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00:00Welcome to the Constitutionalist Politics Podcast, a.k.a. CTP.
00:07I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard, and that's L-E-N-A-R-D.
00:12CTP is your no-must, no-fuss, just-me-you-and-occasional-guest-type podcast.
00:19I really appreciate you tuning in.
00:22As Graham Norton will say, let's get on with the show!
00:25Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Constitutionalist Politics Podcast.
00:33Joining me today will be Scott Homan, and before we bring him on, I just wanted to say,
00:43normally, the extended show notes can be found at Buzzsprout, where the show is primarily housed,
00:52even though it's on 20-plus audio platforms, by video-behind-the-scenes platforms.
01:00But I say that because if you go to Buzzsprout and look at the transcript,
01:05there you will find the extended show notes with related links and bonus material.
01:12And I'm pre-saying that today, that today's bonus, normally I don't decide what the bonus material is
01:20until I'm rushing at the last minute to put the show up.
01:24But today, I've already pre-decided I'm going to have the Liberty Beacon piece, music, TV, movies.
01:32It will be known why, in a minute, that that makes sense.
01:39So, at any rate, welcome to the show, Scott Homan. How are you?
01:44Thanks so much. I'm good, Joseph. I really appreciate the invite.
01:47I'm excited to talk about filmmaking and arts and, I guess, some religious stuff.
01:53Yep, absolutely.
01:54See where you take the interview.
01:55Absolutely. Yeah, we'll get to the more serious stuff at the end.
01:59I want to start lighthearted.
02:02And the first obvious question, though, is, like, cue the who.
02:07Who are you?
02:09Who, who, who, who, who, right?
02:11Where were you born? Where were you raised?
02:14Where are you now?
02:16That kind of bio background stuff.
02:19Yeah, I was born and raised in northern Wisconsin in the Northwoods there.
02:23It's kind of like a Canadian lifestyle, boreal forest, wild place, beyond the farms of the middle America.
02:31And, yeah, I, what was the rest?
02:35When, where, who, how?
02:38My parents, my grandparents moved there after World War II.
02:41My grandma was born there and raised there before that.
02:44And she, actually, my grandparents, one just passed, and the other one's 97, 98 right now.
02:50So, World War II vets.
02:51Yeah, so, that's been interesting.
02:55Like, their whole life's been interesting.
02:57I feel like our family's very, like, disconnected and, like, lived in different states every generation, except for, like, we have some connection to Wisconsin still.
03:06As far as, like, my, my creative world, I played a lot of music back in the 90s and had a filmmaking program that was really cool in our high school.
03:13And that eventually led me to continue on in the process of storytelling.
03:18And I've got a couple of films out now about music and, basically, yeah, music and connection and processing trauma through music, which we'll get into.
03:28Oh, absolutely.
03:29Oh, that's...
03:30Oh, and I'm in New Zealand now.
03:32Oh, you're in...
03:32Oh, okay.
03:33I'm in New Zealand now, but this is my...
03:36I've been to, like, 40-some countries traveling, but this is, like, my sixth country I've lived in.
03:40My eighth year living abroad from the States.
03:45Interesting.
03:46Interesting.
03:46So, yeah, the next thing I wanted to get into was, hence, why the transcript bonus will be music, TV, and movies piece.
04:00You had a band.
04:01You had a couple records.
04:03So, let's talk about that first.
04:06Yeah, so back in the 90s, if anyone remembers, a lot of live music.
04:10And it was kind of, like, the pre...
04:11There's raves, but it was...
04:13Live music was still, like, the big thing.
04:14And I was really hooked on, like, Nirvana and Weezer and those, like, grunge bands and alternative music bands.
04:21And so are all my friends.
04:23So, we had our neighbor pass, and our parents bought the next property in the countryside in, like, the forest.
04:28So, we had this whole house that became, like, a music studio for us when we were teenagers.
04:32And, like, everyone in the town that we were kind of friends with, skateboarding, snowboarding, music community, like, brought all their instruments and left them there.
04:39So, I, like, basically had access to a music studio and my whole teenage high school years.
04:44And we mostly just played for fun.
04:46But then, out of that kind of creative play space, I formed a band with some friends.
04:51And I was just a second guitarist playing kind of more their music.
04:55But we did an album and played it around the state, played a bunch of bars and stuff as teenagers.
05:00And then I formed a band of my own with them kind of helping me record it and produce those songs into proper songs.
05:08And then I made that album and then went and toured that around the state a bit.
05:13And then I moved and went to photography and film school in Minneapolis, which is kind of, like, the nearby city.
05:19There's, like, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Chicago all, like, three, four hours away.
05:22So, Minneapolis is the one that drew my attention.
05:25All of America.
05:26Yeah.
05:27Exactly.
05:28Love that place.
05:29Out of the old – what ballpark did that used to be?
05:33Home plate's still there in the mall.
05:36Like, there's a bleacher seat up there still that they've still got up there.
05:40I don't remember what ballpark it was.
05:43That's funny.
05:43I didn't know that history.
05:44But, yeah.
05:45Oh, you didn't know that?
05:46No.
05:47But it's actually really interesting because it's one of the kind of – they have a lot of innovative things they do in Minneapolis, one of them being they have a large music history with Bob Dylan and Prince and a bunch of, like, really cool indie bands and a cool hip-hop scene.
06:00And it's still going to this day.
06:03But they also, like, innovated with, like, electric train systems back in the time I lived there, like, early 2000, like, 20 years ago, 25 years ago.
06:10So they started – so Mall of America was one of those big new things that they did.
06:14But they also connected trains from there to downtown to the baseball stadium to St. Paul, Minneapolis, and then all the way out to the suburbs.
06:20Like, all these – like, it became this, like, really cool way to get around and get rid of your car and, like, have a more modern, futuristic lifestyle.
06:29Yeah.
06:29They're kind of pushing – there's always pushing the boundaries there.
06:31And there's a lot of cool stuff going on in Minneapolis.
06:33Most people don't know that if you don't, like, hang out there for –
06:36Yeah.
06:36Well, I love to –
06:37You'll do a flyover in Minneapolis.
06:39Yeah.
06:39Well, I love to –
06:40I've flown into Minneapolis to drive to Kansas and other states several times for work.
06:46So, but I love talking music with people who have a musical background because my dad, Ted Leonard Jr., created The Polka Kings.
07:00And they had three albums.
07:03I wrote and recorded music in the 70s and 80s, but I wasn't good enough for a record deal.
07:09But today, anybody can record anything and put it online for 99 cents.
07:14So, it's like I was born too early, I guess.
07:17It's interesting you talk about The Polka Kings because where I'm from, every wedding I'd ever been to until I was about 18 had a live polka band.
07:26And, like, people in the church I grew up in played in the live polka bands that toured around for weddings.
07:30And I – you danced all polka, polka dance, every single song for the entire wedding party.
07:37And it wasn't until, like, year 2000 that there was a DJ that played a wedding, in my experience.
07:43Because of, like, Wisconsin, Minneapolis, or Chicago, that region is very Germanic-Polish.
07:48And even Yankovic's, like, Weird Al Yankovic.
07:52His dad is Frankie Yankovic, one of the polka kings.
07:54I actually call him that.
07:55It's interesting you have a connection to polka because it's a weird part of my childhood that I actually really like.
08:01It's, like, a lot of heritage from Europe.
08:04Yeah.
08:04Yeah, that's interesting.
08:07I did that for a while, too.
08:09I DJed events.
08:11My sister is seven years younger.
08:14So, when I was no longer writing and recording music, I had a huge record collection.
08:20I was, like, we need somebody to do our high school dance.
08:25I can do that.
08:27I've got all the stuff.
08:31So, I did that for a while, too.
08:34But that then transitioned and led, you said, film school to more a visual art desire.
08:44That's true, yeah.
08:44And I'd already said, my grandmother bought me a Kodak 110 back when I was, like, 12 years old.
08:49And my mom loved to shoot photography on film.
08:52So, I did a ton of that.
08:53I was always the kid.
08:54This is a great picture of me in high school with, like, a whole bunch of my friends.
08:56And me with, like, a Canon AE-1 film camera around my neck hanging there.
09:01I was kind of always, like, this guy doing something with photography.
09:05We had a great darkroom and photography program and early Photoshop program and a documentary program where we made films.
09:12And we did live TV as well.
09:14So, mostly goofy stuff, like, snowboard and skateboard videos and music videos and, like, a little bit of, like, scary stuff.
09:21Like, a weird, you know, creepy dream sequence to Apex Twin video or music.
09:26So, like, kind of, yeah, just a lot of playful stuff.
09:30But that's kind of what got you interested more to that direction then.
09:35Yeah, and what I found making music was that, like, I wasn't going to take it so seriously because I realized, you know, I could play songs.
09:43I could play and perform.
09:44But at the same time, my friends that I was around were, like, much more talented and took it a lot more seriously.
09:49That was their thing.
09:51And I cared more about storytelling.
09:52But I, because of my appreciation for music was, like, well, I should tell storytelling, do storytelling around music and musical artists.
10:00And what that moment in film school when I was doing photography more and in Minneapolis, I was hanging out with musicians in Minneapolis.
10:08And that, fast forward till today, I'm still connected to those people.
10:14We don't spend a lot of time together, but I made my second movie and my most important movie up to this point about their lives in Minneapolis at that time,
10:22making music through the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, when they had, like, an archive.
10:26So, in terms of documentary filmmaking, knowing a story exists, it's not necessarily a documentary that you can make if they don't have an archive.
10:35Because you need to tell the past.
10:37And how do you do that visually?
10:38And so, they had, like, feature films, short films, music videos, them goofing around making, like, absurd horror and comedy videos,
10:46and also an incredible body of musical work that I could use for the soundtrack.
10:50And then they also made an incredible amount of work, even more and more powerful, more important work after,
10:58in the transition that the film talks about, about changing their worldview, having a transformative experience in their life.
11:04And then they have more art that captured that moment in the, now, the past.
11:09Even though, you know, the movie shows it kind of like, this is our modern day, but obviously, like, it's a film, so it was years ago as well.
11:15But to have both periods of time captured in music and video made it this, like, beautiful, just, it was like a documentary waiting to happen.
11:23And that film is Witness Underground, but we'll get there.
11:27Yeah.
11:27Well, we're there.
11:29Is that available online or?
11:34Yeah.
11:35So, I went through the process of learning the business of film after making the film, and I sort of was approaching it, you know, as an independent filmmaker, independent artist.
11:45And was that the last six years on it?
11:49Yeah.
11:49You did that before you officially created Banana Island Films or after you set that up?
11:56Yeah, we're sort of jumping through a couple decades here, but.
11:58Oh, okay.
11:59Yeah.
12:00Yeah.
12:00I, basically, the film is available on Amazon and Apple TV and YouTube movies and Tubi TV.
12:07Those are the big ones.
12:08And it's also on, like, yeah, like 14 other streaming services that are kind of smaller.
12:13Yeah.
12:14If you go to witnessunderground.com, you can find all the ways to watch it wherever you live.
12:18And in this, North America has the most access.
12:21But it's all there.
12:22It has, like, a global map of where you can watch it.
12:23So, if you're watching this internationally, you can probably watch it somewhere, including the Banana Island Films, my YouTube channel.
12:29I've cut the film up into, like, eight chapters.
12:31So, you can watch it in small bits and see the whole movie that way.
12:34You can watch it almost more like a TV series.
12:39Yeah.
12:39Separate episodes, in a way.
12:41Yeah.
12:42Short-time episodes.
12:43Yeah.
12:44So, yeah, it's available everywhere.
12:45And as far as Banana Island Films goes, so after, I went through a similar thing as the artists in that film.
12:52So, just to keep it simple, it's about artists who escaped the Jehovah's Witnesses.
12:57Or you could think of it as a cult, religious cult.
13:01They have some very strong elements to their faith that are very, like, abusive.
13:07And it's a really impactful story for the people in the film.
13:12But also, I went through something similar because my parents joined that religion when I was, like, a young person.
13:17So, I was like, they're trying to indoctrinate us, but they didn't know how to do that.
13:20So, they failed at indoctrinating me.
13:22And I needed to make a film about how they treated me when I was being honest about what I believed with them and what I didn't believe.
13:32And they are coerced to treat you a certain way and then never talk to you again for the rest of your life.
13:36So, I've been going through that for the last 16 years.
13:39Yeah.
13:40Scientology, too.
13:41I mean, once you're in, you're not supposed to be ever let out.
13:46And, I mean, Leah Remini did that great show on A&E for a few years about that and literal camps with the barbed wire to keep people in.
14:01That's not a faith that you don't have people there because they believe they're there because they're being held hostage.
14:10Yeah, exactly.
14:11That's a great way to say it.
14:11And I feel like I'm a religious refugee, not because I want to, but, like, that's what's happened.
14:18And the people that are in it are, what did you call them?
14:22Held hostage.
14:23They're held hostage, but with a mental prison, with self-policing, with brainwashing tactics, with manipulation, with coercion.
14:30Yeah.
14:30Since you like music, we both like music and we both like movies.
14:34I'm not a movie critic, per se, but I do sometimes write online reviews, like Creed, My Own Prison, right?
14:45Yeah.
14:46Yeah.
14:47The band's Creed.
14:48Yeah.
14:49Yeah.
14:49Did you see the movie Heretic?
14:53I just started watching it recently.
14:56Yeah.
14:57It's actually awesome.
14:58I was so impressed by how deep that they go into worldview, having a worldview and, like, having that be challenged.
15:07I'm so impressed by that movie, and I'm so excited to finish it.
15:10But, yeah, someone was like, we need to watch that together.
15:12So, I finally got around to watching it.
15:14Yeah.
15:14Some people, indeed, will.
15:16Well, it's like, oh, they're, unfortunately, I dare say this, I mean, they're so weak in their faith that they can't watch something like that, because out of fear, something within them will then make them question themselves.
15:35I welcome questions.
15:37This whole show is about self-reflection.
15:40If you can't handle the questions, it's because deep down, you know, the answers might not be so convenient.
15:49And, yeah, Heretic, I went in expecting nothing of that movie.
15:53I thought, oh, great, another Hollywood attack on religion film.
16:00But it was very well written, very well acted.
16:05It is worth seeing.
16:07And, again, if you're, indeed, strong in your faith, you should not have a problem with the questions that arise within it.
16:20Yeah, and I feel like if you are challenged, then, okay, you can do more research, like, try to figure it out.
16:26Like, ultimately, what I've learned from neurobiology is that we have a model in our head about how reality works.
16:33And if we're faced with a challenge, then we have to do something to update the model.
16:37Or we can live in a very unhealthy place of cognitive dissonance where we have two opposing ideas that cannot coexist, and our brain's not solving it for us, interpreting it in one way or the other.
16:47And it's good to go figure that out.
16:50You need to update your model whenever new information is presented.
16:53And it's okay if it's challenging.
16:55It's healthy to do that because we're always growing.
16:57There's always an infinite onion layer being pulled back about, you know, getting to the core of an idea or how reality works.
17:05Yeah.
17:06And no one knows, actually.
17:08No one has an actual answer.
17:10If you're confident, it's actually a problem, I think.
17:12And I think even Scientology, which I'm not a fan of, has some validity to it if it were indeed truly all about free will.
17:25But it was created by Ron L. Hubbard as a scam to sell books.
17:30And Leah Remini exposed, that's basically what it's continued to be.
17:35They'll rewrite a book, a line in a book, and you're forced to buy it to replace the insisting book.
17:42It's like a money laundering scam con type cult.
17:48There's very little religion or faith in it.
17:51But calling it a religion gets them federal breaks.
17:57Yeah, yeah, oh, deeply.
18:00And I feel like that's actually the thing when it comes to the human rights topic, which my film doesn't dive into, but it's definitely the thing that's changing human rights laws around the world, shunning that tax breaks and the flow of money into these organizations that have unhealthy goals for society or their members or, yeah.
18:21That, like, in this case, like, you have to buy these books, you have to put all your time into this thing or your money into this program.
18:29They shouldn't be getting tax incentives if they have been found guilty of crimes that already exist in our nations or states.
18:38And in the case of both of these religions, we shouldn't say, like, oh, it's a religious issue.
18:45Like, let them do whatever they want.
18:47There's slaves there.
18:49We can't exist with slavery in our country.
18:52There's people dying because of this.
18:54Like, death isn't an acceptable result of a religious group.
18:58Yeah, but it seems like for some people, the slavery issue is always only about the American Civil War and Lincoln being killed.
19:10So people didn't get the reparations, the 40 acres and the mule they were supposed to get.
19:15So now they want to steal money from those who never held slaves to give to people who never were slaves.
19:22It again comes down to the money scam, it seems.
19:26I would like if we actually dealt with actual slavery that's existing right now.
19:31It's going on all over the place still.
19:34It's a huge issue right now.
19:36You won't get a peep out of them about that.
19:39No, it's about, can I cash in?
19:42Yeah.
19:43Yeah.
19:43Cash, cash.
19:45And I say that about, I was born and raised Catholic, but this is not a Catholic show.
19:52Yeah.
19:53No, you got to keep a sense of humor.
19:56That's great.
19:56But as my friend Pastor Rick says, I'm definitely not your average Catholic.
20:01In fact, I call Francis the nincompoop because he's more interested in worldly communism than Christ and Catholicism.
20:12But I don't care if it's a Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran, a Presbyterian, whatever, whatever, whatever your flavor of church.
20:22A lot of them have become humanist clubs and all about say whatever, whether it's biblical or not, to keep fannies in the pews and the money coming in.
20:36So, to have your relationship with Christ doesn't require that building with the steeple on it.
20:46Yeah.
20:47I mean, I think just with any cult, if there's a money angle, then it's already poorly incentivized to be correct.
20:56So, the fact that, like, these churches operate the same way, like, oh, as long as the money's flowing and the pews, you know, the pews are full and the money's flowing, then we know it's working well.
21:05Let's keep on, we'll say whatever it takes to keep that happening.
21:09That's actually not necessarily optimized to give you truth because it's about money.
21:16Yeah.
21:17You can't do both.
21:18Yeah, and there could be cultish offsprings of any sect and any religion, like there are certain, in Islamic faith, certain Shia, some would say cults, that believe they are to hasten Armageddon.
21:41Well, that was also Om Shrinioko, who I discuss in my Terror Strikes book, a Christian offspring cult that believed, hey, we can engage in terrorism because hastening the day of Christ's return is a good thing.
21:59And nowhere in the Bible does it say, so evil, be complicit in evil for that supposed end good.
22:11Yeah, I grew up in a doomsday cult and the film's about that, so I'm kind of immune now to, we need Jesus to come back and murder everyone as a solution to our world's problems.
22:24If someone's saying that, I think that you should just walk away.
22:28Maybe run.
22:31Yes.
22:33You shall be known by your fruits and you must sow to reap.
22:38Yeah, I said it right that time.
22:41A lot of times I get it backwards, but if you aren't sowing good, you're complicit in the evil, I always say.
22:49Yeah, if anything, how does this go?
22:51I feel that Christianity in general, well, religion in general, let's not say Christianity, religion in general, has a long history of getting really good people to do things that would be objectively harmful to others.
23:11And ultimately in my life, I feel like, as long as there are no victims, you can do and believe whatever you want.
23:17But as soon as you have victims, if people are getting hurt in some way, taken advantage of, or physically hurt, mentally hurt, emotionally, like, we have victims and it's not acceptable.
23:30And religion's a really good model of getting great people to do bad things.
23:34Yes, good can come from it, bad can come from it, our entire nation, hence the name constitutionalist politics.
23:43Constitution, as Adam said, made for a moral people and our Judeo-Christian foundations of, based on biblical free will.
23:55But my free will and my rights end at your nose.
23:59I can't punch you in the face just because I feel like it.
24:05That's a good line to draw.
24:06Yeah.
24:08I may want to, but, you know.
24:12I want to punch you, but I'm going to have to get a lawyer.
24:15Yeah.
24:17We're going to have to talk about it.
24:18Yeah, well, that's a whole – legal ease and lawfare out of control has brought us a lot of – down the path away from where we were.
24:34Never so long ago and why we have so many – like, everything's got to have a warning label on it to protect the stupid from themselves.
24:43And, you know, that's –
24:46Something's out of hand.
24:47That's true.
24:47At any rate, indeed, what drew me to you was in your bio on, full disclosure, Matchmaker FM, that's a site where podcasters and guests can manage to come across each other.
25:05It talked about escaping cults.
25:09So I felt that, indeed, an important discussion to have on this show.
25:15However, someone wants to define cult.
25:19But I think you and I agree where we draw that line.
25:25If people are literally being held behind barbed wire fences and gates, it's a cult.
25:32You're not there of your free will.
25:35Yeah.
25:36There's a great – the bite model.
25:38Well, first of all, most of the cult experts that are around today that are still active, Stephen Hassan being one, Janja Lalic, another one, thought of their work is based off of how the communists under Mao, the Lifton's Eight, it's called.
25:53So if you want to look into Lifton's Eight, that's kind of like a great source material for how to control the minds of people and a nation.
26:00And then, like, Stephen Hassan kind of simplified things on a bite model, B-I-T-E, so behavior control, information control, thought control, and emotion control.
26:09So those four, if you have a group that's doing that, it doesn't need to be a religion.
26:12It could be political.
26:13It could be the bake sale.
26:15It could be your company where you work at.
26:17If people are controlling, another one is bounded choice, which is Janja Lalic's kind of thesis, is about having – you have four elements.
26:29And one of them is a charismatic leader.
26:31It could be a group of leaders that have the connection to God, a transcendent belief system that you are part of something special or you will attain something special if you continue on this path.
26:42And then usually there's – I can't remember the other elements, but ultimately they are not – you feel like you're making choices, but it's what the group has told you are your options or your only option.
26:52It goes to that choice, yeah.
26:55The illusion of a choice.
26:58You can drink the poison Kool-Aid or you could take the poison pill.
27:04The illusion of a choice.
27:06It's bad, negative to your health, either way you choose.
27:11In the case of my family and the Witness Underground topic of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the bounded choice that the active members who are the real victims here have to make is they're presented with – if you want to live forever on earth, which is what their version of heaven is, live forever on earth as a human, you can't talk to your child or anyone who's left the religion or doesn't believe or has said something questioning the faith.
27:39If anyone says something questioning the faith, you should fear them because if you talk to them, you're allowing – you're opening the door to something that can challenge your faith.
27:47And if, you know, obviously, like you said, Alan said, if your faith is so weak, like that's a signal, a red flag, right?
27:54Right.
27:55They can't talk to you because they will be killed by Jesus or God, however you want to look at that, because they opened the door to communication with someone.
28:03Well, but yeah, a whole lot of devout Jehovah's Witnesses have died.
28:09They're in cemeteries.
28:10They're not living forever on the earth, right?
28:13Actually, yeah.
28:14The last time I talked to my grandparents, last few times, the one that just passed last week, I was like, so when you first joined the religion, you were really happy to say that because they read the book from 1925 that said millions now living will never die.
28:27And it was like in the book, first page is like proof conclusive that millions now living will never die.
28:32And we bring that book up in the film, but that hooked my grandparents in the 80s, early 90s.
28:37And I was like, so how do you feel about that now, 2024?
28:41And that's a few months ago.
28:43And they're like, well, I'm pretty certain I'm going to die.
28:46And I was like, okay, so you're updating your model.
28:48Like they hooked you, you know, 50 years ago with this idea.
28:51And now you realize that it's not true.
28:54And everyone who's ever read that book is also dead.
28:57So you have to understand, like, if they're the, you know, the direct connection to God, and that's what they wrote, proof conclusive, proof, actual proof that they won't die.
29:07Join us.
29:08You won't die.
29:09Like everyone else who's ever come before has died.
29:11And every one of your peers is now dead.
29:13So, okay.
29:14What do you believe now?
29:15Do you believe that they are the source of truth with proof conclusive about anything at all?
29:19I feel like at some point you kind of have to like, you know, question reality again or update them all.
29:26But as long as there are new, as Barnum said, a sucker born every minute, as long as there are replacements for those who leave through death that they were promised would never come or leave for whatever other reasons, as long as there are new recruits, the cult and the money continues.
29:49Keeps flowing.
29:50Yeah.
29:50Yeah.
29:51And they're one of the richest companies in New York City.
29:53They make like $50 billion a year off of their whole global network of about 8 million or so that they claim as members.
30:00And most of them are buying books.
30:03It's exactly the same model as Scientology.
30:05And it was exactly the same as the founder.
30:06He sold a clothing company, started a book publishing company, and that became a religion.
30:10Surprise, surprise.
30:11You had to buy his book.
30:12Sounds just like Ron L. Hubbard in Scientology, yes.
30:18Actually, I met a guy when I first started doing the, I did a crowdfund for the movie back in 2018.
30:23And one guy who had left the religion, he went to MIT and then kind of questioned his faith.
30:28And then he ended up being a pretty big voice in the 80s and 90s against the religion, Alan Feuerbacher, who has sadly passed recently.
30:37But he invited me into his house and I was living really close to him and he has this basement.
30:42He said he spent over $125,000 to collect every single piece of literature that that religion has ever produced, you know, throughout over 100 since 1879 or something.
30:54He literally had the entire archive of everything.
30:57And he was like, he had another, it was the coolest thing in the world.
31:00He had this like bookshelf amongst the entire super library in his basement that filled the whole basement.
31:07This one bookshelf, he's like, I figured out where the source material came from for all of their ideas.
31:12And he had this book of, he's like, this is what was written in, you know, 1930.
31:16And then this person in the religion, the religious leader or this writing group copied and plagiarized all of this information and made it their own.
31:23But it was like super fringe, super right, super like, like really crazy conspiracy theory thing.
31:29And it's like that, that had been slammed publicly.
31:32But then like this religion is like, oh, that's our idea.
31:34We want that idea.
31:35Like, really?
31:36You want that crazy idea?
31:37Oh, throughout all history, all the religions, the Catholic Church, the Easter Bunny for Easter, co-opted from the fertility gods.
31:51Right?
31:51Yeah.
31:52And to make it part of that, to try to, in a way, be inclusive and draw others in.
32:00And then Christ was not born on December 25th.
32:05Yeah.
32:06But you'll have people freak out if you dare deal in that reality, you know?
32:13Well, but it's not what matters on Christmas Day.
32:17What matters is the tradition and the why, the symbolism of why we are celebrating it, not the fact that it's technically not the correct day.
32:30Yeah.
32:31Actually, have you ever watched Zeitgeist back in the 90s?
32:34There's like a three documentary part series.
32:37Familiar with it, but no, didn't watch.
32:39So, in Heretic, to bring it back to your plug of that great movie, he brings the young women into this room, which has all these paintings of art with Krishna, with Egyptian Horace.
32:51And he's like, all of these different deities and faith groups have a character who was killed by the state and dead for three days, ascended to heaven.
33:03He was also born a virgin and just like all these kind of mythical elements to it that are similar to the Jesus story.
33:10And I haven't read the Jefferson Bible, but as I understand it, it's like all the non-supernatural elements of the Bible.
33:17It's like the president of the United States made a Bible that didn't have all the supernatural stuff in it.
33:20It's like, well, what did Jesus actually say of value that didn't relate to these 17 other religions that are just copied from them, which I found interesting.
33:30And this kind of stuff is all taught in theology school.
33:31Like, I've talked to lots of different ministers and priests who, this is like 101 Christianity.
33:38Like, hey, this is what was borrowed from the Babylonians.
33:40This is what was borrowed from the Canaanites.
33:41This is what was borrowed from the Egyptians.
33:43This is what is similar to, you know, the Krishnas.
33:46And people might bring this up, but ultimately their role isn't to teach deep history and philosophy that's deeper than the surface level stuff.
33:57Their job is to make sure that people have their emotions cared for when someone's born or dies in their family and comforts them in the time of need and makes them feel like they belong and they're part of a community.
34:09So if their mental health is like, has like a net to land in if they're going through a hard time, like that is still the value of religion, in my opinion.
34:17And it's, it bothers me that no one's figured out how to do that outside of the religion model.
34:23So it still exists because it actually provides really important value to society in those times of great need that we still, like, no one really knows what happens in the transition from death.
34:34There's no proof.
34:36Yeah.
34:37Since we had technical difficulties today at the beginning, I don't remember exactly when we started to know where to really end it.
34:46So I do want to start wrapping it up, but before we get to the full end wrap up, is there anything else we've not discussed that you'd like to put out there before we indeed conclude?
35:02Well, yeah, to go back to Witness Underground, it's, it took me, it was a life's work.
35:06I've got 10 years of interviewing people about their leaving a religious group, specifically the Jehovah's Witnesses in most cases.
35:12But, um, that turned into this movie that became my greatest life's work at this point.
35:17And I spent six years trying to get this social impact film out into the world that isn't so much, um, about being anti-religious.
35:25It's really about helping people understand what the Jehovah's Witnesses really are, how they work in a very gentle and like neutral way that if you're an active member of that religion, you have family in it, it's not challenging to the religion, but it does show you some of the insidious elements of a cult.
35:40And I feel like it's something that the world doesn't understand.
35:45Most people just say like, oh, they don't celebrate Christmas or birthdays and they're not really Christians.
35:49And that's like kind of where it ends.
35:51And we start there.
35:52You're right.
35:53Those things are true, but there's so much more to it.
35:55And these ultimately there's human rights, things that are going on.
35:58There's, um, really abusive elements to this group, but not just this group.
36:02It's not just the Jehovah's Witnesses that are a problem.
36:04Um, the film was invited to D-Cult, the Cult Awareness Conference, the first of its kind in the world.
36:10And at that conference, and that's why I'm in New Zealand now, because, well, first of all, it's awesome to stay here.
36:15I like it a lot.
36:16But that conference brought me here and I brought the film here and it sold out as an international premiere.
36:20The film did nine film festivals before that.
36:22So it's like a great end cap, but the right kind of organization to recognize the film for its importance in the world.
36:29Um, and I would love for you to go watch it because it's not just a thing that I made or think about my cool friends.
36:37Um, it's actually about processing trauma using art and the value that that has to keep people from dying by suicide.
36:44Um, or to actually discuss, to open up the door to talk about trauma because we all experience it.
36:50Humans have a chemical and emotional maximum that you can hit, whether it was like moving to a new apartment or like someone dying or having a worldview shift.
36:58Like the film discusses where you realize that what you've been taught isn't quite right, or it's wildly different than reality.
37:05Um, or like the people behind it are poorly incentivized to actually be like honest with you, um, or abuse and control you.
37:13So like we can all be susceptible to that.
37:15It's not just like, oh, some weirdos are born into a weird group, like sucks to be them.
37:19It's like, no, these are, we humanize them.
37:21Um, you get to like connect with them through music and their story and, and you also might be in something or it'd be worth questioning reality again.
37:31Um, even if you didn't ever do that or you haven't done that for a long time.
37:34Yeah.
37:34What is real?
37:36Yeah.
37:36And then this show, I, I don't, I, like I say, it's not a Catholic show or a Baptist show or advantage show or Joe, how the, the witness show or, uh, whatever, whatever, whatever.
37:47I always say, Satan wins.
37:52If we are at each other, if we can focus, I don't want this show to necessarily challenge someone who may be happy as a Jehovah witness.
38:05Oh, they've probably not made it to this point in this episode if they are, but if you are, and you're there again, if we can remember to focus and stay.
38:17If we can be Christ centric, uh, and be together as brothers and sisters on that, then moving towards something positive, that's good.
38:30It's Satan wins when we're at each other's throats.
38:33And that's even true of the other, uh, uh, religions, right?
38:37My terror strikes book is not Islamophobic.
38:42It's not, uh, you know, all Muslims are terrorists or terrorists sympathize.
38:49Yeah.
38:49It's not that, like I said, the Om Srin Yoko Christian cult is in there too.
38:55There's good and bad in all these things.
38:59And if we could focus on the things we could come together on, it would be a better world.
39:06I'm totally with you.
39:07Like division, dividing communities, making you feel separate or other from a different group is actually super insidious in society.
39:15I appreciate that.
39:16That's your goal and how you see the world.
39:18Yeah.
39:18And so website where people can reach out to you.
39:23Yeah.
39:23Witnessunderground.com.
39:25I also, my, my film production company is banana Island films.
39:29So you can Google that.
39:30There's a banana Island films.com and have another film out there.
39:33If you want to check out, um, music scene in Vietnam, uniting people from many, many different cultures together through music.
39:38That one's called Hanoi mixtape at Hanoi mixtape.com.
39:42Interesting.
39:43I like that concept, but of course, what immediately comes to mind is good.
39:49Right.
39:51Yeah.
39:52I grew up with a Vietnam war refugees and veterans who worked with the CIA in, in Wisconsin, a lot of the Hmong people from the Himalayas, the low Himalayas.
40:01And so I just deep interest to like go there and see what it's all about.
40:03Cause I, I mean, my band, when I was an active Jehovah's witness, my band member, primary band member was a Hmong child of Hmong refugees.
40:11And, um, I was always curious about their culture.
40:14I ate their food and like got to know them a bit.
40:16And so I was drawn to go check it out.
40:17And I ended up living there for five years and got really embedded in the music and art scene there and made a film about it with my, with my Vietnamese friends.
40:25Cool.
40:25So I feel like I, I had to go figure out why is everything I have to sign before I do my taxes or my, I get a new job is about like, there's something in there about the Vietnam war.
40:33It's, I had a really big impact on American culture and, um, a big topic for like resistance to the authoritarianism of the state with the draft and whatnot.
40:43And, and like, do we actually want to fight communism?
40:46Is that actually like, why, why is the capitalist system so against this?
40:50Is it really such a problem or maybe there's something valuable there?
40:53Like maybe we should have a balance like Europe does where they have state socialism and provide healthcare and show dignity to our society.
40:59We, we already do.
41:01We have social security as a socialist construct, right?
41:06But we pay into it.
41:08Therefore we are entitled to it, but giving it away to everyone who hasn't earned it, the communist model, then Cloward and Piven bankrupts it.
41:19But that's a whole other topic.
41:22Yeah.
41:23So thank you, Scott.
41:25But I wanted to see that first person, you know, it's still a communist military controlled state.
41:29So it was really interesting to live underneath a communist regime and actually side point growing up in the Jehovah's Witnesses felt a lot like a communist state.
41:37Like, oh, it's a very Orwellian.
41:39So like for me, it was like, oh, this is actually normal for me.
41:41Oh, there's police walking around watching everything I do.
41:44Yeah.
41:44And they're wearing normal clothes.
41:46They're secret.
41:46Like I grew up in that scenario.
41:48Jehovah's Witnesses are actually super commie.
41:51Total topic for the next time we hang out.
41:53Yeah.
41:54All right.
41:55Thank you, Scott Holman, for stopping by.
41:57Take care.
41:58God bless.
41:59Take care.
42:00See you.
42:01Thank you for having tuned in for a Christianist politics show.
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