Based Camp - The Conquistadors Did Not Go Far Enough： Human Sacrifices in 2026

00:00:00.000 hello Malcolm I'm very excited to be speaking with you today I think maybe kind of I'm more

00:00:07.020 agitated because you know that horrifying episode we did on the Aztecs and their unthinkable violence

00:00:12.120 like all the human sacrifices and the horrible and creative ways that they killed people as

00:00:17.880 offerings to the gods yeah like that my my takeaway from that as I'm sure you recall was

00:00:23.120 was thank goodness that's over but so Malcolm it turns out it's not over because this morning 0.91

00:00:29.140 I learned that human sacrifices to terrible Mexican gods are still happening, that the 0.98

00:00:35.800 practice is alive and well, and I'm super not okay with it. Wait, human sacrifices are still 1.00

00:00:40.360 happening in Mexico? To Mexican gods? Yeah. And you know all about it. You just didn't connect

00:00:44.960 it and I didn't connect it either. And now everything is horrible. So let me quote from

00:00:48.960 a CNN Wire article presenting one example, quote, authorities in the Northern Mexican state of

00:00:54.520 Sonora have arrested eight people accused of killing two boys and one woman as human sacrifices

00:00:58.740 to Santa Muerte, the saint of death, officials said Friday.

00:01:02.300 Oh, Santa Muerte uses human sacrifices? 0.91

00:01:04.760 People are making human sacrifices to her.

00:01:06.860 The victims, too, who are aged 10, were killed and their blood was offered at an altar to

00:01:12.340 the saint, according to Jose Laringa, spokesman for state prosecutors.

00:01:17.920 The accused were asking the saint, who is generally portrayed as a skeleton, dressed

00:01:22.660 as a long robe and carrying a scythe for protection, he said.

00:01:26.600 uh people are just making offerings to a nightmare fuel catholic fan fiction idol for example

00:01:32.040 burned heads were found next to a shrine in the yucatan and a variety of heads and body parts

00:01:37.960 have been left at or near altars in mexico over the years this is not just cartel stuff but also

00:01:45.700 cartels i think the way that catholicism spread where they kept trying to incorporate local

00:01:51.500 religions may have had some negative effects i think the thing is is at first my whole takeaway

00:01:58.660 with the the oh thank goodness you know uh the the conquistadors took out the the aztecs no

00:02:06.020 they didn't it's one of those things where like you know it's like the the the scary movie at the

00:02:10.840 very end it's like oh it's over they they they killed the the zombie virus it's the spread is

00:02:16.580 stopping you know they the the giant shark is dead and then there's that like or is it in the

00:02:22.580 very end it's like the eye opens at the very end or whatever it's that and that is exactly what 0.97

00:02:27.580 this is oh the conquistadors killed the terrifying murdery aztecs who found terrible ways to torture

00:02:33.600 i want to talk a little bit about the cult of santa muerte to give people some context on this

00:02:37.780 i i'm gonna give more background on it but let me let me give you some more examples

00:02:40.980 OK, there's this this 2019 Mexico City raid on La Union Tepito properties.

00:02:47.260 This is one of the cartels found an altar with roughly 20 adult skulls, some with gunshot wounds, other bones, a fetus in a jar, knives and a Santa Muerte and Jesus Malverde imagery.

00:03:00.540 Officials said neighbors described rituals for luck and bullet immunity.

00:03:04.500 and this made me realize because i'm sure you have heard this too over time that all of these

00:03:12.480 very weird horribly explicit discoveries of bodies that people have found with cartels i was like oh

00:03:21.060 that's weirdly cruel and unnecessary like why are they doing that well now i'm putting two and two

00:03:27.080 together and i'm like hold on that sounds a lot like the aztec stuff oh wait it just is the aztec

00:03:32.580 stuff we thought that that catholicism spread over mexico like a beautiful field of flowers and it

00:03:39.120 turns out that no you can't take it took in the zombie virus and became the zombie it just yeah

00:03:46.000 you can't take the the the sacrificial insanity out of some people apparently and they just found

00:03:51.980 new ways to do it um and and yes okay so we'll talk about santa muerte i should note that this

00:03:57.820 practice is condemned officially by the catholic church uh they condemn the santa muerte practice

00:04:04.900 but it is among catholics within this region it is the people doing these sacrifices would

00:04:11.980 identify themselves as mexican catholics yeah in the words of the roman catholic diocese of san

00:04:18.000 angelo quote involvement with santa muerte is spiritually dangerous and is not catholic in

00:04:24.300 any way wait do we agree with the vatican on one thing are we are we got yeah are we actually pro

00:04:30.220 vatican and less religious extremists yes we yes look we the catholicism has issues but it is not

00:04:39.820 mexican death cult it's not it's not of the mexica people and they're terrifying cosmic 0.99

00:04:47.580 horror ways okay anyway quote it should be completely avoided it is a perversion of devotion

00:04:53.060 to the saints in 2013 cardinal gianfranco ravasi president of the vatican's pontifical council for

00:05:00.400 culture denounced the santa muerte practice as sinister and infernal he called it a blasphemy

00:05:05.640 of religion end quote okay so just to be super clear can we get an inquisition you know the

00:05:11.320 castle church needs to have an inquisition now do you know how on board everyone would be with

00:05:18.240 the santa more yeah you know what honestly an inquisition in this day and age would do so

00:05:22.980 well it would do so well people would obviously what we really want is a crusade but we can't

00:05:28.780 have crusades because you know everything's boring and lame look i don't know give it some time i

00:05:35.020 honestly could see crusades coming back but anyway so santa muerte is not like a saint i mean like

00:05:41.420 you could she is a mexican folk saint she's a personification of death she's usually shown

00:05:47.300 as a female skeleton in a robe holding a scythe and a globe scales uh an owl some other symbols

00:05:54.340 she is not based on some historical woman like other catholic saints i mean we have problems

00:05:59.000 with catholic saints i think it's idolatry i think it's it's not good but she's she doesn't

00:06:04.780 show the patterns of saints it's more just like mexicans were like i want to i need a death god

00:06:11.100 i feel like there's this death god shaped hole in my heart you know and i just but i'm catholic

00:06:16.140 So we're going to call her Saint Death God.

00:06:46.140 hmm curious tell them about per capita i'm getting to it that concludes unit 101

00:06:54.940 unit 102 isn't it weird that well i mean there's this is one of those things where um we have

00:07:02.780 argued in the past that people co-evolve with religious traditions and you will often really

00:07:09.980 struggle to fully follow a religious tradition that is dramatically differential from your birth

00:07:15.500 tradition as an example here as much as and people know that if we're talking about like

00:07:20.720 the non-true faith the one i typically give the most slack to uh is jaynism that i talk about the

00:07:29.040 most positively okay but i would never um uh suggest a caucasian european descent person

00:07:36.960 attempt to convert to jay for sure not of course because when i have seen that in a in other people

00:07:42.260 i know who have seen it more they're like yeah well over half the europeans i know who converted

00:07:47.120 to jainism ended up killing themselves it doesn't work yeah and it's just clear to me

00:07:51.380 that at least for a non-trivial proportion of the mexican population this don't work let me 0.65

00:07:57.560 show you guys though um okay by by the way i also want to see this yes are you showing it

00:08:03.700 we're gonna we're gonna look at santa santa where tay oh on etsy oh statue can we get some

00:08:10.860 statues here okay does this look like a a religion like a good thing does this looks like

00:08:19.500 is this good is this good is this a no this is this is freaking terrifying this is not

00:08:26.240 if someone's if you know someone who's worshiping this can you tell them to like

00:08:31.100 question their their choices in life that is this what a good guy worships is this what a good guy

00:08:37.960 i'm gonna be honest it is pretty baller looking no i mean what what is this this this this tight 0.99

00:08:44.140 this white subway tile and in the marble i this is like a this is like a basic bitch like but hold 0.96

00:08:49.480 on i also want to point out here that this um narrative that the catholic church did nothing 0.54

00:08:54.140 to instigate this is also not true um so so we're gonna go into obviously that's what they would say

00:09:00.780 but it didn't come out of nowhere okay so specifically what ended up sort of being

00:09:07.440 the proto version of this was missionaries in new spain heavily promoted the idea of

00:09:11.860 bueno muerte and this is a a true and actual thing simon um it actually it's depicted it's so it was

00:09:20.080 such a common belief in the region that it's depicted in nacho libre it's or good or holy

00:09:27.180 dying uh dying in the state of grace oh of good death with last rites and proper preparation

00:09:33.780 they use sermons um con fraternities like the jesuit congregation de la bueno muerte so this 0.95

00:09:40.240 was literally a jesuit congregate of course it was a jesuit you freaking hate jesuits no you

00:09:45.880 oh my god okay so anyway they had paintings they had processional figures of death to hammer home

00:09:52.320 and the historian elsa morvideo argued that this imparted the catholic language of a santo muerte

00:10:00.520 or a holy death um a which later evolved into the folk saint sort of also like i i found a good um

00:10:09.060 academic article really analyzing the origins of it and one of the big things that you miss there

00:10:13.980 is european christian era images of death especially as this skeletal grim reaper which

00:10:19.780 is totally what they're pulling on as you saw from all those etsy right right right but that

00:10:24.000 was like a practice that was practiced not by protestants protestants did not go around no

00:10:30.940 pictures of skeletons so i don't like to make claims in these without double checking them

00:10:36.540 for this it appears that you did see some of this iconography in protestant countries but it was at

00:10:44.160 a lower rate than catholic countries and this i find very interesting when it appeared in

00:10:49.660 protestant countries or in protestant religious environments it was produced comically to make

00:10:57.320 fun of the clergy or catholics it was a jocular rather than truly religious depiction

00:11:06.080 and as such it was never something that an individual or colonized group could confuse

00:11:13.020 was something that they were meant to take reverently this this emerged during the plague

00:11:19.440 um and then they combined that with indigenous mexican and then broader mesoamerican ideals

00:11:24.720 about death and especially like pulling from aztec gods and then point i'm making here simone

00:11:31.660 because you're trying to say this was not the catholic culture or church's fault in which case

00:11:38.380 you need to ask why don't we see this in protestant areas and the reason is is even in this period

00:11:44.680 don't do idol worship and yet you know the the catholics permit things like home altars and

00:11:50.620 petitions and candles and rosaries so if if i may if the orthodox had colonized south america

00:11:59.060 and central america you would see the same thing likely that's true no i i totally agree if if it

00:12:04.300 had been greek orthodox or whatever that did it if it had been you know tight-lipped protestant

00:12:10.340 swiss people mexican i don't i don't know though i don't know what the reason why i really wanted

00:12:15.920 to do this episode and talk about this with you is because i'm feeling on a deep level

00:12:20.560 like i had discounted that point that you made earlier which is that you

00:12:25.500 you can't exactly take the deep held like inherited genetically entwined religion out

00:12:32.440 of a person you can't just convert someone and expect that they're going to be able to practice

00:12:37.660 a new religion like perhaps it is impossible to remove so the big thesis for example of the of

00:12:45.140 the substack post going over the book review on the aztecs and their terrible terrible practices

00:12:49.260 was ideas have consequences and the whole discussion there was like oh gosh there could

00:12:54.180 be a culture and a religion so toxic this cosmic horror torture religion culture that would cause

00:13:00.240 people to do these incredibly violent horrible terrifying things but then the idea then would

00:13:06.300 be that okay well then if we change the idea then everything will be okay just switch out the idea

00:13:11.140 give people a better idea and the people will do good things but here's the thing is that they were

00:13:16.360 given a very different idea um catholicism you know on its own actually doesn't include that

00:13:21.340 level of savagery even with witch hunts there were trials there was due process the catholics did a

00:13:26.200 fairly good job somebody in one of the things was like this is about as buddhist as the inquisitions

00:13:30.180 were christian and i was like the inquisitions were not as bad as you've been led to believe

00:13:33.560 yeah i mean protestant witch hunts were way worse than catholic witch heads were way worse it's like

00:13:37.960 not even a comparison yeah and so just giving you know so i'm what i'm saying is is broadly

00:13:43.340 catholic ideas were better and yet switching those out hasn't taken the horrifically savage

00:13:52.100 violent cosmic horror style torture well i think you needed you you needed two things right you

00:13:59.140 needed the so first and this is the point i kept making you needed the very loose interpretations

00:14:05.260 around idolatry okay uh and you needed this combined with a pre-existing death cult and

00:14:14.780 if you have those two things in conjunction with each other then this can arise so you do not see

00:14:22.360 this arising in parts of the, what's an example here? See, that's the thing. I can't think of

00:14:33.100 people in Europe. You don't see this arising in Europe. You don't see this arising in Orthodox

00:14:38.200 countries, at least not in large amounts. But when you see a Protestant group colonize an area that 0.92

00:14:45.260 had a murder cult that was probably as extreme as the Aztecs, you get this stamped out really 0.91

00:14:51.600 quickly a great example because i don't know polynesia okay a large existing indigenous 0.67

00:14:59.800 population lives in new zealand okay um they had a pre-genetically written into their dna

00:15:08.360 murder cult okay just as much as yes i don't know what i don't know these things i don't know these

00:15:15.080 things and let's look up sorry i i have sort of two tiers of murder cult so one is just like

00:15:20.780 okay these are pre-civilization humans which are just violent and mean right so like they murder

00:15:25.540 people it's bad then there's civilized murder cults where they're like no no we're not just 0.99

00:15:30.440 gonna violently murder them we're gonna you know flay them alive we're gonna skin them while they 0.99

00:15:35.500 watch they're gonna we're gonna take their beating hearts out of their body now that's the aztecs 1.00

00:15:39.020 okay so what level are we talking with with the polynesians i'll i'm looking it up okay we'll look

00:15:45.660 up maury murder cults okay thank you okay fantastic anyway so santa muerte is obviously

00:15:52.980 the combination of these things this like grim reaper death european imagery thing

00:15:56.640 the indigenous evil murder cosmic horror aztec gods and then just the allowance basically of

00:16:03.260 the catholic church for idolatry and petitions and candles and offerings and home um like little 0.99

00:16:09.800 altars which is i just they always gave me the creeps even altars like it in in japan that people

00:16:15.280 would take me to. I love everything in Japan. Home altars give me the creeps, no matter where

00:16:19.080 I see them. I hate them. Heebie-jeebies, do not like. Anyway, so people like to worship Sancham 0.65

00:16:25.000 Muerte because they see her as this nonjudgmental protector who can help in urgent or precarious

00:16:32.280 circumstances. A lot of people say they like her because death is inherently impartial. It doesn't

00:16:37.760 matter how respected or of ill repute or rich or poor you are, you are going to die. Death will 0.99

00:16:43.620 come to you so for example i guess for that reason which doesn't make any sense to me but i guess if 0.92

00:16:48.840 you cross your eyes far enough it's all gonna somehow come together a lot of lgbtq people and

00:16:55.220 like sex workers really like la santa muerte because of course they do they're like she accepts

00:17:00.780 everyone because we're all gonna die and i just don't i don't really get that but anyway part of

00:17:05.780 me is like oh well one thing that makes me laugh here it was one harvard-based account noted that

00:17:10.520 women and poor people and queer people have been central in the movement but have been often

00:17:15.160 obscured by media and tension due to violence and criminality like they're saying oh well like

00:17:19.980 the cartels are getting all the credit for making santamuerte famous but this was really carried by 0.70

00:17:25.900 but they carried the death and the women so like yeah well it's kind of like the gays and the women 0.92

00:17:31.660 are responsible for popularizing the scary death god and then like they're the girlfriends of the 0.92

00:17:38.940 cartel leaders who are like oh why don't you sacrifice people to you know the the murder 0.53

00:17:45.540 goddess um yeah i've been reading a lot about her recently yeah and so kind of like great so like 0.98

00:17:50.600 back to women are terrible like they're fueling this fire thanks girls um really and gays uh

00:17:57.720 girls and gays i'm so pleased um fantastic anyway um they they love her for that they they feel like 0.99

00:18:04.680 if you especially if you have no control in life and you just feel like you know you're at the

00:18:08.920 very bottom of the barrel here she's your gal so so um uh if we're talking about the maury here

00:18:15.380 because you're asking did they have a murder cult now nowhere first and i said this very clearly on

00:18:21.180 the episode nowhere on earth outside of central and south america had murder cults to that degree

00:18:27.580 okay right they were holy and unique there was something in the water man or i don't know which

00:18:33.220 we'll probably do another episode on um that said uh they did practice ritual killing and cannibalism

00:18:40.480 as a part of their society okay specifically the first enemy slain in battle could have his heart

00:18:47.560 cut out and would be offered to their gods and the priest or high chief would consume the victim's

00:18:52.940 mana to destroy or take that defeated mana into their sides bodies of the enemies were cooked in

00:18:58.680 earth ovens hangy and eaten as the ultimate humiliation and as a way to absorb the enemy's

00:19:04.240 qualities um uh slaves on specific occasions were sometimes killed before a campaign to lift tapu

00:19:12.640 or add mana to the chief ceremony for divination or in some accounts when a new or fortified paw

00:19:18.980 was launching at an important canoe um evidence is so blah blah blah blah blah imagine being a

00:19:24.500 imagine being a human sacrifice for a canoe yeah we wanted this canoe to be less wobbly so you know

00:19:32.980 human sacrifice basically yes um now so would you count that as savage or civilized

00:19:41.580 in humanity for the people of this region that was as civilized as you're gonna get well yeah

00:19:48.560 i'm not talking relative giant cities but i'm guessing if you have like ceremony around it and

00:19:53.960 you're not just like oh sympathetic magic so but here's what's important there is no while there

00:20:02.300 is a significant surviving Amari population okay they were colonized by Protestants okay

00:20:11.180 specifically by the Anglican Church Missionary Society which arrived in 1814 okay

00:20:17.920 and it completely eradicated this practice this practice does not exist there is no

00:20:26.920 mari murder cults okay in fact it was it was wiped out very quickly in terms of missionary

00:20:35.000 president appears within just a couple decades so you can theoretically in theory like this is

00:20:41.200 one point in favor of the no actually you possibly can remove the terrifying violent

00:20:50.760 murder cult out of someone yes i was i was kind of worried that like i don't know there's just

00:20:57.760 something like i don't deep like deeply ingrained genetic tendencies that might cause people to just

00:21:02.080 want to like torture and murder people and offer them as human sacrifices i mean the the point

00:21:07.220 being is those tendencies might exist right but if you have a really strong religion that gives 0.58

00:21:12.020 you a good foundation you're like i may feel those feelings but i will not act on them which which

00:21:16.940 goes not gonna worship the death god often say about the bible which is oh yeah i guess yeah

00:21:22.440 like think about all like the appellation like um crazy you know reputation but you don't actually

00:21:29.780 see lots of cases of it it's not like in in appalachia you see like tons of cannibalism

00:21:35.540 and like crazy you know you don't really see any yeah even though there is that tendency and you

00:21:41.040 can even see it like through porn even though they were an incredibly violent people they never

00:21:45.360 ritually sacrificed anyone they never tortured people but the interest is alive and well which

00:21:50.780 i think is the important thing which which you can see through searches like online searches

00:21:55.100 um and so sorry what she means is if you look up porn types in the united states when you're

00:22:01.640 looking up incredibly violent stuff you will find the highest rates of it in west virginia for so 0.67

00:22:06.180 they still feel it but they don't act on it so in theory we could have the mexicans still feel 1.00

00:22:12.260 the desire to worship the death cult god and to sacrifice humans to it but if they had the right 0.90

00:22:17.300 religion they wouldn't act on it but it turns out catholicism is not cutting it malcolm well this is

00:22:23.520 where we get into as as we talk about around you know if we see the bible as like good rules for

00:22:29.260 how to base society like the 10 commandments are not vague about this it is very frequent

00:22:34.820 that you will get some catholic go on and on about like how chaste and good they are because they

00:22:42.360 don't masturbate but then they which isn't even one of the 10 commandments not even mentioned in

00:22:48.240 the bible other than uh rules around cleanliness you can see our wider episode on this um where

00:22:55.640 it's treated as sort of similar to menstruation um that said uh if you're talking about like

00:23:01.300 the second commandment which is very interesting because it's put right after the first commandment

00:23:06.720 no other no but what i mean is people will often say well what it means is you're not supposed to

00:23:12.560 worship an icon you're not supposed to worship a statue you're not supposed to and it's like

00:23:18.380 no that's not what it means yeah like let me be super for let me be super clear because if that's

00:23:23.480 what it meant one it would have been covered by the first quote and two it wouldn't be you don't

00:23:30.340 make graven images it would have been you don't worship graven images yeah but it's no you don't

00:23:36.860 make the graven image in the first place um yeah wait that's what it is right is it

00:23:44.380 you don't make or you don't worship hold on i have them i have them up on like the top of my notes

00:23:49.580 thing she got buried because of all my new homeschooling notes oh gosh 10 commandments

00:23:56.700 come on yeah you shall not make them oh see there you go don't make them any likeness of anything

00:24:03.640 in the heaven beloved or the earth beneath oh it's very clear yeah um okay can i spell this

00:24:10.640 out for you anymore no what's very interesting is it's not just covering all of the depictions

00:24:17.140 of anything in heaven or angelic or anything like that but it also says interesting and a little

00:24:23.020 prophetic or the earth beneath e.g. skeletons yeah what's so interesting to me is and i'm not

00:24:32.720 exempt from this because i blaspheme too much and now that i've like brushed up on the 10

00:24:37.140 commandments i'm like i gotta i gotta stop um however man humans really struggle with the 10

00:24:43.780 commandments like jesus has been so clear in his teachings he's like just follow the 10 just follow

00:24:50.160 the 10 commandments giant tangents around like being incredibly severely perfect around like

00:24:56.980 life beginning at conception which is not in the bible it's like dude and then ignore this list

00:25:02.700 like commandment one and two one list one list it's a simple list he made it so simple i know

00:25:09.260 i know i know and i look we all just let's get back to those basics let's let's master the list

00:25:15.140 and then we can get to the other stuff because the list matters a lot but anyway and this is

00:25:21.220 really important is people will take the 10 commandments and they'll try to extrapolate out

00:25:25.980 of it something around masturbation from the the one that sounds like it's about you can pull up

00:25:31.040 the exact wording on it that seems a lot more about like social media and comparing yourself

00:25:35.460 others um or they'll they'll say um oh uh the one about not murdering which has very specific laws

00:25:43.180 around it in judaism during this period is about uh general killing or off also covers these other

00:25:49.600 things and it's like okay i totally see how you can get that the problem is it's at the rule

00:25:56.940 around idolatry um there's no way you can't get that that applies to like all idolatry right

00:26:05.080 so i decided to look into the evidence to trade a steel man the other argument because i just

00:26:11.480 didn't understand how you couldn't get this interpretation for the text and unfortunately

00:26:15.340 it just gets stronger the more i read so like um when you go to deuteronomy 16 lest you corruptly

00:26:23.180 and make yourselves a carved image in the form of a figure in the likeness of a male or female

00:26:29.400 the likeness of an animal that is on the earth the likeness of a winged bird that flies in the air

00:26:34.700 or the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is beneath

00:26:39.260 the earth you are specifically not supposed to bow to these things that is that is what is demanded

00:26:46.020 of you um as well as not to make them but in addition not to bow to them um and then people

00:26:51.060 will be like because the the strongest kind of argument will be like well these things there

00:26:55.100 were images of things like lilies um and lions drawn at the temple under god's command and first

00:27:02.620 no they were not drawn under god's command uh it's very explicit in the text that they weren't

00:27:07.240 drawn under god's command and in the text they are talked about as like artistic motifs

00:27:10.640 so the lilies are talked about as being like the way that like a column was topped or the way that

00:27:17.240 like the seams were done in in terms of like where the lions are and stuff like that this is not the

00:27:22.940 same thing as a catholic shrine that you are bowing to uh the closest thing you can get from

00:27:29.800 an actual command and note here the temple there was stuff in the temple that was not supposed to

00:27:33.940 be in the temple right like we know that the snake staff of moses something that god actually

00:27:38.100 gave humanity or moses was in the temple and during the josiah reforms it was taken out and

00:27:43.920 it was broken uh because it was idolatrous right because people had started worshiping it or

00:27:49.820 putting offerings around it or something like this um and so like you can't just be like well

00:27:54.920 it was in the temple therefore god approves it no that's not the way it works uh second

00:27:58.760 And even with the temple, it's, again, seen more like motifs.

00:28:03.040 They say, well, what about the cherubs on the ark?

00:28:08.040 And so, first of all, God does talk about the cherubs on the ark.

00:28:11.800 But they don't actually fit any of the prohibitions here.

00:28:15.660 They don't fit a human or male, a human female or male.

00:28:21.340 They don't fit any animal on earth.

00:28:23.280 They don't fit any fish.

00:28:25.180 So, again, not a contradiction.

00:28:27.040 The Bible is remarkably self-consistent.

00:28:30.180 And when I talked this through with Simone, she pointed out, and I thought very wisely, that the cherubs are clearly a supporting flourish on a separate article of religious significance.

00:28:42.720 Even Protestants aren't particularly against supporting flourishes, but it is in no way analogous to anything that you see in regards to a Catholic shrine where the icon is the point or an Orthodox shrine.

00:28:59.460 What I can say with a lot of confidence is even the loosest, most liberal reading of what's in the text would not allow you to carve an image of a human being and then leave offerings to it or bow to it.

00:29:12.720 and it's like what's the positives that you're getting out of this a feeling like that's what i

00:29:17.420 often get but it leads to murder cults being possible but anyway yeah you should not covet

00:29:22.420 your neighbor's wife you should not covet your neighbor's goods that so i want to be clear here

00:29:28.140 during this period because we know during this period there were naked pictures on pottery and

00:29:34.160 stuff like this if something equivalent to modern like at least illustrated porn existed

00:29:40.400 it would have existed in a drawn format right it wouldn't have been your neighbor's wives or your

00:29:46.260 neighbor's slaves i think it also says that um it or your neighbor's oxen yes i did remember it

00:29:52.260 right you have exodus 2017 you shall not covet your neighbor's house you shall not cover your

00:29:57.560 neighbor's wife or his male or female servant or his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your

00:30:04.140 neighbor. And then Deuteronomy 5.21, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not

00:30:09.920 desire on your neighbor's house or land his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything 0.83

00:30:16.500 else that belongs to your neighbor. So very clearly, this is way more specific to about

00:30:22.640 things like doom scrolling on Instagram or Facebook, or being jealous of things that other

00:30:29.360 people have and if you want to extrapolate it to anything else sure you you can but that is

00:30:37.140 not what is in the text or what a plain reading of the text would have you interpret it's real

00:30:44.940 curious how in pop or sunday stool christianity this only gets shortened to you shall not covet

00:30:51.480 your neighbor's wife and then translate it to you shall not covet any other woman or depiction of

00:30:57.880 women when that's not even at least in deuteronomy the first thing listed it's you shall not covet your

00:31:03.460 neighbor's house um like clearly it could have been written about that and it wasn't if you're

00:31:08.220 talking about leviticus there's a lot of really specific stuff in there um but we're talking 10

00:31:12.380 commandments here let's not get into leviticus it gets it's detailed yeah the point being it's like

00:31:18.100 it could have very easily detailed that and yet the details that it chooses to go into seem to be

00:31:23.400 a much more uh and again i'm not saying you should do this stuff i'm saying look you you can have

00:31:29.000 these additional rules but like don't think you're an extra good christian because you're following

00:31:34.300 all the additional rules that you made up outside of the core rules or extrapolated with some extreme

00:31:40.540 leap from the core rules and then just ignore the core rules um a note here if you're going to be

00:31:46.860 like well you know he said i made you before you were in your mother's womb well doesn't that imply

00:31:50.560 predestination I've mentioned this in older episodes but I get very annoyed when people say

00:31:54.520 that because he could have said in in in in but he doesn't he says before which implies he knew

00:32:00.500 either the future or you have a pre-life like Mormons believe which I don't think any major

00:32:05.460 Christian denomination believes yeah okay let's get back to Santa Muerte but I but I find this

00:32:11.540 interesting because you're talking about like is this based in a group and you appear to be able

00:32:15.980 to control this instinct but and and what's interesting is the bible appears to be like a

00:32:21.640 set of rules for how to control this instinct yeah yeah and yet and yet and yet really struggle

00:32:27.600 with this it's super hard uh and i'm again i'm not above this at all we're gonna have to work

00:32:32.720 out how to be be more be better about the 10 commandments but anyway i just want to make it

00:32:37.640 clear that like the news coverage i don't i mean the only one that we don't keep the sabbath

00:32:43.060 that's for sure and also i blaspheme and i i need to stop so yeah no the blaspheming one is the the

00:32:51.160 number one one that we need to do what about the sabbath the sabbath we need to go back and look

00:32:57.380 at what that means in context and i can do that for the next tract if you want because a lot of

00:33:03.180 groups have had different interpretations around what the sabbath means yeah um and uh i want to

00:33:08.940 determine exactly what it would mean to keep it in in that respect yeah i mean yeah because i mean

00:33:14.660 arguably per our religion most of what we do every day is religious practice but a quick review makes

00:33:21.580 it pretty clear from what i can read in the text that you're not supposed to work on this abbess

00:33:26.020 which is definitely not something that we do i haven't taken a day off in probably a decade so

00:33:32.200 that's something i should reflect on and incorporate into our daily lives going forwards

00:33:36.800 but whatever anyway okay um i wanted to make it clear that even though most of the connection

00:33:44.340 i've made with all this is oh this is all this insanely violent cartel stuff might be insanely

00:33:50.960 violent because of the santa muerte worship which is downstream of the inadequately suppressed aztec

00:33:57.340 sacrifice ritual compulsion however this all this is not a dudes in drug cartels thing this is a 0.92

00:34:06.460 very widely popular idol it's a gay thing is it a gay and a witchy thing you saw yeah you saw the

00:34:14.260 listings is etsy a boy site no etsy's a girl site did you see those kitchens did those look like 0.99

00:34:20.480 boy kitchens no that was white subway tile on white fake marble that is a basic bitch girl 1.00

00:34:26.760 kitchen and these are all girl idols and i'll give you an example um there valeria marquez she 1.00

00:34:33.120 was a 23 year old locally popular tiktok live streamer in guadalajara she owned a salon she 0.90

00:34:39.220 would host these tiktok live streams she's a now world famous social media influencer she had a

00:34:46.540 shrine to santa muerte and was very open about her devotion just like sitting in the corner very

00:34:51.340 visible in many of her live streams like this is just your typical tiktok influencer plastic

00:34:58.020 surgery you know style makeup etc right um oh by the way i will note in defense of catholics

00:35:05.240 right especially our last episode on this the holdout juror in the lindsey cancey case the

00:35:10.400 the black guy turns out to be a catholic as well so it wasn't just lindsey cancey it was also the

00:35:15.380 oh yeah it wasn't like oh i hate catholics yeah because he was like well well good you know 0.82

00:35:19.460 tend to your own flock like go be extra strict on your own people that's our whole thing he was

00:35:23.220 from haiti by the way he was a devout haitian yeah that's awesome anyway valeria marquez uh marquez

00:35:31.500 was also she was murdered on her live stream in may 2025 kind of notable that's how people came

00:35:38.220 to know about her that's how i came to know about her anyway she was murdered on her live stream

00:35:41.760 idol yeah so apparently santa muerte is not very good at protecting people by the way um

00:35:48.900 not not a great track record again i'm like why would you worship the death god who comes for

00:35:54.540 everyone like death god don't kill me um well i think a lot of these people they don't really

00:36:01.000 see their lives as having a lot of value yeah i guess yeah it's sad i mean she's 23 years old

00:36:06.100 here's a little aside though and this is back to this theme of people just they just can't help

00:36:11.880 but have the uh the evil creep back through if their religion is insufficiently 0.98

00:36:20.680 strong and this is this is going to be you know how you love to hate on the catholics well i love 1.00

00:36:26.080 to hate on the pentecostals and you're you're about to say my little my little shit-eating 0.99

00:36:30.000 grin in just a second okay because following valeria's murder people were online convinced 0.99

00:36:36.340 that she was the victim of destiny swapping they think her friend vivian wanted to steal her life

00:36:43.420 do you know about destiny swapping no tell me about this it's this whole new it's not new i

00:36:49.280 guess it's this this sort of occult witchcrafty thing uh that is a spiritual folk religious idea

00:36:56.600 that one person can steal exchange or hijack another person's intended life plan like their

00:37:03.520 purpose their success their relationships their glory i really don't like pentecostals either 0.88

00:37:08.280 by the way i know i know it's witchcraft i really i freaking hate it um they're they're witches 0.81

00:37:12.400 an example just just to make the catholics happy pentecostalism charismatic pentecostalism 0.79

00:37:18.120 they're witches in the same way that like was catholicism i love spsx i don't like

00:37:22.600 vaticanist jesuit catholicism yeah there you go but anyway just saying protestants are not

00:37:29.500 spotless okay yeah thank you just just trying to keep it balanced over here but anyway um this

00:37:37.880 this idea of destiny swapping this this folk religion it's popular enough to have a wiki how

00:37:44.140 article it's like literally a wiki how article about destiny swapping there are loads of online

00:37:50.580 posts where people wonder if some jealous friend or colleague has life swapped with them or they

00:37:55.980 want advice on how to wait what like destiny life swap yeah um here let me click on one um i i linked

00:38:02.820 to a couple in the in the show notes um hello i'm looking for practical advice not debate for years

00:38:10.200 now i've been dealing with what i can only describe as a persistent destiny swap or identity

00:38:14.600 mirroring dynamic tied to a specific person i've tried to completely cut off no contact blocked

00:38:19.680 everywhere etc but the sense of interference it hasn't stopped it feels like they're attempting

00:38:24.300 to align with or overlap my path, copy aspects of my identity, or tap into my life in a way that

00:38:29.300 goes beyond coincidence. At this point, it's noticeable enough that other people have commented

00:38:34.480 on it, which is part of why I'm taking it seriously. It's also affecting my behavior.

00:38:38.660 I find myself holding back, staying quiet, or dimming my presence just to avoid feeding whatever

00:38:42.860 it is. I'm looking for methods to sever this. Banishing, uncrossing, cord cutting, if relevant

00:38:48.160 in this context, I've already tried it. Protection or shielding that actually holds if anyone has

00:38:52.840 dealt with a similar situation, especially something targeted or persistent. I really

00:38:56.320 appreciate hearing what has worked in practice. Anyway, there are tons of these Reddit threads.

00:39:00.740 This one's on forum.becomingalivinggod.com. Great. This is what people should be spending

00:39:07.540 their times doing. Anyway, though, there's a lot of witches out there, right? And like women into 0.98

00:39:13.180 the occult. One example that was cited in a video about the killing of this social media influencer, 0.96

00:39:19.260 which discusses the destiny swapping um theories cited one reddit post where a woman

00:39:27.120 apparently went to a fortune teller and was like well with your boyfriend you know you're gonna

00:39:31.780 do these great things and have a son with him but then um her the boyfriend's ex then cheats with

00:39:38.560 him has a son and then they live this life together and then the person who you know the

00:39:43.460 jolted woman assumes that this person destiny swapped with her and stole her destiny and oh

00:39:47.500 my god stole stole wait her husband or the guy who she liked or something yeah because yeah because 0.99

00:39:52.100 her boyfriend went back to his ex like or they cheated she got pregnant had a son and this is 1.00

00:39:57.720 after a fortune teller had told the original girlfriend the now jilted girlfriend that she

00:40:02.860 was going to have a son with this man and so she's like i've had destiny swapping like destiny

00:40:07.860 swapped me yeah if these women found your lore with your brother they'd be like i don't know

00:40:12.780 somehow their destiny like entwined there's some versions of destiny swapping that assume that

00:40:17.940 like relational closeness or energy can tie people's destinies together and then people

00:40:23.740 could argue that like you and your brother have like intertwined destinies because you

00:40:27.580 you know both went to the same schools and all these crazy things but anyway um it's it is

00:40:33.240 definitely this there's the witchcraft angle of it involving a cult and rituals then there's the

00:40:38.660 biblical angle with jacob and his cell like being the most cited example i i just re-listened to 0.96

00:40:45.460 this story in the old testament and it's so stupid um like it's just a bizarre story but because um 0.80

00:40:52.300 is sal's birthright he he sells it to jacob for stew because he was really hungry so jacob got 0.96

00:41:00.460 his birthright and that's apparently how many pentecostals got into it because they're like

00:41:05.020 don't you see like you can steal someone's birthright um because jacob because jacob did

00:41:11.940 it yeah jacob gave stew to this is what we talk about we say pentecostalism is specifically

00:41:17.440 charismatic pentecostalism is just witchcraft disguised as christianity like they're like well

00:41:22.140 you know it happened in this story so yeah so like i'm gonna take it and run with it

00:41:26.720 not related to the 10 commandments at all but whatever but yeah this is it's it's most popular

00:41:31.500 in African Pentecostal charismatic and deliverance ministry circles. And when I tried to look on

00:41:37.940 YouTube for more information, it was all like either black Pentecostal YouTube influencers 0.95

00:41:42.880 or black Pentecostal or charismatic ministry preachers talking about it and being like, 0.99

00:41:49.400 this is bad. We must stop it. Not in terms of like, this is not true, but like you have to 0.99

00:41:55.240 stop the people doing this. It's all like, how do I stop the person who destiny swapped with me?

00:41:59.940 like completely giving fuel to the fact that it's real or how do i destiny swap with somebody else

00:42:05.180 it's uh it's it's pretty yeah it's it's very i am so glad not many of our fans like this stuff

00:42:10.940 because who knows that they'd be casting this to try to be married to you any any man would want

00:42:14.940 that i don't think so you know that no one would want my um the things you put up with every day

00:42:20.740 my god malcolm but yeah like there's just all these like actually i want to take a moment to

00:42:25.500 to talk about how difficult i am no to focus on in charismatic pentecostalism you do see a number

00:42:33.200 of really bad traditions come through um for example folk beliefs like this as well as over

00:42:41.520 far beliefs about possession and witches that end up to you know people killing their kids or

00:42:47.080 whatever yeah um obviously way lower rates than we're talking about in these other countries or

00:42:50.940 like in mexico but it still happens right yeah yeah yeah and it's just it's just it's it's crazy

00:42:56.040 it's really notable though because again like but what's noticeable about it yeah is that it

00:43:01.000 completely cuts out any idolatry like the the oh yeah the idolatry is gone it's just the witchcraft

00:43:08.040 is there yeah like you can try to put as many rules on things and then depending on how you

00:43:15.620 define witchcraft uh you end up still because the witchcraft stuff is not in the 10 commandments

00:43:22.260 right like that's none of the stuff that they are doing there's something like you won't suffer a

00:43:28.340 witch to live but that's not in the 10 commandments yeah that's certainly not that's like a ancillary

00:43:33.680 well except it is inherent in many elements of witchcraft to worship idols so

00:43:38.220 right but it's not inherent in the forms of witchcraft that seep into pentecostalism

00:43:44.860 absolutely so they're like the point i'm making is that even where you get these really negative

00:43:49.380 behavioral patterns in pentecostalism the idolatry rules still are i mean i feel like

00:43:55.920 given the horribleness of the stuff that breaks through there is a lot held behind the doors of

00:44:02.180 the idolatry bands yeah well destiny swapping does break the 10 commandments to be clear

00:44:07.220 thou shall not steal so and also coveting coveting your your neighbor's stuff all really

00:44:13.040 good on the coveting one okay yeah so it's like destiny swapping is definitely a no-go if we're

00:44:16.740 if we're sticking in the 10 commandments again i'm like let's just again jesus was so clear like

00:44:22.180 10 commandments are like really good yeah they work for most things yeah but the um the but they

00:44:27.020 don't pass the idolatry one and i find that very interesting that that that yeah does well yeah

00:44:32.100 depending on how you practice it yes yeah yeah uh anyway let's let's just i wanted to like that that

00:44:38.260 that like worlds collide element of of all this was like crazy to me you know like the destiny

00:44:43.880 swapping meets santa muerte worshiper who gets killed during a live stream it was insane she

00:44:48.980 was like on this all night live stream and what made people really suspicious was her friend

00:44:54.640 vivian who apparently like everyone thought was really jealous of her and things showed up on 0.92

00:44:58.220 live streams all the time where she was stealing her underwear and stuff like that um and saying 0.99

00:45:02.220 her her female friend was stealing her underwear yes um like they're yeah on her live stream at

00:45:09.040 one point she's like stop stealing my underwear um and her friend was vivian was like oh well

00:45:13.780 i'll just buy you more and she's like no i don't have any underwear left like this is really not 0.69

00:45:17.540 cool um and sue who knows if she was like sleeping with her boyfriend wearing her underwear is like 1.00

00:45:23.200 some creepy ass who knows what's going on there right and then during this live stream on the 1.00

00:45:27.700 night she was killed vivian used doordash or uber east or something to send her a starbucks order 0.97

00:45:33.060 and a pig plushie and then people later were like um and the way it was done is um hey toasty what's

00:45:42.380 up okay toasty wants to say hi and then toasty's gonna go back down and do his lessons he started

00:45:48.440 homeschooling today the house is gonna appear back out but don't but the house is gonna appear

00:45:56.640 back on the computer every time when they try to do lessons and do the passcode but um right

00:46:04.360 a note here i make it as a side note but i do want to clarify this when we talk about the

00:46:09.400 idolatry stuff we are not because celestium we talked with her unfortunately we lost the

00:46:14.640 recording, so I'll have to redo it. But she, you know, when she's often dealing with Protestant 1.00

00:46:19.140 groups and they'll say, oh, because she's an Orthodox, she practices pagan rituals in the

00:46:25.540 way that idolatry seeps into the Orthodox tradition. And I want to point out here that

00:46:30.280 that is not at all what we're saying. I do not think that when an Orthodox person worships an 0.88

00:46:38.420 icon or has an icon in an area where they're worshiping or uses an icon to facilitate their

00:46:44.620 worship that they are practicing in anything that i would call pagan i i'm only highlighting

00:46:51.100 these sorts of things because i'm like these rules are there for a reason and have downstream

00:46:57.740 civilization level effects when not followed really strictly i'm not saying that x group

00:47:04.140 is pagan or y group is pagan i agree right so what happened after her friend vivian by the way

00:47:10.380 Just to finish that. 1.00

00:47:11.360 Send her a pig. 1.00

00:47:12.120 What happened? 1.00

00:47:12.920 Send her a pig. 1.00

00:47:14.320 Some guy came to deliver something that he said was expensive. 0.99

00:47:19.380 Came in and then when she confirmed who she was, 0.77

00:47:22.440 he shot her point blank in the chest and in the head. 0.98

00:47:25.520 Execution style.

00:47:26.420 And she died on live stream, which is terrifying.

00:47:28.540 Anyway, so like, don't.

00:47:30.180 Wow, so it was a hit?

00:47:31.740 It was a hit.

00:47:32.200 Yeah, people assume she was dating a cartel leader or something.

00:47:36.600 And that he was a vindictive ex.

00:47:39.200 x you're a well-known mexican streamer yeah um but you know yeah anyway this is this is a violent

00:47:47.300 world and i don't see being involved with any of this uh idol worship is helping so let's talk 0.91

00:47:52.380 much much stricter on hispanic immigration into the united states specifically mexican immigration

00:47:56.540 or the integration of mexico as as anything other than a vassal state i don't know i don't know i'm

00:48:04.040 just saying i'm very very concerned about anyone who's interested in this because again again if

00:48:08.020 you are worshiping that scary death deity it's like one of the like are we the baddies moment

00:48:13.300 like am i worshiping an altar with a skeleton on it and offering it things maybe the problem is

00:48:23.640 simone is you say this but there are orthodox and catholic churches that are made out of bone

00:48:30.260 simone the point i'm making here is you like oh if you're worshiping the the skeleton if you're

00:48:35.860 worshiping at the skeleton shrine yet there are you you have orthodox and catholic like you're

00:48:42.020 the one who's more sympathetic to them than i am and they have like literal temples made out of

00:48:47.700 human bones that are ordained by their central organization yeah and i think the people

00:48:53.180 worshiping at that stuff have some serious problems um i i think they're it's officiated

00:48:58.500 all the way to the top like it's not like the catholic church it's like oh we have some problems

00:49:02.400 with the bone temples or or the the patriarchs uh condemned the bone temples like we probably

00:49:09.480 shouldn't have the bone temples have entire orders dedicated to the bone temples yet they have the

00:49:15.840 bone temples well and that's a problem that's a problem i'm coming out it's official i have a big

00:49:20.840 problem with that that is not a good sign okay let's talk about the offerings that are made to

00:49:24.540 santamuerte just uh yeah anyway if you're a normal person all right you've got your you've got your

00:49:29.860 altar. You can, you can get your little statue on Amazon. There's lots on Amazon. You can get them

00:49:35.020 on Etsy. You can get them locally, whatever. You might put a glass of fresh water. There's some

00:49:40.780 candles, fresh flowers, maybe some apples, candy, alcohol, and small glasses. Here's some other

00:49:48.620 offerings that people are, you know, if you want to go above and beyond, I'm just going to, I'm

00:49:53.520 going to give some of the more violent examples and give them over a long timeframe. So you can

00:49:58.280 see just how longstanding this is okay i'll start with more recent go later in 2024 the fbi described 1.00

00:50:06.300 michelle angelica pineda this is a lady she went by la chelle tied to a juarez crew as removing 1.00

00:50:14.080 hearts from dismembered victims and placing them in front of the santa muerte statues and altars

00:50:19.120 that sounds awful familiar doesn't it malcolm that sounds a lot like aztec worship huh chihuahua

00:50:26.600 authorities linked the crew to more than 20 dismemberment killings and as i was reading this

00:50:31.840 i was like okay all these times when in the news i've read like oh like cartel killings found like

00:50:37.100 dismembered and lined up in the road in a certain way like oh that wasn't just them like trying to

00:50:43.640 remove identifying features this is different in 2016 i really need to put some hate monger in

00:50:49.960 here of like could they be different at a genetic level oh my god i don't i don't know i'm very

00:50:56.200 confused but i think i think your whole thing of no it just has to be a more airtight religion

00:51:00.580 is a very good answer no i think it's i think it's both because you don't get this to the

00:51:06.380 same extent in france or spain or italy um you need both you need i know i know but the the

00:51:12.800 appalachia plus or appalachia uh plus maori example that you presented gives me like okay

00:51:20.800 Well, that's what I'm saying here. That's why I'm saying you need both. If you just have the non-restrictions on idolatry, you don't necessarily get this. If you just have the very aggressive, murderous people, you don't get this. You need both.

00:51:37.480 you need the aggression and the lack of idolatry and witchcraft restrictions yeah yeah yeah agreed

00:51:44.420 so in in one 2016 prison interview a man named edgar who served with a juarez cartel said i

00:51:51.180 officially or i actually sacrifice people for my santa muerte i kill for ordering but i talk to her

00:51:56.880 and say hey i go to a job just make me hit i'm gonna give you that life it is for you and this

00:52:04.120 is a guy who claimed to have murdered roughly 60 people. And he just saw everyone as a sacrifice 0.97

00:52:10.400 for Santa Muerte. I remember reading somewhere just how cheap hits were in Mexico, like 200

00:52:16.520 bucks, like sometimes even less. And I'm like, oh, maybe, you know, it's like a bonus.

00:52:20.800 Of course. If you're also going to Santa Muerte, then.

00:52:23.700 I know. Like, I will pay you. It's crazy. One Catholic priest called Father Ernesto Caro. He's

00:52:32.560 He's a prominent Catholic priest in Mexico, an exorcist.

00:52:35.860 He's based in Monterey.

00:52:37.260 He told the BBC about one cartel disposal man who sought exorcisms from him because a lot of these people then eventually kind of feel guilty about what they're doing.

00:52:47.700 Who knows why?

00:52:48.880 This man described cutting up bodies and burning people alive while devoted to Santa Muerte.

00:52:54.700 Again, sounds super familiar. 0.73

00:52:57.740 Cutting up bodies while they're still alive. 0.97

00:53:00.640 Just like we read about in the Aztec. 0.98

00:53:02.600 Just like the Aztec.

00:53:03.540 If you haven't seen the Aztec episode,

00:53:04.780 you absolutely should.

00:53:05.600 It's shocking.

00:53:06.760 Terrifying.

00:53:07.400 It completely changed my perspective

00:53:09.120 on like the truly evil civilization.

00:53:11.360 Yeah, just how evil humans can be,

00:53:14.800 the depravity of which we're capable.

00:53:17.080 In 2010, a decapitated head was left

00:53:19.620 by the tomb of Arturo Beltran Levia,

00:53:22.160 whose apartment contained Santa Muerte items.

00:53:25.400 In Culiacan, investigators treated that

00:53:28.360 as a possible offering. 0.64

00:53:29.880 Various Ciudad Juarez cases in 2009 and 2010 included altar remnants, both to Santa Muerte, or sorry, spray paint around this area, said Santa Muerte, and cuidadnos flaquita, of like, take care of us, skinny lady, skinny one, you know, like, ita is like cute.

00:53:56.060 so like i don't know cute you know skeleton lady um spray my wife speaks fluent spanish by the way

00:54:02.000 that's why she's not i wouldn't say fluent let's say everybody every spanish person you talk to

00:54:06.700 says fluent so i don't know because when i speak in spanish it's really bad but i just speak like

00:54:11.340 i speak now and so they're like well at least you sound like you instead of hola donde esta

00:54:17.940 la biblioteca instead i'm just like yo no sé qué estoy diciendo por favor apoyame um anyway

00:54:27.200 neighbors said the hillsdale 13 group wanted something big as they were like making these

00:54:33.220 these offerings and spray painting this stuff and they they they burned a victim behind a house

00:54:39.760 around where they spray painted these things um also stacked headless bodies have been inferred

00:54:45.960 but not always proven as a ritual staging.

00:54:48.780 In 2008, in Nuevo Laredo,

00:54:53.020 Gulf cartel members captured,

00:54:55.080 Sinaloa cartel members,

00:54:56.720 took them to public Santa Muerte shrines

00:55:00.020 and then shot them.

00:55:01.860 I didn't know that there were public Santa Muerte shrines

00:55:04.480 until researching this episode either.

00:55:06.240 One thing that really creeped me out

00:55:07.480 when we were in Peru was all the saint shrines

00:55:11.260 and the extent to which-

00:55:12.620 Wait, why don't they get rid of the shrines

00:55:14.280 if human sacrifices are happening at the shrine i mean like this is a catholic country right like

00:55:18.620 can't they just stop yeah it's not it's not a condoned like catholic condoned saint so yeah

00:55:27.160 why are there public shrines to santa muerte that's weird so i decided to look these up and

00:55:36.340 there are a number of public santa muerte shrines in mexico so i wasn't able to pin down the exact

00:55:41.060 One, what is interesting about the two I found here is that in one, two images of Jesus are looking up to the Santa Morte, and then in the second, there is an image of Jesus directly next to the Santa Morte depicted as an equal.

00:55:55.660 What is fascinating about this is I think a lot of people want to be like, well, this is pagan.

00:56:00.020 This isn't Catholic.

00:56:01.160 This has nothing to do with Catholicism.

00:56:03.640 And it's like clearly the people who believe this wouldn't consider it that way.

00:56:08.060 clearly they would consider themselves a type of Catholic. And so it's important that we don't say,

00:56:14.200 well, you can say, I don't consider it this, or the Vatican doesn't consider it this. But part

00:56:21.280 of the problem is, as soon as you say the Vatican doesn't consider it this, then you can say, well,

00:56:26.020 anybody who doesn't agree with all of Vatican II isn't Catholic, right? So I think it's better to 0.97

00:56:31.420 just be like, well, there's different categories of Catholic, and this is one category. 0.55

00:56:35.380 oh and in addition there have been efforts by the government to tear them down

00:56:40.900 and swaths of them have been torn down at specific times to much protest but they still exist in

00:56:47.300 large numbers although why are those hysterically hideous statues in palo alto as well i mean who 0.96

00:56:54.920 put them there it's it's it's demonic those are disgusting did you see the new horrible black 0.97

00:56:59.620 lady statue in the center of trifalga oh yeah that no it's supposed to be like feminism embodied 1.00

00:57:05.420 um that's it's terrifying so ugly yeah her face the communists trying to make our cities ugly

00:57:12.740 absolutely a thing well you know what honestly after all the news coverage about women lately 0.53

00:57:17.980 i'm like yep that's it good job they nailed it that's feminism embodied now that's us okay great

00:57:25.380 anyway um some of this has leaked into mexican communities in um in south texas so in the mid

00:57:33.320 2000s intercepted seda's communications described slashing teenagers and then collecting the blood

00:57:39.560 in a cup and then toasting to santa muerte and this reminded me of all of the the rituals that

00:57:47.020 you had to practice as an aztec citizen or priest that involved hurting yourself you know like the

00:57:52.300 one where they would cut through their tongues and then shove a rope with knots on it through 0.98

00:57:56.860 your tongue like a hundred times however many times right it does sound like that it sounds

00:58:01.720 like that other intercepted zeta chatter it referenced blood toasts to santissimo muerte

00:58:06.780 like the ultimate state um great we love her that much and then this goes back even more like in

00:58:12.580 1989 matamoros um narcos santicos ranch um narcos santicos that's like narco saints drug

00:58:22.180 saints okay um belonging to a guy named aldolfo constanzo involved ritual killings including mark

00:58:28.980 kilroy with a cauldron containing a boiled brain and other remains santa muerte was among the idols

00:58:35.780 worshipped along with paulo mayombe but that's a different thing he's like a cuban religious

00:58:41.940 central african glad we're not living in texas anymore we need to push again like build a wall

00:58:47.620 i don't i don't know consolidate consolidate power and push out right like no i just we need

00:58:54.800 religious reform uh i i want everyone to be okay i don't care where they are i i want

00:59:01.340 we cath catholics either need to really curtail idol worship or gtfo i'm just

00:59:10.780 i've got very serious problems with it because this i really thought at the end of our aztec

00:59:17.360 episode that we were okay i swear to you it was it was the end of the scary movie of like like we

00:59:23.160 made it you know they killed them all i was so traumatized you know like we're covered with blood

00:59:27.600 and mud and our you know our hair is like half singed off but like we're gonna survive and then

00:59:31.980 yeah then the demon eye opens and you know and then like you know jump scare movies over roll

00:59:37.300 credits that that was and now this is this is you know part two aztec empire redux today everyday

00:59:45.100 life now has been all around us didn't realize didn't draw the connection it ends with the

00:59:50.860 with the conquistadors taking native wives then you're like wait no no what are you doing yeah

00:59:55.620 yeah yeah yeah yeah it just it's just bad it's just bad it's just bad um and yeah i mean keep

01:00:02.240 in mind like yeah i was just picturing like the conquistador has you know beautiful baby with you

01:00:08.560 know aztec woman you know baby being cradled baby opens eye eye demon eye because the thing is back

01:00:15.900 to that that first sacrifice i was telling you about that was a non-cartel family i think one

01:00:22.140 of the youngest people involved in one of those arrests the one where you know two 10 year old

01:00:26.740 boys were killed and one woman was sacrificed um was 15 years old this is a kid this is a kid doing

01:00:32.760 this um and there's just something deeply wrong and at the end of my show notes and what i kind

01:00:38.760 of wanted to like post you which i think you've already answered was can this be fixed like

01:00:42.760 is it i thought well you know it's just just basically evidence that domineering cultures

01:00:46.900 fail that you can't like come in and actually save people that can people not be saved but i

01:00:52.120 think no what you're really saying and what i think you to me plausibly proven and hopefully

01:00:56.580 in in the comments i didn't know about the polynesian thing that was a guess for me i was

01:01:00.900 like okay where did a murder cult exist and you had a protestant colonization effort okay when

01:01:06.040 it's not just there also a lot of the tribes in the north were like way more brutal than you would

01:01:11.360 imagine you're gonna want to take off your headphones for this simone okay uh like you know

01:01:17.420 the nice and sweet iroquois who everybody oh iroquois confederation oh uh so one of the things 0.99

01:01:23.740 the iroquois would do is uh they would when they would take female slaves uh they would make them 0.95

01:01:30.580 watch as they cook their children alive and ate them uh babies specifically as a form of like 0.93

01:01:37.340 psychological torture um so like that's not something we've ever done our site is done

01:01:43.700 anyway you can thank you okay but the point being is like those tendencies existed maybe not to the

01:01:49.820 same extent as the aztecs but they definitely existed well if you're talking about like the

01:01:53.480 indigenous yet they have not resurfaced but but remember in the god i have to think about the

01:02:00.060 holy ball song mmiwg they existed in the comanche it did we we we haven't had major problems with

01:02:06.880 no but again like in the mmiwg2s episode we talked about the fact that there still are

01:02:12.060 disproportionate rates of violence and in other atrocities in native communities yeah so like

01:02:16.600 there there are i guess in the absence of strong culture still issues in populations that have

01:02:22.040 historically had issues with violence and um for lack of a better word savagery um and that's

01:02:30.380 important to note but yeah the solution is is strong culture no idolatry no witchcraft

01:02:35.980 follow the ten commandments yeah yeah that that that works well and i think in in order

01:02:44.400 in order yeah well no i mean 10 commandment just two words 10 commandments that's it because the

01:02:53.560 no idolatry is in there it's all it's all no it's all in there but the point being is that a lot of

01:02:58.920 people go really hard on some obscure extrapolation from something right like as i talked about like

01:03:05.920 the the no masturbation thing or like i don't drink alcohol which is like as i pointed out

01:03:10.820 Like, Christianity has multiple alcohol-related miracles, right?

01:03:13.580 Like, that's clearly not one of the intentions.

01:03:15.580 And they'll go really strict on this stuff and then just completely ignore, like, the central stuff, right?

01:03:23.460 It's just a version of procrastination.

01:03:25.940 It's like with our kids when they have to do something they want to do.

01:03:27.100 It's not a version of procrastination.

01:03:28.940 It's performative purity, which was one of the things that Jesus spoke against at the Sermon on the Mount.

01:03:36.600 Hmm.

01:03:37.980 Hmm.

01:03:39.840 Yeah.

01:03:40.820 Yeah, in fact, I was just arguing, there's someone who keeps emailing us about a certain thing, and I was trying to argue to him that, like, Jesus was super okay, for example, with women of ill repute and tax collectors, because those people rejected the corrupt priests of the time who, to Jesus' point, and to your point, engaged in that performative, corrupt form of religion.

01:04:08.800 The fact that Jesus was accepting of them, right, and wanted them to come over to his side does not mean he condoned their practices.

01:04:18.160 Yeah, but what they were, I mean, they were repentant, obviously, but they were, he was more interested in them than someone who was literally in the priest class because they were more willing to go back to the basics of, okay, Ten Commandments, gotcha.

01:04:33.680 I think I can do that, which is actually really, really hard.

01:04:37.380 And again, I admit that, but that means that we have to be extra disciplined.

01:04:42.060 Okay.

01:04:42.640 Love you, Simone.

01:04:43.640 Good episode.

01:04:44.720 Good topic.

01:04:45.460 I had no idea this was happening, I'm going to be honest.

01:04:47.540 Well, no, but you knew about La Santa Muerte, and you also knew about all the Mexican cartels

01:04:54.180 and how insanely violent they are, because that's regularly in news coverage, like some

01:04:58.480 new insane formation of decapitated and dismembered bodies.

01:05:02.140 I just had to put two and two together of like, oh, this sounds a little Aztec, and

01:05:06.480 why are they all worshiping a death cult i also hadn't actually read the news coverage that showed

01:05:11.140 that many of them and their girlfriends alleged and otherwise were like super into santa muerte

01:05:17.480 so now i'm like okay and that it's like a gay lgbt thing too it's like it's like the the cartels and 0.68

01:05:24.440 like gay bars and like witchy females right like it's like all of the bad guys in one place

01:05:30.860 a note here and i think all gay people but i think that there's a certain culture that exists 0.95

01:05:38.000 within gay culture that definitely is destructive to people who come in contact with it psychologically 0.62

01:05:43.120 well yeah i mean just like you you don't you're not anti-porn but you you would probably say that 0.57

01:05:51.380 someone who like builds their lifestyle around porn is doing really bad things yeah probably not 0.98

01:05:56.900 weighing their their like okay this is this is a great one the gay stuff right like the gay stuff 0.95

01:06:05.220 there are prohibitions against same-sex relationship in the bible but they are not in the

01:06:09.980 10 commandments and you will see people who will build their entire lives around attacking gay

01:06:15.100 people and act like it's the most important thing that you do ever ever ever and don't follow the

01:06:20.360 10 commandments yeah um and this is something i see regularly and it's like that i think is an

01:06:27.880 incredibly uh ugly way to live um because you're you're only using religion or truth where you can

01:06:36.960 use it to make yourself seem better than other people or instead of using it as a set of tools

01:06:43.400 for restraining yourself yeah agreed so this stuff's crazy have a good day Simone

01:06:52.480 the Aztecs aren't going they will be

01:06:59.340 people think oh oh this uh technopurgeon stuff pretty interesting pretty interesting they they

01:07:07.660 seem a little like very nice for now but the you know baked into some of this the whole point of

01:07:15.360 prenatalism is that you don't have to work too hard to win that the point you've always made

01:07:21.940 and this is this holds strong is that in the past you used to have to like kill people and wage war

01:07:26.500 to just take over and now you just have to like have enough kids and raise them well and set them

01:07:30.220 with technology with birth rates in mexico are worse than birth rates in the united states all

01:07:36.000 right right but with genetic modification and stuff like that because if some other group is

01:07:39.860 practicing continued genetic modification continued evolution continued technological

01:07:44.520 advancement and you are not you lose no matter how many kids you have yeah and we should delve

01:07:49.620 into the the recent research that found that things like myelination and a variety of other

01:07:54.940 mammalian invertebrate genetic differences are downstream of retroviral shifts yeah and

01:08:03.600 infections yeah because maybe it's not so much about using crisper maybe it's more about

01:08:08.060 engineering viruses whatever the point being is like people who are like well the human human

01:08:11.800 don't have dna from other animals in them it's like yes yes you do yeah what are you talking

01:08:16.020 about yeah um anyway yeah he wouldn't be so smart uh apparently if it weren't for a virus

01:08:21.740 because yeah this is timothy or whatever the guy who we mentioned in the angels episode um where

01:08:27.940 he's like oh the bible's obviously against that word like no it's not why are you going so hard

01:08:32.580 on this when the bible doesn't mention it once yeah back to that theme and it will lead to your

01:08:37.220 people being defeated eradicated or moved into a realm of irrelevance by people who do continue 0.95

01:08:43.280 to technologically develop anyway love you bye you did and i explained that we may have to kill

01:08:50.740 all the chickens because if they develop a pattern of eating the eggs then they'll teach it to any

01:08:57.580 new chicks so the only way to have chickens again is to start fresh and octavian and torsten were

01:09:03.640 extremely distressed by that octavian was like and cutish and i was like yeah and cutish and

01:09:09.800 torsten was like even my birthday chicks and i was like even your birthday chicks

01:09:13.700 um so hopefully they don't pick that up

01:09:20.560 yeah um the most important thing is this was a dropped egg it's actually not that big of a deal

01:09:31.680 um it's if they learn that they pack the eggs that they get a treat that's the problem which

01:09:36.560 is why we put fake eggs in their nests so that if they pack at them and nothing good happens

01:09:41.980 then they don't start eating their eggs um it's not that big of a deal if they eat a broken egg

01:09:47.820 because it kind of looks fundamentally different and uh i don't know we've not had problems with

01:09:53.040 that in the past but i appreciate your freaking them out about it because i just don't like having

01:09:59.160 to clean up the mess and i just don't like when they break food that could be eaten but yeah now

01:10:05.360 octavian's going to be extra devastated because cutish laid her first egg today and it's really

01:10:11.420 cute it's a little little blue egg super tiny excited about that his chicken i do not know why

01:10:18.420 he he bonded with one chicken over all other chickens uh well because he really likes orange

01:10:25.160 chickens and that one day there was only one orange baby chick if you'll recall the rest were

01:10:30.120 that other funny breed that has um yeah that's what we need cutish is a different breed than

01:10:36.580 all other chickens yeah you know that one adolescent chicken we have that's a deep burnt

01:10:41.880 orange color that's a blue it's a blue egg layer um and it's different from the helmet head chickens

01:10:47.660 oh so you got the helmet heads and then just cutish yeah just cutish yeah the leader chick

01:10:54.980 yeah yeah they all follow they all follow her around she's a born a born leader just like

01:10:59.840 octavian which is great oh my god so uh anything new today no just uh quite distracted with the

01:11:10.140 kids homeschooling but torson's after actually doing a pretty good job um he's well ahead of

01:11:15.880 octavian and lessons so far today strongly um even though as he moves about the house to do his

01:11:21.480 lessons in different locations he always has to move his retinue with him he gets up to the desk

01:11:27.380 next to my office this morning and he's like oh i forgot my rock and i'm like toasty you don't need

01:11:33.700 the rock and he's like no he like runs downstairs and then comes back up all very you know here's

01:11:39.260 my rock and it's like it's not an interesting rock it's a piece of broken pavement but

01:11:46.500 sometimes i feel like i learn a lot from the kids you know in terms of how like it's the end of the

01:11:52.760 world or something doesn't quite go their way and then i see myself and i'm like you know what this

01:11:56.800 is just me this is how i react to absolutely everything too yeah when you're gonna call

01:12:01.460 your schedule changes yeah and i'm like then i make i am i am octavian on the floor having his 0.96

01:12:07.620 little his little fit and it helps me put my own stupid behavior in perspective and i appreciate

01:12:15.820 having that reflected extremely explicitly to me thanks world life circumstances 0.81

01:12:25.040 sure um and in terms of advertising the websites

01:12:30.500 we have two big new features one that i can you show this on youtube i don't know if you can show

01:12:38.900 this on youtube oh i'm not going to show the well one makes comics but it can also make not safe for

01:12:43.460 work comics which we're going to put on not safe for work websites uh and uh it's it's still

01:12:51.100 improving this one still improving a lot um it's really interesting i learn a lot from ai to see

01:12:57.460 where the shortcomings on this are because the the comic frames themselves look really good

01:13:02.320 and then you read the speech bubbles which malcolm cleverly has added later like after

01:13:08.060 and it's was doing a bad job with the speech bubbles and i think i finally pinned down what

01:13:15.000 was causing that and i think that's fixed so we'll see it's like english english language

01:13:19.280 food menu in rural china level you know like heavily beaten dancing chicken depressed dog

01:13:26.600 like that's like the dishes it's it's very strange um so what's your solution is your

01:13:32.980 solution just to like first write the full storyboard and script and then have the the

01:13:39.680 frames made and then have that exact script put in the frames so that there's not like because 0.94

01:13:44.500 i think the issue was that ai was reading the pictures and then making very stupid speech

01:13:50.780 bubbles based on that instead of going off like a master script storyboard and just putting the 0.84

01:13:56.560 exact verbatim script into the speech bubbles is that what you were doing as your fix uh no it was

01:14:02.860 losing it's it's confusing uh the way it made a mistake was nuanced the other feature that i

01:14:08.800 created i'm really excited to share with people is you put in a mawa or comic of your choice

01:14:14.060 um and it will read it for you and it will assign like female voices to female characters male

01:14:20.420 voices to the male characters and create a video of um the the like the scene that it's focused on

01:14:26.980 with it reading that scene and in addition to all of that uh it's going to be just like because a

01:14:33.460 bunch of channels have started doing this as like a income stream or something um and i watch them

01:14:38.100 regularly it's the thing i watch most now actually i can vouch i can vouch for that which is because

01:14:43.220 i i really love my villainous moas okay i love my villainous moas and her heart pounded as she

01:14:48.520 looked into his face but now i can take those from any language have them stream in english

01:14:57.500 with different character voices and it doesn't cost much money like the anime dubber cost a lot

01:15:02.040 of money this you can run for very very with this could this also just work on general comics like

01:15:06.740 that adorable bdsm one yeah i guess there's not a is there a webtoons version of that what about

01:15:12.080 love advice from uh what you could do that if you want yeah you could do it on any of them um

01:15:19.780 and i will maybe try to use this to advertise the site a bit we'll see um i mean it's more of an

01:15:27.480 issue with copyright so i'll try to say to stuff that's available for free oh yeah um recommendation

01:15:33.000 for love advice from the duke of hell though it's the sweetest yes you you quite like that one and

01:15:39.140 We'll see if we can then shunt people who like it into paid versions as well as a site.

01:15:43.240 So very cool and a new thing that you can do with RFAB.

01:15:46.500 And ours is way better than the ones that you just see online because it actually reads the text of the text instead of telling you about what the text says, which actually makes it very hard to follow what's going on.

01:16:04.740 You know, as a power user, you know best.

01:16:08.080 All right, so get me started on this, Simone.

01:16:10.700 Okay, here we go.

01:16:12.280 Pulling up my notes.

Based Camp - September 22, 2026

The Conquistadors Did Not Go Far Enough： Human Sacrifices in 2026

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