Cultish - Confessions of a Mormon Ghost Hunter, Pt. 2

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Cultish - Congressmen William D. Upshaw Pt. 3

00:00

All right. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultist Entering the Kingdom of the Cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here.

00:06

Here with Andrew, the super sleuth of the show. I'm here with Brother Wade. Good to see you both back. We've had a long week in Utah, and we are wrapping things up with a little epic two -part podcast talking about Mormons, swing dancing, ghost hunting, all the above.

00:25

Getting very, very interesting. A whole broad variety of topics. So we're here with Jared Fawcett. Good to see you again, man.

00:31

Welcome back. For everyone else, for us, it's kind of like Narnia. It's a longer time there versus wherever you do it.

00:38

Somehow, the time zones are off. But for us, it was five minutes. For y 'all, it was a week. Or maybe if you're watching this, you get to watch the whole thing together, however we put it on film.

00:47

But all that being said, we're jumping right back into the podcast. People started getting intrigued. I've made them for a week, so I don't want people hating on me any much longer.

00:56

So we're back, and we are talking about ghost hunting and just jumping back into it.

01:01

So just tell us a little bit more about the times being there. Go ahead. So with ghost hunting, we would go out usually weekly, and places would reach out to us.

01:15

What our team was known as is the Idaho Spirit Seekers, was the name of it. But it was a

01:22

TAPS organization. Places would reach out.

01:27

Some businesses would release the names and everything afterwards. It's really up to them because some places will end up losing business because it's haunted.

01:37

Some places will actually gain business because it's haunted. But they have to play that role accordingly.

01:45

We would just go out. Like I said, I was listening, and then I'd spend a decent chunk of my week listening to hours upon hours of audio, listening for voices and unexplained sounds.

02:00

Kind of like trying to hear things through the white noise at different frequencies. Bunch of white noise. Yeah, that movie.

02:09

Sorry. I understand. Is it bad? Yeah, don't watch it.

02:14

As a Christian, I can tell you it's too real. It's too on point. Wow. It was so on point that when it was actually for my birthday, me and my adoptive mom, we actually went and saw it.

02:26

This was while I was ghost hunting and doing those things. While watching it, I'm like, that was actually a weird experience.

02:33

You had asked me about a weird experience. That was weird because I was watching it and there was evil spirits in that movie.

02:40

The temperature in the room dropped in the movie theater. No matter how hot they would turn it up, it stayed cold.

02:48

Wow. Stuff like that. I was like, I don't like this. This is too close to reality. This is not.

02:55

They're dealing with, at least the spirits I was dealing with, I know they're demons now, but at least they weren't usually overly hostile.

03:05

They were just talking versus that movie that was like. They're trying to get you. I was like,

03:11

I don't like this at all. Well, yeah. I mean, you think about it too. There's a lot of stories about when they're filming

03:17

The Exorcist, a lot of really strange things happened on the set, which does make sense because regardless, it doesn't really matter the theology of the person who's opening that door.

03:27

If you are practicing something, this is just, regardless of your intentions, it's just, it's bad news.

03:34

That's just the way that God made things. God created all things visible and invisible.

03:39

It's like the law of gravity. You cross over into this path, regardless of your intentions. It's going, something else is going to be on the other side or at least opening up a portal as you so.

03:49

Yeah. And that's, and so I had a really good time with the brothers and like, and there was, it was mostly men.

03:57

We had a few women in the group too. And we, we would do go everywhere.

04:03

We go, some of the longer trips were like clear to Wyoming and those, but a lot of them were more close. So we had like Twin Falls or Soda Springs in areas that were around Pocatello that we would go to a lot of the times and do those.

04:17

And like I said, 90 % of what people would consider paranormal is debunked, you know, just to save the audience.

04:25

If you think you have a haunting, look for loose floorboards or get yourself an EMP meter.

04:31

They're actually fairly cheap and see how much is running in your house. If you're heavy, if you have an older house, you might need to show your wires.

04:38

Yeah. You know, this, this reminds me of when I was in high school, I had a little band and we were looking for a new drummer.

04:48

Okay. And we went to the drummer's house to practice. All right. And we walked in and they had like a garage that they had kind of even walled off and put drywall in for like practicing for their kid.

05:05

So he, we were considering making this kid, our drum, our new drummer for our band. So we walk in and the family goes, you know, we're glad you're here.

05:14

We just, we don't want to alarm you, but we tell everyone who comes in here we do have two ghosts that live in our home.

05:23

One is a small boy and he's very friendly. He'll just come up to you every once in a while.

05:30

Don't be too worried about him. But then there's the old, the older man who can really try to frighten you.

05:37

He loves to, to really frightening trick and even put on new faces for, for newer people.

05:45

So we also don't recommend you sleep over for a while to, till they get used to you.

05:51

And me and my other band members were like, what are we doing here? But we, you know, we, we ended up practicing a little bit, but I was, yeah.

05:59

The things you'll sacrifice for a practice space. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you're, when you're,

06:05

I was in a band. Like, no, this is really nice. I don't want that ghost coming out.

06:10

But anyways, yeah. That's why your stories remind me of that. It's like, well, people have all this in their daily life,

06:19

I guess some people believe, or they do have some sort of demonic spirit living with them.

06:25

I don't know. So yeah. Well, and I've, I've, I've been in places where, you know,

06:32

I can honestly say that they're probably being oppressed. Like, yeah, it's darker, it's colder and they'll have religious people come in, like pray over the home and then it's

06:42

Right. Hmm. So I have a question too, because I mean, you're, you're talking about how 90 % of this stuff is debunked, right?

06:49

But there's something about the frequencies or the EMPs that is somehow able to track what is going on, or at least sort of seeing the barrier between the seen and the unseen realm.

07:01

Like of all things, like what, what's, what's the uniqueness behind EMPs or those sort of frequency detectors?

07:07

So EMP is just, it's just, it just senses the, so you have electromagnetic fields in any room.

07:17

It's really bad. That's why a lot of people will experience issues if they live like right underneath power lines.

07:24

If you live like right underneath the power line, that's usually bad because those are unshielded. Can give you headaches.

07:31

Headaches make you feel sick. People have hallucinated. Interesting.

07:37

Okay. So it's a level. But there's 10 % that you just can't explain.

07:42

And that's really where, that's why they would call us is, well, what's this 10 %?

07:48

And that's if you watch ghost hunters and watch any of those shows, that's where they'd be like, well, we heard this voice, we heard this thing.

07:54

That's what we got from it. If you are experiencing voices,

08:00

I can honestly tell you, you should probably just have your pastor come and pray over the house.

08:07

Don't mess around with that stuff because it's not, it's not, don't provoke.

08:13

Don't provoke. Yeah. And that's, and that's, that's why I have a tough time talking. Like some people who've been around me, even here, they're like,

08:20

I didn't even know you were a ghost hunter. I'm like, I don't really talk about it a lot because some people can get overly fascinated with it.

08:27

And then they're like, I want to go do it. And that's what we're doing here.

08:34

I mean, we're not, we're not trying to exalt, you know, we're not like, Hey, by the way, this is brought to you by www .ghosthuntingutah

08:41

.com or whatever. If that ends up being a website, don't go to that. There is ghost hunting groups in Utah.

08:50

Right. There probably are. But we're, we're trying to do, and I think we've done this before previously with cultists is that, especially whether you're talking to someone who's in the new age or someone who comes out of it, is that you are like, you have, you have to be able to make sense of a point of reference, because if you just sort of say, well, this is just all in your head and you're making this up, you're not, that's going to lose any sort of relatability to what they went through, or if you're talking to someone in the new age.

09:17

And so we can understand that there's a basis one, there's an explainable basis for like why this was appealing to you for you in Mormonism.

09:25

Oh, it was totally appealing. And, and the thing is, is it was totally accepted too. Nobody warned against it.

09:32

And it was totally, their big thing was, well, as long as you're praying before you do it and you pray after, so you don't have anything following you.

09:44

Any type of experience that you can relate to making Mormonism true is a good thing.

09:49

Yeah. Yeah. And then where the spirit realm is here, I, it makes perfect sense where we, if you're reading the old

09:57

Testament and I can't remember which person it was, it was like, I want to go back and warn people.

10:04

And they're like, well, you can't speak to the living. Oh, Luke 16, the rich man and Lazarus. Yeah. You can't speak to living, you're dead.

10:11

Right. And reading that now I go, okay, well, there's no possibilities that I was actually speaking to anything other than the demonic force.

10:21

Right. And it helps me know that. Or even that, that girl who is seeing the faces of angels.

10:30

Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. And there's something too, when, when, especially. If she was seeing a real angel, she'd be really afraid.

10:36

Yes, most definitely. I'll be, I'll be, I'll be a little scared too.

10:43

Well, you notice that every time an angel appears in the Bible, the first thing that they always say, no matter what is, be not afraid.

10:50

Yeah. Yeah. It's because they don't look nice. Yeah. So if they appear, it's like demon, demon, demon, be not afraid.

10:58

We're just super holy. And, and, and you know, it's,

11:04

I think that's one reason that you don't have, I mean, being a cessationist, I think that's one reason that God doesn't really use the angels as much anymore because he doesn't want to scare people off.

11:17

Right. Right. No, that's interesting, man. I think also, like I said, we're just looking at where we're giving, we're like, we're acknowledging the fact that there's an unseen realm, but I think also, you know, going into your story and I'm curious to see where it unravels is that there is a lot of tense, whether it's in the new age or New York particular case, almost as sort of pride and identity.

11:38

And the fact that I have the ability to sort of contact this, this 10 % of what is legit,

11:44

I have this ability to detect it. So therefore I'm something special in the same way. People who have the ability to astral project or lucid dream, or to be able to do mediumship and be a captain and have knowledge about something really thinking it's something of themselves, being known that's actually because you are unknowingly a really a slave to the unseen realm.

12:06

As far as the hostile side of the aisle is concerned. Yeah. And that, and that's true.

12:12

Um, and there was, there was, there was definitely pride in that. Yeah. Um, and at the time

12:17

I, I, I mean, I have a conviction I really don't talk about it because like I said, I want to encourage, but at the time,

12:23

Oh yeah. I'm like, Oh yeah. I'm an IVP. I'm an EVP tech. Yeah. Go do this. I would brag about it.

12:28

Yeah. Yeah. I talk. Yeah. Oh, do you want to see some of the clips? You know, and you'd be like, dude, listen to this.

12:34

I checked this out and here. Oh, did you hear that voice? Did you hear him say, yes. Did you hear that name?

12:40

Did you hear? Yeah. So did you continue to do this or was there a point kind of like, um, there was a, there was a point where, um, so there we went and saw, it was like this abandoned warehouse building.

12:51

Um, it was an older building, um, in a town and it was just a really dark place.

12:57

Um, and it actually made me kind of give up that whole thing because I just was, it reminded me too much of the thing that kept playing in the back of my head.

13:06

Wow. And I was like, okay, I am like, I'm okay.

13:13

Um, you could justify a lot of it when you were going into houses and things like that.

13:18

Cause you were helping families. Like these people were honestly scared and they're turning to you for answers and help.

13:24

And you're like, okay, I'm helping people, but just going into like abandoned buildings or something like that and doing it was like, who are we helping?

13:32

Yeah. And having that dark force, that's what ended up getting me out of that was, it was almost a replay of 15, 16 again.

13:43

Was there like a kind of a rush doing this stuff? I mean, total rush. Exhilarating.

13:48

It was, cause you were, you're obviously still kind of frightened sometimes I would imagine.

13:54

But you did get those adrenaline rushes when you would catch something like it's almost, you know, like when you're playing clue and you get the right answer.

14:03

Um, it's a mystery and you're getting it and you're like, okay, yeah, no, I'm making progress.

14:09

It was Colonel Mustard. And he would get better at it too. Um, cause you get to the point where you could start like, cause some of what you would hear on the audio was very faint and you, when you first start out, you'd skip over that cause you wouldn't hear it.

14:23

You get to the point where you could like pick out the faintest thing and then you'd like magnify it and be like, it's right here.

14:30

Yeah. And something I've always wondered is like, you know, sometimes when you're looking for something, you'll find it.

14:41

So did you ever feel like whether it was you or someone else investigating on your team and you know, someone hears something or a door closed or whatever.

14:55

Um, you know, there's just this overwhelming excitement or, or a desire to want to produce.

15:01

I want something to occur. Oh, we would definitely want something to occur. And we'd set up cameras.

15:06

Like we had like infrared cameras going through everywhere we had. And, and that was a big thing is you're sitting at the station.

15:13

Like when you weren't out recording, watching the cameras, you're like, did you guys ever bring in like Ouija boards or trying to do sales?

15:21

Or was that like a So even in the LDS theology, Ouija boards are like negative, really bad.

15:29

Like they're considered playing with the devil. Were your team members, a lot of them, diversity.

15:35

Oh, a lot of them. Wow. So, so was there ever any inconsistency just kind of going along?

15:43

And then, and obviously, we know there's a history behind Joseph Smith and his use of the occult. He was tried and convicted for glass looking and his whole family was known for, was famous for their treasure digging.

15:54

I mean, he almost, I'm thinking of like those classic, like Red Dead Redemption two posters of the old businesses of so -and -so saloon or whatever, but imagine like this 1800s version of like Smith's family treasure digging, you know?

16:06

But yeah, that's what he was famous and known for. But was there ever a time as you're doing this,

16:12

I mean, like that sort of being a problem as far as just the inconsistency with that?

16:19

Well, no. And I, and I think I'm doing what the prophet did. Yeah. Yeah. This is something that's just totally normal.

16:27

Like the cultism and spirituality and that kind of stuff is like new age has a big foothold in Mormonism.

16:35

Like law of attraction is considered to be like a gold standard within the

16:40

Mormonism thing. So almost like the frequencies and using those frequencies would have been like your Urim and Thummim.

16:46

Yeah. Yeah. Like having a seer stone to see it and translate it.

16:54

I mean that. Did you say Uma Thurman? I love her. Just so you know too, we, we, we just ate, we went, we just did a scarf through two pieces and it's probably, it's a little later than we expected.

17:06

So we're like Urim and Thummim. But yeah, so, so when

17:13

I, when I, when I, and when I did that it's, so when I did leave and end up leaving ghost hunting behind,

17:20

I mean, I still watch the shows. I still was, you know, heavily like into that world, but I just didn't participate because like,

17:28

I just don't want to. I will say when I was watching the shows, the people I respected more were the people who had a respect for it.

17:39

And if that makes sense, then like Ghost Adventures on Travel Channel, I absolutely hated those guys because they were like constantly like provoking and like calling and I'm like, you guys are dumb.

17:50

Yeah. Don't. Overly cinematic. I'm like. Yeah. Well, and it's, it was what Wade was saying. If you really want something to happen, it will happen.

17:57

And if you're calling, if you're provoking demonic forces, just wait. Um, yeah. And things were always happening to him and I'm like, well, it's because you're dumb.

18:05

Um, but, uh, the ones I respect the most were actually the Tennessee Wraith Chasers.

18:11

And I still don't know how they, how they, um, deal with the inconsistencies because these guys are all like Southern, like Christian boys.

18:20

And they even like prayed to Jesus. And they, they actually did, they actually did a ghost hunt of the exorcist house that they filmed it at.

18:28

And like during, and they did an exorcism there of the house on like a Halloween and stuff.

18:33

And I was like, I don't know how you are. How are you reconciling it? But I can at least respect the fact that you're trying to do this from a somewhat

18:42

Christian angle. Um, but of course this was before I would say, but I'm like, I can see y 'all are trying.

18:50

Um, but, and then I ended up, so when I left there, um,

18:56

I got really trying to find my, my group again. Um, I was still

19:01

LDS, but, um, I ended up kind of going inactive at that point.

19:07

Um, cause the group I hung around in my kind of my claim to fame was ghost hunting, right?

19:16

Yeah. That was my claim to fame. And I was no longer a ghost hunter. So I went inactive anyway.

19:22

So I had, I joined this motorcycle group. Um, and one of the guys in town, who's the chaplain for the

19:28

POWMIA group. Um, his name's Rev. He's what he goes by. It's his road name. He picked the right road name to go by.

19:36

And that's what everybody calls him as Rev. And the reason why it's a good name is his actual name is Jim Jones. Unfortunately.

19:42

Right. I don't be telling us that. Yeah. We don't want to go by that. Yeah. So he goes by Rev. Um, but he started a church there and he was hosting a blessing of the bikes.

19:52

Um, he does it every year where he blesses all of the motorcycles of everybody who rides is like, you know, keep them safe, keep them running.

20:02

Let's not have anything. And so I went with my group, not expecting anything. Cause I'm just like, yeah,

20:07

I'll go. Why not? Cause at that point, um, it was post Gordon B Hinckley coming out.

20:14

And so Mormonism was pretty open to, oh, we can just go to other faiths and just do things occasionally. No big deal.

20:20

You know, that was the thing. And when he blessed that bike, I felt a spirit off of him that I hadn't felt like for a long time.

20:29

And I was like, wait, you're not Mormon. Yeah. You don't, you shouldn't have that.

20:35

You don't have that stuff. Yeah. And I kind of had that too. Um, after this whole experience too, um, a family had come over that my dad's became really good friends with cause they, he was getting his

20:47

PhD in political science on there from Cameroon. And he was a Baptist from Cameroon. And I remember one day, like he kind of did this too.

20:56

His car broke down. His auto trans float had dropped out of his car right in the middle of this thing.

21:01

And I'm sitting there and I'm mad for him. Cause I'm like, wow, that sucks. And he, he's like, praise

21:07

God. What? He was like, praise God. It happened here in the driveway and not on the freeway where I'm here safe.

21:14

It's all good. Right. And I'm buddy, what kind of faith do you have? I'm like,

21:20

I'd be kicking the car. I'd be mad. Yeah. You're just, oh, praise

21:25

God. It happened here. Okay. But that happened. And then I meet up with Rev and then

21:30

I was like, okay, well, there's something different here. And everybody liked to call his church, the biker church.

21:36

And the reason why is there was more Harleys in the parking lot than there were cars. And so, and everybody was, and it was come as you are.

21:43

So everybody would come in their cuts, which is the leather vest that you see them wear. So everybody came in their cuts.

21:51

And it was also known that no matter what allegiances you had, once you were in there, everybody was cool with everybody.

22:01

This was in Idaho. This was in Idaho. Yeah. So I went there and that's where I responded to an altar call.

22:09

One time when he's like, hey, who needs to be saved? Like, raise your hand. And I just remember going, and I'm like, get down there.

22:19

Like, why are you up? Like, that doesn't happen. I'm good. I'm a

22:24

Mormon dude. Like, what's my hand doing up? And I prayed and I remember like feeling like this weight taken off after.

22:33

And I was like, okay, well, I'm just going to get involved here. And I actually ended up becoming his worship pastor for a year and doing music and writing.

22:43

Well, it's just interesting too, that you mentioned how, you know, with all your time of ghost hunting, you sort of had this awareness and sensitivity to the unseen realm.

22:51

And this is just indicative of people that we've talked to who are in the new age or in the occult is that they just, they have a sensitivity to it.

22:59

And while they haven't, they only initially have it because they were, they crossed over and it's something they shouldn't have done.

23:06

But even in spite, it's always, you know, God always uses and works all things out together for good.

23:11

Especially, you know, that being of the reform tradition for sure. But I think that is very unique that you had sort of the sensitivity that there was a sort of like a releasing of the white noise upon this blessing.

23:25

Oh, wow. And that's probably what, I probably was being impressed pretty good at that point.

23:31

I bet, dude. But I ended up not staying.

23:38

So my wife and kid, we had just had my middle son at that point and they were young.

23:45

They were, her bishop was basically telling her to leave me. And she was feeling like a single mom because she was taking them to the

23:51

LDS church. She was still LDS. Right. And I was a worship pastor over here and doing all of this.

23:58

Interesting. And really involved. I wish, I used to joke with all the

24:04

Mormons in town because they'd be like, you have to go to church for three hours. I'm like, what would that be like? I'm like, my Sundays are like 12 hours long because we go and we do a rehab facility.

24:14

And then we do, our service was like three or four. And then we actually had another service for the women's prison that night.

24:22

So we would go up there and do that. And so then I get home like three hours would be nice.

24:29

I'm like, I don't know what that's like. But. So she was going to leave you.

24:35

She was going to leave. And then I actually saw a talk by Brad Wilcox that sounded a lot like what

24:41

Christian grace is. And I said, well, maybe there's a spot for me to go back.

24:48

And so I ended up going back. Oh, going back to the LDS church. Yeah. Mike, maybe there's a spot for me.

24:55

Cause that was, that was the one thing that I really thought that they had wrong was grace. That was my kind of sticking factor.

25:01

Yeah. So the LDS church was wrong, but then you heard Brad Wilcox. And I'm like, maybe there's, maybe they're softening up.

25:07

Maybe there's room. Maybe I understood it wrong. Cause what he,

25:13

I, I always say I would love to be able to sit in a room with him for like an hour and just like talk about grace because I think he's on the right path.

25:21

He's actually the, he's actually the head of like the religious studies or whatever at BYU. He's one of the chairs.

25:29

I'd love to get you in a room because I'm like, you're, you're really close to, you're, you're, you're, you're really close.

25:37

But I ended up going back. And then we moved down here for a job.

25:43

And we were down here for about two years in Utah. We were done.

25:49

And then I started getting the pole again and it all is around music. Like I said, music always played a huge role in everything in my life.

25:58

We never stopped listening to Caleb because I was really into that music because I was a worship pastor, worship music.

26:04

This is what we listened to. Contemporary Christian music. Contemporary Christian. That was the thing. And the rock and road show was coming into town.

26:11

And so it was a $10 ticket for Compassion International. But we're talking, we have Matthew West for King and Country, Social Club Misfits, Amy Grant.

26:23

Like big names. Big names. Skillet? No. Although I have seen them live.

26:28

But when I saw them live, they were performing with Seven Dust and like, yeah, there was

26:36

Seven Dust, Skillet. And like, oh, I can't remember the other two. Pop Evil was one of them that they were performing with.

26:44

And that was only like a year or so ago. It was actually a decent show. John Cooper.

26:51

Awesome. Yeah. Noble Cookies here. So we went to that and I felt, again, that connection, that spirit went,

27:04

OK, I'm not feeling that anywhere. So weird enough, how

27:09

I got turned on to the first Christian church I went to after that point was actually from a

27:16

Mormon who's really extremely open theist. He actually went to Yale and got a theology degree.

27:23

I don't know why he would do that as an LDS member because they don't have paid clergy. I'm like, why would you go into debt?

27:28

You have a theology degree at Yale. You're not going to use it. And he was actually working on the

27:35

Joseph Smith papers and everything too. And he's like, he listened to me and he goes, he's like, there's this place called

27:42

Center Point. He's like, I think those are your people. He's like, I don't think the LDS are your people.

27:49

Really? Just, he's like hearing you. He's like, he's like, but he was like really open.

27:55

Like he was like almost pantheistic. Like he was kind of into Buddhism. He was kind of in this and this and this and this.

28:00

And he's like, no, these are your people. Like, yeah, he's like, these are your people. Just go, go, go be with your people.

28:06

And I'm like, OK. So I went and told my wife, I'm like,

28:11

I'm just going to do both, but I want to go for the music. And because they did contemporary Christian worship, went, love the music, love the message.

28:20

And then we went to sacrament meeting that day. It was right after. So I go to first service there and then go to sacrament meeting.

28:27

Sitting in a side pew. And they do sacrament or communion every sacrament meeting.

28:37

That's why they meet. Because you actually renew your baptismal covenants. That's how you get rid of your sin is by taking.

28:43

So our row got skipped with the water out of nowhere.

28:49

And that's really rare because bishops usually watch to make sure everybody gets it. Or those who aren't supposed to take it because if you're in sin, you're actually not supposed to take it.

28:59

So they're watching to make sure that those people don't take it and that the people who are supposed to take it get it. Yeah. So our row gets skipped.

29:05

He totally misses it. But pretty much clear as day, the scripture comes to my mind.

29:10

That's like, I am the living water. And I had prayed before that. I said, God, tell me what to do.

29:16

And I don't care what it is. Just let me know. Dangerous prayers. If you're going to pray these things, just expect things to happen.

29:23

And I was like, I'm a living water. And I went, oh, okay. Now I know what you're telling me. I don't know though.

29:32

I'm like, I'm still going to do both. I'm like, I'm in Utah County. I can't do this. I'm going to do both.

29:38

And so I went back and second time I went, um, is when I met with the senior pastor there and basically got the impression.

29:48

It's like, and I want you to do what he's doing. And I went, and then me and God had to have an argument because I went, no, no, no, no, no.

29:55

I don't want to be doing what he's doing because if I'm doing what he's doing, that means I have to speak. I can't do both if I have to speak.

30:04

Yeah. I can't be in the back if I have to speak. And of course we all know who wins those, those fights.

30:12

Yeah. God wins. And, and I remember, um, driving back to the sacrament meeting.

30:22

Um, and that's when all in by Matthew West. I don't know if you're familiar with the song. Um, it was just getting big on Caleb, but basically he talks about how he stepped on middle ground and how he can't do that anymore.

30:36

Yeah. He has to jump into the deep end and go all in. Like, there's no, there's no fear in this.

30:42

And I was like, you can't serve two masters. Yeah. And so I'm sitting there going, huh? So I'm driving to sacrament meeting.

30:48

Wow. Thanks. Yeah. That was the last meeting I attended. I attended and that told my wife,

30:55

I couldn't go to the priesthood meeting afterwards cause I was like, I just can't went home. And I just told my wife,

31:01

I said, Hey, I'm done. I can't. Um, weird enough with that though.

31:07

Um, I met with my pastor, the guy who I was a pastor with in Idaho, he's worship pastor.

31:14

Um, and we, we've been talking like, Hey, I'm out. And by the grace of God, this time my wife and my kids got pulled out as well.

31:22

And I was talking, we met for lunch. Um, we met halfway and he's actually the one that gave me this ring that I wear.

31:29

Um, it has in God we trust on it. It's actually made from a coin and uh, we were talking and he said, you know, it's really good.

31:37

He's really good. I'm really glad to see you. And I'm like, well, what do you mean? He goes, I've been praying ever since you went back in.

31:43

Yeah. Cause I knew you were supposed to be in ministry. I was praying for you to get out and get back in the ministry.

31:49

And I'm like, Oh, it's your fault. I'm like,

31:56

Oh, and everything just played out exactly the way you wanted it to be sitting there with, you know, big old grin, like a cat that just ate a canary.

32:04

Um, but, and so, you know, from that point, um, and then

32:14

I also had a wavering, uh, and then from that we started telling our parents, um, things like that.

32:21

Weird enough, my parents, uh, I reached out to my niece who's actually

32:27

Wiccan, uh, when everything went down because she's been pretty by the family.

32:33

Right. And so I reached out to her as kind of like, Hey, how did you do this to not disrupt everything?

32:40

Cause you're not LDS. So how did, how did this work out?

32:46

Well, she ended up telling my brother everything who ended up telling my whole family.

32:52

So I didn't have a chance to tell them you trusted a Wiccan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so everything blew up in my face there.

33:02

Um, and there was a big period of like disownment. Um, and then my wife told her parents and there was that whole issue.

33:14

I ended up losing my job. Um, cause I was at a company that was founded by three BYU graduates. The company was like 98 %

33:20

LDS and they just made it really awkward after I left to the point where they just basically pushed me out.

33:27

Um, and I lost all my friend groups that I had just gone. So it costs you everything.

33:34

It costs me everything, your roster, except for my family. Yeah. Except for my immediate family. Yeah. Um, but I can't,

33:40

I can't remember who said it. I think it might've been Spurgeon who said, you'll never understand what having

33:47

Christ is like until it's the only thing you have. And I can tell you it's all worth it, but you don't know what it is until it's the only thing you have.

33:59

And I think it's just an experience that, you know, if you don't sometimes as Christians, we can take

34:06

Christ for granted, right? As you were talking about in the Q and A, we're not thankful for our salvation and that can be an issue.

34:14

Um, when it's all you have, you're truly thankful for it because it's all you have to be thankful for everything else.

34:21

You're like, I'm not thankful for anything else except for this. That's the only thing I have to be thankful for because that's it. Um, and it was tough and, and I, I wavered.

34:31

I actually thought about going back cause I was like, it's just not like it's worth it, but I can't, I don't know if I can sustain.

34:38

Um, and that's actually how I got connected with Apologia, um, was Jeff's, uh,

34:43

Gospel for Mormons video. Um, I seen a couple of his things and pulled it up on YouTube and I don't think

34:51

I pulled it up. I think that I would honestly hand of God providence, watch this.

34:58

Yeah. And after hearing the gospel and the

35:03

LDS gospel put side by side and some comparing contrasted, I saw it and went, well, now wavering's done.

35:12

And I showed my wife, I said, watch this. Right. And she's like, and she had just, she had just barely came out.

35:19

She came out a little bit after me. Um, and she would have been wavering and she's like, you know what? I don't like some of what he said cause she still had that thinking, but she's like, yeah, but I can't deny anything he said.

35:32

Yeah. Wavering's done for you too. Right. Yeah. Um, and then just went head long, uh, and through his providence through his grace, like he disconnected me with and surrounded me with people that became my family.

35:49

Um, since then me and my family, we we've gotten closer. They'll talk to me about, um, things now, but I, I think it would have went over better if I could explain to myself in the beginning.

36:02

Right. Yeah. But I wasn't able to, and instead it just came across as, Oh, he's just doing this thing where he wants to be a preacher now.

36:13

Didn't you save a, you know, at the time they treated your

36:18

Wiccan relative better than better than you. Yeah. Yeah.

36:24

Yeah. Which is interesting. Um, I think, I think, I think a lot of LDS communities, a lot of LDS members who leave, we'll have that experience.

36:35

Um, I think if you're atheist, it's not as bad for them because they feel like you're gone and they can possibly save you from that.

36:46

But if they can, the light of Christ is hard to fight against. It's like a betrayal to them.

36:52

Yeah. Well, and they, and they know that if they were to try to win you back, it would be very, very difficult because they can see the light and they're like, wow, if I'm going to have to,

37:03

I'm going to have to get that. And a lot of times they can't. Um, my parents, a lot of times will come to me and ask me like, well, what do you think about this?

37:13

Or what do you, what do you think about this? Instead of trying to convince me otherwise now, because they know it's just not happening.

37:21

Their, their biggest rule with our, with our, um, conversations now is just, we're fine as long as there's no fighting, like debate.

37:33

And, and, and actually it's been, it's been fairly nice. Like my mom now leads, um, primary singing and she wanted

37:42

Liam to watch, like, who's my youngest son. He's four. I want him to see some of the things, but she was sensitive enough to be like, well, listen, you watch them before.

37:53

And if anything disagrees with your theology, don't show them. She respects me there.

38:00

Yeah. She's like, I'll be respectful. And yeah, I just think it would be cool for him to see grandma saying, and I'm like, okay,

38:08

I can, I can yeah. And actually some of the songs are like, do as I'm doing, follow me, which are like, just like nursery rhyme type things.

38:17

And I'm I'll have him watch that and be like, look, it's grandma. Well, it's one of those things too.

38:25

When you think about the world of the cults and you have sometimes like the cold identity as we wrap up here versus the true identity, like Steve Hassan talks about this, but I think a lot of times that, you know, you're sort of the knee jerk reaction of someone who's a cultist or is in a cult is they want to do the shunning, the disconnection and the cutting off.

38:46

But then, you know, you have, but all of a sudden I don't get to talk to my grandkids. And that's, that's a by -product of my loyalty to this organization.

38:54

But then it's like that shifting between, you know, what the human side of me, like, you know,

39:00

I want to have kids one day. And like that, this is the miracle of staring back at you and the child staring back at you, you know, coming into this world, but then also like the ability to be a grandparent.

39:12

And that's, I know people, and it's on a personal level, people who can't be grandparents to their kids and having that, it's a very difficult thing when you're put into that situation.

39:22

And so it's almost like, I've seen it happen before where sometimes there's sort of this mutual agreement that you kind of go along to get along or you disagree, let bygones be bygones.

39:32

And that's always kind of an interesting thing that I've seen. Well, for me, just Matthew 10 was real.

39:39

When I say that, when he says, I did not come to bring peace, but I come to bring a sword. And we talked about if you, if you love your family more than him, you don't deserve him in that.

39:48

And that was actually comforting during that period, because I'm like, I'm like, well, they're wanting, or how

39:59

I felt during that period is they're wanting a religion of a relationship and that's okay for them.

40:05

I'm, I'm going to disconnect because I have Jesus and that's okay. Right. And that's, if they're wanting this, that's, that's going to be okay.

40:14

Because I was, I read, I was told this was going to happen. Yeah. So it wasn't like a shock.

40:21

Yeah. And I didn't really let bygones be bygones. Um, I I've just let my hands be clean.

40:28

I've given them gospel presentations on multiple occasions at this point. Now it's,

40:33

I, I, you know, solar day glory. It's not me. That's going to convert them. It's the Holy spirit.

40:39

So I've given them the gospel presentations. My hands are clean at this point. I'll let the

40:44

Holy spirit do what it's going to do. And I'm just going to let bygones be bygones and love on them. Yeah.

40:50

But they know where I stand. They know where I stand. Right. Yeah. I think, yeah, no, this, this has been really good.

40:57

And I think that one of the things too, like as we wrap up here is that, you know, you, you've had a whole slew of events from going to, you know, being a, being an adopted child in the

41:06

Mormon family, becoming an atheist, having this, like this Marilyn Manson, atheists, occultism, stint back to Mormonism.

41:13

And then, you know, this includes, you know, motorcycles, ghost hunting and all these things.

41:19

It's like a movie. It's yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you, I'll definitely be the first to borrow your autobiography and it comes out.

41:27

Yes. He's like,

41:34

I guess get a good hat. Yeah. It's not like a Quentin Tarantino movie. This is as good as my black flag moment.

41:51

Yeah. You just line that up for me. That's good.

41:57

But yeah, this is just those cool things too. Just because like, as I mean, kind of looking to just the infrastructure in Utah and just personally, you know, like I felt just kind of just overwhelmed yesterday, just, just seeing the

42:11

Mormon temple being excavated. Cause like I said, it was just sort of, you got to see it for what it really is, just this corporation that is just manufacturing this sort of this, you know, this manufactured identity that is, that is full of that.

42:26

It's just, it's a fraud and it's false and it's leading people to hell and that's just hard to listen to.

42:32

But I think sometimes it can be overwhelming looking at the big picture and being, you know, us being at the

42:37

Mormon temple and being chased down by the, by the Mormon men in black, trying to chase us down the security, you know, the security with their whole things going on.

42:45

But I just. We have cameras everywhere, just so you know. Oh, I know. I know. They were following us all the way back to our car.

42:52

Yeah. Well, at the Provo city center temple, we actually get along well with the, we do street evangelism down there.

42:59

We get along well with the security guard now because there was BLM protests down there and the guy actually got shot down there.

43:07

And so we're seen as the good thing to have around, you know, by the grace of God, he allowed something else to happen so that we look good.

43:17

And he even says that we have the light of Christ, like the security guard does, but he actually, when we came out and we were talking once, he actually pointed to each tree that had a camera.

43:26

He's like, we have a camera right there, right there, right there. Huh? I didn't know.

43:32

I don't even see him. He's like, yeah, you won't see these birds. They're not real. That's like a little, like also the,

43:38

I can see it is they're being pigeons. Yes. Because the birds are real.

43:45

Yeah. But yeah, but going back to just like seeing the big picture, but really seeing on a serious note, like God kind of working through all these unique particular events, you know, leading up to you being very involved with Mormon evangelism, being involved with what's up here.

44:00

And even on levels like, yeah, with the end of abortion now, and even in many ways,

44:06

I mean, we're going to be working together with this church plant and helping get the gospel out here in Utah. And, you know, and we know that there's probably many people that right now are kind of in the process and like where they're, they are right now where you were at the end of part one or the beginning of part two.

44:23

Right. And that's why we need to be out there, you know, swinging that gospel ax out here in that cultish embedded place of Utah.

44:31

So, so yeah, I think this has been a great discussion. So unless you guys have any last words, I think we'll wrap up here.

44:37

Any last thoughts? It was great to hear your story. Good. Good. Cause I'm, my eyes are getting kind of,

44:44

I'm going to have to get toothpicks from my eyes cause I get a little tired here, but it's all good. All right. So if you guys enjoyed this series on Mormons, ghost hunting, motorcycle gangs, and Quentin Tarantino, Numa Thurman, and all that sort of stuff, go ahead and share this episode, comment on social media, let us know what you thought.

45:02

And as always, if you want to support the cultish show, go to the cultish show .com, go to the donate tab. You can donate one time or monthly if you choose to do either.

45:10

Thank you for supporting the ministry on that note. We will talk to you guys next time on cultish, where we enter into the kingdom of the cults.