Can One Intentionally Build a Religion? — episode transcript
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Can One Intentionally Build a Religion? — episode transcript
Simone Collins :
Try again. Scared face. Oh god. Okay. There we go. And if I look this way, will it look? Oh, okay. If I look this way, will it look? Okay. Alright. If I look up, will it look up? Come on, cutish. Oh, wait. That you think I’m crying? God. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. Alright. Alright. This was this was fun. This was fun.
Malcolm Collins :
Alright. Now can you come back?
Simone Collins :
Oh, I can’t be a chicken.
Malcolm Collins :
No. We’re recording.
Simone Collins :
Fine. Okay. Turning off. Make it look scared, though, I had to go, like, really? I’m like, I thought VTubing was, like, less stress. You don’t have to move as much for the camera. But, apparently, looks rushed.
Malcolm Collins :
She’s like jokes that if you could see what her actual face looked like when she was doing a VTubing, you’d think she was, a crazy person because you need to do, like, very specific things with your face to get it
Simone Collins :
to do things. I’m discovering this. VTubing is hella harder. Like It’s like puppeting. Yes. It’s like puppeting, but with your freaking face. She must her face must be jacked. Like, her face muscles are, like, ugh, super strong. My god. That is crazy.
Malcolm Collins :
Alright. So if you were here for yesterday’s video, today is a bit of a continuation of the same topic. We are going to be exploring I think what’s it called?
Simone Collins :
New religions. Today, it’s
Malcolm Collins :
intentionally designed religions
Simone Collins :
Yes.
Malcolm Collins :
That have been very successful. And the idea here being that, you know, if if techno puritanism I mean, basically, the way techno puritanism works is we attempt to intentionally design the best way you could structure a religious system. Mhmm. And then we go and we check the Bible, and it always says, you’re right. This is the way it always should have been done. Mhmm. And it’s very shocking to us whenever this happens. It’s just like, oh, it’s always but sometimes you have to think through a thing before, like, going back and being like, well, if I was writing it, this is what I would say. Right? And then you notice something is, like, blindingly obvious.
Simone Collins :
Can you give me
Malcolm Collins :
an example of what you’re referring to? So well, good example that we have a track coming out on soon is I was thinking about it. I was like, just the idea of centralized religious institutions where you go to pray and they don’t really serve other major functions
Simone Collins :
Mhmm.
Malcolm Collins :
E g a a a church was a bureaucracy behind it. Mhmm. Like, that seems like it would always become corrupt over time and is, like, a bad way to set things up. Mhmm. And the bible is extremely explicit in multiple locations that you should not worship in a church, that you can worship with other believers, that the community of believers is important, but that they should be meeting in people’s houses and not in churches. And we’ll have a track on that. It’s it’s, like, not in one area. It’s like a recurring theme throughout both the new and old testament. I mean, it’s it’s kind of the point of the new the thing that I’ll never get is when Catholics are like, oh, you know, our institutions are just a little corrupt. Like, why is it such a problem? I go, when you look at the level of corruption that caused you Jesus to get himself killed, the central narrative of your entire religion, it is less than an average Tuesday at the Vatican. It is it is less than one millionth of what you personally are aware of. Right? Like, how his core thing is don’t worship at the corrupt location. Right? Like, make a big stink of it. Do something about it. So I it’s it’s like and I I hadn’t realized this until I really began to dig into it, but then I was just like, yeah. Like, it is not a good idea to ever invest a lot of money in single purpose religious buildings and and locations. And that’s also you know? But, like, before I came to that, I was also thinking through, well, what would be the best way to build this out in terms of making sure you’re investing in your community, making sure you’re investing in yourselves, making sure you don’t waste time, and making sure, you know, you’re you’re being maximally efficacious with your life and leaning in. And yeah. Another fun one is I was like, well, then I would sort of consider, like, the family unit as the key church institution. And I look it up, and it’s like, yes. All over the place. Your family is the key, like, nucleus of what is a church. And then I was like, well, you know, it would be cool because I’ve seen it work really well. There was Mormon things where, like, before you get a family of your own, you, like, pretend to be married and then host little events. And I was like, I know this is a long shot. Is this attested in the bible? Right? And it’s like, yeah. There’s a number of places where, like, you’re explicitly told to pretend people are your brothers and sisters or a kid.
Simone Collins :
And this is why LDS traditions, like, it’s such an interesting religion because on the surface, it sounds so insane. And then we actually dig deeper. You know what?
Malcolm Collins :
Well, I mean, it’s it’s it’s it’s, I think, pretty incoherent with a lot of other things. But I I do agree
Simone Collins :
with But with me And
Malcolm Collins :
they do have some good traditions that I wanna steal, and that was why. I was like, I’m a I like that. That’s a good way to do, like, before when you’re in your you don’t wanna be doing it with your family, but you want to be doing it in some sort of a family structure. And that was there. And then another one I was thinking, I was like, you know what? I would also say that, like, we need to judge people better in terms of their teaching capacities within the religion, in terms of how they relate to their children. Like, if somebody has been a bad parent, they prob you probably shouldn’t be taking advice for them, and you probably shouldn’t have them in a position of leadership within the church. And multiple places say this. You know, that that somebody who who like, if your kid has left the religion in fact, there’s, like, additional punishments if your parents as you read in one part, if your parents were a preacher and then you become a prostitute, you’re supposed to be burned. Right? That was the burning one? The yeah. But, also, it it removes the parent from the the ability to teach as well. Right? Like, they’re not supposed
Simone Collins :
to mention that in the old
Malcolm Collins :
you That’s not in that part. That’s in in later stuff. But I found that to be really I just was like, oh. So this is what I mean. I’m like, what would be a good way to structure how you filter who’s in leadership? Oh, here’s a good way. And then you you you look it up and it’s there. Speaking of, you know, who has a really good relationship with their kids is Donald Trump. Yeah. For real. Okay. So Ari Samja founded April 1875 in Mumbai by Dandra Swartzi, is one of the clearest examples in the census of a deliberately engineered nonnaturalist religion. Dandra claimed no personal revelation nor new scripture. He pointed to an already written accepted infallible authority, the Vedas, declared later Hindu traditions corruptions of the pure source and engineered institutions, conversion rights, schools, and organizational machinery around the rest restoration. Supernatural stakes, karma, rebirth, Vedic truths, a real formless god remained fully intact. Authority never resided primarily in him, so his death was organizational nonevent. By way, these people have millions of of members around the world.
Simone Collins :
Oh, wow. Okay.
Malcolm Collins :
And and for a lot of these, you know, you’re talking millions of members, and they’re founded in, like, the eighteen sixties. Like, they grow quickly once you get one that’s growing. Dondra was born in Mool Shankhatari on 02/12/1824 into the well-to-do Brahmin family. As a teenager, he experienced a decisive crisis During an all night Shivaratri vigil, he watched mice run over in the Shiva Lingram and the offerings or sorry. He watched mice run oh, yeah, run over the Shiva Lingram and the offerings. This convinced him that an idol that could not protect itself could not be god.
Simone Collins :
Family deaths,
Malcolm Collins :
a sister, and a beloved uncle reinforced the sense of worldly instability. When his family arranged a marriage for him at around the age of 21, he fled the home and became a wandering ascetic. In 1847, he was initiated as a with the name, it doesn’t matter. For roughly fifteen years, he wandered Northern India studying the Upanishads, yoga, and various teachers. He eventually became known as a disciple of Swami Varanda, a strict Vedic scholar who insisted that true knowledge lay only in early Vedic texts and that later accreditations were corrupted Hinduism. Deidana took a vowel to restore the pure Vedic religion. Interesting that they’re not too dissimilar from what you could say we’re doing. You know, only the original texts throw out anything the council said. The biggest one that shocked me was, like, a the hewn stone one. This was made so that all sacrificial altars in Christian temples for, like, the Jesus’ sacrifice have to be made of human stone, and yet it’s made repeatedly clear in multiple places that you never ever ever should use human stone as an altar or worship by it. And yet now it’s it’s mandated across a few of the Christian traditions, which has really shocked me. You you might not know this, but this actually led to a number of wars. It was one of the key things that they kept whenever the Protestants would take back England, they’d take out all the hewn stone tables, and they replace them with window ones because they said it should be like a a dinner table anyway. Right? Because that is true. That’s the way you’re it it appears that you’re supposed to do it. It’s it’s like at dinner, which makes a lot more sense. Like, multifamily dinner makes a lot more sense and aligns more with what we actually see in the bible
Simone Collins :
Yeah.
Malcolm Collins :
The way Jesus worships. Yeah. By the way he worships at the temple, he didn’t he didn’t like that. And that also seems like a better way to just hold a religious ceremony to me. From the eighteen sixties, he began public preaching and formal debates with Orthodox pandits, notably a major one in Banzas. He shifted to Hindi for broader reach, met Brahmo Samja, leaders in Calcutta, who encouraged and organized his work and revived his critique of idolatry, hereditary caste, child marriage, and a priestly monopoly. On 04/10/1875, he founded the Ari Samju in Bombay with a small initial group. The 10 guiding principles were settled more fully in 1877. Gross accelerated in the Punjab among an emerging merchant and professional class that wanted a rational as assertive assertive assertive Hindu identity capable of resisting Christian and Muslim missionary pressure. Lorha became the effective headquarters. Okay. So this is very interesting. So it appears that the point of what he was doing was to create something like canonical Hinduism.
Simone Collins :
Yeah. Because that sounds right.
Malcolm Collins :
Yeah. Like, canonical and organized Hinduism, which seems to be the point. His main written work, the light of truth, first published in 1875 and later revised, systematizes theology, ethics, and social programs, and polemics against puritanic Hinduism, Jainism, Christianity, and Islam. He and his followers established Vedic schools, promoted a widow remarriage and women’s education, and developed the Shuddhi purification rite, the first major modern Hindu mechanism for formal conversion or reconversion of people who had left Hinduism or lower caste groups seeking full status. Education work later produced the large Dryad Angle Veda, the DAV, school and college network. he died on 10/30/1883 in Anjmar under suspicious circumstances, possible poisoning after criticizing a local ruler never legally proved because authority had been located in the Vedas and the organizational rules rather than just one person. The movement did not collapse. It continued and expanded, later spitting into two main educational factions, the college DAV writing favoring a mix of Western and Vedic learning, and the Gurukul wing favoring more traditional Vedic education, both of which grew, partitioned in 1947, destroyed the dense Punjab network that fell inside of Pakistan. The organization rebuilt in India with its apex body. Today, Ara Samja remains active through local Samjis, an extensive DAV educational system, hundreds of schools and colleges, Grukle institutions. They have weekly hyven rituals, social work in overseas branches, especially in the diaspora. Historical claims run-in the millions in terms of membership, and it continues to be very significant. Before I go into the metaphysics, this is very interesting here because it appears to be very similar to our project in many ways with maybe the core differentiation is his organizations didn’t feel like they had a real church that could be their backstop at that point. Right? And so his organization became that for extreme hardliners. I think if you’re looking at the type of Calvinistic Puritan ethos that early America was founded on, most people who still have any desire for that ethos do see techno puritanism as the escape hatch for them and as the only real faith group that’s still fighting for that. I mean, if you look at early America, like, at the beginning of this, I was talking about seeing that the bible was very anti church. Early America was very anti church. The the Baptist, for example, would worship in barns because they well, they’ve read the bible, and they know you’re not supposed to worship in churches. The the the Quakers also refused to call any of their worship sites churches. They called them, like, community meeting spaces and stuff like that. Because, again Yeah. Meeting houses. Like, among, like, the early protestant groups where it’s like, let’s go back to what the bible actually says, they all came away with this. And then they sort of forgot it as the person who controlled what they heard was the one running the local meeting house or the local barn.
Simone Collins :
That’s true. Yeah. It’s one of those dynamics. It’s like a a governance dynamic that just ends up always favoring. It’s also a recurring theme, I think, in in at least the Old Testament. Just people keep keep worshiping the wrong way. And Well, think the only thing is about it.
Malcolm Collins :
Cycle where where you get everything cleaned up, and then it all gets corrupted again.
Simone Collins :
Mhmm.
Malcolm Collins :
And I actually think and and then it’s your duty, and it happens in a, you know, intergenerational cycle, like, three generations, one way, three generation. I think you could argue that America, you know, since the great awakening is at its next turn in one of those cycles right now. Right? Like, we are at maximum religious corruption at the moment where a lot of people grow up not even knowing, like, basic core Protestant traditions. They they think I’ll say something that, like, every Protestant has agreed with since forever, and they think it’s, like, heretical or something. Easy one here. Life doesn’t begin at conception. That’s been the mainstream Protestant position for a very long time. And you hear that, and then people freak freak out. It doesn’t mean I’m pro abortion. I’m anti abortion. I’m just saying that that is not the the the original protestant groups you might have had Martin Luther or somebody, but if you look at, like, the mainstream groups in in in early America. And there’s just, like, a lot of that stuff or the anti church stance or the, you know, the the keeping I I I think of, really, the way that the anti church stance got lost is the forms of Protestantism that were trying to mimic Catholicism, specifically the Anglicans and the Episcopals, became known as, like, mainstream Protestants who are not different in kind from the low church as it’s called Protestant sex. And so their traditions got integrated because, like, well, they’re all just Protestants. You know, we’re all just basically the same thing, and it’s like they they’re not the same thing. One was attempting to mimic what Catholicism was doing and believed just without the central authority structure, and the other was trying really hard to follow what the bible actually said in absence of not not just get away from the central authority structure. And yeah. Very interesting. But yeah. The so the point being is, like, when I when I come out and and then say some of the stuff that we say here, a lot of people sometimes think that it’s way more heretical than it actually is to the like, some of the major thinkers within the Protestant tradition or or major cultural movements within the Protestant tradition. And what I’d what I’d love to reach is a point of size and fervor. If we can ever reach that as a movement that we can retake these institutions. But I think that needs to
Simone Collins :
be What would it look like to retake those institutions? You It’s not like
Malcolm Collins :
you want church buildings. We you you can take the church buildings and convert them into useful things. Or if if you can’t convert them into useful things, at least retake over these institutions, like, in institutional wealth that they’ve built up and saved over the years. Right? That’s that’s now being going to whatever, you know, alphabet soup nonsense is
Simone Collins :
Well, yeah. Some people have have pointed out that there’s considerable opportunity in just the number of old and dying organizations that a small number of people could take over, and those organizations sit on pretty immense amounts of accumulated wealth. So you can make an entire career as, like, a small group of people. Actually, it’s
Malcolm Collins :
just taking wanna make a note to AI. By the way, did you follow-up with OpenAI?
Simone Collins :
I texted you about that. The the appeals process is is limited to the point where none of the things we wanted to be able to do, we could do. And since you implemented the changes, we should be fine, and there’s not really anything
Malcolm Collins :
You can’t even, like, email them and be like, is it working now? No. Okay.
Simone Collins :
Yeah. Annoying.
Malcolm Collins :
But we should probably ask AI, like, what are the most vulnerable institutions to do this to? Then get a group together and have them join as young people, get on the board.
Simone Collins :
Yeah. Yeah. Basically, org swatting. Org swatting. Yeah. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins :
And AI, I’m sure, could find some really good arbitrage opportunities.
Simone Collins :
I bet it could. Yeah. I’ll make a note to make up a list of some. It could be a fun base camp community project. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins :
But to continue here, what do they believe, and what is their methodology? They believe in the infallible authority of the Vedas. The four Vedas are the sole eternal perfect revelation of God given at the beginning of creation. They are self authenticating and contain true knowledge, including rational and even scientific principles. Any later texts, Piranhas, etcetera, is authoritative only insofar as it agrees with the Vedas. Contradictions are later corruptions. This this very techno, I guess, you would say. Strict monotheism. Here’s another interesting one. There is one formless, omnipotent, omniscient, just, merciful, unborn, eternal god, Lotharos, often referred to by the, quote, the syllable om. God does not incarnate, has no image or idol, and needs no priestly intermediary. Worship is directed to the formless god alone. It’s interesting how they have incorporated what feels like Christian forms of worship into this. Yeah. Eternal entities. Oh, interesting. So there’s three eternal entities. God, individual souls, and pakrati, primordial nature or matter. Souls are eternal, undergo rebirth according to karma, and can progress through right knowledge and action. Karma and samura retained as binding stakes. Actions have inexorable consequences across lives. The this supplies the real supernatural accountability that pure naturalists designed to lack. Social and ritual implications drawn from the Vedic reading. Varna, social classes by aptitude, character, and karma, not birth. Rejection of heredity caste and untouchability. Opposition to idol worship, animal sacrifice, child marriage, forced widowhood, elaborate priestcraft, and many popular rituals. Affirmation of Vedic fire offerings and What are
Simone Collins :
fire offerings do you reckon?
Malcolm Collins :
I don’t know. Cow protection, education of both sexes, and active propaganda of Vedic truths. Shuddhi, a formal purification slash reconversion rite that made Ari Samara the first major modern Hindu movement to practice systematic proselytization and reconversion. Okay. His engineering move was simple and powerful. Take an authoritative, already widely grant granted the betas and declare everything that contradicts that a purified reading of them to be illegitimate accreditation and then deliberately build model organizations for, local democratic, samjas, schools, a conversion mechanism, and a clear 10 principle platform around the restored core. The supernatural stakes stayed real. The founder positioned himself only as the restorer and institutional engineer. That is why the census treats it as the pragmatic success bar of invallibility. It’s very interesting. And very, I think, good for us to see that because it means that, you know, our project might have more legs than we would otherwise think. Let’s go over the next engineered. And it also looks very engineered. Like, he both believed it, and he engineered it. And he engineered a lot into it that was nontraditional or didn’t need to be there, but obviously helps it in the long run. I think the strict monotheism, like like, a form of Hinduism that is strictly monotheistic is going to perform better in a modern context, getting away with the child marriages, getting away with the forced marriages, getting away with the the widow stuff, getting away with just a lot of the uned unethical stuff, the caste system, makes it way easier to grow. So it wasn’t like he just took it verbatim. He’s like, no. We’ve gotta do this in a way that’s actually gonna maximally grow. Very interesting, very sort of a mirror of our project, I guess.
Simone Collins :
Yeah. And I think it it feels on the surface wrong to engineer a religion. Like, it’s disingenuous somehow. But I think, ultimately, it’s so important to intentionally engineer a religion because the ones that have been created intuitively or as the product of schizophrenic visions, they they seem to just fall apart and lose the plot in ways that you can avoid if you’re very intentional about it.
Malcolm Collins :
Well, I mean, any central, you know, set of teachings, if you give it to a bureaucracy for five hundred to a thousand years, depending on which church you’re talking about, that bureaucracy is going to become corrupted and infiltrated and taken over by bad actors, and then they’re going to use it to reinforce their control of the institution. Right?
Simone Collins :
Yeah. And so even
Malcolm Collins :
if it starts holistically good, it becomes holistically evil over time, and there really isn’t anything you can do about it except for, like, one significant reforms or sort of, like, an external, well, revival, which we we have seen in The United States a number of times before.
Simone Collins :
Yeah. Well, once before?
Malcolm Collins :
No. There were two great revivals. I think three, actually.
Simone Collins :
Oh,
Malcolm Collins :
yeah? Two important ones at least, and I think a third less important one. Yeah. So let’s go over the next intentionally created one. Cardistic spiritualism. This was the one
Simone Collins :
I’ve never heard of these. This is insane to me. Just the number of that I haven’t heard of.
Malcolm Collins :
Well, this is the one that the Brazilian one is a partial descendant of.
Simone Collins :
Oh.
Malcolm Collins :
So it was founded in 1857 by the French educator, Don’t Care, who published under the pen name Alan Kardek. It is the clearest census example of method as a sortie. Kardak never claimed to be a prophet or had received revelation. He claimed a procedure, systemic questioning a spirit through multiple mediums in different places, cross checking answers for co cardants, and discarding contradictions and codifying the consistent results in a coherent body of teaching. That is very clever. I like that. If I if I had founded another religion, that might be the way I do it. I think that’s a very well, because you’re creating a system. You’re like, this is how we determine what is true and what is not true about the spiritual world. Smart. It’s and it’s it’s a system that has, like, at least internally, assuming other people aren’t faking it, a degree of, like, falsifiability. Authority resides in the method and the resulting open corpus, not the man. The outcome is the strongest purely corpus driven success in, the census. Roughly 3,700,000 adherents, the great majority in Brazil sustained by federation, centers, charity institutions, and ever expanding literature. he was born into a family connected to the law. He was trained as an educator in the progressive tradition of Castelzi, ran schools in Paris, and published pedagogical works in the eighteen fifties. Like many other educated Europeans, he became curious about the table turning and media mystic phenomenon that had spread across America. Fox’s sisters, spiritualism, he became attending seances with a critical, almost scientific attitude. Instead of accepting communication at face value, he prepared a structured list of questions on the nature of spirits, the afterlife, morality, and god and human destiny. He put these same questions to different mediums, initially young women as the Baden sisters and others, in different settings, compared their answers, and only those that showed strong concurrence across independent sources then organized the results. The communicating intelligences themselves reportedly instructed him to adopt the name Alan Carrick, said to be a previous incarnation, and to present the work as a codification rather than a personal revelation. This is very techno puritan, actually. It’s like a spiritualist version of techno puritanism. Somebody goes into spiritualism, deeply skeptical. Like, we go into Christianity, deeply skeptical. Mhmm. And we’re like, okay. How do we create a version of this that doesn’t seem like a cementless window us? And then just structurally build it using a set of rules that we build at the, you know, at the at the outset. And then become a manically true believer in in in attempting to convince people at the at the end. On April 1857, he published La Livre des Espirits, the spirit’s book, a large volume of questions and answers that became the foundational text. He followed it with four more core books that together form the spiritualist codification, the medium’s book, 61, the practical guide to mediumship and the phenomena. the gospel according to spiritualism, eighteen sixty four, moral teachings aligned with the gospels. Heaven and hell, eighteen sixty five, on afterlife and divine justice. Genesis, eighteen sixty eight, on origins, miracles, and predictions. He also founded the revenue of spirits, spiritualist review. Blah blah blah, ran in a he ran the movement. What did he do? Because authority had been located in the method and not the published corpus rather than his person, The movement did not depend on him as a living prophet. In France and much of Europe, the movement flourished in the late nineteenth century and then gradually declined as mass phenomenon. Its decisive success occurred in Brazil. Spiritualism arrived there in eighteen sixties. The Brazilian center was founded in El Salvador in 1865. The Brazilian’s federalist, Spiritualist Federation, was established in 1884 and became a central coordinating body, through state federations, local centers, publishing, and especially large scale charitable work, hospitals, asylums, and assistance. The doctrine took deep root. In the twentieth century, the psychographic spirit written books of the medium Francisco, De Viere popularized spiritism on a massive scale and gave it a distinctly Brazilian character while remaining anchored to Kardex codification. Today, Brazil is by far the world’s largest spiritualist country. Official census figures in recent decades have shown roughly three to 4,000,000 people self identified as spiritualists. Broader estimates of people who engage with the doctrine or run its liturgy run much higher. The institutional network of federations, centers, and charitable works remains the practical engine of community growth. Spiritualism presents itself as a science, a philosophy, and a religion or moral doctrine in one system. Its core claims are derived from cross checked spiritual communication and our god, the supreme intelligence, first cause of all things, eternal, infinite, unique, immaterial, all powerful, and sovereign, just and good, creation proceeds according to immutable natural law, spirit and the human being, spirits in in the intelligent principles of the universe created simple and ignorant, destined for progressive perfection. A human being is a spirit temporarily incarnated in the material body linked by the pre spirit, a semi material fluidic envelope that serves as the intermediary body and can sometimes be perceived. A death of the body is discarded, and the spirit pre spirit continue. I can see why that one lady was like, she tried this movement, but it, like, was too dry for her is is basically what I can tell.
Simone Collins :
Insufficient cool costumes, not enough lore. Yeah. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins :
Reincarnation is a central mechanism. Progress requires multiple corporeal lives. Each reincarnation is a trial or mission that allows the spirit to acquire experience, expiate faults, and develop intellectually and morally. Between lives, the spirit reviews its past and prepares for the next. There is no eternal damnation. Purification is progressive across lives and eventually across worlds. The reincarnation doctrine is the major plot that distinguishes Cardist spiritualism for most Anglo American spiritualism of the same era. Moral law and charity, the fundamental law is the cause and effect often compared to karma. Free will is real. The highest expression of spiritual progress is charity. Disinterested in love and assistance from others, Jesus is regarded as the most elevated spirit over the incarnate on universe, and therefore the perfect moral model, but not as god incarnate in the orthodox Christian sense. mediumship communication between the incarnate and the discarnate is a natural faculty, not a supernatural miracle. It can be studied, disciplined, and used for instruction and consultation. Higher spirits is just lower ones. Unity of science, philosophy, religion. Spiritualism claims to have reconciled them all. Blind faith is rejected, and the teachings are presented as open to examination and consistent with reason and progressive knowledge. The codification itself has been treated as the foundation but not a closed corpus. Later, spiritual communications, especially in Brazil, continue to expand the literature, remaining subordinate to Kardex methods and original principles. In the census terms, this is the census I did of all the religions. It is the purest iteration of method as authority. The founder deliberately positioned himself as an organizer and codifier rather than a elevator. The binding supernatural stakes were retained while the authority structure was made procedural. That’s really fascinating. Why? Because of the the parallels it has with what we’re doing. Going in as skeptics, being convinced by applying a logical and reason based method. Right? Like, well, if this is true, then it’s going to match to something in a way that you can’t explain in any other way. Then it’s gonna predict future events. Then it’s going to actually have the best way that you could organize a religion baked into its core text.
Simone Collins :
Okay. Fair.
Malcolm Collins :
And his thing was, well, I’ll be able to determine it from independent spiritual mediums.
Simone Collins :
Which was a big problem. I I would say core weakness in his choices with that religion.
Malcolm Collins :
Well, I mean, they’ve done really well.
Simone Collins :
I know. But choosing a medium is is just like being like, oh, I hear god talking to me.
Malcolm Collins :
Yeah. Well, you’re you’re gonna end up from our perspective because I don’t think the mediums are hearing anything but demons, maybe. They which is what we would call a corrupted mental state in in techno puritanism. So, like, to us, we do believe that people can be possessed by demons. We we even say to our kids, like, you’re possessed right now. Right? Like, it’s it’s an idea that we, so when I say that, I don’t mean it metaphorically. I mean, from our perspective, they are possessed by demons. And, you’re just gonna get the the most average common denominator of beliefs within a region. That’s why it sounded like a Christianity was like whatever you call that, like, Vaseline on the lens No. When he’s describing the beliefs of the system.
Simone Collins :
Yeah. Well, I mean and that’s why last night when I learned. I don’t know why I did pick this up the first time I read the New Testament that that Paul never even knew Jesus and that he allegedly saw Jesus after he rose. Like, that’s the same as, you know, a medium saying that they channeled something from a god, and yet he’s considered an apostle. I just I don’t know. I I really don’t trust people being like, trust me, bro. My personal experience said this. Not no. No. It didn’t. We’re okay with this.
Malcolm Collins :
It it it matters where it I mean, that’s definitely something that we’ll eventually go into with the techno puritan tracks. We’re gonna need to.
Simone Collins :
I mean, maybe Jesus had ridden risen, and Paul saw him. But
Malcolm Collins :
I will say that I haven’t found many problematic lines in Paul. The one where that we’ve already kicked out that Yeah.
Simone Collins :
Well, a Roman agent trying to shape how some weird Jewish cult is playing out might make sure there isn’t anything crazy problematic, wouldn’t he? Maybe.
Malcolm Collins :
I don’t know. Right. So the Baha’i faith, are and you’ve heard of them. Right?
Simone Collins :
Roughly. Yes. But I don’t, like, know what they stand for. They’re one
Malcolm Collins :
of the cleanest examples of a deliberately engineered succession in institutional design. The original impetus was a visionary, but Baha’i al something and his successors created an explicitly written covenant, a temporally appointed guardianship, and a permanently elected supreme body, the universal house of justice. The system includes progressive iteration slash revelation as an explicit requirement that science and religion agree, no professional clergy, and a deliberately dispersed global community. Oh my god. They currently have between five and eight million adherents worldwide. Just so you know why I dislike them so much, they’re a universalistic religion, which means they believe all religions are true, and I find that to be really gross. Like, I think people should have the the the moral courage to just be like, no. That system is wrong and stupid, and you shouldn’t believe it. I would always prefer somebody who says that over somebody who says, oh, well, everything’s true. The Baha’i this is why, like, when it comes to Catholics, we like the Catholics. It’s it’s very clear in our video. Like, we like SSPX. And one of SSPX’s core disagreements with the Vatican is that they should say that people with beliefs like ours are not true and or with more authority say that they’re not true, and the Vatican refuses that. And even with that being the case, I still prefer them even though they would condemn us more harshly because they have the the strengths of character to have a belief system.
Simone Collins :
Yeah. Fair enough.
Malcolm Collins :
So the behind face grew out of the short lived Babi movement in mid nineteenth century Iran. In May 1844, a young merchant in Sharzar Sadia Alpham Mohammed declared himself the Bab or Gate. He claimed to be a promised Qail Madhay Shay of Islam, and more importantly, the forerunner of a still greater manifestation of God who would soon appear. His teaching spread rapidly. The Persian clergy and state responded with severe persecution. The Bab was executed in Tabirz in 1850, and an estimated 20,000 Babis were killed in the following years.
Simone Collins :
Oh my gosh. Wait. So why was he executed for creating
Malcolm Collins :
No. Because he said Islam? I mean, he didn’t create a religion. He just said a a prophet’s about to appear. Very important prophet, which sorta he teed it up for another guy.
Simone Collins :
I mean, he’s still preaching a deviation from the religious norm. So but why was he killed then?
Malcolm Collins :
Because they were annoyed, I guess, saying a new messiah is gonna come. That’s a
Simone Collins :
pretty big Yeah. You know? Because of his chosen deviation. Okay.
Malcolm Collins :
I mean, especially within Islam. You know how they are. One of the leading Babis was Miraz something, later known as the Baha’i Allah glory of god. Imprisoned in Tehran in 1852 after an attempt on the Shah’s life by a few radical Babis, he experienced a series of mystical revelation. He was released and exiled to Baghdad. There in the Garden Of Rubidan outside the city, he privately declared to a small group of companions that he was the one promised by the original Bab. He whom god shall make manifest. His this twelve day period is regarded by Baha as a formal beginning of the Baha, a dispensation. Further exiles followed from a number of major cities. From these places, Baha’u’llah wrote so I gotta see a bit better here. My eyes are waning. Before his death, Baha created an explain written covenant, the book of the covenant, and earlier tablets. He designed designated to his eldest son, the servant of God, as the sole authorized interpreter of his writings and the center of the covenant to whom all must turn. This prevented the kind of succession crises that destroyed all fragmented other movements. His son led the community through further development, travels to the West, and expansion of the faith beyond the Middle Eastern base. In his own will and testament, he appointed his eldest grandson, smart move, you know, keep him young and healthy, as the first guardian of the cause, the authorized interpreter and head of the faith, and outlined the guardianship systemic building, the administrative order, local and national spiritual assemblies, the translation and disseminator of text, and global teaching parts. He died in 1957 without appointing a succession to the guardian. No eligible lenient descendant met the strict criteria in the will. After a brief transitionary period under the hands of the cause of God, the universal house of justice was first elected in 1963 by the members of the National Spiritual Assemblies. It’s a nine member body elected every five years and is regarded as the supreme governing institution of the faith, guaranteed guidance in matters of the Baha’i community. Small schismatic groups have appeared, notably those claiming a continued guardianship, but they have remained marginal. The mainstream community stayed remarkably unified around the selected institution. The faith is deliberately nonclerical and geographically dispersed. There is no professional priesthood. All members share responsibility in teaching and administration through elected local and national spiritual assemblies. The World Council in Hephi, Israel on Mount Carmel, it’s a very pretty site that they have. Estimates of adherence typically fall in the five to 8,000,000 range. By the way, you should look up the the Baha’i Central Church in in Haifi. K. Very, very pretty.
Simone Collins :
Let’s see if I agree. Oh my. I mean, I’m not big on the architecture, but I mean
Malcolm Collins :
And it’s, like, right in the middle of the city. It’s got great views.
Simone Collins :
It’s giving Islamic Mormon temple.
Malcolm Collins :
That’s exactly what it feels like. It’s an Islamic Mormon temple.
Simone Collins :
Looks like a yep. There you go. Right there. You don’t even need to look up pictures. Wow.
Malcolm Collins :
But I’m gonna be honest. Tate more tasteful than the Mormon temples. No. I disagree. Mormon temples go over where the the interior of a Mormon temple is one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen.
Simone Collins :
Okay. I haven’t been inside. Look up into your room. You inside a Mormon temple?
Malcolm Collins :
You’ve seen pictures. I took up a sim a picture of, like, one of their ceremonies.
Simone Collins :
Yeah. Well, that’s never gonna be us.
Malcolm Collins :
You know? I look malls.
Simone Collins :
Oh, no. They don’t. They they look they look very Mormon, very beige. It’s it’s fine. My my only grievance is they they overstack marriage timing so that the brides or or they they they don’t have enough bridal preparation rooms where you can kinda, like, get dressed and powder your nose or whatever. No. These are great. The baptismal pools are super interesting. The I don’t think so. No. I disagree. Just we’re gonna have to agree to disagree. I also like, they’re less gaudy than ew, actually. I don’t like the I don’t like the cows. I don’t like the cows. Why? Why? There’s a baptistery in one of the temples that, like, the base of the tub has all these cows with horns, like bulls, and it just freaks me out. Something about bulls does not I’m super not okay with them. I don’t know why. Mm-mm. Something I there was some, like, temple in in Beijing that I saw too where, like, something about bull sacrifice. And I just I don’t know. Something about it just screams nope to me. So oh, well.
Malcolm Collins :
Not a fan. Okay. So Not a here. What did the Baha’is believe? Because you you weren’t familiar. Yeah. God is one unknowable in his essence and the creator of all things. Human beings know God only through his manifestations
Simone Collins :
Okay.
Malcolm Collins :
Which are the various worldly religions. Fair. Progressive revelation, religious truth is relative and progressive, not final. God educates humanity through a succession of manifestations of god, divine messengers. Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, the Bab, and Okay.
Simone Collins :
Well, we’re getting a little wide here.
Malcolm Collins :
Yeah. One of the things I really don’t like about the Baha’i is the founding leaders were so arrogant in the way they laid things out that I find it to be quite repellent.
Simone Collins :
Where is the arrogance in here? They’re, like, conceding to everyone. Well, but
Malcolm Collins :
they’re also naming themselves among those people. Oh. Oh. They’re like, you know, like, God, Abraham, Moses, and me.
Simone Collins :
That’s that’s super common among religious founders, though, you know, because they were chosen by whatever. No.
Malcolm Collins :
We just went through multiple religions.
Simone Collins :
Right. We oh. Is so personal
Malcolm Collins :
to mine.
Simone Collins :
Brazilian lady saw ghosts and stuff. And
Malcolm Collins :
Yeah. And she said that she’s living as punishment for her past sins when she abused her power in in past lives. But You see, she was super powerful. Of all of these traditions, and these were just picked out to be particularly interesting ones or ones that were introduced intentionally built. No. This is the first one. Like, we were not choosing for nonarrogant founders who had the most sociopathically arrogant founder. Mhmm. That’s the other thing that really gets me wrong on them. I I I he’s not humble enough to be a true prophet to me. I think that that’s that’s one of the things that is, you know, normal, I think, in the the the real prophets. And and this is again, Joseph Smith falls into this category for me as well, is that they don’t go around bragging about being profits or, you know, create these sorts of, like, exclusionary systems. Anyway, each brings teachings suited for the capacity and needs of the age, which is similar to what techno Puritans believe. We just don’t believe all of them were right. And the essential spiritual truths are one while social laws change. Baha’i revelation is at the most recent, but not the last, for the present cycle of human maturity. This iterative model is central. Unity of god, unity of manifestation, unity of religion, and the organic oneness of humanity. All major religions are seen as successive chapters of one unfolding faith. Science and religion, they must agree. True science and true religion are complementary aspects of one reality. Conflict between them is the result of error and what of one side or the other. Human nature and purpose, the human soul is immortal. Life is a process of spiritual development through acquisition of virtues to humanity. The ultimate aim is the establishment of a just, peaceful global civilization. No clergy, elected institutions. Authority is vested in written texts and in democratically elected bodies at local national spiritual assembly and the universal house of justice. Individual interpretation is free, but only the authorized institutions, historically, the guardian, now the house of justice, give binding interpretations of legislation for the community. Social teachings, equality of women and men, elimination of all forms of prejudice, universal education, harmony of science and religion, and independent investigation of truth, a world federal system, and the spiritual solution of economic problems among others. You could see it’s, like, the most hippie dippie of hippie dippie version of, like, techno puritanism.
Simone Collins :
Yeah. Yeah. That yeah. I mean, I I guess you could even say that we would agree that Buddhism is an act of god. It’s just what we would call the baseless, which is an inversion god. Well, it’s not an inversion of god. It’s a culling system. It deletes those who don’t carry forward the vision that humanity needs in order to thrive. And so why not create a religion that is inherently designed to remove them from contention Yeah. In a in a, you know, in a harm reduction kind of way too. That that makes sense. I mean, I I like seeing Buddhism as a tool of the basilisk, with the basilisk being in techno puritan lore, kind of the equivalent of, like, a police force. You like the police if you’re not doing anything wrong. And if the police come and stop you
Malcolm Collins :
from doing something, you should probably not be doing that thing. So we like we like the basilisk. It’s not like Well, it’s important to remember that even Satan and the reason we don’t use the word Satan is because in a modern pop culture context, it has taken on a meaning that is different than its literal translation. Too much baggage. Yeah. The literal translation, by the way, if if you’re unaware of the word Satan, is the opposer Yeah. Or the one who opposes. And I think Basilisk just captures that better in in a modern pop cultural context, like this inevitable force of opposition rather than a, you know, a distinct guy, which I’ve always had to be a very strange interpretation, which really I think the only part of the bible that really pushes for that is maybe Job, but, like, it’s clearly meant to be, like, a parable. I don’t think God really did that to a guy just to make a point. No. Actually, I’m fairly certain that, like, if if god is a remotely decent god, he didn’t intentionally choose to have all those things happen to Job just to prove a point to Satan.
Simone Collins :
Right? Like The Old Testament was a collection, a curated, essentially, collection of a bunch of different, very ancient religious stories. And as you pointed out, things like floods were literary conventions. I I haven’t haven’t gotten to the book of Job yet, but and haven’t asked a lot of questions about it yet or any yet of my of Hannah, my biblical scholar on rfab.ai,
Malcolm Collins :
which
Simone Collins :
is so useful. I made an agent named Hannah. She’s public. I think anyone can find her. I should link her in this episode. You you I I made her an expert in all the different translations of the bible, all of the the historical biblical texts, and other important religious texts, plus the history and and historical nonreligious context of the of the old and new testament in broad times. So you can really ask deep questions. Like, when I asked I thought when I I read this part about a man cannot pass his seed through the fire to Moloch or whatever, I was like, oh, is this about not masturbating? But, no, it turns out it it’s a prohibition on child sacrifice, and I didn’t realize that. But a lot of people read that passage and think that it’s about it’s about not masturbating. Right?
Malcolm Collins :
Like Yeah.
Simone Collins :
Anyway, I I haven’t asked about the the book of Job, but it seems like kind of you’re you’re gonna have to have in any story about god being good some explanation as to why things happen to good people, presumably. Right? And and and you have to have a story to kind of explain to people, look. You just gotta keep going even though things feel deeply unfair. Even though you don’t understand it, you have to trust in god. But I I I think a lot of people struggle with that story. I I don’t. I can’t wrap my head around it. I don’t know if you have.
Malcolm Collins :
But we can get to that in a in a future track. I’ll I’ll go through it. I absolutely love you, Simone. I find these conversations very interesting. I think it’s fun that you guys are getting behind the scenes, like, track building information because these conversations that we just had are going to we haven’t recorded it yet, the next track, on why religions fail, and you should link the census that we did on religions here in this episode show notes. Oh, and you could also link the census that we’ve been putting together on because it is a web page on TikTok puritanism right now on all the places in the bible where it says either you should gather at dedicated worship spaces Yeah. Or you shouldn’t gather at dedicated worship spaces. And we go through and we color code them, and we go through the different interpretations that each could have. Because that’s the way I do this before I I do something. I’m very dedicated to the process. I’m I’m like, I will not say something if it is not entirely biblically backed. It’s just whenever have an intuition about something, it turns out that I’m just like, this is probably the way I’d structure it. You get the vast majority of biblical sources agreeing. Is that because the bible is actually a very good guide for how to build a religion in a society? Maybe.
Simone Collins :
I really appreciate that. I I appreciate the thoroughness. And and, hopefully, people because, I mean, the vast, vast, vast minority of people listening are interested in techno puritanism personally, but I think it’s interesting to get an insight into what people are thinking about when trying to intentionally build a religion, which kind of matters because, apparently, what, around two thirds of people who try to intentionally build a religion That isn’t antinatalist. That isn’t antinatalist actually Yeah. Well, and even those who don’t. You know? Like, I learned in my history class about the shakers. I learned about the one Oneida church. Right? Like, so even these small little ones, it wouldn’t even be considered things that built traction are still churches that kids learn about in history books and and think about that still managed to have a nontrivial influence on American policy and communities like the the the influence they had on on orphanages and orphan children, for example, and what happened after they disappeared. And many of the institutions we have today are the product of the failure of institutions that some of these small religions tried to set up, for example. I just think that’s super interesting. So, hopefully, it’s of of some intellectual utility
Malcolm Collins :
to those listening
Simone Collins :
despite any Yeah. Any interest or any lack of interest in
Malcolm Collins :
Well, I mean, I think it’s it’s it’s an interesting project for anyone because a lot of people are seeing it, and they’re seeing the things that we do, and then they they borrow them or they look back at one of the things I’ve noticed is a lot of listeners who are of different versions of of of Christianity, they see the stuff we find about the bible, like the the Genesis one we did recently on Genesis five and how it matches historical periods and sort of affirms Genesis as a true source. And they’re like, wow. That really helps me. Right? Even the ones going over, like, the face we did today, I’m sure there’s some things you heard where you’re like, well, you know, I wouldn’t mind doing more of that. You know, the the dressing up in costumes or
Simone Collins :
you know? Just better construction, please. We we have the technology today. We have the YouTube tutorials. You know? Like, there’s just no excuse anymore.
Malcolm Collins :
No. Anyway, I I I also love, and I think we’re very lucky for this, that our religion would attract the schizo population the least because they’re the
Simone Collins :
most dangerous. Yeah. Well, really.
Malcolm Collins :
Because it it it they’re gonna be drawn to much more mysticism minded stuff.
Simone Collins :
Oh, that’s a fair point. Yeah. So just for context, people who grow any any level of online following, the number one risk to them isn’t some kind of, like, super fan or person who really hates them. It is literally people with schizophrenia. And this is just something that has shown up again and again in various scary incidents that have happened with people who become famous or have a lot of followers. So it it now seems like people are trying to weaponize schizophrenics through targeted doxings online. So if someone really hates someone or, like, let’s say it it’s it’s almost sometimes the equivalent of putting a hit out on someone. If some if you know that someone’s famous enough to have a lot of schizophrenic followers, people are now attempting to basically summon schizophrenics to find them and hurt them Yeah. By just trying to release their information online where those people will see it. It’s like putting out a hit on someone in a way that is much less likely to get you incriminated in a crime, and it’s incredibly evil. But the the risk posed by people with untreated schizophrenia is incredibly high, which is another reason why it’s really messed up that we don’t have some kind of asylum system. I mean, there are so many very public instances now of people repeatedly hurting other people, committing crimes despite their families begging judges to have them incarcerated or put away or whatever, just, like, not exposed to the the general population, and it’s not happening anymore. I’ve outlined an episode on the democratic socialists of America. If any small percentage of their vision for The United States is implemented, It’s like, just maximize just maximize that in our in our in our world. It’s very scary. I’m looking forward to doing that episode. And a reminder to everyone who’s listening that you are extremely welcome to suggest episodes. We love the suggestions. We discuss them every morning, and we we do a lot of them. So we appreciate that.
Malcolm Collins :
Love you, Simone.
Simone Collins :
I love you, Malcolm. What am I making you for dinner?
Malcolm Collins :
What do you want? Well, what do we what do we got?
Simone Collins :
So the default is queso, or you can have a quesadilla. Or Quesadilla. You can have quioso lasagna, or you could have that, like, sweet pork bell pork belly with
Malcolm Collins :
Oh, I haven’t had that in ages. Let’s do But would you
Simone Collins :
like me to add to it when I, like, zhuzh it up for you?
Malcolm Collins :
Do we have any peppers or any onion?
Simone Collins :
Yes. Onion. So saute onion with garlic and ginger and then throw in the
Malcolm Collins :
pork. Yeah.
Simone Collins :
Serve over rice.
Malcolm Collins :
No. No. Not over rice. French fries.
Simone Collins :
Oh, okay. Korean french fries or sweet potato fries?
Malcolm Collins :
French Korean french fries.
Simone Collins :
Why did I ask? Okay. And would you like that with the green onion we have left?
Malcolm Collins :
Yes. They could
Simone Collins :
Cooked or uncooked?
Malcolm Collins :
The green onions throw on near the end.
Simone Collins :
Near the end. Okay. So cooked, but not long. Yeah. Okay. So first, normal onions, saute in butter with garlic and ginger, then add the sweet pork belly stuff, then add at the very end green onions. Serve alongside fries, not over. Correct? We don’t want salami, isagi fries. But
Malcolm Collins :
Yeah. Alongside you you know all the stuff.
Simone Collins :
Serves things on top of fry. It makes me extremely angry when people do, like, chili fries where they just, like, take perfectly good crisp fries, and they essentially dump soup on top of them. Like, what are you doing? What are you why did you do that? People commit food crimes every day.
Malcolm Collins :
Should be arrested.
Simone Collins :
Exactly. Yeah. They need to be beaten by the cooking police. Beaten by
Malcolm Collins :
Alright. Love you, Simone.
Simone Collins :
I love you too. Bye.