Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Coleman and the Cult
The gap between wellness culture and conspiracy theories is smaller than most realize—something Coleman Watts and Daniela discovered firsthand. Their extraordinary journey from deep immersion in false beliefs to champions of critical thinking offers a masterclass in how our minds can both deceive and liberate us.
Coleman's Video - Sex, Lies, and the Mercola Tapes
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with Coleman's experience, where he was apparently in a cult. Can you tell me about that please, coleman, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:I don't know if awesome is the word that I would use to describe the experience but it was something.
Speaker 1:You are listening to the why Smart Women podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to faux fur, jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and, as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though I did go through some shockers to find him, and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which I'm recording and you are listening on this day, of the land in which I'm recording and you are listening on this day, always was, always will be Aboriginal land. So hello, smart women, and welcome back to this week's episode of the why Smart Women podcast. Today, I'm very excited to be interviewing Coleman Watts, who was, fascinatingly, a conspiracy theorist, who has now turned his back on the dark side and is a science communicator, and his wonderful partner, daniela. Is that correct, daniela or daniel?
Speaker 4:you know it's actually daniel, but I think daniela sounds more romantic, so you can call me that too okay, I will call you daniela.
Speaker 1:Just between you and me, that'll be our new name for you. Okay, and so, because they have such a cornucopia of fascinating experiences behind them, I've just exacted a promise that they're going to come back again and talk about more things. So today, here in Australia, on the northern beaches of Sydney, new South Wales, we had a resounding success where our progressive party has retained power here. So we have said no to Trumpism, which we're absolutely thrilled about, and so I think today's a good day to talk about critical thinking, how we discern what is real, what is not real, and how we try and get our thinking back online. So I think I'd like to start with Coleman's experience, where he was apparently in a cult. Can you tell me about that please, coleman? That's awesome.
Speaker 2:I don't know if awesome is the word that I would use to describe the experience but it was something it was something.
Speaker 2:It was mind-blowing. Yeah, and I mean I can just give a little bit of my background, which is that I grew up in a very welcoming, very inclusive, very progressive kind of community, went to a church that was very open-ended. They were called Universalist Quakers and had, you know, very accepting of anyone. You could be a Buddhist and be a Universalist Quaker. You could be probably an atheist and still be a Universalist Quaker. Anybody could go, can.
Speaker 1:I just ask you because I've never heard of a universalist Quaker church. Is this something that's a Carolina thing? What is this? I've never heard of it. Is it like the Quakers, Is it?
Speaker 2:It's the Quakers. It's the Quakers that you would find in Australia.
Speaker 1:Right Okay, yeah, right Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very, very similar. I've been to a Quaker meeting in Australia and very, you know, very similar, okay, except that when I was growing up, the critical thinking piece wasn't so prominent, and so this being accepting of all people and accepting of all ideas meant that nothing was. It wasn't about scientific method, it was about just being inclusive. Right, this is boiling it down, leaving out a lot of details, but that's the general idea.
Speaker 2:And so and so, um, when I struck my way out into the world, I found all kinds of people to to commiserate with about various topics, and some of them, um, were very into wellness and and organic food and herbs, and all of that was very, very much in line with the way that I've been raised. Some of them were into spiritualism, some of them had a flair for conspiracy theories and would tell me that 9-11 was an inside job, and these were people that were all within my community and I had no reason to doubt or question what they were saying, and so it all kind of fell into this mishmash of some things being true, some things being false, but it was.
Speaker 1:It all melded together in my brain, and so when I and how old were you at this time when you were experiencing this sort of I?
Speaker 2:was in my 20s, when I was in my 20s, when I was in my 20s and early 30s and then when I was in my early 30s, some of those people who were very much into conspiracy theorists, into conspiracy theories, sort of became front and center in my life, just because of my personal relationships and how that was going and a long story that I won't bore you with. But the point is is that as my social circles started to include more of these people, they started to lean more to the right and more towards the conspiracy theories that were leading up to Donald Trump's presidency in, you know, almost you know eight years ago or 10 years ago, or however long it was Right.
Speaker 2:And so I found myself getting sucked into that world and getting sucked into going down that path that I never thought that I would, and it was.
Speaker 1:What were some of those theories that you're talking about, like, specifically, that you were getting sucked into?
Speaker 2:Well, so I would say that what I was falling into was sort of a proto QAnon. It was like Pizzagate and Gamergate, but before it became QAnon. I got out before that happened.
Speaker 1:It's funny because we are so sort of enmeshed in this environment. We talk about things and then I sometimes forget that not everybody knows what we're talking about. So, qanon, it was very, very relevant, wasn't it? In the lead up to Trump?
Speaker 2:Yes, Really took a hold after he was elected. I think it was in the proto phases, which is what I got into before he was elected. But after he was elected it became. It sort of blew up on the intellectual dark web and took started going mainstream. You had candidates like Marjorie Taylor Greene running for Congress who had embraced QAnon, and at that point my social circles had shifted again, again for personal reasons, and I was starting to feel more critical of it all. But one of the things that I think is interesting is that during that time the people who were pushing hard for conspiracy theories, especially right-leaning conspiracy theories, were always saying that they were about facts and logic and reason and evidence.
Speaker 1:They still do.
Speaker 2:Facts, don't care about your feelings, was one of the big taglines of that group.
Speaker 2:And so I actually took that literally and thought, oh okay, well, I'll start doing critical, I'll start delving into the facts, I'll start doing critical thinking. And when I started turning that on the things that I've been told in that space I was like, oh wow, this is actually bullshit A lot of it is Even though I had started off by looking at other things. It was a process of letting go of so many beliefs, things that I learned from when I was very young, like, what? Like I was going to a chiropractor, sure, or taking herbal supplements, or believing that there was this conspiracy theory around 9-11. And I just time after time, or believing in psychic gurus coming in and revisiting that stuff and finally came to the point where it was almost a nihilistic experience of like, wow, there's so much out there that's bullshit. What can I believe? And that is where I started to find people who were writing and vlogging about scientific skepticism and came across like James Randi videos on.
Speaker 2:YouTube and I was like oh, there is a way to figure out what is real and what's not. It's not just everything is bullshit, it's just that some things are, and you have to have a rubric and started to learn more about the scientific method, which, of course, I learned about in school but wasn't applying to my personal life.
Speaker 1:And so that was interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that was a transformative experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Often when I say to people that I'm a member of the Australian skeptics and I present at their conferences and and they say to me, what, what is skepticism? And and then I say, well, it's sort of like the scientific method, and then they sort of somehow conflate it with cynicism or right do you just all sit around being cynical?
Speaker 1:yeah, trying to explain the importance of skepticism is very, very difficult and how to apply it, I think, and critical thinking. And here in austral Australia there is still this we call them cookers over here and I don't know what you call them over there, but they're conspiracy theorists and there's still a lot of them and they're still banging on about COVID that it was a conspiracy. And chemtrails they love chemtrails. And did I hear that some? There's a couple of states in America that are talking about banning them or something?
Speaker 2:Did I hear that John Guy posted something how far the Overton window has been pushed by this administration and, I think, by disinformation campaigns by large actors like Russia and being these fringe theories, things that I was hearing about. That I was hearing about back in 2015 that nobody else like I was, it was like it was a secret club. You know, being in the intellectual dark web, that I was back then. Now I'm hearing about it from the president. Now I'm hearing about it from Elon Musk. You know, Elon Musk says that. You know Western civilization, the Achilles heel is empathy. Right, I was hearing about that back when I was in the intellectual dark web, so I know exactly what he's talking about when I was in the intellectual dark web. So I know exactly what he's talking about. But to see it pop into the mainstream, wow, wow.
Speaker 1:And why do you? What do you put that? Because I see it too. I see these cyclical notions right. You know, I keep seeing people going on Facebook talking about. You know, this is a reawakening time. This is a major time of sort of spiritual reawakening and a resurgence of consciousness. And you know this extraordinary time in history. I'm like have you read a history book? Have you noticed that actually we've been through things before? It's this idea that this is special and that we are special, and I just wonder how come these notions? It's like they die for a little bit and then there's a resurgence. What do you reckon that's down to? What do you reckon?
Speaker 2:I don't think it's the ideas, I think it's the influencers. I don't think that the idea I mean ideas don't have legs, they can't, they don't have a voice. It's, it's the people. Then it's the people pushing the ideas, and people pushing the ideas for their own gain, because these are, these are simple concepts. That's easy stuff. You know, uh, you know, and any youtuber can understand it. So they just latch onto the idea and push it to their audience to get clicks and views for themselves. Or it happens to fall into something that's beneficial for a political party to believe in, because it helps their narrative.
Speaker 2:I guess that was a cynical answer, but I tried.
Speaker 1:No, I like it. It's true, an ID doesn't have legs. It's the people behind it. And I guess for someone like RFK because you now have this terrible situation and it's about to happen to us where measles has a resurgence right and I guess for RFK he's pushing it because he's got supplements, is that right? And Joe, mercola and that whole thing, oh God, is that right?
Speaker 2:sense that his own children have severe allergies and he blames them on vaccines. He believes that his children were vaccine injured, so it's personal for him. He believes this stuff.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, okay, sorry, you go.
Speaker 2:You go yeah, and just to talk about this large global trend that you were talking about. It's funny, because here I am going the other way. I've spent the last 10 years going away from these French theories, which are now becoming more and more mainstream.
Speaker 1:It's bad timing.
Speaker 2:Right, right. I'm not going to get rich doing what I'm doing. You're really not yeah, but Danielle and I have done this together and she's here too, and I want to let her tell her story as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd like to know your story as well, because I? Um here in Australia um we trying to get these narratives, these counter narratives. That is very difficult for us. There's actually not that many sceptics in Australia. Australia's sceptics are quite a small organisation, so I'm very, very keen to hear your story as well. Please tell me.
Speaker 4:Sure, yeah, and I'll try to tie it to how it has to do with critical thinking, since that's a topic of your show. But I was raised in a very different type of environment than Coleman Christian Lutheran church not quite as strict as Catholic, but just maybe a step down from Catholic and I went to a Christian preschool. I went to Sunday school pretty much every Sunday until I was a teenager. I went to vacation Bible school every single summer and I went through a two-year period called catechism just to become a member of the church when I was a preteen, which involved weekly classes and 26 church sermons that I had to summarize a year, and being an acolyte, I had to do a lot of volunteer work within the church just to become a member.
Speaker 1:So can I just ask about that within being an acolyte. Did you have to proselytize as well? Was that like part of that proselytizing?
Speaker 4:of yeah, no, fortunately I didn't have to do that, but no, but the point of me telling you all this is that, from as young of Okay, and whether or not your soul is going to be saved, and having to do communion in church at least once a month and repenting, and so it wasn't a very far leap for me to jump from being raised in an environment where I was being told how to think into the New Age I guess world, you could say because New Age is not so different from Christian beliefs.
Speaker 4:Agree agree agree, it's just a happier version of it. You don't have to worry about going to hell anymore there's no such thing as hell and now there's a benevolent God who's not spying on you all the time.
Speaker 1:Called the universe right.
Speaker 4:Yes yes, the universe, or source and you know they're not telling you that. You know they're not looking at how sexual you're being and you don't have to monitor your thoughts. You know.
Speaker 1:Hang on. How did you make that leap from this very sort of ordered Christian environment into the more sort of free thinking new age? How did you do that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I really.
Speaker 4:Even as a child, I never paid attention to what they were teaching me in Sunday school the Bible stories were very disturbing or they were just quite boring, and as a young girl I just wasn't interested in listening to them and I always just felt like I didn't fit in within the community. I never really made any close friends within the community and it wasn't the type of community where they were going to shun you, you know, if you left the church or anything like that. So I didn't have any of those types of social pressures, but I did, from a young preteen age, started to just wonder like what am I doing here? What's my purpose for being on this earth? And I just didn't feel like Christianity was giving me those answers. And so when I was 14, I was at a library and there was a Sylvia Brown book sitting out on the shelf.
Speaker 4:She was a psychic at the time who pretended that she could communicate with one of her spirit guides, and the spirit guide told her all about what the other she called it the other side. It's just another word for heaven. All about what the other she called it the other side. It's just another word for heaven. All about what the other side is like and all about how you've lived many lives and have had past lives and sometimes the trauma from your past lives interferes with your current life. And all of a sudden, there was new ways to think. You know, a new purpose to be had through learning about all these different ideas and and, of course, it wasn't fear based anymore. I was free to believe.
Speaker 1:You know, whatever I was, whatever I wanted, to, but would you say in a way that, so that you sort of transposed that faith or belief in something into another context.
Speaker 4:So there was still something but it was just more palatable. Is that right? Yes, for sure, for sure. That's exactly what happened. There still wasn't a whole lot of critical thinking about what was going on, and you know I was still young, you know your brain doesn't fully develop until you're 25. And so, without being taught critical thinking, I was just kind of loading from one belief system to another belief system and, of course, the more I got to learn about the new age, the more sucked in I got and I started seeking out communities and going to holistic fairs, community fairs, and falling deep down into it's a community right, don Don't you think?
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, definitely Because I used to be involved in the personal growth industry before it was sort of similar. Yeah, there's a lot of overlap, yeah yeah, yeah, right, just when you use the word source, just like, oh, she was. Oh, it's such an identity, don't you think it's? Like somewhere you can go. That is who I am, that's what I believe. And again back to Coleman's with the whole QAnon thing. It's like you feel a bit special, it's like you know and they don't.
Speaker 4:Yeah, some of the gurus whose meetings I ended up with when I was in that world would kind of refer to you as somebody who had been awakened.
Speaker 3:Oh God, it's horrible world would kind of refer to you as somebody who had been awakened. Oh god, yeah, or or that you were vibrating at a higher frequency than other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah that's still out there, right? All that that vibrating at a higher frequency, it's just, it's all over um instagram. Uh, you've, and um gabby bernstein absolutely.
Speaker 2:Oh man gabby, yes she's part of that.
Speaker 1:I I write a lot about gabby and Gabby Bernstein Absolutely, oh man, Gabby Bernstein do you know her?
Speaker 4:Yes, she's part of that. I write a lot about Gabby Bernstein.
Speaker 1:She's over here in Australia at the moment spreading her nonsense, talking about creating whatever you want, and apparently what we want is to fill Gabby Bernstein's pockets with our money, because it's not going to work for any of her acolytes, right? We're just pausing for a minute to hear a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3:The why Smart Women podcast is brought to you by Coup, a boutique training, coaching and media production company. A Coup spelt C-O-U-P, is a decisive act of leadership, and decisive leadership requires critical thinking. So well done you for investing time to think about your thinking, If your leadership or relationships would benefit from some grounded and creative support. If you want team training or a conference presentation, reach out for a confidential one-on-one conversation using the link in the description. Anyway, do go on, yeah go on.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I fell really deep down into these beliefs. I mean, I was learning how to do Reiki and having all my crystals so I could do crystal healing, and having my aura photographed and getting deep down into the law of attraction, Monitoring my thoughts so that I can manifest all the good things I wanted in my life and, you know, taking all the herbs and supplements and shunning pharmaceutical medicine. Oh you did the whole thing.
Speaker 1:You were awesome. Oh yeah, you really you landed right in it right.
Speaker 3:Were you not vaccinating as?
Speaker 1:well, no vax. Were you anti-vax?
Speaker 2:That was me.
Speaker 1:Oh, you've got that one. Well done Common.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got that one. I can fill your bingo card. I was also chasing UFOs, believed in chemtrails, all of it.
Speaker 1:yes, you had chemtrails, Is that? Right you were in the chemtrails.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I would say that I was into it, but I believed it because other people in my community believed it.
Speaker 1:It's okay they're legislating, they can't do it anymore. It's okay they're legislating, they can't do it anymore. It's all fine. Right, just for anybody who doesn't know what we're talking about here the vapor that you see behind a plane as it flies through the sky, and that vapor is actually called. What's it called? The vapor? Do either of you know?
Speaker 2:It's a contrail.
Speaker 1:Contrail, so this contrail that comes behind-.
Speaker 2:The trail of condensation.
Speaker 1:Right, thank you. So what the cookers, what the conspiracy theorists think and they're very keen on it and they talk about it a lot is that the government or, in Australia, the government, the government is and the pilots, the government and the pilots are conspiring and they fly through the air and they are sending. Is it poison from the chemtrails? Is that right? It's poisonous.
Speaker 2:Take your pick. It could be poison, it could be a compound to alter the atmosphere, it could be a mind control substance. Mind control, it could be something to do with the, you know, with plants, I don't know. I don't know, they can't agree it's on any of it. But uh, most of them can agree that if you just like, spritz yourself with some apple cider vinegar, that will negate the uh, yeah, negate the effects of it yeah, just put a little.
Speaker 1:Apparently you can soak a tea towel in apple cider vinegar and stick it on your head. Anyway, do go on. So you're down there. You're having supplements, daniela, you're having supplements. Right, you're believing You've got crystals. Oh, yes, oh, you're manifesting through your thoughts.
Speaker 4:Manifesting Tarot cards oh, tarot Got it. Being psychics Doing the whole self-help route, listening to podcasts about, you know, self-help and self-growth and not actually doing any self-help at all yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And what happened? How did you? I'm interested in the extrication from these things because I wonder. I do wonder if there is a part of our psyche that is predisposed to critical thinking, if some of us are just I don't know. It's like I've seen people climb out of it and I've seen people not climb out of it, and it really super fascinates me is what is it that clicks in someone's brain where it's like, okay, they climbed out? How did you do it?
Speaker 2:both of you try this one please, please comment. I can go first you go you go, daniella, I'm gonna go first.
Speaker 4:So I think there was multiple factors that helped me come out of this. Some of them were my own personal observations. Some of them was lack of a social cost for me to leave.
Speaker 1:And, I think, another. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'll go ahead. Yeah, so one of the first things that I know. So I believe I had these, held these beliefs for about 14 years. It was a long time and during that time, as I said, I was trying to do self-help. So you know, I just was dealing with some mental health issues like anxiety, and I kept thinking that, the more I tried all these self-help modalities in the new age, that I was going to heal myself and I'd never feel anxiety, ever again. Of course, I didn't know the word for it at the time, because I was young and wasn't going to the doctor, because you didn't do that when you were in the new age Pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 1:don't need them.
Speaker 4:Yep, and so, oddly enough, I started seeing a really great brain-based therapist in my late 20s who taught me what goes on in the brain when you have anxiety and gave me some practical tools. Oh, no, and yeah, and I and I got better and I was starting to look at that going hmm, oh, these 14 years of doing Reiki shares and crystal healings this didn't really help me, but talking to somebody who believed in science did so. That's interesting. Also, at the at the time I picked up my myself and I moved to a different state about 700 miles away from the area I grew up in. So I had kind of already left the entire new age community behind on my own at that time and I was trying to rebuild another one when I moved. But I was also kind of having some doubts about what I was believing.
Speaker 1:So do you think it was the fact that, I mean, I'm just wondering if extricating yourself from an environment where you were being constantly, where the beliefs were being reinforced so you were getting confirmation bias right and then you move away from that environment on top of you, found a modality that actually helped you genuinely? So maybe it's the combination and there must be just something else in your brain that allows you, because it's hard to leave these things right. It's hard to leave them behind.
Speaker 4:There was two other things I would say that was helpful. So at the time I was studying grief, I was trying to learn how to be a grief counselor and the practitioner actually had me read a book called. It was about spiritual bypassing and I had never heard of that term before that was the title of the book, right uh, I don't remember if that was the title, but it was.
Speaker 4:It had spiritual by, maybe it was so, and in the book it was basically. It was a book about critical thinking about the law of attraction. It's basically what it was.
Speaker 4:It was just kind of talking about how you know, if you want to be effective and helpful and help people with their mental health, then you cannot. You know a lot. If you're not familiar with the law of attraction, it can get really extreme the way it's used. The way it's used can be if somebody's grieving, let's say, over a death of somebody else, and you're like no, you're not allowed to have any negative thoughts.
Speaker 4:So, it's a you know, it's a way of disenfranchisement, just disenfranchisement, when somebody is legitimately feeling something that they need help processing and shouldn't be pushing away, and you're saying, no, no, negative thoughts are harmful, we're not going to think that, we're not going to believe that. Um, so that's what the book was about, and it just really got me thinking about the law of attraction. And then, right after that, coleman and I met.
Speaker 3:And where did?
Speaker 4:you meet. Oh, the way people do in modern times on the internet. Stop it Is that true?
Speaker 1:Yes, and how long ago. How long ago it was eight years now, Because we don't do video, we only do audio. I'm just going to tell my listeners you're both very attractive people.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I'm glad you're together and I'm'm glad you're together, especially Danielle.
Speaker 1:And I'm very glad you're together and now you're. So by the time you met and you had extricated yourself from your sort of new age milieu and then Coleman was also out- Well, no, actually this gets into what I was going to say, which is that neither one of us was fully out at this time that we met.
Speaker 4:We were both questioning, but not.
Speaker 2:We were not out. So Danielle and I went on some dates. We really liked each other, we started getting to know each other and then we started getting to find out about these beliefs that each other had and I think in the back of our mind I mean, we really liked each other, we wanted to stay together, but some of these beliefs were really weird and so and so that went both ways.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And so, danielle, I think you know I was still a believer in some aspects of this, what I would call the red pill, or, you know, believing in Explain the red pill. Okay, All right. Well, it's again. It's this sort of proto QAnon, or when you say proto.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I've got to take you back. You keep saying proto, I only know QAnon. Okay, let's go right back. So there's proto, there's QAnon. Can you just explain the inception of proton and then the inception of QAnon please? Well when I say proto I mean.
Speaker 2:When I say proto, I mean QAnon is a mishmash of a bunch of different conspiracy theories all jammed together. And so when I say protoQAnon, I'm talking about those conspiracy theories, as they were sort of congealing and glomming into people's consciousnesses but hadn't fully coalesced into QAnon yet. So you had Pizzagate, which was a thing, and there was a conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1:Explain Pizzagate for the people that don't know.
Speaker 2:People believe that Hillary Clinton was running a secret cabal inside the basement of a pizza parlor.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to say the words because you might get flat, your content might get flagged, but it was.
Speaker 1:It was some bad stuff that was supposedly happening in the basement of this pizza parlor, I know, and then somebody went there right and to try to release the children and then tried to go to the basement and there was no basement, exactly.
Speaker 2:So that's the sort of thing, and uh. And then I'm sure you heard about the christ church shooter, um, that was also happening around that same time, yeah, and so these were all um. And then you had the, the rally in charlottesville, um, unite the right rally in Charlottesville, unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, where the men were marching with torches, you know, and so all of these things were before QAnon became QAnon, but they were all part of the ethos, they were all part of what was sort of floating around on the internet that eventually got harnessed into this more unified movement that I would say has now morphed into just what you'd call MAGA.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maga. So it's now sort of the dominant thinking in the currently the most powerful man in the world is enmeshed in this thinking, correct?
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, and so I was still enmeshed in some of that thinking. Not all of it. I was questioning some of it, but I was questioning a lot of things and some of the first things that I was questioning. But she was she was too polite to tell me that directly, and so we sort of went into this sort of gentle back and forth of of helping each other think about these things and asking what the fuck right, it was more gentle than that, but yes, we did the actual yeah, uh-huh we talked through these things and sort of helped each other and we would find videos, like I was, because what I was involved in was very cult-like.
Speaker 2:I was looking up cults and I was finding people who were writing books about it, like Dr Stephen Hassan Yep, yep, dr Stephen Hassan and I found a random video on YouTube that was about a guy who had almost joined a cult and I said, hey, danielle, look at this with me. And it turned out that it was actually about Young Living Essential Oils and she said, oh, I know all about that.
Speaker 1:What is Young Living Essential Oils? I don't know about this. What is it?
Speaker 4:So you're familiar with essential oils.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, they can heal everything right. You don't need any medicine, just have an essential oil and a crystal. Yeah, got it. What is Young Living?
Speaker 4:Essential Oils. Young Living is a company that of course, touts that. They're the only essential oil company that is pure. You know, every other company makes perfume oils and you can't ingest them into your body and Young Living actually says that you can ingest their product into your body.
Speaker 1:I can drink it. Yeah, I can drink it.
Speaker 4:You can put it in your water or you can put it in a capsule.
Speaker 2:I don't recommend it.
Speaker 4:No, okay, and they make some pretty extravagant medical claims.
Speaker 1:Do they? You know what I love.
Speaker 2:And they've been accused of being a pyramid scheme and a cult.
Speaker 1:Oh, amazing, that's my other. See, you've really hit every single. You have filled in my bingo card because, uh, mlm's multi-level marketing is one of my other absolute fave topics and they always are right. They can. You can buy um drink bottles now that are embedded with crystals so that when you put your water into it, every time you put your water in, you're healing yourself, which is awesome. So never, ever have to go to the doctor ever again. Just have a sip from your crystal-encrusted drink bottle.
Speaker 2:Right and charged water or water memory was one of the early things that.
Speaker 3:I was introduced to. Oh yeah, I remember it.
Speaker 2:Many, many years ago I was probably around the year 2000, I came across this book about water memory by a Japanese man who had taken photographs of water crystals or ice crystals that had been frozen. And it was only many, many years later. When I was having some of these conversations with Danielle and looking up some of the stuff online, I was like hold on, that was one of the things that I actually believed. I didn't. Again, these things weren't things that I went like hold on, that was one of the things that I actually believed. Again, these things weren't things that I went around picketing about. They entered my brain and my brain didn't say, wait a minute, that's probably bullshit. My brain just said, okay, that's an interesting factoid to file away. Got it, water has a memory. I'll save that for later.
Speaker 1:And you know, one of the things we talk about a lot on this podcast in terms of critical thinking and our belief systems is that so many of these the providers and the purveyors of these products they've got such certainty when they talk. When they talk, they're so certain and the, the, the, the, the timbre of their voice and the cadence of the voice when they speak is it just, it just gets into our brain because we go, yeah, well, they're certain, which, if you go to the doctor, um, you, they might not be certain, because they're actually genuinely looking to see what's wrong with you, as opposed to saying, whatever it is, whatever ails you, we can fix it with this one bit of essential oil. So I think that certainty piece is so important, don't you?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm sure you know this, but it blew my mind when I learned that the word con in con artist is an abbreviation for the word confidence.
Speaker 1:Yes, Yep, yep, yeah, I know, amazing, right, I know I've got to tell you something funny about how, the moment that I went hang on a minute here, I was on a personal development course and I walked into the course room we're just outside the course room and the pipe had blown the floor above and water was gushing from this pipe and the the all the people on the course were all standing around it and, um, and the teacher was there and I said, oh, what, what's going on?
Speaker 1:And she said, oh, this, this is the unexpressed tears of the course, of the people in this course room, this, this leak. And I was like, really, okay, has anybody called a plumber or it's going to stand here? And that for me, you know, there's a moment I went hang on, just hang on a minute. This does not sound valid, and it was. When I looked around the room, everybody was like, yeah, that makes perfect sense, that makes perfect sense. This is the unexpressed tears of the cause, and I so what you're saying about yourselves, though there wasn't a moment, there was more, a series of moments along the way that caused your loss of belief.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it was a process, process of years. I would call it deconstruction over a period of years because it started out for me as kind of like okay, I'm going to research Sylvia Brown, for instance, the very first person whose books I ever read and found out that she was a fraud. She made a lot of false predictions that either never came true, or I think she had gone on a TV show and told a mother that a missing child was dead and that child ended up turning up alive some years later. So, ok, at that point in time I was like OK, she has no credibility. I can't believe anything in these books that I read.
Speaker 4:Who else started going through every author of every book I had ever read, or looking at modalities that I believed in, like Reiki, for instance, and being like is there actually any evidence to back any of this up? And after doing that, for a while my mind shifted from what else is fraudulent to is it all fraudulent? What can I actually believe? And that's when I started to realize that you need evidence, you need critical thinking, you need evidence before you take these things in and turning them into beliefs. And when you've gone through something like this. You really don't want to be duped ever again. So critical thinking becomes really important. Critical thinking becomes really important.
Speaker 1:And would you say that the process was? I don't want to use the word grief, but was there any sense of loss? Was it painful for both of you to have to let go of these bolstering sort of belief systems? Was it painful?
Speaker 4:for me, it absolutely was right it absolutely was because I yeah, I mean I kind of had formed um a sense of purpose through the new age beliefs that I held, um, you know specifically about what my purpose on earth was and where I was going afterwards, and all of a sudden that was gone also. There was all of a sudden that was gone. Also, there was a sense of comfort that was no longer there. You know, I used to believe in spiritual guides and angels being surrounded.
Speaker 4:You know, having all this guidance or having all this protection in my life that was no longer there, it was hard to. I had some friends that I was still in touch with. It was hard to speak to them because my beliefs had changed and it's just hard to relate to them.
Speaker 1:What's happened to those friendships?
Speaker 4:They're more like acquaintances now.
Speaker 3:And what about you? But again.
Speaker 4:I moved out of the state. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, that might have happened anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, coleman. What about you? Was it a painful process to let go of the beliefs?
Speaker 2:Yes, it started off as very painful, especially because it involved the loss of some relationships at the same time. But as it went on, as I was looking at more and more things like, oh, is structured water a thing? Oh, what about UFO? You know, what about alien visitation? Is there any good evidence for that? You know what about you know chemtrails? Is that real?
Speaker 2:Oh, let me go back and look at the evidence for the 9-11 conspiracy theory and, just for fun, let me also go back and look at this moon landing conspiracy theory, because you know, I keep hearing about it and I had never made up my mind about it, so let me just actually get the details on that. I had never made up my mind about it, so let me just actually get the details on that. It actually turned into kind of a game of like whack-a-mole of you know, let's see what other false beliefs I can put to rest. And you know it was kind of like playing detective and you know, going back and you know, oh, here's a spiritual guru I used to believe was very, you know, very wise leader. Oh, let's see.
Speaker 2:Oh, he was here. Here he is being accused of fraud and here he is, here he is being caught red handed using, using sleight of hand tricks to to manifest his, his apparitions. So that was. That was actually quite satisfying, and that satisfaction I've taken with me into creating this YouTube project that I have now, where I make a video debunking these things, and Danielle has joined me in some of these videos. You know, we did a video about, about psychics, we did a video about, you know, about healing crystals, and we did a video about the fake moon landing together so good, she's popped up in a lot of them.
Speaker 1:And can I just say your production value values are awesome on your video on your youtube well, thanks so much really really good, yeah, um.
Speaker 1:So, um, I'd just like to go back to to daniella. This notion of purpose I find really, really interesting because, um, I know from my own sort of brief enmeshment in the personal growth industry that this idea that everybody has a purpose and you come into this world to enact your purpose, to me, when, of course, I realized that a vast portion of the world is simply spending their lives just existing and surviving and and the notion of having sort of some elevated purpose would be completely alien, it just doesn't make sense to me. So, in terms of you and feeling purposeful, what about now?
Speaker 4:yeah, I've had a lot of time to muse on that since then and, um, I was able to make peace with it and still find a purpose outside of the new age beliefs that I held and what is your purpose?
Speaker 1:what is it now, would you say?
Speaker 4:really, it's just to live my best life, and you, you know I'm I'm about to go to graduate school this summer, um to become a neuroscience informed social worker, and so part of part of my purpose for me now is giving back, because the person who helped me the most was scientifically informed about what was going on in the brain and how that relates to mental health, and so I'd like to become an expert in that same field and help as many people as possible, because it may help you in more ways than you realize.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And what about you? Common?
Speaker 2:Right. Well, I used to derive a sense of purpose from believing in these conspiracy theories, and now I find purpose in debunking them and I find purpose in shining a light using scientific evidence and using real research, not the DIY kind of research that conspiracy theorists talk about yeah, yeah, Do your research right.
Speaker 2:Right and being entertaining at the same time. I was a theatre major in college. I used to be in plays when I was a kid. I love performing, and so I'm now getting to do that and feel like I'm doing some good in the world, hopefully at the same time Awesome.
Speaker 1:I wonder if you would be so kind. I know you're both really super busy, but if you would mind, coming back quite soon, I would love to talk to you about the McCullough and that whole supplement industry, because that's. I find that really disturbing, because everyone's always trying to push supplements onto me and I'm like I wouldn't touch him with a hand.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I know, do you know nick?
Speaker 1:tiller. Do you know nick tiller?
Speaker 2:yes, yeah and you saw him speak right, yeah, I love him and uh and actually I just saw a video that he just posted about his 25 years of uh, of debunking and he actually used a clip of the Joe Mercola tapes, the secret tapes, in that video. I caught that and so very briefly I can say that Joe Mercola has a secret which is now out, and the secret was that he is getting his advice from a psychic channeler who believes that he is channeling some kind of supernatural entity who is giving him secret answers that Joe Mercola can then monetize and turn into books and use it to vet his products that he's selling online.
Speaker 2:And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I just did a video about it. People can watch it. Just watch it. It's nuts. Just see how nuts it gets.
Speaker 1:I will put that video, the link to that video about Joe McCullough and the guy that he channels. It's just the weirdest, most bizarre, stupid thing I've ever seen in my entire life. But I'll put that in the show notes. I would love to chat to you guys again sometime, if you have any time, because we, for me here in Australia, we are working really, really hard to debunk and it's hard. We're a small country and we're a small community, so I super appreciate the time you've given me all the way from America and staying up late on a Saturday night, which is you right. Here I am on a Sunday morning after our election Congratulations on your election too.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, do you know? It was a landslide Same in.
Speaker 2:Canada. I know it's sweeping the world.
Speaker 1:It's refreshing to hear. Yeah, we were really worried because the conservative candidate was really Trumpy, he was really waving that Trumpy flag and the Australian people, to our eternal gratitude, all went. Oh no, I don't think so. I don't think so. No, I don't reckon.
Speaker 2:So satisfying.
Speaker 1:So satisfying. Anyway, thank you so much for talking you two. It has been the most awesome interview.
Speaker 2:Oh, annie, it's so good to talk to you too. I'm happy to come back any time.
Speaker 1:Oh, really. Oh, I would adore that. Thank you so much and stay on. While I say goodbye to my lovely listeners who are all over the world, to all the listeners all over the world, I am signing off from here in Sydney, australia where yesterday we managed to preserve democracy.
Speaker 3:So thank you for hearing me. So thank you so much for listening. Have a good day. I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style.
Speaker 1:Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut, if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, in a car park, in a bar or in your own home, please, please, respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together, we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women. See you later.
Speaker 1:This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, annie McCubbin.
