Podcast appearances and mentions of christian scientists

In this thrilling episode, Vicki Atkinson and I have the pleasure of chatting with the captivating thriller author, Carl Vonderau.Carl left the world of international banking to become a writer, and he masterfully weaves his banking knowledge and upbringing as a Christian Scientist into his novels.Carl takes us on a journey as he shares his meticulous research process for the locations in his books. His dedication to capturing the essence of each place is truly fascinating.We admire and chuckle at Carl's language skills. He shares the wisdom that to speak a foreign language, you must be willing to embrace embarrassment.Get an exclusive preview of Carl's upcoming book, "Past Due." Discover why one of his core themes is the necessity for families to grow and evolve.This is a must-listen episode featuring an intriguing author, adventurer, and family man, Carl Vonderau. We know you'll love it!Links for this episodeEpisode 113 show notesCarl Vonderau » Carl VonderauCarl Vonderau on AmazonCarl Vonderau on GoodreadsFrom the hosts:Vicki's book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/Wynne's book about her beloved father: Finding My Father's Faith; Blog: https://wynneleon.com/

Listen to Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a world-renowned climate scientist, communicator, and committed follower of Jesus, being interviewed by veteran journalist, Lorna Dueck. Katharine is the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy, a Distinguished Professor at Texas Tech University, and one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People. In this episode, Katharine discusses climate change, and how the care of our planet was given to humans as a responsibility in Genesis 1. She also talks about how truly understanding what the Bible says can make us even more aware of the impact of climate change on the marginalized and encourages us to be active contributors to creation care.Read the transcript: biblesociety.ca/transcript-scripture-untangled-s10-ep1---Learn more about the Canadian Bible Society: biblesociety.caHelp people hear God speak: biblesociety.ca/donateConnect with us on Instagram: @canadianbiblesocietyWhether you're well-versed in Scripture or just starting out on your journey, The Bible Course offers a superb overview of the world's best-selling book.  This eight-session course will help you grow in your understanding of the Bible. Watch the first session of The Bible Course and learn more at biblecourse.ca. ---Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is a world-renowned climate scientist, communicator, and committed follower of Jesus. She is the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy, a Distinguished Professor at Texas Tech University, and one of TIME's "100 Most Influential People". But what sets her apart is how she bridges the worlds of science and faith with clarity, compassion, and conviction.With over 125 peer-reviewed publications and contributions to major climate assessments, Katharine helps communities and leaders understand how climate change affects the most vulnerable among us. She co-authored A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions with her husband, pastor and author Andrew Farley, and her bestselling book Saving Us offers a hopeful path forward.Named one of Christianity Today's “50 Women to Watch,” Katharine believes that caring for God's creation is a matter of loving our neighbour — especially the poor and the marginalized. Whether she's speaking in churches or briefing policymakers, her message is rooted in both scientific evidence and a deep conviction that our faith calls us to act.

What are the dangers of Christian Science Teachings?

Steve and Cat talk about the events in a rodeo that are so popular. Our one tough lady this week is Christian Scientist, Mary Baker Eddy. The Trump Bio Pic, "The Apprentice" is our What Ca Watchin. The Rugburn shot is our shot of the week. Cautious Clay is our Band of the Week.

*Patron-only Bonus Episode Teaser* Chelsea and guest Liz Culley (host of the Cool Cool Cool podcast) dissect Ellen DeGeneres' second memoir “Seriously...I'm Kidding,” plus her first memoir, and that infamous Buzzfeed article. They delve into the dual realities of Ellen's joyful public persona and the controversies that shadow her career. From pivotal moments from “The Ellen Show” with Dakota Johnson, Jessica Simpson, and Mariah Carey, to behind-the-scenes insights on her Christian Scientist upbringing and surprise vow renewal ceremony with wife Portia de Rossi, this discussion unpacks the complexities of Ellen's "be kind" brand, and the hardships she faced as the very first publicly gay woman to lead her own show on network TV.  We're going on tour in June! Tour info here! Where to pre-order Chelsea's book: Bookshop.org Find other places to pre-order Follow Chelsea: Instagram @chelseadevantez Join the cookie community: Become a member of the Patreon Show Notes: Anne Heche Episode Dolly Parton Episode Jessica Simpson Episode Our Jenny Jones Episode Portia & Ellen Renewing Their Vows The iconic Dakota Johnson interview Buzzfeed News: Former Employees Say Ellen's “Be Kind” Talk Show Mantra Masks A Toxic Work Culture Buzzfeed News: Dozens Of Former “Ellen Show” Employees Say Executive Producers Engaged In Rampant Sexual Misconduct And Harassment Where to find our Guest: Liz Culley Instagram Podcast IG Podcast *** Glamorous Trash is all about going high and low at the same time— Glam and Trash. We recap and book club celebrity memoirs, deconstruct pop culture, and sometimes, we cry! If you've ever referenced Mariah Carey in therapy... then this is the podcast for you. Thank you to our sponsors: Tanteo Tequila - @tanteotequila Pattern Brands - @patternbrands Libro.fm - Click here to get 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 with your first month of membership using code TRASH. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Baker Eddy did not have things easy. As a young girl, she was plagued with fits and ill health and then later much family tragedy made life even harder to bear. Mary found much comfort, though, in the scriptures and her study of them and this love of the the Bible would lead to her becoming one of the only women in modern history to have formed a major religion: Christian Scientists! Learn more about Mary's incredible story of resilience and the grassroots work she did establishing Christian Science here in the US and abroad. — A Broad is a woman who lives by her own rules. Broads You Should Know is the podcast about the Broads who helped shape our world! BroadsYouShouldKnow.com YT/IG/FB @BroadsYouShouldKnow & TW @BYSKpodcast — 3 Ways you can help support the podcast: Write a review on Apple Podcasts Share your favorite episode with a friend or on social Send us an email with a broad suggestion, question, or comment at BroadsYouShouldKnow@gmail.com — Broads You Should Know is hosted by Sara Gorsky. IG: @SaraGorsky Web master / site design: www.BroadsYouShouldKnow.com — Broads You Should Know is produced by Sara Gorsky & edited by Chloe Skye

Deborah Huebsch, CSB, from San Juan Capistrano, California, USAHear more from Deborah on this week's episode of Sentinel Watch.

Astrophysicist Hugh Ross came to his Christian faith in a unique way — through the Big Bang. In this episode of "The Glenn Beck Podcast," Glenn and Hugh discuss the creation of the world, from the dinosaurs to what Darwin got wrong in his theory of evolution. As it turns out, “birdbrain” is actually a compliment, but there's still no creature as exceptional as the human being. AI isn't smart enough to pass ninth-grade math, and Hugh argues that even the advent of quantum computing will never make the Homo sapiens obsolete. Mankind's impact is so expansive that it even reaches the dark side of the moon, where, according to Hugh, NASA has the possibility of conducting research that could resolve the debate about the origin of human life once and for all. After a discussion about the scientific method, fossils, and bringing back the woolly mammoth, the conversation goes interstellar, as Hugh and Glenn talk about aliens and that one time Hugh told Carl Sagan that the Bible was the “Encyclopedia Galactica” he was looking for.     Sponsors:  Lear Capital: With over $3 billion in trusted transactions, thousands of five-star reviews, and a 24-hour risk-free purchase guarantee, Lear Capital is the precious metals leader you can trust. Call today for your free wealth protection guide and a $250 credit toward your first purchase at 800-957-GOLD.    Byrna: Not every emergency situation calls for lethal force. Sometimes, non-lethal is the right answer. That's where the Byrna Launcher comes in. Visit https://byrna.com/glenn for an exclusive 10% discount. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn how and why the untold stories of two pioneering Black African women Christian Scientists are resonating with contemporary women scholars and activists.

Today's discussion took us on a profound journey through moral dilemmas and life's tough questions. Patrick grappled with complex issues, like balancing family relationships and well-being when faced with a loved one's misconduct. He explored repentance and salvation, drawing parallels from Scripture with the parable of the fig tree. Patrick also did not shy away from politics, emphasizing the importance of moral consistency in leadership. To our young listeners seeking guidance, to those questioning where happiness and moral principles intersect, we provided perspective rooted in faith and scripture. Anonymous email from a Christian Scientist responding to a conversation Patrick had with a nurse a couple of days ago about the moral responsibility to provide medical intervention even if it's against someone's religious beliefs Patrick responds to an email about refusing to vote for anyone who supports abortion Mike - IVF: How can the church say it is wrong since God allowed life to be born that way? (12:29) Patrick Madrid: The Mass is the Mass is the Mass (Patrick is excited about a new Mass book coming out soon) (18:15) Natalie – Can I be happy for my friend who is using IVF to conceive a child? (23:04) Margaret (12-years-old) - How do I argue with a boy that thinks you are once saved, always saved? Gaby - My mother-in-law is having an affair with her daughter's ex-boyfriend. She is not living with her husband anymore, but they are still married. This has caused a rift in the family. We don't want her to baby sit our kids anymore. Is that okay?

Audio Download Questions Covered: 04:50 – Was Jesus sacrificed because God got tired of all the animal sacrifices? 11:09 – Why do we believe that non-Catholics cannot achieve heaven? Where does it say this in the Catechism? 16:13 – Are the groups like Christian Scientists, Salvation Army, Quakers etc. Christians since they don't baptize? 19:02 […]

Questions Covered: 04:50 – Was Jesus sacrificed because God got tired of all the animal sacrifices? 11:09 – Why do we believe that non-Catholics cannot achieve heaven? Where does it say this in the Catechism? 16:13 – Are the groups like Christian Scientists, Salvation Army, Quakers etc. Christians since they don’t baptize? 19:02 – Under what circumstances does a non-Catholic have access to the sacraments? 22:06 – What does it mean that Mary is the mediatrix of all graces? 29:37 – What’s a quick easy response to the question of why we pray the rosary? 31:57 – Can you explain the difference between venial and mortal sin? 42:07 – What does John mean in 1 John 5:17 when he says to pray for people who have not committed a sin that leads to death but doesn't say to pray for those who commit a sin that leads to death? 52:50 – I didn’t receive proper absolution after confession. He didn’t say the proper words. What do you suggest I do? …

It took Carl Vonderau a long time to become a full-time author. He left his native Cleveland to study economics at Stanford, then spent more than 30 years as a banker in the United States, Latin America and North Africa — international settings that served as inspiration for his crime novels “Murderabilia” and “Saving Myles.” His work was honored with a Left Coast Crime award for Best Debut, and a San Diego Book award for Best Mystery.  We discuss:  >> Why behind every crime is a family >> The importance of setting and point of view. >> Focusing on “voice” >> The use of objects in character development and storytelling >> Writing 50,000 words in a month. >> Getting an agent through a one-sentence pitch >> Using a developmental editor >> Being raised a Christian Scientist >> Etc.  Learn more about Carl Vonderau here: https://carlvonderau.com  Novelist Spotlight is produced and hosted by Mike Consol, author of “Lolita Firestone: A Supernatural Novel,” “Family Recipes: A Novel About Italian Culture, Catholic Guilt and the Culinary Crime of the Century” and “Hardwood: A Novel About College Basketball and Other Games Young Men Play.” Buy them on any major bookselling site. Write to Mike Consol at novelistspotlight@gmail.com. We hope you will subscribe and share the link with any family, friends or colleagues who might benefit from this program. 

From time to time I'll talk with non ex-Christian Scientists as a way of seeing the similarities between these groups and the common pathways out. Today I talk with ex-Evangelical Sarah, who talks about purity culture, fear of hellfire, and balancing relationships with family still in

The hilarious Laurie Douglas joins Randy for this episode of the podcast.  The two open the podcast talking about how they passed the time during the pandemic. Laurie talks about having to deal with a day job. Randy asks Laurie about Texas culture. Randy wonders aloud what teenage Jesus was like. Laurie discusses being raised as a Christian Scientist. The move on to discuss pet psychics and what a pet would want if it could talk. This leads to Randy talking about psychedelics and how he has spoken to animals. Laurie and Randy move on to talk about the apocalypse and their own demise. Laurie discusses giving her first handjob. They close with the news - Apple is getting rid of green text bubbles for non-iPhone users, exposure to semen can lower depression, and a study found that 1 in 4 young people will be single for life.   Outro: “Funk Doctor” by Gee Dubs   Social Media: Instagram: @randyvalerio @readysetblowpodcast Twitter: @randytvalerio @readysetblowpodcast TikTok: @randyvaleriocomedy @readysetblowpod YouTube:   @randyvaleriocomedy   @readysetblowpodcast  

Hear about the influence Christian Science had among the Mormon elite in late nineteenth-century Salt Lake City.

I can't think of anyone who would intentionally sign away their freedoms to a dangerous sect or a toxic community, so how does one find themselves in this type of environment? After talking with my guest Lauren Hunter, who shares her story of leaving Christian Science, I realized that often, it comes down to a very simple unassuming entry.   Christian Science was the faith of her family so Lauren was born into the teachings, practices and beliefs. Family is key. People find themselves in cults just like people join gangs or enter into relationships that end up being toxic because initially they feel like family and ultimately who doesn't want to belong? I've often said this, when we look at society as a whole, (our worries, fears, anxieties, or motivations to accept less than we are worthy of, when we allow people to violate our bodies and our minds etc.)we can peel away all the different choices that people use to cope and self protect and I personally believe that we can all be boiled down to one thing. We fear being alone. I also think that our fear of being alone has to do with the way we were created. It's in our DNA to seek relationship and yet nothing in this world will fully satisfy. Ultimately, our desire for relationship is to draw us to the One who created us. We were created for an intimate, real relationship with the living God. It was His original plan for us to dwell face to face with Him but when sin entered the Garden of Eden we were separated from Him. We're left with the need, a deep desire to find home, to find God. This desire to find the One who fills us is a beautiful gift from the Father because once we pass from here, our soul, the part of us that lives eternally will face one of two realities, heaven or hell. God has created in us the desire to know Him so that we might choose Him and therefore live eternally with Him.  The thought of not spending eternity with God grieves His heart and so He gives us an innate desire to avoid being eternally alone (separated from love, joy, peace, a place where there is no pain, no tears etc.). It is the goodness and kindness of God to give us yet another way to seek Him and choose Him. That's the heart of a Father, to give His children every opportunity to choose Him, to have another chance at eternity with Him. Being heard, seen, loved, valued, not being alone is an incredibly powerful motivator for people to stay in destructive relationships be that faith based, dating, friendship, marriage, work etc.   Lauren talks about the red flags that we need to be aware of. Granted we may not discern them at first because there is a conditioning, a soft build up to the actual abuse but some of the ones Lauren touched on were things like, the requirement to be obedient to the belief system, don't question their authority, distrust outsiders, shoulder any burdens you experience, and undermining trust in yourself. After you hear all that Lauren talks about in this conversation you're going to want to get her book, Leaving Christian Science. She shares more of her personal story and includes 9 other people who share their experiences and why they too left the false faith.  Each chapter addresses the various theological inconsistencies taught by Mary Baker Eddy, the Founder of Christian Science. Lauren and her guests compare Christian Science themes such as matter, Jesus Christ, contagion, prayer, and sin. Examining these inconsistencies provides a deeper understanding of the Christian faith that Lauren now pursues in freedom and truth. Let's get this conversation started.  Live Loved and Thrive! @alifeofthrive.com Connect with Lauren: Website: laurenhunter.net Amazon Book Page: https://amzn.to/32LKPRk Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/laurenhunter.net/ Instagram: https://instagram.com/mamahunter100 Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenhhunter LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenhhunter/ Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/laurenhhunter/ Amazon Author Central: https://amazon.com/author/laurenhunter NetGalley Widget Link to review copy: https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/203967 Goodreads Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/lauren_hunter BookBub Author Page: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/lauren-hunter Bio: Lauren Hunter is a writer who loves the big picture of God's journey we are all on together. Raised in a fourth-generation family of Christian Scientists, Lauren left her family's faith behind at the age of 25 to become an evangelical Christian. She is married to her high school sweetheart, and they live in Northern California with their four children.

GamerDude has gone back to Season One for another one of his "very special episodes." He has re-mastered and re-edited this episode about Christian Science to get a cleaner, better-sounding version. In this episode, he talks about what Christian Science is, and what it was like to grow up in a religion where you don't visit doctors or take medicine. He talks about what it was like to grow up that way, and also discusses why he stopped following the religion when he got older. He also talks about the effect he believes it had on his parents as they got older as well.

I review the history of child abuse, both religious-based abuse as well as secular abuse.  Starting with the disturbing global practice of “foundation sacrifices” and running through modern times, I describe how the rights of children have not improved that much since before the United States was formed with respect to being protected from their parents' religious-based medical neglect (aka "Faith Healing".)  I discuss why politicians refused to help these children and urge attorneys to seek out cases where we can rescue these children and start to fix the damage done by notorious Christian Scientists in the Nixon administration. 

Fr. Brian gives us a lesson on Faith and Reason and St. Justin Martyr, Are Quakers, Christian Scientists, and Mormons considered Christians?, Are the Psalms numbered differently?, and more on today's Open Line with Fr. Brian Mullady.

Save Souls from a Tshirt: https://sjwellfire.com/shop/ Join our newsletter: https://sjwellfire.com/ Gab: https://gab.com/sjwellfire. Support us to save souls via the news: https://sjwellfire.com/support/. or scott@sjwellfire.com paypal Prepare: https://sjwellfire.com/partners/ Cities around the world are sinking. The article from the NY Post about New York City is sinking discusses the issue of heavy buildings. But a Christian Scientist said this has to do with erosion from tilde pools getting more aggressive and washing away the foundation and sand. Could this be from primary water coming from below as the days of Noah? We discuss the evidence of meteorite sites really are geysers. Science has made an extraordinary leap forward, revealing the existence of an underground ocean of unfathomable proportions. It lies hidden beneath our feet, silently dwarfing all the water bodies we know. This underground ocean, often referred to as "primary water," has been uncovered through years of meticulous research and groundbreaking scientific exploration. It is an aquatic treasure trove beyond our wildest dreams. You need to think of how Libya tapped into primary water to green the desert that NATO destroyed. There is a war on your water rights demonstrated by the lack of deep drilling, toilet to water World Bank Projects, and Smart meters. “Water is not a human right.” We believe this discovery is the key to understanding ancient cataclysms, such as the legendary "great flood." And who better to enlighten us on this topic than the renowned Joe Rogan himself? A snippet from a Joe Rogan, where Joe Rogan and a scientist guest discuss ancient flood evidence from various geological observable facts, demonstrating the fact of a global cataclysm. Joe Rogan's insightful discussions have shed light on the evidence of a cataclysmic event in our ancient past. Could these facts be remnants of a real-life "great flood"? It is self evident that the underground ocean holds the key to this enigmatic piece of history? We stand at the brink of a new era of discovery! The existence of the underground ocean, its unfathomable depths, and its evident connection to ancient cataclysms has left the scientific community astounded. Brace yourselves, for the secrets of the underground ocean are just beginning to surface! If you are a Christian and live on the coast and own property, check your insurance and pray for what you need to do. Don't panic. Think about your water strategy moving forward. I purchased a water bucket to retrieve water from a well when the grid goes down. https://sjwellfire.com/prepare/

Favour Odenyi wrote about her experience reading the Monitor in an award-winning essay sponsored by DiscoveryBound, a national youth leadership program for Christian Scientists. Also, today's stories including: The failure of Silicon Valley Bank poses a test of confidence at a time when the economy is already challenged by inflation and rising interest rates, Donald Trump's grip on the GOP was widely proclaimed to be weakening, and The U.S. has long been the preeminent outside actor in the Middle East. Now China is asserting itself there, stealing Washington's diplomatic thunder. What does this portend? Join the Monitor's Kendra Nordin Beato and Ali Martin at csmonitor.com/daily.

Discover thought-provoking connections between Christian Science and women's rights movements of the twentieth century.

Episode 162 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Daydream Believer", and the later career of the Monkees, and how four Pinocchios became real boys. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-minute bonus episode available, on "Born to be Wild" by Steppenwolf. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources No Mixcloud this time, as even after splitting it into multiple files, there are simply too many Monkees tracks excerpted. The best versions of the Monkees albums are the triple-CD super-deluxe versions that used to be available from monkees.com , and I've used Andrew Sandoval's liner notes for them extensively in this episode. Sadly, though, none of those are in print. However, at the time of writing there is a new four-CD super-deluxe box set of Headquarters (with a remixed version of the album rather than the original mixes I've excerpted here) available from that site, and I used the liner notes for that here. Monkees.com also currently has the intermittently-available BluRay box set of the entire Monkees TV series, which also has Head and 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee. For those just getting into the group, my advice is to start with this five-CD set, which contains their first five albums along with bonus tracks. The single biggest source of information I used in this episode is the first edition of Andrew Sandoval's The Monkees; The Day-By-Day Story. Sadly that is now out of print and goes for hundreds of pounds. Sandoval released a second edition of the book in 2021, which I was unfortunately unable to obtain, but that too is now out of print. If you can find a copy of either, do get one. Other sources used were Monkee Business by Eric Lefcowitz, and the autobiographies of three of the band members and one of the songwriters — Infinite Tuesday by Michael Nesmith, They Made a Monkee Out of Me by Davy Jones, I'm a Believer by Micky Dolenz, and Psychedelic Bubble-Gum by Bobby Hart. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript When we left the Monkees, they were in a state of flux. To recap what we covered in that episode, the Monkees were originally cast as actors in a TV show, and consisted of two actors with some singing ability -- the former child stars Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz -- and two musicians who were also competent comic actors, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork.  The show was about a fictional band whose characters shared names with their actors, and there had quickly been two big hit singles, and two hit albums, taken from the music recorded for the TV show's soundtrack. But this had caused problems for the actors. The records were being promoted as being by the fictional group in the TV series, blurring the line between the TV show and reality, though in fact for the most part they were being made by session musicians with only Dolenz or Jones adding lead vocals to pre-recorded backing tracks. Dolenz and Jones were fine with this, but Nesmith, who had been allowed to write and produce a few album tracks himself, wanted more creative input, and more importantly felt that he was being asked to be complicit in fraud because the records credited the four Monkees as the musicians when (other than a tiny bit of inaudible rhythm guitar by Tork on a couple of Nesmith's tracks) none of them played on them. Tork, meanwhile, believed he had been promised that the group would be an actual group -- that they would all be playing on the records together -- and felt hurt and annoyed that this wasn't the case. They were by now playing live together to promote the series and the records, with Dolenz turning out to be a perfectly competent drummer, so surely they could do the same in the studio? So in January 1967, things came to a head. It's actually quite difficult to sort out exactly what happened, because of conflicting recollections and opinions. What follows is my best attempt to harmonise the different versions of the story into one coherent narrative, but be aware that I could be wrong in some of the details. Nesmith and Tork, who disliked each other in most respects, were both agreed that this couldn't continue and that if there were going to be Monkees records released at all, they were going to have the Monkees playing on them. Dolenz, who seems to have been the one member of the group that everyone could get along with, didn't really care but went along with them for the sake of group harmony. And Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, the production team behind the series, also took Nesmith and Tork's side, through a general love of mischief. But on the other side was Don Kirshner, the music publisher who was in charge of supervising the music for the TV show. Kirshner was adamantly, angrily, opposed to the very idea of the group members having any input at all into how the records were made. He considered that they should be grateful for the huge pay cheques they were getting from records his staff writers and producers were making for them, and stop whinging. And Davy Jones was somewhere in the middle. He wanted to support his co-stars, who he genuinely liked, but also, he was a working actor, he'd had other roles before, he'd have other roles afterwards, and as a working actor you do what you're told if you don't want to lose the job you've got. Jones had grown up in very severe poverty, and had been his family's breadwinner from his early teens, and artistic integrity is all very nice, but not as nice as a cheque for a quarter of a million dollars. Although that might be slightly unfair -- it might be fairer to say that artistic integrity has a different meaning to someone like Jones, coming from musical theatre and a tradition of "the show must go on", than it does to people like Nesmith and Tork who had come up through the folk clubs. Jones' attitude may also have been affected by the fact that his character in the TV show didn't play an instrument other than the occasional tambourine or maracas. The other three were having to mime instrumental parts they hadn't played, and to reproduce them on stage, but Jones didn't have that particular disadvantage. Bert Schneider, one of the TV show's producers, encouraged the group to go into the recording studio themselves, with a producer of their choice, and cut a couple of tracks to prove what they could do. Michael Nesmith, who at this point was the one who was most adamant about taking control of the music, chose Chip Douglas to produce. Douglas was someone that Nesmith had known a little while, as they'd both played the folk circuit -- in Douglas' case as a member of the Modern Folk Quartet -- but Douglas had recently joined the Turtles as their new bass player. At this point, Douglas had never officially produced a record, but he was a gifted arranger, and had just arranged the Turtles' latest single, which had just been released and was starting to climb the charts: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Happy Together"] Douglas quit the Turtles to work with the Monkees, and took the group into the studio to cut two demo backing tracks for a potential single as a proof of concept. These initial sessions didn't have any vocals, but featured Nesmith on guitar, Tork on piano, Dolenz on drums, Jones on tambourine, and an unknown bass player -- possibly Douglas himself, possibly Nesmith's friend John London, who he'd played with in Mike and John and Bill. They cut rough tracks of two songs, "All of Your Toys", by another friend of Nesmith's, Bill Martin, and Nesmith's "The Girl I Knew Somewhere": [Excerpt: The Monkees, "The Girl I Knew Somewhere (Gold Star Demo)"] Those tracks were very rough and ready -- they were garage-band tracks rather than the professional studio recordings that the Candy Store Prophets or Jeff Barry's New York session players had provided for the previous singles -- but they were competent in the studio, thanks largely to Chip Douglas' steadying influence. As Douglas later said "They could hardly play. Mike could play adequate rhythm guitar. Pete could play piano but he'd make mistakes, and Micky's time on drums was erratic. He'd speed up or slow down." But the takes they managed to get down showed that they *could* do it. Rafelson and Schneider agreed with them that the Monkees could make a single together, and start recording at least some of their own tracks. So the group went back into the studio, with Douglas producing -- and with Lester Sill from the music publishers there to supervise -- and cut finished versions of the two songs. This time the lineup was Nesmith on guitar, Tork on electric harpsichord -- Tork had always been a fan of Bach, and would in later years perform Bach pieces as his solo spot in Monkees shows -- Dolenz on drums, London on bass, and Jones on tambourine: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "The Girl I Knew Somewhere (first recorded version)"] But while this was happening, Kirshner had been trying to get new Monkees material recorded without them -- he'd not yet agreed to having the group play on their own records. Three days after the sessions for "All of Your Toys" and "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", sessions started in New York for an entire album's worth of new material, produced by Jeff Barry and Denny Randell, and largely made by the same Red Bird Records team who had made "I'm a Believer" -- the same musicians who in various combinations had played on everything from "Sherry" by the Four Seasons to "Like a Rolling Stone" by Dylan to "Leader of the Pack", and with songs by Neil Diamond, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, Leiber and Stoller, and the rest of the team of songwriters around Red Bird. But at this point came the meeting we talked about towards the end of the "Last Train to Clarksville" episode, in which Nesmith punched a hole in a hotel wall in frustration at what he saw as Kirshner's obstinacy. Kirshner didn't want to listen to the recordings the group had made. He'd promised Jeff Barry and Neil Diamond that if "I'm a Believer" went to number one, Barry would get to produce, and Diamond write, the group's next single. Chip Douglas wasn't a recognised producer, and he'd made this commitment. But the group needed a new single out. A compromise was offered, of sorts, by Kirshner -- how about if Barry flew over from New York to LA to produce the group, they'd scrap the tracks both the group and Barry had recorded, and Barry would produce new tracks for the songs he'd recorded, with the group playing on them? But that wouldn't work either. The group members were all due to go on holiday -- three of them were going to make staggered trips to the UK, partly to promote the TV series, which was just starting over here, and partly just to have a break. They'd been working sixty-plus hour weeks for months between the TV series, live performances, and the recording studio, and they were basically falling-down tired, which was one of the reasons for Nesmith's outburst in the meeting. They weren't accomplished enough musicians to cut tracks quickly, and they *needed* the break. On top of that, Nesmith and Barry had had a major falling-out at the "I'm a Believer" session, and Nesmith considered it a matter of personal integrity that he couldn't work with a man who in his eyes had insulted his professionalism. So that was out, but there was also no way Kirshner was going to let the group release a single consisting of two songs he hadn't heard, produced by a producer with no track record. At first, the group were insistent that "All of Your Toys" should be the A-side for their next single: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "All Of Your Toys"] But there was an actual problem with that which they hadn't foreseen. Bill Martin, who wrote the song, was under contract to another music publisher, and the Monkees' contracts said they needed to only record songs published by Screen Gems. Eventually, it was Micky Dolenz who managed to cut the Gordian knot -- or so everyone thought. Dolenz was the one who had the least at stake of any of them -- he was already secure as the voice of the hits, he had no particular desire to be an instrumentalist, but he wanted to support his colleagues. Dolenz suggested that it would be a reasonable compromise to put out a single with one of the pre-recorded backing tracks on one side, with him or Jones singing, and with the version of "The Girl I Knew Somewhere" that the band had recorded together on the other. That way, Kirshner and the record label would get their new single without too much delay, the group would still be able to say they'd started recording their own tracks, everyone would get some of what they wanted. So it was agreed -- though there was a further stipulation. "The Girl I Knew Somewhere" had Nesmith singing lead vocals, and up to that point every Monkees single had featured Dolenz on lead on both sides. As far as Kirshner and the other people involved in making the release decisions were concerned, that was the way things were going to continue. Everyone was fine with this -- Nesmith, the one who was most likely to object in principle, in practice realised that having Dolenz sing his song would make it more likely to be played on the radio and used in the TV show, and so increase his royalties. A vocal session was arranged in New York for Dolenz and Jones to come and cut some vocal tracks right before Dolenz and Nesmith flew over to the UK. But in the meantime, it had become even more urgent for the group to be seen to be doing their own recording. An in-depth article on the group in the Saturday Evening Post had come out, quoting Nesmith as saying "It was what Kirshner wanted to do. Our records are not our forte. I don't care if we never sell another record. Maybe we were manufactured and put on the air strictly with a lot of hoopla. Tell the world we're synthetic because, damn it, we are. Tell them the Monkees are wholly man-made overnight, that millions of dollars have been poured into this thing. Tell the world we don't record our own music. But that's us they see on television. The show is really a part of us. They're not seeing something invalid." The press immediately jumped on the band, and started trying to portray them as con artists exploiting their teenage fans, though as Nesmith later said "The press decided they were going to unload on us as being somehow illegitimate, somehow false. That we were making an attempt to dupe the public, when in fact it was me that was making the attempt to maintain the integrity. So the press went into a full-scale war against us." Tork, on the other hand, while he and Nesmith were on the same side about the band making their own records, blamed Nesmith for much of the press reaction, later saying "Michael blew the whistle on us. If he had gone in there with pride and said 'We are what we are and we have no reason to hang our heads in shame' it never would have happened." So as far as the group were concerned, they *needed* to at least go with Dolenz's suggested compromise. Their personal reputations were on the line. When Dolenz arrived at the session in New York, he was expecting to be asked to cut one vocal track, for the A-side of the next single (and presumably a new lead vocal for "The Girl I Knew Somewhere"). When he got there, though, he found that Kirshner expected him to record several vocals so that Kirshner could choose the best. That wasn't what had been agreed, and so Dolenz flat-out refused to record anything at all. Luckily for Kirshner, Jones -- who was the most co-operative member of the band -- was willing to sing a handful of songs intended for Dolenz as well as the ones he was meant to sing. So the tape of "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You", the song intended for the next single, was slowed down so it would be in a suitable key for Jones instead, and he recorded the vocal for that: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You"] Incidentally, while Jones recorded vocals for several more tracks at the session -- and some would later be reused as album tracks a few years down the line -- not all of the recorded tracks were used for vocals, and this later gave rise to a rumour that has been repeated as fact by almost everyone involved, though it was a misunderstanding. Kirshner's next major success after the Monkees was another made-for-TV fictional band, the Archies, and their biggest hit was "Sugar Sugar", co-written and produced by Jeff Barry: [Excerpt: The Archies, "Sugar Sugar"] Both Kirshner and the Monkees have always claimed that the Monkees were offered "Sugar, Sugar" and turned it down. To Kirshner the moral of the story was that since "Sugar, Sugar" was a massive hit, it proved his instincts right and proved that the Monkees didn't know what would make a hit. To the Monkees, on the other hand, it showed that Kirshner wanted them to do bubblegum music that they considered ridiculous. This became such an established factoid that Dolenz regularly tells the story in his live performances, and includes a version of "Sugar, Sugar" in them, rearranged as almost a torch song: [Excerpt: Micky Dolenz, "Sugar, Sugar (live)"] But in fact, "Sugar, Sugar" wasn't written until long after Kirshner and the Monkees had parted ways. But one of the songs for which a backing track was recorded but no vocals were ever completed was "Sugar Man", a song by Denny Randell and Sandy Linzer, which they would later release themselves as an unsuccessful single: [Excerpt: Linzer and Randell, "Sugar Man"] Over the years, the Monkees not recording "Sugar Man" became the Monkees not recording "Sugar, Sugar". Meanwhile, Dolenz and Nesmith had flown over to the UK to do some promotional work and relax, and Jones soon also flew over, though didn't hang out with his bandmates, preferring to spend more time with his family. Both Dolenz and Nesmith spent a lot of time hanging out with British pop stars, and were pleased to find that despite the manufactured controversy about them being a manufactured group, none of the British musicians they admired seemed to care. Eric Burdon, for example, was quoted in the Melody Maker as saying "They make very good records, I can't understand how people get upset about them. You've got to make up your minds whether a group is a record production group or one that makes live appearances. For example, I like to hear a Phil Spector record and I don't worry if it's the Ronettes or Ike and Tina Turner... I like the Monkees record as a grand record, no matter how people scream. So somebody made a record and they don't play, so what? Just enjoy the record." Similarly, the Beatles were admirers of the Monkees, especially the TV show, despite being expected to have a negative opinion of them, as you can hear in this contemporary recording of Paul McCartney answering a fan's questions: Excerpt: Paul McCartney talks about the Monkees] Both Dolenz and Nesmith hung out with the Beatles quite a bit -- they both visited Sgt. Pepper recording sessions, and if you watch the film footage of the orchestral overdubs for "A Day in the Life", Nesmith is there with all the other stars of the period. Nesmith and his wife Phyllis even stayed with the Lennons for a couple of days, though Cynthia Lennon seems to have thought of the Nesmiths as annoying intruders who had been invited out of politeness and not realised they weren't wanted. That seems plausible, but at the same time, John Lennon doesn't seem the kind of person to not make his feelings known, and Michael Nesmith's reports of the few days they stayed there seem to describe a very memorable experience, where after some initial awkwardness he developed a bond with Lennon, particularly once he saw that Lennon was a fan of Captain Beefheart, who was a friend of Nesmith, and whose Safe as Milk album Lennon was examining when Nesmith turned up, and whose music at this point bore a lot of resemblance to the kind of thing Nesmith was doing: [Excerpt: Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, "Yellow Brick Road"] Or at least, that's how Nesmith always told the story later -- though Safe as Milk didn't come out until nearly six months later. It's possible he's conflating memories from a later trip to the UK in June that year -- where he also talked about how Lennon was the only person he'd really got on with on the previous trip, because "he's a compassionate person. I know he has a reputation for being caustic, but it is only a cover for the depth of his feeling." Nesmith and Lennon apparently made some experimental music together during the brief stay, with Nesmith being impressed by Lennon's Mellotron and later getting one himself. Dolenz, meanwhile, was spending more time with Paul McCartney, and with Spencer Davis of his current favourite band The Spencer Davis Group. But even more than that he was spending a lot of time with Samantha Juste, a model and TV presenter whose job it was to play the records on Top of the Pops, the most important British TV pop show, and who had released a record herself a couple of months earlier, though it hadn't been a success: [Excerpt: Samantha Juste, "No-one Needs My Love Today"] The two quickly fell deeply in love, and Juste would become Dolenz's first wife the next year. When Nesmith and Dolenz arrived back in the US after their time off, they thought the plan was still to release "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" with "The Girl I Knew Somewhere" on the B-side. So Nesmith was horrified to hear on the radio what the announcer said were the two sides of the new Monkees single -- "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You", and "She Hangs Out", another song from the Jeff Barry sessions with a Davy vocal. Don Kirshner had gone ahead and picked two songs from the Jeff Barry sessions and delivered them to RCA Records, who had put a single out in Canada. The single was very, *very* quickly withdrawn once the Monkees and the TV producers found out, and only promo copies seem to circulate -- rather than being credited to "the Monkees", both sides are credited to '"My Favourite Monkee" Davy Jones Sings'. The record had been withdrawn, but "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" was clearly going to have to be the single. Three days after the record was released and pulled, Nesmith, Dolenz and Tork were back in the studio with Chip Douglas, recording a new B-side -- a new version of "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", this time with Dolenz on vocals. As Jones was still in the UK, John London added the tambourine part as well as the bass: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "The Girl I Knew Somewhere (single version)"] As Nesmith told the story a couple of months later, "Bert said 'You've got to get this thing in Micky's key for Micky to sing it.' I said 'Has Donnie made a commitment? I don't want to go there and break my neck in order to get this thing if Donnie hasn't made a commitment. And Bert refused to say anything. He said 'I can't tell you anything except just go and record.'" What had happened was that the people at Columbia had had enough of Kirshner. As far as Rafelson and Schneider were concerned, the real problem in all this was that Kirshner had been making public statements taking all the credit for the Monkees' success and casting himself as the puppetmaster. They thought this was disrespectful to the performers -- and unstated but probably part of it, that it was disrespectful to Rafelson and Schneider for their work putting the TV show together -- and that Kirshner had allowed his ego to take over. Things like the liner notes for More of the Monkees which made Kirshner and his stable of writers more important than the performers had, in the view of the people at Raybert Productions, put the Monkees in an impossible position and forced them to push back. Schneider later said "Kirshner had an ego that transcended everything else. As a matter of fact, the press issue was probably magnified a hundred times over because of Kirshner. He wanted everybody thinking 'Hey, he's doing all this, not them.' In the end it was very self-destructive because it heightened the whole press issue and it made them feel lousy." Kirshner was out of a job, first as the supervisor for the Monkees and then as the head of Columbia/Screen Gems Music. In his place came Lester Sill, the man who had got Leiber and Stoller together as songwriters, who had been Lee Hazelwood's production partner on his early records with Duane Eddy, and who had been the "Les" in Philles Records until Phil Spector pushed him out. Sill, unlike Kirshner, was someone who was willing to take a back seat and just be a steadying hand where needed. The reissued version of "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" went to number two on the charts, behind "Somethin' Stupid" by Frank and Nancy Sinatra, produced by Sill's old colleague Hazelwood, and the B-side, "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", also charted separately, making number thirty-nine on the charts. The Monkees finally had a hit that they'd written and recorded by themselves. Pinocchio had become a real boy: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "The Girl I Knew Somewhere (single version)"] At the same session at which they'd recorded that track, the Monkees had recorded another Nesmith song, "Sunny Girlfriend", and that became the first song to be included on a new album, which would eventually be named Headquarters, and on which all the guitar, keyboard, drums, percussion, banjo, pedal steel, and backing vocal parts would for the first time be performed by the Monkees themselves. They brought in horn and string players on a couple of tracks, and the bass was variously played by John London, Chip Douglas, and Jerry Yester as Tork was more comfortable on keyboards and guitar than bass, but it was in essence a full band album. Jones got back the next day, and sessions began in earnest. The first song they recorded after his return was "Mr. Webster", a Boyce and Hart song that had been recorded with the Candy Store Prophets in 1966 but hadn't been released. This was one of three tracks on the album that were rerecordings of earlier outtakes, and it's fascinating to compare them, to see the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches. In the case of "Mr. Webster", the instrumental backing on the earlier version is definitely slicker: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Mr. Webster (1st Recorded Version)"] But at the same time, there's a sense of dynamics in the group recording that's lacking from the original, like the backing dropping out totally on the word "Stop" -- a nice touch that isn't in the original. I am only speculating, but this may have been inspired by the similar emphasis on the word "stop" in "For What It's Worth" by Tork's old friend Stephen Stills: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Mr. Webster (album version)"] Headquarters was a group album in another way though -- for the first time, Tork and Dolenz were bringing in songs they'd written -- Nesmith of course had supplied songs already for the two previous albums. Jones didn't write any songs himself yet, though he'd start on the next album, but he was credited with the rest of the group on two joke tracks, "Band 6", a jam on the Merrie Melodies theme “Merrily We Roll Along”, and "Zilch", a track made up of the four band members repeating nonsense phrases: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Zilch"] Oddly, that track had a rather wider cultural resonance than a piece of novelty joke album filler normally would. It's sometimes covered live by They Might Be Giants: [Excerpt: They Might Be Giants, "Zilch"] While the rapper Del Tha Funkee Homosapien had a worldwide hit in 1991 with "Mistadobalina", built around a sample of Peter Tork from the track: [Excerpt: Del Tha Funkee Homosapien,"Mistadobalina"] Nesmith contributed three songs, all of them combining Beatles-style pop music and country influences, none more blatantly than the opening track, "You Told Me", which starts off parodying the opening of "Taxman", before going into some furious banjo-picking from Tork: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "You Told Me"] Tork, meanwhile, wrote "For Pete's Sake" with his flatmate of the time, and that became the end credits music for season two of the TV series: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "For Pete's Sake"] But while the other band members made important contributions, the track on the album that became most popular was the first song of Dolenz's to be recorded by the group. The lyrics recounted, in a semi-psychedelic manner, Dolenz's time in the UK, including meeting with the Beatles, who the song refers to as "the four kings of EMI", but the first verse is all about his new girlfriend Samantha Juste: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Randy Scouse Git"] The song was released as a single in the UK, but there was a snag. Dolenz had given the song a title he'd heard on an episode of the BBC sitcom Til Death Us Do Part, which he'd found an amusing bit of British slang. Til Death Us Do Part was written by Johnny Speight, a writer with Associated London Scripts, and was a family sitcom based around the character of Alf Garnett, an ignorant, foul-mouthed reactionary bigot who hated young people, socialists, and every form of minority, especially Black people (who he would address by various slurs I'm definitely not going to repeat here), and was permanently angry at the world and abusive to his wife. As with another great sitcom from ALS, Steptoe and Son, which Norman Lear adapted for the US as Sanford and Son, Til Death Us Do Part was also adapted by Lear, and became All in the Family. But while Archie Bunker, the character based on Garnett in the US version, has some redeeming qualities because of the nature of US network sitcom, Alf Garnett has absolutely none, and is as purely unpleasant and unsympathetic a character as has ever been created -- which sadly didn't stop a section of the audience from taking him as a character to be emulated. A big part of the show's dynamic was the relationship between Garnett and his socialist son-in-law from Liverpool, played by Anthony Booth, himself a Liverpudlian socialist who would later have a similarly contentious relationship with his own decidedly non-socialist son-in-law, the future Prime Minister Tony Blair. Garnett was as close to foul-mouthed as was possible on British TV at the time, with Speight regularly negotiating with the BBC bosses to be allowed to use terms that were not otherwise heard on TV, and used various offensive terms about his family, including referring to his son-in-law as a "randy Scouse git". Dolenz had heard the phrase on TV, had no idea what it meant but loved the sound of it, and gave the song that title. But when the record came out in the UK, he was baffled to be told that the phrase -- which he'd picked up from a BBC TV show, after all -- couldn't be said normally on BBC broadcasts, so they would need to retitle the track. The translation into American English that Dolenz uses in his live shows to explain this to Americans is to say that "randy Scouse git" means "horny Liverpudlian putz", and that's more or less right. Dolenz took the need for an alternative title literally, and so the track that went to number two in the UK charts was titled "Alternate Title": [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Randy Scouse Git"] The album itself went to number one in both the US and the UK, though it was pushed off the top spot almost straight away by the release of Sgt Pepper. As sessions for Headquarters were finishing up, the group were already starting to think about their next album -- season two of the TV show was now in production, and they'd need to keep generating yet more musical material for it. One person they turned to was a friend of Chip Douglas'. Before the Turtles, Douglas had been in the Modern Folk Quartet, and they'd recorded "This Could Be the Night", which had been written for them by Harry Nilsson: [Excerpt: The MFQ, "This Could Be The Night"] Nilsson had just started recording his first solo album proper, at RCA Studios, the same studios that the Monkees were using. At this point, Nilsson still had a full-time job in a bank, working a night shift there while working on his album during the day, but Douglas knew that Nilsson was a major talent, and that assessment was soon shared by the group when Nilsson came in to demo nine of his songs for them: [Excerpt: Harry Nilsson, "1941 (demo)"] According to Nilsson, Nesmith said after that demo session "You just sat down there and blew our minds. We've been looking for songs, and you just sat down and played an *album* for us!" While the Monkees would attempt a few of Nilsson's songs over the next year or so, the first one they chose to complete was the first track recorded for their next album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones, Ltd., a song which from the talkback at the beginning of the demo was always intended for Davy Jones to sing: [Excerpt: Harry Nilsson, "Cuddly Toy (demo)"] Oddly, given his romantic idol persona, a lot of the songs given to Jones to sing were anti-romantic, and often had a cynical and misogynistic edge. This had started with the first album's "I Want to Be Free", but by Pisces, it had gone to ridiculous extremes. Of the four songs Jones sings on the album, "Hard to Believe", the first song proper that he ever co-wrote, is a straightforward love  song, but the other three have a nasty edge to them. A remade version of Jeff Barry's "She Hangs Out" is about an underaged girl, starts with the lines "How old d'you say your sister was? You know you'd better keep an eye on her" and contains lines like "she could teach you a thing or two" and "you'd better get down here on the double/before she gets her pretty little self in trouble/She's so fine". Goffin and King's "Star Collector" is worse, a song about a groupie with lines like "How can I love her, if I just don't respect her?" and "It won't take much time, before I get her off my mind" But as is so often the way, these rather nasty messages were wrapped up in some incredibly catchy music, and that was even more the case with "Cuddly Toy", a song which at least is more overtly unpleasant -- it's very obvious that Nilsson doesn't intend the protagonist of the song to be at all sympathetic, which is possibly not the case in "She Hangs Out" or "Star Collector". But the character Jones is singing is *viciously* cruel here, mocking and taunting a girl who he's coaxed to have sex with him, only to scorn her as soon as he's got what he wanted: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Cuddly Toy"] It's a great song if you like the cruelest of humour combined with the cheeriest of music, and the royalties from the song allowed Nilsson to quit the job at the bank. "Cuddly Toy", and Chip Douglas and Bill Martin's song "The Door Into Summer", were recorded the same way as Headquarters, with the group playing *as a group*, but as recordings for the album progressed the group fell into a new way of working, which Peter Tork later dubbed "mixed-mode". They didn't go back to having tracks cut for them by session musicians, apart from Jones' song "Hard to Believe", for which the entire backing track was created by one of his co-writers overdubbing himself, but Dolenz, who Tork always said was "incapable of repeating a triumph", was not interested in continuing to play drums in the studio. Instead, a new hybrid Monkees would perform most of the album. Nesmith would still play the lead guitar, Tork would provide the keyboards, Chip Douglas would play all the bass and add some additional guitar, and "Fast" Eddie Hoh, the session drummer who had been a touring drummer with the Modern Folk Quartet and the Mamas and the Papas, among others, would play drums on the records, with Dolenz occasionally adding a bit of acoustic guitar. And this was the lineup that would perform on the hit single from Pisces. "Pleasant Valley Sunday" was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, who had written several songs for the group's first two albums (and who would continue to provide them with more songs). As with their earlier songs for the group, King had recorded a demo: [Excerpt: Carole King, "Pleasant Valley Sunday (demo)"] Previously -- and subsequently -- when presented with a Carole King demo, the group and their producers would just try to duplicate it as closely as possible, right down to King's phrasing. Bob Rafelson has said that he would sometimes hear those demos and wonder why King didn't just make records herself -- and without wanting to be too much of a spoiler for a few years' time, he wasn't the only one wondering that. But this time, the group had other plans. In particular, they wanted to make a record with a strong guitar riff to it -- Nesmith has later referenced their own "Last Train to Clarksville" and the Beatles' "Day Tripper" as two obvious reference points for the track. Douglas came up with a riff and taught it to Nesmith, who played it on the track: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Pleasant Valley Sunday"] The track also ended with the strongest psychedelic -- or "psycho jello" as the group would refer to it -- freak out that they'd done to this point, a wash of saturated noise: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Pleasant Valley Sunday"] King was unhappy with the results, and apparently glared at Douglas the next time they met. This may be because of the rearrangement from her intentions, but it may also be for a reason that Douglas later suspected. When recording the track, he hadn't been able to remember all the details of her demo, and in particular he couldn't remember exactly how the middle eight went. This is the version on King's demo: [Excerpt: Carole King, "Pleasant Valley Sunday (demo)"] While here's how the Monkees rendered it, with slightly different lyrics: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Pleasant Valley Sunday"] I also think there's a couple of chord changes in the second verse that differ between King and the Monkees, but I can't be sure that's not my ears deceiving me. Either way, though, the track was a huge success, and became one of the group's most well-known and well-loved tracks, making number three on the charts behind "All You Need is Love" and "Light My Fire". And while it isn't Dolenz drumming on the track, the fact that it's Nesmith playing guitar and Tork on the piano -- and the piano part is one of the catchiest things on the record -- meant that they finally had a proper major hit on which they'd played (and it seems likely that Dolenz contributed some of the acoustic rhythm guitar on the track, along with Bill Chadwick, and if that's true all three Monkee instrumentalists did play on the track). Pisces is by far and away the best album the group ever made, and stands up well against anything else that came out around that time. But cracks were beginning to show in the group. In particular, the constant battle to get some sort of creative input had soured Nesmith on the whole project. Chip Douglas later said "When we were doing Pisces Michael would come in with three songs; he knew he had three songs coming on the album. He knew that he was making a lot of money if he got his original songs on there. So he'd be real enthusiastic and cooperative and real friendly and get his three songs done. Then I'd say 'Mike, can you come in and help on this one we're going to do with Micky here?' He said 'No, Chip, I can't. I'm busy.' I'd say, 'Mike, you gotta come in the studio.' He'd say 'No Chip, I'm afraid I'm just gonna have to be ornery about it. I'm not comin' in.' That's when I started not liking Mike so much any more." Now, as is so often the case with the stories from this period, this appears to be inaccurate in the details -- Nesmith is present on every track on the album except Jones' solo "Hard to Believe" and Tork's spoken-word track "Peter Percival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky", and indeed this is by far the album with *most* Nesmith input, as he takes five lead vocals, most of them on songs he didn't write. But Douglas may well be summing up Nesmith's *attitude* to the band at this point -- listening to Nesmith's commentaries on episodes of the TV show, by this point he felt disengaged from everything that was going on, like his opinions weren't welcome. That said, Nesmith did still contribute what is possibly the single most innovative song the group ever did, though the innovations weren't primarily down to Nesmith: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Daily Nightly"] Nesmith always described the lyrics to "Daily Nightly" as being about the riots on Sunset Strip, but while they're oblique, they seem rather to be about streetwalking sex workers -- though it's perhaps understandable that Nesmith would never admit as much. What made the track innovative was the use of the Moog synthesiser. We talked about Robert Moog in the episode on "Good Vibrations" -- he had started out as a Theremin manufacturer, and had built the ribbon synthesiser that Mike Love played live on "Good Vibrations", and now he was building the first commercially available easily usable synthesisers. Previously, electronic instruments had either been things like the clavioline -- a simple monophonic keyboard instrument that didn't have much tonal variation -- or the RCA Mark II, a programmable synth that could make a wide variety of sounds, but took up an entire room and was programmed with punch cards. Moog's machines were bulky but still transportable, and they could be played in real time with a keyboard, but were still able to be modified to make a wide variety of different sounds. While, as we've seen, there had been electronic keyboard instruments as far back as the 1930s, Moog's instruments were for all intents and purposes the first synthesisers as we now understand the term. The Moog was introduced in late spring 1967, and immediately started to be used for making experimental and novelty records, like Hal Blaine's track "Love In", which came out at the beginning of June: [Excerpt: Hal Blaine, "Love In"] And the Electric Flag's soundtrack album for The Trip, the drug exploitation film starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper and written by Jack Nicholson we talked about last time, when Arthur Lee moved into a house used in the film: [Excerpt: The Electric Flag, "Peter's Trip"] In 1967 there were a total of six albums released with a Moog on them (as well as one non-album experimental single). Four of the albums were experimental or novelty instrumental albums of this type. Only two of them were rock albums -- Strange Days by the Doors, and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, & Jones Ltd by the Monkees. The Doors album was released first, but I believe the Monkees tracks were recorded before the Doors overdubbed the Moog on the tracks on their album, though some session dates are hard to pin down exactly. If that's the case it would make the Monkees the very first band to use the Moog on an actual rock record (depending on exactly how you count the Trip soundtrack -- this gets back again to my old claim that there's no first anything). But that's not the only way in which "Daily Nightly" was innovative. All the first seven albums to feature the Moog featured one man playing the instrument -- Paul Beaver, the Moog company's West Coast representative, who played on all the novelty records by members of the Wrecking Crew, and on the albums by the Electric Flag and the Doors, and on The Notorious Byrd Brothers by the Byrds, which came out in early 1968. And Beaver did play the Moog on one track on Pisces, "Star Collector". But on "Daily Nightly" it's Micky Dolenz playing the Moog, making him definitely the second person ever to play a Moog on a record of any kind: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Daily Nightly"] Dolenz indeed had bought his own Moog -- widely cited as being the second one ever in private ownership, a fact I can't check but which sounds plausible given that by 1970 less than thirty musicians owned one -- after seeing Beaver demonstrate the instrument at the Monterey Pop Festival. The Monkees hadn't played Monterey, but both Dolenz and Tork had attended the festival -- if you watch the famous film of it you see Dolenz and his girlfriend Samantha in the crowd a *lot*, while Tork introduced his friends in the Buffalo Springfield. As well as discovering the Moog there, Dolenz had been astonished by something else: [Excerpt: The Jimi Hendrix Experience, "Hey Joe (Live at Monterey)"] As Peter Tork later put it "I didn't get it. At Monterey Jimi followed the Who and the Who busted up their things and Jimi bashed up his guitar. I said 'I just saw explosions and destruction. Who needs it?' But Micky got it. He saw the genius and went for it." Dolenz was astonished by Hendrix, and insisted that he should be the support act on the group's summer tour. This pairing might sound odd on paper, but it made more sense at the time than it might sound. The Monkees were by all accounts a truly astonishing live act at this point -- Frank Zappa gave them a backhanded compliment by saying they were the best-sounding band in LA, before pointing out that this was because they could afford the best equipment. That *was* true, but it was also the case that their TV experience gave them a different attitude to live performance than anyone else performing at the time. A handful of groups had started playing stadiums, most notably of course the Beatles, but all of these acts had come up through playing clubs and theatres and essentially just kept doing their old act with no thought as to how the larger space worked, except to put their amps through a louder PA. The Monkees, though, had *started* in stadiums, and had started out as mass entertainers, and so their live show was designed from the ground up to play to those larger spaces. They had costume changes, elaborate stage sets -- like oversized fake Vox amps they burst out of at the start of the show -- a light show and a screen on which film footage was projected. In effect they invented stadium performances as we now know them. Nesmith later said "In terms of putting on a show there was never any question in my mind, as far as the rock 'n' roll era is concerned, that we put on probably the finest rock and roll stage show ever. It was beautifully lit, beautifully costumed, beautifully produced. I mean, for Christ sakes, it was practically a revue." The Monkees were confident enough in their stage performance that at a recent show at the Hollywood Bowl they'd had Ike and Tina Turner as their opening act -- not an act you'd want to go on after if you were going to be less than great, and an act from very similar chitlin' circuit roots to Jimi Hendrix. So from their perspective, it made sense. If you're going to be spectacular yourselves, you have no need to fear a spectacular opening act. Hendrix was less keen -- he was about the only musician in Britain who *had* made disparaging remarks about the Monkees -- but opening for the biggest touring band in the world isn't an opportunity you pass up, and again it isn't such a departure as one might imagine from the bills he was already playing. Remember that Monterey is really the moment when "pop" and "rock" started to split -- the split we've been talking about for a few months now -- and so the Jimi Hendrix Experience were still considered a pop band, and as such had played the normal British pop band package tours. In March and April that year, they'd toured on a bill with the Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens, and Englebert Humperdinck -- and Hendrix had even filled in for Humperdinck's sick guitarist on one occasion. Nesmith, Dolenz, and Tork all loved having Hendrix on tour with them, just because it gave them a chance to watch him live every night (Jones, whose musical tastes were more towards Anthony Newley, wasn't especially impressed), and they got on well on a personal level -- there are reports of Hendrix jamming with Dolenz and Steve Stills in hotel rooms. But there was one problem, as Dolenz often recreates in his live act: [Excerpt: Micky Dolenz, "Purple Haze"] The audience response to Hendrix from the Monkees' fans was so poor that by mutual agreement he left the tour after only a handful of shows. After the summer tour, the group went back to work on the TV show and their next album. Or, rather, four individuals went back to work. By this point, the group had drifted apart from each other, and from Douglas -- Tork, the one who was still keenest on the idea of the group as a group, thought that Pisces, good as it was, felt like a Chip Douglas album rather than a Monkees album. The four band members had all by now built up their own retinues of hangers-on and collaborators, and on set for the TV show they were now largely staying with their own friends rather than working as a group. And that was now reflected in their studio work. From now on, rather than have a single producer working with them as a band, the four men would work as individuals, producing their own tracks, occasionally with outside help, and bringing in session musicians to work on them. Some tracks from this point on would be genuine Monkees -- plural -- tracks, and all tracks would be credited as "produced by the Monkees", but basically the four men would from now on be making solo tracks which would be combined into albums, though Dolenz and Jones would occasionally guest on tracks by the others, especially when Nesmith came up with a song he thought would be more suited to their voices. Indeed the first new recording that happened after the tour was an entire Nesmith solo album -- a collection of instrumental versions of his songs, called The Wichita Train Whistle Sings, played by members of the Wrecking Crew and a few big band instrumentalists, arranged by Shorty Rogers. [Excerpt: Michael Nesmith, "You Told Me"] Hal Blaine in his autobiography claimed that the album was created as a tax write-off for Nesmith, though Nesmith always vehemently denied it, and claimed it was an artistic experiment, though not one that came off well. Released alongside Pisces, though, came one last group-recorded single. The B-side, "Goin' Down", is a song that was credited to the group and songwriter Diane Hildebrand, though in fact it developed from a jam on someone else's song. Nesmith, Tork, Douglas and Hoh attempted to record a backing track for a version of Mose Allison's jazz-blues standard "Parchman Farm": [Excerpt: Mose Allison, "Parchman Farm"] But after recording it, they'd realised that it didn't sound that much like the original, and that all it had in common with it was a chord sequence. Nesmith suggested that rather than put it out as a cover version, they put a new melody and lyrics to it, and they commissioned Hildebrand, who'd co-written songs for the group before, to write them, and got Shorty Rogers to write a horn arrangement to go over their backing track. The eventual songwriting credit was split five ways, between Hildebrand and the four Monkees -- including Davy Jones who had no involvement with the recording, but not including Douglas or Hoh. The lyrics Hildebrand came up with were a funny patter song about a failed suicide, taken at an extremely fast pace, which Dolenz pulls off magnificently: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Goin' Down"] The A-side, another track with a rhythm track by Nesmith, Tork, Douglas, and Hoh, was a song that had been written by John Stewart of the Kingston Trio, who you may remember from the episode on "San Francisco" as being a former songwriting partner of John Phillips. Stewart had written the song as part of a "suburbia trilogy", and was not happy with the finished product. He said later "I remember going to bed thinking 'All I did today was write 'Daydream Believer'." Stewart used to include the song in his solo sets, to no great approval, and had shopped the song around to bands like We Five and Spanky And Our Gang, who had both turned it down. He was unhappy with it himself, because of the chorus: [Excerpt: John Stewart, "Daydream Believer"] Stewart was ADHD, and the words "to a", coming as they did slightly out of the expected scansion for the line, irritated him so greatly that he thought the song could never be recorded by anyone, but when Chip Douglas asked if he had any songs, he suggested that one. As it turned out, there was a line of lyric that almost got the track rejected, but it wasn't the "to a". Stewart's original second verse went like this: [Excerpt: John Stewart, "Daydream Believer"] RCA records objected to the line "now you know how funky I can be" because funky, among other meanings, meant smelly, and they didn't like the idea of Davy Jones singing about being smelly. Chip Douglas phoned Stewart to tell him that they were insisting on changing the line, and suggesting "happy" instead. Stewart objected vehemently -- that change would reverse the entire meaning of the line, and it made no sense, and what about artistic integrity? But then, as he later said "He said 'Let me put it to you this way, John. If he can't sing 'happy' they won't do it'. And I said 'Happy's working real good for me now.' That's exactly what I said to him." He never regretted the decision -- Stewart would essentially live off the royalties from "Daydream Believer" for the rest of his life -- though he seemed always to be slightly ambivalent and gently mocking about the song in his own performances, often changing the lyrics slightly: [Excerpt: John Stewart, "Daydream Believer"] The Monkees had gone into the studio and cut the track, again with Tork on piano, Nesmith on guitar, Douglas on bass, and Hoh on drums. Other than changing "funky" to "happy", there were two major changes made in the studio. One seems to have been Douglas' idea -- they took the bass riff from the pre-chorus to the Beach Boys' "Help Me Rhonda": [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Help Me Rhonda"] and Douglas played that on the bass as the pre-chorus for "Daydream Believer", with Shorty Rogers later doubling it in the horn arrangement: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Daydream Believer"] And the other is the piano intro, which also becomes an instrumental bridge, which was apparently the invention of Tork, who played it: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Daydream Believer"] The track went to number one, becoming the group's third and final number one hit, and their fifth of six million-sellers. It was included on the next album, The Birds, The Bees, and the Monkees, but that piano part would be Tork's only contribution to the album. As the group members were all now writing songs and cutting their own tracks, and were also still rerecording the odd old unused song from the initial 1966 sessions, The Birds, The Bees, and the Monkees was pulled together from a truly astonishing amount of material. The expanded triple-CD version of the album, now sadly out of print, has multiple versions of forty-four different songs, ranging from simple acoustic demos to completed tracks, of which twelve were included on the final album. Tork did record several tracks during the sessions, but he spent much of the time recording and rerecording a single song, "Lady's Baby", which eventually stretched to five different recorded versions over multiple sessions in a five-month period. He racked up huge studio bills on the track, bringing in Steve Stills and Dewey Martin of the Buffalo Springfield, and Buddy Miles, to try to help him capture the sound in his head, but the various takes are almost indistinguishable from one another, and so it's difficult to see what the problem was: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Lady's Baby"] Either way, the track wasn't finished by the time the album came out, and the album that came out was a curiously disjointed and unsatisfying effort, a mixture of recycled old Boyce and Hart songs, some songs by Jones, who at this point was convinced that "Broadway-rock" was going to be the next big thing and writing songs that sounded like mediocre showtunes, and a handful of experimental songs written by Nesmith. You could pull together a truly great ten- or twelve-track album from the masses of material they'd recorded, but the one that came out was mediocre at best, and became the first Monkees album not to make number one -- though it still made number three and sold in huge numbers. It also had the group's last million-selling single on it, "Valleri", an old Boyce and Hart reject from 1966 that had been remade with Boyce and Hart producing and their old session players, though the production credit was still now given to the Monkees: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Valleri"] Nesmith said at the time he considered it the worst song ever written. The second season of the TV show was well underway, and despite -- or possibly because of -- the group being clearly stoned for much of the filming, it contains a lot of the episodes that fans of the group think of most fondly, including several episodes that break out of the formula the show had previously established in interesting ways. Tork and Dolenz were both also given the opportunity to direct episodes, and Dolenz also co-wrote his episode, which ended up being the last of the series. In another sign of how the group were being given more creative control over the show, the last three episodes of the series had guest appearances by favourite musicians of the group members who they wanted to give a little exposure to, and those guest appearances sum up the character of the band members remarkably well. Tork, for whatever reason, didn't take up this option, but the other three did. Jones brought on his friend Charlie Smalls, who would later go on to write the music for the Broadway musical The Wiz, to demonstrate to Jones the difference between Smalls' Black soul and Jones' white soul: [Excerpt: Davy Jones and Charlie Smalls] Nesmith, on the other hand, brought on Frank Zappa. Zappa put on Nesmith's Monkee shirt and wool hat and pretended to be Nesmith, and interviewed Nesmith with a false nose and moustache pretending to be Zappa, as they both mercilessly mocked the previous week's segment with Jones and Smalls: [Excerpt: Michael Nesmith and Frank Zappa] Nesmith then "conducted" Zappa as Zappa used a sledgehammer to "play" a car, parodying his own appearance on the Steve Allen Show playing a bicycle, to the presumed bemusement of the Monkees' fanbase who would not be likely to remember a one-off performance on a late-night TV show from five years earlier. And the final thing ever to be shown on an episode of the Monkees didn't feature any of the Monkees at all. Micky Dolenz, who directed and co-wrote that episode, about an evil wizard who was using the power of a space plant (named after the group's slang for dope) to hypnotise people through the TV, chose not to interact with his guest as the others had, but simply had Tim Buckley perform a solo acoustic version of his then-unreleased song "Song to the Siren": [Excerpt: Tim Buckley, "Song to the Siren"] By the end of the second season, everyone knew they didn't want to make another season of the TV show. Instead, they were going to do what Rafelson and Schneider had always wanted, and move into film. The planning stages for the film, which was initially titled Changes but later titled Head -- so that Rafelson and Schneider could bill their next film as "From the guys who gave you Head" -- had started the previous summer, before the sessions that produced The Birds, The Bees, and the Monkees. To write the film, the group went off with Rafelson and Schneider for a short holiday, and took with them their mutual friend Jack Nicholson. Nicholson was at this time not the major film star he later became. Rather he was a bit-part actor who was mostly associated with American International Pictures, the ultra-low-budget film company that has come up on several occasions in this podcast. Nicholson had appeared mostly in small roles, in films like The Little Shop of Horrors: [Excerpt: The Little Shop of Horrors] He'd appeared in multiple films made by Roger Corman, often appearing with Boris Karloff, and by Monte Hellman, but despite having been a working actor for a decade, his acting career was going nowhere, and by this point he had basically given up on the idea of being an actor, and had decided to start working behind the camera. He'd written the scripts for a few of the low-budget films he'd appeared in, and he'd recently scripted The Trip, the film we mentioned earlier: [Excerpt: The Trip trailer] So the group, Rafelson, Schneider, and Nicholson all went away for a weekend, and they all got extremely stoned, took acid, and talked into a tape recorder for hours on end. Nicholson then transcribed those recordings, cleaned them up, and structured the worthwhile ideas into something quite remarkable: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Ditty Diego"] If the Monkees TV show had been inspired by the Marx Brothers and Three Stooges, and by Richard Lester's directorial style, the only precursor I can find for Head is in the TV work of Lester's colleague Spike Milligan, but I don't think there's any reasonable way in which Nicholson or anyone else involved could have taken inspiration from Milligan's series Q.  But what they ended up with is something that resembles, more than anything else, Monty Python's Flying Circus, a TV series that wouldn't start until a year after Head came out. It's a series of ostensibly unconnected sketches, linked by a kind of dream logic, with characters wandering from one loose narrative into a totally different one, actors coming out of character on a regular basis, and no attempt at a coherent narrative. It contains regular examples of channel-zapping, with excerpts from old films being spliced in, and bits of news footage juxtaposed with comedy sketches and musical performances in ways that are sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes distasteful, and occasionally both -- as when a famous piece of footage of a Vietnamese prisoner of war being shot in the head hard-cuts to screaming girls in the audience at a Monkees concert, a performance which ends with the girls tearing apart the group and revealing that they're really just cheap-looking plastic mannequins. The film starts, and ends, with the Monkees themselves attempting suicide, jumping off a bridge into the ocean -- but the end reveals that in fact the ocean they're in is just water in a glass box, and they're trapped in it. And knowing this means that when you watch the film a second time, you find that it does have a story. The Monkees are trapped in a box which in some ways represents life, the universe, and one's own mind, and in other ways represents the TV and their TV careers. Each of them is trying in his own way to escape, and each ends up trapped by his own limitations, condemned to start the cycle over and over again. The film features parodies of popular film genres like the boxing film (Davy is supposed to throw a fight with Sonny Liston at the instruction of gangsters), the Western, and the war film, but huge chunks of the film take place on a film studio backlot, and characters from one segment reappear in another, often commenting negatively on the film or the band, as when Frank Zappa as a critic calls Davy Jones' soft-shoe routine to a Harry Nilsson song "very white", or when a canteen worker in the studio calls the group "God's gift to the eight-year-olds". The film is constantly deconstructing and commenting on itself and the filmmaking process -- Tork hits that canteen worker, whose wig falls off revealing the actor playing her to be a man, and then it's revealed that the "behind the scenes" footage is itself scripted, as director Bob Rafelson and scriptwriter Jack Nicholson come into frame and reassure Tork, who's concerned that hitting a woman would be bad for his image. They tell him they can always cut it from the finished film if it doesn't work. While "Ditty Diego", the almost rap rewriting of the Monkees theme we heard earlier, sets out a lot of how the film asks to be interpreted and how it works narratively, the *spiritual* and thematic core of the film is in another song, Tork's "Long Title (Do I Have to Do This All Over Again?)", which in later solo performances Tork would give the subtitle "The Karma Blues": [Excerpt: The Monkees, "Long Title (Do I Have To Do This All Over Again?)"] Head is an extraordinary film, and one it's impossible to sum up in anything less than an hour-long episode of its own. It's certainly not a film that's to everyone's taste, and not every aspect of it works -- it is a film that is absolutely of its time, in ways that are both good and bad. But it's one of the most inventive things ever put out by a major film studio, and it's one that rightly secured the Monkees a certain amount of cult credibility over the decades. The soundtrack album is a return to form after the disappointing Birds, Bees, too. Nicholson put the album together, linking the eight songs in the film with collages of dialogue and incidental music, repurposing and recontextualising the dialogue to create a new experience, one that people have compared with Frank Zappa's contemporaneous We're Only In It For The Money, though while t

The Season 3 finale kicks off with SIUE Assoc. Head Wrestling Coach Daryl Thomas, who is joined by Cougar grapplers Colton McKiernan and Caleb Tyus. The three discuss their current season and their respective decisions to join the Cougars. Next. Collinsville Track and Field Coach Chad Burgess brings sophomore and 3-sport athlete Devin Habermehl, who talks about learning a new sport (wrestling), and the football team's success. Finally, Nick Barron becomes the first Principia College representative on the show. Barron describes his journey to become the Head XC and Track and Field Coach at "Prin," and he discusses Principia's recent decision to allow non-Christian Scientists to enroll in the college along with the great amenities his campus has to offer.

Subscribe to the Freedom Post, delivered every Monday and ThursdayProminent Christian leaders from across theological backgrounds have weighed in on the police killing of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols earlier this month, denouncing the incident as inhumane.A new study finds that nonreligious individuals tend to stereotype and hold a bias against Christians working in scientific fields.Legislation in North Dakota aimed at prohibiting schools from providing separate accommodations for trans-identified students is raising eyebrows over a subsection of the bill that suggests the same limits for students who identify as any species “other than human."Candace Cameron Bure and podcaster Tara-Leigh Cobble recently discussed the imperative of reading God's Word instead of believing oft-repeated bumper sticker platitudes shared on social media that mangle the meaning of Bible verses.Subscribe to this Podcast Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Overcast Follow Us on Social Media @ChristianPost on Twitter Christian Post on Facebook @ChristianPostIntl on Instagram Subscribe on YouTube Get the Edifi App Download for iPhone Download for Android Subscribe to Our Newsletter Subscribe to the Freedom Post, delivered every Monday and Thursday Click here to get the top headlines delivered to your inbox every morning! Links to the News Christian leaders react to the killing of Tyre Nichols | Church & Ministries News DOJ quickly charges abortion clinic arsonist amid bias claims | U.S. News Christian scientists viewed as less intelligent, study shows | U.S. News ND bill seeks to ban accommodations for trans, 'animal' students | U.S. News Utah bans sex-change surgeries on kids, restricts hormone drugs | Politics News London School of Economics scraps Christian words Lent, Easter | World News Candace Cameron Bure warns against incorrect Bible interpretation | Entertainment News

Sometimes it's hard to know who to believe, sometimes it isn't: Do you believe the person who has studied the finest details of physical health and wellness for upwards of a decade, or do you trust your pastor who thinks that God couldn't possibly reveal those secrets to anybody willing to test such principles? Unfortunately, that's the dichotomy we find in the world today. Christian Nationalists have actively led the crusade against medicine for most of the last two centuries, but there's some interesting nuances among the more moderate groups that we're happy to explore with you this week. Hospitals were a Christian invention, so why do so many distrust them? Maybe part of the problem is that most of our history has us going to our priests/shamans/knowledge holders to get healed....President Richard Nixon was the subject of a lot of satire. Relative to his predecessors, he's an outlier in many ways, not least of all was his membership in the Quaker community. This informed his decision to protect parents from legal repercussions for medical neglect. We also have some data from Pew Research Center that makes a lot of religious groups look bad, relative to vaccine hesitancy.Unleavened Bread Ministries has taken the lives of several children in the name of being "Pure Blood," including 11-year-old Madeline Kara Neumann, who simply needed a regular insulin supplement for diabetes. So many people are calling vaccines a secret poison masquerading as a cure, if only they read their Bibles (Mark 16:18).The faithful among "Jehovah's Witnesses" avoid blood transfusions, the Amish avoid heart transplants, and "Christian Scientists" typically avoid medicine in all its forms. Muslims avoid medical products derived from swine, and Hindus tend to avoid medical products derived from any animals. Interestingly enough, Seventh-Day Adventists still run hospitals, and the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a retired heart surgeon.We dive deep into the story of Doctor PP Quimby and Mary Baker Eddy, and how mesmerism burrowed into the "Science of Health."From Tim Minchin's “Storm”: "Alternative medicine… Has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine." Watch  Dr. Glen Fairen's discussion of COVID-19 vaccines and the Apocalypse on YouTube Support us at Patreon and SpreadshirtJoin the Community on DiscordLearn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram Episode TranscriptKatie Dooley  00:12Hi, everyone. My name is Katie. Preston Meyer  00:14Hi, Katie. I'm Preston.Katie Dooley  00:18And this is.Both Hosts  00:19The Holy Watermelon podcast,Katie Dooley  00:22I thought an intro would be like an introduction. Would be nice. Occasionally.Preston Meyer  00:27All they know is our names. We haven't described who we are and why we're here.Katie Dooley  00:32Oh, I got to go back to the trailer for that.Preston Meyer  00:35Should we introduced ourselves a little more often?Katie Dooley  00:37probably. Join our Discord. I mean, sure. It's the end of January 2023 Already, which blows my mind. Preston Meyer  00:49We've been doing this for a couple of years.Katie Dooley  00:50Couple years. I'm a resident atheist.Preston Meyer  00:54And I'm a Christian and graduate in this exact field of studies Katie Dooley  00:59and an all-around great guy.Preston Meyer  01:00Thanks. I am glad you think so. You're pretty good for an atheist too. Most atheists are better than most Christians.Katie Dooley  01:11Oh, wow. Preston Meyer  01:12Wow. Okay, that that could be an exaggeration, but probably not by a lot. Katie Dooley  01:15You know one reason atheists tend to be better than Christians is that they don't just let their children die in the name of the Lord.Preston Meyer  01:22That specific detail is true.Katie Dooley  01:28Wow I just said it. Today we're talking about religion and medicine, and how religion and religious beliefs affect your belief of science.Preston Meyer  01:39Yeah, man, what a roller coaster. There's some interesting things we've been able to uncover. And definitely lots of bad news, which we cannot cover every news story that falls into this category. Of course,Katie Dooley  01:55there were some, there were some really sad ones.Preston Meyer  01:58But yeah, generally, problems have come up.Katie Dooley  02:02Yeah. Which is so weird. Because historically, the hospital system as we know, it is a Christian invention.Preston Meyer  02:10Yeah. Hospitality. And I mean, even the word that we have for hotels now, all of that this is, comes from the need to take care of people who don't have somewhere else to be, especially the people who straight up can't take care of themselves at all.Katie Dooley  02:28Yeah, so the first hospitals were kind of an amalgamation of both hospitals as we know them, but also hostels and food banks and or soup kitchens, and yeah they just take care of everyone that couldn't. That needs some extra help. And then obviously, we started segregating those things. And a lot of healers, or medical people were priests to begin with.Preston Meyer  02:53Well, anciently, if we look at the biblical tradition, and this was pretty standard for most societies around the world, your healers, your medical practitioners, were the priesthood. Those are the people that could read who were keeping notes on things that worked and didn't work.Katie Dooley  03:12Because they could also write Preston Meyer  03:13Yeah,Katie Dooley  03:13most people couldn't. Preston Meyer  03:14Yeah. Yeah. The the craft of literacy and, and writing was all practically magic to the layperson.Katie Dooley  03:24Yeah. So then things somewhere along the way, went horribly wrong.Preston Meyer  03:30They sure did. Katie Dooley  03:32Yeah. So there's a lot of Christian groups that and I mean, Preston I'll get your hot take on this. But there are science deniers, and I know a lot of that stems from having to reconcile evolution with what's written in the Bible. So it feels like they just are like, Well, science isn't real, because how can Noah work then? Good enough. So they deny science. And then by extension, things like medicine, and most recently, with the pandemic, things like vaccines are being denied for their efficacy.Preston Meyer  04:08Imagine this just for a moment. Katie Dooley  04:10Okay?Preston Meyer  04:11Do you you live on this planet? Katie Dooley  04:14I do. I don't need to imagine that kay.   No, I don't like that.Preston Meyer  04:16So far, you're with me, right? All right. Now imagine going through life, not ever being able to predict the outcome of any action ever.  No, that's absolute nonsense. You know that when you put one foot in front of the next one, it's going to meet the ground that you can see, and that as you shift your weight, you can propel yourself forward. That's science.Katie Dooley  04:45That just reminded me of a really bad joke.Preston Meyer  04:48If you're going to pour yourself a glass of water, that's science. We have reliably proven that the exercises to accomplish these tasks work.Katie Dooley  05:00Yeah. And I mean, we can go go back to our early episodes, but there was a time when things couldn't be proven. So we use religion to prove themPreston Meyer  05:11All kinds of fancy hypotheses for all sorts of things we didn't understand. And then we studied them,Katie Dooley  05:17Then we figured it out which is awesome. But yeah, but would I be right to say that a lot of this anti science comes from trying to reconcile the Bible that if you're a fundamentalist and believe is true to the word, even though there are stories we know are not true stories, then you have to cut out science?Preston Meyer  05:32You don't have toKatie Dooley  05:35But then how did Noah work if you have science?! It doesn't!Preston Meyer  05:41Yeah, things get complicated when you try and make stories that are primarily symbolic.Katie Dooley  05:48Doesn't work.So if you do the literal truth, then we Yeah,Preston Meyer  05:54you're gonna have a hard time.  Yeah. And so it's weird that the and this is definitely throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If you're just Oh, science disproves this one thing that I believe really strongly, really effectively, then I'm gonna have to stop believing literally everything under the banner of science. Weird choice.Katie Dooley  05:55Gonna have a hard time. You think so? But again, a lot of people let their kid die over this. So  Yeah, we found a whole bunch of Christian denominations that do this. The followers of Christ in the early 2000s, this group had a child mortality rate 10 times higher than the state average of where they were located, which was the state of Idaho, because they liked faith heailings... Preston Meyer  06:25yeah.  Yeah,Katie Dooley  06:46instead of real doctors. Preston Meyer  06:48Yeah,Katie Dooley  06:49one thing that was also really terrifying that I guess benefited, benefited the followers of Christ. Also, we're going to talk about Christian scientists later also benefited Christian scientists, is that President Nixon actually made a ruling that required states to pass exemptions to child medical treatment based off of a religious exemption. So basically, parents couldn't go to jail if their child died, because they made a medical choice based off of their religion, so you can charge them with like, neglect, or murder. So that was really cool.Preston Meyer  07:24So I'm fully on board with the whole the government won't impose laws on what you believe. But the government has an awful lot of laws on how you can act in our shared society. And our actions are founded on the things that we believe about the world around us. So we need to convince people to change their beliefs.Katie Dooley  07:49Well, you know, comes back we've done a lot of episodes on this everything from our parody religions episode to atheism, and Satanism of like, that's great that you want to kill your kid but like, I can't just like make up a rule for religious religious exemption. Preston Meyer  08:05Right.Katie Dooley  08:06Right. If we can just do things because we say but I'm religious like it would, everything would become chaos.Preston Meyer  08:12You just gotta stop telling the government you're an atheist. And then you get all kinds of fancy freedom. Katie Dooley  08:17Cool. Okay, well, I believe in Russell's teapot and Russell's teapot tells me I get to be naked 24/7 in public, so I cannot go to jail for public indecency. Like, you can't just do that Preston.Preston Meyer  08:31That depends where you live.Katie Dooley  08:35I mean, I knowPreston Meyer  08:36I mean, full nude still prohibited in most places, butKatie Dooley  08:40Handful of nude beaches you can go toPreston Meyer  08:41but you can be fully topless in most parts of Canada. I mean, we also have the weather that discourages thatKatie Dooley  08:51like right now, right but you just can't have your wiener hanging out Preston.Preston Meyer  08:56Noo.Katie Dooley  08:58And you can't... You know, if everyone just said, Well, it's because I'm religious.Preston Meyer  09:03Well, though, okay. We do know that members of the clergy have definitely been caught with their wiener in places where it does not belong and get away with it because they claim religiousness. There had been way too many times where somebody who has been a pastor for a while diddled a couple of kids went, went to court and got a reduced sentence because he's a man of faith. When clearly his actions say he's notKatie Dooley  09:37anyway, we just hopped on a soapbox for a minute there. This was eventually repealed in 1983, which I guess is good, but it was around for a while where you couldn't go to jail if you killed your kid. So A+ President Nixon,Preston Meyer  09:53right. Yeah, that was that was interesting. Christian Nationalism is a little bit of a problem.Katie Dooley  10:01Yeah. I mean, you were on I was just remembering the other day you were on a podcast talking about some of this stuff progressive versus... Preston Meyer  10:08Yeah...Katie Dooley  10:08Not progressive Christianity.Preston Meyer  10:12Yeah, it was a little while ago now, actually. But it was good time.Katie Dooley  10:15I'm the villain. Preston Meyer  10:17Yeah,Katie Dooley  10:17check out Preston. Preston Meyer  10:18Man that was... it feels like so long ago.Katie Dooley  10:22Yeah, real scary stuff, especially when it came to the pandemic.Preston Meyer  10:27Yeah, I mean, Christian Nationalism has been a problem in North America for almost a century. But things got really weird over the COVID crisis, and all kinds of people shouting about their rights to avoid this poison. I want to get a little bit more into that later. But it's just crazy that 45% of white evangelical adults said they would not be vaccinated. That is a staggeringly large number. And this idea is not just in like a couple of weird little nationalist groups, either it had spread through a lot of Christianity. But the nationalists got really gross about it.Katie Dooley  11:15And like bizarre about it, one of the articles I read that Christian nationalists have said that the vaccine is the mark of the beast, as prophesized in the Revelation of John, because it prevented people from buying and selling, air quotes, "without the mark".Preston Meyer  11:33Yeah. Our recent guest, Dr. Glenn Farron has shown up in other shows, examining this exact phenomenon, it's really fascinating.Katie Dooley  11:44And terrifying. Preston Meyer  11:45Yeah, it's weird. Katie Dooley  11:47Okay, as because we introduced ourselves as our resident Christian, why do you think it's taken such a hold on Christianity,Preston Meyer  11:54we have this frustrating problem where there's been this prediction of a whole bunch of signs that will mark the coming of the Savior. And it's been many, many centuries, where it's kind of been a building tension. We've got all kinds of apocalyptical groups popping up more and more recently, but they've been around for a while. And when we see anything that can fit into that framework that's built to be a thing of interpretation, rather than a one for one obvious comparison kind of deal as something that people really latch on to. And so when you see this part in the scripture that says, without this mark, you won't get to participate in the economic part of society, then you, you fear that maybe this is a parallel to what is happening with oh, you need your COVID passport to go into a store. Instead of recognizing, oh, I have a civil responsibility to do my best to take care of the people around me. And that's why I'm being shunned. But because I don't want to help out. It's so much more fun. And self aggrandizing to see everyone else as the villain, rather than admit that you're the one causing harm. That's the problem.Katie Dooley  13:24Mormons believe in the Second Coming, yeah? Preston Meyer  13:27Yeah.Katie Dooley  13:27Okay. Is there any piece of this, that's like, people wanting it to happen? Preston Meyer  13:32Oh for sure!Katie Dooley  13:33Yeah?Preston Meyer  13:34Absolutely.Katie Dooley  13:35They just want to be on the bleeding edge. So Jesus takes them up.  Preston Meyer  13:40Yeah.Katie Dooley  13:40With themPreston Meyer  13:41Yeah.Katie Dooley  13:42They don't want to be wrong. Preston Meyer  13:43Hey?Katie Dooley  13:43They don't want to be wrong. They don't want to take the mark of the beast, and then Jesus will be like, No, sorry.Preston Meyer  13:48Yeah, you don't want to do anything wrong. Because what if this is the end? What if this is the trial, I don't want to fail.Katie Dooley  13:55Okay.Preston Meyer  13:56I need to be as faithful as I possibly can. Even if that means I've screwed up. It's okay to make mistakes, you're forgiven for mistakes, as long as they're genuine mistakes, and not me skipping out on opportunities to be better. But I mean, all it takes is a little bit of extra thinking.Katie Dooley  14:19It just anyway, goes back to love your neighbor. We've talked about this a lot this month, actually.Preston Meyer  14:25And so many people have a hard time realizing that that's the number one thing. Jesus wasn't ambiguous about this. But it's hard to love your neighbor sometimes. Especially if your neighbor is anti-Vaxxer.Katie Dooley  14:44You know, I realized during this podcast, I like Jesus a lot more now and Christianity a lot less. Preston Meyer  14:50Yeah.Katie Dooley  14:51Like if you asked me three years ago, if I like Jesus would be like, like, like, no, like, I don't know, but I actually kind of think he's a cool guy.Preston Meyer  14:58I appreciate that you have, in your head, separated the man from the fan club.Katie Dooley  15:02Yeah. And the the more I learned, the more they're getting very separate in my head.Preston Meyer  15:07They are very very different I mean, yeah, there's more than one fan club, most of the fan clubs suck.Katie Dooley  15:15So what we should do is start our own fan club! I am kidding, that doesn't solve the issue.Preston Meyer  15:19What more parties?!?Katie Dooley  15:24more denomination Okay. In the United States religious conservatism, including the evangelical and born again Christianity movement is associated with lower levels of trust in science, rates of vaccine vaccine uptake, vaccine knowledge and higher levels of vaccine hesitancy.Preston Meyer  15:44Yeah, research has found that religiosity is negatively associated with plans to receive the COVID vaccine, which is a huge bummer. And one religious worldview, especially hostile to science and vaccines is the Christian nationalism movement. It's caused a fair bit of problems, distrusting the government is fair to to a degree. So not the same thing that sees a rebellion a whole year ago, or a couple of years ago now, January 6. But, you know, funKatie Dooley  16:24Is it fun? One of these groups I found and just because they came up in the news for killing a child, and I put an asterick Preston I will let you guide me on how much we actually talked about this group was the unleavened bread ministries, and I'm big Asterix in our show notes. They say, I barely want to give this man any attention, because he's fucking crazy.Preston Meyer  16:46I mean, that's fair.Katie Dooley  16:48So I'll probably just not say the pastor's name.Preston Meyer  16:51I think that's the right way.Katie Dooley  16:52So in 2008, an 11-year-old girl, Madeline Cara Newman died of diabetes complications that were very manageable, and very treatable. She literally just needed some insulin, which is really sad, but instead her parents opted for prayer.Preston Meyer  17:11Yeah, it's not the only headline, but it happens. And I don't know why people want to deny that, medicine is a gift. If you believe that God gives us all the good things, and we've studied the universe to understand creation, which is the way a lot of religions do look at it. Knowing that, oh, now that we know more about this thing, we can help people. Why not jump on that?Katie Dooley  17:42So we're, so her parents were part of this Unleavened Bread Ministries, and so I decided to go to their website. I really hope I'm not retargeted for anything, because that was something that was not pleasant. You can tune into their radio. 24/7 they actually say tune into our radio channel, 24/7 Which implies they want you to listen to it 24/7.  Not that it's on 24/7, which was scary.Preston Meyer  18:09I mean, that's how you get your ad revenue. Right?  I think if you were to listen to us 24/7 right nowKatie Dooley  18:13I guess so. You should listen to the Holy Watermelon podcast 24/7  you just have five daysPreston Meyer  18:23Yeah, just couple of days of content, and then you're on repeat. Katie Dooley  18:28That's fine.Preston Meyer  18:28I mean, Katie Dooley  18:29I'm okay with it.Preston Meyer  18:30You know, maybe some people would be better for it.Katie Dooley  18:32So basically, this pastor tells to pray away COVID and others other diseases, but he also recommended Ivermectin and hydro hydro ox so Chloroquine hydro- Preston Meyer  18:47hydroxychloroquine?Katie Dooley  18:48that one that makes you go blind or whatever, as well which was insanity. To me, it's like you should pray but if you don't feel like praying, take something that will kill you. Preston Meyer  18:58The vaccine is poison, butKatie Dooley  19:01Ivermectin is totally fine...Preston Meyer  19:04So-Katie Dooley  19:05So I have in my notes I wrote "not sure if grifter or cult leader"Preston Meyer  19:10it's, it's problematic. What's interesting to me, is there is a reasonably common belief among these Christian extremists, let's call them what they are, that the vaccine is poison. And I've heard several times that all these people who took the vaccine they're gonna be dead in five years or less.Katie Dooley  19:35Did you see this quote? "Fully vaccinated people-" this is from the pastor again, his name I won't say fully, "vaccinated people are now suffering from what looks like the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, better known as AIDS. Their immune system is fading as many have warned." so both Preston and I apparently have AIDS.Preston Meyer  19:54Apparently.Katie Dooley  19:57Most of our friends also apparently have AIDS.Preston Meyer  20:01Yeah. So what I was getting to this idea that this vaccine is poison. And remember, the vast majority of us are taking the vaccine to either protect ourselves, or to protect the people around us because we care about them. So they're here. Here's a passage from Mark chapter 16. Gospel of Mark, it's Jesus speaking, it's after he's been resurrected, he's teaching the remaining apostles because Judas is gone. He's not with them. And he says, Those who believe in Me will be able to drink poison without being hurt. I mean, there's a bit about snakes in there, there's, there's all kinds of little bits I skipped. But I added the beginning and the end together to give you the good bit, that if you believe, and if you do actually believe you want to help your neighbors and protect them, then it sounds like the Lord says, You got nothing to fear from this vaccine. Katie Dooley  21:00Yeah, well. Preston Meyer  21:03But to be fair, that is a personal interpretation of Scripture, that is at least as valid as the opposing argument.Katie Dooley  21:18So one of the arguments I wrote in, in these, nothing short of crazy articles was that, and this kind of goes back to the Nixon thing is that some of these groups have argued like, well, if a doctor, someone dies under a doctor's watch, the doctor doesn't get charged. So just because we weren't successful in our prayer circle, doesn't mean we should be charged.  Oh Preston... Preston's face is gold right now.Preston Meyer  21:47So while it's very tricky to charge a doctor- Katie Dooley  21:54Unless it's malpractice.Preston Meyer  21:55Right, and it's very tricky to sue a doctor, they have training to do the things that are they're expected to do. And the rest of us are told with, I would say, a close to equivalent value of repetition of take your people to a doctor. So when we fail step one of the process to not even give the doctor a chance to screw up or do the great thing that we need. Wit and it's usually a success, that is neglect. And I would say in an awful lot of situations a criminal neglect.Katie Dooley  22:38I just had a weird thought- Preston Meyer  22:39Yeah?Katie Dooley  22:40that's not in our notes. America in particular, and I mean, Canada, to some extent, as well, prides itself on being a Christian nation. Preston Meyer  22:50YupKatie Dooley  22:51Christianity started the first hospitals to help people. Yeah, that couldn't help themselves. And America doesn't have free health care.Preston Meyer  23:00NopeKatie Dooley  23:01Those things don't all go together, do they? Preston Meyer  23:03No, they don't.Katie Dooley  23:04Okay.Preston Meyer  23:06It sounds like you understand perfectly.Katie Dooley  23:09I do, I do. I understand the pieces, but the why? I am perplexed by because Jesus would have wanted public health care.Preston Meyer  23:20So we've already talked about the prosperity gospel-Katie Dooley  23:22we have,Preston Meyer  23:23and nothing on this planet is more American than publi-Katie Dooley  23:28Grifting!Preston Meyer  23:29Than grifting! Yeah! Maybe the the next best thing would be mass extermination, which I mean, is connected to this in some sort of way.Katie Dooley  23:45All right. Well, I feel like we're being very critical today. ButPreston Meyer  23:50sometimes you got to be and that it comes with the territory and today's subject. Katie Dooley  23:56Totally. Then there are groups that have very specific rules around medicine. Not necessarily, these sort of broad-Preston Meyer  23:57Yeah,Katie Dooley  23:59don't believe in science.Preston Meyer  24:05A lot of groups generally like the idea of science. Oh, yeah, I guess this thing has been proven. Let's go with it. With exceptions.Katie Dooley  24:14So there's the Jehovah Witnesses are almost famous for it, they do not accept blood transfusions. So overall, they're pretty cool with medicine and science, unless you need a blood transfusion.Preston Meyer  24:28Yeah, Prince was a pretty well-known star, and almost as well known that he was one of Jehovah's Witnesses. And he had some wicked hip pain for a long time. And it is speculated hard to confirm things now that he's gone, that it took him a while to get the hip surgery he needed, because hip surgery almost always comes with a major blood transfusion. Cuz, you know, open up pretty high traffic area in the body. Katie Dooley  25:04Yeah.Preston Meyer  25:05And so it's a big problem. So it's generally discouraged that because of the blood transfusion hip surgery is a tricky thing to try to navigate as a Jehovah's Witness.Katie Dooley  25:15Yeah, I, this is ages ago, and I didn't find them for this. And we'll do a full episode on Jehovah Witnesses one day, but the number of parents that when their kid needs a blood transfusion, start to question their faith prettyPreston Meyer  25:32it's a healthy perspective.Katie Dooley  25:34Totally! But it's interesting, like, I didn't pull up blood transfusion statistics, but especially probably before 50 Most people do not need a blood transfusion unless you're, you know, touch wood in a car accident or something. But I'm learning a blood transfusion and presume you never need a blood transfusion. So it's pretty easy to be like, oh, yeah, fine. I cannot accept someone else's blood until you need to accept someone else's blood. Preston Meyer  25:59Right? Well, and I think it's really interesting that I've, I've heard stories of people who say that after a blood transfusion, my brother-sister-loved one is just a totally different person. And so obviously, it's because the spirits in the blood, and that's now, now they are a different person. The weird thing about that is they totally ignore the possibility that a incident that requires a blood transfusion is a life changing experience! He's probably traumatized. It's things like cancer and major accidents, while recognizing your own mortality. Sometimes it's all it takes to really change how you want to deal with the world around you. It's a weird thing to hear people say, but I mean, the facts are the facts. They behave differently. Sure, fine. Or maybe you're reading more into it than is real, and they haven't changed as much as you think. But you expect them to be different because there's this idea of a different soul in the body. Katie Dooley  27:02Sounds like...Preston Meyer  27:03it's a spectrum. I can't say that it's all one thing or all the other, but I bet you it's a mix of the twoKatie Dooley  27:09Totally. So there's three Bible passages that Jehovah's Witnesses cite for not accepting blood transfusions, so I'm gonna read them so we can get Preston's hot take on themPreston Meyer  27:19PerfectKatie Dooley  27:19first- and who knows how-Preston Meyer  27:20I like it. Katie Dooley  27:21So Genesis nine "for you shall not eat flesh with its life. That is, its blood."Preston Meyer  27:28All right. So part of the context that we have here is, this is a document of how the Lord's people should be different than their neighbours. What makes them different. A lot of the people around them their neighbours, would ritually consume blood.Katie Dooley  27:48That's blood in the mouth?Preston Meyer  27:50Yes, eating blood.Katie Dooley  27:52I think we need that to be clear.Preston Meyer  27:54I have eaten blood, or a blood adjacent substance, on a, on a few occasions. It is delicious.Katie Dooley  28:06As someone who enjoys a good black pudding, yes. I prefer white pudding though, which doesn't have the blood. But I won't say no to the black pudding. Preston Meyer  28:14Right. So you can take my interpretation of this however you want, I suppose. I don't think that there is a spiritual reason. I think this is more of a this separates the people of Israel from their neighbours. Just another way to mark that we are different from them kind of deal. Katie Dooley  28:35All right.Preston Meyer  28:36And I mean building an us versus them philosophy isn't the healthiest choice. But here we are.Katie Dooley  28:43In Genesis, what makes a Jewish person a Jewish person, right?Preston Meyer  28:46I mean, that's really what Genesis and the tour of the Tanakh are all about.Katie Dooley  28:51Alright, so the next one is Leviticus 17:10. "If anyone of the house of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut that person off from the people." Preston Meyer  29:07So-Katie Dooley  29:08that God speaking? Preston Meyer  29:09Yeah.Katie Dooley  29:09Wow.Preston Meyer  29:10So the short version of this is, if this person insists on eating blood, they will be excommunicated. Or exiled, depending on whether or not the church has a monopoly on national politics. Excommunicated if they're out in an area that's diverse like ours, exiled from the nation if you have a monopoly.Katie Dooley  29:37And again, this is blood in the mouth?Preston Meyer  29:39Yes. Do not eat bloodKatie Dooley  29:41Okay, because this is where I-Preston Meyer  29:43and it doesn't actually mean human blood. Cannibalism is an entirely separate law. This is don't eat the blood of the cattle and the livestock and the pigeons and everything else that you bring in for sacrifices,Katie Dooley  29:57Right, which is part of the kosher process. Preston Meyer  29:59Yeah.Katie Dooley  30:00That seems super fun. Acts 15:28 to 29. "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials. That you have seen from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourself from these, you will do well. Farewell."Preston Meyer  30:22I mean, I like having such a short list very convenient. Don't eat things that are sacrificed to false gods. Easy. Generally speaking, though, there are other parts where Paul does specifically say you know what? It's okay to eat something sacrificed to idols, if that's all there is to eat. Just remember, the gods aren't real. But be grateful that you have something to eat. So, even in these essentials- Katie Dooley  30:55There's still an asterisk!Preston Meyer  30:56There's an asterisk yeah. But again, don't eat blood is still on the list.Katie Dooley  31:03So again, blood in the mouth. Preston Meyer  31:05Yes. Do not eat from these animals that you need. And then of course, there's don't eat anything that's been strangled. WhichKatie Dooley  31:19the meat would be tough.Preston Meyer  31:22It's better to quick kill rather than choke. Because then it's got fight in it.Katie Dooley  31:27Yeah. All the muscles not-Preston Meyer  31:29Yeah.Katie Dooley  31:30I'm gonna be plugged meat. And then don't have sex.Preston Meyer  31:35Which Yeah, totally unrelated to the previous three things. While fornication isn't just sex, fornication is extramarital sex.Katie Dooley  31:45Oh, specific.Preston Meyer  31:46Yeah, fornication is dirty sex. I it's, it's specifically that sex which is unapproved by society.Katie Dooley  31:55Well, wait till next episode.Preston Meyer  32:00Yeah, we'll get a little more details there for you. But yeah, so in Old and New Testament for the Christians who are super concerned about it. That's the deal, is that you should not EAT ANIMAL BLOOD.Katie Dooley  32:15So they don't let you take any blood. Even if it's not in your mouth.Preston Meyer  32:21Yeah, life-saving apparently not that big a deal. If it's your time to go. It's your time to go kind of philosophy. Which sucks if you could have survived with the tools available to you.Katie Dooley  32:32Now there are bloodless surgeries and blood alternatives.Preston Meyer  32:40Which sounds really weird. Katie Dooley  32:42I mean, I'm kind of that person. Like, if you can have the real thing. Why wouldn't you have the real thing? Like if you're not allergic to milk? Or lactose intolerant. Why would you squeeze the shit out of an almond?Preston Meyer  32:54Right?!?Katie Dooley  32:56Like, you know, and I mean, I get lactose intolerance is a thing. Don't get me wrong.Preston Meyer  33:02I'm lactose intolerant. I have- Katie Dooley  33:04I didn't know that!Preston Meyer  33:05way more dairy in my diet than I should.Katie Dooley  33:10The fact that I didn't know that you're lactose intolerant until this moment tells you that you do.Preston Meyer  33:15I'm lactose-sensitive, not lactose intolerant. I correct that there are times when I am way more sensitive than at other times. The night before I got married. Katie Dooley  33:28Ohno, ohno!Preston Meyer  33:29We stopped at one of the great drive-throughs and got the classic, real good, absolutely delicious milkshake. And I was ruined by the time...Katie Dooley  33:41Ohhh you, noooo!Preston Meyer  33:45So everyone else is setting up the chapel for decorations and the tables and everything. And I was just camped out somewhere else. But this week, I've gone through a whole litre of eggnog and plenty of milk and no issues. Katie Dooley  34:04All right, well. So yeah, I mean, I guess like I said before, it's great to say you don't accept a blood transfusion until you're one of the 4.5 million people a year in North America that needs one.Preston Meyer  34:16I'm curious because I haven't been able to find anything. And maybe I just need to talk to somebody who's got specific religious authority to make such a declaration, how they might feel higher up among the witnesses about synthetic blood. I don't know how they'll feel about that.Katie Dooley  34:38Members that willingly and knowingly accept blood transfusions are often disfellowshipped. And generally, like I said, they when witnesses are encouraged for medical help other than this weird blood thing, which I feel like they haven't run by God ever but what do I know?Preston Meyer  34:54Right. And a similar limitation for some reason the Amish and some other Mennonites but not all Mennonites believe that the spirit specifically lives in the heart. And you know, if you're watching a movie and you get to a real emotional part and you feel a twinge in your heart, I can see why they might come to that conclusion. Katie Dooley  35:18When you see your husband who I haven't seen in three weeks!Preston Meyer  35:22Right?! When you feel that in your chest, it does make sense that you can believe your spirit resides in or near your heart fine. Feels a little bit weird, but I get it. So specifically, the Amish, while they have a tricky relationship with modern medicine, they do specifically avoid anything that would be even close to a heart transplant, because that's the soul. And yet, there's sometimes exceptions to that...Katie Dooley  35:55Asterisk! It's a spectrum!Preston Meyer  35:59Yeah. There have been children who have been born with heart defects that are so severe that before baptism, because as an Anabaptist, you are baptized later in life instead of as a child. Like in the Catholic tradition. They are okay with a heart transplant in a young child... sometimes.Katie Dooley  36:23Asterisk. I was born with a hole in my heart, maybe that's why I'm an atheist.Preston Meyer  36:28Is it a Jesus-shaped hole in your heart?Katie Dooley  36:29I don't... I don't know. I, that was 32 years ago.Preston Meyer  36:35Is the hole still there?Katie Dooley  36:36No it healed up.Preston Meyer  36:37It just healed up? Katie Dooley  36:38Yep. Sometimes they heal up on their own. Sometimes they need surgery to make the switch.Preston Meyer  36:41Well see that's the weird thing about making people from a clump of cells is that when you're born, you still got a lot of growing to do.Katie Dooley  36:51So apparently, I looked into this like a million years ago, apparently, like when you're born and finally get oxygen. It is supposed to just like happen. The chambers in your heart close up to what they're supposed to be and mine didn't.Preston Meyer  37:03huh!Katie Dooley  37:04Yeah!Preston Meyer  37:05So that's the thing I don't know much about. But that is cool.Katie Dooley  37:08Yeah. Science!Preston Meyer  37:10Check out our bonus episode on abortion!  right. It's, it's weird how many churches insist that the Bible says that a baby is a murderable person, before they're born, when the Bible was pretty clear on the detail of, "And he breathed and became a living soul." Now, you're allowed to take that symbolically. But when you do that, you no longer have the Bible backing you up when you say that a baby is alive from conception, or from six months in or whatever. Whatever your arbitrary time is. The Bible doesn't have your back, for any point before birth! Yeah, we get into a lot more detail there!Katie Dooley  37:51The next one we're going to talk about are Christian scientists or the Church of Christ, comma scientists is their official name. Preston Meyer  38:08This, this group-Katie Dooley  38:10and guess what Preston they hate science.Preston Meyer  38:14So this, I've run into a couple of these people over the years that we've got a Christian Science Center downtown. And I've been trying to figure out for a while, how they can get away with feeling comfortable using the word science, and that they call themselves scientists, and absolutely deny the scientific method! The scientific collection of knowledge that we've amassed. I don't get it. Katie Dooley  38:51We will eventually. Again, just like Jehovah's Witnesses we will do a full episode on Christian scientists at some point, but we're just gonna dive into the medical stuff for today's episode.  The Church of Christ scientists was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in the 19th century. And it can actually be traced back. For more if you remember our last episode to Phineas Quimby, the mesmerist!!Preston Meyer  39:00Yeah.  Yeah, so she was a patient of his! Katie Dooley  39:18Oh, cool!Preston Meyer  39:19Yeah! So that's where this connection comes in. So I did a little bit of more research on this Quimby fella and oh what a trip! So oh...Katie Dooley  39:31so Phineas Quimby... I'll let you read your your research but finance can be started that new thought movement which turned also into the prosperity gospel that name it and claim itPreston Meyer  39:41Yeah, Dr. PP Quimby which I didn't make up to make this humorous. This is how he styled himselfKatie Dooley  39:52This is amazing! And I love that we both are so mature that we can just laugh at Dr. PP!Preston Meyer  39:58I'm not sure he was a real Dr.Katie Dooley  40:01WHAT?!?Preston Meyer  40:02I mean, as you learn more about this fella, you'll see why that could have been a problem.   But Dr. Phineas PP. Quimby was a clockmaker. You don't need a doctorate to be a clockmaker-Katie Dooley  40:09Yes.  No you don't to be a clockmakerPreston Meyer  40:21I mean, you do need tools. Yeah, for sure. And he was convinced that he had found the key to the science of health. This is where the Christian scientists adopted the word and never validated it ever again. The science of health, which of course, is, it's all in your head!Katie Dooley  40:47Yet it's it's not. Your feelings and physical ailments are all-Preston Meyer  40:53Yeah, this gaping wound in my leg that's making a huge mess of the kitchen is all in my head.Katie Dooley  41:03No, it's all on the kitchen floor!Preston Meyer  41:07Anyway, Quimby's theory was that there is no intelligence, no power or action in matter of itself. That the spiritual world to which our eyes are closed by ignorance or unbelief, is the real world that in it lie all the causes for every effect visible in the natural world. And then if the spiritual life can be revealed to us, in other words, if we can understand ourselves, we shall then have our happiness or misery in our own hands. That sounds really nice.Katie Dooley  41:42Oh, and I believe some of it-Preston Meyer  41:44Sure!Katie Dooley  41:45we talked, again, we talked about this for prosperity. If you're a positive person, your life will feel more positive. Preston Meyer  41:50Yeah.Katie Dooley  41:51But this does not account for gaping leg wounds!Preston Meyer  41:55No, or viral infections, bacterial problems! There's a lot of things that you can't control with positive thinking. And this is a proven fact.Katie Dooley  42:06Yes.Preston Meyer  42:07So, interestingly enough, he was a very busy man. Quimby was treating several patients every day, almost every single day for years, which would be normal if he was a doctor. But he wasn't really a doctor. He would sit next to his patients and explain that their ailment was just in their minds, and that they could control it just by thinking really hard about it. Just convince yourself that everything's fine and it will be! If it was easy to convince yourself of something that wasn't so easy to believe. And then it got weird. Sometimes he would rub their heads with his wet hands. Katie Dooley  42:50Ew! Why were they wet???Preston Meyer  42:52Oh, he would dip his hands in water too, and just rub their heads. He later explained that it was the words that did the help. Not the contact with the wet hands. So presumably he was just rubbing their heads with wet hands for his own enjoyment?Katie Dooley  43:10That is a very specific fetish, but we don't kink shame at the Holy Watermelon Podcast.Preston Meyer  43:15True story.Katie Dooley  43:16But we do fake Dr. shame! So carry on!Preston Meyer  43:20cause people are weird!Katie Dooley  43:25There's various fetishes and rubbing.Preston Meyer  43:28I'm okay with if that's your fetish. That's fine. Our-Katie Dooley  43:32Is there consent?Preston Meyer  43:34That's my question! Are these people participating with informed consent? In what is probably a sexual fetish.Katie Dooley  43:44Probably not because it's the 1800's.Preston Meyer  43:47Yeah...consent was a tough discussion back then-Katie Dooley  43:49Actually still a tough discussion, but that's a different episode! Preston Meyer  43:52But at least it's becoming more mainstream. Now.Katie Dooley  43:54Did you know 55% of Canadian men don't actually know what constitutes as consent?Preston Meyer  44:00That's an alarming statisticKatie Dooley  44:02Yeah. A study came out recently.Preston Meyer  44:07Members of Congress are outing themselves all over the place right now saying, Oh, if we have the liberal wrought laws of consent, I would be a sex criminal!Katie Dooley  44:17That means you're a sex criminal!Preston Meyer  44:19Why would why would you say that?Katie Dooley  44:22That means you're a sex criminal. Carry on.Preston Meyer  44:27Anyway, Quimby met Mary Baker Eddy in 1862 when she became his patient. And she was already into the the weird spiritual thing. Yeah, which is fine. It's what she started doing with it after she met Quimby that makes it easy to label her as full crazy.Katie Dooley  44:49So Eddy basically thought the world was the matrix and the only real world was the spiritual world. And we've created this physical world in our minds.Preston Meyer  44:59Neil deGrasse Tyson talks a little bit about how the world is, and the universe is probably just a simulation. So is that really all that different? They both sound crazy.Katie Dooley  45:11They both do sound crazy. I mean, we're getting into philosophy, and it already hurts my head is trying to formulate this sentence, but like,Preston Meyer  45:21The trick is, it's really easy to believe that the world isn't. The world is as concrete as it looks and feels. But I mean, the things that we found out by just scoping down on to the molecular level is even solid rocks are mostly empty space. Katie Dooley  45:39Yeah.Preston Meyer  45:41So it gets pretty easy to say, wow, yeah, there's there's a lot of magic going on here. What is what? Who knows? But it feels like, we're getting some pretty interesting fictions.Katie Dooley  45:56Yes. So Eddie also wrote a book called Science and Health, which in addition to the Bible is considered a holy book in the Church of Christ scientists.Preston Meyer  46:06Yeah, it's pretty normal to have the founding person's literature as part of your Canon.Katie Dooley  46:12It seems like there isn't a lot of Christ in Church of Christ scientists. Preston Meyer  46:16Well, they still have the Bible.Katie Dooley  46:17Yeah.Preston Meyer  46:17It's just secondary to you have the divine power yourself to heal all your problems.Katie Dooley  46:25This goes back to my earlier point, is that I am starting to like JC-Preston Meyer  46:29not the fanclub. Katie Dooley  46:30Not the fanclub, all right.Preston Meyer  46:33That's fair. Katie Dooley  46:33OkayPreston Meyer  46:35Yeah, it's interesting that members of the Church of Christ scientists aren't strictly prohibited from seeking medical attention, but they do avoid it an awful lot. Instead, they just pray. And it's not like your regular prayer. That's like, it's never do the Lord's Prayer, and everything's gonna be fine. It's kind of a, you need to go find a place where you can argue with yourself for a while, just like Mary did with the Nez MarusKatie Dooley  47:04Yeah, not even. Yeah. You like, it's weird. I read some instructions on how to pray. And basically, you just like, fight yourself to not feel sick anymore. Preston Meyer  47:14Yeah!Katie Dooley  47:14So I am like to Jesus or God, it's like "Don't be sick Katie!"Preston Meyer  47:19Right?!Katie Dooley  47:20Don't be sick!Preston Meyer  47:21which sounds like not just counterproductive, because you're not getting the help you need. But you're tiring yourself out more. So if you were fighting an infection, you're probably worse off than if you hadn't had this internal conflicKatie Dooley  47:37I just watch Fraggle Rock when I'm sick. Preston Meyer  47:39Yeah. Does it help?Katie Dooley  47:40Yeah.Preston Meyer  47:40That's good. Filling your life with positivity is helpful. And there's there's a lot to be said about the placebo effect. That doesn't mean don't seek actual help when there's something wrong that needs help.Katie Dooley  47:57Absolutely. There are reports though, even though they aren't specifically prohibited from seeking medical treatment, that members that do opt for medical treatment are often ostracized.Preston Meyer  48:09Yeah, but you can hire somebody from the church to come and help you out. You can get a healer, which is like a doctor, but they're making money off of lying to you.Katie Dooley  48:22It's actually a Christian Science practitioner, and they're very good at praying!Preston Meyer  48:27Are they?Katie Dooley  48:29That's what they're trained to do!Preston Meyer  48:32So I'll just 11 years well, 12 years ago, now, I guess. There was a practitioner named Frank Prince Wonderlic. If I'm not writing that pronunciation, I'm at least close. Put his his name in the show notes. He said... "all healing is a metaphysical process. That means that there is no person to be healed. No material body, no patient, no matter, no illness, no one to heal, no substance, no person, no thing and no place that needs to be influenced. This is what the practitioner must first be clear about."Katie Dooley  49:08It sounds very Scientology.Preston Meyer  49:11A little bit yeah! So, I mean, the problem that I have, right off the beginning is, there is nobody that needs to be healed or influenced. When your job is to heal people. Maybe that's not the thing you should be saying.Katie Dooley  49:28What are you charging for?Preston Meyer  49:31Right? I mean, basically, he's standing here saying, either you don't exist, or you do but nothing else does. So you got nothing to worry about. Which I mean, it may be an extreme interpretation of those words, but that feels really weird when you say there's nothing that needs to be influenced. You're either saying there is no disease at all, or it's not a problem and there is a disease and it is a problem. It's frustrating. And at least 50 Christian scientists have been charged with murder after the children died of very preventable illnesses. Now, of course, it's not first-degree murder that requires premeditation. And the situation is a little premeditated, but not to the degree where it actually counts as premeditated murder.Katie Dooley  50:29Then it would be manslaughter in Canada.Preston Meyer  50:30Exactly.Katie Dooley  50:31Where I think it's third-degree murder in the States is our manslaughter. Preston Meyer  50:35Yeah.Katie Dooley  50:37LDS!Preston Meyer  50:39Yeah, the LDS tradition is a much healthier place relative to this issue. I'll admit it's a mixed bag, there are a lot of converts to the church who come from a wide variety of backgrounds. A lot of people have believed that you really should just pray and not see a doctor when something is wrong. That if you're having mental health problems, or physical health problems, pray about it, eat your vitamins, get your essential oils, and maybe talk to the bishop for counselling. Most of those are not very good choices, including the last one, your bishop is very seldom a properly trained therapist. But there are cases where he is, and he deserves to be paid for that.Katie Dooley  51:31But talk about these elder blessings, because I've heard about it in passing, just being your friend.Preston Meyer  51:36Yeah? So while there are encouragement to seek medical attention, there is also encouragement to get a blessing from an elder of the church comes with an anointing of virgin olive oil, and all that fun stuff. And typically, we laid- lay hands on somebody's head and give a blessing of whatever is needed. Very often, there's a promise that you'll be healed. But this does not take the place of seeking medical attention. It is very explicitly stated over the pulpit regularly from the very top that it should not take the place of seeking medical attention.Katie Dooley  52:17Well, that's good.Preston Meyer  52:18Yeah. Even though some people have a hard time with that. Spectrum! No, church is monolithic. I've given lots of blessings, and that's not because I believe that it's going to fix everything and that you need to go, just pray afterwards. No, sometimes you should get medical attention, depending on what the situation is. Yeah, I don't know. The president of the Church throughout the COVID crisis was a world-renowned heart surgeon, we've got a serious commitment to actually making sure people are healthy, that we can stick around for a long time. The Latter-Day Saints are in some communities longer lived than average. SoKatie Dooley  53:01Because you don't drink do drugs or anything!Preston Meyer  53:03I mean, that's probably a bigger contri-contributor, though, we have our own vices. There's a there's an awful lot of Latter Day Saints who eat a lot more sugar than they ought to.Katie Dooley  53:15That's gonna say from the ones I know. Yes. You all feel personally attacked now, I'm so sorry!Preston Meyer  53:25But to be fair, the entirety of North American culture with a handful of specific localized exceptions, we eat way more sugar than we really should. So are Mormons to stand out there? Not so much.Katie Dooley  53:40Well Okay! Seventh Day Adventists. Again, another Christian denomination, they are typically vegetarians.Preston Meyer  53:49Pretty often.Katie Dooley  53:50And so they're comfortable with seeking medicine and modern medical and health practices, but they have know, have been known to prefer holistic medicine, kind of in line with that vegetarian thing. So they've been known to follow holistic medicine, which is a phrase that has been used by people who oppose medical treatment, but good doctors also talk about the necessity of keeping the whole body healthy, which is holistic. SoPreston Meyer  54:18yeah. Dr. Mike even talks about it sometimes.Katie Dooley  54:22Is that the YouTube one? Preston Meyer  54:23yeah,Katie Dooley  54:24That's kind of cute? Both Hosts  54:25Yeah.Preston Meyer  54:26He's a handsome man.Katie Dooley  54:27He's very handsome. An Adventist family hit the news in 2014 for failing to get their son proper medical care after being diagnosed with rickets. Preston Meyer  54:36You don't hear about rickets very often!Katie Dooley  54:38That's what Tiny Tim had or they speculated it, it's not actually written the book.Preston Meyer  54:42I mean, it's it's a work of fiction, soKatie Dooley  54:45and then in it's always sunny.Preston Meyer  54:48Rickety Cricket!Katie Dooley  54:49Rickety Cricket!Preston Meyer  54:52Yeah, you know, but, I mean, we put vitamin D in so many things now. Katie Dooley  54:56YesPreston Meyer  54:57Like we encourage children to have cereal with a bowl of milk and all of our milk that you get at the grocery store today has vitamin D in it.Katie Dooley  55:05Yeah. So rickets is preventable with vitamin D. Preston Meyer  55:07Yeah.Katie Dooley  55:08So, yeah, it's pretty easy to get. So that's really bad.Preston Meyer  55:13Pretty easy to not get rickets.Katie Dooley  55:15Yeah, I mean, it's pretty easy to get vitamin D Yeah, it really is not easy to get, rickets. So it must be known that they got sucked into the anti medi-medic trap despite warnings from their church.Preston Meyer  55:30Yeah, this is not a normal thing within this religious community. There there is even a network of Seventh Day Adventists hospitals where they actually perform real medicine. So it's, it's weird to see this kind of news hit where a family within this religious community just doesn't want to get involved in medicine.Katie Dooley  55:31Yep. Now we've been pretty hard on Christians. This episode, specific Christian denominations. Preston Meyer  56:03Yeah.Katie Dooley  56:04Spectrum, we know it's not all Christians. ButPreston Meyer  56:06one, it's not even all people within the dominant denominations we've talked about.Katie Dooley  56:10Right, like I said...Preston Meyer  56:12Nothing is monolithic.Katie Dooley  56:13Yes, so on your deathbed, if you need a blood transfusion, you might change your mind real fast! And people have. Preston Meyer  56:19Yeah!Katie Dooley  56:19But we also see it in other religions.Preston Meyer  56:22Yeah, the Hindu tradition is kind of interesting, where generally speaking, medicine is favorably talked about. In fact, when we talked about Hinduism, in our introductory episode, there is a whole part of their religious philosophy that deals with different kinds of medicine. How that translates to the modern things can get a little bit fuzzy. But generally speaking, it's pretty positive, because the Vedas were written 1000s of years ago. But it's kind of cool. But there is, of course, a lot of prejudice against doctors from overseas coming to North America. Do they live up to the same medical standards? Investigation always has to go into it, and they usually end up becoming taxi drivers or literally anything else that's easy to get into. Because getting into the doctor's office again, it's really complicated. Katie Dooley  57:12Yeah, there needs to be some better international cooperation there. BecausePreston Meyer  57:17well, and we do have some doctors who make it and become doctors hereKatie Dooley  57:20Oh absolutely! Preston Meyer  57:20-relatively quickly. But it's yeah, it's not 100% thing. It's really frustrating. And the interesting thing that I think is worth bringing up here is that while they're cool with medicine, they actually do have an issue as... If they're really into their Hindu faith. Of they have an issue with using animal products in their medicine! Any animal juices! Katie Dooley  57:27Gelatin often quite-Preston Meyer  57:47Yeah, we use a lot of different animals stuff in our medicine, which sounds really weird until you actually know a lot about it. And it's like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a natural choice. I'm not an expert. I just trust the people who are.Katie Dooley  57:59Fair.Preston Meyer  58:00Sihks follow the same Hindu principles. This comes with the whole vegan vegetarian thing that care for the animals. It's not about keeping the body, non animal keeping it pure. It's about respect for the animals. So of course, our First Nations people here in North America are more positive about using the whole animal respecting the animal, but take what you need, and be responsible and respectful with what's left make find a use for it, if you can. So really different way of looking at the world there. Yeah, Islam is interesting that they have similar restrictions to Sikhs and Hindus, but not the same. That you absolutely cannot use any material that comes from swine. swine is haram. But animal products from cows, for example, is fine.Katie Dooley  58:53Medical Products from cows. Yes, you said animal products from cows. Which that's true, that is not untrue! Preston Meyer  58:59It's not what i meant-Katie Dooley  59:00Its not specific enoughPreston Meyer  59:01medical products in cows. So I thought that was really interesting. Because you would be haram if you were part pig, I guess. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm haram anyway. According to their laws.Katie Dooley  59:14I mean, yeah, I own a dog soPreston Meyer  59:17Oh yeah, there you go. Katie Dooley  59:17AlreadyPreston Meyer  59:18Troubles.Katie Dooley  59:19Yeah.Preston Meyer  59:21Of course, there are exceptions life or death emergencies are validation enough to ignore these prohibitions. Of course, there are a lot more available here in the West, where there's not preexisting prohibitions. Some people like their books more than they like their children. SoKatie Dooley  59:38I was gonna make sassy comment, but I will refrain for once. I like books better than children. I said it, I said it.Preston Meyer  59:47That's fair, but they're not your children.Katie Dooley  59:49That's true and I have no interest.Preston Meyer  59:51Do you like your books more than Paige?Katie Dooley  59:53No, I would save Paige in a fire but not my books. Preston Meyer  59:55See? That's how it goes.Katie Dooley  59:57FairPreston Meyer  59:58And that feels like the right choice. Katie Dooley  59:59Thank you! Preston Meyer  1:00:00And Paige isn't even human.Katie Dooley  1:00:03But she is real!Preston Meyer  1:00:04Yes. She is real!Katie Dooley  1:00:06She's a little dog. Yeah, I'll post the picture in Discord just 'cause I like her.Preston Meyer  1:00:11Yup. And a few years ago, I heard this great poem from Tim Minchin who we actually mentioned ever so briefly in a, in our most recent interview episode. Storm is the name of the poem by Tim Minchin, and this, this little snippet is just perfect. "Alternative Medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine!" And that's the deal. It's, I can't think of any better way to explain it. I couldn't get a doctor to say it in a more beautiful wayKatie Dooley  1:00:49Judas would say something like that... Yeah, so we were pretty hard on people today. But that's okay.Preston Meyer  1:00:59That's okay. I don't think we've alienated anybody. Katie Dooley  1:01:02No I think it's, I mean, that's why we exist, is to have conversations about religion, and maybe push some boundaries on beliefs, because no group will get better if we don't.Preston Meyer  1:01:16Right. Whether you're Christian, Buddhist, or just really into snails, or atheist. Generally, the best way to run through this life is by caring about each other as people and wanting the best for each other. And that means saving lives when we can in the effective ways through proven methods.Katie Dooley  1:01:42You know, what, everyone? In addition to following us on Discord and our Instagram and Facebook this week, I encourage you all to go and donate some blood!Preston Meyer  1:01:53I think that's the best civic thing that we can all handle. Unless, of course,Katie Dooley  1:02:01unless you can't. Preston Meyer  1:02:01Yeah.Katie Dooley  1:02:04You can also support us on our Patreon, where we have early release and bonus episodes and our book club. Thank you to patron Lisa for supporting our podcast. And if the subscription model is not your thing, you can also check out our spread shop where we have some amazing Holy Watermelon merch to make you look fancy in this new year.Preston Meyer  1:02:26Thanks for joining us! Both Hosts  1:02:27Peace be with you!

We're back with a solo ep to talk about Doomers and why you shouldn't be one! Tune in to ring in your new year with a heavy dose of optimism and why 2023 is going to be insane heat.This time we talk Duncan getting saved by a Christian Scientist, the average person thinking casually that we're screwed, why having kids is good, Jordan Peterson's and Alex Epstein's cringe intelktualism, categorizing doomers and degrowthers, Colleen and James' climate journeys, how doomers and knee-jerk contrarians in their opposition just both re-enforce the status quo, talking about eco raves with LCD Soundsytem bandmates, what Clean Energy Abundance means to us, doing more with less, why art, changing cultural narratives, and DER-pilling our peers matters so much, listening to the Ion Pack, whether we should go to Mars or just be homesteaders, if Elon is a doomer, and so much more! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dertaskforcenews.substack.com/subscribe

In this miniseries I speak with author and writing consultant Lauren Hunter - a former Christian Scientist who is using her experience of growing up in Mary Baker Eddy's high-demand religious group to teach others about the potential harms of twisted Biblical interpretations and teachings that, in this case, lead to cases of gross medical neglect. Lauren has worked with other ex-CS to publish a book titled "Leaving Christian Science - 10 Stories of New Faith in Jesus Christ" retelling stories of how people left Christian Science and kept their faith by finding Traditional Christianity in healthy environments. Find Lauren's website and book here - Leaving Christian Science | Lauren HunterCrimecon tickets available here - www.crimecon.co.ukGet in Touch or Support -Patreon - patreon.com/thecultvault ( https://app.redcircle.com/shows/b87e3... )Cult Vault Shop - cultvaultpodcast.com/shop ( https://app.redcircle.com/shows/b87e3... )Crimecon UK 2022 - https://www.crimecon.co.uk/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cultvaultpod/Twitter: https://twitter.com/CultVaultPodReddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/Cult-VaultGmail: cultvaultpodcast@gmail.com

In this miniseries I speak with author and writing consultant Lauren Hunter - a former Christian Scientist who is using her experience of growing up in Mary Baker Eddy's high-demand religious group to teach others about the potential harms of twisted Biblical interpretations and teachings that, in this case, lead to cases of gross medical neglect. Lauren has worked with other ex-CS to publish a book titled "Leaving Christian Science - 10 Stories of New Faith in Jesus Christ" retelling stories of how people left Christian Science and kept their faith by finding Traditional Christianity in healthy environments. Find Lauren's website and book here - Leaving Christian Science | Lauren HunterCrimecon tickets available here - www.crimecon.co.ukGet in Touch or Support -Patreon - patreon.com/thecultvault ( https://app.redcircle.com/shows/b87e3... )Cult Vault Shop - cultvaultpodcast.com/shop ( https://app.redcircle.com/shows/b87e3... )Crimecon UK 2022 - https://www.crimecon.co.uk/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cultvaultpod/Twitter: https://twitter.com/CultVaultPodReddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/Cult-VaultGmail: cultvaultpodcast@gmail.com

Today Celine and Stephen explore a group they've not talked about before, Christian Science. Hilary Alexander was raised as a Christian Scientist and in this interview she talks about the process of leaving and making sense of the world afterwards. Christian Science – not to be confused with Scientology – is a religion that was started by Mary Baker Eddy in the late 19th century and as you'll hear from Hilary has some pretty unusual beliefs that lead to some dangerous practices – perhaps the most important of these is the refusal by many adherents to use modern medicine or medical procedures. If you'd like to support the podcast you can by becoming a patron for just $1.50. https://www.patreon.com/culthackers/posts    

"Larry finally enters the world of cell phones, but poor reception leads to a big-time mix-up." -Original Air Date: 9/22/2002- This week we're talking about The Benadryl Brownie, standing contracts with tech repairmen, Christian Scientists and lying to try and drug people. This is No Hugging, No Learning, the show about one thing...watching Curb Your Enthusiasm for the first time. Want more NHNL? Next week's episode is already published on Patreon! Join the It's a Hyundai tier for just $5/month and get every episode one week early as well as clipped content from each release and TWO movie reviews every month! Our new exclusive movie review drops this week as we kick off a project that we're both VERY excited about! Get a FREE No Hugging, No Learning sticker by giving us a 5 star rating and a written review wherever you listen to this! Just be sure to send us your address! Email us: nohuggingnolearningshow@gmail.com Follow us: @nohugging on Twitter Music: Curb Your Enthusiasm Theme Song Remix by robloxgreat (rip)

I read from Dear John to death instinct.     The opposite of "deasil" is "widdershins" and the day after I recorded this episode this animation appeared in my life. https://youtu.be/nWORBZIEjbI     The death care industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_care_industry_in_the_United_States     It looks like the proper term for "death instinct" is actually "death drive": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_drive     The word of the episode is "death". Even though she wasn't on this episode, here's Cole Imperi's info because why not: https://coleimperi.com/ https://www.instagram.com/imperi/ https://twitter.com/ColeImperi https://www.tiktok.com/@coleimperi The encore presentation of Cole's "Thanatology" episode on Ologies: https://www.alieward.com/ologies/thanatologyencore The episode with the follow up interview plus MANY excellent tips: https://www.alieward.com/ologies/thano2022 If you want to learn about what the Christian Scientists think about "death", here are a couple links: https://www.joincake.com/blog/christian-science-beliefs-on-death/ https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/41c3j8iejc     Theme music from Tom Maslowski https://zestysol.com/     Merchandising! https://www.teepublic.com/user/spejampar     "The Dictionary - Letter A" on YouTube   "The Dictionary - Letter B" on YouTube   "The Dictionary - Letter C" on YouTube   "The Dictionary - Letter D" on YouTube     Featured in a Top 10 Dictionary Podcasts list! https://blog.feedspot.com/dictionary_podcasts/     Backwards Talking on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmIujMwEDbgZUexyR90jaTEEVmAYcCzuq     dictionarypod@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/thedictionarypod/ https://twitter.com/dictionarypod https://www.instagram.com/dictionarypod/ https://www.patreon.com/spejampar https://www.tiktok.com/@spejampar 917-727-5757

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://madcapchristianscientist.com/2022/07/07/those-right-wing-christians-like-christian-scientists-who-dont-take-their-children-to-doctors/

In a simple, residential neighborhood in San Francisco sits a former church for Christian Scientists. The building's white exterior and massive  columns give it a stately, antiquated look. But behind its doors sit stacks of servers, which contain billions upon billions of web pages, media, and other delights. This is the Internet Archive. In today's episode: what happens when an eccentric tech entrepreneur decides to devote himself to preserving every scrap of information that gets put online and make it accessible to all."Tomorrow's Library" originally appeared in the Spring 2017 issue of Craftsmanship Quarterly, a multimedia, online magazine about artisans, innovators, and the architecture of excellence. You'll find many more stories, videos, audio recordings, and other resources on our site — all free of charge and free of advertising.Written by TIM REDMONDIntroduction by CHRIS EGUSANarrated by AVANTHIKA SRINIVASANProduced by CHRIS EGUSAMusic by MIKE SNOWDEN / BLUE DOT SESSIONS

Drummer Lars Ulrich was born into an upper-middle-class family in Gentofte, Denmark, on December 26, 1963. The son of Lone and tennis player Torben Ulrich. In February of 1973, Lars' father obtained passes for five of his friends to check out a Deep Purple (Smoke On the Water) concert held in the same stadium in Copenhagen as one of his tennis tournaments. When one of the dad's friends couldn't go, they gave their ticket to the nine-year-old Lars, who fell in love with the band and ran out and bought their album Fireball the next day. The concert and album greatly impacted Lars, inspiring the start of his music career. He received his first drum kit, a Ludwig, from his grandmother around 12 or 13. Lars initially intended to follow in his father's footsteps and become a badass tennis player, so he moved to Newport Beach, California, in the summer of 1980. Despite being ranked in the top ten tennis players of his age group in Denmark, Lars failed to make it into the seven-man Corona del Mar High School tennis team, solidifying his decision to focus on music.    So, while living in Los Angeles in late 1981, Lars placed an ad in the L.A. newspaper, The Recycler, which read, "Drummer looking for other metal musicians to jam with. Tygers of Pan Tang, Diamond Head and Iron Maiden."    Guitarists James Hetfield and Hugh Tanner of Leather Charm answered the advertisement.    James Alan Hetfield was born on August 3, 1963, in Downey, California, the son of Cynthia Bassett, a light opera singer, and Virgil Lee Hetfield, a truck driver. James was nine years old when he first began piano lessons. He then started jamming on his half-brother David's drums, and finally, at 14, he began to play guitar with Robert Okner. He was also in a few bands as a teenager – one was "Leather Charm" with Hugh Tanner, and another was "Obsession." James said that Aerosmith was his primary musical influence as a child and that they were why he wanted to play guitar. His parents divorced in 1976 when he was 13. They were devout Christian Scientists, and following their beliefs, they strongly disapproved of medicine or any other medical treatment and remained loyal to their faith, even as James' mother, Cynthia, was dying from cancer. This lifestyle inspired many of his lyrics during his career with Metallica. For example, the songs "Dyers Eve" and "The God That Failed" from the albums "...And Justice for All" and "Metallica" touch on those topics. His mother, Cynthia, died of cancer in 1979 when Hetfield was 16 years old. After her death, James went to live with his older half-brother David.   Although he had not formed a band, Lars asked Metal Blade Records founder Brian Slagel if he could record a song for the label's upcoming compilation album, Metal Massacre. Slagel accepted, and Ulrich recruited Hetfield to sing and play rhythm guitar. Lars and James officially formed the band known as "Metallica" on October 28, 1981, five months after they first met.   A funny story; James' and Lars' first encounter was anything but promising. As Mick Wall wrote in his biography of the band "Enter Night", "neither James nor Hugh had anything good to say about [Lars]. The kid was 'weird' and 'smelled funny' [and] he couldn't even really play drums." Deeming the entire encounter something of a waste, James later recalled (in Wall's bio) that "we ate McDonald's, he ate herring. [Lars'] father was famous. He was very well off. Spoiled – that's why he's got his mouth. He know what he wants, he goes for it and he's gotten it his whole life."   When asked what Lars remembers about their first meet up, in a Blabbemouth.com interview, he said:   "I remember connecting with him," Lars responded. "I could see that, even though he was painfully shy or whatever, that there were some distinctive similarities. I spent six months talking to people about heavy metal, and they'd mention STYX, JOURNEY, KISS or whatever. I'd talk about ANGEL WITCH, DIAMOND HEAD or TYGERS OF PAN TANG. He had a connection to the music and the things I was throwing out there that seemed a little more authentic or trustworthy. Not much happened during that first meeting because he was kind of the wing man, or the plus one, for a guy named Hugh. If James was sitting here, he'd tell you that the drum kit I showed up with was in such bad shape that every time I hit the cymbal, it kept falling over — which is accurate. Hetfield and I ended up staying in touch, and when I came back from travelling in Europe a few months later, I called him up and said, 'Hey, do you want to play and see what happens?' And he was up for it."   The band name, "Metallica," came from Lars' friend Ron Quintana, who was brainstorming names for a fanzine and was considering MetalMania or Metallica. After hearing the two monikers, Lars wanted Metallica for his band, so he suggested Quintana use MetalMania instead. That magazine wound up being a U.S. monthly magazine focusing on heavy metal music, which was published between 1985 and 1991   Guitarist Dave Mustaine replied to an advertisement for a lead guitarist where Lars and James asked him to join after seeing his expensive guitar equipment. In early 1982, Metallica recorded its first original song, "Hit the Lights," for the Metal Massacre I compilation. James Hetfield played bass, and rhythm guitar and sang, while Lloyd Grant was credited with a guitar solo and Lars Ulrich played drums. Lloyd was a Jamaican guitarist who was never officially in the band. Lloyd has said:   "Me and Lars was jammin' down there in Orange County, California and we jam with a few people and we lookin' other people to jam with..." they met through The Recycler. "We were playing for a long time and he came down to my place my apartment once and he says and he keep asking me to come jam with the band, but I was really busy doing other stuff and I went down and play with them-me and him and James. That's three of us. James was playing bass, I was playing guitar and Lars was playing drums and we rehearse that "Hit The Lights" song, but way before that Lars had let me hear that song. We were hanging out watching soccer and he says "hey I met this guy blah blah blah and he's exactly what we want to jam with and he played this one song and it was great and that's how I was first was introduced to "Hit The Lights." After that I went over and jam a few times and he called me and say they gonna be in this compilation album and he brought over a tape of "Hit The Lights" recording on a four track asked me to play some solo for that and they were going to bring the four track down and they were going to bring it down and dump it on the compilation album."   Metal Massacre I was released on June 14, 1982. The early pressings listed the band incorrectly as "Mettallica," pissing the band off. However, the song "Hit The Lights," generated a buzz, and Metallica played their first live performance on March 14, 1982, at Radio City in Anaheim, California. The lineup consisted of James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Dave Mustaine, and newly recruited bassist Ron McGovney, who had been in James' previous band, "Leather Charm." Their first live success happened as they were chosen to open for British heavy metal band Saxon at one gig of their 1982 U.S. tour. This show was Metallica's second gig. In addition, Metallica recorded its first demo, Power Metal, whose name was inspired by Quintana's early business cards in early 1982.   In late 1982, Ulrich and Hetfield attended a show at the West Hollywood nightclub Whisky a Go Go, which featured bassist Cliff Burton in the band Trauma.  Clifford Lee Burton was born on February 10, 1962, in Castro Valley, California, to Ray and Jan Burton. Cliff's interest in music began when his father introduced him to classical music, and he began taking piano lessons. In his teenage years, he developed an interest in Rock, classical, country, and heavy metal. He began playing the bass at 13, after the death of his brother. His parents quoted him as saying, "I'm going to be the best bassist for my brother." He practiced up to six hours daily (even after joining Metallica). Besides classical and jazz, Burton's other early influences varied from Southern Rock and country to the blues. Cliff has cited Geddy Lee, Geezer Butler, Stanley Clarke, Lemmy Kilmister, and Phil Lynott as significant influences on his style of bass playing.   James and Lars were "blown away" by Cliff's use of a wah-wah pedal and asked him to join Metallica. The two leaders wanted Ron McGovney to leave because they thought he "didn't contribute anything, he just followed."  According to McGovney, his time in Metallica was reportedly tumultuous, as he often clashed with Ulrich and Mustaine. In addition, he felt that, aside from using the connections he made as an amateur photographer, his role was that of a money man and transportation provider rather than a respected band member. He ultimately quit on December 10, 1982, due to growing tensions. After leaving Metallica, McGovney became uninterested in playing music and sold most of his equipment.   Although Cliff Burton initially declined the offer to join Metallica, by the end of the year, he had accepted on the condition that the band moves to El Cerrito in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Metallica's first live performance with Cliff was at the nightclub "The Stone" in March 1983, and the first recording to feature Burton was the Megaforce demo (1983).   Metallica was ready to record their debut album, but they began looking for other options when Metal Blade could not cover the cost. Concert promoter Jonathan "Jonny Z" Zazula, who had heard the demo No Life 'til Leather (1982), offered to broker a record deal between Metallica and New York City-based record labels. After those record labels showed no interest, Zazula borrowed enough money to cover the recording budget and signed Metallica to his label, Megaforce Records.   In May 1983, Metallica traveled to Rochester, New York, to record its debut album, Metal Up Your Ass, which Paul Curcio produced. Unfortunately, the other members of Metallica decided to eject Mustaine from the band because of his drug and alcohol abuse and violent behavior just before the recording sessions on April 11, 1983. About this time, Mustaine told Loudwire magazine:   "When you're around a lot of people that like to drink and get silly, they just want to have fun," Mustaine explains. "I would drink and have fun until someone would refute something I had said. And then that was war, baby. I'd be aggressive and confrontational because I was a violent drunk. I lost all inhibitions when I was drinking, and that didn't go over to well in the end." The end came on April 11, 1983, and it came without warning for Mustaine. Metallica had already hired Kirk Hammett as their new lead guitarist.  At around 9AM that morning, James, Lars, and Cliff woke up Mustaine, suffering from a tremendous hangover, and told him he was out of the band. "The thing that really upset me was that they never gave me a warning and I never got a second chance," Mustaine says. "It was just, 'Hey man. You're out. See ya later."   When Mustaine asked when his flight back to California was, he was told he wasn't flying. He was taking a four-day bus ride. Even worse, the bus was scheduled to leave one hour after he was fired. Mustaine scrambled to pack a travel bag, and James drove him from the Music Building in Queens to 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.   During the seemingly endless bus ride, according to Livewire.com, he was rightfully pissed for a while and then decided to write some new lyrics. Since he didn't have any paper, he wrote on the back of a handbill from Senator Alan Cranston. A message on the front of the card referred to the stockpiling of nuclear weapons that read, "The arsenal of megadeath can't be rid." After considerable thought, Mustaine decided the term megadeath would make a cool name for a metal band, especially if it were misspelled as Megadeth.   Kirk Lee Hammett was born on November 18, 1962, in San Francisco, California, and raised in the town of El Sobrante. He is the son of Teofila "Chefela" and Dennis L. Hammett, a Merchant Mariner. While attending De Anza High School, he met Les Claypool of Primus, and they remain close friends. Kirk began showing an interest in music after listening to his brother Rick's extensive record collection (which included Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and UFO). In addition, he was a huge horror movie fan but began selling his horror magazines to buy albums. This infatuation led him to pick up the guitar at fifteen. His first guitar was (in his own words) a "wholly unglamorous" Montgomery Ward catalog special that came with a shoebox with a 4-inch speaker for an amp. After purchasing a 1978 Fender Strat copy, Kirk attempted to customize his sound with various guitar parts before eventually buying a 1974 Gibson Flying V.   Guitarist Kirk Hammett replaced Dave Mustaine the same afternoon. Metallica's first live performance with Kirk was on April 16, 1983, at a nightclub in Dover, New Jersey, called "The Showplace."    Mustaine has expressed his dislike for Kirk in interviews, saying he "stole" his job. Mustaine was "pissed off" because he believed Hammett became popular by playing guitar leads that Mustaine had written. In a 1985 interview with Metal Forces, Mustaine said, "it's real funny how Kirk Hammett ripped off every lead break I'd played on that No Life 'til Leather tape and got voted No. 1 guitarist in your magazine".    Because of conflicts with its record label and the distributors' refusal to release an album titled Metal Up Your Ass, the album was renamed "Kill' Em All." It was released on Megaforce Records in the U.S. and on Music for Nations in Europe and peaked at number 155 on the Billboard 200 in 1986. Pretty cool, considering their top ten that year was: 1. That's What Friends Are For - Dionne Warwick, Elton John, and Gladys Knight 2. Say You, Say Me - Lionel Richie 3. I Miss You - Klymaxx 4. On My Own - Patti Labelle and Michael McDonald 5. Broken Wings - Mr. Mister 6. How Will I Know - Whitney Houston 7. Party All the Time - Eddie Murphy 8. Burning Heart - Survivor 9. Kyrie - Mr. Mister 10. Addicted to Love - Robert Palmer Although the album was not initially a financial success, it earned Metallica a growing fan base in the underground metal scene. The band embarked on the "Kill' Em All for One" tour with Raven to support the release. In February 1984, Metallica supported Venom on the "Seven Dates of Hell" tour, during which the bands performed in front of 7,000 people at the Aardschok Festival in Zwolle, Netherlands.    Metallica recorded the album in only two weeks on a shoestring budget. Initially, the band printed 1,500 copies. Since its release, "Kill 'Em All" has been certified 3x platinum. Metallica then recorded their second studio album, Ride the Lightning, at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark, from February to March 1984. It was released in August 1984 and reached number 100 on the Billboard 200. Unfortunately, a French printing press mistakenly printed green covers for the album, which are now considered collectors' items. Mustaine received writing credit for "Ride the Lightning" and "The Call of Ktulu."   Elektra Records A&R director Michael Alago, and co-founder of Q-Prime Management Cliff Burnstein, attended a Metallica concert in September 1984. They were impressed with their performance and signed Metallica to Elektra. They also made them a Q-Prime Management artist. Metallica's growing success was such that the band's British label Music for Nations released "Creeping Death" as a limited-edition single, which sold 40,000 copies as an import in the U.S.  Two of the three songs on the record—cover versions of Diamond Head's "Am I Evil?" and Blitzkrieg's "Blitzkrieg"—appeared on the 1988 Elektra reissue of "Kill' Em All."  With unforgettable songs like "For Whom The Bell Tolls," "Creeping Death," and "Fade To Black", "Ride The Lightning" has sold over 5 million copies in the U.S. and has been certified 5x Platinum by the RIAA.   That bell in the beginning of "For Whom The Bell Tolls", isn't really a bell at all. As producer Flemming Rasmussen recalled: “We had an anvil in the studio, and Lars had to bang that; it could've been that or from a record of sound effects. But there was a really heavy, cast-iron anvil and a metal hammer, and we stuck them in an all-concrete room. He'd just go wang.”  If you've ever tried to play along with the studio album version of "For Whom, The Bell Tolls, " you've probably had some guitar tuning issues. That's because the song is a quarter step above standard tuning. Why? As the Metallica Wiki says, there are two theories. The first is that the band intentionally sped up the recording, pitch shifting it in the process. The second is that the guitars are tuned up a quarter step to match the pitch of the "tolling bells." I mean anvil... now that's "metal AF". Metallica embarked on its first major European tour with Tank to an average crowd of 1,300. Returning to the U.S., it embarked upon a tour co-headlining with W.A.S.P. and supported by Armored Saint, featuring John Bush on vocals, who later went on to front Anthrax. Metallica played its largest show at the Monsters of Rock fest at Donington Park, England, on August 17, 1985, with Bon Jovi and Ratt, playing to 70,000 people. Then, at the "Day on the Green" festival in Oakland, California, the band played to a crowd of 60,000. Metallica's third studio album, Master of Puppets, was recorded at Sweet Silence Studios in Denmark from September to December 1985 and was released in March 1986. The album reached number 29 on the Billboard 200 and spent 72 weeks on the chart. It was the band's first album to be certified gold on November 4, 1986 and has sold over 6 million copies.    In 2015, Master of Puppets became the first ever metal album in history to be selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry.   Following the album's release, Metallica supported Ozzy Osbourne on a U.S. tour. During this time, James Hetfield broke his wrist while skateboarding; he continued with the tour, performing vocals, with guitar technician John Marshall playing rhythm guitar.   On the night of Sept. 26, 1986, Metallica was traveling between tour dates in Sweden when Burton and guitarist Kirk Hammett drew cards to decide who would get to choose a bunk. The bassist drew the Ace of Spades and chose the bunk Hammett had been occupying. "I said fine, take my bunk," the guitarist recalled in VH1's Behind the Music. "I'll sleep up front; it's probably better anyway." In the early morning of Sept. 27, 1986, shortly before 7 AM, the band members were awakened abruptly when the bus began to sway from side to side. The driver later told authorities that he lost control of the bus after hitting a patch of black ice. The bus left the road and flipped over on its side, and Cliff Burton – asleep in the top bunk – was thrown through the window. As the bus came down, it landed on top of him. He was only 24 years old. Reportedly, attempts were made to rescue him from underneath the bus by lifting it with a crane, but the crane slipped, and the bus crashed down on top of Burton a second time. Band members and onlookers have given different accounts of whether Burton died upon the first impact or when the bus came down again. Whichever way it happened, Cliff Burton died at the scene.   Hetfield said: "I saw the bus lying right on him. I saw his legs sticking out. I freaked. The bus driver, I recall, was trying to yank the blanket out from under him to use for other people. I just went, 'Don't fucking do that!' I already wanted to kill the bus driver. I don't know if he was drunk or if he hit some ice. All I knew was, he was driving and Cliff wasn't alive anymore."   James has said he walked up and down the road in his socks and underwear looking for black ice and found none. The band has speculated over the years if drinking or drugs could have played a role in the accident or if the driver fell asleep at the wheel. An investigation cleared the driver of any wrongdoing. Burton was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at the Maxwell Ranch in California. Metallica's "Orion" was played at the ceremony, and lyrics from "To Live Is to Die" are engraved upon his memorial stone: "Cannot the Kingdom of Salvation take me home."   In an interview with Gibson TV, Kirk Hammet, who could have been the one in that unlucky bunk said: "The last show that we played with Cliff was a spectacular show," Kirk recalls in the interview. "It was the first show after maybe six or seven weeks when James was back on guitar because he had broken his arm during the Ozzy tour. His arms was healed enough so he was able to play guitar and it was the first show where we had James back… and it was the night that Cliff died. "Everyone was just so happy James was back and to have James's guitar fuelling everything again, rather than me and John Marshall [tech and stand-in guitarist] sharing that duty. We played really, really well and felt like we were back 100%… so that last show was one of the best shows we'd played all fucking year and in retrospect I'm glad Cliff's last show was special in that regard. It really was, in all respects, one of the best shows we'd played and Cliff was very, very happy. So knowing that is a good thing." "It' didn't really, truly sink in until about three weeks or so [afterwards]," Hammett remembers. "As a tribute to Cliff's memory it was important for us to go on [but for] those first two weeks it was up and down, we had no idea what we were going to do. I was taking guitar lessons, the old standby for musicians who can't find any gigs or band. That's what I was actually thinking."

I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing my mom, Linda Warner. She has weathered hardships such as losing her dad at a young age, an almost-deadly illness as a Christian Scientist, a divorce after 26 years, and the death of her second spouse, beloved Fred - and even more! Instead of becoming bitter, she has become better. You'll be inspired by the story of her strength, perseverance, and God's guidance that has taken her life from ordinary to EXTRAordinary.

  Finally, after three years of this podcast, the time has come to talk about something that we've rarely talked about before. It's time to talk about … … Metallica. The first part of this two-part series focuses on how being raised as a Christian Scientist impacted lead vocalist James Hetfield's life and Metallica's lyrics. This provides the dynamic duo with an opportunity to discuss the history and theology of Mary Baker Eddy and the Church of Christ, Scientist. If you're interested in doing apologetics with Christian Scientists, this episode provides you with everything you need to get started. Along the way, Timothy is deeply embarrassed as Garrick reveals not only his toes but also his deep affection for Mariah Carey and his deep-seated fear of Oingo Boingo super-fans. The first installment of “Behind the Covers” puts Metallica's cover of a tune originally performed by The Kinks into battle against Van Halen's version of the same song. In the end, your intrepid cohosts can't agree on a winner. What they do agree about is that The Kinks are underrated and that Van Halen and Metallica are two of the greatest bands ever. Also, "Behind the Covers" would be the perfect name for a cover band that decorates the stage with quilts and duvets.   ABOUT HOSTS Timothy Paul Jones, Ph.D., is C. Edwin Gheens Professor of Christian Ministry at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He teaches in the areas of family ministry and applied apologetics. He has authored or edited more than a dozen books, including Why Should I Trust the Bible?, The God Who Goes Before You, Perspectives on Family Ministry, and Christian History Made Easy. Follow Dr. Jones at @DrTimothyPJones.   Garrick Bailey is a Ph.D. student in systematic theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, studying Herman Bavinck and Roman Catholicism under the supervision of Gregg Allison.   LINKS TO CLICK The God That Failed (song by Metallica) Patreon Support theapologeticspodcast.com The Apologetics Newsletter Urban Ministry Podcast   CLOSING CREDITS Music for the podcast has been licensed through Artlist.io and performed by Cunningham Manor. Brief excerpts of music played in each program are included solely for the purposes of comment and critique as allowed under the fair-use provision of U.S. copyright law. “The fair use of a copyrighted work … for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, … scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright” (U.S. Code § 107, Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use).

Lauren Hunter is the author of the book Leaving Christian Science and is a former Christian Scientist (not to be confused with scientology). She's also had a long relationship with the evangelical church. We discuss the 10 characteristics of a toxic faith system comparing christian science and evangelicalism.Kingdom of the cultsSteve Hassan BITE model Jesus and John wayneWhat's a christian to do with harry potter FFCSministry.org

This week I sit down with Author and Coach Becca Ribbing to discuss her work helping individuals break out of cycles of uncertainty and becoming unstuck in their lives. Becca opens up about her early childhood experience being raised as Christian Scientist and what it meant to learn to not listen to her body and the wounding she incurred that allowed her to create expansive healing in other areas of her life.  Becca talks about how her work in simple terms is giving people permission and helping them gain clarity and focus--to lean into their strengths so they can clearly see their purpose and next steps. You can buy Becca's book by clicking here. Follow her on Instagram @beccaribbing   Podcast Sponsor: Saged is a spiritual app and resource center for Earth-based teachings and practices.  Stay aligned, connected and supported on your spiritual journey, with Saged. Download Saged for free from your Andriod and iPhoneApp stores. Follow Saged on Instagram @sagedapp Podcast Production: Written, directed, and edited by Krista Xiomara Produced by LightCasting Original Music by Mr. Pixie Follow this podcast on Instagram @ianwpodcast

Actor John Dellaporta (@JohnDellaporta) joins me this week to discuss the Christian Scientist manifesto THE SECRET GARDEN. One guess as to how your atheist, Advil-obsessed, and childfree host liked the text.To hear the rest of this episode, become a patron! http://www.patreon.com/fuckboisoflit See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Was beloved icon and animal advocate Betty White a... Christian? Christian Scientist?? Or neither? Take a short dive with me into Betty's most woo-woo beliefs and the ways they might have influenced her signature optimism and noteworthy compassion.What a gem. We'll miss you, Betty.

Radiation Physicist Alex Owen joins me on this episode of Louder! for a deep discussion about Science and Christianity. Does science disprove Christianity?Welcome back to Louder! The Podcast where we talk about the BIG issues and talk about them LOUDLY. SEASON 1 of Louder! Now available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & YouTube.Subscribe to my YouTube Tiktok @365daysofchristYou are so loved.

A billboard, a Mark Twain book, a Billy Graham Crusade, and tonsillitis are some of the many things God used to call Rick Pierson out of the Christian Science Church. Hear what the Christian Science Church believes, who Mary Baker Eddy is, and how important it is to know what's in your Bible from this Dallas Theological seminarian. And be encouraged by Rick's turnaround to the Jesus of the Bible. Stay to hear Blind Tony's poem written about Rick Pierson's life.Never miss an episode of One80! Subscribe to our email list to get the latest episode delivered to your inbox.https://one80podcast.com/subscribe/Christian Science, a Christian Perspective:https://www.eaec.org/bookstore/fundamentals/74.htmRick's Churchhttps://www.thecompass.net/Be moved by the things that moved Rick:The Four Spiritual Lawshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y_MQMR8dWIBilly Graham at McCormick Place, Famous "Who Is Jesus Sermon," (1971)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U89zkUZPd5wCruhttps://www.cru.org/Francis Schaeffer theology bookshttps://www.christianbook.com/francis-schaeffer-trilogy-francis-schaeffer/9780891075615/pd/55615?event=ESRCNJosh McDowellhttps://www.josh.org/about-us/joshs-bio/Dallas Theological Seminaryhttps://www.dts.edu/Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christhttps://www.persecution.com/torturedforchrist/about/who-was-richard-wurmbrand/

James Early is a podcaster and prison minister. Today, James shares about asking questions about faith as a high school student, learning how to apply Scripture practically, and what he learned from being a stay-at-home dad before that was a thing. James loves the Lord and wanted to be a minister early in life. Now his podcast reaches around the world as he shares the message of the Kingdom of God available today. James' story reminds us that even when we think our impact is small, the Lord use us in unexpected ways. Listen to James' story now! Stories James shared: Starting his podcast The Bible Speaks to You Growing up in Texas with a dad who was presbyterian and a mom was a Christian Scientist Asking question in high school and feeling unsatisfied Understanding John 3:16 in third grade Deciding to go to the Christian Scientist church Applying Scripture to his relationship with his brother How the healing emphasis of Christian Scientist denomination appealed to him His plans to share the Gospel with the world and God's more gradual plan How God spoke to him when he felt discouraged Wanting to be a prayer healer Getting passed over for promotions and how that shaped him How he became a stay at home dad Learning about God's love by taking care of his kids Joining a prison ministry How podcasting came out of his prison ministry Finding his place in the body of Christ through podcasting Great quotes from James: I am really grateful now that I didn't get those promotions. You've got to keep that ego in check. I can say all the things I'm supposed to say; but when are you putting this into practice? It's not your theology that gets you into heaven. Resources we mentioned: James' website: The Bible Speaks to You Praying with the Mind of Jesus Related episodes: Bobby Jackson and Community that Heals Gari Meacham and Hitting Life's Curveballs Randall Sean Garcia and the Father's Love for Us The post James Early and the Value of Christian Unity appeared first on Eric Nevins.

March is Women's History Month.  Two of Four religions founded in America were founded by Women.  In this episode, Dr. Newell Bringhurst will discuss how women have shaped these religions.   https://youtu.be/8oSKbuyqYiA Newell:  One of is a comparative study comparing what I call the big four American original religions:  the Mormons, the Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian Scientists in terms of their attitudes towards race, ethnicity, and their attitudes towards the place of women.  I actually have one article that was published in the John Whitmer Journal a number of years ago where I draw comparisons between Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, and Brigham Young and how they dealt with the issues of slavery.  I'd like to pursue that by looking at the personalities. I call those religions four American originals because they were all founded by Americans and they were unique to America.  They dealt with the issues in very different ways.  The Seventh-day Adventists was founded by Ellen G. White, they had a very enlightened anti-slavery, somewhat pro-black attitude.  Whereas the Mormons of course kind of moved in the opposite direction, especially under Brigham Young.  Then you've got the Jehovah's Witnesses who were much more accepting of blacks although they came after the Civil War.  They weren't founded until after the Civil War by Charles T. Russell. Then you've got Mary Baker Eddy.  She was quite anti-slavery even though she lived in the south.  She's kind of an interesting figure.  It also gets into the issues of gender because you've got two of the religions that are actually founded by women:  the Seventh-day Adventists by Ellen G. White, and of course Mary Baker Eddy and so you have the issue of the role of women and gender. Whereas Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses, they were much more Patriarchal.  Women are not given ministerial positions in either denomination.  So, I'd like to pursue that by looking at the leaders.  As I say I've done some preliminary research.  I actually spent some time many years ago, a little bit of time in the Christian Science archives in Boston, Massachusetts.  That's where the headquarters of the mother church is. I'll also ask Newell what projects he's working on. Newell:  As you're well aware, I'm finishing up the Gospel Topics essay anthology with Matt Harris.  We've got all the essays in there.  We're just trying to finally smooth out the introduction.  That's the only thing we've got left. Beyond that, as I said I'm working with Greg Kofford on the two reprints or reissues of Saints, Slaves, and Blacks[1] and the Fawn Brodie biography.  I'm also interested in a couple of local history projects.  I've done a little bit with local history down in Visalia where we live.  I've worked with a local historic preservation group in doing a history of our local Fox Theater...One other project I've done with local history, I did a history of the Ku Klux Klan in Tulare County.  You wouldn't think that there would be Ku Klux Klan in California but we live in a very conservative area and the Ku Klux Klan wielded some influence in our area during the 1920s and 1930s and I did some major research there so that kind of got my feet wet for local history. Check out our conversation….. Joseph Smith (Mormons), Charles Russell (Jehovah's Witnesses), Ellen White (Seventh-day Adventists), Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Scientists)                                           [1] It comes out April 10, 2018.  See https://www.facebook.com/saintsslavesandblacks/ for more info. [paypal-donation]