Joe Rogan Experience #2129 - David Holthouse

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. DHDavid Holthouse0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) How are you-

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      How are you, man? Good to see you again.

   4. DHDavid Holthouse0:14

      Good. Thanks for having me back, man.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      My pleasure. You made another awesome one, man. This, uh, the Krishnas one, oh my God. Whoo. There is something about these cult documentaries.

   6. DHDavid Holthouse0:26

      Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:26

      It's just-

   8. DHDavid Holthouse0:27

      Right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:28

      ... whew. That one's heavy.

   10. DHDavid Holthouse0:30

       Do you remember the Hare Krishna devotees in the airports? 'Cause you're, like me, like you're old enough of that generation that you might remember the white robe, like-

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:38

       I remember-

   12. DHDavid Holthouse0:38

       ... they'd have the flowers, and they'd be-

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       Mm-hmm.

   14. DHDavid Holthouse0:39

       ... selling books and shit in the airports.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       I don't remem- know if I remember them at the airports. I remember them some places.

   16. DHDavid Holthouse0:45

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       I def- have seen them, you know?

   18. DHDavid Holthouse0:48

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       Yeah. But, um, y- I just always thought they were just kooks, you know?

   20. DHDavid Holthouse0:53

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:53

       It's just... It's, it's interesting, you know, knowing what I know now about the '60s and, you know, what, what was done to sort of... t- to kind of, uh, crush the hippie movement.

   22. DHDavid Holthouse1:04

       Right.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:04

       You know, it's interesting to see that this was connected to, you know, the Beatles and peace and love, and then you see this sect, that this, this j- what was his name again? The-

   24. DHDavid Holthouse1:16

       Kirtan Ananda-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       Yes.

   26. DHDavid Holthouse1:17

       ... was the guru that went-

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:19

       Right, went-

   28. DHDavid Holthouse1:19

       ... way wrong.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:20

       Yeah, went way wrong.

   30. DHDavid Holthouse1:21

       Yeah.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Really? …

   1. DHDavid Holthouse15:00

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      Really?

   3. DHDavid Holthouse15:00

      They won't... you know, they'll be like, "Oh, thanks." And they'll like go like they're gonna drop it too. They'll be like, "Oh, how about I drop it in the sewer? Oh, you don't want that? Mango pack." So they-

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:09

      They point at the mangos?

   5. DHDavid Holthouse15:10

      Yes. (laughs) Yes.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:12

      Wow.

   7. DHDavid Holthouse15:13

      So eventually you, you throw them enough treats and they'll like th- ... and they're, and they're these kids too that if they see that a monkey has stolen something, they'll come over and they'll be like, "For a few ru- ... " Basically it's like, "For a few rupees, I'll handle this deal for you." And then they-

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:27

      Oh.

   9. DHDavid Holthouse15:27

      ... they climb up the tree or the drainpipe and they do a direct hand-to-hand exchange.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:32

       Wow.

   11. DHDavid Holthouse15:32

       So we learned the hard way that's, that's the thing to do. If the monkey steals the whatever, hire the kid. He goes and brokers the deal with the mango juice guy, you know, and makes it all happen for you.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:43

       Oh. (laughs)

   13. DHDavid Holthouse15:43

       Yeah. But-

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:43

       So do other monkeys realize this is happening and try to steal the mangos before they give it to them?

   15. DHDavid Holthouse15:48

       Oh, yeah. It's brutal. But they also, they also cooperate too. Like, they'll run like, um, you know, distraction operations. Like one monkey will come at you from an angle and kind of like bluff charge and then you're paying attention to that one and then boom, the other one like grabs your sunglasses off your head. (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan16:02

       Wow.

   17. DHDavid Holthouse16:03

       Yeah. Yeah. Um, but we were there to, um, to film... there's, there was this, this ceremony, uh, these two, these two brothers whose father... his, um, name was Chakradhar. His, his Christian name, his, uh, government name was Charles St. Dennis. He's also named, known as Chaka in the movement. And his sons were doing this really ancient ritual to sort of release the soul of someone who's been murdered. And so they had their father's ashes, which he was murdered, you know, decades ago at New Vrindavan by... on orders from Kirtananda because he was challenging Kirtananda's authority.

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:41

       Re- so Kirtananda had people murdered too?

   19. DHDavid Holthouse16:44

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:44

       More than one?

   21. DHDavid Holthouse16:45

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:46

       How-

   23. DHDavid Holthouse16:46

       I think there's probably quite a few bodies up in the hills on that-

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:49

       That people just don't know about?

   25. DHDavid Holthouse16:50

       Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:51

       Wow.

   27. DHDavid Holthouse16:52

       Yeah. One of the, one of the principal sources for the, um, for the documentary is a guy who's a retired homicide cop named Thomas Westfall who was a local... just a local cop, uh, in West Virginia when the, when the Krishnas set up shop at the New Vrindavan commune. And so he started keeping a close eye on them early and sort of saw Kirtananda's rise to power and, uh, you know, he believes that there's at least a handful more victims out there whose bodies haven't been found.

   28. JRJoe Rogan17:23

       (exhales)

   29. DHDavid Holthouse17:24

       'Cause it's really remote country. I mean, I don't want to stress that. It's really cold in the winter. There's a lot of snow.

   30. JRJoe Rogan17:28

       Mm-hmm.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Right. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      unsuspecting place. And, um, he went on to molest ... One of, one of these guys that they caught went on to molest a hundred deaf kids. At least a hundred that they, that they're aware of. And you just go ... Like ... And he knew that this guy was a pedophile, and, and it's just ... The Catholic Church, in particular, is just s- like ...... I went to Catholic school, and nothing happened to me, and, but things did happen to people that I know that did go to Catholic school. And it's just like, is there another religion that is more connected? Like, when you hear the term Catholic priest-

   2. DHDavid Holthouse30:35

      Right.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:36

      ... pedophile-

   4. DHDavid Holthouse30:37

      Right. Right.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:37

      ... is right, like if you, if you were playing a game, like Catholic priest, pedophile, you know, like, you, you would say that, you know? If you're... What is that, charades? What's that game when you know, like say, uh, you know, uh, uh, tough, uh, big, runs fast, football player? Yes.

   6. DHDavid Holthouse30:53

      Right. Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:53

      You know, like, you'd say a Catholic priest, pedophile.

   8. DHDavid Holthouse30:56

      (laughs) Right, right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:56

      Like, you know what I'm saying? It's like-

   10. DHDavid Holthouse30:58

       Right. Right, right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:58

       ... it's...

   12. DHDavid Holthouse30:58

       And it was an open secret for so long too, you know?

   13. JRJoe Rogan31:01

       It's... Yeah.

   14. DHDavid Holthouse31:01

       And-

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:01

       It's crazy.

   16. DHDavid Holthouse31:02

       ... I think a lot of the priests were probably drawn to the church for the access to kids. I mean, and Kirt-

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:07

       Yeah.

   18. DHDavid Holthouse31:07

       ... Kirtananda in New Vrindavan built himself a little pedophile heaven-

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:10

       Yeah.

   20. DHDavid Holthouse31:11

       ... up there, you know?

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:12

       Yeah.

   22. DHDavid Holthouse31:12

       ... once he had the power. Um-

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:13

       So how did they... Have you... Did you talk to anybody from there that kind of reformed that place? Like, how did they, once they got rid of him?

   24. DHDavid Holthouse31:23

       Well, first of all, he finally went to prison for murder, uh, for com- you know, murder for hire basically, along with racketeering and, like, he was, he was selling, like, counterfeit, you know, football hats and shit. (laughs) I mean, there's a-

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:34

       Is he still in jail? Or is he-

   26. DHDavid Holthouse31:35

       No, he's dead.

   27. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       ... he's dead?

   28. DHDavid Holthouse31:37

       He's dead. But he still has, like, within, not within ISKCON-

   29. JRJoe Rogan31:41

       (laughs)

   30. DHDavid Holthouse31:41

       ... but within the larger sort of Krishna consciousness movement, he still has, um, he still has a following. And I went-
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Right. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:01

      the, the more I follow that as thinking that everything is all connected, the more my life has been more beautiful.

   2. DHDavid Holthouse45:09

      Right.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:09

      The more my life has been more rewarding and rich and more, more pleasing, more filled with love and community. And it's something that I kinda need to, like, remind myself all the time, because I think the biological entity has, uh, uh, certain, like, human reward systems that are built into it to either acquire resources, to try to, uh, you know, to try to, uh, establish dominance, to try to, uh, succeed. There's all these different things that, uh, as a human, you know, people are... You know, they want success. They want all these different things. And that those things can kind of... Because you could see the physical manifestation of that work, that that can sort of, uh, overcome the idea that everything is connected. And so that's, I think, why people cheat on their taxes or insider trade or do all these different things, fuck people over in business deals, and they don't think that they're gonna experience any negative consequences of it.

   4. DHDavid Holthouse46:15

      Right.

   5. JRJoe Rogan46:16

      But I don't think... I don't think anybody gets away free.

   6. DHDavid Holthouse46:19

      Again, that's why I like the idea of karma and reincarnation.

   7. JRJoe Rogan46:21

      Yeah.

   8. DHDavid Holthouse46:21

      You don't get away with it.

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:22

      There's something to it. There's something to karma.

   10. DHDavid Holthouse46:24

       And it's, again, going back to the Vedas, the like the-

   11. JRJoe Rogan46:26

       Yeah.

   12. DHDavid Holthouse46:26

       ... the, the mo- the oldest-

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:28

       Mm-hmm.

   14. DHDavid Holthouse46:28

       ... spiritual, you know, organized system of spiritual beliefs known-

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:32

       Yeah.

   16. DHDavid Holthouse46:32

       ... you know, for our species that's core to it, karma-

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:35

       Well, we have-

   18. DHDavid Holthouse46:36

       ... and reincarnation.

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:36

       ... the most complicated organism. We are the most complicated organism that we're currently aware of in terms of our ability to manipulate our environment, our ability to communicate, our ability to create things.

   20. DHDavid Holthouse46:50

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:51

       But-

   22. DHDavid Holthouse46:51

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:51

       ... we don't have an operator's manual.

   24. DHDavid Holthouse46:53

       Right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:53

       Which is crazy. So we're essentially running on this primate software that was really established. It's almost like we have DOS or Windows 95 and we just keep refreshing it.

   26. DHDavid Holthouse47:07

       (laughs) Right.

   27. JRJoe Rogan47:07

       You know? We don't-

   28. DHDavid Holthouse47:08

       Right.

   29. JRJoe Rogan47:09

       There's no real-

   30. DHDavid Holthouse47:10

       Right.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Interesting. "I'll find out…

   1. DHDavid Holthouse1:00:00

      it sounds interesting, but I guess if you're right, I'll find out on my own," 'cause I was like, "This is kinda like the trailer for the movie, Dad," you know?

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:06

      Interesting. "I'll find out on my own."

   3. DHDavid Holthouse1:00:07

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:08

      Interesting.

   5. DHDavid Holthouse1:00:09

      So-

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:10

      Yeah.

   7. DHDavid Holthouse1:00:10

      ... he, he, uh, he died like two weeks ago while I was in Ukraine.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:13

      Oh, wow.

   9. DHDavid Holthouse1:00:14

      (clears throat) Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

       What were you doing in Ukraine?

   11. DHDavid Holthouse1:00:17

       I was, uh, reporting. I was working. I wasn't filming, but I was, uh, doing some research. And I was in a... I was in a war zone. I mean, the whole fucking country's a war zone (laughs) , but I was in a war zone where, like, communications were dicey at best. And I got a text message from my wife on Signal, and it was like, "Your dad's heart valve is failing rapidly. He's in the hospital. He's probably got like 48 hours to live." And the airspace over Ukraine's closed, so there's no way that I could get from where I was in Ukraine to Anchorage, Alaska to be with him. And so, I was just sending, like, text messages on Signal to the nurses (laughs) that were... and they were reading them to him.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:53

       Wow.

   13. DHDavid Holthouse1:00:53

       Yeah. Yeah. And then I was able to record one voice memo, like right as he was going, 'cause the last sense, uh, to go when you're dying is sense of hearing.... and they-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:05

       Hmm.

   15. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:05

       ... they played him like a, like a message from me.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:07

       Wow.

   17. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:08

       So... But to answer your question, (laughs) but what was I doing in Ukraine? Um, (sighs) looking l- it's, it... I'm looking into a possible documentary that, that'd be set against the backdrop of the current war, but that would be more about like what is actually the true nature of corruption in Ukraine (laughs) and what has it been, and wha- what was it in the '90s, you know?

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:27

       Yeah.

   19. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:28

       And wha- what is it today, and like how has the US State Department kind of fucked up again (laughs) in the same way that we did in Vietnam and every war like Vietnam, Afghanistan-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:39

       Yeah.

   21. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:39

       ... Iraq by backing the wrong horses, you know?

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:41

       Yeah.

   23. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:41

       You know?

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:41

       Well, we've never not fucked up.

   25. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:43

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:43

       There's never been one, wh- whether it's Libya or Afghanistan, Iraq. There's not one where you could point to like, "We nailed that one."

   27. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:51

       Right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:52

       There's not one.

   29. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:52

       Right.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:53

       There's not one.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:15:31

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. DHDavid Holthouse1:15:00

      (laughs) I was- I- I got- I actually thought of getting an insight into Putin's motivations and the way that he sees himself, which is- is a historic figure. He sees himself as someone who's gonna restore a Russian empire.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:12

      Mm-hmm.

   3. DHDavid Holthouse1:15:12

      He like spends all day in the halls of the Kremlin with like, you know, portraits of Ivan the Terrible and Catherine the Great, right? And I think that he's seeing himself as not the leader of a (laughs) you know, a free country certainly, but someone's who's gonna restore a Russian empire. So no, I absolutely do not think he will stop with Ukraine.

Episode duration: 2:30:00