EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,019 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- JRJoe Rogan
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- MDMichelle Dowd
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) So thanks for coming in, Michelle.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Thanks, Joe, for having me. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
My pleasure.
- MDMichelle Dowd
I love your man cave.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, thank you, thank you.
- MDMichelle Dowd
(laughs) I really do. It's awesome.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's, uh, it's fun. Um, so when I heard your story, I was like, "This sounds completely insane."
- MDMichelle Dowd
Hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, um, just to fill people in, just explain what happened.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Well, uh, I was born into a cult, a high-control group that I didn't know to call a cult, because, you know, I was born there.
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause you were a child, yeah.
- MDMichelle Dowd
That was my whole experience. My grandfather started in 1931, so my mother was also born into the cult in the 1940s. My dad-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MDMichelle Dowd
... was, um, let's just say he was 12 when he first met my grandfather, who would later become his father-in-law, and my grandfather became his father figure. So my mom was married off to this, uh, man who was a follower of her father, and I am the second child of their union.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MDMichelle Dowd
And, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Where'd, where'd all this take place?
- MDMichelle Dowd
So this took place, um, that he originally started it near LA in Pasadena, which most people know because of the Rose Parade and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MDMichelle Dowd
... other things like that. Um, when he first started it, it started... My understanding is he was a Boy Scout leader, and he was an orphan. He had come from Oklahoma when he was a young man, and, uh, the Boy Scouts didn't allow him to have as much control as he wanted to have of the boys.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- MDMichelle Dowd
So (laughs) yeah, which is a lot of control. So he left the Boy Scouts, and he took the boys with him, and some of the boys from his original troop in 1931 stayed with him past his death. One of the first boys took over after him in the late 1980s.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Or the early 1980s, actually. Yeah, so he was really good at getting followers.
- JRJoe Rogan
What was his background? Like, what, what did he... What did he do before he did all this?
- MDMichelle Dowd
Nothing. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Nothing?
- MDMichelle Dowd
He was complete... I don't think he graduated from high school. I don't know that for sure. He lied about everything, and he said he had a PhD from Stanford later when he... (laughs)
- 15:00 – 30:00
Yeah, unquestionably. I mean,…
- MDMichelle Dowd
to be a follower. And that's just not true. I mean, if, if someone gets ahold of you as a child, they can program you to think almost anything, especially if they're good at it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, unquestionably. I mean, that's why they have child suicide bombers.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yes. Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. I mean, you, you can trick children and...
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, uh, it's understandable though that you would think somehow or another that other people would think that it's your fault. Or ignorant people would think, "Why didn't you know? Why didn't you leave?" You know, or people that-
- MDMichelle Dowd
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... y- you know, never really thought about it. Never thought it through 'cause they, they haven't had to.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know?
- MDMichelle Dowd
The friends I went out with who... I mean, I'm calling 'em friends now, but I ha- (laughs) I hadn't seen them since I was a little girl. Um, they were saying, "I would have... of course you would drink the Kool-Aid," when people use that expression. "I would've been first in line. Would've signed up for that." I mean, that's... we all would've... and I mean that, and I was... I was born there and indoctrinated, and I would've, uh, completely taken anything that my grandfather or my parents told me was gonna kill me. I would've, you know, I would've felt that that was gonna take me to heaven quicker and everyone I knew would've done that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MDMichelle Dowd
And the reason you don't hear about a lot of cults, by the way, is because they didn't end up in flames or mass suicide. Um, but that doesn't mean that they didn't prey on, um, you know, dozens, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of people depending on the cult.
- JRJoe Rogan
I was talking to Marc Andreessen and he was explaining to me that there's still many, many active cults in California.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I was like, "What? Like right now? Like people know about 'em?" "Oh yeah, they're s- they're successful." Like there's some successful cults.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Mm-hmm. Yeah. When I first went to-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is The Field still around?
- MDMichelle Dowd
The Field's still around. I've been told it is a completely different organization and I'm not gonna vouch one way or the other. Uh, they certainly don't have a charismatic leader like my grandfather once he died and his replacement was there and then once he died, um, I think it's become... it has not become secular. It's a very strong religious organization, but they don't have the control they used to. Because like when we were young, they, we didn't have Social Security number, there was no way to track things.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MDMichelle Dowd
And now, you know (laughs) -
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MDMichelle Dowd
... it's hard to get away with, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
You have to pay taxes.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
You have to own a phone.
- MDMichelle Dowd
They do pay taxes. And there was a sexual abuse, you know, uh, case that was actually prosecuted. And I think after that, which I think was 2006, I think that they had to really clean up a lot of their practices.
- JRJoe Rogan
When I'm hearing these stories about these boys and the abuse, I'm s- that's what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking if there's a bunch of boys and no one's allowed to get married, that- that's not a good recipe.
- MDMichelle Dowd
No, it's not. And the particular one that got prosecuted was, um, a young leader who was abusing 11 and 12-year-old boys-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Yeah. …
- JRJoe Rogan
"The beginning, there was light." Sounds a lot like The Big Bang.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sounds a lot like ... If you tell The Big Bang to your kids and your kids would tell it to their kids, and you're gonna do this for 1000 years. At the end of it, you're gonna get some real ... People are gross.
- MDMichelle Dowd
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
They always like to, like, twist things around and make things-
- MDMichelle Dowd
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, they add their own little spice to a story.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, have you ever had a friend that tells a story, like, "Hey, bro, that didn't happen that way."
- MDMichelle Dowd
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, "You didn't say that."
- MDMichelle Dowd
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"You fucking ran for cover."
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, everybody's got their own version of a story. Well, that-
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yeah, we all embellish.
- JRJoe Rogan
Th- th- if you could-
- MDMichelle Dowd
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Oral traditions, 100% for sure, you're gonna have a lot of that, especially when you have high control groups, like your grandfather. Your grandfather just-
- MDMichelle Dowd
And you think about the translations, too. Like, we ... Even when the monks were translating all that and, like, or s- um, s- like, they were scribes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MDMichelle Dowd
And they were inscribing it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Like, all of that, too. There was an agenda on a lot of that.
- JRJoe Rogan
100%.
- MDMichelle Dowd
And so ... Yeah. And then, when you- we read the King James Version of the Bible, I mean, you know, the king pr- pronounced it to be so. And so, any- anything that was left out, I mean, there was a lot left out, right, in what was canonized.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Because it was perhaps dangerous to the particular regime that he was running. And so, not to say-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, imagine you get to decide.
- MDMichelle Dowd
... that that's not true. Yes, I know. You get to decide.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Right. …
- JRJoe Rogan
us into Vietnam.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, it took decades for that to come out. And now that's widely accepted. So, our own history is sketchy as fuck (laughs) .
- MDMichelle Dowd
Indeed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Our own history. Our real, absolute history is sketchy as fuck.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's why conspiracy theories are so fun.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Oh, yeah, of course. And- and in a sense, a cult is just a whole conspiracy theory. I mean, they- but they control the narrative.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Completely control the narrative, and no one's allowed to question it. And if they do, they're excommunicated. And one of the ways you know something is a cult is th- they will always tell you that anyone who left... It's different than outsiders. I mean, outsiders are people who maybe had- never had access to the truth. But people who are quitters, they literally call them quitters where I come from.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Quitters.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Quitters.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a good name.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yeah (laughs) . I know, it really is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Nobody likes quitters.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Right, right. And so quitters were just, anything they said was of the devil. And so you were not allowed to talk to anyone who left. And that's really common in cults, to-
- JRJoe Rogan
You couldn't even talk to them.
- MDMichelle Dowd
No, no.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's- that's a Scientology thing, too, I believe, right?
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yeah, I think it's really common in any high-control group I'm sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yeah, because you can't... You really do need to control the narrative, and you can't let other stories get in there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Wow. Goddamn. It's so interesting how these patterns reoccur all over the world. You know, there's a guy in Australia that says he's Jesus.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, he runs this whole cult in Australia, and he has this woman who he says is Mary. But the problem is there was another woman who was Mary before.
- MDMichelle Dowd
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And it didn't work out with the original Mary, so he... (laughs)
- MDMichelle Dowd
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
So, he tells this new lady, "I was wrong about that other lady. You're Mary." And so...
- MDMichelle Dowd
Do you know-
- 1:00:00 – 1:10:44
Yeah. …
- JRJoe Rogan
of forgiveness. Like forgiveness, he's a fucking Roman. I mean, this dude is like this b- badass soldier and he's, he's like, "It's very important to forgive everybody. Forgive even forgive your enemies."
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like he had this incredible wisdom about legist- like maintaining...... your objective perspective of the world. It was really interesting. So, we know people were smart as shit back then.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And if you go back 2,000 years before him, when people start writing all this stuff down.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Well, people had a, a lot stronger, uh, ability to concentrate, obviously-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, they weren't distracted.
- MDMichelle Dowd
... before they, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
No TikTok.
- MDMichelle Dowd
But even before... (laughs) Right. But even before things were written, people really had a command over language and oral traditions-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MDMichelle Dowd
... and their memory. They had to remember. Like, you think about, you know, where, where to find whatever it is when you're a forager, where to find the hunt, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MDMichelle Dowd
That all of these traditions had to be passed down for humans to stay alive. I mean, we're really fragile creatures.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MDMichelle Dowd
And to think that when, before there was anything (laughs) except for spheres, you know, like, how did, how did humans stay alive? They stayed alive because they could remember, they could remember what could kill them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Just like we used to be able to remember phone numbers.
- MDMichelle Dowd
(laughs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You remember?
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yeah. Even back then. I know.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MDMichelle Dowd
I s-
- JRJoe Rogan
I had so many phone numbers in my head.
- MDMichelle Dowd
(laughs) I still remember the phone number of the field.
- JRJoe Rogan
I... Wow.
- MDMichelle Dowd
I do, I do, because, you know, it was the one place, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MDMichelle Dowd
That, that was my home.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MDMichelle Dowd
Yeah.
Episode duration: 2:53:04
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