maybe it's not happening at the moment but if the doors are for that, kind of abuse to start taking place. At some point, someone will walk through the door. It's just that's just the nature of Fallen man.

4:01:47 Anyway, that's all I got on that one. Yeah. So, let's move on this. Next one's gonna be a little bit easier, incest. I'm ashamed that I got to bring this one up. Yeah no that one should be a dead giveaway. Again, I know priesthood lines. Who have a spouse? This You know who you are. Um, as well, everybody eventually. That's will everybody at at some point? Yes. Um, You Know Who You Are. If that's your tradition. I would be. I would be for cleaning that up.

4:02:27 First off, just you um let's just let's just get through it that way. Yeah. So pretty clean cut, right? You know, fathers and daughters? No, no uncles. He says, I don't know. Siblings. Half siblings? No, no. No, no, no. You yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I actually believe this one generally is understood, but I think it should be thrown out there as well between Sister Wives. Right. Right. Yeah, like this is this is all incestuous.

4:03:08 This is never been, okay? This is never been Justified. I can, I can quote Old Testament, to New Testament, to the, to the Book of Mormon. It's just, no, no. This is, this is never been a thing. Right? This is never been a thing. You you're not you're not gonna find well but Joseph, no, not even that not even there, right? Like get out of here. Now, I do understand. that there was a time in this earth when people didn't understand the problems of this, Right. This scriptures were there but they disregarded the scriptures and they disregarded God's law and they didn't understand that there are physiological consequences.

4:03:57 Yep. There are physiological consequences, this isn't, this is not a religious value thing. This is a biological reality. Yep. Beyond messed up on a moral level. It's a biological reality. You're not keeping your blood, pure you are. You are multiplying genetic diseases. the only way to stop that is to share your genome. Right. You try to isolate it, you are going to have genetic defects out to wazoo. Yep. Yep. And absolutely, I don't know, I don't think we need to spend time doing a biology lesson, but it's very simple.

4:04:39 Look it up on YouTube, if you don't understand incest, no, no. Yep. And I think we all understand that one. So again, I think we should all understand that one but yeah, I'm gonna say I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it, because There's stories. Yep, hopefully they're just stories. We'll find out. All right next. This one, this one's gonna be a little tricky, too. I and I really prayed about it, and I might have to explain this carefully. Yep. Okay, patriarchal control and subjugation of wives.

4:05:19 Okay. So let me try to explain this real quick and then I'll let you ask some questions, okay. What I'm talking about here. Is. A husband and wife have a disagreement on something. and, the man pulls says that you all you made Temple covenants to obey me And section 132, you know, I'm a disobeying. Joseph, who's gonna be destroyed, you don't want to be destroyed, do you? You need to do what I say because I'm I am your husband, no matter what you got to do, what I say. There is no no matter what right that Covenant was conditional and as much as he follows the law of Elohim. Exactly.

4:06:12 It's conditional and I unfortunately I hear a quote, it sometimes without the condition Right. That's a bit of a problem because as a man, here's what you need to understand is a man The Covenant that you make to the Lord is a responsibility upon you. To always. Be asking God. To always have his Spirit to know that you're making the right call. Right? That's a responsibility when your wife covenants to obey you as you obey the father, That's all a responsibility on, you. because when it comes down to it, brass tacks you have no right or authority to coerce your wife against her will you don't tie up your wife, dragged or kick it and screaming All right, she is not your property. This does not make her your property. which means if You are inspired with the decision and she disagrees. You need to, you have a responsibility to convince her. To earn her, Trust.

4:07:24 So that she doesn't. if assuming you are inspired so that she doesn't damn herself by Refusing, because she can always refuse. A healing is not a title of ownership. And dominant is not a title of ownership. The Covenant that she makes to obey you is a burden and a responsibility upon you. To have her Trust. Right? And it's responsibility for you to make sure that you're inspired. Because there is nothing. We do not believe and women are not slaves in this country.

4:08:05 Yeah. It's not. and and these covenants don't make a woman a Slave now. Should a woman, hit her husband's Council. Only if it's good counsel. Only if it's good, so good. Let's let's let's let's let's look at this. Let's say that. Let's say that. You got a teenage daughter? and and she's dating a dating, some kid, and school and the father's like You know what?

4:08:46 I don't think that kid's a good kid. She's she's just she's only 16. I don't think we, I think we need to tell or not to to be date in the sky anymore right now. Right? And the mother says Ah I don't know. I think she'll resist. She'll Rebel. She'll get into trouble. Anyways I think it's okay. What do you do in the situation? Well, the dad rules with an iron fist, right? This is more than them, the man's in charge. Um well in this case he is but you your wife and your daughter are still going to do what they're going to do. You need to convince them of this, but you don't, you know, are you gonna like physically?

4:09:29 Are you gonna physically tie up your family? You gonna you're gonna pull him from school? You're gonna, you're gonna like, how far can you really actually go, how much power do you really have? Right. Right now, on the other hand, on the other hand. What about a situation where Maybe the mother's got a better intent, maybe, maybe the father's like hey you know what, I think our 12 year old girl is ready to go. Get married to Tom Green. If you're a woman in, your husband is saying that to you. Thank goodness, Tom. Green's Dad, we don't have to worry about that. but if that came up, And the father's like look I prayed about it, I prayed about it and I'm sure the law of Elohim is for our 12 year old to go.

4:10:18 Be Tom Green's wife at 12 years old. What do you do as a woman? you protect your family, you have a responsibility to protect your family, you are not sinning, in disobeying that you are not in violation of your covenants in disobeying that, Right. So I guess what I'm trying to say is the reality of the situation is as long as women are not allowed to be legal slaves in America. Those covenants are responsibilities. They're not Powers.

4:10:58 Just like the priest in his power. It's a responsibility as well. The priesthood doesn't give you power to coerce those underneath. You not even to do the right thing, not even to make the right decisions. Right? If you see wrong, doing you rebuke it. but, but, You got, you've got no actual authority to control other people by virtue of the priesthood. Long patients suffer long suffering. Brotherly kindness. You gotta apply that to your wives as well. You're not going to keep them because I'll tell you what, regardless, of whatever ordinances you might receive on this Earth. On the other side. if you're a woman or or your man, Really doesn't want you.

4:11:50 That's not going to continue, God's not going to be like too bad. Your temple sealing is an opportunity. To have. An eternal family. It is not the guarantee of it, it's an opportunity. And that I took most are pointed that out when we did the temple Covenant series. And we talked about, yes, And he nailed that out of the park. And I've told everybody, if you have a young person who wants to get married and sealed have them, listen to that one, take out anything I say, and just listen to Isaac because he nailed that thing out of the park, 100%. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you there.

4:12:31 That's all right. Yeah, exactly. So in other words, if this, if this sounds off though but patriarch men are supposed to be head of household, they are and let me explain how that works. the way that works is, As head of household, I have responsibility to get inspiration on the family decisions. I also have a responsibility to earn my wife's Trust She is does not. She is not due to give me her trust. I have her responsibility to earn her Trust. As I earn her, Trust. when we have different ideas on things, And I say, well, I have prayed about it and I feel good about this is the priesthood had my wife defers. not because not because she has to Not because she covenanted to. Because she trusts me. and because she trusts me, she believes that I am being inspired and because she believes I mean inspired, That's why. That's why she's going along.

4:13:36 If you think your wife is only obeying you out of fear of violating a covenant with God, You don't have a wife. Yeah, I think it's worthwhile to bring up 121 here. because for some reason, I've seen some guys, not all guys. Again I think most husbands and fundamentalism are fine, husbands doing a great work. if we start in verse 39 here, it's gonna lay out what the problems are and what the solution is on this, one concerning our wives, 39 we've learned by sciat experience. That is the nature and disposition. Of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority as they suppose, they will immediately be into exercise and righteous Dominion, hence, many are called, but if you are chosen, no power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood only by persuasion by longsuffering by gentleness meekness and by love unfeigned. By kindness and pure knowledge.

4:14:45 Which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy and without guile removing batimes with sharpness. When moved to Palm by the Holy Ghost. And then showing forth afterwards an increase of Love towards him, whom thou has reproved. Lest he esteem need to be the guy. Enemy esteem me to be his enemy. Excuse me. so, how do we get? Get our wives to follow us. It's by exercising that right, the the the patients, the long suffering, the the kindness, the knowledge, the the love unfeigned, right? And look at times in your family, there will be times to reprove, right? But if that's where you leave it, you've missed the boat because now you gotta show forth an increase of love. Right.

4:15:37 Yeah. And that is the doctrine of the priesthood. And, and look, I want to say this too, right? It talks about if you accomplish those things. Right. Let Die and this is in 45. Let Die bowels all. So, be full of Charity towards all men and the household of faith and let virtue garnish your thoughts and see, then shall you, then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distill upon thy Soul as the Jews of Heaven. When, when you get to this point, right? How does do we live out in Missouri, right?

4:16:20 Where he comes up. Every morning. Justin is the due forced at all. No, no, no, just sort of magically appears it. Just it just happens and it just right, it starts a little dripping, right? He gets a little bit bigger and bigger and bigger, right? Right. So gentle, it's so gentle, it doesn't even land, it's not like rain, and this is what I think it's telling us here is men, right? If you gain that confidence, if you practice the love, unfeigned the patience, the charity, the kindness. When you've had to reprove with sharpness, you've shown an increase of love. Well then you can't help. but have the confidence. And the doctrine of the priesthood. Just naturally.

4:17:10 Comfortable. It's a natural process, right? I want to say this. Well, I don't see this to my own horn because I do more things wrong than I do, right? Most of the time, but last year Amber and I celebrate our 30th anniversary by going back east. And we'd already made the plans. We bought the tickets. We arranged like everything rental, car Hotel. Everything And I find out some really close personal friends, who I just love to death were coming through the temple, to get their endowments. And I just felt the Lord say you need to be here for this.

4:17:52 And I'm like, oh crap. Alright, so now I got a March down the hall. I got talked to Amber. I'm like hey, you know this happened right now. She was irritated irritated, but nonetheless. She kind of, you know, said is this really necessary? I said, I think it is. And she said, okay, that's enough, I'll go ahead and do that. She makes all the changes and we not only get to see our friends go through the temple. But when we do, go on our trip, I all the sudden find myself in some very interesting places that will be talked about in later podcasts here in just a few months on certain dates that I just couldn't have planted.

4:18:39 Right? And we were calling audibles, I was calling audibles all through that vacation on one of the places where we were on the important date that I had no idea was the important date. I called an audible the night before, right? We touched down in Philly. And I said, you know what, I want to go that way first and I'm just gonna leave it there because I don't want to spoil the future podcast. But I said, I want to go that way first and she's like, why it's like oh, I just feel like it's important. And again, she was like, like being married to me, has got to be rough. Um, it can't be a picnic because I'll just call an audible when I feel like it's needed, right? but it all worked out, exactly the way it was supposed to but if Amber doesn't have confidence, In me calling that audible in the moment.

4:19:32 It doesn't happen, right? And so, or go on without their right or we're going there. So pissed off at each other. That nothing good can happen, right? And so yeah like there there that whole thing about the love, unfeigned and gentlemen and meekness and and you know, patience and long suffering. Those are so needed and establishing that relationship of trust. And I'll say one of the things in trust men, you gotta own your mistakes with your wife. Yes, kids. This is so important. You've got to be able to, You're Gonna Make Mistakes, you have made mistakes if you don't own it. You lose trust and then you lose influence and then you then and then you're relying on nothing but you may Temple covenants, you have to and and that's all you got. Yep, and the sad thing is you are still responsible as head of household, but but at that point, you you've lost it. You've lost your ability to to guide your family, right? Justly. 100%.

4:20:40 So this is a lose-lose. And has no place in front of the right. You don't subjugate your wife's. You're not the king. You're not the Tyrant King. She is your help me and you and you owe her. You owe her on that not respect. And and and And you have to earn her Trust. Yup. And that's and if you get that at work and you're not a controlling Tyrant and you know the last household works, you are the head of the household and everything that needs to happen. Happens the way that they God intended to work in a family, which can be complicated when you've got men and women adults with different ideas, different perspectives. Absolutely.

4:21:29 So right. All right, next point. This one's number four. One five. That was four. Wow, we're already on Five, Holy Cow. Yeah. Okay, I'm five. This one is prohibitions against divorce. And you actually kind of already already brought this one up a little bit, but yeah, this isn't, this isn't okay. I'm not saying you should be teaching, it adult that divorces is theologically a good thing? That's not what I'm saying. But there are cases where there is abuse. Right. Even a good man. Might become a monster. and for the protection of, of women and children, They need to they need to be able to get away from that.

4:22:13 There are lines that once crossed. Can't be uncrossed. Yep. And if you're saying, there is no recourse, you you're done, it's it's done your sealed, then you are crazy. You are going to create a, you're going to, you are going to create systemic abuse in that household instead of instead of abuse. It's now systemic abuse. And that's on you as well, for refusing to intervene in a way that can help protect Those those victims. So, absolutely look. I want to share a little bit of history on this one. so, Brigham Young.

4:22:57 You know, we, we tend to look at Brigham Young as kind of the, the hardest of Mormons, right? Like, just nails and two degree. He was right? I mean there's no dude out. He's chewing on steel and spitting it back at you. However, When it came to divorce, if a woman would come to him and say I need a divorce, it was almost like, okay. Alright, maybe a little bit of Investigation, but pretty much he was signing every one of those. If you were a dude and went to Brigham Young and said, hey, I wanted divorce. My wife because of X Y and Z outside of like adultery or some form of abuse.

4:23:37 He was like, yeah, go go suck eggs and go work it out with your wife. Nice. Try, right. So like, if Brigham Young was was willing to granted divorce when he thought it was necessary. You're no better than Brigham Young. I hate to break that to you and anybody out there who thinks they're better than Brigham Young, good luck. Let me know how this turns out for you. Well, I'm bringing that's one of those wives go. Yeah. he left one of his go-to when it's like, all right, this is he tried everything and she's the assistant and he can't change your mind. He was finally like, okay. Yeah.

4:24:20 That was a man in my opinion that was using 121 as a guideline, right? Yeah. He didn't tie her up. He didn't keep her home. He was like, okay, See you later. Yeah, you know. Sorry just didn't work out and off. She went um, I yeah, so even the hardest Among Us, the guy who chewed not steal for fun. Yeah. Take your cues from him on this one. Yeah. It said it's an important remedy. And unfortunate Situation's. So, last one. Number six. The inequitable treatment of wives and children. And this one's really obvious, but also a little new ones. And I can't speak to this one as much because I'm not living this, and I don't know.

4:25:08 All the ins and outs. However, what I am aware of as I had seen I've heard of situations where things were not being done properly where you had favoritism happening within the home. Right. I don't know how you balance it all in the best way to balance it all. But if you have a, if you have a wife, that's dissatisfied With the arrangement, then there's a good chance that that something's something wrong is going on. Yeah. And you know along with this idea this is an idea that's come out of this book. This is it's tied to something else. I just want to briefly bring this up too. Marriage.

4:25:54 There needs to be love in marriage. Oh, it is not really mirror marriage Without Love. And there is a running idea. In some places in Mormon, fundamentalism that marriage is a duty. And that it's not about having romantic feelings for your spouse. It's about Doing what's needed so that you can achieve your Celestial Glory. I think you're, I think you're missing out. and, I think this is a product of men who entered into the principal maybe because they've been taught that if you don't enter in the principal, you won't receive the Social Kingdom.

4:26:38 So they enter into the principal when they're not really ready out of fear out of out of religious fear, right? Yeah. And they're in love with their first wife, but they took that second wife. Out of Duty. Right? And they don't know how to open their heart and actually have that romantic love with that wife or could be vice versa where they feel like they. They take a second wife and their head over heels for this new woman and now the first wife and then they're not feeling that anymore. Right, and to justify this. We get this idea that well marriage isn't really about love.

4:27:20 It is they in the Universal love sense, but not in a, not in a you know, me a mallard. It's not, it's not passionate, it's not romantic. It's, that's a little that's not real love. The important thing is the, the commitment and the willing to sacrifice, and don't get me wrong, there is value in mature. Love This is an issue I have with with LDS, folks, too though to a certain degree. So I see a lot of loveless marriages there too, where again, people are just kind of hanging on for religious reasons, not because of their own desires. But marriage is meant to be joyful. It is meant to be joyful. And if it's not then you know maybe it's a marriage counseling but don't give up on that.

4:28:05 Because it can be joyful. you know, I I want to say this The passionate stuff, the butterflies. That tends to go inside? I've been married to Amber 30 years. I've been married to Tanya for three. That goes in Cycles, right? And I want to say this, you should always be able to fall back on the commitment thing to make it work, right? Because you're going to have UPS in your gonna have Downs, like any relationship. And you don't just bail. At the first sign of trouble, right? So sometimes Sometimes he got to use, you know, you got to use on yourself the commitment card because if there's one thing that we see in society, that's detrimental.

4:28:48 It's that people are too quick to divorce, right? Just two quick to, to throw in the towel, right? Well, I'm just not in love with them anymore. um, but think of the work, think of the work that when you when you're dating, when you do have those butterflies The work that you put into that relationship, you know? Yes, you're working out. You're, you're brushing your teeth, extra 10 minutes, you got mints, you combing, your hair. You got some new clothes, like, you are putting work into that relationship. That's why there's romance there, though, because you are putting work into it. Alright, if you let that die off. The passion comes down, but you can bring it back.

4:29:28 You just got the work back into it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna share a story here. I can't believe I'm throwing myself on the bus like this. So Amber. And I, like I said, we've been married 30 years, And more, the vast vast majority of that has just been Bliss, but we did go through a rough Point patch at one point, right? It was early on. Things weren't going great for a number of reasons. And I remember I I talked to my grandfather. Who kind of served as like a dad after my dad passed away. And I didn't have him long either but he passed along a few nuggets. So I had to go to Washington State to do a job anyway, and it's when it's during this time when Amber and I are really fighting, and and my grandfather says, oh, you're up here. We should get together for dinner and I'm like, fantastic. Let's do that.

4:30:25 So, we find a steakhouse and we, you know, sit down and start eating like, well, how's things going at home? And I'm like, well kids are good, but I don't know, Grandpa like things are not wedded bliss at my house. Okay, so, oh yeah, I can happen. and I was like, I wonder if I need to think about a divorce. And he just looked at me with just this disgusted. Look And he goes. Did you really think that you were always just gonna be? Floating on cloud nine. After you got married, relationships are work son. And sometimes you just got to recognize the commitment you made until things get better.

4:31:11 And but that level of disappointment he had in that moment. Ooh, did that stink? Right? And and I know, I wasn't the only one thinking about it at that time. Like, it took some work to get things back on track, and it's been fine ever since but, We're all going to go through down Cycles in our relationships, right? Kids are running around, you know you're barely seeing each other. You're going to work for 12 hours a day. Your wife is 10 in the kids, she's running them to every activity they have or whatever and it just gets tough, right? That's when you fall back on commitment. But to your point, the question needs to be asked, am I putting in the sufficient amount of work that's needed to do that? And that's one of those things that I think we really have to ask ourselves as guys, as are we putting in the same amount of effort.

4:32:07 You know, I got a question for you about this, maybe. I don't know where this is gonna go but, um, What happens when, if you got, if you've got multiple wives, what happens when you end up in that state with one wife? But you're not that state with the other because I think the natural inclination is to abandon this one and focus time and energy on on the one that's you're getting along with right? Is that what she did? No, no. And because here's here's, and I'm, I can only speak for my own experience, right? Everybody's a little bit different and so I'll just speak for my experience here. Two things typically happen. One is there's a spillover effect, no matter how hard I try.

4:32:48 Right? If things aren't going well, somewhere else, I'm probably a little certainly all the way around, right? And so there is no at least for me it's really hard to isolate it right when it's just run-of-the-mill stuff, right? You're you're in one of those down Cycles. but I can tell you something Amber's told me before, right, just to give you an example, there have been times where maybe I'm You know, having friction with one wife and I'll go in and I'll, you know, it's obvious, right? And that the wife on I'm with, will be. Like why are, why are you here? You you're not completely patched up with my sister wife. Go fix it.

4:33:33 Right? And that's that look. And I'm not saying that's normal, I don't know what normal is and these things, right? I can only speak from my own experience. but, That's how plural marriage is. Kind of made me a bedroom, man, to be honest with you, in a better husband because when there's two people calling you out on your crap, By consensus, it gets pretty hard to be like, no, you don't get it. No, they probably get it right? If two of them are seeing the same thing. Yeah, they're probably getting it and it's at that point they gang up on you. A little bit. Yeah, and look, I want to say this. My wives are awesome, right? Like, I don't get to sit here with you. We're going on five hours now with this, right? We I don't get this opportunity without my wives, absolutely being Stellar wives and being like, no, you gotta go take care of of the Lord's business, right? And look, you know, my schedule.

4:34:29 I am insanely busy, right? But nonetheless, they give me the space to do what I need to do because they understand I'm my time's not my own anymore. And so that's how that's how this principle is made me a better guy because I self-examine a lot more than what I used to. When I was just when I was a monogamous, I'm not saying you can't get there some monogamous, that's not what I'm saying, but for for a guy like me, it makes it easier to be like, oh, Maybe my crap really does stink and then I gotta go clean stuff up. Mm-hmm. So let me explain what this isn't, right? Or what the problem with this one is let me illustrate this, right?

4:35:15 Because we've kind of talked about maybe how it works in a proactive side. But where how is this become abusive? This can become abusive if you have one wife or family of children that you spend more time with than the others that have better things that have nice Rift things that always get priority and or that when, if there's a conflict between wives You're always picking. Sides with a favorite. Now there are going to be obviously inequalities in these marriages, its natural position, different people, different situations, right?

4:36:01 Different stages of life, you know? Like you were just talking about right now, you've got one wife. That doesn't have little children and she can go and work. You've got another white. That's got a newborn very different situation. You can't treat them equally. know, in that situation, that would be in just but what I'm talking about is, Inequitable treatment. Right? It can be completely Equitable to say, you know, here's what we need, here's what our family needs and What needs from you, and here's where our families and one needs from you. Those things being different Right. But a balanced. Oh balanced as a whole, right? Because what I've seen in a situation where you have like a wife, that doesn't like a second wife, and now she's gotta go live out in the barn. Right, she's gotta go live out in the bar and me and you get date nights.

4:36:51 She doesn't get date nights with you. You can see you know, once a week Right. Um, that kind of that's what I'm talking about here, right? And also bringing the kids into that too. Yeah, that happens. And it's that's abuse, that's not okay, you know, you know. And yeah and and you It's tough, right? Because I understand that a lot of this is going to vary from family to family a little bit right now. There are certain things that you just can't do, right? Like if you got one wife, that's put up in a palace and another and And, you know, a hovel somewhere that doesn't seem quite fair.

4:37:32 I think you can do a better job of equaling those things out. However, as you were saying, Equitable doesn't always mean equal. Does that make sense? Let me give you an example. When Tanya had the baby. And the baby was in the hospital over Christmas. I had kids that had flown into Utah. From Utah to Missouri here. And they came down with the idea that we were going to have, you know, Christmas together. Well, I ended up spending a lot of time up the hospital, right? And I did spend some time at home but I was up at the hospital a lot. and, I remember, as I was leaving Christmas Eve to go back to the hospital. Amber came out and walked me out to the car to the truck. And I just said, babe, I'm sorry. I'm not here and I know this must not seem fair. And she said, she said something that stuck with me which is you're doing exactly what you need to do right now. And she used the line on me that I usually use on her which is balances, very rarely struck in the moment. Meaning that true balance I think takes time even years. Right.

4:38:51 Um, And so I think that's something that's important to keep in mind as well. Is that sometimes circumstances will dictate? What is equitable? and then, you have to Show forth a little bit more. Care and attention to the wife who sacrificed for a season and now in the long run. Yeah, yeah. And that's that's hopefully how how you get to achieve balance? Okay. Well, these are my. These are the six points that I felt inspired that. Need to be addressed. And again, not not necessarily.

4:39:40 Not necessarily just. from a Let's not do this anymore kind of situation or yeah. Okay, I guess that's kind of right but from a from a, this is unacceptable, we need to gatekeep, we all have a responsibility to, to not see. Abuses of these kinds happening within our families and our communities. We are all responsible and there's things that we can all do, and Yeah. So You know, I would like to say this because it sounds like you're you're close to wrapping right up there, right?

4:40:20 Mm-hmm. I want to say two things. If, if you're In a group that is doing these things. You should be asking some hard questions. you should, you know, if if it's not meeting you or needs, you are Justified and leaving that system. I think it's important that that you advocate for yourself and your family and get yourself out of those kind of situations. Two. if your group, On your leader in a group that has historically had these things happening in your group. Shed them now.

4:41:10 Be done with it. believe them in the past, put them on the ash heap of History where every other bad idea belongs and then, Repent and move forward. You know, we've talked about some really really hard things here tonight. and, It quite frankly, I'm like you, this is one. I never wanted to do. Never wanted to touch this one. but, I don't think there's anybody Among Us who wouldn't want. To be a little bit more.

4:41:52 Of the the light on the hill, the city on the hill. I don't think there's any one of us that don't want to let our light shine a little bit brighter. So that we can let others know. Hey, it's good here. You know, these principles are designed to bring you Joy. But in order to do that, I think we have to clean out the junk. Right. Just like his people individually. If we want to let her light shine a little bit brighter. Well, we gotta repent. We got clean out the junk, right? And organizations are just like people and they can make mistakes and they can change for the better, right? This is not A, a death sentence doesn't have to be anyway.

4:42:41 If you can recognize where, you know what, things aren't great in this department. Right. You've done half the work. You've been able to look in the mirror and be like Oh yeah this is messed up. Now do the rest of it. Go. The other direction. Get rid of it. Move past it. Because I don't know of a single fundamentalist that doesn't want a happier, healthier, family, and community. And to get to that kind of vibrancy. I think we just have to look Inward and It's it's awfully hard for us to criticize other systems if our systems have bad stuff in mq. And so if we wanted to retake the moral High Ground, we're going to have to start at home and then work outwards.

4:43:25 And that's that's where I'll leave this one. I just want the audience to know, I appreciate them. I love them and how much, you know, the time they spend here with us but and I'll turn the rest over to you just in to take us out here. All right, well with these with these six points, right? If we had always adhere to these six points, This book wouldn't exist. Right. All right, at least it wouldn't be about us. I am ashamed that this book is about us, though. And I feel like we need we need to be able to make a fresh start. I agree with Dave that we can change if these things are happening, these things can change. but, Part of that change as Schultz. And it's an explained is actual repentance and that means coming to grips with it and you know, maybe I shouldn't do this but I feel like I should Okay. maybe we can edit it if you like it, but the Nielsen name organization. As actually address these things and they and they do address these things.

4:44:33 I see their leadership talk to their members. About in the past. Maybe this was okay. And but now, These things aren't okay. And this is why and they talk about it and they and that is so important because you can decide well, we won't promote it anymore, we won't teach it anymore. But you have culture and culture your responsible for your organization's culture, as well as its teachings. If you're in leadership, right? And as it individual, you are also responsible for that culture too. and, so, yeah, as Dave said these things don't guarantee bad outcomes.

4:45:21 These don't guarantee of these. None of these six points is, 100% of the use of in and of itself. There can be situations where these things can be non-abusive and there are situations where they weren't abusive in the past too, right? but, Where we are now knowing that these are these are these six points. Open the door for systemic abuse. That's why they got to be shot. and there's no place for systemic abuse and Mormon fundamentals, and we can do better as a people and You know. Nephi tells us to like in the scriptures on Doors. And we often read Jacob and, and we make excuses for ourselves. Because we're, we are not those people. We were not the Nephites so the prohibition Jacob has to come out and make a Prohibition on plural marriage in the Book of Mormon because things are not being done. Right?

4:46:32 I don't know what was going on. But I think I got it as much better understanding now. And the Lord took it away. Just because you have the priesthood Keys doesn't mean that, that God can't take this away from us too. if we're going to abuse his daughter's, then he's not going to let us keep this. We're not going to be worthy of it. He's not going to ratify it. We can we can wave our priests at around as much as we want. But if God doesn't ratify it, it means nothing. Amen, to the priesthood of that, man.

4:47:12 As we Were looking at section too and sexual ones. So, as maybe some partying advice, I would recommend a rereading of Of Jacob. Chapter 2. and, instead of being like those bad Nephites, See if see if it applies, see if maybe, maybe this is, maybe there's some lessons in here for for our family. Maybe there's some lessons in here for our church. maybe there's some things that we need to change and that we can do better at so that these kinds of terrible things don't happen. because I don't again, I don't think these things happen with Mal and tent But nonetheless.

4:48:03 Of come in. Wolves are coming in. And if we have an environment, this is another thing in the LDS church, this this culture of cover-up of systemic abuse. Yeah, draws the predators in. It draws them in. That's not, that's, that's a signal flare to the wolf's. Hey, we've got a juicy. We've got a juicy flock here, and we tore down the, we tore down the fence. Let's put that fence up. Let's get the Wolves Out. and, Let's be the people we claim to be. Awesome. Well man.

4:48:46 That's just about five hours. We did right there. So, this shouldn't have me on. I talked too long. No, no, it's good. It's good. Look, there was no way to cover this problem without doing our due diligence, and I feel like we got it done, but I, I appreciate you coming on. Look, this is only your first appearance is here, so I guess you got one or two more in you. So we'll try to find a happier subject. Sounds good. All right. Bye everybody.