S1E15 - The Actuaries (Woodmen Life & Modern Woodmen)

0:23 Chris: So we're kind of cutting it close this week. Kayla: No, we're not. Chris: This is. Kayla: We did a Thursday record before. Chris: Have we recorded on Thursday before? Kayla: I think the previous episode. Chris: Oh, I think there's a trend. Kayla: Yeah. Actually, for our listeners, when we premiered, we had like, four in the bag. Chris: Oh, yeah. We were so far ahead. We had, like, this huge buffer. Kayla: Great. Chris: To the point where I felt like, I felt so pro because people would be like, so which one did you just record? I just listened to the one about Star Citizen, and in my head I was like, oh, man. Yeah, well, we did that one, like a month ago. Okay. Kayla: And now we're down to the wire. Chris: Now we're down to the wire. Kayla: But it's just because we do such rigorous research, thorough, intensive research, and we want to bring to you the actual correct information. And also, oh, also this week, life is hard.

1:17 Chris: This week we can blame the fact that your two favorite hosts are now uncle and aunt. Kayla: Who? Chris: That's us. Kayla: I was like, who? Jad and Robert? Chris: No, no, it's Karen and Georgia. Kayla: Those are podcast host references. Chris: Right. Kayla: But no. Yes. The ones you are currently listening to. We've leveled up in our adulthood and are now. There is no gender neutral term for aunts and uncles. Chris: Wow, what a bummer. Kayla: Ankles. There we go. Chris: Crankles. Kayla: That doesn't make any sense. Chris: Old ankles. Banana bana. Anyway, it's ankles. We are. Are you sure there's not like. Cause there's parents, siblings.

2:03 Kayla: Siblings, cousins. Chris: Cousins. What's a group of uncles and aunts? Kayla: I don't know, but there's not one for nieces and nephews. And there's not one siblings. Yeah, but that's like, not. That's like just coming into the lexicon now. Chris: Okay, well, let's lex up a yemenite ankles. Ankle. That's already a thing. Kayla: Calling them ankles. Chris: I think we need something better. Kayla: Well, then ask our listeners. Chris: Email us, listeners, what should we call ourselves collectively to our newfound knowledge? Kayla: That is a gender neutral way to say aunts and uncles. Tell us. Give us your suggestion. Chris: Email us, culturejustweirdmail.com. By the way, welcome to our listeners. I feel compelled to welcome this time because we have such a diversity of listeners now. It's like we have people here. We have people in here in the studio. Here in the studio. We have people. I meant here in the US. Sorry. Also in, like, estonia. And I love our Australia. And we also have people that only now exist in the mental wonderland of others potentially listening.

3:05 Kayla: Oh, damn. We've reached the Wonderland yeah. Chris: So we have people all over the goddamn place. Kayla: It's true. Chris: So what we really need is Martians. So hurry up, Tesla, or whoever it is that's doing that, what is the. Kayla: Thing where when you learn about something, then you start seeing it everywhere? The psychological phenomenon. Chris: Confirmation bias. Kayla: Confirmation. If that's what that is. I am confirma. No, it's not confirmation bias. There's a specific effect. I think. It's like the something effect, where it's like. Chris: It's the. Whenever I used to travel with my family, we would always see shit about the place we traveled in the headlines. Kayla: It's that. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: It's when you like. Or you learn a new word and you start seeing it everywhere. Well, that's happened with me in tulpas. Chris: Really? Kayla: With, like, people talking about tulpas, tulpa content, and then also, like, storylines and television shows and things where they don't use the word tulpa, but, like, there are tulpas. It's very interesting. Tulpas are becoming mainstream.

3:58 Chris: Wow. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: That's. Thanks to us, really. Kayla: It's all about us. Chris: It's mostly about us, definitely. Kayla: Television shows that came out, like, last year, they have us to thank for popularizing teleportation. Chris: Listen, Mandy, they. It's. Time is not a linear thing, okay? It ebbs and flows and. Yeah, it's all not helping you out. Kayla: It's not helping you out. Chris: Yeah, you're being. Yeah, you're. You're good. And giving. Kayla: Digging your own grave. Tell us your topic. Chris: Thanks for reacting here. Kayla: Tell us your break. Chris: No, not yet, because we still have some business to contend. Kayla: To contend with. Chris: Contend with. No, this is not contend. This is good business, because I have to give a shout out to our charismatic leader, folks from Patreon. So we just started our own Patreon.

4:49 Kayla: It's real. Chris: Real. It's. Kayla: We actually did it. Chris: We actually did it. It's pretty rudimentary so far. It's basically just there to give us, like, a repository for some of the extra content that we've been sort of editing in and out of these different episodes. Kayla: There's always extra stuff that we want to share that just doesn't make it into the podcast episode. So, yeah, having a place where we can kind of drop that material for y'all is. That's really what our Patreon is. Chris: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And who knows? Maybe one day, you know, we'll charge $100 for the top tier, and there'll be, you know, a million people subscribed. Kayla: And what do we give people for a. Chris: Don't know, like, sexy nudes.

5:31 Kayla: I was watching your face try to come up with the right joke for that. Chris: What about the. Great. Thanks. What about, like, a culture, just weird calendar, you know, where it's like a sexy calendar. Sexy calendar. Kayla: Yeah, but of, like, cult leaders. Chris: I was gonna say us, but there's. Kayla: Only two of us and there's twelve months. Chris: Yeah, we'll just, you know, we'll have to reread. Kayla: It could be you, me, and then ten sexy tulpas. Our sexy tulpas. Our ten favorite fans, followers, contributors. Our ten favorite listeners. Chris: Well, our three favorite listeners right now are the charismatic leader Patreon supporters. Kayla: True. Chris: And so I want to give a shout out to Becky.

6:11 Kayla: Thank you. Chris: Becky, Pam. Kayla: Thank you. Chris: Should I use last names or. Kayla: No, probably not. Chris: What do you think? Kayla: Okay, I think no. Chris: Becky, Pam, and Alyssa, thank you, all of you. And just to be clear, that's not Alyssa producer, that's Alyssa fan that has followed us for some time on Instagram and obviously listens to the show. And I hope she doesn't thank you. Just doesn't listen to the show. She's just like, I just like your Instagram. Kayla: That's what I hope. Chris: Yeah. So you heard it here. We hope that our fans don't actually listen to the show. That's what Kayla wants. Kayla: That's my dream in life. That's my dream of this podcast. But, I mean, it's hard to say. There's not quite the correct word for when somebody becomes your patron. On Patreon, we haven't quite nailed the word for how good that feels. You know what I mean? Thank you is not quite correct.

7:02 Chris: Warmth. Kayla: Well, I can't say I warmth you. Chris: I warmth. Kayla: You want to say thank you. Chris: I warm you. All three of you. No, but it. That's the feeling, right? Is this feeling of. It was. It felt very nice. It felt very like, oh, my God, somebody, like, gave us money because they are enough of a fan of the show. And, like, what we're doing, like, it was just super. I don't know, validating. It just. I don't know. It just felt really good. Kayla: Thanks, y'all. Chris: Thank you, guys. You are the best. And you are my favorite charismatic leaders that we have talked about on the show so far. Do you want to talk about the actual. Oh, are we supposed to. Are we supposed to say this is culture just weird shit? Kayla: Yeah. We've been recording for ten minutes, and this is Kayla.

7:46 Chris: Oh, my God. Ten minutes. We gotta get a move on. Kayla: This is Kayla, this is Chris, and this is cult or just weird culture? Chris: Just weird. Let's move on, micro machine style. Kayla: We're gonna speed through this. We're gonna do two times the regular speed, right? Chris: Two x speed. Two x speed. Here we go. Kayla: Let's do this. I'm excited. I actually. I don't know if I should be excited for this topic. I know you've done a very good job of kind of keeping a lid on this one. I have no idea what it is. You haven't said one way or another. If it's cool or boring and lame. Chris: Yeah, it's. Well, it's mine, so it's boring and lame. I usually try to bore our audience. Kayla: So that's how we get them. Sweet patreon bugs. Chris: Yeah, exactly. Hopefully, I'll achieve that goal. Kayla: I'm very interested to know what is. Chris: Well, part of it. Okay, so part of it. Kayla: You ordered a book that you only started reading last night.

8:27 Chris: Where's the book? I need it. Oh, here it is. Kayla: It looks like a bible. It's very interesting. Chris: Yeah. I'm glad the book actually got here in time. I was a little bit worried, but, yeah. So the reason for that, I think, is that I have, like, another two topics in the pipe, and one of them was the one were talking about last time, if you remember from my episode on creativity. I was like, oh, mandy, we have. The next one is gonna be shitty, too. That's not actually this one. That one's still on hold just a little bit. I'm waiting for some threads to come in on that. So I actually had to find a different one to do. And I wasn't really sure I was gonna. I just. I wanted to do something that, like, wasn't so bummer. Cause last time I was such a bummer.

9:08 Kayla: Last time you were a bummer, we had a bummer. It was non bummer. Chris: And then you were like, yay, tulpas. And I was, like, sitting there kind of going like, oh, I wanna do something that's not shitty. Kayla: It's nice to do things that are nice. Chris: So I found one that was, like, I would say 90% not shitty. All right, 95 ish. Kayla: That's similar to tulpa. Chris: Pretty good. That's pretty good. So into the topic we go. But I kind of have a format now. Kayla: Oh, God. Chris: I've kind of typecast myself. Kayla: Is this about white supremacists again? Chris: No, no. Format. Not, like theme format. Format structure. How I go about my episodes. Kayla: You're gonna start with a question? Chris: Yeah, I kinda have to stick with my thing, right? It's like my thing. So I'm gonna start with a question.

9:55 Kayla: Okay. Chris: What do you do every morning when you wake up? Kayla: I'll sometimes link myself a cup of tea. Sometimes I'll do a meditation. Sometimes I'll just immediately start my face washing routine and get out the door. Chris: Okay. And if you didn't have anything like meditation, I was gonna ask you if you know, about the whole concept of making your bed in the morning. Kayla: Can't do it because you're in it. Chris: We don't really do that because I'm in it. And then by the time I get up, I don't do it. But why is it recommended that you make your bed in the morning? Kayla: Because everything starts with a good morning. Chris: That's right. Even though it literally has no direct effect on anything else you do. Kayla: Are you doing making your bed? Chris: God, I wish. I wish.

10:36 Kayla: Okay, you're not. Okay. I was literally about to lose my. Chris: Holy shit. I'm sorry that I can't be that awesome. Kayla: That would be the greatest topic of all time. Chris: So today we're talking about making the cult of making beds. Kayla: But I could totally see that being a thing probably is you have to make your bed in the morning if you want to live a decent life. Oh, my God. I want to write a show about that. Chris: All right, you know what? Actually, this is the end of this episode. You have to go. Right. But no, it doesn't actually affect anything you do. Right. But what it does is it brings you into a state of mind that changes how you approach the rest of your day. Kayla: Right. Chris: That's probably why you meditate in the morning. Right. It's like a good time to kind of like, level set. And it's like whenever I meditate in the morning, I always feel like I get, like, way more done.

11:20 Kayla: Right. Chris: I do that sometimes, too. Kayla: I'm more likely to make a green smoothie after I meditate. Chris: Yeah, exactly. Kayla: Than if I don't. Chris: So that brings us to not yet the topic, but to one of our very own beloved cult, or just weird criteria. Ritual. Kayla: Ritual. That's hella. Making your bed is hella ritualistic. Chris: It's exactly a ritual. And again, it's not the topic of the episode. Don't worry, we're still actually talking about a group. But based on the group we'll be talking about, the presence of ritual is particularly important. So I thought this would be a good episode to pay extra special attention to one of our criteria. As theme du jour, because I also like to theme my episodes, you know?

12:00 Kayla: Right, right. You're good at that. I try to do it. Chris: The theme today. Theme is ritual. Kayla: The theme is ritual. This is freaking me out, though, because, like, when you said making your bed as a ritual kind of sent me those rabbit hole of, like, is every action we take ritual? Chris: Well, I don't think every action is, but it's pretty freaking ubiquitous. Kayla: Ritual. Chris: Yeah, we do it every morning. Literally millions, perhaps billions of people in the morning. Well, I guess it's not all simultaneously, since we're at different points in the earth. No, but it. Of course it's a ritual because, like, everybody's doing it the same way. We're all doing similar things. We're all listening to this podcast. Kayla: Wait, wait. So you're saying you need to have a lot of people in order for something to be ritual? Chris: No, I don't think. No, no, no. I'm not saying you need that. I'm just saying that, like, I think that's something that makes it ritualistic is if it's, like, a shared experience.

12:50 Kayla: Okay, okay. Chris: We'll get to that. We'll get to it. Kayla: It's your theme. Let's go. Chris: We'll get to that. So, yeah, so that's the reason I wanted to ask you about morning routines, is to illustrate just how powerful rituals are. And this is, of course, something you and I have talked about a lot over the years. But for our listeners, rituals are all around us and involve a wide variety of activities and purposes, as we just mentioned, and are hugely important. Kayla: It's like 90% of the reason why we had a wedding. Chris: Well, I mean, that's 90% of the reason why anybody has a wedding. Kayla: Well, I don't know if that's necessarily true. I don't know if people are going like, mm. And I'll probably cut this part out. Cause I'm about to make a bunch of people sound like an idiot. Like, oh, I wonder what symbolic actions we can take in order to psychologically embed this moment as important for us.

13:32 Chris: Why is that? Kayla: No, of course. Chris: That's. That's not. Kayla: I don't think most people are. I don't think a lot of people are conscious of that. Chris: I think you don't give people enough credit. Kayla: I think that I. Okay. I mean, maybe. But I've literally never heard anyone I know even hint at that. And I've known a lot of people get married. Have you known anyone to say anything like that? Chris: Maybe not explicitly, but like, I think a lot of people understand that the ritual of marriage is something that sort of, like, psychologically, like, cements something in place. Like, there's no physical difference for a lot of people before and after, especially now that people tend to live together before they get married. Bunch of.

14:14 Kayla: Bunch of. What? Chris: What's the word? I'm trying to think of the word. I couldn't think of the word. Kayla: Living in sin. Chris: Yeah, living in sin. Everybody's living in sin. Actually, it's funny because we just went to a wedding and I had like 90% of the script written already. And then went to this wedding and I was like, oh, ritual everywhere. Kayla: Ritual literally everywhere. Chris: I am just swimming in it. But anyway, ritual is powerful. It literally changes your brain, alters your mindset, and in the case of making your bed, does that for the rest of the day. But think also about meal rituals and how important those are for our ongoing social relationships. Think about coming of age rituals and how powerfully they affect people and mark their lives from like bar mitzvahs to quinceaneras to graduation ceremonies and athlete luck rituals. Right. With like lucky rabbits foots and rubbing. Rubbing this miles crane's head. Yeah, exactly. Or like free throws. Like literally every. There's a different ritual for every person in the NBA to do their free throws.

15:08 Chris: It doesn't actually affect the way the ball travels through the air, but it puts you in this similar mindset that recalls all of the bajillion times that you shot a free throw before and it just affects your muscle memory and everything. Kayla: It's like when I had that super important interview on Monday and the whole way up and the whole way there, I was doing affirmations. I was literally just saying over and. Chris: Over, it's totally ritual. Kayla: I am a charming person and that's not. I'm not a charming person, but it's making my brain think I am. And then I present as such. Exactly. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Every time that one came up, I was like, I don't blame. This one's not quite applicable, but I'll say it. Chris: Yeah, for sure. I mean, act as if. Right. But, yeah. And we actually talked about those athlete rituals in our episode about cargo cults, remember?

15:51 Kayla: Right, right. We talked about Frasier Crane. Chris: Yeah, we talked about. Yeah, Frasier Crane. Kayla: Niles Crane's head. Chris: We talked about Niles Crane's head. And the whole point of that was that the power of ritual for the followers of Jon Frum is so immense that it put them in a mindset to conquer their own oppression and forge a destiny for their community. Kayla: Damn, that was succinct. Chris: That's fricking powerful. Yeah, right? And again, it's like, doesn't do anything physically. In fact, it seems weird, right? They were like walking around with american flags and whatnot. But the effect that it had by altering their mindset is extremely powerful. So I read up a little bit on rituals, of course, on Wikipedia. And you might imagine the topic is immense and studied from all angles. Anthropological, communications, religion, culture. I mean, this. See also for one of the pages that they had on ritual included such diverse topic links as secular religion, what, obsessive compulsive disorder, yoga as exercise, and my personal favorite, taiwanese chicken beheading rituals.

17:04 Kayla: What? What? Chris: So I'm not gonna go into that. That is really a Wikipedia page. And I really did obviously click on that and read it. Kayla: Explain that can be. Chris: No, that's. That's supplemental content, baby. Kayla: Oh, jeez. Chris: But the point is that like, on that Wikipedia page about rituals, those. Kayla: Are four very different. Chris: There's more too, but as you just mentioned, there's just no end really to the types of rituals and where they appear in our lives. So I can't really dig into it too much here because it's too large. But what I will do is give you the sort of the broad strokes of what I learned. So first, rituals have several defining features. Wikipedia lists them as formalism, or the expressions and the code of the ritual. So that's like the actual, what is it? What are you doing? What are the symbols? What are all those actual actions you take? And it's probably what we mostly think of when we think of ritual is all those things, right? The ceremonies and whatnot. Sort of like the meat of the ritual. They also contain aspects of. This is the second thing of traditionalism.

18:03 Chris: So rituals also can be an appeal to history, and they can be traditional. At first I was like, what? Those are the same, but they can be traditional without being particularly formal or vice versa. So the example given when I read the Wikipedia page was thanksgiving dinner, very traditional, not very formal, but it is. Kayla: Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Chris: Yeah. So another aspect is invariance. So some rituals, the whole intent is to perform it in precisely the same way over and over. So anybody that's been to, like, a catholic mass, for example, you can probably almost never remember any individual catholic mass because they all go the exact same way, the same songs, in the same order, in the same everything, doing the bread, all of it's in the same order, the same way.

18:47 Kayla: Right. Chris: Sacrifice is another aspect common to some rituals, particularly religious rituals, but also some coming of age rituals. So if you think about the scarification rituals of sub saharan african tribes, and there are a bunch I looked up, there's too many to list here, but this is a form of personal sacrifice via ritual. A side note, when I was. When I was looking at this was that I read that scarification is used in rituals for many darker skinned cultures because tattoos are harder to see on their bodies compared to, like, you know, you might like a ritual for, like, you know, a european skinned person might involve, like, getting a tattoo. But for these tribes, a lot of what they do is scarification because it's easier to see than, like, skin ink.

19:30 Kayla: Right. Chris: Very interesting. Anyway, the last element I read about was performance, which kind of needs no explanation. So many rituals are performance. It's like, hard to think of a non performative ritual. Yeah. At least one that's non personal. Right. Like, personal rituals aren't necessarily performative. Like, I'm just doing my, you know, brushing my teeth every morning. But almost everything that's not personal, it involves a social element, is very performative. Kayla: Right, right. Chris: Any questions about the elements of ritual so far? Kayla: No, I'm just trying to think of an example to contradict that last point there, and I can't think of one. Chris: All right, keep on it. Yeah, I believe in you. Kayla: What about. Oh, oh. Chris: Oh. Did you do it? Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Good job.

20:11 Kayla: Okay. Wait. Yeah. What about, like, tooth fairy shit? Chris: What about it? Kayla: That's. That's something that is like, you do it solo. Chris: Wait, so tooth fairy isn't personal, though? Tooth fairy is a social ritual. Kayla: That's what I'm saying. Chris: And you're saying it's social but not performative? Yeah, yeah, I guess. It's not really. It's pretty. It's pretty non performative. It's pretty just like, between you and. Kayla: Your parents, you and the tooth fairy. Chris: And a nasty ass tooth under your pillow. Kayla: Gross. Chris: In any case, so good. Good counterexample. But I think by and large, they tend to be performative if they're public. But now I'm going to list some of the types of. So those are elements of rituals. Now I'm going to list some of the types of rituals or kind of think of it as, like, some of the things that they're used for. So we talked about rites of passage.

21:00 Kayla: Okay? Chris: And I think this one's pretty clear and obvious. We mentioned a few times already, but they tend to be about change and transformation. Some rituals are also commemorative. So they perform a function, basically like a clock or a calendar. So, like, think about the Times Square New Year's Eve celebration, right? With the ball dropping, that helps us mentally process the passage of a year. For example. It's like our own little calendar in the brain, right? Kayla: Right. Chris: Some rituals are rituals of exchange, like Christmas or birthdays or wedding showers. And then this next one was pretty interesting to me. According to Wikipedia, some rituals are referred to as rituals of affliction. Kayla: Ooh. What does that mean? Chris: In other words, they are intended to protect, heal, augment, or otherwise process somebody of ill health.

21:46 Kayla: Ooh. Chris: So fertility rites fall under this, which are ubiquitous. Prayers of healing fall into this category. Kayla: Wow. Chris: There are also rituals of abundance and or lack, such as Thanksgiving. We already talked about that. That's a ritual of abundance. Or on the opposite side of things, ritual of lack. Ramadan, where you're fasting. And finally, there are rituals that have to do with political power. And not just like, 20th century politics. But this could also mean, like, european monarch coronation ceremonies are highly ritualistic. Kayla: Right, right. Chris: Or like, the Hunger Games are rituals about political power. Kayla: Flipping up the Hunger Games is traumatizing.

22:29 Chris: Okay, so we talked about aspects of ritual. We've talked about the genres. Now let's talk very briefly why rituals exist. Kayla: I just love the concept of genres. Chris: Of rituals. I saw this thing online the other day. You probably saw it. It was like a compilation of 50 or 60 in a row. Alex Trebek saying genre, because apparently he says it the correct way, which sounds kind of silly. Kayla: Is it jinir? Chris: No, it's like genre. No, it's like genre. No, it's like genre. Genre, genre. Kayla: Oh, it's like french. Like genre. Chris: It's like genre. You have to, like, swallow the re. It's not genre. It's like genre. Genre, genre. And he just. They have a. There's a video of him doing 70 times a night.

23:14 Kayla: Don't want to watch that at all. Chris: You definitely want to genre. Right. So why rituals exist very briefly, because honestly, this is, like, so broad that it's hard to even formulate categories because rituals exist for almost any reason you can think of strengthening social bonds for maintaining social structure, upending social structure for communicating important information across time. I don't know if we have time to talk about this, but do you remember the radioactive cats? Kayla: Yes. Like the cat. That's literally the first thing made me think it was the cats to our listeners. Chris: Okay, this may be supplemental content. Kayla: No, I don't think we've been. I don't think we should explain it. I think we should just. We'll put a link to. Chris: A link to the 99 PI episode about it. Kayla: Somewhere, either on our Patreon or show notes, somewhere there will be a link to the story about radioactive cats and their communication of messaging across time. And you have to listen.

24:03 Chris: It's one of my favorite episodes of 99 PI, which is saying a lot. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Anyway, ritual also exists for helping humans process emotions, conflicts, change, passage of time, for helping us deal with forces vastly outside of our control. I read an interesting story about an island community that has get this elaborate rituals for magically warding off sharks when they need to fish in the open ocean. But here's the kicker. They don't employ these rituals when they are fishing in their island lagoon where it is safe. So ritual helps them take necessary actions in the face of dangerous forces completely outside of their control.

24:43 Kayla: Dang. Chris: Which is really interesting, right? Because we think, okay, magic's not real, but, like, totally is, in a sense, the magical ritual, at least in this case, and I would, I guess, argue this is just an example of many cases, magical warding rituals help you engage in dangerous activity against, essentially. Exactly. These people were doing, right? Like, they have to fish. They need the food they cannot control. Their sharks are gonna come eat them. So they perform these rituals to sort of, like, put them in a mindset that allows them to do that. Kayla: It's like when you buckle your seat belt on an airplane. Chris: That's actually not true. Even a little bit. Kayla: Okay. It's like when you buckle your seatbelt on a bus. Oh, wait, you don't have seatbelts because you're just gonna die.

25:28 Chris: Okay. Buses are actually by far the safest form of ground transportation, including the fact that they don't have seatbelts. Safer than trains, road transportation. I don't know if they're safer than. Kayla: Trains or not anyway, but buses are. Chris: Like, vastly safer than cars. Kayla: Insurance companies would rather pay for your funeral than have to pay for your, like, disability. Chris: Is that why you think that buses don't have us? Kayla: Don't have seat belts? Chris: That is not even why they don't have seatbelts. Kayla: Talk about it in fight club. Chris: Fight club is wrong about that, and they're wrong about the plane thing. Definitely buckle your seat belt on a plane. It actually significantly increases your chance of surviving a crash, which is pretty damn good, actually, if you're seatbelt on, there's.

26:11 Kayla: Actually a more important reason you should buckle your seatbelt on a plane. Like, an actually more important reason than surviving, then surviving a crash? Yes. What, it helps you survive turbulence? Chris: Oh, if it's, like, really bad turbulence. Kayla: The vast majority of injuries on planes happen because of turbulence. And generally it's because people don't have their seatbelts buckled and they, like, fly up and hit the trail. Chris: Just so you know, if there's ever turbulence that's that bad on a plane. Kayla: That I'm on, you might lose your mind. Chris: I'll just die anyway. Cause my head will explode. Kayla: I think your heart might actually explode. Chris: My heart would just jump out of my. It wouldn't explode. It would just. It would come out of my chest. Kayla: It would, like, physically fly across my chest. Chris: It would grow little cartoon arms. It would crawl out of my chest. It would have, like, one of those little, like, hobo sacks with a stick. Kayla: In the back and just walk off. Chris: And it would just run out and it would jump out. One of the plane hatches and I would be dead. Yeah, that's what would happen. In any case, I could maybe use some rituals for surviving, like, psychologically during turbulence in a plane.

27:03 Kayla: That's extreme. Chris: So just a few extra words here about the power of ritual. Sometimes they can feel superstitious or irrational. And certainly on this show, we're all like. We're skeptics, which I think is not necessarily incompatible with it, scientifically speaking. Rituals can have a great effect on how they allow our brains to process, learn, or change. Kayla: Right. Chris: A lot of this comes from an article I read from Scientific American entitled why rituals work. And the subtitle was, there are real benefits to ritual, religious or otherwise. Kayla: Right. Chris: And the whole article is basically about what we said on the show here a few times, about the athlete rituals being effective or the john from thing. And the winner's mindset, all the stuff we just mentioned. So, ritual is a ubiquitous part of the human experience across all cultures. It serves all cultures, by the way. There is no culture that is devoid of ritual. It serves dozens of, maybe even hundreds, I don't know, possible functions. And so now I'd like you to think a little bit about the rituals we've discussed here on the show and some of the groups we've talked about. And actually. Well, actually, before that question.

28:09 Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Why, in your estimation, and maybe I should have. This should have been my top of the episode question. This is even better. This is even better. Why, in your estimation, did we decide on the presence of ritual as one of our criteria, do you think? Kayla: I think that it came from our. Because I think that was one of our earliest criteria. I think it came from, like, our general lack of understanding of the. No, I'm serious. It was a gen. Like, that was a off the top suggestion. And were like, well, we think cults do this. But then, as we, like, did our research, it was one that stayed. Chris: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

28:50 Kayla: It was kind of like an assumption. Like, we associated the word ritual with, like, religiousness. Chris: Yeah. I mean, that's the thing though, right? Is, like, even though were sort of like, amateurishly sort of clawing at what we thought cults were, I mean, there's a reason why we picked that. And I think it's because a lot of the sort of religious or pseudo religious or maybe according to that one article, secular religious. Kayla: Yeah, I don't know what that is. Chris: Thing includes a lot of ritual. It just does. Kayla: Right. Chris: And one of the things that I find really interesting about the rituals we've talked about and the groups we've covered is just how much cult flavor they impart to groups. So think about Irvine, which is my favorite example of this. Irvine to me feels like twice as culty because of all of the Irvine company logos everywhere.

29:35 Kayla: Right, right. For sure. Chris: Right. Like, honestly, there's Stepford, like, beige communities everywhere. There's like 400 in Orange county alone. Yeah. Kayla: Like, if you go from, like, orange county all the way down to, like, the border, it's like 80% that. Chris: Right. But only Irvine has that ubiquitous weird logo. Right. And what about mlms with their, like, weird national pep rallies? And what if teal didn't have her logo and paintings and YouTube rituals? Okay, actually, well, she'd probably still be really culty. But still, the point is it feels to me like rituals provide a heavy dose of cult flavoring to the groups that employ them. Groups that maybe otherwise, like Irvine seem a little weird without them, but downright culty with them.

30:22 Kayla: Okay, so what's the topic? Chris: Keep that all in the back of your head because we are going to revisit the importance and significance of ritual later in the show. Kayla: Oh, God. Chris: But first we have to talk about our citations. We got to do our ritual of citation. Kayla: Right. Chris: Which is a ritual designed to confer legitimacy on what were about to say in the minds of our listeners. Kayla: Well, and to give credit to all the people that were, huh. Ripping off. Chris: No, I don't care about that. Kayla: It's 90% that. Chris: No, for me, it's about the legitimacy. Kayla: So then it's 200% because it's 100% you, legitimacy and 100% me credit. So then it's 200%? Chris: Yeah, exactly. Kayla: Okay. Chris: It's really good. I've already mentioned I use Wikipedia a whole bunch. I almost feel like we don't even need to say that anymore. I also already mentioned Scientific American. There are also a bunch of online articles, some of which were from just, like, random individuals. Websites. Folks interested in historical knowledge. Some were from just other websites that just publish articles. An actual physical book that you have.

31:22 Kayla: Here in this book, which I have right here. Chris: And I'm going to let it drop so you can hear it, but, yeah, crazy, right? Physical book by the name. What is it called, actually, tell our listeners. Kayla: Fraternal organizations. Wait, wait. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Institutions. Fraternal presents organizations. Chris: Fraternal organizations. The name of the actual title is. Kayla: Fraternal organizations by Alvin J. Schmidt. Chris: Alvin J. Schmidt. Kayla: That is a book. A real one. Chris: Oh, here's what we should do. Kayla: It's a real ass book. Chris: It's my goal to get ASMR in every episode. Anyway, sorry to wrap up. The citation's also an insurance website. We'll get to that.

32:06 Kayla: What is your topic? Chris: We'll get to that. We'll get to that. So, as usual, I've already worded a lot before we get to our actual topic, as we can tell from the fact that you keep asking me, I'm a verbose person. I'm very sorry, but I want you to check out the name of the textbook I just cited. Fraternal organizations. Kayla: Yes. Chris: So, indeed, today we are discussing one such organization. But before I reveal what it is. Well, what the hell is a fraternal organization? I I'm glad you asked, self. You've definitely heard of fraternal organizations. Okay, but what you may not know, like an Elkslodge, is just how many groups are considered as loosely being in this category. So, yes, the Elks Lodge is one of them. The most well known one is probably the Freemasons.

32:52 Kayla: See, that was top of mind. Chris: Mm. But Elks Lodge is one of them, too. Kayla: Okay? Chris: They also include things like Rotary International. There's an old group, I'm not sure if they're still around, but called the odd fellows. Kayla: What? Chris: Which apparently were huge in America. Like, in the time that they were huge. They were very huge. Never heard of them. Kayla: When were they huge? Chris: Late 18 hundreds. Kayla: Oh, my God. The odd. Chris: The Shriners. You've probably heard of the Friners, but those are actually just a subset of Freemasons. Kayla: I knew that. Chris: The Illuminati. Kayla: Oh, right. That's a real thing. I keep forgetting. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Not in the way that QAnon people think. Chris: The Knights of Columbus and literally hundreds more. In fact, you can see how thick this book is. And they go over these organizations.

33:38 Kayla: That's a thick book. Chris: It's, like, about two pages to an.org. What? Kayla: How many pages? Chris: Maybe three. Kayla: How many pages is a book? Chris: A little over 360. Yeah, just about 360 pages. Kayla: Don't care for that. That is too much. Chris: There's a lot, in fact, college campus fraternities, if the name didn't give it away, have their roots in similar places as fraternal organizations, are sororities for. And you might consider them close cousins. Yeah, I think so. Kayla: All right. Chris: I mean, they're not called frats, but I'm assuming that there's, like. Even though they call them sororities, they're still fraternal sororial organizations.

34:21 Kayla: All right. Chris: I don't know. I just made that up, but I'm pretty sure that they are. But, yeah, you might consider frats essentially close cousins with fraternal organizations, ones that took hold in university settings and gradually over time became tied tighter and tighter to the university system until they kind of became their own thing, the greek system. But, yeah, there are just, like, an enormous number of these groups, and sometimes they're also called secret societies or social clubs. There's a bunch of names for them. They all tend to be very egalitarian within their ranks. In other words, you are all sort of brothers in a sense, and help each other out. They're not necessarily egalitarian. They run the gamut outside of that, which we'll talk about in a little bit towards the end of the episode, actually.

35:03 Kayla: Do you talk about Nxivm? Chris: No, they're not a fraternal organization, as far as I know. Kayla: The group within NXIVM, that's the actual trouble. Like, where all the branding took place, was a secret society. It was like a fraternal organization, but within NXiVM. Chris: Oh, that's whack. Yeah, but, yeah, a lot of them, even though they have egalitarian, sort of like, you know, everybody's all brothers. They also have really elaborate hierarchies in many cases. Many of them are organized around ethnic or religious lines. And, in fact, technically, I think the KKK is considered. Kayla: When you said, like, hierarchy, it just made me think of, like, their dumb ass names, like Grand Dragon, whatever. Chris: As ridiculous as their names are, I. Kayla: Know that they're common.

35:44 Chris: It's actually. It turns out it's kind of common. Across fraternal organizations. So they're not the only ridiculous ones. They're more ridiculous because of their racism. I love that. Like, I was like, oh, I'm not gonna do, like, a racist. Kayla: And then you did racism again. Chris: I accidentally did racism again. But, yeah. Really, though, they run the gamut from rotary just trying to do charity work and hang out to all the way to things that are a little less savory. But they're varied in their manifestation. Historically speaking, fraternal orders have their origins in a few different social phenomena. Broadly speaking, they feel an important community support function when that function isn't provided or is suppressed elsewhere. So in the middle ages, you had craft guilds in the church, and they provided all of those community support functions. Right. Like, they were the. The biggest thing in your life was church. And if you were part of the, you know, the blacksmith guild, that was probably the second biggest thing. Or maybe even the first.

36:39 Kayla: Right. Chris: However, as the guild system declined and even was outlawed in some cases, as I found out, I did not know that. Yeah. Because some european political power structures would occasionally decide the guild challenged their power too much. So, as that happened and as more secularization happened in the post Renaissance era, there was a pretty large social, communal vacuum left, and the earliest fraternal orders filled this in. It's no coincidence, for example, that freemasonry was, first of all, founded in the middle of the 16 hundreds, and second of all, uses a lot of the same hierarchical structures and symbology and rituals that guilds and churches do. Third of all is called Freemasons, which is either a direct reference to masonry craft guilds or as a direct evolution from them.

37:30 Chris: I didn't quite get into it enough to figure that out, because this episode isn't actually about Freemasons, believe it or not. But to sum up, fraternal orders sprang up when guilds and the church sprang down. Kayla: Sprang down. Chris: Sprang down. That's what you do in England in the 17 hundreds and 18 hundreds. Kayla: You sprang forward and you sprang back. Chris: Sprang. In England in the 17 hundreds and 18 hundreds. There was a specific type of fraternal order, what that came about called friendly societies. I know very british, very like, friendly societies. So nice, so polite. Which I'll talk a bit more about those later because their particular flavor is actually similar to our cult group today. Ooh, wait.

38:16 Kayla: We haven't talked about our cult group yet. Chris: No, not yet. I haven't even mentioned them. Kayla: Oh, my God. Chris: I know. But fraternal order, I don't know if this is like, good storytelling or horrible storytelling? Kayla: I think it's good. Chris: I don't know. Like, not telling you what it is yet. Kayla: I did it with tulpas. Chris: Oh, that's true. You did. Okay, this is just revenge. But fraternal orders were big in America, too, particularly the Freemasons in the 17 hundreds. Many of the founding fathers were Freemasons, including George Washington himself. And allegedly, a lot of the design of early America, both founding documents and even governmental architecture and structure, were influenced by freemasonry. Kayla: Oh, shit. Chris: There was a bit of a decline in fraternal orders here in the US and the first part of the 18 hundreds. And in fact, there was a whole political party dedicated to being anti secret society. What? And there's a bunch more to tell you about why? And I think I'll probably save it for when we inevitably do an episode on the Freemasons.

39:13 Kayla: Oh, my God. But I want to know. Chris: After the Civil War, America began what scholars now call the golden age of fraternalism in America. This period of time saw the founding of many new fraternal orders, the rise and influence of a lot of them, and large swathes of the population being members of one, or in many cases, multiple fraternal orders, according to secret societies. In foundational studies in fraternalism, by William D. Moore. Sorry, I had to cite it. I had to cite my source. As many as 40% of the us population belong to a fraternal order of one kind or another. During the peak of this golden age, 40% accuse me.

39:59 Kayla: So that's basically all, because that's not counting children, I'm assuming. Chris: I'm not sure what it was counting. I'm not sure. I also. I don't know, because I didn't actually read this book, but I did say, well, and fraternal organizations, too. So I'm not sure if it was, like, 40% of everyone or 40% of just, like, the real people, like white males, but I thought that was just, like, a crazy percentage. And of course, a lot of people belong to more than one. So this golden age entered decline roughly around the depression, world War two era. And today, fraternal orders are well known, but not as well attended. And many of their memberships are aging. It wasn't coincidence that this is when fraternal orders saw declining influence in membership.

40:44 Chris: Post depression America is when the government started taking a much larger role in providing social safety net services, from the New Deal programs of FDR to the great society programs of Lyndon Johnson. So the things that these groups provided, or maybe sort of failed to provide in the case of the Great Depression. We're now seeing competition from the us government. And one way you can kind of think of these fraternal orders as bridging the gap between the fall of guilds and the universal Catholic Church and the rise of the modern welfare state mechanisms. Kayla: Interesting. Chris: We'll talk more about why that is, though. So it is into this milieu of. Kayla: Sorry, you gotta commit, dude. Chris: Oh, God. Of american golden age of fraternalism, that one, Joseph Cullen Root, in 1883, created the topic of today's show.

41:33 Kayla: Oh, my God. Chris: The modern woodman of America. Kayla: What? I've never heard of that. Is it lumberjacks? Chris: Not at all. Kayla: The modern woodmen of America. Of America. Chris: Now, a lot of what I've already talked about regarding fraternal societies applies to the Woodmand. They are a fraternal order that provides a lot of the same functions and services that we've already talked about. And they were founded right smack dab in the middle of the american golden age of fraternalism, when many other fraternal orders were being founded or swelling their membership. So why are we talking about this group in particular? Kayla: Yeah, I need to know. Chris: We will get to that. But first, let's talk about the first thing we always talk about, the aforementioned charismatic leader.

42:18 Kayla: Ooh, my favorite one. I think that's my favorite one. Chris: Mister Root. Mister Joseph Root. Kayla: Mister Root. Chris: There actually wasn't a ton of information about Mister Root online, but I did learn some interesting things about him. To me, he definitely seems like one of those, like, late 18 hundreds ish, like, industrial titan type guy. Like, you know, like a teddy Roosevelt type, but, like, not that he was an industrial titan, but you know what I mean. Kayla: He's a Dagney Taggart. Chris: Yeah, exactly. Kayla: He's a John Gault. Chris: Right. He's totally like one of those guys. Yeah. Except instead of being a titan of industry, he was a titan of fraternal orders. So he was born in 1844 in Chester, Massachusetts. In his young and early adult life, he operated a wide variety of business ventures, from law practice to owning a grain elevator.

42:59 Kayla: Whoa. Chris: To. Kayla: Wait. Chris: Selling insurance. Kayla: What is a grain elevator? Is it that thing? Chris: It's the thing. So, like, there's, you know, that, like, that thing escalator that takes the grain up. Kayla: That's what that is? Chris: I think so. Kayla: And this guy did business in that? Chris: Yes. Kayla: Okay. Chris: And also law and also selling insurance. Kayla: Sure. Yep. That. Yep, I believe him. Chris: Cause it was the 18 hundreds. So that's what you did. You just did all kinds of wild stuff. Whatever, man. I make video game, and I also have a podcast. He became heavily involved in Freemasonry, and the paper I read about him listed a whole crazy slew of titles and awards and achievements he unlocked in the organization, culminating in his receiving the 33rd degree rank in 1899, which, again, this isn't an episode about Freemasons, but I'm pretty sure the 33rd degree rank is, like, the highest thing you can get as a Freemason.

43:49 Kayla: I think 33rd sounds pretty high. Chris: I think it's the highest. Kayla: Jeez. Chris: Oh. But he was a multitasker. Kayla: Oh, God. Chris: In addition to being a freemason, well, like, a super freemason, he was also a member of other fraternal organizations. The Knights Templar, the Knights of Pythias, whatever the hell that is. The independent Order of Oddfellows, which I think I mentioned them earlier. Kayla: I think I want to be a part of that. Chris: They were huge at the time. The Iowa Legion of Honor, the ancient Order of United workmen. What? Kayla: I want to be part of that. Chris: And vas what? Which evidently stands for vera amasita sempiterna. I'm probably saying that wrong, but that's Latin for true friendship is eternal.

44:36 Kayla: I want to be part of that one. That's not nice. Chris: Yeah, nice. Kayla: Yeah, I like that. Chris: So I know very little about these groups at the moment because they're not the topic. But what I do know is that sounds like a lot to have on your plate. Kayla: Yes. Chris: I just named six groups, in addition to the Masons, where he was a 33rd degree freemason. Kayla: I mean, there was no tv. Chris: That's insane. Kayla: There's nothing else to do besides. Chris: Right. There was just this. That's a good point. So they didn't have free. Kayla: They didn't have netflix to bend books or, like, games. Chris: They have books. Kayla: I'm saying some of them. Chris: Oh. Kayla: May not have had books. Books weren't invented until 60 years ago. What are you talking about? Chris: That's true. Kayla: The amount of books. I don't have anything to do. All you got. Chris: That's actually a good point.

45:17 Kayla: Well, hanging out with your friends. Chris: We do talk about this a little bit later, but, like, that's one of the things that fraternal organizations did at the time, is, like, they were entertainment, right? Like, they did activities. They did social activities. They did games. Like you did back then. You didn't even have professional sports. Kayla: Right. Chris: Football hadn't even been really. Well, I guess by the 1880s, it would like had just been invented. There was no NFL, but there was certainly no NFL. And actually, football didn't look anything like you might think football would look like at the time. Anyway, I still think it's crazy all the groups he belonged to. Kayla: Yes. Chris: Oh, but wait, there's more. You'll notice that nothing in my list there said Woodman of America. Kayla: Oh, shit. Chris: Well, I guess being heavily involved in seven fraternal organizations wasn't enough to satisfy Mister roots life ambitions. So he said, I guess I should start my own fraternal organization.

46:03 Kayla: Is that a direct quote? Chris: More or less. I'm assuming that he said something similar to that, which, from his perspective, honestly, it's not a bad idea, considering how much experience he had with the model. The possibly apocryphal story of the founding is put so well in the article that I'm just going to quote here verbatim, I can't really paraphrase this better than the writer states. Oh, actually, I think I forgot to mention this, but the writer of this article about Joseph Cullen Root, this article, that was like the only place I could find information about this guy. The writer was himself a 32nd degree freemason, so, jeez, he was just kind of doing like history and other important freemasons or something. Chris: Anyway, regarding the founding of the Woodman, in July 1882, Roode heard a sermon by Reverend Sidney Crawford at First Congregational Church in Lyons, Iowa, about pioneer woodmen clearing away the forest to provide for their families. Thus, he was inspired to organize modern woodmen of America as a society which would clear away problems of financial security for its members.

47:04 Kayla: So it was related to lumberjacks? Chris: He felt sort of related, yeah, but, like, you didn't have to be a lumberjack to be in it. Continuing the quote, he felt the use of the term ancient by so many fraternities was dishonest, and thus described his order as modern. Kayla: Oh, shit. Chris: That's why he called the modern Woodman. Kayla: I really like that. Chris: He saw the word woodman as alluding to a noble vocation. Since his order was native to american soil, he felt that the addition of the words of America was quite appropriate. And he saw his brainchild as linked with his name of root and visualized an order growing in the same manner as a tree. And the forest grows from its roots. Isn't that adorable? Kayla: That's really sweet. Chris: And he was like, my last name's Root. I'm gonna call a woodman.

47:45 Kayla: Yeah, that's cute. Chris: Continuing the quote, on January 5, 1883, Root established modern woodmen. Of America. At Lyonsenhe, he wrote the ritual and served as the first venerable consul of pioneer camp number one and the first head consul of the new order. In 1888, the royal neighbors of America was established as a ladies auxiliary. By 1889, there were 42,694 modern woodmen. Kayla: That's not a six years. That's not a small amount. Chris: That's great. I hope we have 40,000 listeners in a few years from now. Kayla: Be awful ever. Chris: Anyway, that's the end of the quote. That's just about the founding of the woodman from Mister root. The article goes on to say that by the time of Root's death in 1913, the woodmen of the world had 700,000 members and over 10,000 camps, which I think are like chapters or lodges. Just about all of these fraternal organizations use that same model that kind of comes from the Freemasons. Even including the greek system, they're called chapters. So they all have that same sort of organization. Yeah. Anyway, all this is to say Joseph Cullen Root, the founder of the Woodman, was a hella impressive dude.

48:53 Kayla: Yeah. Chris: So how weird is this sound so far? Kayla: Not that weird. It sounds, I mean, like a little weird. It doesn't sound any weirder than anything else I know about any of these groups. Chris: Yeah. Anyway, a little weird with the ritual of the crazy names and titles, but not like, not super weird. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Yeah. Well, it gets weirder. Kayla: I'm assuming. Chris: Did you catch that I have used two different names to refer to the woodman in my story about mister Root? Kayla: No. Chris: Oh, well, that's because there are actually two entirely or mostly entirely different organizations. Kayla: Excuse me? Chris: Yeah. Kayla: What does that mean? Chris: There are two different Woodman's organizations.

49:35 Kayla: Why and how? Chris: Well, today their names are as follows. Woodman life what? And modern Woodman of America. Kayla: Okay. Chris: When Root founded the Woodman, it was modern woodmen of America. It was that group. And as we mentioned, it was in 1883. And then there was a mysterious line that I read in Wikipedia. After internal dissension within the MWA, Root was ejected from the organization that he had founded. Kayla: Oh, shit. Chris: So this was a citation. Wikipedia. Back to this here book. Kayla: Is that why you got that book? Chris: Among other things, but yes, which I will read to you from right now. So this textbook, fraternal organizations, says Root earlier had founded the modern Woodman of America. In 1883, a few years into the life of modern Woodman brought a feud between him and the head physician of the society. Both men were expelled, and so Root set out to form a new society, which led him to Omaha, Nebraska. All I can find is that there was, like, a feud between him and this head physician, and there's just some drama that went on, but, like, apparently wound up in mutual expulsion and, like, out of the thing that he himself founded.

50:50 Kayla: Oh, man. I want to be privy to that. Chris: I know it seems pretty extreme for dispute, but I don't know. It was the 18 hundreds. So, like, dispute maybe meant that they were, like, about to do with pistols and kill each other. Kayla: Right? They probably did that thing where they take off a glove and slap each other in the face. Chris: Yeah, maybe say, put up your dukes. I'll just assume that it was extreme. In any event, being expelled from the organization he himself founded didn't get to old Joe Root. No, sir did. Kayla: He found another one. Chris: He just seven years later then. Remember, I said he went to Omaha. Just seven years later after moving to Omaha, he founded the modern woodman of the world. Kayla: Oh, my God. Chris: Sounds a little bit fucky. It sounds a little bit like, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna try this again. Yeah, but, like, both kept existing and they both still exist today.

51:37 Kayla: What? Chris: Yeah, so remember I said the two names? So modern Woodman of America is the first one, and then Woodman life is Woodman of the world. They just renamed themselves. Kayla: Where is my tv show about this? Chris: I know, I know. I really want to know more about, especially this early, sort of, like, founding drama. Kayla: The nice thing, though, is that if we don't have facts, we can just make it up. Chris: I think we should make a lot of it up. Kayla: Oh, my God. Chris: Yeah, it's pretty. It's like. Yeah, it's pretty fucking drama. Tea. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Yeah, and so I don't know. Like, I don't know why he named it that. Maybe he wanted to, like, sound more impressive than Woodman of America. So this time he's, like, of the world. Kayla: Right? Chris: And then anyway, shortly thereafter, they dropped modern. So it was just Woodman of the world. And then just a tiny bit later, in 2015, Woodmen of the world rebranded themselves to Woodman life. You said 2015? Yeah, just a tiny bit later.

52:30 Kayla: Okay. Chris: Yes. You might be wondering why in 2015 they would be giving enough of a shit to rename themselves. Kayla: That is definitely the first thing that I thought. Chris: We'll get to that. Kayla: Okay, good. Chris: So let's talk just a little bit about how modern woodmen of America function and are organized today from modernwoodman.org via wikipedia. As a fraternal organization, the society is organized around a lodge system, which we talked about. They call them chapters, summit chapters, and youth service clubs. These groups offer fellowship and community service opportunities for members. All pretty standard stuff. Fraternal organizations. In 2016, modern Wooden members were part of 2466 chapters.

53:11 Kayla: Wow. Chris: 283 summit chapters, whatever the hell that means. And 782 youth service clubs nationwide. Kayla: All right. Chris: Modern women members across the United States participate in numerous activities to socialize, learn, and volunteer in their communities. Members unite for volunteer efforts to provide money, donations, hands on labor, and other resources to improve lives in their communities. The organization's matching fund program matches money raised by individual chapters for community members or local organizations in need. Kayla: Sounds pretty good. Chris: Pretty decent fellows. Now let's talk about Woodman life. They do similar lodge style organization. They also do charitable work. They seem to also be involved in a lot of disaster relief efforts. And they were super into patriotism. So here's another quote. The organization's patriotic program includes presenting flagpoles and american flags to schools, fire departments, parks, and other public places. Woodman Life is the second largest distributor, after the us government, of flags throughout the US.

54:10 Kayla: That's pretty cool. Chris: Distributing more. Yeah. If you'd said, like, who's the second largest distributor? I would have been like, I don't know. Kayla: Right. Chris: Also, I didn't know these people existed. Kayla: Right. Chris: Anyway, they distribute more than 2.5 million flags since 1947. Kayla: Wow. Chris: They also do a lot of 911 patriotic stuff. Continuing the quote, the organization's annual in honor and remembrance ceremonies pay tribute to those involved in the September 11 attacks of 2001. More than 2400 ceremonies have been held since the program began in 2002. To mark the fifth anniversary, Woodman Life hung 250 by 100 foot american flags on the Woodman Life tower. Kayla: What?

54:51 Chris: Yeah, on the Woodman Life tower. Kayla: What is that? Chris: Twin beams of light with a combined 15 billion candela, which is like really bright spotlights illuminated the Omaha skyline each evening during the week of September 11, 2006 in tribute to the World Trade center. End quote. Kayla: Explain. Chris: Yeah, we'll get to that. They also had more information available on Wikipedia via their website. This is women life about how they are organized. They had much more information on how they're organized than MWA did. And it's pretty ritualistic. The head chapter is referred to as the sovereign camp. Kayla: What? Chris: And they refer to us states in which they operate as jurisdictions or head campsite. Then at the local level, chapters are called either just camps or courts or groves. I think groves comes from. I don't know if it's still this, but groves comes from back when they started allowing women into the organization. They were organized. Instead of camps, they were organized into groves.

55:43 Kayla: Okay. Chris: I don't know. I guess grove sounds more feminine. I have no idea. And it gets even more ritualistic and strange if you go into their history when they're really doing, like, fraternal organization y stuff. So I'm gonna pull the handy dandy textbook here. Again. Yes, please, to illustrate. Okay. Quoting from this textbook. Now, like many fraternal benefit groups, the wow. So it's funny, they call them wow. World of Warcraft. Way before World of Warcraft, though. Woodmen of the world, the wow has a ritual containing agendas for initiation, installation, and funeral rites. Kayla: Whoa. Chris: The lodge has a floor plan portrayed in the ritual manual and shows I one item quite different from most floor plans of other fraternal societies. In most other lodge rooms, an altar stands in the center of the room. But in the wow camp plan, there's a giant tree stump in place of the altar. The ritual attempts to teach its four great principles of the woodmen of the world. The first principle is hospitality. The second is service. The third is loyalty. And the fourth is protection.

56:45 Kayla: Those are all good. Chris: So this is less ritually, but more just like kind of what they do as a fraternal benefit society. The order sponsor, and this is, by the way, a little bit further in their past. So just a level set. The order sponsors social and recreational activities such as dinners, dances, bingo parties, picnics, various athletic events. It awards scholarships, supports korean and vietnamese orphans, donates life saving equipment to hospitals, and, of course, assists its own members who need temporary material and financial help. So a lot of, like, interesting ritual, and there's a little more even that we'll get to. Okay, but let's get into even more additional weird stuff. Kayla: Yeah, give me that dirt. Chris: Yeah, the weird. And it's like, maybe not necessarily weird, but, like, very unexpected.

57:29 Kayla: Okay, that's the best kind of weird. Chris: So, yeah, I mean, the woodmen are full of surprises. Maybe they like to stay on theme because they're, like, ambushing people in the forest or something. I don't know. But anyway, let's start with modern woodmen of America. We'll talk about two things, their drill teams and their sanatorium. So these aren't all that weird. If you're familiar with fraternal orders, they generally sponsor all kinds of public works and services. In fact, we just talked about that as. It's, like, one of the things that they do, and MWA is no exception. Their drill teams are called forester drill teams, and according to the Time article, again via Wikipedia about this. These drill teams are one of the most distinctive features of the MWA. It began in 1894.

58:10 Chris: So like not too long after they founded and actually became famous nationally in the early part of the century for the events and parades they held, even earning a visit to the White House back when. That was good. Kayla: That was subtle. Chris: Thanks. Kayla: I liked it. Chris: Anyway, all the different chapters of the forester drill teams had wildly different uniforms and style. So their demonstrations came to be known as rainbow parades. Kayla: Aw. Chris: Which to my knowledge has nothing to do with gay parades today, I don't think. But maybe I didn't dig deep enough, but I don't think it has anything to do with one another. But in any case, pretty ritualistic, right? The other thing I mentioned with the MWA was their sanatorium. The modern woodmen of America funded a massive state of the art for the time tuberculosis sanatorium during the tb epidemic of the early 19 hundreds. The $1.5 million. And that's in 1907. Money facility was named one of the most outstanding tb treatment centers by the american college of Surgeons. And they offered room, board, treatment, medicine, dental, laundry, all for free, no expense to the patient.

59:16 Kayla: Wow. Chris: Part of why the MWA made this their mission was that at the time tb was a leading cause of death for their members. Kayla: Oh. Chris: But they also had a vested interest in their members health beyond that, which we'll get to. Kayla: I don't like the sound of that. That was ominous. Chris: No, that's not ominous. Well, maybe. I don't know. Kayla: It's not ominous. Chris: It's not. It's not. Trust me, it's not ominous. Everything's fine. Anyway, after antibiotics got invented and tb went away, the sanatorium declined and eventually closed sometime around the mid century. Kayla: Okay, I want to say awe, but actually, no, that's good. It's good. Chris: They're closed. Aw, wait. Oh no, that's good because we got rid of the disease. All right. Onto Woodman life. I feel like their random stories are even more unexpected. So drill teams and hospitals. Okay. But Woodman life is known for tombstones and radio broadcast.

1:00:04 Kayla: Okay, that's badass. I like that. Chris: So keep in mind Woodman life was formerly Woodman of the world and that was the second organization that Joe Cullen founded. Kayla: Right? Chris: So they had an interesting program. Kayla: Wait wait wait. Who's Joe Cullen? Chris: Joseph Cullen root. Kayla: Joseph Cullen root. Thank you. Chris: Joe Root. Joe Root. Joe Cullen root. Sorry, I probably should have said that because Cullen was his middle name. Anyway, the woodmen of the world had an interesting program early on that was appealing to members and would be members, which was that, if you remember, they provided you upon your death with a tree stump looking tombstone. Kayla: That's fucking cool. Chris: Actually, there's a couple different kinds, but it's actually pretty cool looking. Do you want to take a look?

1:00:45 Kayla: Yes. Sorry. I don't know why I said that so aggressively. Chris: So here's one of them. Kayla: That's. Wait, that's not wood? Chris: No, I don't think so. That's a tombstone. Kayla: Cool. Chris: Let me see if I can find the other one. Kayla: It's very detailed. It looks like it's made out of tree. Chris: So here's another one. Kayla: Well, how do I get that? Chris: Well, you can't anymore because they stopped doing it because it was too expensive. They didn't actually do it very long. It was like early 19 hundreds. They stopped doing it. Kayla: That is really cool looking, though. Chris: Yeah, but it's pretty cool looking, right? And, like, you can see these all across the country. Oh, my God. Kayla: Road trip. Chris: Well, yeah, and actually, next time we're at Senespia, I'm definitely gonna be looking for one. Kayla: Ooh, there's some at the Hollywood cemetery. Is that the Hollywood cemetery?

1:01:26 Chris: I have no idea, but I'm gonna look, but, yeah. So they have, as you saw from the picture, they have carvings of some of their important symbols and sayings. They have a maul and a wedge and an axe. They often have a dove of peace with an olive branch. Often they have an inscription. It says, woodmen do not lie. And here rests a woodman of the world. Kayla: I didn't know that. They didn't lie. Chris: Well, and they say they don't have lie, probably. Well, it definitely is because everybody lies in any case. Now left turn into radio broadcast. Kayla: Yeah, that makes less sense than tombstones.

1:02:06 Chris: I know. In 1922, Woodman of the world started radio broadcasting on the station wo. Wow. And a few years later, they just changed it to wow. Okay, so, yeah. Why did they say they actually wanted wow to begin with before wo? But they had to wait for a service ship that had the call sign to be retired first. And the ship was named the Henry J. Bibble. Wait, so that makes no sense why that was called wow. Kayla: Okay, there was a ship. Chris: There's a ship called the Henry J. Bibble, whose call sign was wow. Kayla: Government ship? Chris: I think so. Kayla: And its name, it was a service.

1:02:47 Chris: Ship, was the Henry J. Bibble. Kayla: Henry J. Bibble. Chris: And its call sign was wow. And that's why they couldn't use wow for the radio station. Kayla: That doesn't make any sense. Chris: No, and it's like, super tangential, but it was just so weird that I wanted to say it. Kayla: No sense. Chris: Yeah. Doesn't make a lick of sense. Anyway, there were a bunch of legal battles over ownership of the station due to the Woodman's status as a nonprofit. Kayla: Okay. Chris: And it went back and forth before they finally divested themselves of ownership through a stock sale in 1958, but not before spawning a television station called WOW, tv. Kayla: Excuse me, can we watch it right now? Chris: Which apparently was the first television station where a small nobody guy named Johnny Carson worked. Kayla: What?

1:03:29 Chris: Yes. Kayla: Excuse me. Chris: Yes. Kayla: Explain. Chris: There's no explanation. It's just he worked at this station. Kayla: Oh, my God. Chris: So, yeah, so this whole broadcast media thing seemed, like, really weird to me. Kayla: Yes. Chris: Until I read an article about the Woodman that explained it thusly. Kayla: Okay. Chris: And actually, you kind of hit on this yourself before. Before tv, radio, Internet, video games, and modern pro sports, fraternal organizations were a big way that people organized socially, entertain themselves. So under that lens, when an entertainment technology appears, it makes sense that a fraternal organization like the Woodman would be interested in getting into it.

1:04:09 Kayla: That makes a lot of sense. Chris: So all of a sudden, it's like, oh, that's right. That's all people were doing. So now that people are doing this other thing, they're like, well, let's get into it. Kayla: Right? That makes a lot of sense. Chris: Okay, so I have a confession to make. Kayla: You're one of them. Chris: I am a Woodman. This whole time? No. You probably were expecting this since I've done this in the show many times now, but I buried one of the leads on this topic. Kayla: Oh, shit. Chris: All the way to now. Oh, I know. Crazy. Whoa, whoa. Dramatic. Whoa, whoa. But I did drop a bunch of little hints throughout the show, or maybe some big hints, I don't know. Not because I'm clever, but because I couldn't really avoid talking about some of the things. And one of the hints was will actually be the episode title.

1:04:53 Kayla: Okay, that doesn't help me. Now. Chris: I know because I haven't shared it with you yet. But anyway, let's start with Woodman life. I completely neglected talking about the thing that they are actually most known for, the thing that in fact, Mister Root sort of founded the organization to provide, and pretty much the only thing that they do now. Kayla: Okay, okay. Chris: Can you guess what it is? Kayla: Probably not MLM. Chris: The answer is sell life insurance products. Kayla: Woodman Life. That sounds like a life insurance product place. Chris: And that's why they changed it to that in 2015. Kayla: That's why they changed it to Woodman Life. That's weird.

1:05:34 Chris: You better reflect that. Kayla: Okay. Chris: Does that wig you out? Kayla: I don't know if I'm wigged, but I'm definitely weirded. Chris: Yeah. So I'm gonna level with you here. Like, I was actually researching a different group altogether when I ran into a quote that said, many fraternal orders provided financial security for their members, and most that continue today have basically just become insurance companies. Kayla: What? Chris: And I was just like, wait, what? Kayla: Why? Chris: So I stopped researching that thing, and that's when I was like, wait, what? Hold on. I need to look this up. When I look those up, these companies and orgs and whatnot, that's how I discovered the Woodman. Kayla: Is insurance a cult? Chris: I think so is what I'm saying. I don't know. So this is not to say that most insurance companies have their roots in fraternal organizations, nor is it saying that most fraternal organizations still exist today and they're all insurance companies. But what it is saying is, like, of the few that survive, many of them are basically just insurance companies now.

1:06:33 Kayla: Gotcha. Chris: Not like the Freemasons. Not things like that, because the Freemasons don't actually sell insurance. I found, I think, oh, my God. Kayla: I would buy Freemasons in a heartbeat. Chris: Modern Woodman of America and Woodman life are basically just insurance companies now. Kayla: That's so strange. Chris: Yeah. So here's the thing, though. Yes. At first, that statement seems bizarre, and it actually is pretty bizarre. When I think a group, like, I don't know, I think about, like, the Freemasons. Right. And the woodmen are very much like them, and they have all these rituals, and I don't know. And now I'm thinking about them, like, being all about life insurance. It does seem pretty bizarre. Kayla: Yeah, it's a sharp left turn like that. Chris: Why would secret societies sell life insurance?

1:07:15 Kayla: Yeah, why? Chris: But when I dug into this question, it actually started to make more and more sense. Kayla: Oh, God. Chris: The sense began with how America looked between the Civil War and the Great Depression. Let me read you this quote from an article I read entitled goat Rituals and tree Trunk, the peculiar history of life Insurance by Lisa Hicks. Kayla: I want to read that. Chris: And, yeah, the title of that article was, like, one of the things that kind of piqued my curiosity on this whole episode. Kayla: That is a great title. Chris: Great title. This was a profoundly insecure time before Americans had Social Security, when anxieties about death and finances ran deep in the american psyche. In response to these fears, the woodman of the world order and its progenitor and competitor, the modern woodman of America, made life insurance approachable and fun by packaging it in the familiar fraternal order culture of the day. The two Woodman societies succeeded in selling fraternal insurance where others failed, thanks to their innovations, which include offering distinct tombstones, flaunting, axe twirling, pageantry.

1:08:20 Kayla: What? Chris: Yeah, we're talking about some. Talking about some ritual here now holding clandestine rituals that involve slapstick pranks and mechanical goat rides. Kayla: You need to stop today. Chris: I am still quoting this article, my friend. Today, both organizations still exist as insurance companies, but they've shed the fraternal antics. It's hard to imagine their previous incarnations, which resembled a combination of LinkedIn, GoFundMe, and jackass. Kayla: Oh, my God. Chris: I had to quote that. Kayla: That was an incredible piece of writing, right? Oh, my God.

1:09:02 Chris: Yeah, I know. I know. That's how I felt. In fact, my next word here, I kind of, like, I'm understating this, I guess, now, but my next sentence was, I found that last bit pretty evocative. Kayla: Excuse me, sir. That hit me deep. Yeah, yeah. That evocative, to say the least. Chris: Yeah, I could very much picture it in my wonderland. But let's unpack this whole thing a little bit more. What's being said here, basically, is this was a particular need being served during a particular time in american history, before modern medical advances, before modern food science, when it was both easier to die and when no social safety net existed.

1:09:48 Kayla: Right? Like people were dying left, right, and. Chris: Center, these fraternal orders filled that need. This particular article goes on to describe issues around surviving family members not being able to protect themselves from creditors. Kayla: Oh, geez. Chris: And then a whole aspect of cultural shame and accepting financial help. After all, if you needed financial help, according to the american ethic of the time, you were just lazy. And also, according to some, american ethics now. So there was a social stigma around needing support as well. So the whole fraternal and secrecy aspect of these organizations helped mask that stigma. They could support families of deceased family members without stigma because they were secretive to begin with. And this financial support aspect was no exception. And besides, they're all your brother Woodmen. It's totally different getting financial support from that direction. Right? It's totally different.

1:10:40 Kayla: Right, right. Chris: Appearances are everything. And there's another aspect of fraternal orders providing life insurance to their members that actually makes a whole lot of sense. Let's talk a bit more about the Woodman's crazy rituals. Kayla: Yes, please. Chris: Yes. These rituals served a very crucial initiation purpose. They drew big, bright borders between insiders and outsiders, allowing insiders to participate in this insurance function, which was super important. But many of these rituals were also inspired by Freemason rituals. Heavily inspired. Makes sense because Joe Root was a 33rd degree freemason. And Freemasons just loved reminding their members that they were going to die. Kayla: Wait, they did? Chris: Oh, yeah. So many of the rituals and rites performed in these secret societies, and again, sort of like influenced by the Freemasons were about your own mortality. I even read one that was about, like. You were like, confronted, like a skeleton at the end of the ritual or something like that. Yeah, yeah. A lot of the rituals were about mortality. What? Yeah, well, I mean, if you think about a lot of, like, religious rituals. Well, yeah, but I just like the catholic mass.

1:11:43 Kayla: I absolutely think of those as being about mortality and like, those kinds of things. I just never associated that with freemasonry. It's very interesting. Chris: Yeah. So again, we totally needed an episode on them, but they do that. And remember earlier when we talked about the tree stump gravestones? Kayla: Yes. Chris: Yeah, that's all part of it. Mister Root's intention with that ritual was much like a life insurance policy to provide financial assistance to families of deceased members. Headstones are expensive, right? And back then, they were prohibitively expensive for many people. So doing this was essentially the equivalent of writing a huge check to the widow and surviving family. Kayla: Wow. Chris: So to me, fraternal orders and life insurance actually started sounding a lot less like oil and water and more like peanut butter and jelly. After all, we are all mortal. We all had a lot of anxiety about it because it was 1899 and everyone's dying from tuberculosis and nobody wants to be seen accepting assistance. So what are we going to do about it?

1:12:38 Kayla: Yep, this fills all those needs. Chris: Oh, life insurance. Here's another quote from that same article. Same beautiful article. This one's a tad long. But, you know, Miss Hicks does such a good job of explaining things that I wanted to read it all to you. The Woodman tweaked another feature of the fraternal orders, most of which had solemn initiation rituals loosely based on old masonic ceremonies that symbolically forced recruits to confront their own mortality. Most societies had some macabre obstacle courses that ended with the. Oh, here it is. That ended with the young man facing a human skeleton lit by candles. According to as above. Chris: So below, in an early woodman of the world initiation, the blindfolded candidate wore weights symbolizing the selfishness, hatred and prejudice he had to shed as he navigated a dangerous path which involved wood boards on rollers before he was allowed to see the light of woodcraft. The modern Woodman took such rights to new levels. They'd challenge recruits to put their hands in fake molten lead. Others are subjected to spanking machines and collapsing chairs.

1:13:47 Kayla: What? Chris: The Ferris wheel coaster goat, patented and sold by a company co owned by modern Woodman member Ed Demoulin, would flip the unsuspecting rider upside down and fire blanks from its rear. Kayla: I don't understand what's happening right now. Chris: Before I finish this quote, would you like to see art of this thing? Kayla: I don't understand what it is, so. Yes. Chris: Yeah, here it is. Yeah, he's blindfolded, too. Kayla: Why did it fire blanks? Chris: Why is he blindfolded? Why is he riding a goat? Kayla: I don't know what is happening right now. Chris: Allow me to continue the quote from Miss Hicks. Kayla: Oh, God. Chris: What did a slapstick goat gag have to do with selling insurance? Explain to me everything. Besides reminding recruits that death was always at the door, the woodman had to come up with all kinds of gimmicks to get people to join. Lechler explained. This is somebody else that she's quoting. When an initiate had to ride the goat, everyone else would sit around the lodge room and have a big belly laugh. If you rode the goat, then you were in with the click. Then that new member would bring in his buddies so the Woodman could prank them.

1:14:55 Kayla: What's the prank there? Chris: It's just forcing people to ride a weird goat. Kayla: That's not a prank? Chris: Well, to them it was, and they thought it was hilarious. Cause remember, they didn't have tv. What it did help was build their insurance company. End quote. Kayla: I'm upset about a lot of things that are happening right now. Chris: Yeah, I know. So again, at first it felt really weird that secret societies were distributing and selling life insurance to their members. Kayla: Yes. Chris: But after digging into it kind of seems a bit like a natural fit. Kayla: Yes. Chris: I think the Woodman still feel really bonkers because, like, both of them now are, like, official ass insurance companies. Like, yeah, it still feels weird that, like, they were doing this goat stuff. And, like, today they're like. Because you think of insurance companies, like, they're most. You know, most insurance is sold by, like, financial institutions, right? And financial institutions are like people in suits and you gotta wear a tie every day doing, you know, calculating numbers and spreadsheets and ba ba and these guys are like, we're doing weird secret rituals behind closed doors and, like, with skeletons and goats, and we're afraid.

1:15:53 Kayla: Of mortality and we're trying to process it. Yeah, okay. I mean, I guess it really does make sense for an organization that part of its function is to help you process your mortality, is involved in end of stuff. Chris: Absolutely. And they were also community support. So if you combine the sort of, like, helping the members process the mortality and also, like, we're here to support the community. Kayla: Right. Chris: Those things. A plus B equals life insurance. Kayla: Explain me this. Why aren't religions do this? Chris: I don't. Kayla: Is it because they're 501 c three s? Or. Chris: I mean, they were. Woodmen were not for profit for a while too. They might actually still be. I'm not sure. So I don't have a good answer to that. I mean, the bottom line is, like, religious communities are already sort of that true. They just don't necessarily, like, they didn't necessarily make that transition the way that Woodman did from, like, you know, here's some money in a tombstone to like, I'm an insurance salesman.

1:16:55 Kayla: Right, right. Chris: At least that's my take on it. I am not a scholar. So the woodmen are not the only ones, and they're far from the first. We've talked a lot about american history tonight, but actually these types of fraternal orders, which I guess this is a good time to mention that fraternal orders that provide this sort of communal slash financial insurance to their members are also called mutual benefit societies. But these types of fraternal orders actually got their start in England shortly before they got big over here, which brings us back to that term that I mentioned way earlier when talking about the history of fraternal orders. Friendly societies. So Britain got their start with this, and that was what friendly societies did. They were like mutual benefit, providing financial assistance to their members. That's what they were for.

1:17:37 Kayla: Gotcha. Chris: Speaking of other mutual benefit societies. So my family, as you know, is catholic, and my dad belongs to the knights of Columbus at his local church. Kayla: Oh, right. Chris: So I had a brief chat with him about them and how they operate. They are one of the more well known fraternal orders. I think I've heard of them. They're still very active today. And like the Woodman and many other fraternal orgs, they were founded in the late 18 hundreds, 1882, to be specific, by a catholic priest. So they were founded, like, right. During that golden age with all the. Kayla: Right, right. I want to know one that wasn't made during that time? Chris: Well, the masons. Kayla: Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, never mind. Chris: And per the stories my dad told me, they have a similar focus on rituals. So, for example, you have to basically, like, hold the equivalent of a talking stick to have the floor to speak at meetings.

1:18:23 Kayla: Oh, I love that. Chris: And there are also several degrees that you have to progress through before you're even allowed to attend. And they also sell life insurance to their members. Wait, what, today? No, you can buy life insurance from the Knights of Columbus. Kayla: Did you know that before talking to your dad? Chris: I did not know that. Kayla: Damn. Chris: But then when he said that, I was like, aha. Kayla: Right? Chris: Aha. Kayla: That is super cool. Chris: Back to the big dogs, the Freemasons. Real quick, though. So it seemed like from my research that officially they don't sell insurance products. Kayla: Okay. Chris: I couldn't figure out if they used to, but they definitely don't now. But they allow you to use your life insurance policy as a charitable gift. So, like, say you want your policy to pay out to some charity that the Mason support when you die.

1:19:06 Kayla: Well, that's cool. Chris: But I also found a site called scottishright.org insurance. Kayla: Okay. Chris: And they listed a whole bunch of things. So they have sponsored Medicare supplement insurance plan, scottish rights sponsored long term care insurance plan, scottish right sponsored group cancer, expense plan, scottish right sponsored group, term life insurance plan, cancer, and all of. And no, it's a. It's a expense plan group cancer. And then scottish rights sponsored lifeline screening of America. So none of these had any links to them, but they all had, like, numbers you could call. Kayla: Did you try calling one? Chris: No, I didn't, because I didn't have time. Kayla: No, also smart, because that's definitely how you get tracked down, right?

1:19:47 Chris: Totally. I'm sure that's what's happening. But, yeah, it says scottish right members are guaranteed up to $25,000 coverage without a medical exam or single health question. This is term life insurance plan coverage is portable, it doesn't lapse, and you leave the job and lose your regular company group life insurance coverage. So I don't know, like, it seems like the scottish right, folks. So the scottish right is like another subset of freemasons. Like freemasons or, like. Like shriners, but, like, I couldn't figure out whether that meant that they actually sell life insurance. There are other sites where they said, like, freemasons don't sell insurance. And then this site was like, here's some insurance. I don't really know. Kayla: Maybe confusing them. Chris: Maybe that sector does it, I don't know.

1:20:28 Kayla: Interesting. Chris: So, two more quick facts to wrap up the talk about the insurance portion of today's discussion. I bet you didn't think we'd be talking about insurance tonight, did you? Kayla: Nope. Chris: On the episode. Well, first of the facts is, weren't actually talking about insurance. Kayla: What? Chris: We were talking about assurance. Kayla: What? Chris: I only just learned this while doing research on the topic, but what we think of as insurance is actually technically two different products. Excuse me, that for convenience sake, we've just lumped under one name. Insurance. Insurance. Kayla: I don't like where this is going. I don't like any of this.

1:21:09 Chris: Is buying protection against something that might happen, like fire or flood. Kayla: Okay? Chris: Assurance. Oh. Is buying protection against something that will happen, like death. Kayla: Oh, damn. Chris: So life insurance is actually not insurance. It's assurance. Kayla: Wow. Chris: So you can go sound like a know it all asshole at your next cocktail party. Now. Kayla: Cannot wait. Somebody invite me to a party. Chris: I know another thing. You might have been wondering why, although we did talk about this a little bit, but why? By and large, life insurance is handled by financial institutions now and not fraternal organizations. And of course, like, even the woodmen aren't really fraternal organizations anymore. They've transmogrified into just like, insurance orgs. So weird. But the answer is, like many historical questions about the 20th century, the great depression. The Great Depression kind of wiped out the fraternal insurance industry for the most part. Except for, obviously, the biggies like Woodman, because these orgs were dependent on dues and, well, yeah, nobody could pay those in the thirties. And then during the New Deal and later, the great society programs, the us government sort of took over that role of social safety net. So nowadays, the government basically provides what fraternal orgs used to.

1:22:23 Chris: And life insurance is more of a thing that you can supplement on top of that if you can afford it. And life insurance is a for profit product now. Whereas the government safety nets and fraternal insurance was, and I maybe still is, I'm not sure. But it was a not for profit thing. It was like a community thing. Kayla: Okay. Chris: And also, actually, I didn't mention this here, but you asked me before, you were saying. Wait, what? Woodman Tower? Kayla: Yeah, explain. Chris: This is why they have a tower is because they're not just like a secret society. They also, like, have insurance money. They're also like a company in a. Kayla: Sense, I'm assuming the tower. There's like offices in it? Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Okay. It's not just like a. Like a bell tower, it's like a.

1:23:05 Chris: Building but until, like, the middle of the century, apparently it was, like, the tallest tower between Chicago and the west coast. Kayla: Where was it again? Chris: Omaha. Kayla: Damn. Chris: And then, like, Omaha built a taller tower. And then other cities in the midwest and whatever. But for a long time, the Woodman tower in Omaha was the tallest tower. Kayla: I want to show about that. Chris: Yeah. Okay. So then how did all these boring life insurance clubs take on such connotation as cults? Kayla: Yes. Chris: I mean, like, look at the wild conspiracy theories surrounding the masons. There's even a Dan Brown book about them. Kayla: Right. Chris: And I mean, the Illuminati, like, I barely even need to talk about. Right.

1:23:47 Kayla: Like, it's like we've all had a brush with knowing what that is. Chris: Yeah. And they're technically a fraternal organization. They were founded as a subgroup within masonry. Kind of like Shriners or the scottish rite, I think, but sort of like a group within a group. Kayla: Right. Chris: A secret society within a secret society. Kayla: Like the NXivM group that branded people kind of. Chris: Yeah, but it seems quaint to think of shriners as having world domination ambitions. But that's what conspiracy theorists think about the Illuminati. Kayla: Right. Chris: And they're kind of similar. Right. Kayla: I think, honestly, the Illuminati, half of it is just the name. Chris: It could be the name is intimidating. Kayla: And as fuck like the Illuminati, but, like, they're totally Freemasons. Chris: They're, like the number one go to for conspiracy. And as you mentioned, even regular people know about them. So, like, I guess what I want to know is why.

1:24:36 Kayla: That's a good idea. Chris: You just said why. One of your whys is the name. Don't disagree with you. Kayla: Right. Chris: But this brings us all the way back to theme we discussed at the top of the episode, and it popped up throughout. I think the answer is ritual. These organizations, as we've talked about, are just neck deep in it, and it makes sense. As we discussed, ritual is powerful social glue, and they're also trying to provide these sort of insurance or assurance benefits to their communities and the community members regarding things as inevitable and scary as death. So ritual, as we talked about, also is good when there's something you're facing that's out of your control and scary, but you need to face it anyway. Ritual just sort of inevitably comes up in those scenarios.

1:25:25 Kayla: Damn good connection. Chris: It totally makes sense that these organizations are very heavily inundated with ritual. Kayla: Yep. Chris: But I also think that makes outsiders see an otherwise benign group as more cult like the way we did with the Irvine logo. Why that is, I can't say for sure, but maybe it's just that ritual implies meaning. And if you as an outsider don't know what that meaning is, you fill in your own meaning. Kayla: Right, right. Chris: So if you live in Irvine, you're like, oh, yeah, this is the Irvine company. It's whatever. Right, right. Or if you're a Freemason, you're like, oh, yeah, we do some weird stuff and then like, whatever, we just like, get some beers.

1:26:06 Kayla: Right. Chris: But if you're outside, you're like, oh, Irvine logo. The Irvine logo can only mean that they're spying on us and it's crazy, right? And if you're, you know, somebody talking about the Freemasons, you see their little, you know, their. What is it, the. The. The compass and the t square? Kayla: Yeah, something like that. Chris: You see that and you're like, I don't know what that means. It must mean something. And then you just. Your brain, you know, we have active nations and we like to fill in the gaps for things. So if we don't know what these rituals mean, but they definitely mean something, otherwise why would they be there? Kayla: Right, right. Chris: We fill in those gaps. Kayla: I mean, even when you and I were at Disneyland, a couple, like last month or whatever, you saw somebody with that, like, Freemason logo tattooed on them and you were like.

1:26:49 Chris: And I saw it and I was. Kayla: Like, oh, nudged me. Hey, look, we, like, followed her for a second because were like, what is. Chris: We didn't follow her. Kayla: We definitely, like, we talked about her. We stalked a little bit. Chris: I think she had a 32nd degree tattoo. Yeah, but, yeah. So for like, those Masonic or Woodman or illuminati rituals. Conspiracy theorists, they fill in that implied meaning with wild stories that help make sense of accomplishment world. And again, to be fair to the conspiracy theorists, we've talked on the show today about how powerful rituals are and all that symbolic weight of rituals that go into making, you know, 33rd degree Mason or whatever. Kayla: Right? Chris: So you can't really blame outsiders for saying, wait, what do they need all that ritual power for? Kayla: Right? Chris: So I'm no psychologist or anthropologist. I don't say this from any position of authority. I'm just speculating. But to me it seems that's why, or at least one reason why rituals make things feel or taste or seem more culty.

1:27:43 Kayla: Yeah, no, that's a very good analysis. Chris: So before we get into the criteria and judgment, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that much like the rest of society, at the time, many of these fraternal organizations were racist or snarks. So even the woodmen, they would only allow white male members of their groups for a while. Kayla: Not cool. Or, like, just. Chris: I think it was until the thirties that they didn't allow women, except for that, like, subgroup of women they allowed towards the end of the 18 hundreds. Kayla: Right. Chris: But, you know, it took a while for that to kind of, like, open up to those folks. So, as I mentioned, they fraternal organizations tended to be egalitarian, like, across class lines.

1:28:25 Kayla: Right. Chris: And, like, within their orgs, but not along other lines. They didn't. But. But I. But there were a lot of groups, and they had a wide range of who they did or didn't take. And then also some formed specifically to cater to a racial minority, ethnic group, immigrant group, or whatever. So some were specifically for that. For example, the Knights of Columbus were specifically for Catholics. But fairly quickly, the Woodman relaxed both of these requirements. Kayla: Both of what requirements? Chris: Both the racial and the women. Kayla: Okay. Okay. Okay. Chris: Although I guess it wasn't quickly for women. That was like 50 years. That's not quickly. Sorry. But a lot of these fraternal orgs at the time, for a long time, were pretty exclusive when it came to race and gender, but, yeah. So I just. I thought I should at least mention that because that's definitely, like a knock, a very valid knock on a lot of these groups is that they. They weren't. They were pretty exclusive in some of the wrong ways.

1:29:22 Kayla: Right, right. Chris: A lot of the time. All right, so speaking of ritual, it's that time again for our own culture weird. Ritual where we talk about culture weird. Culture weird. Yeah, that's the name. We're. Kayla: That. Chris: That's what I say when I'm, like, talking fast because we had to turn the fan off. And it's really hot in here. Kayla: Cult are weird. Chris: Cult are weird. Cult weird. Kayla: It's really hot. Chris: Anyway, it's time for our own ritual on cult, or just weird where we talk about the criteria. Kayla: Okay. Chris: Which is like a ritual involving discussing ritual. So meta. Kayla: That is pretty meta. Not a cult. Chris: And done. Kayla: I like to have a knee jerk reaction and then go through the criteria.

1:30:05 Chris: Right. Kayla: My knee jerk reaction is, while extremely cult like. No, not a cult. Chris: Yeah. So I think we can skip criteria numero uno. Kayla: Where is our criteria? These criteria? Chris: Yes. Yep. There you go. Kayla: Well, ritual. Chris: Ritual. I think we can skip. That's a. Yes. Kayla: Ritual. Yes, there is. All right. Expected harm towards the individual, socially, physically, et cetera. It seems like, it's the opposite here. Chris: Yeah, I think so. Kayla: Except for maybe folks being excluded, which is obviously a large. Yeah, but if we're just talking about the group itself. Chris: Yeah, I think it's more about the members don't experience harm.

1:30:46 Kayla: I mean, like, they're being shitty by. Chris: Excluding people, but they're not harming the people that they are. Including. Kayla: The biggest harm is confronting a skeleton. And that might also be therapeutic and helpful. Chris: I mean, that's at least the intent, as I understand it. Kayla: Population of cult. Or is it niche? That's an interesting one because the populations of these groups seem to be relatively large. They also, as a concept, they're very known. But individual groups are nothing well known. And even the groups that are well known, like the Illuminati and the Freemasons, it's like, ooh, those are weird. And we don't know anything about it. So it doesn't feel mainstream. Knowing about it feels mainstream, but knowing. Knowing about it does not feel mainstream.

1:31:28 Chris: Yeah. And I know that excited that 40% thing from back at the turn of the century. 40% of people belong to a fraternal organization. I think maybe the Woodman might have been a household name then, but I didn't know about them now. I didn't even know that secret society sold life insurance until I did research for this episode. So maybe a bit niche, I think. Kayla: A bit niche. Percentage of life consumed. Chris: I feel like our answer is always, it depends for this. Kayla: Yeah. I mean, it doesn't feel either way. It doesn't feel like a negative amount or like a detrimental amount of your life is consumed. Like we didn't hear, at least you didn't tell any stories of people, like, devoting so much time to their fraternal organization that they, like, keeled over dead or whatever, or left their families behind.

1:32:18 Chris: No. Yeah. I think, in fact, a lot of the purpose of, at least of the woodmen, but a lot of these benefit societies was so that if you did keel over for other reason, for whatever reason, that your family wouldn't be left behind financially. Kayla: Right. Chris: So there's certainly no, like, leave your family, leave the ones that love you. So there's none of that. I mean, I think that it can sort of like, you know, for a lot of these. Like for Joseph Cullen Root, who was belonging to seven of them, that probably took up a lot of his life. But. But as you said, it's not really necessarily negative. Kayla: Like consuming has, like a tv occult then. Because we spend all our time watching tv now. Chris: Right. And I think consuming does have sort of a negative connotation. It's like it's sucking your time away from other things. It's actually a little bit like we talked about in the Tulpas episode where, like, what. What is considered, just a variation and what is considered. What's the word I'm looking for? Pathological.

1:33:14 Kayla: Right. Chris: So it's like, in this case, because it's not pathological, even though it's taking a lot of your time. I wouldn't call it, like, consuming necessarily. Kayla: Right, right. Like, pro athletes aren't necessarily. Pro athletes aren't necessarily an occult. But we haven't done that yet. Yeah, well, they are, but I mean, like, they spend a lot of their time. Somebody going to the Olympics is not necessarily in a cult. Chris: Right. Kayla: Okay, maybe they are. I don't know. Are the Olympics a cult? Chris: It probably depends on the sport. Kayla: Jesus Christ. Curling is not a cult. Chris: As far as I know, it is a cult. Kayla: Anyway, I'm just saying that you can have a hobby that you really love and spend a lot of your life doing, and it's not consuming your life in a negative or harmful way. Chris: Yeah. So I'd say this one's pretty low, too.

1:33:56 Kayla: Charismatic leader, I'm gonna say. Even though we talked about what's his face, his presence still feels low. Chris: Yeah. Like he was a founder. Kayla: Right. But he wasn't like, you must all listen to me. And the things that I have, the fact that, like, you mentioned a couple times that within the organizations, they were fairly egalitarian rather than. They do have the hierarchical structure, though. Chris: They do. But it's. I think you're right that this actually, despite the fact that he was sort of like a titanic figure of the late 18 hundreds, like, I don't think that he didn't come across as, like, you must do what I say, and everybody is worshipping me. It's all about what Teal says. And it's the word of teal. It was more just like, hey, I have an idea for this thing. I should start this thing, right?

1:34:37 Kayla: Yeah, exactly. So those are our criteria. Skipping ritual. Chris: Oh, that's it. Kayla: One, two. Chris: We did expected harm. Oh, wait, no, we didn't do anti factuality. Kayla: Oh, I skipped that one because I answered it in my head. Chris: Oh, yeah, that. And so the listeners could definitely hear that. Kayla: That's very helpful for our listeners. I think the antisexuality is fairly low. It doesn't seem like that's really a part of this. Chris: Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of, like, lying or anything going on. Kayla: Right. Obfuscation or, like, present, like, teaching of false information just kind of doesn't seem to be a part of it. Chris: Not a lot of, like, motivated reasoning. Kayla: Right. They don't need to, like, justify their existence. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: So, all right, my knee jerk reaction was correct. It's not a cult.

1:35:20 Chris: Your knee jerk reaction was very correct. Because I don't think it scored highly on anything. It. Kayla: Ritual. Chris: Ritual. And a little bit niche. But actually, now that you say that, it kind of goes, like, to the point I was making about, like, just how much ritual can flavor something as a cult. Kayla: Right. Chris: Because we look at a lot of these things, we're like, oh, freemasons. They're kind of like a cult. Right, right. And, like, this is basically, like, freemason adjacent. Kayla: Right. Chris: And they have just as strange rituals and just this kind of weird stuff. And here we are on the program saying, dude, they're, like, super nautical, but they have all those crazy rituals. That's kind of why it felt like it. Kayla: And just like, really weird tidbits, like life insurance and radio broadcast. Yeah. Radio Johnny Carson and Wood tombstones and all this shit, so.

1:36:03 Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Yeah. But I don't think it's a cult. Chris: Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. Kayla: I think they're just weird. Chris: I think they're just weird. They're definitely weird. Kayla: They're definitely weird. Chris: They're definitely weird. But as we mentioned last week, weird is not bad. Kayla: Weird is not bad. Chris: Weird is just a secret society selling life insurance. Kayla: So I think weird's also not necessarily good. No, because I can't say that's good. That feels neutral. Tulpas felt good. This feels neutral. Chris: Yeah. Neutral. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Good. Good to neutral. Neutral. Kayla: Good to neutral. Chris: All right, so. Kayla: So thanks for that. Chris: As we mentioned, we had to turn the fan off in here, so it's, like, incredibly hot and stuffy. Kayla: It is.

1:36:43 Chris: Is there anything else you want to say before we sign off? No, I feel like I should find a woodman of the world sign off or something. Oh, I guess for truth, justice, and the american way. Kayla: Sure. That. And also, check out our Patreon. Chris: Oh, right. Kayla: We've linked it on our social media. We'll do it again. Check out the show notes for this, especially if you want to listen to that Radiolab episode about the nuclear cats. Chris: Yes. And we will link to some cool articles and websites and stuff about the Woodman and fraternal orgs. Of course. Check out our instagram, where I'll post some of these pictures. Kayla: And don't forget to send us your tell us about your creative projects right now, along with your own hometown culture. Just weird group. Doesn't have to be hometown, but it might be fun if it is, right.

1:37:30 Chris: Yeah. We would love to talk about it on the show. And thank you so much to our Patreon supporters. It really felt nice. It was really cool. Kayla: Did it warm your cockles? Chris: It warmed. Kayla: The cockles are very warm. Chris: I warmed the cockles? Yes. My cockles are very warm. Kayla: Good. I'm glad. Chris: Yeah. Steaming. Kayla: Ew. Well, I guess in this room. Chris: Okay. Kayla: Thank you to you. Chris: You're welcome. Kayla: Good episode. And this is Kayla. Chris: This is Chris. Kayla: And this has been cult or just weird.