Lore 304: Cult Hero

than Madison Square Garden. Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen.

“All of these performers and more have graced that legendary stage while loyal fans worshiped”

at their feet. But little did those screaming fans know, that even more fervent kind of worship was taking place just out of sight. And in this case, worshiping at their feet becomes a little more literal. Just a two-minute walk from the world's most famous arena is a church. Within that church is a shrine, and upon that shrine is a single linen sock, a sock, stained with blood. It had once belonged to a saint, known lovingly as Padre Pio, an Italian

priest and mystic who passed away in 1968 at the age of 81. During his lifetime, he became known

for a whole slew of holy party tricks, from reading souls and celestial visions to getting in straight up physical brawls with Satan himself. But there was one miracle he was known for

“beyond all else. For years, he suffered from constantly oozing stigmata. A symptom of that”

would be immortalized in a dark bloodstain, smack dab on that sacred linen sock. Ensure one Vatican physician may have called Padre Pio, an ignorant and self-mutilating psychopath who exploited people's credulity. But that hasn't stopped true believers from flocking

to his bloody sock, nor did it prevent Pope John Paul II from canonizing him in 2002 in front

of 300,000 people. By comparison, Madison Square Garden fits roughly 20,000. At the end of the day though, it doesn't matter if a person is the real deal or not. All you really need to garner a cult of followers is a bit of charisma, a hell of a story, and sometimes a little spilled blood. I'm Aaron Manky, and this is lore. Defining a cult is harder than you might think. After all, most of the telltale elements

the belief in a messiah, charismatic leaders, religious fervor could also describe just about

“any mainstream theology. So, when scholars refer to cults, what exactly does it mean?”

Well, when it comes down to it, it's all really about popularity. A religion is a belief system accepted and practiced by the mainstream. A cult on the other hand rejects the mainstream. They are fringe groups, usually reliant on an us versus the mentality. You know, only we have the truth and no one else does. That sort of thing. In other words, it's less about what a group believes and more about how many people believe it. Now, it's a wiggly distinction to be sure.

That kind of shapeshifts depending on the society's opinions too. Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, seven day Adventists, Pentecostals, Christian scientists. In the 20th century, these were all categorized as cults. But when they got trendy, well, voila. A cult became an accepted religion. By the way, the word cult has actually been used to describe a fringe religious movement since the 1890s. But the concept? Well, let's just say that people have been making up their own

cookie religious sex for a very long time. Take the Ademites all the way back in 1421, led by a check guy named Peter Canis. He and his 200 to 300 followers were notorious for practicing nudism and what might today be called free love. They believe God lived in everyone, a heretical idea for the 1400s, and that they existed in a state of perfect innocence. Alas, the mainstream church disagreed. Around 75 Ademites were burned as heretics before the year was out, including Canis

himself. And then there were the cultish attempts of a fellow named Jan Van Leiden. It was 1534 in Germany when Van Leiden attempted to make the city of Munster into a polygamous commune that he deemed a new Jerusalem. How did he plan to achieve this? Well, by burning books, dealing violently with opposition and running naked through the streets in wild states of religious ecstasy. Of course, suffice to say the existing church wasn't a huge fan of this, and the bishops

army put a stop to Van Leiden's mission pretty dang quick. And then there was the breakaway Quaker James Nailer who, in 1656, imitated Jesus by entering Bristol England on a donkey, while flanked by

the kind of behavior that would get a person tortured in 1656, which is exactly what Bethel,

“poor Nailer. Now European cults were one thing, but it's the good old US of A that took the art”

of cult building to the next level. And it makes sense, right? After all, this nation was first

settled by an extremist religious sect, a little cult called the Pilgrims. From the moment they arrived at Plymouth Rock, America became a land of fanatics. The cults came in waves, too. In the mid-1800s, pre-civil war era, revivalist religious movements and spiritualism swept through the states. Another swell between 1910 and 1935 saw cults focused on reincarnations, symbolic mysticism, and communal living. As one writer put it in the late 1920s, America had become, and I quote,

"Overrun with Messiahs." Heck, during those early decades of the 20th century, you could even join a male order cult, simply stuff some cash into an envelope and address it to institutions with names like Psychiana, the arcane school, or the Mayan temple, and then mystical teachings would arrive right on your own doorstep, like an analog Patreon membership. And then of course, there was the notorious cult boom of the 1960s and 70s, and I can't help but wonder, what exactly

prompts these waves of increased cult activity? Well, one scholar named Philip Jenkins has a theory.

He believes that these waves are brought on by the later stages of a baby boom. Basically,

young people tend to be more open to cultural innovation. Thus, eras with more young people than usual means a stronger push toward that innovation, like hot new religions, for example. Speaking of which, when Jenkins wrote about this phenomenon in 2000,

“he foresaw another boom beginning around 2010, and I hate to say it, but I think he nailed it.”

Whether seeking a sense of belonging answers to the big questions of the universe, or innovative truths unavailable in the mainstream, people join cults for all sorts of reasons. And as it turns out, the same goes for the people who start them. Way out in the Utah desert, since a ghost town called Home of Truth, rotting slap board buildings sag against the parched earth, a stone church rests in half crumbled ruins,

while wind whistles through creaking metal gates. But the place wasn't always empty.

No, once upon a time, this town held none other than the secrets to the end of the world, and it all started with a regular middle-aged woman from New Jersey. Her name was Marie Ogden,

“and up until 1929 she lived a totally normal life. Her days were filled with music foundation”

meetings, athletic club lunches, charity projects, you know, normal activities for a regular American housewife a century ago, but then everything changed. You see, in November of 1928, Marie's beloved husband of 26 years was diagnosed with cancer. Despite exhausting rounds of treatment, he died just months later, and suddenly Marie's life was turned entirely upside down. Grief overtook her. She tried to turn to her Protestant upbringing for comforts, but faced with real

tragedy, the church's explanation of life after death seemed impossibly flimsy. Here was this man that she shared a quarter of a century of her life with, joys and sorrows, good days and bad, and then suddenly he just ceased to exist. It didn't make any sense. And so, desperate to find order in an orderless world, the 45-year-old widow became a spiritual seeker and embarked on a journey to find the truth. Unfortunately, she found something else instead, a man named William Dudley Pellie,

and when it came to the truth, this guy was basically the polar opposite. Pellie was a former Hollywood screenwriter, including penning to Laan Cheney movies, and then claimed to have a near-death experience that gave him supernatural powers. And so, he started publishing books and giving lectures on various fun facts that he had learned while he was dead. For example, did you know that humanity evolved on a distant planet and migrated to earth as proto-human spirits, or that under the guidance

of ancient master spirits, these earthly spirits developed self-awareness and divided into males and females? Pellie would be happy to tell you all about it, for a tidy fee, of course. As if that weren't promising enough, Pellie would later come to believe that Hitler's ascent to power was prophesied by the spirit world, which is probably why he also eventually started a violent, pronazi white supremacist group known as the Silver Shirts, so called for their

quite a fellow, right? And it was this questionable specimen that the venerable widow Marie

Ogden would eventually go to in her search for truth. She quickly went from attending his lectures to loaning him up to $14,000 in bonds, and then opening an entire school dedicated to the study of Pellie's teachings, talk about escalating quickly. In 1932 Ogden and Pellie parted ways, likely over that $14,000, which to be fair was the equivalent of about $200,000 today, but even though she was no longer a Pellie purist, he had clearly rubbed off on her,

because soon enough, she was giving lectures of her own. She even opened a new school, but not one to Pellie's teachings. No, the school of truth, as she named it, was all Ogden,

and it turns out she had plenty to say, too, because she had started to receive her own spirit

messages, and boy did they have some hot gossip to report. According to her, the reincarnated

“forms of Jesus' disciples were starting to remember their true identities, and soon those”

disciples would lead a new age and usher in the kingdom of God. And what it you know, it's Marie Ogden herself happened to be one of them. Now granted, before this shiny new world could arrive, some stuff had to go down. Namely, mass governmental collapse, the destruction of all the world's cities, and tidal waves overtaking the coastlines. But it would all be worth it when Jesus returned to earth, right? It simply needed a little nudge from the disciples to get the

ball rolling. And so Marie Ogden began to form a plan to end the world. First things first,

she and her followers were going to need a proper headquarters, not just a single school might do, but a whole community tucked away from society where they could practice proper spiritual discipline. The question though was where to put it. Well, one night, one of Ogden's followers had a strange dream. This woman saw a valley and written on that valley was a single giant word, Utah, and that was all Ogden needed to hear. In the fall of 1933, she rounded up her cohorts of

20 men, women, and children, and together they hit the road for the Beehive State. They set up camp in a sparsely populated part of South Eastern Utah, aptly named dry valley. There they tried and failed to farm. They tried and failed to mind for gold. They lived in flimsy tents in the blistering desert, but still Ogden insisted this was the spot. Why? Because right next to their encampments,

“towering a very important Cohen-shaped butte, they dubbed it church rock. In according to Ogden,”

it would be right there atop the butte that Jesus Christ himself would make his grand re-entrance, and living conditions aside, no one wanted to miss that. And so it was official. Marie Ogden and her truth seekers had a permanent place to call their own. And so she changed the group's name, the school of truth, became the home of truth. Within a year, their settlement had over 100 residents. They pulled their property communally, and they shared all their riches together. In return,

they were provided with housing and provisions. Only provisions that Ogden herself approved of, of course, read meets, alcohol, and tobacco were completely forbidden, but it wasn't enough to survive on. By the way, Ogden wasn't just preaching to her compound. She actually bought a nearby theater, plus the only newspaper in the county called the San Juan record. There, she slipped her own philosophies and home of truth activities in among the normal local news. But despite its growth,

life was still very tricky at the home of truth. There was little water or arable land, a high elevation made for sweltering summers and frigid winters, and bind you everyone was still living in tents or tar paper shecks. But once again, Ogden reassured them that it would all be worth it. Once the new world arrived, she promised that climate would become nearly tropical. All kinds of fruits and vegetables would grow right there. No one would go hungry, and church rock

“would become a bubbling fountain. And there was one last very important promise that Marie Ogden”

made to her flock. A promise good enough to brush all complaints aside. In her new world, no one would ever die. It was a bold promise, but one I assumed that offered those people an extra bit of hope. Little did they know, however, the death would show up at the home of truth long before their new age. Ever have a chance to arrive. There was no doubt about it. Edith was sick. Her cancer, in fact, was terminal. Her doctor said

not, that out in the Utah desert lived a mystical woman with the power to heal her. And yeah,

“I think you know who she meant. Now in Marie Ogden's defense, she had never once made such a dramatic”

claim. But when the 50-something-year-old Edith peacehack and her family arrived at the home of truth, begging for a miracle cure, Marie sure did give it the old college try. She would meditate for hours, asking healing spirits for help. She held Edith's hands, trying to absorb the sick woman's spiritual impurities, which Ogden saw as the real roots of the problem. She even advised Edith to, and I quote, "cure herself by ignoring her pain and by focusing her faith on removing negative

thought matter," which I have to go on record to say here. I do not recommend as a course for cancer treatments or, I guess, any treatments. And it very much did not work. On February 11th of 1935, Edith peacehack passed away, which should have concluded her tale. But buckle up folks because it is only the beginning. You see, if there's one thing that cult leaders hate, it's seeing their teachings proven wrong. And for Ogden to have applied all of her spiritual powers to save Edith,

only for it to fail. Well, she couldn't have that. But don't worry, Ogden had a solution. She would simply declare to all of her followers that Edith, despite all evidence to the contrary, wasn't really dead. According to Ogden, Edith was having an out-of-body experience, sort of like astral projecting. Her spirit had taken a little vacation to go receive instruction from the spirits, but was still tethered to her body via a silver life cord. And as for that pesky

corpse that she left behind, well, it wasn't a corpse at all. Sure, Edith wasn't exactly using it right now, but she would plot back into it eventually. All that said, Edith's earthly body still needed to be taken care of until the soul was ready to return. Taking care of how,

I am so glad you asked. First, Murray Ogden laid hands on it often. Yeah, lots of corpse touching

right off the gate, and then it was given frequent saline sponge baths. And the cherry on top, that would be the twice daily milk and raw egg animas to keep the body fed. Please, don't try to visualize that, just trust me. And let's be clear here, this situation was not a

“big secret. Remember, Murray Ogden literally owned her own newspaper, which was distributed far”

beyond the compound, a newspaper in which she fully described the entire situation. Suffice to say, the wider community wasn't too stoked to learn that the weirdos out in the desert were doting on a pet corpse. And more so, neither was Edith's adult son Frank, who wanted to give his mother a proper burial. And so, the sheriff tried to sort things out, but the cult wouldn't let him in, which honestly he seemed perfectly fine with, as corpse

worshiping was very much above his pay grade. Eventually, though, they did let a doctor visit, and spoiler alert, he confirmed that Edith was, in fact, dead. Now, as a quick aside here, have you ever had a conversation with someone in your life who has veered way off into crazy territory? They won't listen to reason, and no amount of documented evidence can convince them that they

“have been led astray. Well, that frustration that you feel right there, that's how the doctor”

must have felt, because rather than trust his medical training and expertise, the people of the home of truth doubled down. They explained that they and they alone had a magical six cents that the doctors somehow lacked, which allowed them to feel Edith's still beating pulse. Fearing more trouble, Ogden tucked Edith's body away somewhere secret, far from the eyes of the law.

But as for the eyes of reporters, well, let's just say the Marie Ogden steward of the second coming,

was it wanted to turn down a media opportunity? In November of 1935, she led a reporter from the Salt Lake Tribune visit Edith's body. By this time, Edith was basically mummified. The sailing wash had shriveled her skin into parchment, and she wasn't decaying. The body, the reporter wrote, "Lies in graceful repose on the table, swathed in holy garments. The room is filled with a faint light which seeps in around the edges of a curtain over a sun-filled window. The woman's

face wears the peaceful expression of eternal sleep. And with that, it wasn't just a Utah pain-attention anymore, but the whole nation. In December, another article headlined, cult awaiting resurrection of woman dead nearly a year, was serialized all across the country. There, Marie Ogden herself explained, "There is a physical body, an astral body, and a spiritual body. There are definite signs that Mrs. Pishack is returning

to life. The astral and spiritual bodies have been completed, and the recreation of the flesh

to pass?" Well, see, that's the problem. No one knows. Because not long after Marie Ogden spoke

those words, Edith Pishack's corpse vanished forever. Now, there are two conflicting stories here, both of which hit the media in 1937. One came from former home of Truther Thomas Robertson. He claimed to have told Ogden, and I swear, this is an actual quote, "Gee Whiz, Marie, we can't keep this body forever." Which must have landed because Ogden apparently responded, by saying, "You know what? The spirits just called, and they want us to dispose of Edith's body

“in secret." Convenience, I know, and ultimately Thomas said that he and Ogden had quietly”

cremated Edith out in the desert. But there's a problem with this story, because you see,

Thomas insisted the cremation took place in August of 1935. But that was three months before, the Salt Lake Tribune reporter saw Edith's body laid out on the table in "Graceful Repose," which brings us to story number two. In May of 1937, a reporter named Jack Dewitt visited the home of Truther. While there, Marie Ogden explained how about nine months after Edith's death, her spirit had swung by for a visit. In Ogden's words, she had occupied a new form. She told

me she was finished with the old form and directed me in its disposal. Disposal, how you might ask, "Well, by sealing her away in a small cave in some nearby cliffs," a cave that later that night's under cover of Darkness, Jack Dewitt snuck into. In true biblical style, a bolder sealed the entrance, which he rolled aside, within Lady partially charred, fully mummified body of Edith Pishack. Jack lifted his camera, snapped a photo, and as he did, something bizarre occurred.

But I'll let Jack tell you the rest himself. As my eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness again, as the accurate smell of the flash powder thinned and was replaced by the musty odor of the long dead, a blurred gray shadow hovered over the mummy's buyer. I bundled up the camera and backed away towards the entrance of the cave. The shadow became the form of a woman, a beautiful woman with flowing hair. She seemed to look down sadly upon the hideous form of the mummy, then I distinctly

saw her face turned to me and the thought flash that she was smiling sweetly as a gentle woman would to a non-understanding child. Was it a trick of the moonlight from without? Was it imagination combined with the floating smoke from the flashlight powder? I do not know. Graith makes people do strange things. It can lead us to believe in impossible lies rather than accept a painful truth. It can make us susceptible to charlatans like Marie was when she got mixed up

with William Dudley Pellie. And at some rather extreme cases, it can make us start a doomsday cult

“and then keep a woman's corpse around like a horrible life-size Barbie. But you have to remember”

how this all began. Before the spirits, before the desert compound and the end of the world, way back when Marie Ogden was simply a regular lady from New Jersey who experienced a personal apocalypse of her own. The death of her husband. That was it. That grief was the starting gun. And we also can't forget how he died. From cancer, the very thing that took Eideth Peshach's life as well. Could it be that having failed to save her husband from the disease, Marie Ogden saw Eideth

as her opportunity at redemption? A second chance? And this time she would not let death win,

no matter what, even if it meant ignoring the laws of morality altogether. In the end, media scrutiny over Eideth's death combined with dwindling faith in Ogden's teachings all took a toll on the home of truth. By the summer of 1937, only 12 true believers remained. And believe it or not, one of those people was Eideth Peshach's husband Elmer, who still didn't consider

“himself a widower. Remember what I said about grief. Marie Ogden herself lived out her final”

years in a rest home. She died in 1975 at the age of 91, or well died according to medical science that is, and she took her secrets to the grave. In the wake of Ogden's death, one of her few remaining followers burned all her papers, including an entire unpublished manuscript. Today, the home of truth's crumbling remains still sits out there in the Utah desert, slowly being

wood in sign. Hung by the new property owners, that sign simply reads. Marie's place.

“Folks, thank you so much for joining me on this whirlwind visit to the site of Ogden's day”

that never happened. Looking back, these are tales filled with drama and weirdness. In the

moment though, they must have been terrifying to watch unfold. Now that said, while cults are famous for their creepy going on, they are far from the only collectives known for dabbling in the mysteries of the universe. In fact, I have one last story for you that proves they're not even the only groups hanging out with dead bodies. Stick around through this brief sponsored break to hear all about it. This episode was made possible by Squarespace. I often tell people that I'm

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In 2001, an electrician in northern Virginia discovered something strange in the building where he'd been hired to work. It was a tiny door hidden between two walls. Naturally, Curiosity took over and he opened it, which is when he found a soft bundle wedged into the opening. A white shroud had been wrapped around a collection of candles. But that's not all. Nestled among the fabric in the wax was also a pile of human bones. It was like a Dracula movie he later recalled.

The top of the skull was covered, but you could see the ribcage and the sinew. It was a shocking encounter for sure, but even more shocking, the fact that this had happened before. But let's rewind.

“Before I explain, you should know more about the owners of that building, because it was just one”

of many lodges belonging to a fraternal organization called The Ad Fellows. For turtle organizations for what it's worth, our groups typically aligned around trades and charity work. You know, people like the Freemasons, the Elx Lodge, the VFW's, that kind of thing. And in general, they typically enjoy more positive press than cults might. But there are certain things that cults and fraternal organizations have in common. Namely, both are known to closely guard secret information.

Information only their members can know. And the Ad Fellows are no exception. Now, while the official Ad Fellows website claims a legacy that goes back to 587 BC, most agree that the current organization has its roots somewhere in the 17th or 18th century. Meanwhile, the first American branch popped up in Baltimore in 1819. And granted, the name alone makes the group sound pretty mysterious, right? Some say the Ad Fellows were so

called due to being made up of craftsmen who's small crafts didn't have their own guild. These guildless men were thus odd. Others believe the name refers to the odd nature of a group

“dedicated to charity in the first place. Honestly, no one's really sure. But wherever the odd”

fellows and their name came from, they were wildly popular. Some estimate that in the early 20th

century, there were 3.4 million members in the United States alone. And with all those members,

they were going to need plenty of places to meet up, hence acquiring lodges all over the country. Today, only around 25,000 American Ad Fellows are left, meaning a ton of their properties are now being sold and rented out, with several million fewer members than there were a century ago that is a lot of vacant buildings. And sometimes the former owners leave a little treat behind. You see, while the Ad Fellows' official motto is friendship, love, and truth, they might

want to add a fourth word to that, skeletons. Because in a frankly insane number of cases, people have stumbled upon human skeletons on former Ad Fellows' properties. Now, give me a second here to go through a brief highlight reel of Ad Fellows' related skeleton discoveries. But I want to be clear, these are just a sampling. I truly cannot express how many times this has happened. There was the case in 1999 when a petite skeleton in a homemade coffin was discovered in the

drawer of a built-in wardrobe. When asked about it, a 92-year-old lodge member told a reporter that the skeleton was from a, and I quote, "Chinese person who drowned in the river,

community either sold it or gave it to the Ad Fellows. And then there's the episode from 2004

involving Ad Fellows' skeletons and cheerleaders. Yes, you heard me, right? This one comes to us from Missouri, where a youth cheerleading squad called the Show Me Spirit All Stars rented a former Ad Fellows' Hall for practice. Among other fraternal relics left in the building, their coaches found three coffins, two containing fake skeletons, and one with a very real

“dirt-covered bones of an old man. Although they tried to keep it a secret from the kids,”

the 10-to-12-year-old girls soon found out, and, well, being kids demanded to see the bones, and chaos ensued. And as I said, the list goes on and on. A list that includes, of course, that unfortunate electricians unhappy discovery. Other Ad Fellows' skeletons have been inadvertently donated to local community theaters, found by a teenage girl while cleaning, and even ended up with a cameo role in the original movie for Dawn of the Dead. So why on Earth do the Ad Fellows have

so many skeletons? Come to think of it, why did they have any skeletons? Well, there's an easy answer for that. They're part of the initiation ritual, of course. Imagine you're a new member

of the I-O-O-F, and tonight it becomes official. First, you and your fellow initiates are blindfolded

“and chained up. It's dark, you hear rustling, and the sound of objects being shuffled closer.”

Suddenly, your blindfold is removed, and there, illuminated by glaring torchlight, is a skeleton. All around you, the established members begin to chant, "What thou art?" He was, "What he is, thou wilt surely be." The exact phrasing changes case by case, but the sentiment remains the same. Memento Mori, you are mortal, and don't forget it. According to one Ad Fellows' member, the ritual is intended to show new members the value of life and mortality of man.

And hey, what better way to drive the message home than while staring into the bleached face of an actual cadaver? Now, you might think acquiring real skeletons would have been a bit of a hassle. But no, you could simply order one from the Ad Fellows catalog. Seriously, 1, 1900s buyer's guide offers a, and I quote, "genuine, full-sized, selected specimen," set up and wired, fully deodorized. But then again, given the dirt covered bones in Missouri, and the supposedly drowned man in Idaho,

it seems some Ad Fellows may have taken acquisition into their own hands. By the way, you may be wondering what kind of charity work these guys were getting up to.

“And honestly, the answer is, well, pretty much everything. They helped orphans and widows”

provided disaster relief and distributed mutual aid. They even funded hospitals. All in all, these guys have done some genuinely positive work over the years. But I should probably mention one last thing, because one of the Ad Fellows' most widespread early initiatives, they helped people, bury their dead. This episode of lore was produced by me, Erin Manky, with writing by generous

nethercats, research by Cassandra de Alba, and music by Chad Lassen. Just a reminder, folks, I have a brand new history book that's coming out on August 4th. It's called Exhumed, and it explores the roots of the New England vampire panic through the lens of centuries of folklore, medical advancements, and pseudoscience. It's available for pre-order right now, and if you pre-order the hardcover edition,

my publisher has a web page set up where you can submit your receipts and get a free gorgeous tote bag. Head over to ErinManky.com/exhumed to see the gorgeous cover and lock in your copy today. Don't like hearing the ads? Well, there is a paid version of lore on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad-free. Learn more about that over at lorepodcast.com/supports, and you can follow this show on social media platforms like blue sky threads, YouTube, and Instagram to search for

lorepodcast all one word, and then click that fellow button. And when you do, say hi.

I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.