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29: (PART 2) Top 3 Cults I Could Be Swindled Into Joining
85 Plays8 months ago
If there's one episode you won't want to miss, it's this one. We start off by responding to a VERY interesting letter that may or may not make the case as to why a certain organization is cultlike. AND we saved our best picks for our #1 spots, including cults we've stumbled into during our early 20s. Broached topics include: Media Officers Seem Like Police Officers, How To Become A Supreme Leader, Convenient Methods for Joining Cults, Assistant to The Supreme Topper, and a special made up cult that has never been seen before in reality ever.
Follow us @MyTopEverything on Insta for updates! Email us at mytopeverythingpodcast@gmail.com with topic suggestions, comments, or questions.
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
Suck it on my titties like you wanted me calling me all the time.
Introduction and Beverage Talk
00:00:19
Speaker
Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to my top everything. Kara?
00:00:29
Speaker
welcome Welcome. Welcome to my top everything, where we are sitting on chairs sipping beverages. Yes. Water. My beverage of choice today is polar seltzer nectarine lemon. Oh, yum.
Confusion: Poppy Lawsuit vs. Polar Seltzer
00:00:47
Speaker
Yum. Oh, I think there's like a class action lawsuit out against them because isn't that the brand that like claims to have health benefits? No, you're thinking of Poppy. Yeah, I think am. OK, thanks. No, this is just seltzer water. There's no benefits to it. Except that it might have you avoid drinking soda, but no, that's poppy. You would have to drink four poppies a day for three weeks to get any of the benefits that they're claiming and you would go over your daily sugar value, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, oh, oh, I guess I'm Mara. I'm going to start each step.
Parody Disclaimer and Research Acknowledgment
00:01:24
Speaker
your mother
00:01:27
Speaker
okay because it's mar I'm Marion and this is a disclaimer that I think we should pick back up given recent events, which is we have not fully researched things. ah We're not experts on anything. Do your own research. Take us with 5,000 grain of salt, whatever we say here, because comedy is for fun. most and not We're just having, exactly. We're we're having fun. You could even call us a parody podcast. I think legally, if we call ourselves a parody podcast, that probably covers a lot of
PETA's Correction Email
00:02:05
Speaker
things. And the reason for this disclaimer is because we received
00:02:09
Speaker
a correspondence after our last episode. Top three cults I'd be swindled into joining. If you haven't listened to it, go listen to part one. We go through our number three and number two picks. One of our number three picks was um from Kara. It was PETA. Not PETA from Hunger Games, PETA the organization. 23 hours after this podcast was published, we received an email from a representative of PETA who wanted to correct us on some points and talk to us. They started off the letter by saying, hi, Kara, Mara, and Amerian. Dying.
00:02:57
Speaker
Like, they spelled it capital A-M-A-R-I-A-N. I've never heard that name, personally. Um, Amerian. It really sent me into a crisis. Just that sentence, not
PETA's Influence and Cult Label Debate
00:03:11
Speaker
the rest of it. The sentence, I was like, am I saying my name weird that people think it's Amerian? You know, I'm like, it's to me, Amerian.
00:03:22
Speaker
ah thought She spelled Mara correctly. She spelled Kara correctly. And then she went for a Marion. So I must be saying, like, I'm a Marion. No. Or something. I don't think you are. No. We also have four letters. You have more than four. And, like, Karen, I say your name all the time, right? Do we? Do you? A Marion. I'm going to start. A Marion. Good job. Maybe we've been saying a before it. A Marion.
00:03:57
Speaker
Does that sound right? Does that sound like something you said on the podcast before? There's nothing we haven't said on the podcast at this point. Everything goes. Yeah, I pray no one finds this. But everybody listens. you know Including PETA. Including PETA. They are going to listen to literally what we're saying right now. Hey, do like a hi mom. Hey, hey, you know who you are. I'm not going to say their name or reveal their gender by using pronouns. It's an assumed gender. yeah um My my second favorite part of this email, um the the email basically just talks about how wrong Kara is and how
00:04:43
Speaker
or statements. They say that as you discovered in the episode, because luckily I was there to refute Kara's outlandish claims from a YouTube video. That was my source. I'm just going to put that on there. Oh my God. A YouTube video supplemented with a little bit of internet research. I did not know what to do for that episode. I was digging around. You're like, let's pick a fight with a huge national organization. And they use the royal we. They say, we heard you discuss us in your episode about cults. And as you discovered during your episode, the criticisms that Kara shared about PETA were not based on facts. And that's why we have a disclaimer, folks. That's the disclaimer that we haven't used it in a while. Can you go back to that YouTube video you watched and comment on them?
00:05:29
Speaker
and say, hey, this is a bunch of lies and PETA themselves told me. yeah
00:05:37
Speaker
This person does say most of us at PETA have companion animals. So they don't refer to them as pets. That would have been a good thing for you to point out, Kara, um in the last episode because that is kind of interesting that they call them companion animals and not pets. I guess I would say I have two companion animals and one kind of like active menace yeah in my household. Would you say you guys have companion animals or what are you working with? Companion animals?
00:06:09
Speaker
Really? Tom also is a companion? Yeah. Listen, she's fucking obsessed with me. That's your roommate by force. That's like a. She's trapped there by four walls. That's like a Stockholm syndrome. Stockholm syndrome where she's like convinced you of something. She's just so lovely to me. Just don't look at my arm right now. I was going to say how many scratches you have right now. Also, I'm sure that they call them companion animals because in the non-companion animal world, we call them pets, and then you have to distinguish between a pet and a farm animal, and I bet they call farm animals companion animals. I'm just out here fucking lying again. Yeah, chill. We're just assuming. said, I think, I assume. Did you hear that, PETA? Kara, you've read this email. what has it Has it changed anything for you on your stay? on your feelings of pita, because this person says, you all clearly care about animals. So if you familiarize yourselves with what we actually do and what we stand for, I'm sure you'll find we have a lot of common ground. Now, I assume that after you got this email, Kara, you familiarized yourself.
00:07:19
Speaker
that I did not. Do you ah what do you what are your thoughts now after after this not creepy email that we got? I knew before we recorded the podcast that PETA has good intentions. I am vegan. They probably know that at this point. This is something you'd be swindled into joining. That's exactly the point. I think that they have a very good message. I like what they do. A lot of big organizations have their mission statement, and their vision statement, their intentions, what they spend money on, all the things. I also think that the word cult is a little bit. um It's difficult to nail down. And if people on the Internet said that they felt like they were in a cult, that was what I was repeating. So I don't personally think that they are a cult. I'll put that out there. And I don't think that they do bad things necessarily.
00:08:05
Speaker
Okay. Where's your backbone? Where's your backbone?
00:08:11
Speaker
I will say that the representative pointed out that they provide a lot of end of care life for animals, which I really do appreciate because I think that's one of the saddest things is when you go to a shelter or an animal like a chicken is no longer productive and laying eggs, they get euthanized and they don't have the best end of life because they're not productive or useful to us in a consumer society. So I appreciate that PETA does things like that. All around, I think that their messaging is very good. I think once you're inside of an organization, things change a little bit and I haven't been inside of it, so I can't speak to that. Great. That was really good sitting on the fence. You did great.
00:08:48
Speaker
My thoughts. I was told before this, I was like, do I have to do anything? You said, oh no, we'll see. And then you pointedly asked me a question, you fucker. I want to hear your thoughts. My thoughts that everyone also wants to hear is that I'm conflicted. because they did sway me a little bit on some things. But at the same time, then I looked into some of the history of PETA, like why? Like, because they've clearly done something like they have a reputation that's not necessarily super positive that they're clearly working very hard to try and change. yeah I think the problems that I can see with them is they did have a lot of really they love to do shock value messaging. Yeah. And I don't
00:09:31
Speaker
I don't know that if I really connect with that or think that I respect that method. It looks like 2014, 2015, something shifted, and I think they've been trying to really change their image since then, but- I'll point out, though, that those things do not make a cult. That's marketing and strategy. Yeah. While it doesn't help their image as a cult. ah It also does improve their cult. Sure. The last thing I want to say that would feel culty in any organization is when you have a role called media officer, there's something about that that just inherently kind of goes towards police officer for me, somebody who's like literally scouring the internet.
00:10:18
Speaker
to find, I don't know, podcasts with like 30 monthly listeners, things like that. That part to me does feel a little culty. So I want to give you like negative 10 points, Kara, for getting us embroiled with somebody tracking attracting the ire of what could possibly be a very powerful cult nation. But also they did email us within 24 hours of us posting the episode. And I feel like that's plus a thousand points to you. That's too many. Because there are a few things that are kind of, you know, none of the other potential gulps we named did that. So that's a good point.
00:11:00
Speaker
Nobody from that Japanese call emailed me. Even though you probably would have willingly jump
Light-hearted Cult Discussion
00:11:06
Speaker
-tracked in. Probably because they don't have media officers. du that's Are they even a cult? Are you even a cult if you don't have a media officer? So do you think the business I work for is a cult? Then we for sure have media officers. Um, no, I think that probably though, having a media officer is like one tally, but you need, let's say 10 tallies to kind of have a cult going, you know, it's like a grading system. Yeah. Well, but also there's an image problem with, um, Scientology who is a cult. Yes. Allegedly. Email us. Email us. Do it. Um, if we hear from Scientology,
00:11:51
Speaker
I am chaos. No, please don't. I don't want this attention again. Yeah, so Scientology also has an image problem. I don't think that they are out there, like, correcting people. We'll find out. Gonna put them in the keywords and see. oh Now we need to get to our number one cults we be swindled into joining. And here we go.
00:12:16
Speaker
I hate men. Okay, anyway. and let's what's What's the thing we're going to do in the mountains? Kill them. kill them. But like, have you seen that TikTok where they're asking women, would you rather be stuck in the woods with a man or a bear? And like almost all of them say bear except for one. Yeah. Yeah. I would say the bear. I would say it was just any man. If I like, if you had no choice, right? Grayson says, pray for the bear. take watchs for with the bear yeah All right. ah
00:12:53
Speaker
two My number one cult. thought I would be swindled into joining because I basically nearly was. And that's why I'm sure I had to look into this because I was thinking about this topic.
Loving Hut and Supreme Master Ching Hai
00:13:08
Speaker
And I was like, I'm not sure. But back when I was in Norwich every week, my friend and I, who was also a vegetarian and I was a vegetarian at the time, we would go to this restaurant in downtown Norwich where you could get like a five pound, not
00:13:27
Speaker
not American pounds, five British pounds of Chinese takeout. Ew, the the British Chinese takeout, it looks awful. Well, so what was interesting about this place is it was completely vegan. And back then, back then, like 12 years ago, right, there wasn't a lot of fake meat running around that you could get so it was like very exciting to go to a place and I could get like Chinese broccoli and beef or whatever and I knew that I could eat it and ah this place was called the Loving Hut. When I went there it had a bunch of
00:14:06
Speaker
pamphlets and like what I vaguely remember to be like a Buddhist woman on the TV. And as I was thinking um about this, I've always thought, was that a cult? like my whole like The past 12 years, I've always thought, was that a cult? And so when I was doing this, I was like, I need to know if that was a cult, but I couldn't remember the name of the restaurant or anything. So I looked up Norwich vegan Buddha restaurant cult and it came up This is and I I love this cult like going into this maybe think am I gonna join this cult? So this is a rare cult that was founded by a woman of Vietnamese half by Vietnamese half Chinese woman I believe her name is Ching Hai and she goes by supreme master Ching Hai
00:14:56
Speaker
Oh my God, yes. She started a restaurant empire. They have over 200 Loving Huts in 35 countries. It turns out there are a couple in California. I will be going to one maybe this weekend. yeah There's a couple in San Diego. There's some down south. I will be going at least in 2017. And as far as I can tell, up until last year, Loving Hut was still open in Norwich. I don't know if it is anymore. because the reviews are so few and far between, but everyone was like, I always forget how good this place is and how cheap. So this woman who was once called the Buddhist Martha by Time Magazine. Damn.
00:15:34
Speaker
has created a jewelry line, a clothing line, and a pseudo-religious philosophy called the Kuan Yin Method, which has as many as 500,000 followers. And so the Kuan Yin Method preaches preservation of life above all else. And it a that has other pillars, not telling lies, not taking that, which is not offered, not drinking alcohol or drugs, and avoiding sexual misconduct. So I really like these. It feels very like female oriented. This person was like, let me come up with these rules. um She has a thing that was on in Loving Hut that if you type this in, it still comes up, which is Supreme Master TV. It's a channel that you can watch. It's once 24 seven. It was always on. um And it's basically about how you should become vegan. Why aren't you vegan?
00:16:27
Speaker
Here's why you should be vegan. And all about Buddhism and how the two work together. It ah has shows called Vegetarianism, The Noble Way of Living, our co-inhabitants, The Animal World, and Words of Wisdom. And ah apparently in the like nearest one to LA, a ah guy went to the restaurant and it's got pictures of people like Bill Clinton and then like some other celebrities. And there's a placard next to it that says, these smart, beautiful, talented people are vegan and vegetarian. Why aren't you? And I just.
00:17:05
Speaker
I'm totally into it. She wanted to be a Buddhist monk, but basically like. women can't be Buddhist monks. So that's when she started all of this. um And I just love that she decided the best way to spread my gold is to just make a bunch of restaurants. And since they're all franchises, apparently there's like no, there's absolutely no rules as long as they, you know, adhere to the five pillars, the like, don't take what's not offered, blah, blah, blah. There's no like,
00:17:37
Speaker
thing that keeps them together of like what they offer at these restaurants, except that like it's different Asian cuisines. So like the Loving Hut in Orange County is completely different for the Loving Hut in Norwich. Dude, hell yeah. Amazing. Yeah, so next time you visit, we'll go there. We have to go there. um Yeah, so she's got World Peace Media, Oceans of Love Entertainment, um and she's in favor of a meat tax. And I just want to tell you real quick, I know into that. Exactly. Exactly. It's good. shit the The one thing that I think this is what you have. This is the lifestyle of the Kuan Yin method.
Quan Yin Method Initiation Options
00:18:21
Speaker
So you can do your two options. The first is full initiation. This is where you have a lifelong commitment to a vegan diet.
00:18:31
Speaker
You adhere to the five precepts of Buddhism. I think, Kara, you're already bang-bang. You very automatically become these two, almost. And then all you need to add is at least two hours of meditation daily. And then you... Daily? Two hours? You are part of the full initiation. You're full Kuan Yin. Two hours all at once or broken up? to What do you mean? Like, do I have to do my full two hours of meditation at once? I don't think so. It says at least two hours meditation daily. I feel like you could probably do one in the morning and one in the evening or something. I don't know. I would have to watch the channel more.
00:19:09
Speaker
but You mean you will watch the channel more? Now, if that sounds like too much for you, she has created the quick initiate initiation. Hell yeah, brother. She has created the convenient to method. Okay. That's more of a style. Yes. That only requires a half hour's meditation daily. Okay? Yeah. Very reasonable. And abstinence from meat for 10 days each month. So you don't even have to do it all the time, baby. Oh, fuck yeah, i dude. You just come in here, quickly initiate it. We all qualify as long as we start meditating 30 minutes a day. And she's got a guided meditation on her channel. So you can just watch that. Amazing. I feel like that might be worth trying. No. Also, I need you to look at this picture. What were you going to say? I was going to say sometimes I dissociate. So that counts, right?
00:20:03
Speaker
That's meditation. Please click that link. to him I want to be called supreme leader in a relationship. Oh God. Shut up. Where is she from? She's speaking to me. She's she's for everyone who can't see it. If you go to Supreme Master TV dot com and then click the meditation tab, you'll see what we're seeing. It's this like purple sparkly background with bubbles and heart bubbles and flowers. And she's got this bleached wig or bleached, extremely bleached hair that looks like a wig on. It looks like a bad wig. And she's wearing one of those spa robes and she's got her eyes closed and the it's it's beautiful. I mean, she looks at peace. She's got also the light is coming out of her head. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she's enlightened.
00:20:56
Speaker
Obviously, I take it back. It's not a wig. It's bleached hair. So, yeah. And I'll just leave you with this quote from her. I really like her. I really like having like a female led cult. I think that's pretty rare. um And this one, she says, a master is one who has the key for you to become a master.
Extreme Buddhist Practices
00:21:16
Speaker
to help you realize that you are also a master and that you and God are also one. That's all. That's the only role of the master.
00:21:28
Speaker
Yes, you lost me with the God. I will say that I do love that it stems from her not being able to be a Buddhist monk. And then she was like, I'm gonna do Buddhism 2.0. She's like, flippy of the bird. I'm still a Buddhist and I'll just make my own. I'll just call myself Supreme Master. What now, Buddhism? Yeah, like I don't have to slowly mummify myself in order to become enlightened. What? What do you mean? I'm sorry. What? Because they like Buddhist monks. In order to become those living statues, they like slowly.
00:22:04
Speaker
like a whole process to do that. They like change their diet and they eat random things for a bit and then they go into like bark essentially I don't know and then they like basically are only drinking things and then they get buried inside this like box underground and they're supposed to like be fully mummified but like not many people end up successfully doing it and They have, they know the monk is dead down there because they have like this pipe or something that they send down there with her and they check on it once a day and once the monk doesn't respond then they like fully bury him and then they like leave the, they leave his corpse under there for like seven years. An amount of time and then they bring it back up and then they see if it fully mummified and then they put it in temples. Listen, I thought you were spitting some mad shit here. No, it's real.
00:22:56
Speaker
This is real. Yeah. OK, but there's only there's only one self mummified that they have that they verify one. There's at least one self mummified 550 year old corpse in existence that of a Buddhist monk named. Yeah. Forgive me. Song Ha Tenzin. um From northern Himalaya in India. Well, I thought there was more than one. He was discovered in 1975. There's articles about them. Well, there's another one in Thailand. Yeah. Yeah. There's articles about people doing it still. Like people are trying to do it. Yeah. They're trying. Are they succeeding? seems hard Seems hard. Based on what I'm reading, it seems really difficult um to dry yourself out and slowly die. And what what? Sorry, why do they do this? To reach full enlightenment. Good God. But also, like if they do it successfully, they're kind of prayed to like a God.
00:23:51
Speaker
um like people come and worship their body because they were so, they were able to so like, embody and show. It's called Sokushinbutsu. I'm not saying that right, but it's in Japanese. And it means Buddhas in their very body. So they're becoming Buddhas in their body. This is wild. How have I never heard of this before? I don't know. This is crazy. i've never You knew a lot about that, Maura. Great job. I because the first time I saw it, I was like, what the fuck? That's that's pretty metal. I'm going to be honest. That's what Grayson said. He said they eat nothing but honey until they die. Man, it's metal as fuck. Yeah, that's wow. I didn't even see him say that. And he gave me a plus one because he didn't even know I knew about this.
00:24:40
Speaker
you're but You're only on negative one now. Honestly, I could be swindled into doing this, I think. I could be swindled into mummifying myself at the end of my life. I don't believe in enlightenment that hard. You'd have to give up all food. Who's next? Who's next? Kara, I am. Good. I'm still shooketh by that. um
Host's Experience with 'The Family'
00:25:03
Speaker
Okay. ah and Following the theme of almost got swindled into this cult, my number one cult that I almost got swindled into is called The Family or The Fellowship. It's got a Netflix docuseries about it. It's five episodes. um I think it's called The Family. And I'm going to try to be as nonspecific as I can. But I worked internationally for a while. One of the organizations that I was working with ah believes in the teachings
00:25:32
Speaker
Nope. I'm trying really hard. So I'm going to try to like do this in the best way possible. I think you're doing a great job so far because you've had many jobs abroad. Yes. yeah yes um And this organization believes in the teachings of Jesus and spreading the actual message of Jesus and genuinely was doing great work to make sure that people had what they needed and supporting people and not judging people, bringing different religions together, et cetera. And it it very much was very it was a very important part of my life. I learned a lot about um multiple different Abrahamic religions and became much more open about those things.
00:26:11
Speaker
And so I was really like I was very invested in this organization. And by the end, I was like, wow, this is great work. Like a couple of weeks before I leave, somebody casually mentions the family and I had never heard of it. And so somebody was like, oh, yeah, like X person in the organization, like lived at their headquarters. And I was like, what do what are we talking about here? Turns out the family ah or the fellowship is this organization. It's based in Alexandria or D.C. or something like that. but they are very prominent internationally. And their whole shtick is that they're trying, so they don't, they believe in Jesus, but they, they, I, we watched the video right before this and.
00:26:49
Speaker
They were like, yeah, we believe that Jesus came for the sheep or whatever. But what about the wolves? We're interested in the wolves. And so they are interested in power and be getting power through um the message of jesus Jesus. They're the ones that fund the National Prayer Breakfast, which every president since Nixon, I think, has gone to since, you know, like the sixties or whatever. um They believe that Trump is like this um oh avenue through which God is letting them speak. and This is post me working with them for them, whatever. um And it's a very, very powerful organization and they funded this organization that I worked with and they
00:27:33
Speaker
are like at all these meetings with presidents and with other international leaders and every everybody like talks to them and all these things. And they're very behind the scenes until recently. um And they indoctrinate, yeah and indoctrinate, but um young men live in this one house to learn all the ways of this organization. And then they go out and they lobby on behalf of the fellowship and try to get power through secret avenues and things like this. um And they're very prominent. internationally as well. They were more prominent and internationally and now they're becoming like more powerful in the US again. But anyway.
00:28:09
Speaker
I feel that I probably would have never been actually in the cult, but I definitely was like adjacent and was team their message kind of like layer one or phase one or whatever we've been talking about. um Wow. I would recommend watching the Netflix series. It's pretty crazy. Like you would think that if somebody wrote a novel about it, like you would think it's fiction. Yeah. One of the first questions that comes up on Google is, is this a real documentary? Yeah. So you found out like right before you were leaving. Yeah. dude. And I went to a national prayer breakfast in the country that I was living in. Yeah. Wow. Like I went to one of their organizations, retreat things. I can't, I can't believe that it's real is truly how I feel about it. Did you, when you were watching the documentary, were you like, wow, I was a part of that.
00:29:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's crazy because I worked because the guy that I worked with was so kind. Like he was one of the nicest people ever. He's super down to earth, like not pressuring anybody to do anything. But he lived in the house where they where they like young men, all the young men in the organization, like start off when they're 18. Are there any people I assume not, but are there any people in the documentary that while you were working for said organization that like you knew of or you had heard about? No, no, it was Yeah, super removed. Like basically the connection was they funded or partially funded that organization. That's the only, and then the national prayer breakfast. You guys have some crazy stories. Yeah, let's hear about the number one quote that you were kind of in. Yeah. Like us, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, kind of. I'm just going to get myself a negative one off the bat.
00:29:57
Speaker
Because I i like hated all the cults I was looking at, I basically wrote a description of my own cult.
Creating a Fictional Cult
00:30:07
Speaker
Okay, let's hear it. The head of this cult is a group of librarians.
00:30:16
Speaker
We're starting to off strong. um We all live in a library. This seems like a different, because we do have, you're gonna get to continue, but we do have ah um a topic, which is cults I would make. And it feels like this is bleeding into that. But go for it, you're just gonna, when we do that, you're gonna have to do three new ones. Three new ones. I know, it's your own material. Okay, my number one. Negative one? Okay, so the call is run by a bunch of lot librarians, little head librarians, and they put up, we all live in a library together, we've and like really huge library. Also, I'm about to basically describe upper education school.
00:31:02
Speaker
um Talking about university. Yeah, college. Yeah, but we all like the library and us. We're all in the same building um and it's really old architecture. This is just a school. Libraries, schools have libraries. Wait, no, this next part is really going to change your mind. And every morning starts out with a little like TED talk or a lecture about a topic.
00:31:28
Speaker
and Also school. But we have like a communal garden, as some some colleges and universities too. What is the point of the librarians? I feel like we just skipped over that. I just want to read all day.
00:31:49
Speaker
Sorry, so we take over a library, but we build this and then because I said like maybe like the Library of Congress, but then we like move the Library of Congress to like Appalachia. Just put it on wheels. Yeah. um I mean, can we just recreate the Library of Alexandria while we're at it? like Yeah. Sounds great. Wonderful, even. So basically, this is, I feel like I should have said a school that is very culty, one of those stupid little Ivy League ones that people can't get over. Yeah. Like Yale. Yeah. Sounds like you're talking about Yale or Harvard. Yeah. Like just going there.
00:32:27
Speaker
Like you could have been swindled into going there if they had accepted you. Yeah. And I could be swindled into the two that comes with going to a place like that because it sounds nice. Yeah. But like the librarians are in the shit, not the... I would say actually what this is closest to is you kind of described a group that is in a Netflix TV show called Hilda. And in Hilda, there is a group of librarian witches. You forgot the witches part, but I think you'd like that even more.
00:32:58
Speaker
yeah Yeah, all the librarians. So she's been encountering these librarians and they all seem normal. And then like in season three, it turns out that the librarians are witches, like all librarians are witches. And it's ah it's a very fun, also kind of like crazy cult where these three librarians judge them. And like if you're a librarian, you're responsible for books that like haven't been turned in in hundreds of years and you can go to the void of like nothing if you don't turn it in by the due day and it's very high stakes. So I think you would really like that cult. I might have to watch that show. Yeah, it's a very good bedtime show. I recommend it to everyone. I think it's very cute. Why have I watched it? Did we watch it in time? I think Lucas showed it to you guys in Tahoe. I wasn't there for that part, but I think Lucas did show an episode or two of it back then.
00:33:48
Speaker
But yeah, Matt and I watch it, and then we fall asleep to it, and we have to watch the same episode over and over again. Basically, because both of us have seen all of it, and then we can move on. I'm assuming that the ones that do exist are kind of up to some sort of illicit activity that they don't want the general population to know about. This is me being and a conspiracy theorist. You're talking about the librarians right now? No, I'm talking about, like, Yale and Harvard. Yeah. Like.
00:34:18
Speaker
I feel tuition you're trying to talk about a secret society in Yale or Harvard, which they have like these secret societies that the college boys join in and mury they jump off the yacht or whatever and somebody dies. and But like the ah foundation is learning.
Ivy League Schools and Cult Comparison
00:34:40
Speaker
You're just, you're dragging it down every time. It's good. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm giving you a negative half point for taking away my agency of giving you a negative point. I won't, you know, like you took it, you gave yourself a negative one right at the beginning. Now I can't even say negative one. You just took it away. I don't agree with that. What do you mean? She already did a negative one. So do it again. No, no, no, no. She gave herself the negative one. Don't take vaccines. She already did it. I can't give her a negative one point for something that's already been taken away. Suck it. And that makes me angry. That's why you're getting a negative five. Negative five? I thought you said point five. I was like, yeah, get her. Also, wrote all of this out. And then after my little paragraph, I just wrote, I am just describing a school.
00:35:36
Speaker
You're like, wait a minute. Yeah. They just want to go back to college. I think so. ah Yeah. and A PhD. That's a lot of what they do. For what purpose? I don't know. and So expensive. Yeah. Okay. Well, we did a bad job at trying to keep this. right and tight. yeah i will Can I do an honorable mention? Yes. I tried to look up feet like themes like I started this by being like, animal rights, cult, environmental cult. There's a lot of people on the internet that believe that just the environmental movement is a cult. There's a very strong internet presence just for that concept of being like, wow, time to change isn't real. and like you know it's
00:36:23
Speaker
yeah I can't even... God. I was shocked at how often it came up, actually. What's the honorable mention? that that That there are people that believe that the environmental movement is a cult. That's all I wanted to say, and I'm using the honorable mention format I cast to do that. Alrighty. It's really... researching this really triggered my...
00:36:49
Speaker
a religious upbringing. No.
00:36:56
Speaker
no
00:36:59
Speaker
I think growing up the way that like in the religion that we did and ah we have we said it yet on the podcast.
Questioning Upbringing and Views on Cults
00:37:06
Speaker
It's a secret. another figure and I think growing up unitary and universalist we were taught to question everything and so this idea that a call is a person like is really it really fucked with me I was like i really I don't think I could ever yeah I think I really like it for the supreme master Ching Hai though I like for them young little librarians. I heard less. It's not like worship me. It's like be a good person, eat correctly and meditate and don't actually worship people. I honestly i think that she's she's brilliant. She's created a ah cult where if you want to go hard, there's the goal hard option. And she's like, you're just like kind of feeling it out. Don't want to commit.
00:37:49
Speaker
There's a convenient option. I love that. It's the hard 75 versus a soft 75. I know. Yeah, exactly. I'm just like batting zero. No, I know. Tick tock. The tick tock. 75 hard, 75 soft. I thought I didn't get both of yours. Karis is not on that side of tick tock. I removed TikTok and I haven't watched it in like a week. i Okay, I removed it after I was in Chicago for like two days. I didn't make it very long. Redownloaded it and I've been so tired that I haven't watched it in like a week. Welcome to the cycle. Yeah. That's great. um What is 75 high, low, whatever you say. Also, it was happening before this
Environmental and Exercise Movements as Cults
00:38:32
Speaker
week. It's not a new trend. It's been around for months. of yeah but out there Oh, honorable mention number two, a lot of people believe that SoulCycle is
00:38:39
Speaker
ah Yeah, as they should. Oh, like there's so many like exercise movements that kind of cross and into cold territory. Orange theory and orange theory, you get charged if you don't show up to a class that you reserved. Yeah, same with alchemy. I love that it's called alchemy, though I'm not going to lie. OK, so hey bye. and Well, we have to name the winner. I will just self-name myself as the winner, just like every other cult leader. Oh, good point. You know what? You're starting to make sense. Yeah, most cult leaders are losers and they need to... yikes. This took a dark turn right away.
00:39:29
Speaker
She's gonna convince us that the negatives, the more negatives you have, the better it is. Our cult leader Mara, yes. The supreme topper. Yes. I wanted to make a pegging joke at work today. Somebody ruined it and like took it as death and I was like, whatever, man. Your work is a wild place to do it. Yes. Yes. Our Supreme Topper winner. This brainwashed us. Winner of this episode. It's Mariah. Congratulations. Thank you. ra but i'll Slide into my dance to learn more about how you could be taught. No, I'm going to sign off. I guess we have to follow. Yes. Lead us out. OK. Well, are you going to say the name of the podcast? Thanks for listening. Follow us. um I am going to hand my torch to Marion. um Because I'm second in command. Am I? Am I second in command? Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Take it away, Marion. Hi, I'm Marion. I'm assistant to the Supreme Leader. ah
00:40:52
Speaker
I'm really happy to be here. ah This has been My Top Everything. Thanks for being a part of our cult. ah Keep listening. If you want to go further down, there's a convenient method that's just following us on Instagram, My Top Everything, or you can go full initiation. Email us at mytopeverythingpodcast.gmail dot.com or Venmo me. I mean, that's a real full initiation. Let's get the money flowing. Let's monetize this cult, Mara. gay Post your little cold things. Tell us what symbol we should have as our cult. Thanks for listening. We'll see you later. um Why don't you give us some kind of zen? Let's get a zen vibe going here for our cult. Mara, start us off. and There's a song called zen and I'm just trying to. Can we play songs without it being a copyright infringement? No. OK, you can do it with your mouth.
00:41:40
Speaker
I can't. I don't. It's the cream topper. Okay. You make so many noises, you just got to make a noise. I know. Okay. the um ah but
00:42:01
Speaker
Can you hear me? If you can hear this, please, join our cult. Come on, Supreme Bottom, for your Supreme Topper, and be a part of the cult.
00:42:16
Speaker
Okay. That's good. I was like, I'm really trying not to get mad. I like that Maro was like, oh, right, come.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, nice guys. We kept it tight. I wish it weren't two hours long, but then... Dude, I knew this one would be a real struggle. I feel like this is a part one, part two situation.