Stuff They Don't Want You To KnowFrom fast food to mass media, it can be tough to know who really runs a company. In tonight's episode, the guys return to more true stories of companies that are either founded by or run by groups the average person would consider... cults.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
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IHEARTRADI Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Nol.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission control deck, and most importantly you are here. And that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. We've got to give a big shout out to a good friend of ours, superproducer, the Heartbreaker of Knoxville, Dylan Fagan, for coming through and the clutch. All three of us went through some shyamalans to get to this recording today. Companies started by Colts Part two. You know, a while back, guys, we did we explored following Gong because I think we all wanted to go to the shen Yun Festival.
For a while. I certainly did. It's fairly a delightful show. It is a delightful show.
I here, and when we were doing that, this sort of triggered this other exploration about conspiracies. In company origin stories, we talked a lot about companies that appear to have been started or at the very least heavily influenced by associated with what we would call cults. And we knew we would find a few, but I think we're all surprised by just how many very successful businesses, and weirdly enough a ton of restaurants are in fact run by new religious movements the PC term. And we knew there would have to be a second chapter to this, as we'll see at the end of this evening's episode, there may need to be a third chapter. Anyway, Here are the facts. We're not going to waste too much time on the setup check out part one, because we've got a lot of crazy stuff to get to. You know, you never know who really owns something, right unless you dig into it.
Can you own a song? Can you own the wind? It's possible if you want to ask Disney. They own a lot of stuff, as it turns out, But in a lot of situations, it is, to your point, been difficult to trace exactly where an organization begins. Perhaps you know who the parent company truly is. And it is true that a lot of companies are owned by some pretty bizarre groups, entities, organizations. The most immediate examples of this that we can think of are in the world of corporations, where single massive entities own an entire sector, you know, of the economy. Perhaps great example, Luxotica brands, for all intents and purposes, a monopoly on overpriced sunglasses. I'm a big jerk and own several pairs because they also somehow make you feel like you got to own them or else you're not really wearing Are you really wearing sunglasses if they're not ray Ban or something that Luxotica owns. I think they even own Sunglass Hut. It's like they own the means of production and the means of distribution. Weird.
Yeah, well yeah, I mean there are so many huge brands like that that that if you look at the branching brands that you think of or buy on a regular basis, you'd be astounded. I mean, that's everything from Mars and Coca Cola, Nesley, what, Kellogg's, General Mills, PepsiCo.
Or Unilever owns everything.
Yeah, even Danin remember the yogurt brand Dan. But there's like what, that's hundreds of the things underneath there.
And then you have like Procter and Gamble, for example, you know, they're like a giant chemical company essentially that owns all of these brands that are essentially fancy packaging of chemicals that you put in your body or on your face.
Yeah, and any if if you look at almost any food product, right, genre of food product, and what you'll see is there is a remarkably small number of players who are actually in the game. And that's because this is very good business for them.
Right.
Why would you want to own one team in the sport when you could own the sport itself, right, then you make money no matter who loses. So we looked at this and we see this reflected or related to some of the other stuff we explore with companies in part one of this series. We looked at companies that, honestly, I think we all assumed we're somewhat innocuous. Celestial Seasonings, Sleepy Time Tea, sell Us Academy, Onita Silverware. I think we all knew about going in. Some of us have personal experience with the Yellow Deli. Narking On is run by Scientology. Narcing On is Scientology adjacent. According to everyone except for Scientology, including the US government. Narcing On is run by Scientology.
I mean speaking of innocuous and in the Sleepy Time tea, you got that lazy little bear. What could be wrong? He looks so lovely, you know, Celestial Seasonings all their branding, these companies and there they're forward facing. You know. Imagery and branding are designed to make you not question it, right, yeah, man.
And while the particulars of each story may vary from case to case, you know, like Washington Times and the Moonies versus Narkana and Scientology and so on, they all have this one commonality. They internally share some sort of unifying, ideological or spiritual association. In some cases, these associations are hidden from the average consumer, and in some other cases they are openly presented to the consumer in the interest of proselytization. You know, we can maybe gather some new recruits. When you walk in to get a sandwich from Chick fil A. This might be your road to Damascus moment, you know.
Yeah, I mean, even like in and out Burger and cook out for example, as to like kind of you know, regional burger chains, they have scripture printed kind of in fine print on some of their cups, and you know, paper kind.
Of wares well and then others like one we're gonna talk about today. I guys, I happened to go to a store that sold some vegan food and I was excited about eating that vegan food, and I walked in, made my order, then kind of looked around near the front and just saw, huh, those are those are different magazines than I've ever seen they.
Did they have the TV channel?
I did not see a TV channel in the place. We're gonna talk.
About We're gonna play a clip of it.
Yeah, and then we've got other and look, it's weird that there are a lot of restaurants doing this, but also, to be very clear, a lot of restaurants that just reflect the the owner's spiritual beliefs. That doesn't make them sinister at all. You know, I live up the street from a place called Sole Vegetarian. I go there pretty frequently because their food slaps.
You, guys. I went to this pumpkin patch the other day called Bert's Pumpkin Farm or whatever that's called in North Georgia, and I went on my first hay ride and through a certain point on this hay ride you passed these like creepy animatronic pumpkins that like give you a little lesson in the lord. Oh like tribulation subversively. We're rather you know, in a subdued kind of comedic fashion, but you're almost like double take, Like wait a minute, they're trying to doctrinate me a little bit, or at the very least slip that message on in.
I love that mentioned Ben. The hell houses are strong right now?
Oh man, we should go well, I loved I loved those, that little slice of suburbia. You know, maybe we can go to one. Yeah, see, let's find one with a really big weird budget, you know, like the guys who get the car just to burn it.
There was one in my hometown where they had like a wrecked car outside of the church like as and it was like featured in it where I guess somebody drunk drove and you know, killed all their friends and then the devil came and took them right.
Yeah, and then oh man, the only thing is at the end they make you stop and listen to the you know, the moral of the story. Okay, so we always snuck off in the woods and did mischievous things, mischievous things. But the point of this that we're making. This is a very common thing. And when you look at the idea of companies quote unquote owned by cults, what we have to realize is that a cultic organization never calls itself a cult. Like, for instance, Delta, which is a huge airline here in the US. Well it's global airline, but it's based in Atlanta. Delta jokes about being called a cult because they have a very strong internal corporate culture. But they're not isolating people from their friends and family. They're not forcing people to buy stuff, you know, or give away all their worldly possessions.
That's the big one.
Can I just double back real quick and make sure it's clear that I was not implying that Christianity as a cult per se. I was just saying that there are ways that are analogous to the ways that these kind of messages can be slipped in through innocuous means, like a pumpkin ride or you know, a haunted house.
Yea, or veggie tails or whatever it's called, like the or you know Narnia, right, that whole book series. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, and well, none of us are calling these things a cult. There are offshoots, there will always be sects that are considered heretical by the mainstream of a particular religion. But when we're talking about cults, we're really talking about tactics. And that's why some of these things, some of these entities will say, no, we're absolutely not a cult. Don't tell you what to believe, right.
Yeah, we just listened to the Supreme Master and all that she says at all times.
And do whatever they say, and you know, we buy her sacred bathwater true story. So what we're telling is this, it's alarmingly common for these products and entities to have their true ownership kind of played to the left. And a lot of these companies are everywhere in the West. You will run across them, or you can run across them in any major city. And we still wonder how many cases are out there, how many companies are run by cults. Here's where it gets crazy. Well, it turns out there are a lot of cases out there. There are a ton, not a literal ton, configurative ton, much bigger than a real literal ton, well.
Enough to warrant a part two and a potential part three.
Yes, yeah, I mean each of these companies just to be completely fair. We're going to give you some of the accusations against them or criticisms, and then we're going to give you their side as well, and we can't wait to hear if you have firsthand experience. But please be aware they may not be outright owned by a cult or a religious sect, new religious movement if you prefer, but they're associated with these groups through either their founders or their current key influencers.
And also, we know the C word can be a hot but an issue, especially to folks that participate in some of this stuff. I think I've mentioned my experience with the Bahai Faith in the past where I had some friends that remember of that, and there are certain folks who study this stuff who would classify that group as a cult. I found them to be very nice people until after the fact, didn't really realize how kind of culty it was, but you know they are. There are lovely people that participate in some of these things, and they're not all inherently insidious, right And a cult.
You know, cults have it's got a bad connotation these days, but really there are two main definitions. A cult is a group that or a system that venerates or doors a particular figure or an object, right, and then the cult and the bad sense is a relatively small group of people who have insular beliefs and practices that the rest of the world thinks are kind of off. But in neither case is it necessarily bad. It's not like equated to being terrorist or something. Well.
And it's also interesting how sometimes the size of the organization and the adherents, you know, in terms of you know, the general population can dictate whether something is considered a cult, because no one would ever say that Christianity or Catholicism or a cult, but they certainly worship one person, and there's a lot of cultic type things and knowledge and secrets that go along with it. But because it's so highly adopted, no one would ever call it that. I mean, some people might, you know, backhandedly, but I think a big hallmark of a lot of these things at their niche and kind of smaller and maybe off the radar.
If there was one person there's just like one guy who practiced Buddhism, people would say he is weird. He's very chill, he's very cool, but he's he's weird. There are millions of Buddhists in the world. It is not treated as something eccentric. So you're right, there's a there's a measure of scope and size that affects the way the world regards these systems. Let's cut to Amway here we go. I was thinking about this. We did an episode on MLM's right, multi level marketing.
We have Yeah, and didn't we talk about Amway in that a little bit, just like the origins of it without.
Yeah, because it's the it's the biggest in the game, UH. And the critics of Amway call it the worst of all multi level marketing UH organizations. It's a former direct selling, where the idea is that everybody works for the thing is not really an employee. You are kind of like a contractor. You don't get a salary, you don't get a wage. And when MLMs go bad, when direct selling goes wrong, what happens is the emphasis becomes not on selling these products, but on recruiting people to sell stuff for you. And that is where that's where you get into all the tricky stuff of like distributors and down line and upline. That nomenclature can sound you know, kind of culty.
Well, it's it's definitely, uh, proprietary to that thing, right, not necessarily that specific MLM, but to MLMs in particular. Right, this it's using terminology that makes it when you've got somebody else who's also a part of that group, is super insular.
Yeah.
Yeah, like reading internal conversations between people in scientology, right, or or internal conversations honestly in branches of government, lots of acronyms as get this or our emails sometimes.
Man, you know, I was gonna say, yeah, like the radio slash podcast business right, all the all the terminology. Other people would just be like, what are you talking about?
Ill?
Yeah.
I almost apologize to you guys because we were running pretty quickly for the past few weeks and I realized I had shot off some email where it was like if you are a message. I can't remember what it was, but it was like one or two lines, and if you read it, it would sound like a weird code or a bunch of typos, like hey, are we okay with eod on stwytk native ad recopy it's a sixty second?
Did we change that CTA or is it aoka?
Yes, they're a drop to beat. So yeah, so you're right, that's a very important point. This is a common thing.
Amway.
Quick background, AMWAY is short for American Way Association, founded in nineteen fifty nine by two grade school friends, j Van Andel and Richard DeVos. And just like Google in alphabet, Amway eventually created a parent company called Altacore to run all of its stuff.
Yeah, and I wasn't sure, but I did just do a little googling myself and confirm that Richard DeVos is the father of Richard Marvin de Vos Junior, who is the husband of Betsy de Vos, who was the kind of weird Secretary of Education under Trump who seemed to have no real experience and did some kind of wacky stuff.
So this tried to destroy the American education system.
More or less you said it. But this is a line, you know, This is like essentially what you might call ben like American Royalty, you know, in terms of its control over business and policy. Right, because you can't just shove a you know, non experienced person into a role like that, a post like that without having some serious pull.
Yeah, dude, And this company, this corporation, does have a lot of pool. It's sales top eight point nine billion in twenty nineteen alone, like this total for ultimately yeah, right, and this they sell health and charity home products.
Is it tied to charity though in some way or is it like the American Way Association, I mean, and that meant to like help people.
Yeah, if you go to their website, you'll see a lot of stuff about like the American spirit and working hard.
Kind of like the Hoover damn video exactly.
It's a little it's a little hooverish they do.
I just assume that because of the name the American Way Association and Amway and all that it sounds to me like the proceeds would go to helping you know, refugees or something, but that is not the case.
Yeah, the Refugee is like a top one percent distributor for Amway. Then yeah, they'll get a lot of money. It's it's weird. So, yes, they do have grants and I'm sure they have a lot of charitable activity. They have been investigated multiple times in multiple countries by a monopoly of organizations. They have never been found guilty of running an alleged pyramid scheme, which is you know, which is what people say about MLS so why.
Are we talking about them? But they're not an MLM pyramid scheme. They're an MLM that's a regular.
One direct sales, right, they're empowering you.
They're an RLM regular level of marketing. Yeah, the scheme is implied. I think those controlling these types of things would take issue with using the word scheme.
By the way, but Ben, you said they've never been found guilty. No, does that mean they've been found not guilty.
They have been found guilty of some things, but not specifically being a pyramid scheme, and they have paid tens of millions of dollars repeatedly in out of court settlements. Oh squashed something so accused but never convicted. In nineteen seventy nine, the Federal Trade Commission here in the States said, okay, m wait, you're not a pyramid scheme, but you are very guilty of exaggerating income claims and you're also clearly fixing prices on products. So here's what we're going to do. Of course, no one gets in trouble because you're a corporate, but we want you to stop airing misleading commercials and advertisements and things like that, because you're making people who may be in desperate in desperate times, you're making them believe that they can instantly become millionaires when the truth is that the majority of people in your organization end up losing money over time.
And this kind of smack of prosperity theology a little very much prosperity theology, yes, you know, but it's like really masquerading as something else because it doesn't come off as inherently religious like the seven hundred Club or whatever. Like you know a lot of these folks that have these infomercials selling buckets of you know, doomsday prep goods. But still, if you dig deep enough, wich is our whole point here, I think you know, from the intro you'll find that it very much employs sort of I don't know, like Jesus cult kind of tactics. I guess right.
Oh yeah, it's going to get really weird in a second. So okay, if you're a typical member of Amway, they will call you an ibo independent business owner, right because you will have the power we are empowering you. There's a book called Amway The Cult of Free Enterprise, which you can read online for free. It looks a little bit hokey. I'm gonna be honest, but it was a different time and the author, Stephen Butterfield, has a lot of information about how, in his perspective, Amway as an organization, these different groups of distributors they use cult like tactics to attract members and retain control over them. So there's intense paran you can click by all like the classic slow jazz of how to make a working cult. There's paranoia toward anyone critical of the organization, internal or external. Matt you pointed out the specificity of jargon and nomenclature to make it increasingly its own language. To your point, Noal, a lot of the meetings and seminars apparently per this guy and other critics, they look more like religious revival meetings. And then even though most people appear to lose money, this idea, of this aspirational idea is enough to keep them leveraged and going into the organization. Like you'll read stories where they have to sell a certain number of things per month, and to not be a pyramid scheme, they can't just buy their own stuff. They have to sell it to like some percentage of it has to be sold to an actual customer is not them, and they get so desperate that they will This is true. They will order stuff to like a neighbor's address, to make it look like that neighbor bought it, and then they'll just sneak over and take it before you know, the Joneses find out.
Are they worried about like getting you know, being on the hook for products or is it literally just about the being terrified of losing their membership in this what they consider prestigious organization that they feel very strongly about.
I don't know, but I would just say in going to the website right now, to Amway dot com, you can shop there on the website for products, and those appear to be direct sell products, like at least on this from this end, it looks like you are buying products from Amway, and I'm assuming as one of what did you call ben IBOs, I'm assuming as one of those individuals and operating your individual business, you would then resell the product you purchase. Is that correct?
You know, I'm not sure how the system works. I understand you would get wholesale products, and they've gone through a couple of different iterations. They had something that kickster or quick Ster or something that came out to focus entirely on online sales instead of in person sales. But it's it's the same thing, so there have been some evolution different iterations.
It is interesting too because they have all these like exclusive brands, you know, like neutral Light for you know, plant based supplements, Artistry for skincare, and makeup Excess for energy, drinks and shakes, and then like a home kind of cleaning products and safer and gentler for all you know.
Yeah, and you get points, You get am Perk points every time you make a purchase. It's interesting stuff, guys.
Yeah, And you can find statements from a lot of the criticism comes from disgruntled former associates of Amway Right and different government organizations. So there was one bredditor and you can find the statement online who alleged that at its core, Amway is, in their mind a prosperity Jesus cult. Well, I say, once you're in the patina of fake professionalism sort of goes away and you're taught a kind of non denominational spirituality of a like a what was that thing Oprah Winfrey really loved, like manifesting the secret you're taught kind of a secret. Yeah, like words and thoughts have power. You can speak your dreams into existence if you quote have enough faith. If you don't succeed, if something doesn't work out up to an including like a non unpredictable medical condition, then it's kind of on you because you didn't have enough faith. You spoke negative things into existence. And then there's one thing that really stood out. This person says, I remember stories where they would literally tell doctors to keep their mouth shut if the doctor found a terminal illness and not say anything. I think they would still take medicine and so on, but they would literally tell the doctor not to speak the words, as if the doctor's words had magical powers that could cause the illness to take a foothold. So that's crazy, that's just scratching the surface. That's just one example. There are more examples of companies that are alleged to have these controversial tactics at the core of their being. We're gonna pause, take a word from our sponsor, who knows who it will be, uh, and then we'll be back with a We'll be back with another example that's a little more true crime actually.
And we're back moving on to company number two of today's episode, True Value Out of Utah. What does Utah make you think of? New Caps, salt candy or the mountains? Both? Okay, salt flats, No caps salt flats. That should be a rap song comes next to something about cooking something up in the something that no get there you go the Kingston Clan. Tell us about the Kingston Clan that you taught to me makes me think of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.
Yeah, yeah, that's the big one right. So to our earlier conversation about sex and breakaway groups, the Kingston Clan is a insular, secretive breakaway group from the Church of Latter Day Saints, and internally it's called the Order with a capital O. They have several doctrinal disagreements with the mainstream LDS Church. They're very tight knit. They are a polygamous community. They have been practicing for decades and decades arranged marriages, often between underage girls and sometimes much older men, and not infrequently these folks are related to each other. I don't know to what degree. It's more like a cousin thing than I think a sibling thing.
And They're again not to beat a dead horse here, but there are lots of good, lovely, law abiding folks that practice this faith and do not do any of those things, and in fact look at those behaviors as a black mark on their faith. You know, if you've ever seen the show Big Love on HBO, there's it kind of shows those two sides, and it's a very interesting world. So, I mean, I'm sure we have listeners that maybe grew up in the church and have thoughts about this. I just want to make sure we're being real clear that this is not everybody that's involved with LDS one hundred percent.
Is it called True Value?
True Value is one of the stores they own, And you would never know this because the Kingston Clan owns a ton of different businesses. True Value is like a franchise hardware store thing. They're based up north. They don't the Kingston Clan doesn't own the entirety of True Value. But that that was sort of how I began to find out about them. They also own We'll get to what they earn in a second. Let's talk more about their fundamentalist beliefs.
Gotcha, I'm sorry, I was really confused because in my head, I saw a bunch of products called true Value, but it was actually just the Walmart brand great value I think products. I's so sorry about that.
Oh well, I mean, are the Waltons at this level? Are they engaging in cult like activity?
Unclear?
Nor I don't Mark, So Walmart can move in and just break a town. It's we've seen. Everybody in the United States has seen that happen or knows about it. So anyway, if you look at members of the Kingston Clan, you will see that they don't appear anachronistic. They don't really stick out. They wear modern clothing. Female members of the Order are encouraged to get new last names for themselves and their progeny to downplay that existence of plural marriage, which is just another word for polygamy. And wives in the Order are also expected to work and pay their own bills. So it sounds a little bit feminist in that regard, But then you learn that this group, the Kingston Clan, preaches women or the property of their husbands and fathers. You got to follow the Dude's Order in every area of your life, including when you get married, whom you marry, when you get pregnant, whether or not you can go to school. And these are you know, typical and very dangerous fundamental beliefs.
This is a lot of the stuff that's depicted in Big Love in terms of the compounds kind of out in the you know, the farther reaches of the country, I guess parts of Utah, not within the cities where they kind of have a law into themselves. And there's a prophet in the show named Roman who's sort of like this, the head of this and it is they don't they go out of there. You know, they don't make any bones about it. It's depicted as a cult in him as a cult leader.
And with all that stuff which is important, which can be heartbreaking and of course dangerous sometimes fatal. With all that stuff put to one side, there's another thing that the Kingston Clan does. They're very very or they were very very good at business and they have a unique banking arrangement or system within the community. I mean, we talk a little bit about the Kingston Bank.
It's weird. I don't know how you could ever convince me to do this. I don't know that you could. Maybe, but each member when you when you are working you have an income, your money doesn't go into Bank of America or Wells Fargo or one of these places. Your money goes into the organization's bank, the organization's bank that is controlled by what the high few in charge.
So when you say the organization's bank, we're not saying the giant bank that they bank with. We're saying a bank founded and operated by the organization.
Right Kingston Bank. Yeah, you have to give all your money to the bank if you're in the community, and if you want to withdraw money, then that you have to go to the bank. And imagine walking up to the teller at whatever, you know, your bank maybe or your credit union and saying I'd like to withdraw you know, five hundred dollars and then having to tell her to sort of cross their arms and go all right, why what.
Are you gonna do?
Or basically asking you for a pitch document, Well, what's your pitch? Why what do you want that money? What are you gonna use it for?
Exactly? And if it's consensual and it's above board, that arrangement is totally legal. You know, the problem is what's consent.
It's like when Britney Spears was under that protectorship or conservatorship or whatever, and had to like justify any expense that she, you know, wanted to go to Starbucks or take the kids out or something. She had to like explain it.
Well, I think about like a co op or a trust of some sort, where we've got several of those in Atlanta, like land trust, land co ops and those kinds of things where everybody puts in right.
Those are usually good though. Right they give first time homeowners the ability to buy a house, and there's positive things about them. But I see what you're saying.
And then if you've got ideas to use some of those funds, you get together and you pitch an idea of why you're gonna use it. To me, I don't know, maybe it is the same as that. Maybe it just feels different to me.
Because we're on the outside, you know. I mean, I guess the question becomes one of consent, like are these people coerced into participating in this system or do they think that the leaders have their best interest at heart and they're happy to participate in this system.
And also the question of boundaries. So I know a lot of people in co ops right their relationship with the co op is quite is quite well defined.
You know.
The difference I would posit here, Matt, is that in most co ops, the kind that we're thinking about, you know, like the hippie grocery store or whatever. Shout out to Sevenanda in little five points, that's a co op. And they're not telling people. They're not arranging marriages, right, they're not forcing child labor. They're saying, is this the best place for us to get avocados from? You know what I mean?
They voted on that, Yeah, where they exact where they source things from? Do they feel like these are organizations that uphold their values stuff like that? Right?
And nobody knows how much money the Kingston Bank actually has.
Nobody knows people.
Well, I'm sure like there are eight dudes too, no people, But I mean this is not something that is i mean publicly available in any way, shape or form.
I did not know that. That's very interesting. How are they allowed to exist without reporting to the irs and without like with this much small through there?
Okay, okay, yeah, they found out, they have to found out.
Yeah, it takes time that sometimes.
In twenty sixteen, the FBI rated multiple businesses owned by the Kingston Group during an investigation into allegations of tax fraud, high level tax fraud. It all orbits around this energy company that they controlled, and various reports that you could find publicly or in various public statements said altogether the Kingston Clan the Order has about one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy million dollars. However, if you got insiders to speak, and you can find them speaking anonymously, they would say that figure is laughably low. Because the Order's empire spans six different states. They have all sorts of seemingly unrelated businesses with very innocuous names, and we know what's up with innocuous names. Standard Restaurant Equipment Co, Fidelity Funding, Core, Fountain of Youth, Health and Athletic Club east Side Market. They get a coin machine distributor, Digital Systems, Family Stores True Value. They also have a mine that for a while was making a million a month. They have casino and tons of farms. And then the thing that got them in trouble was the Washshaiki Renewable Energy Company or the wr Group, because what they were doing is getting grants and government money for a biofuel project or subsidy, and they were cleaning up because they didn't spend any money actually making biofuel are making. They were making nine and ten year old children show up at the office and help forge documents like bills of lading and invoicing. They're super big on child labor.
I thought that was the Montssori school, the Montessori school, the hand tasks.
Yeah, yeah, the Little Red Schoolhouse Montassori.
Yeah. Yeah, the kid did Montessori for a while. It was weird, but it seemed really cool at the time, but then it was like, this is too much.
So the Kingston Group has created this business empire without clear connections to them by design, they kind of want to stay out of the spotlight. They want to pursue their own belief system, and they were pretty good at it. You could walk through Salt Lake City and never know just how many things they actually oh, they can be traced back to them, But that seems to be changing. Just this year. In April, five Kingston associated individuals were sentenced to prison for what Uncle Sam calls a one billion dollar biofuel tax conspiracy. So they actually some of them did actually go to jail.
It's pretty rare in these types of corporate cases. You know, it's usually there's a fall person or you know, somebody further down the line that gets sent to jail, or it's just a fine that is sort of laughable. So that, you know, I guess that's good, mm hmm.
Yeah, but that it's troubling too because you can read statements of people who have escaped the cult or excuse me, the order, some of whom escaped because women are treated like things in the organization, some of whom were booted out forcibly because of their sexual orientation. And you can there's some great work on advice about this. You can read, and can read any number of stories from an outfit called the Cult Education Institute that talks about a lot of this. Just gird yourself and be ready because some of it is quite disturbing stuff, especially when you get into the alleged and proven sexual crimes of some of the leadership of the sect and they're still doing business, they're still making money and over fist, I propose we go to a ad break and we were thinking about this, guys. We wanted to end on something that was not as horrible ostensibly as you know, a religious sect of child abusers, which is what the Kingston plan is. We're going to go to something that has a creepy name in my opinion, but it's according to some people, it's pretty nice word from our sponsor. And then we'll enter the Loving Hut. We're back. We're in the Loving Hut.
What is that You're in the Loving Hut? Matt tell us about.
It's honestly purveyor of delicious vegan food. It was awesome. I really really enjoyed it when I went there, and I didn't really understand any of the stuff going on around it. But you know, look, this is my experience.
Guys.
I walked in, look at the menu, order some food, walk outside. When I walk back in, notice the magazines take my food, hang out with the magazines a little bit longer, and then realize, oh, there's something going on here. There's somebody they keep referring to as Supreme Master.
There's a quote on their website from him, and it's just attributed to smc h. I'm guessing sm stands for Supreme Master, but so the quote sounds nice. We have to be compassionate again, we have to look into our heart to live the noble way that Heaven all caps or to all caps first letter caps intended us to live. I think you miss Ben's question. What was your order? That's what everyone wants to know.
Oh man, I don't know that I could tell you it was. It was probably something with Soy. I'm sure Soy was involved, Like it was probably Tofu and Soy something cool.
Yeah, I don't want to out us, but I think no one and I both pulled up the menu. You definitely we're reading it. Yeah, take out the Singapore and noodles. But yeah, Loving Hut. It's a chain of vegan restaurants all across the planet. I think for a while it's been the fastest growing vegan franchise in the world. And SMH is Supreme Master. Chinghai a seventy three year old Vietnamese born British business woman and she's got a restaurant empire. Time magazine once called her the Buddhist Martha Stewart. She's the she created a jewelry line, a clothing line. She has something called the Kuan Yin method or Kwanyin method, which is that's kind of what they're talking about in those magazines. That's kind of what the statement about compassion refers to she might have five hundred thousand followers. Nobody's really sure, because this is what is called a cyber sect, meaning a new religious movement that exists in spreads primarily online and unlike Oh oh and you can check out Supreme Master Television right now SMTV.
Yes, yeah, yeah, like the acroam. I think Matt did say off Mike to us that they did not appear to have this network running twenty four to seven, but you might have just missed it.
Again, maybe they did, and I just was completely oblivious to it, and I was like, oh, that that seems like a nice program.
Oh and I okay, we went through again some plot twists through record today, So we're not going to play a clip, but do look up Supreme Master Television. It's worth it. It's got the captions on the bottom of the screen are in like fourteen languages.
They are serious.
About going global. The little caption thing is like the bottom half of the screen, and it's all about how you should need animals, how you should have how you should practice a dedication to a vegan lifestyle, which is a thing a lot of people can agree with.
Sure, yeah, it's a live stream that we can, like, I can turn it on right now?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, click, can you watch it? See right now? We're are you seeing the one about the dog with.
The icon, But did you see the person speaking?
Yeah, that's a very strange look, isn't it.
I was now gonna just seeing beauty shots of fields of trees and mountains with mists and the beautiful boats on on the seashore.
The thing is, when we're saying this not as a ding because we are new to this world. The person who is the host of the like the news anchor person, oh, looks as though they were wearing acoustu yeah and being very diplomatic.
But like full body, fake beard, fake mustache, even fake hair looking thing. And yeah, it's very strange.
Yeah, that's that's one of the more off putting things to me.
There a bomb that haven't gotten to a shot of the anchor yet. I just see kitty cats right now? Any bunny rabbits and daisies?
Wow, what's about animal husbandry laws? About it? From twenty eighteen, I've been you weren't joking about the uh the cap titles here?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, good language tool, right.
And if you're asking yourself. How could you possibly fit all of that in in one screen? Is because they're popping it up like three words at a time, and there's like ten different translations. They're just a zooming past.
Let's let's read, let's read thems really quickly, be vegan, make peace, so be it.
They've got other They've got other really weird, weird things that they get into with this.
I feel like, are we seeing the same thing? Guys? This is honesty. It might not be honestly. Yeah, it's a little cartoon right now. That was there was a joke of today.
Yeah, okay, okay, I'm gonna be a little behind, but yeah, so it's it's continual. You can always check it out if you are interested. And look, you can say, maybe Chinghai seems like a cult leader, but also seems less outright dangerous than some other cult leaders. The emphasis on veganism, kindness, sustainability, so on. Those are all cool aspirational things. And every loving Hut has a lot of agencies. So like if the next time we're on the road, if we go to a loving Hut in California, it's gonna be completely different from the Loving Hut in Sandy Springs, which is a suburb a little bit north of Atlanta here. And that's because the franchises, as long as they follow the rules about veganism and as long as they are down with talking about the Supreme Master, they can put whatever they want on the menu. It's just like, how do you vibe? What do you feel like cooking?
That's cool?
Kind of similar to the Yellow Deli. Didn't they have it? Like there are some of those who were different, as long as they sort of like adhere to the main tenets of the whole philosophy.
M Yeah, I think you're right. And that's in neither case is that typical cult stuff? Also, in the in Chinghai's defense, she hasn't been implicated in like mass suicides or sexual abuse, or kidnapping people and holding them hostage, all the other cult stuff that Netflix documentaries love. But she has been banned. Her organization has been banned in China and Vietnam, and she gets a lot of scrutiny and a lot of criticism because the idea is it's very much a cult personality. It's very centered on following her meditating, chanting your name for two and a half hours a day is recommended you want to purify yourself by drinking her spiritually imbued bath water.
Oh oh boy?
Wait yeah yeah, yeah, like she takes a bath in it.
I believe something like that. Yeah, it's very b girl. Yeah. And then they also tell you do things that will help you have a better physical lifestyle. Don't eat animal flesh, avoid dairy, don't drink booze, don't do a lot of mind altering, well any mind altering drugs, and then avoid something called sexual misconduct, which is kind of vague. I haven't seen anybody explain what that means, Like, does that mean is it an anti lgbt Q thing or is it just like I only have consensual sex.
This reminds me a lot of the United House of Prayer for All People. I think we talked about that in the past, that there was a chapter of it. I guess in my hometown, and they have a really dope soul food restaurant and that's kind of how they get outsiders to come, you know, pass through. But then if you look in the restaurant part, there's a giant painting portrait of this guy named Bishop Charles Manuel Sweet Daddy Grace, and apparently he sells the water that's used to wash his feet to people in a similar fashion that I just remember hearing that, and it was very off putting. I think I just said not to go eat there anymore after that. But it was sure good. And forgive me if I'm getting that wrong. But this is a common thing, this idea of this is something from the leader directly. This is a substance, you know, from the body of the leader that you can now own a piece of, you know.
And this the spiritual beliefs of Chinghai have not been without controversy by any means. You know, they're there are certain potentially harmful practices that the leader has advocated before, one of which being breath arianism. Will remember that one. It's the idea that if you get spiritually right and you're buttoned up, then you can cut food out of your diet. Then you can just live by breathing. Yeah, it doesn't It doesn't work out for most people. Just to be super clear, we're not doctors, but it doesn't work out for most people.
Well it works for a while.
Wait, well, yeah, sure, anything works for a while. Jay, how long is that?
While?
Yeah, and also there's a little bit of prosperity theology, because the Supreme Master tells her followers that you shouldn't be ashamed about making money. She said specifically, people make you feel guilty about making money dot it's none of their business. And that brings us to maybe the biggest controversies, which are all financial. She donated six one hundred and forty thousand dollars to the Bill Clinton Whitewater Defense Fund when he was in trouble for that thing, and they returned it because you know, it looks like you're taking Colt money and they're already in a pr crisis.
That's a lot of money for a defense fund for the to defend against the Whitewater scandal.
She was very a very outspoken supporter of former President Clinton. And also when she got she got a lot of this money from some of her followers in New York and they said, she just asked for donations to quote help someone in need, and they didn't know who it was until it hit the news and they're like, oh, the the guy from the White House. And the Taiwanese authorities have also targeted her businesses under suspicion of illegally moving money in and out of the country in some sketchy ways. She wanted to donate to. UNICEF turned down one hundred thousand dollars donation from her in two thousand and one after they investigated her organization, including Loving Hut. Apparently they've been in trouble. One of the reasons they were banned in China is because they used an electronics company as what the Chinese government is calling a front to recruit new members into this religion or this movement. But on a positive note, she doesn't ask people to cut ties with their loved ones, she doesn't ask them to hand over all their stuff. Her lectures are free. Followers are apparently allowed to leave at any time, So, honestly, as cults go, not bad. I mean, there are accusations of Loving Hut franchises using unpaid or underpaid or child labor, but in comparison to the stuff we explored earlier, I don't know, man, I it's just one thing we can say for sure. We're all going to a Loving Hut together at some point. You're invited. If you're hearing this and yeah and.
Then bang banging menu, I mean, it really doesn't mean well, and they've.
Got free TV that never stops.
Yes, that's the main features.
We can't wait to hear what you think of that TV channel.
I used to have this series of websites or hubs that would go to where you could watch live television from around the world. And I gotta tell you it, GE's interesting. It's a good idea. Think it's interesting, you know. But but we know one thing for sure. There may be a part three company of this series. Companies started by cults. Just like last time, we ran into more and more companies. We didn't get to them today, places like Exjet, for instance, And oh, I thought it would be this is a cool one. Maybe we can end on an honorable mention. I was not aware. You guys might have known this before I did. But did you know that the Moonies run sushi in the US. They run the sushi game.
The whole game, a lot of it. Can you elaborate then?
Okay, So this is props to Daniel Frumson at The New York Times. There's a great article and actually really well designed article to read online. It's very visual, graphic. Novely and the Mooney's Reverend Sun Young Moon. He when he came to the United States he had already made a lot of money selling various things, and he plowed tens of millions of dollars into buying boats and processing plants because he wanted his church to get into the fish distribution business. The company is called True World Foods. And if you look at the measurements now, you'll see that True World Foods still supplies quote most good quality American sushi restaurants with more than a million kilos of fresh fish a year and there, wait for it, reeling in annual revenues of five hundred billion.
Okay, has sushi? So how do you It's okay? So they're like up the supply chain then, I guess is the thing. So it's not like they're directly involved with our neighborhood sushi joint, but they are. They control the flow of sushi. Wow, that's crazy.
And this is the unification church that we're talking about, right.
Yes, yeah, the big I think one of the things that are most famous for is those huge mass marriages.
Wow yeah yeah. Ok.
And during the COVID nineteen pandemic, True World Foods launched home delivery sushi kits to make up for lack of restaurant sales, so you could go check that website out. Do tune in to Supreme Master Television. Tell us what is at your local loving Hut. Tell us what you think about these organizations. Do you have personal experience with any? Are there some that you think more people should know about, maybe in your neck of the global woods. We can't wait to hear from you. We look forward to it, and we try to be easy to find on the internet.
We do. Indeed, you can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff on x FKA, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram and TikTok.
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