S1E15 - The Actuaries (Woodmen Life & Modern Woodmen)

1
00:00:23,240 --> 00:00:25,210
Chris: So we're kind of cutting it close this week.

2
00:00:26,520 --> 00:00:27,408
Kayla: No, we're not.

3
00:00:27,504 --> 00:00:28,040
Chris: This is.

4
00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:29,400
Kayla: We did a Thursday record before.

5
00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:30,816
Chris: Have we recorded on Thursday before?

6
00:00:30,888 --> 00:00:33,500
Kayla: I think the previous episode.

7
00:00:34,600 --> 00:00:35,936
Chris: Oh, I think there's a trend.

8
00:00:36,008 --> 00:00:42,968
Kayla: Yeah. Actually, for our listeners, when we premiered, we had like, four in the bag.

9
00:00:43,104 --> 00:00:45,904
Chris: Oh, yeah. We were so far ahead. We had, like, this huge buffer.

10
00:00:46,032 --> 00:00:46,440
Kayla: Great.

11
00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:59,220
Chris: To the point where I felt like, I felt so pro because people would be like, so which one did you just record? I just listened to the one about Star Citizen, and in my head I was like, oh, man. Yeah, well, we did that one, like a month ago. Okay.

12
00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:01,544
Kayla: And now we're down to the wire.

13
00:01:01,592 --> 00:01:02,392
Chris: Now we're down to the wire.

14
00:01:02,456 --> 00:01:17,536
Kayla: But it's just because we do such rigorous research, thorough, intensive research, and we want to bring to you the actual correct information. And also, oh, also this week, life is hard.

15
00:01:17,608 --> 00:01:23,554
Chris: This week we can blame the fact that your two favorite hosts are now uncle and aunt.

16
00:01:23,642 --> 00:01:24,270
Kayla: Who?

17
00:01:24,970 --> 00:01:25,990
Chris: That's us.

18
00:01:27,930 --> 00:01:31,390
Kayla: I was like, who? Jad and Robert?

19
00:01:31,810 --> 00:01:35,310
Chris: No, no, it's Karen and Georgia.

20
00:01:37,490 --> 00:01:39,642
Kayla: Those are podcast host references.

21
00:01:39,746 --> 00:01:40,202
Chris: Right.

22
00:01:40,306 --> 00:01:49,560
Kayla: But no. Yes. The ones you are currently listening to. We've leveled up in our adulthood and are now. There is no gender neutral term for aunts and uncles.

23
00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:50,888
Chris: Wow, what a bummer.

24
00:01:51,064 --> 00:01:52,752
Kayla: Ankles. There we go.

25
00:01:52,896 --> 00:01:53,688
Chris: Crankles.

26
00:01:53,824 --> 00:01:54,672
Kayla: That doesn't make any sense.

27
00:01:54,696 --> 00:02:03,224
Chris: Old ankles. Banana bana. Anyway, it's ankles. We are. Are you sure there's not like. Cause there's parents, siblings.

28
00:02:03,272 --> 00:02:04,016
Kayla: Siblings, cousins.

29
00:02:04,088 --> 00:02:07,080
Chris: Cousins. What's a group of uncles and aunts?

30
00:02:07,120 --> 00:02:14,560
Kayla: I don't know, but there's not one for nieces and nephews. And there's not one siblings. Yeah, but that's like, not. That's like just coming into the lexicon now.

31
00:02:14,640 --> 00:02:19,758
Chris: Okay, well, let's lex up a yemenite ankles. Ankle. That's already a thing.

32
00:02:19,934 --> 00:02:21,158
Kayla: Calling them ankles.

33
00:02:21,334 --> 00:02:22,366
Chris: I think we need something better.

34
00:02:22,398 --> 00:02:23,622
Kayla: Well, then ask our listeners.

35
00:02:23,686 --> 00:02:29,166
Chris: Email us, listeners, what should we call ourselves collectively to our newfound knowledge?

36
00:02:29,198 --> 00:02:34,430
Kayla: That is a gender neutral way to say aunts and uncles. Tell us. Give us your suggestion.

37
00:02:34,470 --> 00:03:05,332
Chris: Email us, culturejustweirdmail.com. By the way, welcome to our listeners. I feel compelled to welcome this time because we have such a diversity of listeners now. It's like we have people here. We have people in here in the studio. Here in the studio. We have people. I meant here in the US. Sorry. Also in, like, estonia. And I love our Australia. And we also have people that only now exist in the mental wonderland of others potentially listening.

38
00:03:05,436 --> 00:03:07,476
Kayla: Oh, damn. We've reached the Wonderland yeah.

39
00:03:07,588 --> 00:03:09,870
Chris: So we have people all over the goddamn place.

40
00:03:10,060 --> 00:03:10,850
Kayla: It's true.

41
00:03:10,970 --> 00:03:16,674
Chris: So what we really need is Martians. So hurry up, Tesla, or whoever it is that's doing that, what is the.

42
00:03:16,722 --> 00:03:21,282
Kayla: Thing where when you learn about something, then you start seeing it everywhere? The psychological phenomenon.

43
00:03:21,426 --> 00:03:22,466
Chris: Confirmation bias.

44
00:03:22,538 --> 00:03:31,226
Kayla: Confirmation. If that's what that is. I am confirma. No, it's not confirmation bias. There's a specific effect. I think. It's like the something effect, where it's like.

45
00:03:31,298 --> 00:03:36,314
Chris: It's the. Whenever I used to travel with my family, we would always see shit about the place we traveled in the headlines.

46
00:03:36,362 --> 00:03:36,818
Kayla: It's that.

47
00:03:36,874 --> 00:03:37,138
Chris: Yeah.

48
00:03:37,194 --> 00:03:42,694
Kayla: It's when you like. Or you learn a new word and you start seeing it everywhere. Well, that's happened with me in tulpas.

49
00:03:42,822 --> 00:03:43,086
Chris: Really?

50
00:03:43,118 --> 00:03:58,478
Kayla: With, like, people talking about tulpas, tulpa content, and then also, like, storylines and television shows and things where they don't use the word tulpa, but, like, there are tulpas. It's very interesting. Tulpas are becoming mainstream.

51
00:03:58,654 --> 00:03:59,222
Chris: Wow.

52
00:03:59,326 --> 00:03:59,630
Kayla: Yeah.

53
00:03:59,670 --> 00:04:00,974
Chris: That's. Thanks to us, really.

54
00:04:01,062 --> 00:04:02,438
Kayla: It's all about us.

55
00:04:02,534 --> 00:04:04,270
Chris: It's mostly about us, definitely.

56
00:04:04,310 --> 00:04:08,966
Kayla: Television shows that came out, like, last year, they have us to thank for popularizing teleportation.

57
00:04:08,998 --> 00:04:20,103
Chris: Listen, Mandy, they. It's. Time is not a linear thing, okay? It ebbs and flows and. Yeah, it's all not helping you out.

58
00:04:20,152 --> 00:04:20,968
Kayla: It's not helping you out.

59
00:04:21,024 --> 00:04:24,016
Chris: Yeah, you're being. Yeah, you're. You're good. And giving.

60
00:04:24,168 --> 00:04:26,448
Kayla: Digging your own grave. Tell us your topic.

61
00:04:26,544 --> 00:04:27,976
Chris: Thanks for reacting here.

62
00:04:28,048 --> 00:04:29,360
Kayla: Tell us your break.

63
00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:32,460
Chris: No, not yet, because we still have some business to contend.

64
00:04:32,800 --> 00:04:33,960
Kayla: To contend with.

65
00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:49,810
Chris: Contend with. No, this is not contend. This is good business, because I have to give a shout out to our charismatic leader, folks from Patreon. So we just started our own Patreon.

66
00:04:49,890 --> 00:04:50,978
Kayla: It's real.

67
00:04:51,114 --> 00:04:52,418
Chris: Real. It's.

68
00:04:52,594 --> 00:04:53,682
Kayla: We actually did it.

69
00:04:53,706 --> 00:05:04,578
Chris: We actually did it. It's pretty rudimentary so far. It's basically just there to give us, like, a repository for some of the extra content that we've been sort of editing in and out of these different episodes.

70
00:05:04,634 --> 00:05:14,742
Kayla: There's always extra stuff that we want to share that just doesn't make it into the podcast episode. So, yeah, having a place where we can kind of drop that material for y'all is. That's really what our Patreon is.

71
00:05:14,806 --> 00:05:24,294
Chris: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And who knows? Maybe one day, you know, we'll charge $100 for the top tier, and there'll be, you know, a million people subscribed.

72
00:05:24,342 --> 00:05:27,454
Kayla: And what do we give people for a.

73
00:05:27,462 --> 00:05:31,366
Chris: Don't know, like, sexy nudes.

74
00:05:31,558 --> 00:05:35,078
Kayla: I was watching your face try to come up with the right joke for that.

75
00:05:35,094 --> 00:05:42,610
Chris: What about the. Great. Thanks. What about, like, a culture, just weird calendar, you know, where it's like a sexy calendar. Sexy calendar.

76
00:05:42,650 --> 00:05:44,870
Kayla: Yeah, but of, like, cult leaders.

77
00:05:45,610 --> 00:05:47,322
Chris: I was gonna say us, but there's.

78
00:05:47,346 --> 00:05:48,778
Kayla: Only two of us and there's twelve months.

79
00:05:48,874 --> 00:05:51,826
Chris: Yeah, we'll just, you know, we'll have to reread.

80
00:05:51,858 --> 00:06:02,146
Kayla: It could be you, me, and then ten sexy tulpas. Our sexy tulpas. Our ten favorite fans, followers, contributors. Our ten favorite listeners.

81
00:06:02,178 --> 00:06:07,394
Chris: Well, our three favorite listeners right now are the charismatic leader Patreon supporters.

82
00:06:07,522 --> 00:06:08,120
Kayla: True.

83
00:06:08,250 --> 00:06:11,620
Chris: And so I want to give a shout out to Becky.

84
00:06:11,780 --> 00:06:12,252
Kayla: Thank you.

85
00:06:12,276 --> 00:06:13,404
Chris: Becky, Pam.

86
00:06:13,492 --> 00:06:13,796
Kayla: Thank you.

87
00:06:13,828 --> 00:06:14,868
Chris: Should I use last names or.

88
00:06:14,884 --> 00:06:15,796
Kayla: No, probably not.

89
00:06:15,828 --> 00:06:16,340
Chris: What do you think?

90
00:06:16,380 --> 00:06:17,292
Kayla: Okay, I think no.

91
00:06:17,396 --> 00:06:36,800
Chris: Becky, Pam, and Alyssa, thank you, all of you. And just to be clear, that's not Alyssa producer, that's Alyssa fan that has followed us for some time on Instagram and obviously listens to the show. And I hope she doesn't thank you. Just doesn't listen to the show. She's just like, I just like your Instagram.

92
00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:39,488
Kayla: That's what I hope.

93
00:06:39,584 --> 00:06:44,304
Chris: Yeah. So you heard it here. We hope that our fans don't actually listen to the show. That's what Kayla wants.

94
00:06:44,352 --> 00:07:02,760
Kayla: That's my dream in life. That's my dream of this podcast. But, I mean, it's hard to say. There's not quite the correct word for when somebody becomes your patron. On Patreon, we haven't quite nailed the word for how good that feels. You know what I mean? Thank you is not quite correct.

95
00:07:02,880 --> 00:07:03,788
Chris: Warmth.

96
00:07:03,984 --> 00:07:06,160
Kayla: Well, I can't say I warmth you.

97
00:07:06,700 --> 00:07:07,292
Chris: I warmth.

98
00:07:07,316 --> 00:07:08,060
Kayla: You want to say thank you.

99
00:07:08,060 --> 00:07:26,036
Chris: I warm you. All three of you. No, but it. That's the feeling, right? Is this feeling of. It was. It felt very nice. It felt very like, oh, my God, somebody, like, gave us money because they are enough of a fan of the show. And, like, what we're doing, like, it was just super. I don't know, validating. It just. I don't know. It just felt really good.

100
00:07:26,108 --> 00:07:27,212
Kayla: Thanks, y'all.

101
00:07:27,316 --> 00:07:39,940
Chris: Thank you, guys. You are the best. And you are my favorite charismatic leaders that we have talked about on the show so far. Do you want to talk about the actual. Oh, are we supposed to. Are we supposed to say this is culture just weird shit?

102
00:07:42,440 --> 00:07:46,464
Kayla: Yeah. We've been recording for ten minutes, and this is Kayla.

103
00:07:46,512 --> 00:07:48,456
Chris: Oh, my God. Ten minutes. We gotta get a move on.

104
00:07:48,488 --> 00:07:51,552
Kayla: This is Kayla, this is Chris, and this is cult or just weird culture?

105
00:07:51,576 --> 00:07:53,248
Chris: Just weird. Let's move on, micro machine style.

106
00:07:53,304 --> 00:07:57,512
Kayla: We're gonna speed through this. We're gonna do two times the regular speed, right?

107
00:07:57,536 --> 00:07:59,232
Chris: Two x speed. Two x speed. Here we go.

108
00:07:59,296 --> 00:08:11,384
Kayla: Let's do this. I'm excited. I actually. I don't know if I should be excited for this topic. I know you've done a very good job of kind of keeping a lid on this one. I have no idea what it is. You haven't said one way or another. If it's cool or boring and lame.

109
00:08:11,512 --> 00:08:15,856
Chris: Yeah, it's. Well, it's mine, so it's boring and lame. I usually try to bore our audience.

110
00:08:15,928 --> 00:08:18,464
Kayla: So that's how we get them. Sweet patreon bugs.

111
00:08:18,512 --> 00:08:21,580
Chris: Yeah, exactly. Hopefully, I'll achieve that goal.

112
00:08:22,090 --> 00:08:23,770
Kayla: I'm very interested to know what is.

113
00:08:23,810 --> 00:08:24,938
Chris: Well, part of it. Okay, so part of it.

114
00:08:24,954 --> 00:08:27,178
Kayla: You ordered a book that you only started reading last night.

115
00:08:27,234 --> 00:08:29,890
Chris: Where's the book? I need it. Oh, here it is.

116
00:08:30,050 --> 00:08:33,426
Kayla: It looks like a bible. It's very interesting.

117
00:08:33,457 --> 00:09:08,476
Chris: Yeah. I'm glad the book actually got here in time. I was a little bit worried, but, yeah. So the reason for that, I think, is that I have, like, another two topics in the pipe, and one of them was the one were talking about last time, if you remember from my episode on creativity. I was like, oh, mandy, we have. The next one is gonna be shitty, too. That's not actually this one. That one's still on hold just a little bit. I'm waiting for some threads to come in on that. So I actually had to find a different one to do. And I wasn't really sure I was gonna. I just. I wanted to do something that, like, wasn't so bummer. Cause last time I was such a bummer.

118
00:09:08,548 --> 00:09:10,780
Kayla: Last time you were a bummer, we had a bummer. It was non bummer.

119
00:09:10,820 --> 00:09:18,184
Chris: And then you were like, yay, tulpas. And I was, like, sitting there kind of going like, oh, I wanna do something that's not shitty.

120
00:09:18,232 --> 00:09:19,992
Kayla: It's nice to do things that are nice.

121
00:09:20,176 --> 00:09:26,136
Chris: So I found one that was, like, I would say 90% not shitty. All right, 95 ish.

122
00:09:26,208 --> 00:09:26,976
Kayla: That's similar to tulpa.

123
00:09:27,008 --> 00:09:33,872
Chris: Pretty good. That's pretty good. So into the topic we go. But I kind of have a format now.

124
00:09:33,976 --> 00:09:34,840
Kayla: Oh, God.

125
00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:36,992
Chris: I've kind of typecast myself.

126
00:09:37,176 --> 00:09:39,152
Kayla: Is this about white supremacists again?

127
00:09:39,256 --> 00:09:46,404
Chris: No, no. Format. Not, like theme format. Format structure. How I go about my episodes.

128
00:09:46,492 --> 00:09:47,680
Kayla: You're gonna start with a question?

129
00:09:48,460 --> 00:09:55,044
Chris: Yeah, I kinda have to stick with my thing, right? It's like my thing. So I'm gonna start with a question.

130
00:09:55,132 --> 00:09:55,920
Kayla: Okay.

131
00:09:56,900 --> 00:10:00,160
Chris: What do you do every morning when you wake up?

132
00:10:00,580 --> 00:10:07,636
Kayla: I'll sometimes link myself a cup of tea. Sometimes I'll do a meditation. Sometimes I'll just immediately start my face washing routine and get out the door.

133
00:10:07,828 --> 00:10:15,050
Chris: Okay. And if you didn't have anything like meditation, I was gonna ask you if you know, about the whole concept of making your bed in the morning.

134
00:10:15,170 --> 00:10:16,410
Kayla: Can't do it because you're in it.

135
00:10:16,490 --> 00:10:25,242
Chris: We don't really do that because I'm in it. And then by the time I get up, I don't do it. But why is it recommended that you make your bed in the morning?

136
00:10:25,306 --> 00:10:27,034
Kayla: Because everything starts with a good morning.

137
00:10:27,122 --> 00:10:32,570
Chris: That's right. Even though it literally has no direct effect on anything else you do.

138
00:10:32,730 --> 00:10:35,010
Kayla: Are you doing making your bed?

139
00:10:35,130 --> 00:10:36,730
Chris: God, I wish. I wish.

140
00:10:36,810 --> 00:10:40,374
Kayla: Okay, you're not. Okay. I was literally about to lose my.

141
00:10:40,402 --> 00:10:45,450
Chris: Holy shit. I'm sorry that I can't be that awesome.

142
00:10:46,150 --> 00:10:48,582
Kayla: That would be the greatest topic of all time.

143
00:10:48,606 --> 00:10:51,790
Chris: So today we're talking about making the cult of making beds.

144
00:10:51,870 --> 00:10:59,798
Kayla: But I could totally see that being a thing probably is you have to make your bed in the morning if you want to live a decent life. Oh, my God. I want to write a show about that.

145
00:10:59,894 --> 00:11:13,000
Chris: All right, you know what? Actually, this is the end of this episode. You have to go. Right. But no, it doesn't actually affect anything you do. Right. But what it does is it brings you into a state of mind that changes how you approach the rest of your day.

146
00:11:13,040 --> 00:11:13,480
Kayla: Right.

147
00:11:13,600 --> 00:11:20,512
Chris: That's probably why you meditate in the morning. Right. It's like a good time to kind of like, level set. And it's like whenever I meditate in the morning, I always feel like I get, like, way more done.

148
00:11:20,576 --> 00:11:20,848
Kayla: Right.

149
00:11:20,904 --> 00:11:21,808
Chris: I do that sometimes, too.

150
00:11:21,864 --> 00:11:24,940
Kayla: I'm more likely to make a green smoothie after I meditate.

151
00:11:25,280 --> 00:11:26,072
Chris: Yeah, exactly.

152
00:11:26,096 --> 00:11:27,096
Kayla: Than if I don't.

153
00:11:27,248 --> 00:11:36,222
Chris: So that brings us to not yet the topic, but to one of our very own beloved cult, or just weird criteria. Ritual.

154
00:11:36,286 --> 00:11:39,406
Kayla: Ritual. That's hella. Making your bed is hella ritualistic.

155
00:11:39,438 --> 00:12:00,558
Chris: It's exactly a ritual. And again, it's not the topic of the episode. Don't worry, we're still actually talking about a group. But based on the group we'll be talking about, the presence of ritual is particularly important. So I thought this would be a good episode to pay extra special attention to one of our criteria. As theme du jour, because I also like to theme my episodes, you know?

156
00:12:00,614 --> 00:12:02,462
Kayla: Right, right. You're good at that. I try to do it.

157
00:12:02,486 --> 00:12:04,978
Chris: The theme today. Theme is ritual.

158
00:12:05,174 --> 00:12:16,058
Kayla: The theme is ritual. This is freaking me out, though, because, like, when you said making your bed as a ritual kind of sent me those rabbit hole of, like, is every action we take ritual?

159
00:12:16,114 --> 00:12:20,138
Chris: Well, I don't think every action is, but it's pretty freaking ubiquitous.

160
00:12:20,274 --> 00:12:20,906
Kayla: Ritual.

161
00:12:21,018 --> 00:12:36,846
Chris: Yeah, we do it every morning. Literally millions, perhaps billions of people in the morning. Well, I guess it's not all simultaneously, since we're at different points in the earth. No, but it. Of course it's a ritual because, like, everybody's doing it the same way. We're all doing similar things. We're all listening to this podcast.

162
00:12:36,898 --> 00:12:40,142
Kayla: Wait, wait. So you're saying you need to have a lot of people in order for something to be ritual?

163
00:12:40,246 --> 00:12:47,730
Chris: No, I don't think. No, no, no. I'm not saying you need that. I'm just saying that, like, I think that's something that makes it ritualistic is if it's, like, a shared experience.

164
00:12:50,510 --> 00:12:51,198
Kayla: Okay, okay.

165
00:12:51,254 --> 00:12:52,254
Chris: We'll get to that. We'll get to it.

166
00:12:52,302 --> 00:12:53,134
Kayla: It's your theme. Let's go.

167
00:12:53,182 --> 00:13:11,528
Chris: We'll get to that. So, yeah, so that's the reason I wanted to ask you about morning routines, is to illustrate just how powerful rituals are. And this is, of course, something you and I have talked about a lot over the years. But for our listeners, rituals are all around us and involve a wide variety of activities and purposes, as we just mentioned, and are hugely important.

168
00:13:11,624 --> 00:13:15,144
Kayla: It's like 90% of the reason why we had a wedding.

169
00:13:15,312 --> 00:13:17,864
Chris: Well, I mean, that's 90% of the reason why anybody has a wedding.

170
00:13:17,912 --> 00:13:32,384
Kayla: Well, I don't know if that's necessarily true. I don't know if people are going like, mm. And I'll probably cut this part out. Cause I'm about to make a bunch of people sound like an idiot. Like, oh, I wonder what symbolic actions we can take in order to psychologically embed this moment as important for us.

171
00:13:32,432 --> 00:13:32,832
Chris: Why is that?

172
00:13:32,856 --> 00:13:33,616
Kayla: No, of course.

173
00:13:33,648 --> 00:13:34,874
Chris: That's. That's not.

174
00:13:35,002 --> 00:13:38,430
Kayla: I don't think most people are. I don't think a lot of people are conscious of that.

175
00:13:38,890 --> 00:13:41,070
Chris: I think you don't give people enough credit.

176
00:13:41,570 --> 00:13:52,882
Kayla: I think that I. Okay. I mean, maybe. But I've literally never heard anyone I know even hint at that. And I've known a lot of people get married. Have you known anyone to say anything like that?

177
00:13:52,946 --> 00:14:14,308
Chris: Maybe not explicitly, but like, I think a lot of people understand that the ritual of marriage is something that sort of, like, psychologically, like, cements something in place. Like, there's no physical difference for a lot of people before and after, especially now that people tend to live together before they get married. Bunch of.

178
00:14:14,484 --> 00:14:15,356
Kayla: Bunch of. What?

179
00:14:15,468 --> 00:14:17,292
Chris: What's the word? I'm trying to think of the word. I couldn't think of the word.

180
00:14:17,316 --> 00:14:17,964
Kayla: Living in sin.

181
00:14:18,052 --> 00:14:28,896
Chris: Yeah, living in sin. Everybody's living in sin. Actually, it's funny because we just went to a wedding and I had like 90% of the script written already. And then went to this wedding and I was like, oh, ritual everywhere.

182
00:14:28,968 --> 00:14:30,456
Kayla: Ritual literally everywhere.

183
00:14:30,488 --> 00:15:08,432
Chris: I am just swimming in it. But anyway, ritual is powerful. It literally changes your brain, alters your mindset, and in the case of making your bed, does that for the rest of the day. But think also about meal rituals and how important those are for our ongoing social relationships. Think about coming of age rituals and how powerfully they affect people and mark their lives from like bar mitzvahs to quinceaneras to graduation ceremonies and athlete luck rituals. Right. With like lucky rabbits foots and rubbing. Rubbing this miles crane's head. Yeah, exactly. Or like free throws. Like literally every. There's a different ritual for every person in the NBA to do their free throws.

184
00:15:08,576 --> 00:15:20,032
Chris: It doesn't actually affect the way the ball travels through the air, but it puts you in this similar mindset that recalls all of the bajillion times that you shot a free throw before and it just affects your muscle memory and everything.

185
00:15:20,136 --> 00:15:27,450
Kayla: It's like when I had that super important interview on Monday and the whole way up and the whole way there, I was doing affirmations. I was literally just saying over and.

186
00:15:27,450 --> 00:15:28,386
Chris: Over, it's totally ritual.

187
00:15:28,498 --> 00:15:37,002
Kayla: I am a charming person and that's not. I'm not a charming person, but it's making my brain think I am. And then I present as such. Exactly.

188
00:15:37,106 --> 00:15:37,418
Chris: Yeah.

189
00:15:37,474 --> 00:15:44,194
Kayla: Every time that one came up, I was like, I don't blame. This one's not quite applicable, but I'll say it.

190
00:15:44,282 --> 00:15:51,050
Chris: Yeah, for sure. I mean, act as if. Right. But, yeah. And we actually talked about those athlete rituals in our episode about cargo cults, remember?

191
00:15:51,090 --> 00:15:53,770
Kayla: Right, right. We talked about Frasier Crane.

192
00:15:54,070 --> 00:15:56,470
Chris: Yeah, we talked about. Yeah, Frasier Crane.

193
00:15:56,550 --> 00:15:57,198
Kayla: Niles Crane's head.

194
00:15:57,214 --> 00:16:10,374
Chris: We talked about Niles Crane's head. And the whole point of that was that the power of ritual for the followers of Jon Frum is so immense that it put them in a mindset to conquer their own oppression and forge a destiny for their community.

195
00:16:10,542 --> 00:16:12,094
Kayla: Damn, that was succinct.

196
00:16:12,182 --> 00:17:01,600
Chris: That's fricking powerful. Yeah, right? And again, it's like, doesn't do anything physically. In fact, it seems weird, right? They were like walking around with american flags and whatnot. But the effect that it had by altering their mindset is extremely powerful. So I read up a little bit on rituals, of course, on Wikipedia. And you might imagine the topic is immense and studied from all angles. Anthropological, communications, religion, culture. I mean, this. See also for one of the pages that they had on ritual included such diverse topic links as secular religion, what, obsessive compulsive disorder, yoga as exercise, and my personal favorite, taiwanese chicken beheading rituals.

197
00:17:04,140 --> 00:17:05,356
Kayla: What? What?

198
00:17:05,548 --> 00:17:10,435
Chris: So I'm not gonna go into that. That is really a Wikipedia page. And I really did obviously click on that and read it.

199
00:17:10,548 --> 00:17:11,756
Kayla: Explain that can be.

200
00:17:11,828 --> 00:17:13,867
Chris: No, that's. That's supplemental content, baby.

201
00:17:13,884 --> 00:17:14,660
Kayla: Oh, jeez.

202
00:17:14,819 --> 00:17:18,948
Chris: But the point is that like, on that Wikipedia page about rituals, those.

203
00:17:18,964 --> 00:17:20,332
Kayla: Are four very different.

204
00:17:20,516 --> 00:18:03,654
Chris: There's more too, but as you just mentioned, there's just no end really to the types of rituals and where they appear in our lives. So I can't really dig into it too much here because it's too large. But what I will do is give you the sort of the broad strokes of what I learned. So first, rituals have several defining features. Wikipedia lists them as formalism, or the expressions and the code of the ritual. So that's like the actual, what is it? What are you doing? What are the symbols? What are all those actual actions you take? And it's probably what we mostly think of when we think of ritual is all those things, right? The ceremonies and whatnot. Sort of like the meat of the ritual. They also contain aspects of. This is the second thing of traditionalism.

205
00:18:03,792 --> 00:18:21,282
Chris: So rituals also can be an appeal to history, and they can be traditional. At first I was like, what? Those are the same, but they can be traditional without being particularly formal or vice versa. So the example given when I read the Wikipedia page was thanksgiving dinner, very traditional, not very formal, but it is.

206
00:18:21,386 --> 00:18:22,354
Kayla: Yeah. Okay. Sorry.

207
00:18:22,442 --> 00:18:47,828
Chris: Yeah. So another aspect is invariance. So some rituals, the whole intent is to perform it in precisely the same way over and over. So anybody that's been to, like, a catholic mass, for example, you can probably almost never remember any individual catholic mass because they all go the exact same way, the same songs, in the same order, in the same everything, doing the bread, all of it's in the same order, the same way.

208
00:18:47,844 --> 00:18:48,284
Kayla: Right.

209
00:18:48,412 --> 00:19:30,840
Chris: Sacrifice is another aspect common to some rituals, particularly religious rituals, but also some coming of age rituals. So if you think about the scarification rituals of sub saharan african tribes, and there are a bunch I looked up, there's too many to list here, but this is a form of personal sacrifice via ritual. A side note, when I was. When I was looking at this was that I read that scarification is used in rituals for many darker skinned cultures because tattoos are harder to see on their bodies compared to, like, you know, you might like a ritual for, like, you know, a european skinned person might involve, like, getting a tattoo. But for these tribes, a lot of what they do is scarification because it's easier to see than, like, skin ink.

210
00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:31,376
Kayla: Right.

211
00:19:31,488 --> 00:19:57,058
Chris: Very interesting. Anyway, the last element I read about was performance, which kind of needs no explanation. So many rituals are performance. It's like, hard to think of a non performative ritual. Yeah. At least one that's non personal. Right. Like, personal rituals aren't necessarily performative. Like, I'm just doing my, you know, brushing my teeth every morning. But almost everything that's not personal, it involves a social element, is very performative.

212
00:19:57,114 --> 00:19:58,026
Kayla: Right, right.

213
00:19:58,218 --> 00:20:00,722
Chris: Any questions about the elements of ritual so far?

214
00:20:00,786 --> 00:20:05,426
Kayla: No, I'm just trying to think of an example to contradict that last point there, and I can't think of one.

215
00:20:05,498 --> 00:20:07,266
Chris: All right, keep on it. Yeah, I believe in you.

216
00:20:07,298 --> 00:20:08,482
Kayla: What about. Oh, oh.

217
00:20:08,506 --> 00:20:09,866
Chris: Oh. Did you do it?

218
00:20:09,938 --> 00:20:10,402
Kayla: Yeah.

219
00:20:10,506 --> 00:20:11,002
Chris: Good job.

220
00:20:11,066 --> 00:20:16,510
Kayla: Okay. Wait. Yeah. What about, like, tooth fairy shit?

221
00:20:17,140 --> 00:20:18,260
Chris: What about it?

222
00:20:18,420 --> 00:20:22,916
Kayla: That's. That's something that is like, you do it solo.

223
00:20:23,028 --> 00:20:26,972
Chris: Wait, so tooth fairy isn't personal, though? Tooth fairy is a social ritual.

224
00:20:27,156 --> 00:20:28,240
Kayla: That's what I'm saying.

225
00:20:28,660 --> 00:20:36,892
Chris: And you're saying it's social but not performative? Yeah, yeah, I guess. It's not really. It's pretty. It's pretty non performative. It's pretty just like, between you and.

226
00:20:37,036 --> 00:20:39,480
Kayla: Your parents, you and the tooth fairy.

227
00:20:39,860 --> 00:20:41,788
Chris: And a nasty ass tooth under your pillow.

228
00:20:41,844 --> 00:20:42,480
Kayla: Gross.

229
00:20:42,780 --> 00:21:00,556
Chris: In any case, so good. Good counterexample. But I think by and large, they tend to be performative if they're public. But now I'm going to list some of the types of. So those are elements of rituals. Now I'm going to list some of the types of rituals or kind of think of it as, like, some of the things that they're used for. So we talked about rites of passage.

230
00:21:00,628 --> 00:21:01,228
Kayla: Okay?

231
00:21:01,364 --> 00:21:23,842
Chris: And I think this one's pretty clear and obvious. We mentioned a few times already, but they tend to be about change and transformation. Some rituals are also commemorative. So they perform a function, basically like a clock or a calendar. So, like, think about the Times Square New Year's Eve celebration, right? With the ball dropping, that helps us mentally process the passage of a year. For example. It's like our own little calendar in the brain, right?

232
00:21:23,906 --> 00:21:24,510
Kayla: Right.

233
00:21:24,970 --> 00:21:38,914
Chris: Some rituals are rituals of exchange, like Christmas or birthdays or wedding showers. And then this next one was pretty interesting to me. According to Wikipedia, some rituals are referred to as rituals of affliction.

234
00:21:39,002 --> 00:21:40,018
Kayla: Ooh. What does that mean?

235
00:21:40,114 --> 00:21:46,852
Chris: In other words, they are intended to protect, heal, augment, or otherwise process somebody of ill health.

236
00:21:46,996 --> 00:21:47,800
Kayla: Ooh.

237
00:21:48,220 --> 00:21:54,860
Chris: So fertility rites fall under this, which are ubiquitous. Prayers of healing fall into this category.

238
00:21:54,940 --> 00:21:55,484
Kayla: Wow.

239
00:21:55,612 --> 00:22:19,930
Chris: There are also rituals of abundance and or lack, such as Thanksgiving. We already talked about that. That's a ritual of abundance. Or on the opposite side of things, ritual of lack. Ramadan, where you're fasting. And finally, there are rituals that have to do with political power. And not just like, 20th century politics. But this could also mean, like, european monarch coronation ceremonies are highly ritualistic.

240
00:22:19,970 --> 00:22:20,666
Kayla: Right, right.

241
00:22:20,778 --> 00:22:24,310
Chris: Or like, the Hunger Games are rituals about political power.

242
00:22:25,970 --> 00:22:28,070
Kayla: Flipping up the Hunger Games is traumatizing.

243
00:22:29,210 --> 00:22:35,754
Chris: Okay, so we talked about aspects of ritual. We've talked about the genres. Now let's talk very briefly why rituals exist.

244
00:22:35,802 --> 00:22:37,650
Kayla: I just love the concept of genres.

245
00:22:37,770 --> 00:22:53,510
Chris: Of rituals. I saw this thing online the other day. You probably saw it. It was like a compilation of 50 or 60 in a row. Alex Trebek saying genre, because apparently he says it the correct way, which sounds kind of silly.

246
00:22:53,550 --> 00:22:54,294
Kayla: Is it jinir?

247
00:22:54,382 --> 00:23:02,918
Chris: No, it's like genre. No, it's like genre. No, it's like genre. Genre, genre.

248
00:23:03,014 --> 00:23:04,534
Kayla: Oh, it's like french. Like genre.

249
00:23:04,582 --> 00:23:14,362
Chris: It's like genre. You have to, like, swallow the re. It's not genre. It's like genre. Genre, genre. And he just. They have a. There's a video of him doing 70 times a night.

250
00:23:14,386 --> 00:23:15,250
Kayla: Don't want to watch that at all.

251
00:23:15,290 --> 00:23:41,028
Chris: You definitely want to genre. Right. So why rituals exist very briefly, because honestly, this is, like, so broad that it's hard to even formulate categories because rituals exist for almost any reason you can think of strengthening social bonds for maintaining social structure, upending social structure for communicating important information across time. I don't know if we have time to talk about this, but do you remember the radioactive cats?

252
00:23:41,084 --> 00:23:45,604
Kayla: Yes. Like the cat. That's literally the first thing made me think it was the cats to our listeners.

253
00:23:45,692 --> 00:23:47,276
Chris: Okay, this may be supplemental content.

254
00:23:47,348 --> 00:23:51,348
Kayla: No, I don't think we've been. I don't think we should explain it. I think we should just. We'll put a link to.

255
00:23:51,404 --> 00:23:53,324
Chris: A link to the 99 PI episode about it.

256
00:23:53,372 --> 00:24:03,572
Kayla: Somewhere, either on our Patreon or show notes, somewhere there will be a link to the story about radioactive cats and their communication of messaging across time. And you have to listen.

257
00:24:03,636 --> 00:24:06,260
Chris: It's one of my favorite episodes of 99 PI, which is saying a lot.

258
00:24:06,300 --> 00:24:06,804
Kayla: Yeah.

259
00:24:06,932 --> 00:24:43,652
Chris: Anyway, ritual also exists for helping humans process emotions, conflicts, change, passage of time, for helping us deal with forces vastly outside of our control. I read an interesting story about an island community that has get this elaborate rituals for magically warding off sharks when they need to fish in the open ocean. But here's the kicker. They don't employ these rituals when they are fishing in their island lagoon where it is safe. So ritual helps them take necessary actions in the face of dangerous forces completely outside of their control.

260
00:24:43,756 --> 00:24:44,560
Kayla: Dang.

261
00:24:45,100 --> 00:25:14,766
Chris: Which is really interesting, right? Because we think, okay, magic's not real, but, like, totally is, in a sense, the magical ritual, at least in this case, and I would, I guess, argue this is just an example of many cases, magical warding rituals help you engage in dangerous activity against, essentially. Exactly. These people were doing, right? Like, they have to fish. They need the food they cannot control. Their sharks are gonna come eat them. So they perform these rituals to sort of, like, put them in a mindset that allows them to do that.

262
00:25:14,798 --> 00:25:17,250
Kayla: It's like when you buckle your seat belt on an airplane.

263
00:25:17,950 --> 00:25:20,170
Chris: That's actually not true. Even a little bit.

264
00:25:21,150 --> 00:25:28,092
Kayla: Okay. It's like when you buckle your seatbelt on a bus. Oh, wait, you don't have seatbelts because you're just gonna die.

265
00:25:28,236 --> 00:25:38,772
Chris: Okay. Buses are actually by far the safest form of ground transportation, including the fact that they don't have seatbelts. Safer than trains, road transportation. I don't know if they're safer than.

266
00:25:38,796 --> 00:25:41,028
Kayla: Trains or not anyway, but buses are.

267
00:25:41,044 --> 00:25:42,820
Chris: Like, vastly safer than cars.

268
00:25:42,860 --> 00:25:51,092
Kayla: Insurance companies would rather pay for your funeral than have to pay for your, like, disability.

269
00:25:51,276 --> 00:25:53,780
Chris: Is that why you think that buses don't have us?

270
00:25:53,820 --> 00:25:54,500
Kayla: Don't have seat belts?

271
00:25:54,540 --> 00:25:56,260
Chris: That is not even why they don't have seatbelts.

272
00:25:56,300 --> 00:25:57,828
Kayla: Talk about it in fight club.

273
00:25:58,004 --> 00:26:11,252
Chris: Fight club is wrong about that, and they're wrong about the plane thing. Definitely buckle your seat belt on a plane. It actually significantly increases your chance of surviving a crash, which is pretty damn good, actually, if you're seatbelt on, there's.

274
00:26:11,276 --> 00:26:21,010
Kayla: Actually a more important reason you should buckle your seatbelt on a plane. Like, an actually more important reason than surviving, then surviving a crash? Yes. What, it helps you survive turbulence?

275
00:26:21,390 --> 00:26:22,862
Chris: Oh, if it's, like, really bad turbulence.

276
00:26:22,886 --> 00:26:30,582
Kayla: The vast majority of injuries on planes happen because of turbulence. And generally it's because people don't have their seatbelts buckled and they, like, fly up and hit the trail.

277
00:26:30,606 --> 00:26:33,462
Chris: Just so you know, if there's ever turbulence that's that bad on a plane.

278
00:26:33,486 --> 00:26:34,822
Kayla: That I'm on, you might lose your mind.

279
00:26:34,886 --> 00:26:36,902
Chris: I'll just die anyway. Cause my head will explode.

280
00:26:36,926 --> 00:26:38,318
Kayla: I think your heart might actually explode.

281
00:26:38,374 --> 00:26:42,342
Chris: My heart would just jump out of my. It wouldn't explode. It would just. It would come out of my chest.

282
00:26:42,366 --> 00:26:43,998
Kayla: It would, like, physically fly across my chest.

283
00:26:44,014 --> 00:26:49,256
Chris: It would grow little cartoon arms. It would crawl out of my chest. It would have, like, one of those little, like, hobo sacks with a stick.

284
00:26:49,288 --> 00:26:50,304
Kayla: In the back and just walk off.

285
00:26:50,352 --> 00:27:03,512
Chris: And it would just run out and it would jump out. One of the plane hatches and I would be dead. Yeah, that's what would happen. In any case, I could maybe use some rituals for surviving, like, psychologically during turbulence in a plane.

286
00:27:03,536 --> 00:27:04,460
Kayla: That's extreme.

287
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:24,716
Chris: So just a few extra words here about the power of ritual. Sometimes they can feel superstitious or irrational. And certainly on this show, we're all like. We're skeptics, which I think is not necessarily incompatible with it, scientifically speaking. Rituals can have a great effect on how they allow our brains to process, learn, or change.

288
00:27:24,788 --> 00:27:25,428
Kayla: Right.

289
00:27:25,604 --> 00:27:36,092
Chris: A lot of this comes from an article I read from Scientific American entitled why rituals work. And the subtitle was, there are real benefits to ritual, religious or otherwise.

290
00:27:36,156 --> 00:27:36,548
Kayla: Right.

291
00:27:36,644 --> 00:28:09,720
Chris: And the whole article is basically about what we said on the show here a few times, about the athlete rituals being effective or the john from thing. And the winner's mindset, all the stuff we just mentioned. So, ritual is a ubiquitous part of the human experience across all cultures. It serves all cultures, by the way. There is no culture that is devoid of ritual. It serves dozens of, maybe even hundreds, I don't know, possible functions. And so now I'd like you to think a little bit about the rituals we've discussed here on the show and some of the groups we've talked about. And actually. Well, actually, before that question.

292
00:28:09,850 --> 00:28:10,628
Kayla: Yeah.

293
00:28:10,804 --> 00:28:25,560
Chris: Why, in your estimation, and maybe I should have. This should have been my top of the episode question. This is even better. This is even better. Why, in your estimation, did we decide on the presence of ritual as one of our criteria, do you think?

294
00:28:27,860 --> 00:28:48,142
Kayla: I think that it came from our. Because I think that was one of our earliest criteria. I think it came from, like, our general lack of understanding of the. No, I'm serious. It was a gen. Like, that was a off the top suggestion. And were like, well, we think cults do this. But then, as we, like, did our research, it was one that stayed.

295
00:28:48,286 --> 00:28:49,770
Chris: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

296
00:28:50,670 --> 00:28:57,406
Kayla: It was kind of like an assumption. Like, we associated the word ritual with, like, religiousness.

297
00:28:57,598 --> 00:29:14,054
Chris: Yeah. I mean, that's the thing though, right? Is, like, even though were sort of like, amateurishly sort of clawing at what we thought cults were, I mean, there's a reason why we picked that. And I think it's because a lot of the sort of religious or pseudo religious or maybe according to that one article, secular religious.

298
00:29:14,142 --> 00:29:14,974
Kayla: Yeah, I don't know what that is.

299
00:29:15,022 --> 00:29:17,502
Chris: Thing includes a lot of ritual. It just does.

300
00:29:17,566 --> 00:29:18,170
Kayla: Right.

301
00:29:19,030 --> 00:29:35,550
Chris: And one of the things that I find really interesting about the rituals we've talked about and the groups we've covered is just how much cult flavor they impart to groups. So think about Irvine, which is my favorite example of this. Irvine to me feels like twice as culty because of all of the Irvine company logos everywhere.

302
00:29:35,590 --> 00:29:36,742
Kayla: Right, right. For sure.

303
00:29:36,846 --> 00:29:43,740
Chris: Right. Like, honestly, there's Stepford, like, beige communities everywhere. There's like 400 in Orange county alone. Yeah.

304
00:29:43,780 --> 00:29:49,524
Kayla: Like, if you go from, like, orange county all the way down to, like, the border, it's like 80% that.

305
00:29:49,612 --> 00:30:21,830
Chris: Right. But only Irvine has that ubiquitous weird logo. Right. And what about mlms with their, like, weird national pep rallies? And what if teal didn't have her logo and paintings and YouTube rituals? Okay, actually, well, she'd probably still be really culty. But still, the point is it feels to me like rituals provide a heavy dose of cult flavoring to the groups that employ them. Groups that maybe otherwise, like Irvine seem a little weird without them, but downright culty with them.

306
00:30:22,890 --> 00:30:24,510
Kayla: Okay, so what's the topic?

307
00:30:25,290 --> 00:30:31,906
Chris: Keep that all in the back of your head because we are going to revisit the importance and significance of ritual later in the show.

308
00:30:31,938 --> 00:30:32,710
Kayla: Oh, God.

309
00:30:33,300 --> 00:30:37,420
Chris: But first we have to talk about our citations. We got to do our ritual of citation.

310
00:30:37,500 --> 00:30:37,932
Kayla: Right.

311
00:30:38,036 --> 00:30:43,484
Chris: Which is a ritual designed to confer legitimacy on what were about to say in the minds of our listeners.

312
00:30:43,532 --> 00:30:47,172
Kayla: Well, and to give credit to all the people that were, huh. Ripping off.

313
00:30:47,276 --> 00:30:48,172
Chris: No, I don't care about that.

314
00:30:48,196 --> 00:30:49,108
Kayla: It's 90% that.

315
00:30:49,164 --> 00:30:50,572
Chris: No, for me, it's about the legitimacy.

316
00:30:50,636 --> 00:30:57,164
Kayla: So then it's 200% because it's 100% you, legitimacy and 100% me credit. So then it's 200%?

317
00:30:57,252 --> 00:30:58,036
Chris: Yeah, exactly.

318
00:30:58,068 --> 00:30:58,316
Kayla: Okay.

319
00:30:58,348 --> 00:31:22,468
Chris: It's really good. I've already mentioned I use Wikipedia a whole bunch. I almost feel like we don't even need to say that anymore. I also already mentioned Scientific American. There are also a bunch of online articles, some of which were from just, like, random individuals. Websites. Folks interested in historical knowledge. Some were from just other websites that just publish articles. An actual physical book that you have.

320
00:31:22,524 --> 00:31:24,108
Kayla: Here in this book, which I have right here.

321
00:31:24,124 --> 00:31:32,216
Chris: And I'm going to let it drop so you can hear it, but, yeah, crazy, right? Physical book by the name. What is it called, actually, tell our listeners.

322
00:31:32,328 --> 00:31:42,312
Kayla: Fraternal organizations. Wait, wait. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Institutions. Fraternal presents organizations.

323
00:31:42,376 --> 00:31:44,472
Chris: Fraternal organizations. The name of the actual title is.

324
00:31:44,496 --> 00:31:46,824
Kayla: Fraternal organizations by Alvin J. Schmidt.

325
00:31:46,872 --> 00:31:48,288
Chris: Alvin J. Schmidt.

326
00:31:48,344 --> 00:31:50,384
Kayla: That is a book. A real one.

327
00:31:50,472 --> 00:31:51,940
Chris: Oh, here's what we should do.

328
00:31:55,340 --> 00:31:56,516
Kayla: It's a real ass book.

329
00:31:56,628 --> 00:32:06,740
Chris: It's my goal to get ASMR in every episode. Anyway, sorry to wrap up. The citation's also an insurance website. We'll get to that.

330
00:32:06,780 --> 00:32:07,500
Kayla: What is your topic?

331
00:32:07,540 --> 00:32:24,816
Chris: We'll get to that. We'll get to that. So, as usual, I've already worded a lot before we get to our actual topic, as we can tell from the fact that you keep asking me, I'm a verbose person. I'm very sorry, but I want you to check out the name of the textbook I just cited. Fraternal organizations.

332
00:32:24,888 --> 00:32:25,320
Kayla: Yes.

333
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:52,764
Chris: So, indeed, today we are discussing one such organization. But before I reveal what it is. Well, what the hell is a fraternal organization? I I'm glad you asked, self. You've definitely heard of fraternal organizations. Okay, but what you may not know, like an Elkslodge, is just how many groups are considered as loosely being in this category. So, yes, the Elks Lodge is one of them. The most well known one is probably the Freemasons.

334
00:32:52,812 --> 00:32:54,924
Kayla: See, that was top of mind.

335
00:32:55,012 --> 00:32:57,084
Chris: Mm. But Elks Lodge is one of them, too.

336
00:32:57,132 --> 00:32:57,652
Kayla: Okay?

337
00:32:57,756 --> 00:33:05,220
Chris: They also include things like Rotary International. There's an old group, I'm not sure if they're still around, but called the odd fellows.

338
00:33:05,300 --> 00:33:05,920
Kayla: What?

339
00:33:06,260 --> 00:33:12,780
Chris: Which apparently were huge in America. Like, in the time that they were huge. They were very huge. Never heard of them.

340
00:33:12,820 --> 00:33:13,908
Kayla: When were they huge?

341
00:33:14,084 --> 00:33:14,984
Chris: Late 18 hundreds.

342
00:33:15,052 --> 00:33:16,288
Kayla: Oh, my God. The odd.

343
00:33:16,424 --> 00:33:21,016
Chris: The Shriners. You've probably heard of the Friners, but those are actually just a subset of Freemasons.

344
00:33:21,048 --> 00:33:21,940
Kayla: I knew that.

345
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:23,808
Chris: The Illuminati.

346
00:33:23,984 --> 00:33:26,392
Kayla: Oh, right. That's a real thing. I keep forgetting.

347
00:33:26,456 --> 00:33:27,128
Chris: Yeah.

348
00:33:27,304 --> 00:33:29,580
Kayla: Not in the way that QAnon people think.

349
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:38,592
Chris: The Knights of Columbus and literally hundreds more. In fact, you can see how thick this book is. And they go over these organizations.

350
00:33:38,656 --> 00:33:39,464
Kayla: That's a thick book.

351
00:33:39,512 --> 00:33:44,230
Chris: It's, like, about two pages to an.org. What?

352
00:33:44,530 --> 00:33:45,090
Kayla: How many pages?

353
00:33:45,130 --> 00:33:45,594
Chris: Maybe three.

354
00:33:45,642 --> 00:33:46,710
Kayla: How many pages is a book?

355
00:33:47,570 --> 00:33:52,630
Chris: A little over 360. Yeah, just about 360 pages.

356
00:33:53,810 --> 00:33:56,306
Kayla: Don't care for that. That is too much.

357
00:33:56,378 --> 00:34:13,166
Chris: There's a lot, in fact, college campus fraternities, if the name didn't give it away, have their roots in similar places as fraternal organizations, are sororities for. And you might consider them close cousins. Yeah, I think so.

358
00:34:13,318 --> 00:34:13,830
Kayla: All right.

359
00:34:13,909 --> 00:34:21,126
Chris: I mean, they're not called frats, but I'm assuming that there's, like. Even though they call them sororities, they're still fraternal sororial organizations.

360
00:34:21,197 --> 00:34:21,982
Kayla: All right.

361
00:34:22,166 --> 00:35:03,846
Chris: I don't know. I just made that up, but I'm pretty sure that they are. But, yeah, you might consider frats essentially close cousins with fraternal organizations, ones that took hold in university settings and gradually over time became tied tighter and tighter to the university system until they kind of became their own thing, the greek system. But, yeah, there are just, like, an enormous number of these groups, and sometimes they're also called secret societies or social clubs. There's a bunch of names for them. They all tend to be very egalitarian within their ranks. In other words, you are all sort of brothers in a sense, and help each other out. They're not necessarily egalitarian. They run the gamut outside of that, which we'll talk about in a little bit towards the end of the episode, actually.

362
00:35:03,918 --> 00:35:05,526
Kayla: Do you talk about Nxivm?

363
00:35:05,718 --> 00:35:08,062
Chris: No, they're not a fraternal organization, as far as I know.

364
00:35:08,126 --> 00:35:18,078
Kayla: The group within NXIVM, that's the actual trouble. Like, where all the branding took place, was a secret society. It was like a fraternal organization, but within NXiVM.

365
00:35:18,174 --> 00:35:35,210
Chris: Oh, that's whack. Yeah, but, yeah, a lot of them, even though they have egalitarian, sort of like, you know, everybody's all brothers. They also have really elaborate hierarchies in many cases. Many of them are organized around ethnic or religious lines. And, in fact, technically, I think the KKK is considered.

366
00:35:35,370 --> 00:35:40,890
Kayla: When you said, like, hierarchy, it just made me think of, like, their dumb ass names, like Grand Dragon, whatever.

367
00:35:40,970 --> 00:35:43,018
Chris: As ridiculous as their names are, I.

368
00:35:43,034 --> 00:35:43,938
Kayla: Know that they're common.

369
00:35:44,034 --> 00:35:53,554
Chris: It's actually. It turns out it's kind of common. Across fraternal organizations. So they're not the only ridiculous ones. They're more ridiculous because of their racism. I love that. Like, I was like, oh, I'm not gonna do, like, a racist.

370
00:35:53,602 --> 00:35:55,202
Kayla: And then you did racism again.

371
00:35:55,306 --> 00:36:39,324
Chris: I accidentally did racism again. But, yeah. Really, though, they run the gamut from rotary just trying to do charity work and hang out to all the way to things that are a little less savory. But they're varied in their manifestation. Historically speaking, fraternal orders have their origins in a few different social phenomena. Broadly speaking, they feel an important community support function when that function isn't provided or is suppressed elsewhere. So in the middle ages, you had craft guilds in the church, and they provided all of those community support functions. Right. Like, they were the. The biggest thing in your life was church. And if you were part of the, you know, the blacksmith guild, that was probably the second biggest thing. Or maybe even the first.

372
00:36:39,412 --> 00:36:40,040
Kayla: Right.

373
00:36:40,540 --> 00:37:30,510
Chris: However, as the guild system declined and even was outlawed in some cases, as I found out, I did not know that. Yeah. Because some european political power structures would occasionally decide the guild challenged their power too much. So, as that happened and as more secularization happened in the post Renaissance era, there was a pretty large social, communal vacuum left, and the earliest fraternal orders filled this in. It's no coincidence, for example, that freemasonry was, first of all, founded in the middle of the 16 hundreds, and second of all, uses a lot of the same hierarchical structures and symbology and rituals that guilds and churches do. Third of all is called Freemasons, which is either a direct reference to masonry craft guilds or as a direct evolution from them.

374
00:37:30,670 --> 00:37:43,470
Chris: I didn't quite get into it enough to figure that out, because this episode isn't actually about Freemasons, believe it or not. But to sum up, fraternal orders sprang up when guilds and the church sprang down.

375
00:37:43,590 --> 00:37:44,222
Kayla: Sprang down.

376
00:37:44,286 --> 00:37:48,630
Chris: Sprang down. That's what you do in England in the 17 hundreds and 18 hundreds.

377
00:37:48,670 --> 00:37:51,198
Kayla: You sprang forward and you sprang back.

378
00:37:51,294 --> 00:38:16,848
Chris: Sprang. In England in the 17 hundreds and 18 hundreds. There was a specific type of fraternal order, what that came about called friendly societies. I know very british, very like, friendly societies. So nice, so polite. Which I'll talk a bit more about those later because their particular flavor is actually similar to our cult group today. Ooh, wait.

379
00:38:16,864 --> 00:38:18,088
Kayla: We haven't talked about our cult group yet.

380
00:38:18,144 --> 00:38:19,576
Chris: No, not yet. I haven't even mentioned them.

381
00:38:19,608 --> 00:38:20,384
Kayla: Oh, my God.

382
00:38:20,512 --> 00:38:26,792
Chris: I know. But fraternal order, I don't know if this is like, good storytelling or horrible storytelling?

383
00:38:26,816 --> 00:38:27,360
Kayla: I think it's good.

384
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:30,496
Chris: I don't know. Like, not telling you what it is yet.

385
00:38:30,568 --> 00:38:31,816
Kayla: I did it with tulpas.

386
00:38:32,008 --> 00:38:54,202
Chris: Oh, that's true. You did. Okay, this is just revenge. But fraternal orders were big in America, too, particularly the Freemasons in the 17 hundreds. Many of the founding fathers were Freemasons, including George Washington himself. And allegedly, a lot of the design of early America, both founding documents and even governmental architecture and structure, were influenced by freemasonry.

387
00:38:54,306 --> 00:38:55,082
Kayla: Oh, shit.

388
00:38:55,146 --> 00:39:13,276
Chris: There was a bit of a decline in fraternal orders here in the US and the first part of the 18 hundreds. And in fact, there was a whole political party dedicated to being anti secret society. What? And there's a bunch more to tell you about why? And I think I'll probably save it for when we inevitably do an episode on the Freemasons.

389
00:39:13,308 --> 00:39:16,100
Kayla: Oh, my God. But I want to know.

390
00:39:16,220 --> 00:39:58,030
Chris: After the Civil War, America began what scholars now call the golden age of fraternalism in America. This period of time saw the founding of many new fraternal orders, the rise and influence of a lot of them, and large swathes of the population being members of one, or in many cases, multiple fraternal orders, according to secret societies. In foundational studies in fraternalism, by William D. Moore. Sorry, I had to cite it. I had to cite my source. As many as 40% of the us population belong to a fraternal order of one kind or another. During the peak of this golden age, 40% accuse me.

391
00:39:59,166 --> 00:40:02,758
Kayla: So that's basically all, because that's not counting children, I'm assuming.

392
00:40:02,894 --> 00:40:44,312
Chris: I'm not sure what it was counting. I'm not sure. I also. I don't know, because I didn't actually read this book, but I did say, well, and fraternal organizations, too. So I'm not sure if it was, like, 40% of everyone or 40% of just, like, the real people, like white males, but I thought that was just, like, a crazy percentage. And of course, a lot of people belong to more than one. So this golden age entered decline roughly around the depression, world War two era. And today, fraternal orders are well known, but not as well attended. And many of their memberships are aging. It wasn't coincidence that this is when fraternal orders saw declining influence in membership.

393
00:40:44,456 --> 00:41:12,776
Chris: Post depression America is when the government started taking a much larger role in providing social safety net services, from the New Deal programs of FDR to the great society programs of Lyndon Johnson. So the things that these groups provided, or maybe sort of failed to provide in the case of the Great Depression. We're now seeing competition from the us government. And one way you can kind of think of these fraternal orders as bridging the gap between the fall of guilds and the universal Catholic Church and the rise of the modern welfare state mechanisms.

394
00:41:12,888 --> 00:41:13,816
Kayla: Interesting.

395
00:41:13,968 --> 00:41:19,416
Chris: We'll talk more about why that is, though. So it is into this milieu of.

396
00:41:19,528 --> 00:41:22,860
Kayla: Sorry, you gotta commit, dude.

397
00:41:24,070 --> 00:41:33,854
Chris: Oh, God. Of american golden age of fraternalism, that one, Joseph Cullen Root, in 1883, created the topic of today's show.

398
00:41:33,902 --> 00:41:34,770
Kayla: Oh, my God.

399
00:41:35,150 --> 00:41:36,966
Chris: The modern woodman of America.

400
00:41:37,038 --> 00:41:41,422
Kayla: What? I've never heard of that. Is it lumberjacks?

401
00:41:41,566 --> 00:41:42,710
Chris: Not at all.

402
00:41:42,870 --> 00:41:46,630
Kayla: The modern woodmen of America. Of America.

403
00:41:46,710 --> 00:42:09,040
Chris: Now, a lot of what I've already talked about regarding fraternal societies applies to the Woodmand. They are a fraternal order that provides a lot of the same functions and services that we've already talked about. And they were founded right smack dab in the middle of the american golden age of fraternalism, when many other fraternal orders were being founded or swelling their membership. So why are we talking about this group in particular?

404
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:10,248
Kayla: Yeah, I need to know.

405
00:42:10,344 --> 00:42:18,296
Chris: We will get to that. But first, let's talk about the first thing we always talk about, the aforementioned charismatic leader.

406
00:42:18,368 --> 00:42:20,600
Kayla: Ooh, my favorite one. I think that's my favorite one.

407
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:22,320
Chris: Mister Root. Mister Joseph Root.

408
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:23,014
Kayla: Mister Root.

409
00:42:23,112 --> 00:42:39,978
Chris: There actually wasn't a ton of information about Mister Root online, but I did learn some interesting things about him. To me, he definitely seems like one of those, like, late 18 hundreds ish, like, industrial titan type guy. Like, you know, like a teddy Roosevelt type, but, like, not that he was an industrial titan, but you know what I mean.

410
00:42:40,034 --> 00:42:41,350
Kayla: He's a Dagney Taggart.

411
00:42:41,810 --> 00:42:42,906
Chris: Yeah, exactly.

412
00:42:42,978 --> 00:42:43,882
Kayla: He's a John Gault.

413
00:42:43,946 --> 00:42:59,886
Chris: Right. He's totally like one of those guys. Yeah. Except instead of being a titan of industry, he was a titan of fraternal orders. So he was born in 1844 in Chester, Massachusetts. In his young and early adult life, he operated a wide variety of business ventures, from law practice to owning a grain elevator.

414
00:42:59,958 --> 00:43:00,510
Kayla: Whoa.

415
00:43:00,630 --> 00:43:01,150
Chris: To.

416
00:43:01,270 --> 00:43:01,822
Kayla: Wait.

417
00:43:01,926 --> 00:43:03,174
Chris: Selling insurance.

418
00:43:03,302 --> 00:43:06,886
Kayla: What is a grain elevator? Is it that thing?

419
00:43:06,958 --> 00:43:11,710
Chris: It's the thing. So, like, there's, you know, that, like, that thing escalator that takes the grain up.

420
00:43:11,830 --> 00:43:12,990
Kayla: That's what that is?

421
00:43:13,070 --> 00:43:13,822
Chris: I think so.

422
00:43:13,926 --> 00:43:15,654
Kayla: And this guy did business in that?

423
00:43:15,742 --> 00:43:16,316
Chris: Yes.

424
00:43:16,438 --> 00:43:16,888
Kayla: Okay.

425
00:43:16,944 --> 00:43:18,960
Chris: And also law and also selling insurance.

426
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:22,152
Kayla: Sure. Yep. That. Yep, I believe him.

427
00:43:22,296 --> 00:43:49,854
Chris: Cause it was the 18 hundreds. So that's what you did. You just did all kinds of wild stuff. Whatever, man. I make video game, and I also have a podcast. He became heavily involved in Freemasonry, and the paper I read about him listed a whole crazy slew of titles and awards and achievements he unlocked in the organization, culminating in his receiving the 33rd degree rank in 1899, which, again, this isn't an episode about Freemasons, but I'm pretty sure the 33rd degree rank is, like, the highest thing you can get as a Freemason.

428
00:43:49,982 --> 00:43:52,630
Kayla: I think 33rd sounds pretty high.

429
00:43:52,710 --> 00:43:53,974
Chris: I think it's the highest.

430
00:43:54,102 --> 00:43:54,886
Kayla: Jeez.

431
00:43:55,038 --> 00:43:57,198
Chris: Oh. But he was a multitasker.

432
00:43:57,254 --> 00:43:58,094
Kayla: Oh, God.

433
00:43:58,262 --> 00:44:13,434
Chris: In addition to being a freemason, well, like, a super freemason, he was also a member of other fraternal organizations. The Knights Templar, the Knights of Pythias, whatever the hell that is. The independent Order of Oddfellows, which I think I mentioned them earlier.

434
00:44:13,482 --> 00:44:14,586
Kayla: I think I want to be a part of that.

435
00:44:14,618 --> 00:44:21,370
Chris: They were huge at the time. The Iowa Legion of Honor, the ancient Order of United workmen. What?

436
00:44:21,410 --> 00:44:22,402
Kayla: I want to be part of that.

437
00:44:22,506 --> 00:44:36,500
Chris: And vas what? Which evidently stands for vera amasita sempiterna. I'm probably saying that wrong, but that's Latin for true friendship is eternal.

438
00:44:36,650 --> 00:44:38,304
Kayla: I want to be part of that one. That's not nice.

439
00:44:38,352 --> 00:44:38,936
Chris: Yeah, nice.

440
00:44:39,008 --> 00:44:40,704
Kayla: Yeah, I like that.

441
00:44:40,832 --> 00:44:47,336
Chris: So I know very little about these groups at the moment because they're not the topic. But what I do know is that sounds like a lot to have on your plate.

442
00:44:47,368 --> 00:44:47,976
Kayla: Yes.

443
00:44:48,128 --> 00:44:54,460
Chris: I just named six groups, in addition to the Masons, where he was a 33rd degree freemason.

444
00:44:54,960 --> 00:44:55,880
Kayla: I mean, there was no tv.

445
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:56,780
Chris: That's insane.

446
00:44:57,360 --> 00:44:58,696
Kayla: There's nothing else to do besides.

447
00:44:58,728 --> 00:45:01,808
Chris: Right. There was just this. That's a good point. So they didn't have free.

448
00:45:01,864 --> 00:45:04,920
Kayla: They didn't have netflix to bend books or, like, games.

449
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:06,112
Chris: They have books.

450
00:45:06,216 --> 00:45:07,432
Kayla: I'm saying some of them.

451
00:45:07,496 --> 00:45:07,976
Chris: Oh.

452
00:45:08,008 --> 00:45:12,136
Kayla: May not have had books. Books weren't invented until 60 years ago. What are you talking about?

453
00:45:12,208 --> 00:45:13,040
Chris: That's true.

454
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:16,376
Kayla: The amount of books. I don't have anything to do. All you got.

455
00:45:16,448 --> 00:45:17,304
Chris: That's actually a good point.

456
00:45:17,352 --> 00:45:18,552
Kayla: Well, hanging out with your friends.

457
00:45:18,616 --> 00:45:32,074
Chris: We do talk about this a little bit later, but, like, that's one of the things that fraternal organizations did at the time, is, like, they were entertainment, right? Like, they did activities. They did social activities. They did games. Like you did back then. You didn't even have professional sports.

458
00:45:32,162 --> 00:45:32,626
Kayla: Right.

459
00:45:32,738 --> 00:45:48,194
Chris: Football hadn't even been really. Well, I guess by the 1880s, it would like had just been invented. There was no NFL, but there was certainly no NFL. And actually, football didn't look anything like you might think football would look like at the time. Anyway, I still think it's crazy all the groups he belonged to.

460
00:45:48,242 --> 00:45:48,538
Kayla: Yes.

461
00:45:48,594 --> 00:45:52,962
Chris: Oh, but wait, there's more. You'll notice that nothing in my list there said Woodman of America.

462
00:45:53,026 --> 00:45:54,018
Kayla: Oh, shit.

463
00:45:54,194 --> 00:46:03,598
Chris: Well, I guess being heavily involved in seven fraternal organizations wasn't enough to satisfy Mister roots life ambitions. So he said, I guess I should start my own fraternal organization.

464
00:46:03,694 --> 00:46:05,062
Kayla: Is that a direct quote?

465
00:46:05,246 --> 00:46:40,544
Chris: More or less. I'm assuming that he said something similar to that, which, from his perspective, honestly, it's not a bad idea, considering how much experience he had with the model. The possibly apocryphal story of the founding is put so well in the article that I'm just going to quote here verbatim, I can't really paraphrase this better than the writer states. Oh, actually, I think I forgot to mention this, but the writer of this article about Joseph Cullen Root, this article, that was like the only place I could find information about this guy. The writer was himself a 32nd degree freemason, so, jeez, he was just kind of doing like history and other important freemasons or something.

466
00:46:40,632 --> 00:47:04,248
Chris: Anyway, regarding the founding of the Woodman, in July 1882, Roode heard a sermon by Reverend Sidney Crawford at First Congregational Church in Lyons, Iowa, about pioneer woodmen clearing away the forest to provide for their families. Thus, he was inspired to organize modern woodmen of America as a society which would clear away problems of financial security for its members.

467
00:47:04,344 --> 00:47:06,464
Kayla: So it was related to lumberjacks?

468
00:47:06,512 --> 00:47:18,752
Chris: He felt sort of related, yeah, but, like, you didn't have to be a lumberjack to be in it. Continuing the quote, he felt the use of the term ancient by so many fraternities was dishonest, and thus described his order as modern.

469
00:47:18,816 --> 00:47:19,496
Kayla: Oh, shit.

470
00:47:19,568 --> 00:47:20,904
Chris: That's why he called the modern Woodman.

471
00:47:20,952 --> 00:47:22,062
Kayla: I really like that.

472
00:47:22,176 --> 00:47:41,658
Chris: He saw the word woodman as alluding to a noble vocation. Since his order was native to american soil, he felt that the addition of the words of America was quite appropriate. And he saw his brainchild as linked with his name of root and visualized an order growing in the same manner as a tree. And the forest grows from its roots. Isn't that adorable?

473
00:47:41,714 --> 00:47:42,602
Kayla: That's really sweet.

474
00:47:42,706 --> 00:47:44,986
Chris: And he was like, my last name's Root. I'm gonna call a woodman.

475
00:47:45,058 --> 00:47:46,018
Kayla: Yeah, that's cute.

476
00:47:46,114 --> 00:48:11,220
Chris: Continuing the quote, on January 5, 1883, Root established modern woodmen. Of America. At Lyonsenhe, he wrote the ritual and served as the first venerable consul of pioneer camp number one and the first head consul of the new order. In 1888, the royal neighbors of America was established as a ladies auxiliary. By 1889, there were 42,694 modern woodmen.

477
00:48:11,380 --> 00:48:14,036
Kayla: That's not a six years. That's not a small amount.

478
00:48:14,068 --> 00:48:17,362
Chris: That's great. I hope we have 40,000 listeners in a few years from now.

479
00:48:17,516 --> 00:48:18,558
Kayla: Be awful ever.

480
00:48:18,694 --> 00:48:53,880
Chris: Anyway, that's the end of the quote. That's just about the founding of the woodman from Mister root. The article goes on to say that by the time of Root's death in 1913, the woodmen of the world had 700,000 members and over 10,000 camps, which I think are like chapters or lodges. Just about all of these fraternal organizations use that same model that kind of comes from the Freemasons. Even including the greek system, they're called chapters. So they all have that same sort of organization. Yeah. Anyway, all this is to say Joseph Cullen Root, the founder of the Woodman, was a hella impressive dude.

481
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:54,576
Kayla: Yeah.

482
00:48:54,728 --> 00:48:56,660
Chris: So how weird is this sound so far?

483
00:48:57,000 --> 00:49:04,256
Kayla: Not that weird. It sounds, I mean, like a little weird. It doesn't sound any weirder than anything else I know about any of these groups.

484
00:49:04,328 --> 00:49:09,352
Chris: Yeah. Anyway, a little weird with the ritual of the crazy names and titles, but not like, not super weird.

485
00:49:09,376 --> 00:49:09,864
Kayla: Yeah.

486
00:49:09,992 --> 00:49:12,032
Chris: Yeah. Well, it gets weirder.

487
00:49:12,176 --> 00:49:13,340
Kayla: I'm assuming.

488
00:49:13,900 --> 00:49:20,420
Chris: Did you catch that I have used two different names to refer to the woodman in my story about mister Root?

489
00:49:20,500 --> 00:49:21,120
Kayla: No.

490
00:49:21,740 --> 00:49:29,340
Chris: Oh, well, that's because there are actually two entirely or mostly entirely different organizations.

491
00:49:29,420 --> 00:49:30,356
Kayla: Excuse me?

492
00:49:30,508 --> 00:49:30,932
Chris: Yeah.

493
00:49:30,996 --> 00:49:31,700
Kayla: What does that mean?

494
00:49:31,780 --> 00:49:35,660
Chris: There are two different Woodman's organizations.

495
00:49:35,740 --> 00:49:36,720
Kayla: Why and how?

496
00:49:37,380 --> 00:49:44,394
Chris: Well, today their names are as follows. Woodman life what? And modern Woodman of America.

497
00:49:44,522 --> 00:49:45,434
Kayla: Okay.

498
00:49:45,602 --> 00:50:03,642
Chris: When Root founded the Woodman, it was modern woodmen of America. It was that group. And as we mentioned, it was in 1883. And then there was a mysterious line that I read in Wikipedia. After internal dissension within the MWA, Root was ejected from the organization that he had founded.

499
00:50:03,706 --> 00:50:04,706
Kayla: Oh, shit.

500
00:50:04,858 --> 00:50:09,092
Chris: So this was a citation. Wikipedia. Back to this here book.

501
00:50:09,196 --> 00:50:10,800
Kayla: Is that why you got that book?

502
00:50:11,140 --> 00:50:50,596
Chris: Among other things, but yes, which I will read to you from right now. So this textbook, fraternal organizations, says Root earlier had founded the modern Woodman of America. In 1883, a few years into the life of modern Woodman brought a feud between him and the head physician of the society. Both men were expelled, and so Root set out to form a new society, which led him to Omaha, Nebraska. All I can find is that there was, like, a feud between him and this head physician, and there's just some drama that went on, but, like, apparently wound up in mutual expulsion and, like, out of the thing that he himself founded.

503
00:50:50,668 --> 00:50:52,076
Kayla: Oh, man. I want to be privy to that.

504
00:50:52,148 --> 00:51:00,588
Chris: I know it seems pretty extreme for dispute, but I don't know. It was the 18 hundreds. So, like, dispute maybe meant that they were, like, about to do with pistols and kill each other.

505
00:51:00,644 --> 00:51:03,540
Kayla: Right? They probably did that thing where they take off a glove and slap each other in the face.

506
00:51:03,620 --> 00:51:15,158
Chris: Yeah, maybe say, put up your dukes. I'll just assume that it was extreme. In any event, being expelled from the organization he himself founded didn't get to old Joe Root. No, sir did.

507
00:51:15,174 --> 00:51:16,062
Kayla: He found another one.

508
00:51:16,126 --> 00:51:25,222
Chris: He just seven years later then. Remember, I said he went to Omaha. Just seven years later after moving to Omaha, he founded the modern woodman of the world.

509
00:51:25,326 --> 00:51:26,530
Kayla: Oh, my God.

510
00:51:27,030 --> 00:51:37,246
Chris: Sounds a little bit fucky. It sounds a little bit like, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna try this again. Yeah, but, like, both kept existing and they both still exist today.

511
00:51:37,358 --> 00:51:38,086
Kayla: What?

512
00:51:38,278 --> 00:51:47,606
Chris: Yeah, so remember I said the two names? So modern Woodman of America is the first one, and then Woodman life is Woodman of the world. They just renamed themselves.

513
00:51:47,678 --> 00:51:49,502
Kayla: Where is my tv show about this?

514
00:51:49,646 --> 00:51:56,262
Chris: I know, I know. I really want to know more about, especially this early, sort of, like, founding drama.

515
00:51:56,366 --> 00:52:00,690
Kayla: The nice thing, though, is that if we don't have facts, we can just make it up.

516
00:52:00,730 --> 00:52:02,178
Chris: I think we should make a lot of it up.

517
00:52:02,194 --> 00:52:03,210
Kayla: Oh, my God.

518
00:52:03,330 --> 00:52:07,082
Chris: Yeah, it's pretty. It's like. Yeah, it's pretty fucking drama. Tea.

519
00:52:07,146 --> 00:52:07,882
Kayla: Yeah.

520
00:52:08,066 --> 00:52:14,514
Chris: Yeah, and so I don't know. Like, I don't know why he named it that. Maybe he wanted to, like, sound more impressive than Woodman of America. So this time he's, like, of the world.

521
00:52:14,602 --> 00:52:15,230
Kayla: Right?

522
00:52:16,170 --> 00:52:30,524
Chris: And then anyway, shortly thereafter, they dropped modern. So it was just Woodman of the world. And then just a tiny bit later, in 2015, Woodmen of the world rebranded themselves to Woodman life. You said 2015? Yeah, just a tiny bit later.

523
00:52:30,612 --> 00:52:31,276
Kayla: Okay.

524
00:52:31,388 --> 00:52:36,892
Chris: Yes. You might be wondering why in 2015 they would be giving enough of a shit to rename themselves.

525
00:52:36,956 --> 00:52:38,652
Kayla: That is definitely the first thing that I thought.

526
00:52:38,716 --> 00:52:40,268
Chris: We'll get to that.

527
00:52:40,324 --> 00:52:40,828
Kayla: Okay, good.

528
00:52:40,884 --> 00:53:11,800
Chris: So let's talk just a little bit about how modern woodmen of America function and are organized today from modernwoodman.org via wikipedia. As a fraternal organization, the society is organized around a lodge system, which we talked about. They call them chapters, summit chapters, and youth service clubs. These groups offer fellowship and community service opportunities for members. All pretty standard stuff. Fraternal organizations. In 2016, modern Wooden members were part of 2466 chapters.

529
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:12,620
Kayla: Wow.

530
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:19,594
Chris: 283 summit chapters, whatever the hell that means. And 782 youth service clubs nationwide.

531
00:53:19,682 --> 00:53:20,266
Kayla: All right.

532
00:53:20,378 --> 00:53:39,802
Chris: Modern women members across the United States participate in numerous activities to socialize, learn, and volunteer in their communities. Members unite for volunteer efforts to provide money, donations, hands on labor, and other resources to improve lives in their communities. The organization's matching fund program matches money raised by individual chapters for community members or local organizations in need.

533
00:53:39,906 --> 00:53:40,746
Kayla: Sounds pretty good.

534
00:53:40,858 --> 00:54:10,460
Chris: Pretty decent fellows. Now let's talk about Woodman life. They do similar lodge style organization. They also do charitable work. They seem to also be involved in a lot of disaster relief efforts. And they were super into patriotism. So here's another quote. The organization's patriotic program includes presenting flagpoles and american flags to schools, fire departments, parks, and other public places. Woodman Life is the second largest distributor, after the us government, of flags throughout the US.

535
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:11,656
Kayla: That's pretty cool.

536
00:54:11,728 --> 00:54:17,496
Chris: Distributing more. Yeah. If you'd said, like, who's the second largest distributor? I would have been like, I don't know.

537
00:54:17,608 --> 00:54:17,976
Kayla: Right.

538
00:54:18,048 --> 00:54:19,976
Chris: Also, I didn't know these people existed.

539
00:54:20,048 --> 00:54:20,660
Kayla: Right.

540
00:54:21,440 --> 00:54:24,992
Chris: Anyway, they distribute more than 2.5 million flags since 1947.

541
00:54:25,056 --> 00:54:25,584
Kayla: Wow.

542
00:54:25,712 --> 00:54:49,790
Chris: They also do a lot of 911 patriotic stuff. Continuing the quote, the organization's annual in honor and remembrance ceremonies pay tribute to those involved in the September 11 attacks of 2001. More than 2400 ceremonies have been held since the program began in 2002. To mark the fifth anniversary, Woodman Life hung 250 by 100 foot american flags on the Woodman Life tower.

543
00:54:50,090 --> 00:54:50,830
Kayla: What?

544
00:54:51,210 --> 00:54:52,826
Chris: Yeah, on the Woodman Life tower.

545
00:54:52,898 --> 00:54:53,682
Kayla: What is that?

546
00:54:53,786 --> 00:55:07,560
Chris: Twin beams of light with a combined 15 billion candela, which is like really bright spotlights illuminated the Omaha skyline each evening during the week of September 11, 2006 in tribute to the World Trade center. End quote.

547
00:55:07,940 --> 00:55:08,628
Kayla: Explain.

548
00:55:08,724 --> 00:55:25,012
Chris: Yeah, we'll get to that. They also had more information available on Wikipedia via their website. This is women life about how they are organized. They had much more information on how they're organized than MWA did. And it's pretty ritualistic. The head chapter is referred to as the sovereign camp.

549
00:55:25,116 --> 00:55:25,548
Kayla: What?

550
00:55:25,644 --> 00:55:43,000
Chris: And they refer to us states in which they operate as jurisdictions or head campsite. Then at the local level, chapters are called either just camps or courts or groves. I think groves comes from. I don't know if it's still this, but groves comes from back when they started allowing women into the organization. They were organized. Instead of camps, they were organized into groves.

551
00:55:43,120 --> 00:55:43,816
Kayla: Okay.

552
00:55:43,928 --> 00:56:17,338
Chris: I don't know. I guess grove sounds more feminine. I have no idea. And it gets even more ritualistic and strange if you go into their history when they're really doing, like, fraternal organization y stuff. So I'm gonna pull the handy dandy textbook here. Again. Yes, please, to illustrate. Okay. Quoting from this textbook. Now, like many fraternal benefit groups, the wow. So it's funny, they call them wow. World of Warcraft. Way before World of Warcraft, though. Woodmen of the world, the wow has a ritual containing agendas for initiation, installation, and funeral rites.

553
00:56:17,394 --> 00:56:17,930
Kayla: Whoa.

554
00:56:18,050 --> 00:56:45,232
Chris: The lodge has a floor plan portrayed in the ritual manual and shows I one item quite different from most floor plans of other fraternal societies. In most other lodge rooms, an altar stands in the center of the room. But in the wow camp plan, there's a giant tree stump in place of the altar. The ritual attempts to teach its four great principles of the woodmen of the world. The first principle is hospitality. The second is service. The third is loyalty. And the fourth is protection.

555
00:56:45,416 --> 00:56:47,020
Kayla: Those are all good.

556
00:56:47,320 --> 00:57:22,572
Chris: So this is less ritually, but more just like kind of what they do as a fraternal benefit society. The order sponsor, and this is, by the way, a little bit further in their past. So just a level set. The order sponsors social and recreational activities such as dinners, dances, bingo parties, picnics, various athletic events. It awards scholarships, supports korean and vietnamese orphans, donates life saving equipment to hospitals, and, of course, assists its own members who need temporary material and financial help. So a lot of, like, interesting ritual, and there's a little more even that we'll get to. Okay, but let's get into even more additional weird stuff.

557
00:57:22,676 --> 00:57:23,812
Kayla: Yeah, give me that dirt.

558
00:57:23,916 --> 00:57:29,372
Chris: Yeah, the weird. And it's like, maybe not necessarily weird, but, like, very unexpected.

559
00:57:29,516 --> 00:57:31,200
Kayla: Okay, that's the best kind of weird.

560
00:57:31,540 --> 00:58:10,336
Chris: So, yeah, I mean, the woodmen are full of surprises. Maybe they like to stay on theme because they're, like, ambushing people in the forest or something. I don't know. But anyway, let's start with modern woodmen of America. We'll talk about two things, their drill teams and their sanatorium. So these aren't all that weird. If you're familiar with fraternal orders, they generally sponsor all kinds of public works and services. In fact, we just talked about that as. It's, like, one of the things that they do, and MWA is no exception. Their drill teams are called forester drill teams, and according to the Time article, again via Wikipedia about this. These drill teams are one of the most distinctive features of the MWA. It began in 1894.

561
00:58:10,408 --> 00:58:21,230
Chris: So like not too long after they founded and actually became famous nationally in the early part of the century for the events and parades they held, even earning a visit to the White House back when. That was good.

562
00:58:22,130 --> 00:58:23,618
Kayla: That was subtle.

563
00:58:23,714 --> 00:58:24,010
Chris: Thanks.

564
00:58:24,050 --> 00:58:24,730
Kayla: I liked it.

565
00:58:24,810 --> 00:58:33,618
Chris: Anyway, all the different chapters of the forester drill teams had wildly different uniforms and style. So their demonstrations came to be known as rainbow parades.

566
00:58:33,674 --> 00:58:34,226
Kayla: Aw.

567
00:58:34,378 --> 00:59:16,260
Chris: Which to my knowledge has nothing to do with gay parades today, I don't think. But maybe I didn't dig deep enough, but I don't think it has anything to do with one another. But in any case, pretty ritualistic, right? The other thing I mentioned with the MWA was their sanatorium. The modern woodmen of America funded a massive state of the art for the time tuberculosis sanatorium during the tb epidemic of the early 19 hundreds. The $1.5 million. And that's in 1907. Money facility was named one of the most outstanding tb treatment centers by the american college of Surgeons. And they offered room, board, treatment, medicine, dental, laundry, all for free, no expense to the patient.

568
00:59:16,380 --> 00:59:17,120
Kayla: Wow.

569
00:59:17,420 --> 00:59:22,860
Chris: Part of why the MWA made this their mission was that at the time tb was a leading cause of death for their members.

570
00:59:23,020 --> 00:59:23,660
Kayla: Oh.

571
00:59:23,780 --> 00:59:27,760
Chris: But they also had a vested interest in their members health beyond that, which we'll get to.

572
00:59:28,060 --> 00:59:30,132
Kayla: I don't like the sound of that. That was ominous.

573
00:59:30,156 --> 00:59:32,588
Chris: No, that's not ominous. Well, maybe. I don't know.

574
00:59:32,684 --> 00:59:34,012
Kayla: It's not ominous.

575
00:59:34,196 --> 00:59:44,080
Chris: It's not. It's not. Trust me, it's not ominous. Everything's fine. Anyway, after antibiotics got invented and tb went away, the sanatorium declined and eventually closed sometime around the mid century.

576
00:59:44,620 --> 00:59:47,748
Kayla: Okay, I want to say awe, but actually, no, that's good. It's good.

577
00:59:47,764 --> 01:00:04,032
Chris: They're closed. Aw, wait. Oh no, that's good because we got rid of the disease. All right. Onto Woodman life. I feel like their random stories are even more unexpected. So drill teams and hospitals. Okay. But Woodman life is known for tombstones and radio broadcast.

578
01:00:04,096 --> 01:00:06,768
Kayla: Okay, that's badass. I like that.

579
01:00:06,944 --> 01:00:12,984
Chris: So keep in mind Woodman life was formerly Woodman of the world and that was the second organization that Joe Cullen founded.

580
01:00:13,032 --> 01:00:13,672
Kayla: Right?

581
01:00:13,856 --> 01:00:15,960
Chris: So they had an interesting program.

582
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:18,128
Kayla: Wait wait wait. Who's Joe Cullen?

583
01:00:18,264 --> 01:00:19,688
Chris: Joseph Cullen root.

584
01:00:19,784 --> 01:00:21,048
Kayla: Joseph Cullen root. Thank you.

585
01:00:21,104 --> 01:00:39,404
Chris: Joe Root. Joe Root. Joe Cullen root. Sorry, I probably should have said that because Cullen was his middle name. Anyway, the woodmen of the world had an interesting program early on that was appealing to members and would be members, which was that, if you remember, they provided you upon your death with a tree stump looking tombstone.

586
01:00:39,532 --> 01:00:41,220
Kayla: That's fucking cool.

587
01:00:41,300 --> 01:00:44,980
Chris: Actually, there's a couple different kinds, but it's actually pretty cool looking. Do you want to take a look?

588
01:00:45,020 --> 01:00:48,028
Kayla: Yes. Sorry. I don't know why I said that so aggressively.

589
01:00:48,164 --> 01:00:49,260
Chris: So here's one of them.

590
01:00:49,380 --> 01:00:51,760
Kayla: That's. Wait, that's not wood?

591
01:00:52,260 --> 01:00:54,396
Chris: No, I don't think so. That's a tombstone.

592
01:00:54,468 --> 01:00:55,092
Kayla: Cool.

593
01:00:55,236 --> 01:00:56,596
Chris: Let me see if I can find the other one.

594
01:00:56,628 --> 01:00:59,948
Kayla: It's very detailed. It looks like it's made out of tree.

595
01:01:00,084 --> 01:01:01,220
Chris: So here's another one.

596
01:01:01,340 --> 01:01:02,740
Kayla: Well, how do I get that?

597
01:01:02,900 --> 01:01:11,440
Chris: Well, you can't anymore because they stopped doing it because it was too expensive. They didn't actually do it very long. It was like early 19 hundreds. They stopped doing it.

598
01:01:12,060 --> 01:01:13,492
Kayla: That is really cool looking, though.

599
01:01:13,596 --> 01:01:17,804
Chris: Yeah, but it's pretty cool looking, right? And, like, you can see these all across the country. Oh, my God.

600
01:01:17,852 --> 01:01:18,468
Kayla: Road trip.

601
01:01:18,564 --> 01:01:22,460
Chris: Well, yeah, and actually, next time we're at Senespia, I'm definitely gonna be looking for one.

602
01:01:22,500 --> 01:01:26,524
Kayla: Ooh, there's some at the Hollywood cemetery. Is that the Hollywood cemetery?

603
01:01:26,572 --> 01:01:49,606
Chris: I have no idea, but I'm gonna look, but, yeah. So they have, as you saw from the picture, they have carvings of some of their important symbols and sayings. They have a maul and a wedge and an axe. They often have a dove of peace with an olive branch. Often they have an inscription. It says, woodmen do not lie. And here rests a woodman of the world.

604
01:01:49,798 --> 01:01:51,390
Kayla: I didn't know that. They didn't lie.

605
01:01:51,550 --> 01:02:02,108
Chris: Well, and they say they don't have lie, probably. Well, it definitely is because everybody lies in any case. Now left turn into radio broadcast.

606
01:02:02,244 --> 01:02:06,740
Kayla: Yeah, that makes less sense than tombstones.

607
01:02:06,820 --> 01:02:38,428
Chris: I know. In 1922, Woodman of the world started radio broadcasting on the station wo. Wow. And a few years later, they just changed it to wow. Okay, so, yeah. Why did they say they actually wanted wow to begin with before wo? But they had to wait for a service ship that had the call sign to be retired first. And the ship was named the Henry J. Bibble. Wait, so that makes no sense why that was called wow.

608
01:02:38,484 --> 01:02:39,916
Kayla: Okay, there was a ship.

609
01:02:40,028 --> 01:02:43,060
Chris: There's a ship called the Henry J. Bibble, whose call sign was wow.

610
01:02:43,140 --> 01:02:44,400
Kayla: Government ship?

611
01:02:44,820 --> 01:02:45,612
Chris: I think so.

612
01:02:45,676 --> 01:02:47,212
Kayla: And its name, it was a service.

613
01:02:47,276 --> 01:02:48,788
Chris: Ship, was the Henry J. Bibble.

614
01:02:48,844 --> 01:02:50,220
Kayla: Henry J. Bibble.

615
01:02:50,260 --> 01:02:54,642
Chris: And its call sign was wow. And that's why they couldn't use wow for the radio station.

616
01:02:54,746 --> 01:02:56,170
Kayla: That doesn't make any sense.

617
01:02:56,250 --> 01:02:59,610
Chris: No, and it's like, super tangential, but it was just so weird that I wanted to say it.

618
01:02:59,650 --> 01:03:00,290
Kayla: No sense.

619
01:03:00,410 --> 01:03:08,258
Chris: Yeah. Doesn't make a lick of sense. Anyway, there were a bunch of legal battles over ownership of the station due to the Woodman's status as a nonprofit.

620
01:03:08,354 --> 01:03:08,770
Kayla: Okay.

621
01:03:08,810 --> 01:03:18,330
Chris: And it went back and forth before they finally divested themselves of ownership through a stock sale in 1958, but not before spawning a television station called WOW, tv.

622
01:03:18,410 --> 01:03:19,750
Kayla: Excuse me, can we watch it right now?

623
01:03:19,850 --> 01:03:25,210
Chris: Which apparently was the first television station where a small nobody guy named Johnny Carson worked.

624
01:03:26,670 --> 01:03:27,410
Kayla: What?

625
01:03:29,030 --> 01:03:29,758
Chris: Yes.

626
01:03:29,894 --> 01:03:31,410
Kayla: Excuse me.

627
01:03:31,750 --> 01:03:32,390
Chris: Yes.

628
01:03:32,510 --> 01:03:33,330
Kayla: Explain.

629
01:03:33,750 --> 01:03:36,886
Chris: There's no explanation. It's just he worked at this station.

630
01:03:36,958 --> 01:03:38,290
Kayla: Oh, my God.

631
01:03:39,390 --> 01:03:43,230
Chris: So, yeah, so this whole broadcast media thing seemed, like, really weird to me.

632
01:03:43,270 --> 01:03:43,654
Kayla: Yes.

633
01:03:43,742 --> 01:03:46,344
Chris: Until I read an article about the Woodman that explained it thusly.

634
01:03:46,422 --> 01:03:47,148
Kayla: Okay.

635
01:03:47,284 --> 01:04:09,164
Chris: And actually, you kind of hit on this yourself before. Before tv, radio, Internet, video games, and modern pro sports, fraternal organizations were a big way that people organized socially, entertain themselves. So under that lens, when an entertainment technology appears, it makes sense that a fraternal organization like the Woodman would be interested in getting into it.

636
01:04:09,212 --> 01:04:10,228
Kayla: That makes a lot of sense.

637
01:04:10,284 --> 01:04:16,470
Chris: So all of a sudden, it's like, oh, that's right. That's all people were doing. So now that people are doing this other thing, they're like, well, let's get into it.

638
01:04:16,550 --> 01:04:18,950
Kayla: Right? That makes a lot of sense.

639
01:04:19,070 --> 01:04:22,526
Chris: Okay, so I have a confession to make.

640
01:04:22,718 --> 01:04:23,886
Kayla: You're one of them.

641
01:04:24,038 --> 01:04:33,590
Chris: I am a Woodman. This whole time? No. You probably were expecting this since I've done this in the show many times now, but I buried one of the leads on this topic.

642
01:04:33,710 --> 01:04:34,614
Kayla: Oh, shit.

643
01:04:34,702 --> 01:04:53,024
Chris: All the way to now. Oh, I know. Crazy. Whoa, whoa. Dramatic. Whoa, whoa. But I did drop a bunch of little hints throughout the show, or maybe some big hints, I don't know. Not because I'm clever, but because I couldn't really avoid talking about some of the things. And one of the hints was will actually be the episode title.

644
01:04:53,152 --> 01:04:54,912
Kayla: Okay, that doesn't help me. Now.

645
01:04:55,016 --> 01:05:11,608
Chris: I know because I haven't shared it with you yet. But anyway, let's start with Woodman life. I completely neglected talking about the thing that they are actually most known for, the thing that in fact, Mister Root sort of founded the organization to provide, and pretty much the only thing that they do now.

646
01:05:11,704 --> 01:05:12,648
Kayla: Okay, okay.

647
01:05:12,744 --> 01:05:14,580
Chris: Can you guess what it is?

648
01:05:16,480 --> 01:05:18,100
Kayla: Probably not MLM.

649
01:05:18,440 --> 01:05:22,380
Chris: The answer is sell life insurance products.

650
01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:28,008
Kayla: Woodman Life. That sounds like a life insurance product place.

651
01:05:28,104 --> 01:05:30,160
Chris: And that's why they changed it to that in 2015.

652
01:05:30,280 --> 01:05:34,584
Kayla: That's why they changed it to Woodman Life. That's weird.

653
01:05:34,632 --> 01:05:35,592
Chris: You better reflect that.

654
01:05:35,656 --> 01:05:36,376
Kayla: Okay.

655
01:05:36,528 --> 01:05:38,300
Chris: Does that wig you out?

656
01:05:38,640 --> 01:05:41,136
Kayla: I don't know if I'm wigged, but I'm definitely weirded.

657
01:05:41,248 --> 01:05:56,420
Chris: Yeah. So I'm gonna level with you here. Like, I was actually researching a different group altogether when I ran into a quote that said, many fraternal orders provided financial security for their members, and most that continue today have basically just become insurance companies.

658
01:05:56,760 --> 01:05:57,312
Kayla: What?

659
01:05:57,416 --> 01:05:58,912
Chris: And I was just like, wait, what?

660
01:05:59,056 --> 01:05:59,576
Kayla: Why?

661
01:05:59,688 --> 01:06:10,082
Chris: So I stopped researching that thing, and that's when I was like, wait, what? Hold on. I need to look this up. When I look those up, these companies and orgs and whatnot, that's how I discovered the Woodman.

662
01:06:10,226 --> 01:06:11,722
Kayla: Is insurance a cult?

663
01:06:11,866 --> 01:06:33,868
Chris: I think so is what I'm saying. I don't know. So this is not to say that most insurance companies have their roots in fraternal organizations, nor is it saying that most fraternal organizations still exist today and they're all insurance companies. But what it is saying is, like, of the few that survive, many of them are basically just insurance companies now.

664
01:06:33,924 --> 01:06:34,836
Kayla: Gotcha.

665
01:06:35,028 --> 01:06:41,772
Chris: Not like the Freemasons. Not things like that, because the Freemasons don't actually sell insurance. I found, I think, oh, my God.

666
01:06:41,796 --> 01:06:44,068
Kayla: I would buy Freemasons in a heartbeat.

667
01:06:44,164 --> 01:06:48,160
Chris: Modern Woodman of America and Woodman life are basically just insurance companies now.

668
01:06:48,780 --> 01:06:51,124
Kayla: That's so strange.

669
01:06:51,292 --> 01:07:10,768
Chris: Yeah. So here's the thing, though. Yes. At first, that statement seems bizarre, and it actually is pretty bizarre. When I think a group, like, I don't know, I think about, like, the Freemasons. Right. And the woodmen are very much like them, and they have all these rituals, and I don't know. And now I'm thinking about them, like, being all about life insurance. It does seem pretty bizarre.

670
01:07:10,824 --> 01:07:12,496
Kayla: Yeah, it's a sharp left turn like that.

671
01:07:12,528 --> 01:07:14,976
Chris: Why would secret societies sell life insurance?

672
01:07:15,048 --> 01:07:15,920
Kayla: Yeah, why?

673
01:07:16,080 --> 01:07:19,288
Chris: But when I dug into this question, it actually started to make more and more sense.

674
01:07:19,344 --> 01:07:19,942
Kayla: Oh, God.

675
01:07:20,056 --> 01:07:36,830
Chris: The sense began with how America looked between the Civil War and the Great Depression. Let me read you this quote from an article I read entitled goat Rituals and tree Trunk, the peculiar history of life Insurance by Lisa Hicks.

676
01:07:38,050 --> 01:07:39,066
Kayla: I want to read that.

677
01:07:39,098 --> 01:07:44,194
Chris: And, yeah, the title of that article was, like, one of the things that kind of piqued my curiosity on this whole episode.

678
01:07:44,242 --> 01:07:46,202
Kayla: That is a great title.

679
01:07:46,266 --> 01:08:20,854
Chris: Great title. This was a profoundly insecure time before Americans had Social Security, when anxieties about death and finances ran deep in the american psyche. In response to these fears, the woodman of the world order and its progenitor and competitor, the modern woodman of America, made life insurance approachable and fun by packaging it in the familiar fraternal order culture of the day. The two Woodman societies succeeded in selling fraternal insurance where others failed, thanks to their innovations, which include offering distinct tombstones, flaunting, axe twirling, pageantry.

680
01:08:20,942 --> 01:08:21,478
Kayla: What?

681
01:08:21,613 --> 01:08:30,729
Chris: Yeah, we're talking about some. Talking about some ritual here now holding clandestine rituals that involve slapstick pranks and mechanical goat rides.

682
01:08:31,550 --> 01:08:33,890
Kayla: You need to stop today.

683
01:08:34,229 --> 01:08:50,249
Chris: I am still quoting this article, my friend. Today, both organizations still exist as insurance companies, but they've shed the fraternal antics. It's hard to imagine their previous incarnations, which resembled a combination of LinkedIn, GoFundMe, and jackass.

684
01:08:51,828 --> 01:08:53,368
Kayla: Oh, my God.

685
01:08:54,549 --> 01:08:55,861
Chris: I had to quote that.

686
01:08:55,925 --> 01:09:02,645
Kayla: That was an incredible piece of writing, right? Oh, my God.

687
01:09:02,756 --> 01:09:15,560
Chris: Yeah, I know. I know. That's how I felt. In fact, my next word here, I kind of, like, I'm understating this, I guess, now, but my next sentence was, I found that last bit pretty evocative.

688
01:09:16,819 --> 01:09:25,492
Kayla: Excuse me, sir. That hit me deep. Yeah, yeah. That evocative, to say the least.

689
01:09:25,555 --> 01:09:47,904
Chris: Yeah, I could very much picture it in my wonderland. But let's unpack this whole thing a little bit more. What's being said here, basically, is this was a particular need being served during a particular time in american history, before modern medical advances, before modern food science, when it was both easier to die and when no social safety net existed.

690
01:09:48,032 --> 01:09:49,992
Kayla: Right? Like people were dying left, right, and.

691
01:09:50,015 --> 01:09:59,960
Chris: Center, these fraternal orders filled that need. This particular article goes on to describe issues around surviving family members not being able to protect themselves from creditors.

692
01:10:00,080 --> 01:10:01,056
Kayla: Oh, geez.

693
01:10:01,208 --> 01:10:40,562
Chris: And then a whole aspect of cultural shame and accepting financial help. After all, if you needed financial help, according to the american ethic of the time, you were just lazy. And also, according to some, american ethics now. So there was a social stigma around needing support as well. So the whole fraternal and secrecy aspect of these organizations helped mask that stigma. They could support families of deceased family members without stigma because they were secretive to begin with. And this financial support aspect was no exception. And besides, they're all your brother Woodmen. It's totally different getting financial support from that direction. Right? It's totally different.

694
01:10:40,626 --> 01:10:41,554
Kayla: Right, right.

695
01:10:41,722 --> 01:10:53,162
Chris: Appearances are everything. And there's another aspect of fraternal orders providing life insurance to their members that actually makes a whole lot of sense. Let's talk a bit more about the Woodman's crazy rituals.

696
01:10:53,226 --> 01:10:54,114
Kayla: Yes, please.

697
01:10:54,282 --> 01:11:18,120
Chris: Yes. These rituals served a very crucial initiation purpose. They drew big, bright borders between insiders and outsiders, allowing insiders to participate in this insurance function, which was super important. But many of these rituals were also inspired by Freemason rituals. Heavily inspired. Makes sense because Joe Root was a 33rd degree freemason. And Freemasons just loved reminding their members that they were going to die.

698
01:11:18,820 --> 01:11:19,804
Kayla: Wait, they did?

699
01:11:19,892 --> 01:11:43,530
Chris: Oh, yeah. So many of the rituals and rites performed in these secret societies, and again, sort of like influenced by the Freemasons were about your own mortality. I even read one that was about, like. You were like, confronted, like a skeleton at the end of the ritual or something like that. Yeah, yeah. A lot of the rituals were about mortality. What? Yeah, well, I mean, if you think about a lot of, like, religious rituals. Well, yeah, but I just like the catholic mass.

700
01:11:43,990 --> 01:11:53,632
Kayla: I absolutely think of those as being about mortality and like, those kinds of things. I just never associated that with freemasonry. It's very interesting.

701
01:11:53,696 --> 01:12:00,368
Chris: Yeah. So again, we totally needed an episode on them, but they do that. And remember earlier when we talked about the tree stump gravestones?

702
01:12:00,424 --> 01:12:01,016
Kayla: Yes.

703
01:12:01,168 --> 01:12:18,856
Chris: Yeah, that's all part of it. Mister Root's intention with that ritual was much like a life insurance policy to provide financial assistance to families of deceased members. Headstones are expensive, right? And back then, they were prohibitively expensive for many people. So doing this was essentially the equivalent of writing a huge check to the widow and surviving family.

704
01:12:18,928 --> 01:12:19,644
Kayla: Wow.

705
01:12:19,832 --> 01:12:38,564
Chris: So to me, fraternal orders and life insurance actually started sounding a lot less like oil and water and more like peanut butter and jelly. After all, we are all mortal. We all had a lot of anxiety about it because it was 1899 and everyone's dying from tuberculosis and nobody wants to be seen accepting assistance. So what are we going to do about it?

706
01:12:38,612 --> 01:12:40,404
Kayla: Yep, this fills all those needs.

707
01:12:40,492 --> 01:13:16,590
Chris: Oh, life insurance. Here's another quote from that same article. Same beautiful article. This one's a tad long. But, you know, Miss Hicks does such a good job of explaining things that I wanted to read it all to you. The Woodman tweaked another feature of the fraternal orders, most of which had solemn initiation rituals loosely based on old masonic ceremonies that symbolically forced recruits to confront their own mortality. Most societies had some macabre obstacle courses that ended with the. Oh, here it is. That ended with the young man facing a human skeleton lit by candles. According to as above.

708
01:13:16,630 --> 01:13:46,854
Chris: So below, in an early woodman of the world initiation, the blindfolded candidate wore weights symbolizing the selfishness, hatred and prejudice he had to shed as he navigated a dangerous path which involved wood boards on rollers before he was allowed to see the light of woodcraft. The modern Woodman took such rights to new levels. They'd challenge recruits to put their hands in fake molten lead. Others are subjected to spanking machines and collapsing chairs.

709
01:13:47,022 --> 01:13:47,710
Kayla: What?

710
01:13:47,870 --> 01:14:00,770
Chris: The Ferris wheel coaster goat, patented and sold by a company co owned by modern Woodman member Ed Demoulin, would flip the unsuspecting rider upside down and fire blanks from its rear.

711
01:14:01,630 --> 01:14:03,270
Kayla: I don't understand what's happening right now.

712
01:14:03,310 --> 01:14:07,664
Chris: Before I finish this quote, would you like to see art of this thing?

713
01:14:07,832 --> 01:14:10,928
Kayla: I don't understand what it is, so. Yes.

714
01:14:11,064 --> 01:14:14,400
Chris: Yeah, here it is. Yeah, he's blindfolded, too.

715
01:14:14,440 --> 01:14:16,140
Kayla: Why did it fire blanks?

716
01:14:17,200 --> 01:14:19,904
Chris: Why is he blindfolded? Why is he riding a goat?

717
01:14:19,952 --> 01:14:21,776
Kayla: I don't know what is happening right now.

718
01:14:21,848 --> 01:14:24,328
Chris: Allow me to continue the quote from Miss Hicks.

719
01:14:24,344 --> 01:14:25,072
Kayla: Oh, God.

720
01:14:25,216 --> 01:14:54,946
Chris: What did a slapstick goat gag have to do with selling insurance? Explain to me everything. Besides reminding recruits that death was always at the door, the woodman had to come up with all kinds of gimmicks to get people to join. Lechler explained. This is somebody else that she's quoting. When an initiate had to ride the goat, everyone else would sit around the lodge room and have a big belly laugh. If you rode the goat, then you were in with the click. Then that new member would bring in his buddies so the Woodman could prank them.

721
01:14:55,138 --> 01:14:56,306
Kayla: What's the prank there?

722
01:14:56,378 --> 01:14:58,606
Chris: It's just forcing people to ride a weird goat.

723
01:14:58,638 --> 01:14:59,398
Kayla: That's not a prank?

724
01:14:59,494 --> 01:15:06,930
Chris: Well, to them it was, and they thought it was hilarious. Cause remember, they didn't have tv. What it did help was build their insurance company. End quote.

725
01:15:07,630 --> 01:15:09,966
Kayla: I'm upset about a lot of things that are happening right now.

726
01:15:09,998 --> 01:15:15,718
Chris: Yeah, I know. So again, at first it felt really weird that secret societies were distributing and selling life insurance to their members.

727
01:15:15,774 --> 01:15:16,486
Kayla: Yes.

728
01:15:16,678 --> 01:15:20,030
Chris: But after digging into it kind of seems a bit like a natural fit.

729
01:15:20,110 --> 01:15:20,598
Kayla: Yes.

730
01:15:20,694 --> 01:15:53,138
Chris: I think the Woodman still feel really bonkers because, like, both of them now are, like, official ass insurance companies. Like, yeah, it still feels weird that, like, they were doing this goat stuff. And, like, today they're like. Because you think of insurance companies, like, they're most. You know, most insurance is sold by, like, financial institutions, right? And financial institutions are like people in suits and you gotta wear a tie every day doing, you know, calculating numbers and spreadsheets and ba ba and these guys are like, we're doing weird secret rituals behind closed doors and, like, with skeletons and goats, and we're afraid.

731
01:15:53,154 --> 01:16:07,706
Kayla: Of mortality and we're trying to process it. Yeah, okay. I mean, I guess it really does make sense for an organization that part of its function is to help you process your mortality, is involved in end of stuff.

732
01:16:07,778 --> 01:16:17,802
Chris: Absolutely. And they were also community support. So if you combine the sort of, like, helping the members process the mortality and also, like, we're here to support the community.

733
01:16:17,946 --> 01:16:18,322
Kayla: Right.

734
01:16:18,386 --> 01:16:20,818
Chris: Those things. A plus B equals life insurance.

735
01:16:20,914 --> 01:16:24,950
Kayla: Explain me this. Why aren't religions do this?

736
01:16:26,090 --> 01:16:26,682
Chris: I don't.

737
01:16:26,746 --> 01:16:29,538
Kayla: Is it because they're 501 c three s? Or.

738
01:16:29,594 --> 01:16:55,154
Chris: I mean, they were. Woodmen were not for profit for a while too. They might actually still be. I'm not sure. So I don't have a good answer to that. I mean, the bottom line is, like, religious communities are already sort of that true. They just don't necessarily, like, they didn't necessarily make that transition the way that Woodman did from, like, you know, here's some money in a tombstone to like, I'm an insurance salesman.

739
01:16:55,282 --> 01:16:56,138
Kayla: Right, right.

740
01:16:56,234 --> 01:17:36,996
Chris: At least that's my take on it. I am not a scholar. So the woodmen are not the only ones, and they're far from the first. We've talked a lot about american history tonight, but actually these types of fraternal orders, which I guess this is a good time to mention that fraternal orders that provide this sort of communal slash financial insurance to their members are also called mutual benefit societies. But these types of fraternal orders actually got their start in England shortly before they got big over here, which brings us back to that term that I mentioned way earlier when talking about the history of fraternal orders. Friendly societies. So Britain got their start with this, and that was what friendly societies did. They were like mutual benefit, providing financial assistance to their members. That's what they were for.

741
01:17:37,068 --> 01:17:37,908
Kayla: Gotcha.

742
01:17:38,084 --> 01:17:45,832
Chris: Speaking of other mutual benefit societies. So my family, as you know, is catholic, and my dad belongs to the knights of Columbus at his local church.

743
01:17:45,896 --> 01:17:46,464
Kayla: Oh, right.

744
01:17:46,552 --> 01:18:05,840
Chris: So I had a brief chat with him about them and how they operate. They are one of the more well known fraternal orders. I think I've heard of them. They're still very active today. And like the Woodman and many other fraternal orgs, they were founded in the late 18 hundreds, 1882, to be specific, by a catholic priest. So they were founded, like, right. During that golden age with all the.

745
01:18:05,880 --> 01:18:09,516
Kayla: Right, right. I want to know one that wasn't made during that time?

746
01:18:09,648 --> 01:18:10,796
Chris: Well, the masons.

747
01:18:10,948 --> 01:18:12,680
Kayla: Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, never mind.

748
01:18:14,060 --> 01:18:23,780
Chris: And per the stories my dad told me, they have a similar focus on rituals. So, for example, you have to basically, like, hold the equivalent of a talking stick to have the floor to speak at meetings.

749
01:18:23,820 --> 01:18:24,604
Kayla: Oh, I love that.

750
01:18:24,692 --> 01:18:37,670
Chris: And there are also several degrees that you have to progress through before you're even allowed to attend. And they also sell life insurance to their members. Wait, what, today? No, you can buy life insurance from the Knights of Columbus.

751
01:18:37,710 --> 01:18:38,854
Kayla: Did you know that before talking to your dad?

752
01:18:38,902 --> 01:18:39,654
Chris: I did not know that.

753
01:18:39,702 --> 01:18:40,446
Kayla: Damn.

754
01:18:40,598 --> 01:18:42,294
Chris: But then when he said that, I was like, aha.

755
01:18:42,422 --> 01:18:42,902
Kayla: Right?

756
01:18:43,006 --> 01:18:43,606
Chris: Aha.

757
01:18:43,718 --> 01:18:44,966
Kayla: That is super cool.

758
01:18:45,118 --> 01:18:52,734
Chris: Back to the big dogs, the Freemasons. Real quick, though. So it seemed like from my research that officially they don't sell insurance products.

759
01:18:52,902 --> 01:18:53,582
Kayla: Okay.

760
01:18:53,686 --> 01:19:05,848
Chris: I couldn't figure out if they used to, but they definitely don't now. But they allow you to use your life insurance policy as a charitable gift. So, like, say you want your policy to pay out to some charity that the Mason support when you die.

761
01:19:06,024 --> 01:19:06,864
Kayla: Well, that's cool.

762
01:19:06,952 --> 01:19:11,024
Chris: But I also found a site called scottishright.org insurance.

763
01:19:11,152 --> 01:19:11,952
Kayla: Okay.

764
01:19:12,056 --> 01:19:40,536
Chris: And they listed a whole bunch of things. So they have sponsored Medicare supplement insurance plan, scottish rights sponsored long term care insurance plan, scottish right sponsored group cancer, expense plan, scottish right sponsored group, term life insurance plan, cancer, and all of. And no, it's a. It's a expense plan group cancer. And then scottish rights sponsored lifeline screening of America. So none of these had any links to them, but they all had, like, numbers you could call.

765
01:19:40,728 --> 01:19:42,048
Kayla: Did you try calling one?

766
01:19:42,144 --> 01:19:43,688
Chris: No, I didn't, because I didn't have time.

767
01:19:43,744 --> 01:19:47,520
Kayla: No, also smart, because that's definitely how you get tracked down, right?

768
01:19:47,640 --> 01:20:24,228
Chris: Totally. I'm sure that's what's happening. But, yeah, it says scottish right members are guaranteed up to $25,000 coverage without a medical exam or single health question. This is term life insurance plan coverage is portable, it doesn't lapse, and you leave the job and lose your regular company group life insurance coverage. So I don't know, like, it seems like the scottish right, folks. So the scottish right is like another subset of freemasons. Like freemasons or, like. Like shriners, but, like, I couldn't figure out whether that meant that they actually sell life insurance. There are other sites where they said, like, freemasons don't sell insurance. And then this site was like, here's some insurance. I don't really know.

769
01:20:24,324 --> 01:20:25,604
Kayla: Maybe confusing them.

770
01:20:25,652 --> 01:20:28,822
Chris: Maybe that sector does it, I don't know.

771
01:20:28,966 --> 01:20:30,010
Kayla: Interesting.

772
01:20:30,430 --> 01:20:40,470
Chris: So, two more quick facts to wrap up the talk about the insurance portion of today's discussion. I bet you didn't think we'd be talking about insurance tonight, did you?

773
01:20:40,590 --> 01:20:41,166
Kayla: Nope.

774
01:20:41,238 --> 01:20:46,838
Chris: On the episode. Well, first of the facts is, weren't actually talking about insurance.

775
01:20:47,014 --> 01:20:47,494
Kayla: What?

776
01:20:47,582 --> 01:20:50,010
Chris: We were talking about assurance.

777
01:20:50,390 --> 01:20:51,130
Kayla: What?

778
01:20:51,910 --> 01:21:07,874
Chris: I only just learned this while doing research on the topic, but what we think of as insurance is actually technically two different products. Excuse me, that for convenience sake, we've just lumped under one name. Insurance. Insurance.

779
01:21:07,962 --> 01:21:09,842
Kayla: I don't like where this is going. I don't like any of this.

780
01:21:09,946 --> 01:21:14,138
Chris: Is buying protection against something that might happen, like fire or flood.

781
01:21:14,234 --> 01:21:15,110
Kayla: Okay?

782
01:21:15,570 --> 01:21:21,114
Chris: Assurance. Oh. Is buying protection against something that will happen, like death.

783
01:21:21,242 --> 01:21:22,218
Kayla: Oh, damn.

784
01:21:22,314 --> 01:21:26,580
Chris: So life insurance is actually not insurance. It's assurance.

785
01:21:27,040 --> 01:21:27,860
Kayla: Wow.

786
01:21:28,720 --> 01:21:32,960
Chris: So you can go sound like a know it all asshole at your next cocktail party. Now.

787
01:21:33,000 --> 01:21:34,928
Kayla: Cannot wait. Somebody invite me to a party.

788
01:21:35,024 --> 01:22:23,840
Chris: I know another thing. You might have been wondering why, although we did talk about this a little bit, but why? By and large, life insurance is handled by financial institutions now and not fraternal organizations. And of course, like, even the woodmen aren't really fraternal organizations anymore. They've transmogrified into just like, insurance orgs. So weird. But the answer is, like many historical questions about the 20th century, the great depression. The Great Depression kind of wiped out the fraternal insurance industry for the most part. Except for, obviously, the biggies like Woodman, because these orgs were dependent on dues and, well, yeah, nobody could pay those in the thirties. And then during the New Deal and later, the great society programs, the us government sort of took over that role of social safety net. So nowadays, the government basically provides what fraternal orgs used to.

789
01:22:23,960 --> 01:22:39,024
Chris: And life insurance is more of a thing that you can supplement on top of that if you can afford it. And life insurance is a for profit product now. Whereas the government safety nets and fraternal insurance was, and I maybe still is, I'm not sure. But it was a not for profit thing. It was like a community thing.

790
01:22:39,072 --> 01:22:39,780
Kayla: Okay.

791
01:22:40,760 --> 01:22:47,298
Chris: And also, actually, I didn't mention this here, but you asked me before, you were saying. Wait, what? Woodman Tower?

792
01:22:47,434 --> 01:22:48,906
Kayla: Yeah, explain.

793
01:22:48,978 --> 01:22:57,378
Chris: This is why they have a tower is because they're not just like a secret society. They also, like, have insurance money. They're also like a company in a.

794
01:22:57,394 --> 01:23:00,330
Kayla: Sense, I'm assuming the tower. There's like offices in it?

795
01:23:00,450 --> 01:23:00,842
Chris: Yeah.

796
01:23:00,906 --> 01:23:05,602
Kayla: Okay. It's not just like a. Like a bell tower, it's like a.

797
01:23:05,626 --> 01:23:11,270
Chris: Building but until, like, the middle of the century, apparently it was, like, the tallest tower between Chicago and the west coast.

798
01:23:11,700 --> 01:23:12,484
Kayla: Where was it again?

799
01:23:12,532 --> 01:23:13,276
Chris: Omaha.

800
01:23:13,428 --> 01:23:14,012
Kayla: Damn.

801
01:23:14,076 --> 01:23:25,572
Chris: And then, like, Omaha built a taller tower. And then other cities in the midwest and whatever. But for a long time, the Woodman tower in Omaha was the tallest tower.

802
01:23:25,716 --> 01:23:27,068
Kayla: I want to show about that.

803
01:23:27,204 --> 01:23:37,228
Chris: Yeah. Okay. So then how did all these boring life insurance clubs take on such connotation as cults?

804
01:23:37,284 --> 01:23:37,960
Kayla: Yes.

805
01:23:38,840 --> 01:23:43,784
Chris: I mean, like, look at the wild conspiracy theories surrounding the masons. There's even a Dan Brown book about them.

806
01:23:43,832 --> 01:23:44,352
Kayla: Right.

807
01:23:44,496 --> 01:23:47,320
Chris: And I mean, the Illuminati, like, I barely even need to talk about. Right.

808
01:23:47,360 --> 01:23:50,488
Kayla: Like, it's like we've all had a brush with knowing what that is.

809
01:23:50,544 --> 01:23:59,448
Chris: Yeah. And they're technically a fraternal organization. They were founded as a subgroup within masonry. Kind of like Shriners or the scottish rite, I think, but sort of like a group within a group.

810
01:23:59,504 --> 01:23:59,816
Kayla: Right.

811
01:23:59,888 --> 01:24:02,048
Chris: A secret society within a secret society.

812
01:24:02,104 --> 01:24:04,776
Kayla: Like the NXivM group that branded people kind of.

813
01:24:04,808 --> 01:24:14,538
Chris: Yeah, but it seems quaint to think of shriners as having world domination ambitions. But that's what conspiracy theorists think about the Illuminati.

814
01:24:14,594 --> 01:24:14,978
Kayla: Right.

815
01:24:15,074 --> 01:24:17,270
Chris: And they're kind of similar. Right.

816
01:24:17,570 --> 01:24:20,402
Kayla: I think, honestly, the Illuminati, half of it is just the name.

817
01:24:20,546 --> 01:24:22,810
Chris: It could be the name is intimidating.

818
01:24:22,890 --> 01:24:26,834
Kayla: And as fuck like the Illuminati, but, like, they're totally Freemasons.

819
01:24:26,882 --> 01:24:36,160
Chris: They're, like the number one go to for conspiracy. And as you mentioned, even regular people know about them. So, like, I guess what I want to know is why.

820
01:24:36,580 --> 01:24:37,220
Kayla: That's a good idea.

821
01:24:37,260 --> 01:24:41,940
Chris: You just said why. One of your whys is the name. Don't disagree with you.

822
01:24:41,980 --> 01:24:42,540
Kayla: Right.

823
01:24:42,700 --> 01:25:25,754
Chris: But this brings us all the way back to theme we discussed at the top of the episode, and it popped up throughout. I think the answer is ritual. These organizations, as we've talked about, are just neck deep in it, and it makes sense. As we discussed, ritual is powerful social glue, and they're also trying to provide these sort of insurance or assurance benefits to their communities and the community members regarding things as inevitable and scary as death. So ritual, as we talked about, also is good when there's something you're facing that's out of your control and scary, but you need to face it anyway. Ritual just sort of inevitably comes up in those scenarios.

824
01:25:25,882 --> 01:25:27,010
Kayla: Damn good connection.

825
01:25:27,090 --> 01:25:35,026
Chris: It totally makes sense that these organizations are very heavily inundated with ritual.

826
01:25:35,098 --> 01:25:35,650
Kayla: Yep.

827
01:25:35,770 --> 01:25:55,620
Chris: But I also think that makes outsiders see an otherwise benign group as more cult like the way we did with the Irvine logo. Why that is, I can't say for sure, but maybe it's just that ritual implies meaning. And if you as an outsider don't know what that meaning is, you fill in your own meaning.

828
01:25:55,700 --> 01:25:56,516
Kayla: Right, right.

829
01:25:56,628 --> 01:26:06,116
Chris: So if you live in Irvine, you're like, oh, yeah, this is the Irvine company. It's whatever. Right, right. Or if you're a Freemason, you're like, oh, yeah, we do some weird stuff and then like, whatever, we just like, get some beers.

830
01:26:06,188 --> 01:26:06,660
Kayla: Right.

831
01:26:06,780 --> 01:26:24,478
Chris: But if you're outside, you're like, oh, Irvine logo. The Irvine logo can only mean that they're spying on us and it's crazy, right? And if you're, you know, somebody talking about the Freemasons, you see their little, you know, their. What is it, the. The. The compass and the t square?

832
01:26:24,574 --> 01:26:25,902
Kayla: Yeah, something like that.

833
01:26:26,046 --> 01:26:38,726
Chris: You see that and you're like, I don't know what that means. It must mean something. And then you just. Your brain, you know, we have active nations and we like to fill in the gaps for things. So if we don't know what these rituals mean, but they definitely mean something, otherwise why would they be there?

834
01:26:38,758 --> 01:26:39,650
Kayla: Right, right.

835
01:26:40,430 --> 01:26:41,862
Chris: We fill in those gaps.

836
01:26:41,926 --> 01:26:49,606
Kayla: I mean, even when you and I were at Disneyland, a couple, like last month or whatever, you saw somebody with that, like, Freemason logo tattooed on them and you were like.

837
01:26:49,638 --> 01:26:50,294
Chris: And I saw it and I was.

838
01:26:50,302 --> 01:26:53,926
Kayla: Like, oh, nudged me. Hey, look, we, like, followed her for a second because were like, what is.

839
01:26:53,958 --> 01:26:55,030
Chris: We didn't follow her.

840
01:26:55,070 --> 01:27:00,158
Kayla: We definitely, like, we talked about her. We stalked a little bit.

841
01:27:00,214 --> 01:27:23,272
Chris: I think she had a 32nd degree tattoo. Yeah, but, yeah. So for like, those Masonic or Woodman or illuminati rituals. Conspiracy theorists, they fill in that implied meaning with wild stories that help make sense of accomplishment world. And again, to be fair to the conspiracy theorists, we've talked on the show today about how powerful rituals are and all that symbolic weight of rituals that go into making, you know, 33rd degree Mason or whatever.

842
01:27:23,336 --> 01:27:23,848
Kayla: Right?

843
01:27:23,984 --> 01:27:28,504
Chris: So you can't really blame outsiders for saying, wait, what do they need all that ritual power for?

844
01:27:28,592 --> 01:27:29,272
Kayla: Right?

845
01:27:29,456 --> 01:27:43,304
Chris: So I'm no psychologist or anthropologist. I don't say this from any position of authority. I'm just speculating. But to me it seems that's why, or at least one reason why rituals make things feel or taste or seem more culty.

846
01:27:43,392 --> 01:27:46,580
Kayla: Yeah, no, that's a very good analysis.

847
01:27:46,920 --> 01:28:04,598
Chris: So before we get into the criteria and judgment, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that much like the rest of society, at the time, many of these fraternal organizations were racist or snarks. So even the woodmen, they would only allow white male members of their groups for a while.

848
01:28:04,744 --> 01:28:07,218
Kayla: Not cool. Or, like, just.

849
01:28:07,394 --> 01:28:15,154
Chris: I think it was until the thirties that they didn't allow women, except for that, like, subgroup of women they allowed towards the end of the 18 hundreds.

850
01:28:15,202 --> 01:28:15,698
Kayla: Right.

851
01:28:15,834 --> 01:28:25,682
Chris: But, you know, it took a while for that to kind of, like, open up to those folks. So, as I mentioned, they fraternal organizations tended to be egalitarian, like, across class lines.

852
01:28:25,746 --> 01:28:26,186
Kayla: Right.

853
01:28:26,298 --> 01:28:53,140
Chris: And, like, within their orgs, but not along other lines. They didn't. But. But I. But there were a lot of groups, and they had a wide range of who they did or didn't take. And then also some formed specifically to cater to a racial minority, ethnic group, immigrant group, or whatever. So some were specifically for that. For example, the Knights of Columbus were specifically for Catholics. But fairly quickly, the Woodman relaxed both of these requirements.

854
01:28:54,080 --> 01:28:55,500
Kayla: Both of what requirements?

855
01:28:56,280 --> 01:28:58,832
Chris: Both the racial and the women.

856
01:28:58,896 --> 01:28:59,576
Kayla: Okay. Okay. Okay.

857
01:28:59,608 --> 01:29:22,446
Chris: Although I guess it wasn't quickly for women. That was like 50 years. That's not quickly. Sorry. But a lot of these fraternal orgs at the time, for a long time, were pretty exclusive when it came to race and gender, but, yeah. So I just. I thought I should at least mention that because that's definitely, like a knock, a very valid knock on a lot of these groups is that they. They weren't. They were pretty exclusive in some of the wrong ways.

858
01:29:22,518 --> 01:29:23,030
Kayla: Right, right.

859
01:29:23,070 --> 01:29:34,780
Chris: A lot of the time. All right, so speaking of ritual, it's that time again for our own culture weird. Ritual where we talk about culture weird. Culture weird. Yeah, that's the name. We're.

860
01:29:34,900 --> 01:29:35,636
Kayla: That.

861
01:29:35,828 --> 01:29:40,052
Chris: That's what I say when I'm, like, talking fast because we had to turn the fan off. And it's really hot in here.

862
01:29:40,076 --> 01:29:40,492
Kayla: Cult are weird.

863
01:29:40,516 --> 01:29:42,092
Chris: Cult are weird. Cult weird.

864
01:29:42,116 --> 01:29:43,080
Kayla: It's really hot.

865
01:29:43,500 --> 01:29:49,476
Chris: Anyway, it's time for our own ritual on cult, or just weird where we talk about the criteria.

866
01:29:49,548 --> 01:29:50,060
Kayla: Okay.

867
01:29:50,140 --> 01:29:54,740
Chris: Which is like a ritual involving discussing ritual. So meta.

868
01:29:54,860 --> 01:29:58,730
Kayla: That is pretty meta. Not a cult.

869
01:29:59,870 --> 01:30:01,010
Chris: And done.

870
01:30:01,310 --> 01:30:05,070
Kayla: I like to have a knee jerk reaction and then go through the criteria.

871
01:30:05,110 --> 01:30:05,334
Chris: Right.

872
01:30:05,382 --> 01:30:10,438
Kayla: My knee jerk reaction is, while extremely cult like. No, not a cult.

873
01:30:10,614 --> 01:30:14,030
Chris: Yeah. So I think we can skip criteria numero uno.

874
01:30:14,110 --> 01:30:18,478
Kayla: Where is our criteria? These criteria?

875
01:30:18,574 --> 01:30:22,410
Chris: Yes. Yep. There you go.

876
01:30:22,720 --> 01:30:23,872
Kayla: Well, ritual.

877
01:30:24,056 --> 01:30:27,112
Chris: Ritual. I think we can skip. That's a. Yes.

878
01:30:27,216 --> 01:30:35,768
Kayla: Ritual. Yes, there is. All right. Expected harm towards the individual, socially, physically, et cetera. It seems like, it's the opposite here.

879
01:30:35,824 --> 01:30:36,424
Chris: Yeah, I think so.

880
01:30:36,472 --> 01:30:42,272
Kayla: Except for maybe folks being excluded, which is obviously a large. Yeah, but if we're just talking about the group itself.

881
01:30:42,416 --> 01:30:46,664
Chris: Yeah, I think it's more about the members don't experience harm.

882
01:30:46,792 --> 01:30:48,392
Kayla: I mean, like, they're being shitty by.

883
01:30:48,416 --> 01:30:51,692
Chris: Excluding people, but they're not harming the people that they are. Including.

884
01:30:51,876 --> 01:30:57,236
Kayla: The biggest harm is confronting a skeleton. And that might also be therapeutic and helpful.

885
01:30:57,388 --> 01:30:59,732
Chris: I mean, that's at least the intent, as I understand it.

886
01:30:59,836 --> 01:31:27,894
Kayla: Population of cult. Or is it niche? That's an interesting one because the populations of these groups seem to be relatively large. They also, as a concept, they're very known. But individual groups are nothing well known. And even the groups that are well known, like the Illuminati and the Freemasons, it's like, ooh, those are weird. And we don't know anything about it. So it doesn't feel mainstream. Knowing about it feels mainstream, but knowing. Knowing about it does not feel mainstream.

887
01:31:28,022 --> 01:31:49,822
Chris: Yeah. And I know that excited that 40% thing from back at the turn of the century. 40% of people belong to a fraternal organization. I think maybe the Woodman might have been a household name then, but I didn't know about them now. I didn't even know that secret society sold life insurance until I did research for this episode. So maybe a bit niche, I think.

888
01:31:49,846 --> 01:31:53,770
Kayla: A bit niche. Percentage of life consumed.

889
01:31:55,350 --> 01:31:57,526
Chris: I feel like our answer is always, it depends for this.

890
01:31:57,598 --> 01:32:17,982
Kayla: Yeah. I mean, it doesn't feel either way. It doesn't feel like a negative amount or like a detrimental amount of your life is consumed. Like we didn't hear, at least you didn't tell any stories of people, like, devoting so much time to their fraternal organization that they, like, keeled over dead or whatever, or left their families behind.

891
01:32:18,046 --> 01:32:31,182
Chris: No. Yeah. I think, in fact, a lot of the purpose of, at least of the woodmen, but a lot of these benefit societies was so that if you did keel over for other reason, for whatever reason, that your family wouldn't be left behind financially.

892
01:32:31,246 --> 01:32:31,758
Kayla: Right.

893
01:32:31,894 --> 01:32:50,050
Chris: So there's certainly no, like, leave your family, leave the ones that love you. So there's none of that. I mean, I think that it can sort of like, you know, for a lot of these. Like for Joseph Cullen Root, who was belonging to seven of them, that probably took up a lot of his life. But. But as you said, it's not really necessarily negative.

894
01:32:50,130 --> 01:32:55,466
Kayla: Like consuming has, like a tv occult then. Because we spend all our time watching tv now.

895
01:32:55,578 --> 01:33:14,858
Chris: Right. And I think consuming does have sort of a negative connotation. It's like it's sucking your time away from other things. It's actually a little bit like we talked about in the Tulpas episode where, like, what. What is considered, just a variation and what is considered. What's the word I'm looking for? Pathological.

896
01:33:14,954 --> 01:33:15,522
Kayla: Right.

897
01:33:15,666 --> 01:33:23,626
Chris: So it's like, in this case, because it's not pathological, even though it's taking a lot of your time. I wouldn't call it, like, consuming necessarily.

898
01:33:23,738 --> 01:33:37,406
Kayla: Right, right. Like, pro athletes aren't necessarily. Pro athletes aren't necessarily an occult. But we haven't done that yet. Yeah, well, they are, but I mean, like, they spend a lot of their time. Somebody going to the Olympics is not necessarily in a cult.

899
01:33:37,598 --> 01:33:37,974
Chris: Right.

900
01:33:38,022 --> 01:33:40,610
Kayla: Okay, maybe they are. I don't know. Are the Olympics a cult?

901
01:33:41,430 --> 01:33:43,214
Chris: It probably depends on the sport.

902
01:33:43,302 --> 01:33:45,470
Kayla: Jesus Christ. Curling is not a cult.

903
01:33:45,550 --> 01:33:46,970
Chris: As far as I know, it is a cult.

904
01:33:47,350 --> 01:33:54,318
Kayla: Anyway, I'm just saying that you can have a hobby that you really love and spend a lot of your life doing, and it's not consuming your life in a negative or harmful way.

905
01:33:54,374 --> 01:33:56,142
Chris: Yeah. So I'd say this one's pretty low, too.

906
01:33:56,246 --> 01:34:01,740
Kayla: Charismatic leader, I'm gonna say. Even though we talked about what's his face, his presence still feels low.

907
01:34:02,480 --> 01:34:04,200
Chris: Yeah. Like he was a founder.

908
01:34:04,320 --> 01:34:15,760
Kayla: Right. But he wasn't like, you must all listen to me. And the things that I have, the fact that, like, you mentioned a couple times that within the organizations, they were fairly egalitarian rather than. They do have the hierarchical structure, though.

909
01:34:15,880 --> 01:34:37,284
Chris: They do. But it's. I think you're right that this actually, despite the fact that he was sort of like a titanic figure of the late 18 hundreds, like, I don't think that he didn't come across as, like, you must do what I say, and everybody is worshipping me. It's all about what Teal says. And it's the word of teal. It was more just like, hey, I have an idea for this thing. I should start this thing, right?

910
01:34:37,372 --> 01:34:42,484
Kayla: Yeah, exactly. So those are our criteria. Skipping ritual.

911
01:34:42,652 --> 01:34:43,700
Chris: Oh, that's it.

912
01:34:43,860 --> 01:34:44,380
Kayla: One, two.

913
01:34:44,420 --> 01:34:48,652
Chris: We did expected harm. Oh, wait, no, we didn't do anti factuality.

914
01:34:48,716 --> 01:34:51,240
Kayla: Oh, I skipped that one because I answered it in my head.

915
01:34:51,980 --> 01:34:54,692
Chris: Oh, yeah, that. And so the listeners could definitely hear that.

916
01:34:54,716 --> 01:35:02,442
Kayla: That's very helpful for our listeners. I think the antisexuality is fairly low. It doesn't seem like that's really a part of this.

917
01:35:02,546 --> 01:35:04,962
Chris: Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of, like, lying or anything going on.

918
01:35:04,986 --> 01:35:10,578
Kayla: Right. Obfuscation or, like, present, like, teaching of false information just kind of doesn't seem to be a part of it.

919
01:35:10,634 --> 01:35:12,450
Chris: Not a lot of, like, motivated reasoning.

920
01:35:12,530 --> 01:35:15,466
Kayla: Right. They don't need to, like, justify their existence.

921
01:35:15,658 --> 01:35:16,354
Chris: Yeah.

922
01:35:16,482 --> 01:35:19,994
Kayla: So, all right, my knee jerk reaction was correct. It's not a cult.

923
01:35:20,082 --> 01:35:23,790
Chris: Your knee jerk reaction was very correct. Because I don't think it scored highly on anything. It.

924
01:35:24,610 --> 01:35:25,170
Kayla: Ritual.

925
01:35:25,250 --> 01:35:36,450
Chris: Ritual. And a little bit niche. But actually, now that you say that, it kind of goes, like, to the point I was making about, like, just how much ritual can flavor something as a cult.

926
01:35:36,530 --> 01:35:37,010
Kayla: Right.

927
01:35:37,130 --> 01:35:43,594
Chris: Because we look at a lot of these things, we're like, oh, freemasons. They're kind of like a cult. Right, right. And, like, this is basically, like, freemason adjacent.

928
01:35:43,682 --> 01:35:44,194
Kayla: Right.

929
01:35:44,322 --> 01:35:54,568
Chris: And they have just as strange rituals and just this kind of weird stuff. And here we are on the program saying, dude, they're, like, super nautical, but they have all those crazy rituals. That's kind of why it felt like it.

930
01:35:54,584 --> 01:36:02,952
Kayla: And just like, really weird tidbits, like life insurance and radio broadcast. Yeah. Radio Johnny Carson and Wood tombstones and all this shit, so.

931
01:36:03,016 --> 01:36:03,608
Chris: Yeah.

932
01:36:03,744 --> 01:36:05,984
Kayla: Yeah. But I don't think it's a cult.

933
01:36:06,112 --> 01:36:07,536
Chris: Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right.

934
01:36:07,568 --> 01:36:08,752
Kayla: I think they're just weird.

935
01:36:08,856 --> 01:36:10,696
Chris: I think they're just weird. They're definitely weird.

936
01:36:10,728 --> 01:36:12,064
Kayla: They're definitely weird.

937
01:36:12,232 --> 01:36:16,866
Chris: They're definitely weird. But as we mentioned last week, weird is not bad.

938
01:36:16,938 --> 01:36:17,826
Kayla: Weird is not bad.

939
01:36:17,938 --> 01:36:21,230
Chris: Weird is just a secret society selling life insurance.

940
01:36:21,890 --> 01:36:30,562
Kayla: So I think weird's also not necessarily good. No, because I can't say that's good. That feels neutral. Tulpas felt good. This feels neutral.

941
01:36:30,746 --> 01:36:31,762
Chris: Yeah. Neutral.

942
01:36:31,866 --> 01:36:32,338
Kayla: Yeah.

943
01:36:32,434 --> 01:36:33,810
Chris: Good. Good to neutral. Neutral.

944
01:36:33,890 --> 01:36:34,830
Kayla: Good to neutral.

945
01:36:35,130 --> 01:36:36,790
Chris: All right, so.

946
01:36:37,090 --> 01:36:38,106
Kayla: So thanks for that.

947
01:36:38,178 --> 01:36:42,634
Chris: As we mentioned, we had to turn the fan off in here, so it's, like, incredibly hot and stuffy.

948
01:36:42,682 --> 01:36:43,506
Kayla: It is.

949
01:36:43,698 --> 01:36:55,114
Chris: Is there anything else you want to say before we sign off? No, I feel like I should find a woodman of the world sign off or something. Oh, I guess for truth, justice, and the american way.

950
01:36:55,202 --> 01:36:57,874
Kayla: Sure. That. And also, check out our Patreon.

951
01:36:57,962 --> 01:36:58,746
Chris: Oh, right.

952
01:36:58,858 --> 01:37:07,186
Kayla: We've linked it on our social media. We'll do it again. Check out the show notes for this, especially if you want to listen to that Radiolab episode about the nuclear cats.

953
01:37:07,338 --> 01:37:17,820
Chris: Yes. And we will link to some cool articles and websites and stuff about the Woodman and fraternal orgs. Of course. Check out our instagram, where I'll post some of these pictures.

954
01:37:17,900 --> 01:37:30,316
Kayla: And don't forget to send us your tell us about your creative projects right now, along with your own hometown culture. Just weird group. Doesn't have to be hometown, but it might be fun if it is, right.

955
01:37:30,428 --> 01:37:39,116
Chris: Yeah. We would love to talk about it on the show. And thank you so much to our Patreon supporters. It really felt nice. It was really cool.

956
01:37:39,148 --> 01:37:40,060
Kayla: Did it warm your cockles?

957
01:37:40,140 --> 01:37:41,000
Chris: It warmed.

958
01:37:41,370 --> 01:37:42,154
Kayla: The cockles are very warm.

959
01:37:42,162 --> 01:37:44,370
Chris: I warmed the cockles? Yes. My cockles are very warm.

960
01:37:44,410 --> 01:37:45,162
Kayla: Good. I'm glad.

961
01:37:45,266 --> 01:37:46,658
Chris: Yeah. Steaming.

962
01:37:46,754 --> 01:37:48,790
Kayla: Ew. Well, I guess in this room.

963
01:37:50,490 --> 01:37:51,390
Chris: Okay.

964
01:37:51,770 --> 01:37:53,330
Kayla: Thank you to you.

965
01:37:53,450 --> 01:37:54,050
Chris: You're welcome.

966
01:37:54,090 --> 01:37:57,146
Kayla: Good episode. And this is Kayla.

967
01:37:57,258 --> 01:37:58,058
Chris: This is Chris.

968
01:37:58,154 --> 01:38:00,370
Kayla: And this has been cult or just weird.