It over 60 years ago. The credit union was created with one purpose to provide the essential funding that's the lifeblood of any thriving community, and to do this not for profit, but for better reasons. For members, for communities, for fairness, for futures, for potential, for inclusion, for change. The credit union for you, not profit. Credit unions in the Republic of Ireland are regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.

Hi, I'm Daniel Tosh, host of new podcast called Tosh Show. I'll be interviewing people that I find interesting, so not celebrities and certainly not comedians. We'll be covering topics like religion, travel, sports, gambling. But mostly it will be about being a working mother. If you're looking for a podcast that will educate and inspire or one that will really make you think this isn't the one for you, listen to Toss Show on the iHeartRadio App Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is the greatest murder mystery in American history.

That's Rob Reiner. Rob called me, Soledad O'Brien, and asked me what I knew about this crime.

We'll ask who had the motive to assassinate a sitting president? Then we'll pull the curtain back on the COVID up. The American people need to know the truth.

Listen to who killed JFK on the iHeartRadio App Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Ah. Welcome back to behind the Bastards, a podcast about the worst people in all of history that also hosts the eternal, unending battle between a man and his producer who wants him to send in the scripts of the episodes that they're reading. As usual, I'm winning this battle.

And to celebrate my triumph, I have the script.

Not the latest script. To celebrate my triumph, Matt Lieb Northrop.

Grumman got me northrop coming. That's right in my face. What's up?

That's right. That's right. We are advertising for drone delivered sex toys. Yeah. The same technology that takes out school busses in wait, wait. Can make you say yeah, man. What?

Do you have your soundboard, Matt?

Do I have my soundboard? I think you know the answer to yeah, I do. This week, my soundboard is all just different weird noises that Snoop makes on the wire.

Perfect.

I feel so much joy.

Speaking of joy, we have a special Oregon themed behind the Bastards for you. As you're probably aware, my adopted home state is one of the USA's great cultural hubs for cult activity. And we are talking about an Oregon, a classic Oregon cult today. And part of what we're doing here is we are raising money for the Portland Children's Museum. Yeah, there used to be, like, a Portland Children's Museum in a building and stuff that had to close down in 2021. I think it was a pandemic casualty, but a group of parents in the metropolitan area have created a traveling children's museum, the Flip Museum, which stands for Fun Learning, Inspiration Play. It's a nonprofit. It goes around to different communities in the Portland area and provides kids there with like, visits them sort of children's museum experience. So we are helping them fund that this week. If you want to donate, they've set it up so that you can just text bastards to 50155. So if you text bastards to 5155, you'll get the information you need to donate to help the flip Portland's Children Museum. So that's pretty cool.

I also love that in order to donate, you have to write the word bastards to the children's museum.

It is funny. It is funny. Although no one still uses the term bastard today.

Hey, bastards. I love children.

You want to help some literal these.

Little bastards get an education?

To 50155.

Text living in sin. To 501.

Yeah. Fuck wedlock.

That's right.

Now, Matt, how do you feel about sex cults?

Oh, love them pro. I've always wanted to be in one. I got really close to being in that one in San Francisco. Oh, man, the one taste thing. It was like the orgasmic meditation one.

Yeah.

Man, I was so close. I had a meeting with like one of the ladies who was recruiting. And I just spent the whole meeting being like, I don't have any money, but can I just go and watch?

Yeah.

And they said no. She started asking me to have she's like it was like $100 too. It really was not that much money, but I was very poor at the time. And I was like, I don't have $100. She emailed me later. How about this? Ask your friends and family for $100. I was like, lady, I used to do a lot of heroin. If I start asking for $100, they're going to think I'm back on the stuff.

It's for a sex cult. All right. Would you consider getting back on the heroin then?

But yeah, I've always wanted to be in a sex cult. I just too much of a coward.

Matt, I believe in you. I just want to state that here. And I believe that all of us can benefit from the story of Oregon's first great sex cult leader, Edmund Creffield. Now I'm going to guess you haven't heard of Edmund Creffield.

No, but I love that. That's a great name. That's a guy who fucks name.

That is a guy who fucks names. And that's also a guy who declares himself the second coming of Christ's name.

Well, yeah.

I mean oh, yeah. This is one of those stories. Making yourself Jesus, fucking a lot of people.

So great. What a grift. It's the most relatable grift, too. Like, I get like, you do what you got to do to get that. Mm hmm.

Especially if it means declaring yourself the Son of God. Which there's that great documentary series on Netflix about the twin flame cult, which is like this mix of kind of young millennial older gen z, like fucking pseudoscience about relationships mixed with also, I this guy who is the only person who can determine if you've met your soulmate. M Jesus. It's beautiful.

I love it.

It's very much descended because that guy spent some time in Oregon from the cult we're talking about today, which is have you ever heard the phrase Holy Roller?

I have, but I don't know how.

This cult was the Holy Rollers. This is where the term comes from and it is a surprisingly literal term.

There's a really popular song called Holy Roller that's probably heard it.

It may in fact, Ryan, that's my assumption. So if you live elsewhere in the United States, portland probably has primarily come to you in the form of a mix of like riot footage and Portlandia sketches, right? Yeah. It had this reputation from the end of the early 2000s as this kind of hip place where young artist types and intellectuals would congregate. And that's mainly because for a long time it was like the cheapest city on the West Coast.

Yeah.

Now again, it's like riots and urban decay and drug use and shit that like Fox News focuses on. And one of the things that's weird when I got into studying this guy who was like an early 19 hundreds, 19 three to 19 six Oregon cult figure is you get all these news stories about what happens with him and they all portray Oregon the same way that Fox does today. This is 100 and something years. It's like this is the center of anarchy and violence. And these people are savage, feral monsters, which I guess is something to be proud of.

I love it. I love that Portland has never changed.

Never changed.

The national media always been the same place. It's like 19 fucking 13 and someone's like everyone thinks you're so fucking cool with their beards chopping down trees.

Yeah, it is funny. So we'll be talking about that today. So yeah, we are chatting about a sex cult leader who declared himself Jesus Christ. Edmund Creffield. His actual name probably was Franz Edmund Creffield. He is yet again, Matt, a German.

I love it. Come on. For the German episodes.

Oh yeah, you love a German. I love it. No, I picked a cult episode for you because I was like, we've done a lot of real horrible genocide guys in a war. I want something lighter, right? A little bit more fun. And then bam, he turns out to be a German. You can't miss him. You can't miss him.

Finally, a German who doesn't kill people.

He just likes to do sucky. fucky yeah, he is. This guy's really going to rehabilitate their image? Yeah. This is one of those cases where we have basically nothing about this guy's early life. He was probably born in Germany. I think it's possible he was born in Austria, like somewhere around Germany, but kind of unclear. We really don't know exactly when he was born. He was probably in his 30s by the time this story starts, which would put his date of birth somewhere around the creation of Germany as a state. 18, 70, 71. But we don't really know. All we can tell for sure is that he immigrated to the United States likely at some point in the 1880s, probably as a teenager or a young adult. Some of his biographers postulate that he may have moved to the US. To avoid serving in the Kaiser's Army because everyone had to, right? Like, you had to do your compulsory service in the Kaiser's Army. He may have bounced to here because he didn't want to do that.

I'm a lover, not a fighter.

He really was. It's also possible that his family was rich. Some biographers will suggest that, given that he seems to have had a degree of education that would have been unlikely for him to have attained if he had grown up sort of, like, poor. But all of that sort of speculation. What we know for sure is that by 1899, he has made his way from wherever he landed in the US. Probably somewhere on the east coast to Portland, Oregon. Yeah.

This is the Mecca of every German immigrant who wants to meet a nice hippie.

Yeah. Every weirdo yeah. From him to eventually Stalin's granddaughter Portland calls.

Yeah, I just found that out recently. And I followed her on Instagram. I'm like, DA, she's cool.

I like, yeah, she's like a LARPer. It's kind of neat. Yeah, she seems so I don't mean larper in the sense we usually use it on the show. I mean, literally, I think she does, like, live action role playing stuff.

Yeah.

So we know that Creffield was a deeply religious man. He felt called to witness for the Lord. And like many similar young men in his position, he found himself drawn to the Salvation Army. Now, do you know a whole lot, Matt, about the actual history of the Salvation Army?

I don't. I've only ever been to a brick and mortar place called the Salvation Army, and I bought some wooden golf clubs.

Oh, good. I didn't call you for a golf guy.

Yeah, well, no, I wasn't. I just was like, there and I was like, oh, look at all this cheap stuff. It's like goodwill, but worse. And then there were some golf clubs, and I bought them, and I was like, why did I do I don't know. I don't know anything about the Salvation Army. I've always just assumed that they were, like, charitable organization of some sort.

Yes, they are. Probably most people's primary contact with them is that during the holiday season, they'll be out in front of shops and stuff with these, like, red for they'll.

Have a Santa there sometimes.

Often a Santa. Yeah. And people will point out, like, if you're on social media, usually about this time of year, people will be like, don't donate to the Salvation army. They're problematic. There's a bunch of reasons for that. I'm not advocating for the Salvation Army, but we are talking about their early history, which is not entirely the same as the organization as it exists today.

Are you about to tell me that they are an actual army and they got guns and stuff?

They don't have guns. They are organized exactly like an army. That part they took very literally.

So a lot of soap beatings.

The Salvation Army was founded not long before Creffield's probable birth. It was formed in 1865, right. As the US civil War is ending by a pawn broker who became a minister named William Booth over in England. Now, pawn broker does not seem like a good person job to me. Right. Yeah.

I don't actually know what a pawn broker is. The guy who owns a pawn shop?

Yeah. It's a guy who takes your stuff if you're poor and gives you some money for it and maybe you get it back later, but, like, yeah, I don't know. You're not inherently bad, I guess, but it definitely usually shady people wind up pawn brokers. Yeah.

It doesn't seem like a nice thing to do, but I could see its usefulness.

Yeah, I've known, like, a nice pawn guy, but I don't know, maybe we shouldn't be just shit talking pawn brokers. But now, I think nowadays, because of how much payday loan shit, it's gotten sketchier. So maybe it wasn't back then. Anyway, Booth actually does not seem to have been wildly sketchy. He was, however, super Christian and his life ambition. He wanted to turn the poor of London, particularly, like, prostitutes and alcoholics and criminals, into good Christians. Now, there's a lot of predatory religious figures in the last century and today who have a similar ambition. And what made Booth notable was he had this thing, he would say, where he was like, no one ever became a Christian when they were starving. Right. So his attitude is if you're going to try to convert people, the best way to do that is by doing nice things for them. Right, yeah. Which is not the worst way to be an evangelist. Right?

No. Yeah, that works. I'm down for that, at least on the surface.

Yeah. I didn't do a deep dive on Booth, but I haven't found any evidence that he was, like, within sort of the charitable figures of his day, anything but, like, a pretty reasonable example. So his focus was he wanted to spread the gospel by improving the lives of poor and suffering people. Now, at first, he limited this to giving food and clothing and other kind of help to converts. But in 1878, this is at least the organization sort of story. Who knows if this is literally true? But the story goes that in 1878, he's sitting down and he's talking with his secretary, and he uses the phrase as he's, like, dictating a piece of propaganda, basically, the Christian Mission is a volunteer army. This was, like, what he wanted to use as their slogan, and his son heard him, and he's like, I'm not a volunteer. I'm a regular or nothing, right? Like, I'm not a volunteer soldier. I'm like, a career soldier in this Christian army. And that convinces Booth to change the name of his nascent charitable organization to the Salvation Army and to adopt a military style structure with, like, military style uniforms and shit.

And ranks like, officers in the Salvation Army are called, like, Lieutenant captain Booth is the general, right? Like, that's how they discuss talk about themselves now that's, like, I don't know, whatever. That's not particularly problematic. What is problematic is that new converts are called captives, which I do consider a little concerning.

Yeah, captive is a weird thing to that's.

OD.

I guess maybe it's a critique of militarism, where it's like, yeah, privates.

It'S OD. There is definitely a degree of colonizer brain that is present within the Salvation, but this is England in the late 18 hundreds.

Where the coolest people you.

Could be the Salvation Army again, there's a lot of ugly things about the organization today that this episode is not about. That at the time of its founding, though, again, it seems to have mostly been about making providing meals to people in London, slums and shit. In a history of the organization, pamela Walker wrote, quote, the mission, however, differed from other home missions. The authority it granted women, its emphasis on holiness, theology and revivalist methods, its growing independence, and its strict hierarchical structure were all features that sharply distinguished it from its contemporaries. The Christian Mission was created in the midst of the working class communities it aimed to transform. So there are some ways in which it's kind of less problematic with some of its peers. It gives a lot more sort of like power to women that are in the organization. It generally comes out of communities as opposed to being imposed on them. That said, it is again colored by some problematic aspects of the time, including colonialism. In 1890, Booth and some of his colleagues wrote a manifesto, a book titled In Darkest England and the Way Out. And as you may have guessed from that title, they're basically just comparing living conditions of the urban poor in Western cities like London to Africa.

Quote, as there is a darkest Africa, is there not also a darkest England civilization which can breed its own barbarians? Does it not also breed its own pygmies? May we not find a parallel at our own doors and discover within a stone's throw of our cathedrals and palaces similar horrors to those which Stanley has found existing in the great equatorial forest?

Hello. Chimney sweeps is all black people.

That is basically this guy's belief system. And when he references Stanley, he's talking about bastards. Pot alumni Henry Morton Stanley, who, again, machine gun natives in Africa repeatedly not a cool guy, but also very popular. He writes a lot of books about his exploration and shit that are viral in this, you know, aspects of Booth's writing do kind of flirt with class politics. He's got a lot of focus on inequality, but he doesn't see the root of inequality as, like, the structural factors inherent to the system that governs the British Empire. He sees the root of inequality as, like, the fact that the poor don't have enough religion and discipline.

Right. Yeah. They need Jesus.

And they need Jesus.

That's all they needed.

Yeah. The primary thing that elevates him because that's not an uncommon view among Christian charitable types in this period. Yeah. Even today. What does kind of elevate them is that there is this consistent focus on, like and the way that you make them disciplined is by making sure they're not starving first of all, which is like, no matter what else you're doing, not a bad thing.

No, that works.

People do in fact, need food. The organization the Salvation Army spreads to the US in the late 18 hundreds, and they hold their first Kettle fundraising drives. That's the start of them, like, ringing bells outside of shops and shit. That all begins in San Francisco, and by 1897, the Salvation Army is providing Christmas meals to more than 100,000 people in the United States. So that's about when Creffield joins. He's kind of in Portland by 1899. We know he's with the army then. So, like right as it's sort of coming into prominence in the United States is when he gets involved, when it's sort of really snowballing as an organization. Now, whatever existed in Creffield's background, he was charismatic and self confident as an adult. He's really good at speaking. He's good at preaching. And his superiors in the Salvation Army decide, this is a guy who know, be able to hold some rank here. And they send him to their officer candidate school once he's there and he's, like, under some scrutiny from leaders, they're like, oh, my God, this man is out of his fucking mind. Right. He cannot work with other people. He is incapable of listening to anyone else.

He has his own ideas about the Bible, and if yours clash with them, all he'll do is talk over you. He cannot have a conversation.

Just like, the worst type of guy to be in a school with.

Yeah. Sounds fucking awful. Truly terrible.

God wants you to fuck be fruitful, he says.

And when he gets out on the street working for the army, one of the things they also find is that anywhere he's stationed, donations will drop. Because he loves ranting about his ideas, but he hates money and he doesn't like asking for it. And he started to believe that the Salvation Army has been corrupted by this focus on donations. Like, it's too money focused, as opposed to being focused on spreading the gospel specifically. His very idiosyncratic ideas about the gospel, which he's not wrong. One of the very valid criticisms of the Salvation Army is that it is real much about the money, about getting in those donations. So he's not alone in finding that frustrating, but he's like it's frustrating because what they should be doing is telling everyone what I believe about the.

We have we found out what he believes that's different from what they believe.

Not yet. He's kind of forming those ideas right now. Right? Definitely. One of his beliefs at this time is that Christianity has been corrupted by modernity. Right. He doesn't like electric lights, doesn't like all the fancy new clothes people are wearing, doesn't like the bicycles with the.

Big wheel at the top and the bicycle at the bottom.

Really not a bicycle, fella. That is going to be a factor in the story, Matt. You've predicted it.

Well, it's a story about Portland, Oregon.

Of course it's going to be about bicycles. So Creffield gets moved from Portland to the Dowels, which is Oregon's second city with a name that sounds kind of like Dallas. And then he gets the other one being Dallas, Oregon. And then he is moved to Mcminaville to Hepner, and everywhere he goes, donations just plummet. He is a horrible person to have on your team if you're a Salvation Army guy. Some sources I've read suggest he also has, like, a moral issue with taking money. But a big part of it seems to be that he knows the money is going not just it's going to feeding people. And when the Salvation Army does these big feeding people drives or whatever, when they have these big events, they're kind of secular. Right? We wouldn't consider them secular, but Creffield considers them secular. Right?

Right.

And he says this in an interview with a reporter sometime after leaving the Salvation Army. Quote, while in the Salvation Army, I had the light, but I did not have the power. I was teaching his works, but was still in the darkness. I did not experience the fullness of his power until I had tarried long before God in prayer. Then the light came. The Holy Ghost told me that I should live a life of pure faith. I was to do everything by faith. I could no longer work for the army because its people are not entirely of God. I could not take part in soliciting for funds. I was directed by the Holy Ghost not to solicit for money. It is not right to hold ice cream socials and other social gatherings where.

Money is taken just knocking ice cream out of homeless people's hands. No, no.

God doesn't want it.

He sounds fun, man. He sounds like it's going to work out good for him.

You know what God does want, though, Matt? Lieb?

What does he want?

He wants you to buy the products and services that support this podcast.

Oh, that's what I thought. God wanted. Good thing I'm going to buy them.

Yeah, check it out. Give God, like, $30. He needs it. God is hard up. Now, is it possible that God just wants to buy some Molly and needs some cash? Sure, I would say, but who are we to judge God? He works hard. Why shouldn't he take Molly this weekend?

I have always said, God, you work hard, you got to play hard. Get some Molly, massage your friends, suck on one of those Pacifiers rave.

Yeah. Go see VNV nation. God loves being ancient and born before time itself. He's a big VNV nation fan. Here's ads.

Over 60 years ago. The credit union was created with one purpose to provide the essential funding that's the lifeblood of any thriving community. And to do this not for profit, but for better reasons for members, for communities, for fairness, for futures, for potential, for inclusion, for change. The credit union for you, not profit. Credit unions in the Republic of Ireland are regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.

Hi, I'm Daniel Tosh, host of new podcasts called Tosh Show, brought to you by iheart podcast. Why am I getting to the podcast game now? Well seemed like the best way to let my family know what I'm up to. Instead of visiting or being part of their incessant group text, I'll be interviewing people that I find interesting. So not celebrities and certainly not comedians. I'll be interviewing my plumber, my stylist, my wife's gynecologist. We'll be covering topics like religion, travel, sports, gambling. But mostly it will be about being a working mother. If you're looking for a podcast that will educate and inspire or one that will really make you think, this isn't the one for you, but it will be entertaining to a very select few because you don't make it to your mid 40s with IBS without having a story or two to tell. Join me as I take my place among podcast royalty like Joel Olstein and Lance Bass. Those are words I hope I'd never have to say. Listen to Toss show on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is the greatest murder mystery in American history.

That's rob briner. Rob called me, Soledad O'Brien, and asked me what I knew about this crime. I know 60 years later, new leads are still emerging. To me, an award winning journalist, that's the making of an incredible story. And on this podcast, you're going to hear it told by one of America's greatest storytellers.

We'll ask who had the motive to assassinate a sitting president?

My dad. Bob JFK. Screwed us at the Bay of Pigs, and then he screwed us after the Cuban missile crisis.

We'll reveal why Lee Harvey Oswald isn't who they said he was. I was under the impression that Lee was being trained for a specific operation. Then we'll pull the curtain back on the COVID up. The American people need to know the truth.

Listen to who killed JFK on the iHeartRadio App Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

We're back. This is behind the bastards. And again, we are this episode raising money for the Portland Children's Museum to donate Text Bastards to 50155. And we're back to the story. Back to the tale.

Let's get back into it. Talking about God.

Talking about the G man, not Gordon Liddy, but God. So Creffield gets tired of working for the Salvation Army. And the Salvation Army. By the way, very tired of Edmund Creffield.

Yeah, they've had about enough of his shit anyways. He's not even good at the job, which is like literally just being guy with bell getting the money.

Yeah. Can't do it. Can't shut up long enough to do it. So he bounces and he joins the Pentecostal Mission and Training School in Salem, Oregon. This is the project of a guy named Martin Ryan. And it's a fundamentalist Christian like school, right? That's a way to look at it. In their book Holy Rollers, Tim McCracken and Robert Blodgett describe the school this way Ryan's group was part of a holiness movement that taught the Bible in its entirety from the first word of Genesis to the last word of Revelation. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, god shall take away his part out of the book of life, which is Revelations 20 219. Basically, if you edit the Bible at all or don't take it all literally, that's how they interpret it. If you don't take every word of the Bible literally, god will light you on fire and shit.

God damn it's. So boring, though.

It's super boring. It sucks.

It's a long, boring book with too many fucking words.

Oh, my God, so many words. More than there needed to be.

I don't care who begat who. Just get to the yeah, yeah.

I'm going to begat my fist in your fucking face if you don't get along with the good parts of this shit.

I'm going to take out my begat and just wow, nice. I'm a rapper.

Good. So during his time with Ryan, creffield becomes aware of a new doctrine, which is like a new sort of set of religious teachings. And as a part of that, he becomes aware of the fact that God has chosen him specifically. He is the Lord's elect his new prophet on earth. Now that's a great thing to learn about yourself.

That's a real quick turnaround on this guy. I mean, I knew he was like a little bit pedantic and maybe confrontational, but now he's immediately like, you know what? I am. Okay.

Yeah. So, you know, speaking of being God, the am. I don't know, Sophie. Are we allowed to keep doing the Jesus Christ of podcasting bits or did we get weird messages over those?

No, but I hate it.

Okay. Well, then we'll keep doing it.

I don't know what it is.

Let's do it.

You are the Jesus Christ of podcasting.

I am the Lord and Savior of podcasting. That's obvious to everyone.

Let me watch your feet.

Well, I'm your dad, bitch, and that's where we're at.

No, Sophie, I feel like you are the Holy Spirit because you're mysterious. And if there is a God, the father of podcasting, unfortunately, it's.

Magdalene.

Of course.

You know what? Let's be gnostic about this. Joe Rogan is like the evil fake that's that's.

The you're the real demiurge God. And again I'm mary Magdalene. I'm a prostitute and I just want to rub oil on your feet. I'm more of a feet guy in the just going to if I could just do that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Feet, Robert.

Speaking of feet no, not speaking of feet, guys. We're talking about Edmund Creffield.

Sorry.

Who has just had it revealed to him that he is God's elect. And I found an interesting article by Sophie Co submitted to the Young Historians 2017 conference hosted by Portland State University that describes his next movements in this period. After separating from the Salvation Army, crefield moved around to different cities preaching his radical take on Christianity, most of which were places he had previously worked as a soldier and had connections to people from cities like the Dows and MCMINVILLE dismissed Creffield for being too extreme, leading to his eventual arrival in Corvallis in 1903. Although the population was fairly poor, the community was close knit and dominantly religious. These characteristics, as well as any connections he gained in the Salvation Army, likely prompted Creffield's faith in the people of Corvallis. Now. Do you know anything about Corvallis Matt Lieb?

Literally nothing.

Nobody does. Nobody fucking does. It is like one of the most boring towns in this whole state. This is the only thing that ever happened there. It's very pretty. It's in the western part of Oregon. It's kind of right in between Portland and Eugene. Yeah. And in this period today, I think Corvallis is like many sort of less dense chunks of Oregon. But back then it is dirt poor. Right. Everyone who lives there, almost everyone who lives there are these subsistence farmers who lead very lean lives full of hard work.

Right.

It is a tight knit community. There are two newspapers, and since they are, it really lets you know how similar newspapers were to Tweeting and TikTok in the era before those things. Because the newspapers in Corvallis, they report absolutely everything that happens there. And I am talking about the most pedestrian shit. Imagine.

Hell yes.

Blodgett and McCracken write, quote, everything was reported. Everything go out of town. It was reported a swift journey on a bicycle was made Saturday by Frank Hurt. He went from Corvallis to Oregon City in 6 hours. It is not likely that the trip was ever made by wheel in so short a time that's from the Times in 1901, a man rode a bicycle.

I just love the journalism in a small town is just the most nosy neighbor, and he has a printing press.

I do want to do a modern day, the same Woodward and Bernstein level skullduggery and drama that you get from Watergate era journalism movies, but about stuff like this. Like, a guy gets a call in the night from a shadowy figure man rode his bicycle from Corvallis to Oregon City today. Pull the other thread. He gets car bombed trying to report on it.

To meet with someone in an underground garage who gives them a file. And the file is just someone like.

A grainy picture of a man on a giant bicycle.

I think he's visiting family in Eugene. Oh, I love it.

So the know Creffield picks Corvallis because it's the small town. Everyone's very religious. He's like, it's kind of isolated. You obviously want that as a cult leader, and these people will believe anything. So these are my ideal sort of provincial rubes to join the cult that I'm going to get. They'll buy what I'm saying about being the new prophet of Jesus Christ. The downside of this place for him, which he doesn't seem to realize at the time, is that because it's such a tight knit town, corvallis is the kind of place where people are open to burying bodies for their neighbors. Right. Which presents a danger for cult. Like, that's not necessarily the best place to start fucking around. You can get kind of lost in a city you can't in Corvallis.

Yeah. The idea that this small town literally everyone knows where the bodies are buried except for you.

Yeah. Not necessarily your safest bet. No.

It seems kind of bad.

So, like a lot of the other cult leaders we've studied, the Twelve Tribes, which we did earlier this year, comes to mind. Creffield starts out when he first moves to Corbalis. He's not giving the whole span of what his beliefs have become. He starts preaching relatively popular Christian doctrine, and he's identifying himself as a prophet, but he's basically saying, like, I'm a messenger and God talked directly to me. But he's respectful of the local churches. He's not trying to get in their way. He's not trying to out himself as somebody who's running against all of the existing kind of religious infrastructure in the town. Right. More of what he's saying is that, like, hey, I have this close connection to God, and if you listen to what I'm saying, I can help guide you to spiritual perfection. That's the term he uses a lot. And this is kind of his key innovation. Right. Which is that he's not just saying, I am speaking with God, but I can teach you how to receive direct messages from God. Right.

God DM'd me.

Yeah. It gives people a little bit more to aspire to rather than just listening to you. Like they get to get messages from God. And what it's also going to mean is that if Creffield's not around to talk to them, like if he's in prison and stuff, the cult can perpetuate because these people are also talking to so it's a smart it's a smart way to set this shit up. He begins to claim once he's got people following him, showing up every week to listen to him preach, that once everyone's ready, once people have been following his guidance enough, they'll be added to a holy role in heaven where God lists all of his best friends. Right.

That's what the role is.

One theory as to where that came from. Right. The other theory is that it has something to do with the specific nature of how they are worshiping when he's holding these big preaching sessions. And I'm going to quote from Blodgett. McCracken again. For hours, Crefield kept his flock in a state of frenzied excitement. He had them rolling, praying, rolling, wailing, rolling, groaning, rolling, singing, rolling, clapping, rolling, stomping, rolling, tumbling, rolling, and rolling and rolling for hours on end. He had them rolling 12 hours if it was a short service, 24 hours if it was a typical service. All heads were spinning because they were glorying in heaven. What the fuck? Yeah. He's literally got them rolling around on the ground for 24 hours at a.

Stretch and part of its power. I get that. I kind of want that.

Who wouldn't want that, right?

I would love to just make a bunch of piggies roll in front of me. Roll for God.

Yeah. That's probably what was going on in, like, Andy Kaufman's head when he made that audience walk with him to get ice cream, where he's like, I could take this much further.

Yeah. Unlimited power just takes it. They occupy a police station.

Yeah. I think also what's going on here, you know how little kids, when they find out if they can spin around, they get kind of dizzy a lot? It's like getting high at the first way.

Totally. Exactly what I was thinking. It's like, is he getting tools high from rolling?

Because especially if you're not eating, you're starving yourself and rolling around a bunch. Yeah. You're going to feel weird.

You're going to become susceptible.

Yeah. And this kind of like some of this is classic cult shit, right? The whole starving people for periods of time. A lot of cults do this because it makes you worse at decision making. I haven't heard of anyone having people, like, roll around on the ground for 24 hours to get them all buzzed. That's kind of cool.

That's, MK. Roltra yeah. That's how we're going to get you to fucking give us the goods.

That's kind of a credible theory as to where the name Holy Rollers comes from, too. It's like, oh, yeah, I get why you would call them that. They're literally worshiping by rolling around on the ground yeah.

Makes sense.

Yeah. Now, this kind of all consuming worship is consistent with what Creffield was starting to claim about his God inspired take on Christianity. He believed, and he would argue God had told him that true Christians should not have time for anything else in their lives but worship. Right. Anything else you're doing, farming, raising your kids, literally anything but worship is a waste of time and of the devil. Right. So the upside of that is that it keeps everyone focused on him the whole time. The downside is that spending a full day or more rolling on the ground is not conducive to growing the food you need to survive. Right? Right.

Yeah. These are subsistence farmers. Like, they can only roll for a little bit and then they got to get back to the farming.

They don't have a lot of rolling time. But the other thing we just noted how starving yourself and rolling around a bunch gets you kind of in this altered state that makes you more suggestible that's not the only thing going on. It's also fun. Right. His worship, they're not just rolling around. They're like rolling and dancing and flinging their bodies around and like shrieking, screaming. They are expressing themselves and their feelings both through vocalization and through physical movements. And these are people. Not only are these all subsistence farmers, which is a difficult and often brutal way to exist, especially in 1903, this is a super strict Victorian prudish society that is anti women expressing themselves, that's anti many different facets of self expression we consider like normal today. And he's giving them an outlet. It's fun. People like being in Crefield's cold a lot better than they like slowly dying on a farm in rural Oregon. Sure.

This is like Peloton classes or Typo or some shit.

There's a definite element of Peloton that kind of shit here. And most of the people joining his cult are women, right?

Yeah. Some of them are well off, some.

Of them are poor, but all of them feel like they're missing something. In part, what you get from all these people is like, they seem bored with their lives because their lives fucking suck.

Yeah. Like shitty. All they do is 17 starve.

Yeah.

Guy shows up hot fucking German guy shows up and is like, hey, we're rolling this week.

Yeah.

And they're going to be like, sure, yeah.

I don't want to go back.

Yeah. This is a time when a game was like having a wheel and a stick. Yeah.

Closing your eyes and pretending your brother didn't die of consumption. That's a fun parlor game for us.

Or reading one of two newspapers that are keeping tabs on your neighbors.

You hear about this bicycle shit. Preached a sense of separation from the profane world, but he also utilized the tactics that he'd learned out in it. And chief among them was hypnotism. Right. We don't have as much detail about this as I'd like, but it is theorized that he took classes in hypnotism. He's basically certain that he did because he's using a lot of, like, at the time. Hypnotism is like a viral meme spreading through society. It's super hip. And a lot of what he's doing in his speeches is, like, kind of borders on hypnotism. Right. Like, he seems to be very familiar with that and utilizing that as well, which helps as part of why he's got this popularity early on.

Yeah. So having them roll around, I mean, that shit is fucking that feels kind of hypnotic. Instead of a watch swinging back and forth, it's your head.

Yeah. And so dozens and dozens flock to his banner. But dozens, hundreds more of people in Corvallis are angry. Right. He's described in newspaper editorials as a hypnotist. They write that his followers are, quote, dead to all human sympathies now. Yeah.

I mean, they're doing what I would if I saw this in the wild. A modern person would say they're witches.

Yeah.

So I could see, like, the rest of the town or the neighboring towns being like, what the fuck is happening here?

Yeah. This disturbs a lot of people. Sure. And it's also, like, the idea. Part of why I'm not sure exactly how solid the hypnotism claims are is that the journalists at the time used this a lot. And a large reason why they describe him as a hypnotist is because they have to explain how all of these young women are drawn to him while, in their opinion, he's ugly. Right.

He's not even that hot. And they all want to roll around.

I'm going to quote from Sophie Coe's write up here. Quote edmund Creffield was described as being physically unattractive and homely, but very persuasive and attractive for other reasons. His personality was said to be magnetic. Many claimed that he had power over others, especially women. That put them under a spell. Now, those other reasons we will get into a little bit later, but not quite yet. For now, the final piece of the Crefield puzzle and the real bit of genius in his cult was that he doesn't just promise conversations with God. He added a ticking clock. Right. You can connect directly with God. He can talk to you personally. But there's only so many names that we have space for on the holy role. Right. God's like one of those cell phone plans in the where you got to pick your five friends to text with for free. That's how speaking with God works.

Yeah. God doesn't do roaming data. You have to be in the plan. God's plan is a very cheap cell phone plan.

Yeah. I love this. And you know who else offers cheap cell phone plans?

The products and services.

At least one of them does, in fact.

Oh, good.

Yeah.

At least one.

At least one, sometimes two, sometimes multiple.

Cell phone services fighting in the cell phone.

Yeah. Anyway.

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We're back. Hey, we're talking about Eddie C. So many of the first members of Crefield's cult are Salvation Army volunteers who saw his personal and ecstatic relationship with God as much preferable to acting as foot soldiers for donations. Now, initially, he would allow you to kind of be in his flock and also stay a member of the Salvation Army or stay a member of one of the other churches that are in town in corvallis. But soon he starts to warn his growing flock that other Christians are not trustworthy, right. And they have to start isolating themselves. He preached, quote, when you get him the Holy Ghost, you'll bring consternation wherever you go, peace ceases. When you make your appearance, the so called Christians of the modern churches of today rise up in arms against you and call you a disturber of the peace, charging you with the crime of breaking up their churches. And he absolutely went deliberately about breaking up churches, right? First, he uses his familiarity with the organization to pull in Salvation Army volunteers, and then he would preach to people outside of churches when they were in the mood to receive God.

And once they start getting interested in his idea of this direct connection with God, he introduced a question, right? If your old church or if the Salvation Army was really holy, wouldn't you already be talking with God? Right? You've already accepted this is the goal, and you're not, which means these must be false churches, right?

Yeah. He makes a great point.

He makes a solid point. Yeah.

People go to church every Sunday. They don't talk to God once, or God at least doesn't talk back.

No, but you take mushrooms, boom. You're right there, baby.

Take mushrooms, talk to the trees, dog. They'll give you some life advice.

Yeah. So perhaps it says more about how boring Corvallis is than anything. But this pitch worked on quite a few people. The Gazette, a local paper, wrote this in December of 1902, the Salvation Army's people were not entirely of God, or so crefield. God's elect had told them so. All of God's anointed deserted the army. The big drum of the Salvation Army is no longer in evidence. About 08:00 each evening, and tambourines are very cheap. The army has gone to its religious Waterloo. It had met a body of divine healers, the army of holiness or something, and went over to the enemy. True religion of a respectable character, a religion that is reasonable, that commands at least the respect of the greatest thinkers, and a better class of people, is the last thing on earth that should be treated in a contemptuous manner. But a holy show that is a burlesque on religion is a bad thing for any community, as it is not taken seriously and consequently lays the foundation for the youth of the land to scoff at religion of any form. There should be reason in moderation in all things. There may be efficacy in prayer.

Who can say there is not? But it must be the prayer of a sane mind and a reasonable being. The prayer of a religious fanatic cannot avail much. Shut up. That is, by the way, this story is not a story of, like, the good people of Corvallis and this evil cult leader. Everyone sucks in this story, right? Everyone is like, they're all pieces of shit. So is this reporter, right, being like, our Victorian churches that teach you to hate your penis.

They don't even punch their balls in that church.

Yeah. They're not locking themselves inside a chastity belt listening to this nut telling them that you can have fun.

Yeah, no, this is like it reminds me of what was that wild, wild country where you learn about the Rajneesh and then they do interviews with the townsfolk, and I was like, I don't know if I like them either.

I would have poisoned them, too.

Yeah. I would have fucking did some ground beavers in their water supply as well.

Yeah, why not? Why not? I do that anyway, just for fun.

Yeah, it's hilarious.

Most people don't get beavers in their water.

Is that beaver?

Scientists recommend at least you drink three beavers per, so right?

Yeah, that's a good sign.

Move on. So one of Creffield's first converts was a young woman named Maud Hurt, which is kind of a cool name, like, if you were doing, like, a fucking Warren Ellis comic about a badass female preacher who was, like, killing, I don't know, gangsters in 1904. Mod Hurt. Yeah. Cool name. Good stuff. Yeah. So one of her friends told a journalist later that from an early age, maud's chief aim had been, quote, to become nearly as perfect as a Christian could be. And for a time, she practiced this by like she was always the person. If you were sick, she'd go over to your house, she'd watch you, she'd take care of your kids if you had to go harvest and stuff. Just a very nice, giving person.

Now that's beginner level shit.

Yeah.

Let's get to the real Christian shit.

Well, when she's 14, she decides to do that. She joins the Salvation Army, where she meets Creffield, and very soon thereafter is like, I'm out. The Salvation Army is too focused on money. I want to meet this guy who is kind of yelling at me.

Yelling at me. Yeah, I like it.

I'm getting in there.

I'm picturing Willem Dafoe, but based on the way they're writing about him, is.

Just like for another reason, too. Yes, he would be the right guy to play this. Or at least Willem Dafoe, like, circa Boondock saints, would have been a great guy to play this. So you do get similar stories from other converts as this passage from the book Holy Rollers makes clear. One of Creffield's most ardent followers was Samson Levins. Samson, 35, the second youngest of nine children, had been a private in the Spanish American War and was now a logger. He had a deep interest in the Methodist church, he said, but when it failed to meet his heart's desire, he joined Creffield's church. Some people think ours is a strange doctrine, but John Wesley was attacked by mobs when he founded the Methodist church, Sampson said, adding, of course, the church now is not as he john Wesley left it. So he's like, I was already a part of this kind of fringe movement that was founded by a nut. And the fact that Creffields is weird just makes him seem more legitimate to me.

Right? Yeah.

The Methodist church has gotten too normal. Now it's time to get weird again.

Yeah.

Now we see this same pattern over and over again. A man or a woman of belief joins the Church, but they don't feel spiritually sated. Right. Maude doesn't feel sated by the Salvation Army. This fucking dude Levins doesn't feel sated from the Methodist Church. And so they leave to find something more radical. And it's not just radical, but it's interesting. I cannot overemphasize how much the appeal of being in Creffield's cult is based on the fact that life is boring as shit outside of it. Right.

You have to reckon with the fact with how much this place fucking fucking sucks.

Yeah. That is a big factor.

Shit.

So in mid 19 three, the city of Corvallis officially forbade Creffield and the Holy Rollers from hosting meetings in Corvallis. Exiled Edmund found an island a few miles outside of town. Robin oh, yeah, man. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're getting to an island as soon.

As we get on the water. That's when shit gets weird.

Yeah. That's when cults get good.

That's when cults really find themselves. There is an island isolate in a place where to leave means to drown.

There is an island right in the middle of Portland, Oregon. It's right in the willamette. If we buy that island, folks, if we raise money together and buy me that island, I promise I'll make this guy look like a fucking chump. Like, first off, going to get a lot of you killed.

Let's just be.

It'Ll be a good Netflix documentary.

No, it's blood in, Blood out. But also you're going to learn about how to do, like, knife throwing. You're going to learn how to tie knots. You're going to learn how to wash.

Feet once they kill us. Taylor Lautner is going to play me. It's going to be great. Oh, my God. Thank you.

You guys have a similar.

No, you did not get the Taylor Lautner hat I wore like two months ago. You didn't get the reference. And that hurt my feelings.

I have hat blindness, Sophie.

Thank you for I read it out.

Loud to ear blindness, too.

Yeah.

Well, listeners, Robert nor any member of the Cool Zone media team, not a single one of them knew my where the hell have you been? Loca hat? Not a single one of them. And then I made them all watch the clip twice on a team meeting.

Is that twilight?

Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Matt. Yeah. Why? Yes, it is.

Well, it's because it's Taylor Laudner. It's either that or Spy Kids. Has he been in anything?

Spy Kids is my he wasn't in Spy Kids.

He wasn't?

Oh, no. He was in Shark Boy.

Yeah. Oh, gosh.

Same diff.

Know your law.

I have Sharkboy Spy Kids. Blindness, too. So it happens. You can't make fun of me for it. Anyway, in mid 19, that's who's going to play you in mid 19. Three. The city of Corvallis officially forbade Creffield and the Holy Rollers from hosting meetings in town. So he decides we're going to move to this island, Robinson's Island. And he described to his followers, he's like, this is literally the Garden of Eden. So biblical scholars out there, if you're curious, the Garden of Eden, it turns out, was based right on the outskirts of Corvallis.

Yeah, you could take a ferry to it.

Yeah, you could take a ferry. Know, if you've been to a lot of these islands in western Oregon, they are very pretty places. Like, it's not a big stretch to be like, this is paradise. Especially this is kind of like Midsummer or so late summer when they move, which is perfect. It's incredible. And it's easy to see how you would enjoy living out in one of these islands. And like midsummer in western Oregon.

Yeah, there's none of those snitch journalists out there. And now you can roll around on the ground, have your titties, great time. No one's going to yell at you.

For titties are popping out. Because he's letting people know at this point, you know what is godly is not wearing these fancy newfangled clothes.

That's the whole point of the Garden of Eden. Dog before Eve ate that apple like an idiot. Everyone just had their titties, and it is pretty fun.

Yeah. They're doing a lot of rolling around. They're shrieking for hours or days at a time. They're not wearing much in the way of clothing. They don't have a lot of food, but there's a peach orchard nearby. So every day they just gorge themselves on stolen peaches, and then they return to worshiping, which is not the worst life you can live in this period of time.

Everything yes. You're describing what my sex cult fantasy is. It's just like, fucking gorging myself on peaches, rolling around screaming, what's not to like? I'm married and have a baby, but I could still dream.

That all does sound fun, but if you're keeping track on your cult bingo card, creffield has, at this point, convinced his followers to sever themselves from their friends in their community and work them into a state of constant exhaustion and starvation. And if you know your cults, you know what comes next. It's time to start fucking. That is that is what follows. Naturally. Naturally. The next step. So one fine day, Edmund Creffield gets up in front of his flock, and he tells them that he and God have just gotten off the phone and God just got off the horn with God. He's doing good.

Yeah. And he says, My come is holy.

That is where this ends. He first says, God. Has told me I need to rename myself Joshua, right? So now Edmund Creffield is Joshua Creffield. And it gets better, because God has also told him that all of his female followers are now eligible to become Brides of Christ, right? And one of these Brides of Christ is going to be chosen by God to give birth to the Second Coming, right? One of you is going to be the new Mary. But obviously, God can't just pick one of you. We got to test you out. And guess who's testing you out? Edmund Greffield. I got to audition you for God.

Yeah, listen, God has not told me. He says he needs to feel through my penis which holy vessel your pussy should receive. The seed of the Lord or something. Guys ready?

Yeah. That is basically almost exactly how this goes, Matt. Now, Joshua's male followers had a purpose, too, of course, and their purpose was to provide him with the resources he needed to build his flock. Now, this is all he wants them doing, right? Early on, there were a number of couples who joined the Holy Rollers. Maude, the Salvation Army veteran I mentioned earlier, she joined with her fiance, a guy named James Berry, who was, like, a local businessman and I think kind of the wealthiest guy in town. And so early on, he's cool with this, in part because he needs Barry's money, right? And Barry gives a couple of loans to the cult, but it's never quite enough. So one day when they're out on the island, james Barry, who's kind of like in and out, right? He's not fully committed, but he's giving him money because his fiance is in it, and he loves her. He arrives on the island, like, checking on Maude, and he finds the Holy Rollers even more excited than usual. And he's like, why are you guys all so fucking amped up? And they're like, we're excited because God's going to build us a tabernacle, right?

He's going to start construction immediately. We're going to get our we're living outside falls, getting closer. We really need a place. He's going to build it for us. And James is like, well, tabernacles ain't cheap. Where are you guys getting the money to build it? And they're like, oh, you you're giving us the money? And it turns out Joshua had started preaching.

Damn it, Joshua. I got to get a second job. I got to work for both newspapers.

Now, what's really funny about this to me, so Joshua is like, we need even more money from James Barry to build a temple, right? We need to get all of his money as opposed to these loans he's given us. And what's the best way to do this? Should I reach out to him, talk to him privately, be like, hey, man, we need more money than you've been giving us. We got to build this? Like, no, no. That he could say no the best thing to do is I'm going to tell everyone that he's already agreed and then trust that that will shame him into doing it. Right?

Yeah.

This does not go over. James, like, confronts the prophet, and he's like, dude, I've already loaned you guys money and it's due, right? The loan is past due. And Creffield is like, I came here to pick. It no easy mistake to make, but it's not due. I just got off the phone with God. He said he canceled the debt. So actually, would you do me a favor and write a receipt letting me know that we don't have a debt anymore because God says it's canceled?

This is pure Pimp status here. This is such pimp status. This guy is like, no, actually, you owe me money and I'm going to fuck your fiance.

Oh, that is exactly where this is headed.

Of course it is.

To talk about what comes next, I'm going to quote again from Holy Rollers. God was now telling Creffield that James should quit work, sell his valuables, including his new automobile, and give the money to Creffield and devote himself to the church. The automobile, one of the first in Corvallis, was obviously something received from carnal hands. Either God or Creffield made a mistake, James said, telling God's anointed that he wasn't going to give Creffield another cent. God was mad now, or so said Creffield, who said that God would smite James for this. So he was not done. Creffield's not done with Barry at the Smiting. He decides that if this rich guy is going to stay devoted to his carnal possessions, then he certainly doesn't deserve to be married to a woman as Godly, as Maude, who, by coincidence, of course, Creffield wants to have sex with.

Yeah, I mean, he's known her since she was 14. I get it.

He tells Maude, the Lord told me that you have to break off your engagement. And she does. She does this immediately. So after this, he kind of gets high off of this, the fact that he says, hey, leave your fiance, and this woman does it. And so he starts preaching hardcore about personal purity. Right? He starts discussing how he's got this hatred of the carnal. He tells his followers, Flee fornication every sin that a man doeth is without the body, but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. Are you still in bondage to your carnal nature? Is the old man still living in your heart? Have you still this man fearing spirit, this something which hinders you from becoming a visitor at all times? Do not be discouraged. God wants to use you, to cleanse you, to purge you from your inbred sin, baptize you with fire, and enable you to come up to his commandments to live a holy life. Claim the promise, stand firm upon it, and the witness of the spirit will come and will baptize you with his love and make you a holy man, make you victorious over the world, the flesh and the devil.

Hey, are you trying to fuck my wife? I feel like, guys, he's trying to fuck our wives. No. Okay.

Yeah, you could do it. That is how a lot of the men in his cult react at this point. This is when a lot of them start.

Of course they do, because any man.

Can see where this is exactly.

Yeah. Any man is going, I know what you're doing, dude. You're trying to fuck my wife.

Now, that is happening. At the same time, what a lot of these women are doing is like, well, my husband's terrible at sex, and I bet Creffield fucks that is the other half of this story. Right. So the fact that this works so well seems to kind of have surprised Joshua, and so he immediately decides to double down. He tells another couple in his flock, sophie Hartley and Lee Campbell, hey, God wants you to end your engagement, declaring and he declares he gives a speech where he's like, the relation of man to wife is unholy. And as support for this, he cites one Corinthians seven, one quote now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. And again, he means the other men in his flock. Right? Right.

Now, no different standards for him, bro.

The actual context of that verse is basically from the point of the Bible, where this is said is like sexual immorality, is any sex at all. But since it's inevitable, men and women should get married and fulfill their marital duty right. Which is not a great message either, in my opinion, but it's not exactly how Crefield is portraying it. But Creffield's theological argument is that his follower is going to get closer to God and be holier people by issuing all sex except for the sex that he has to have in order to find the bride of Christ. Right. Unfortunately, the new Joshua isn't able to get this commandment out fast enough to stop all of his followers from getting married. Molly Sandal and Frank Hurt wed the night before God gets on the heavenly phone line with Joshua, and luckily for, you know, because they're really concerned when they get married, and then he has this revelation, like, oh, my God, are we out of step with what God wants? And Josh was like, don't worry. God told me a way that you can still receive the grace of love. Right. I just have to perform a private ceremony with your wife to endow her with the grace of love.

Hell, yeah.

Exactly what happened. Yeah. It's not 100% clear, but it's described in holy role as, like, they retire to his intent and engage in a long church service. Right. And we know that afterwards, he kisses all of the women that he does this with. Right. So you can put two and two together, right. As to what this service is. There are a few couples and a few people who refuse this new change for the cult and he denounces them all as carnalin of the Devil. He makes his followers cut off contact with them. Normal cult leadership. Right? So there's also if you kind of fall out of favor of Joshua and do something he calls carnal, you don't have to leave. There is a way that you can atone, and that is by letting him whip you. Right now. He does this to men and women, although I think he does it more to men than women. There's a local and contemporary news report that describes when one of Joshua's followers, Ed Sharp, like sneaks into the Prophet's tent when he's like whipping another man and he sees the two of them and they mistake him for the devil is what's written in the news article, and beat the shit out of him.

Wait, the whipped man also?

Yeah, they both beat the shit out of him and then Ed's like, fuck this, I'm leaving the cult.

Sorry bro, we thought you were the Devil. You snuck up on us while common mistake. I was whipping him and he was.

Enjoying it to all of us. So Ed is fairly representative of a large number of male followers of Crefield who increasingly leave the flock as time goes on. And it grows clear that the primary goal of the Prophet's teaching is to let him have sex with every woman in town. When some of his most stalwart male followers, bulk Creffield, declares that all of the men in the camp, save his three lieutenants, are fake Christians and now have to be shunned by not like all non believers, families are split up as a result of this. And if it's hard to believe that people would do this, you have to remember everyone's spending every waking hour it's been months now praying the entire time they're awake, often for 24 hours in a row. The only food they have is peaches. And now the only approved dick is so like, people are not in the most rational. Yeah. And this is the point at which the outside world, right, which includes the town of Corvallis, starts to get really concerned. The Salvation Army, concerned by declining donations and all these defections, sends one of their best soldiers out after the problem.

Captain, this island's about to be invaded by the Salvation.

They send in Captain Charles Brooks, who has been, he's been a Christian soldier for eleven years. He's recently met General Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, to talk this over. And so he like, this guy's got.

A tactical bell that he's going to.

Neeson of the Salvation Army, except as soon as he arrives, something happens. Right. Within days of getting there. He claims in a letter that as soon as he gets to the island, the devil approaches him and the devil's covered in snakes, and he sends a bunch of hideous reptiles that swarm and cover Brooks and, quote, as a means of placating his devilish majesty. Brooks tears off his Salvation Army uniform and throws it into the fire and then announces that he's also a prophet and joins.

I don't this guy saw what was going on and he said, like, oh, I'm down for this.

Entirely possible. He's just like, this seems like more fun than the Salvation Army.

Yeah. Shows up at titty church, and he's like, I prefer titty church.

Another theory too. So northwest Oregon is where one of the densest places in the world for the natural growth of magic mushrooms. You get a shit. I have a bunch of friends. People pick them all over the place here. And it's been known for a while that we have hallucinogenic mushrooms. I wouldn't be surprised if they were like, the Salvation Army guys, here, let's give him some tea. I wouldn't be shocked if that were a factor in this.

Oh, yes.

He also could have picked some accidentally and just made himself trip. Not impossible.

He was hungry.

The whole, like, saw some mushroom, I hallucinated a lizard man thing makes me.

Wonder, like, yeah, I hallucinated a lizard man. And now I'm also talking to God. That does say tripping on a little bit like mushrooms.

So it's important to note that everything we've been talking about here so far has occurred over the course of the summer of 19 three. And if you haven't been here, oregon has really mild, pleasant summers. Famously. Right. That's something that we are infamous for, especially, like, western Oregon. But in the fall, it gets very wet very fast and also quite cold. Right. Living alone outside naked in an island not going to be a great call. Like, come September, October, it's going to get markedly less pleasant very quickly. So Maud is able to thankfully invite her prophet and 18 of his most devoted followers into her family home to wait out the winter. So at this point, Crefiel is now back in Corvallis, and he has taken a significant chunk of the young women in town into his cult. He's broken up a bunch of marriages, and he has moved what resembles a harem into a family house in town. This is not popular, right? This is going to piss off a number of people. And I'm going to quote now from offbeat Oregon history author Finn JD. John. Their simple clothing consisted of a plain cloth wrapper, which one source recounts was similar to a bathrobe the outsiders felt was inadequate to protect female modesty and in any case looked entirely too easy to take off.

By itself, the communal living arrangement would have been bad enough, but Creffield's followers combined it with a mania for secrecy that all but invited other community members to fear the worst. Members vanished from their family's lives into a locked house with barred windows, supervised only by the cult leader and his you know, there's a lot of things small town Oregonians are willing to overlook in neighbors, but not stealing their sisters and wives and to be entirely yeah.

And making them dress all slutty to.

Be entirely fair to creffield. That's how these guys viewed it. The men in Corvallis, it's not clear to me that he's stealing anybody. Right. Most times when we talk about a sex cult, they're pretty profoundly abusive. But the culture is also very abusive to women in this period. And it seems like, based on the information we have, the women who join this cult much prefer it to their lives outside of the cult.

Yeah. I got to say, from my time visiting Portland, not much is.

Not much is yeah.

The women there, they still like to be free. I've had brunch at multiple strip clubs there.

I do think a lot of the portrayal of this cult is like him being this, he stole all these women. He's ruining the women in town, is based on the fact that this is a deeply misogynistic society. And I think a lot of these women are making potentially, I think it would be reasonable to say, a perfectly rational decision to live a much more pleasant life with this guy than with their shitty husband.

The guy talks good. He's hot. He's got a big hog. And he's like, yeah, do whatever you want. I mean, he's manipulating them.

He is absolutely abusive. It's not clear to me that he is more abusive than the men in town. Right.

Right. Yeah. It's an abnormal type of abuse, but.

Maybe it's just different. Right.

Maybe not even lesser.

But I think it's not clear to me that these women are not making the most kind of informed decision they can be making that this is better than their lives in town, which doesn't mean he's not also abusive. It's just a bad time. Right?

Yeah.

So, yeah. We're going to talk about all of that and much more in part two. But before we get into part two, matt Lieb, you exist on the Internet in a variety of places.

I am on the Internet. If you like me and you like watching television shows like The Sopranos or The Wire, you can listen to Pod Yourself a Gun, which is a Sopranos and The Wire rewatch podcast. And then once The Wire is over, we'll watch another show. So check that out wherever you get your podcast, and even if you don't watch it or listen to the show, give us five stars and review. Say, hey, that Matt Leave sure is great. I'm going to listen to it at some point. But you don't even have to.

But you should.

Yeah, but you should absolutely listen to.

Know move to an island with, you know, do whatever.

Exactly, dude. Move to an island. Bring your.

Yeah. And if you are in the donating mood, the Portland Children's Museum could use your help to provide kids all throughout the Portland metropolitan area with educational resources and, yeah, all sorts of fun stuff. So please text Bastards to 50155 if you're in the mood to donate that's Bastards to 50155.

I don't know when this episode is going to come out, so I don't know if the tickets next week no.

Next week is Thanksgiving, so we're not.

Oh, fuck, next week. To hell with next week. Next week can die in a fire.

The last week of November.

Yeah, okay, well, the tickets won't necessarily be on sale, but I might as well just say march 17, Sunday, Punchline in Sacramento. Myself and my wife.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that at all.

No, I always do it. We are going to be headlining the Punchline in Sacramento. That's. Sacramento, California 07:00 P.m Sunday, March 17 if you can't get your tickets, then just keep that date in mind and eventually the tickets will go on sale.

So go to hell. I love you.

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