596: Andrew Gold | Exorcisms On the Edge

596: Andrew Gold | Exorcisms On the Edge

[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Special thanks to our sponsor Glenfiddich single malt scotch whisky. You've heard me talk about Glenfiddich, their highly recognizable stag icon, which adorns our podcast arts. They've got a new body of work that aims to challenge the traditional notions, commonly portrayed in culture, of what it means to be wealthy and live a life of riches. Glenfiddich believes that beyond the material, a life of wealth and riches is about family, community, values, and fulfilling work. These are the values that led Glenfiddich to become the world's leading single malt scotch whisky. This week's guest Andrew Gold exemplifies these values. You'll find out why later on in the episode. More from our partners at Glenfiddich coming up later in the show.

[00:00:34] Coming up next on The Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:00:36] Andrew Gold: I'm having to like walk over like bodies and bodies on the floor, in these little corridors, squeezing over and round people. They're all like foaming at the mouth. And they're looking at me and that the priest had said something to them about, something like about the Falklands as well. He's going, "Look, they're British. They took the Falklands." So people are looking at us a bit — like we didn't know what was going to happen. And then David says to me, "Oh, you know what? I had the cap on the camera the whole time that we were walking out," and he's going, "No, no, no, we can't leave here without showing you leaving. So what are we going to show for the end of the film? You got nothing." So I was like, "I'm not going back in there," and he's like, "You are." So we had to go back in. So we start, we go back up the street, climb over about a thousand bodies and all that stuff. And then turn around and then David starts filming me from the back. I had to walk out again.

[00:01:25] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. We have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game, astronauts, entrepreneurs, spies, and psychologists. Even the occasional organized crime figure, legendary Hollywood director, or Russian spy. Each episode turns our guests' wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. 

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[00:02:13] Today, my friend Andrew Gold, this is an interesting guy, right? He's performed exorcisms, which are, of course, fake. He's been locked in a cupboard by an exorcist, chased UFOs with fervent believers, filmed — hear me out here — filmed a porn scene with retired people as actors. It was for a documentary, all right. It was for French TV, of course, where else. Played soccer with blind players. In my opinion, he is an up and coming documentarian in the spirit of Louis Theroux, if you're familiar with him. I really like his work. I enjoyed this conversation and I think you will, as well. In it, we discussed the nature of belief and rationalization as well as getting into some hoaxes and cons that he's helped expose as well. 

[00:02:49] And if you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers and creators every week, it is because of my network. And I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at jordanharbinger.com/course. It works for beginners or advanced, so I don't want to hear about how you already know this stuff. And by the way, most of the guests on the show, they subscribe and contribute to the course. So come join us, you'll be in smart company where you belong. 

[00:03:09] Now, here's Andrew Gold.

[00:03:14] You do these deep dives on some pretty wild stories, frankly. You got exorcists, some kind of crazy activists, even pedophiles, which by the way, ballsy, gutsy move to cover that. I was listening to your podcast episode with this pedophile. And you even said, "Oh, there's going to be people upset at me." And I thought, "Yeah, this is one where you've got to be very careful." It goes without saying that you're not glorifying it, but you have to circle, highlight, underline the fact that you are not condoning or kind of allowing that to go unchecked. And the documentaries you make are really fascinating because they expose a lot of stuff about belief and human psychology, which is right in the wheelhouse of the show, in the sphere of interest for our listeners.

[00:03:53] So by way of just sort of cracking open this menagerie of weird stuff that you've covered. Tell me about this exorcist, because this was the first thing you sent me and I'll admit when you sent me this few line email being like, "I covered an exorcism." I was like, "This is garbage. I'm going to delete it. Nah, let me watch this video." And sure enough, I see this guy who is performing what looks to be exorcisms. And of course, it's never what it seems, is it? 

[00:04:17] Andrew Gold: No, no. Well, it's a really difficult one, I guess, as a journalist, because you go into these documentaries and you're thinking the whole time, "I need to be neutral," right? That's what a journalist does. You need to, you can't go in there — that's what I've been saying about what, what, it's impossible, isn't it? You can't. And this was one where I thought, "Well, what is neutral?" Because neutral would suggest that I'm giving credence to the possibility that he, this man, is extracting demons from people's bodies. And there are a surprising amount of people who believe that, no doubt, many who are listening to this right now.

[00:04:48] And I don't, I simply don't. So it's very hard for me to be totally neutral. And that's an accusation that was labeled at me after making it. I went in and tried to just be open-minded to the fact that he wasn't knowingly betraying people's trust that he might really believe in his own powers. And so he is an exorcist out in the suburbs of Argentina. It's really quite an impoverished area with relatively little education and that kind of thing. So there's not much access to mental health facilities or knowledge about it. So he's got a huge, huge following, a huge media outlet. You go to his church and there are posters of the film, The Exorcist, and other supernatural films with his face, superimposed onto the main characters.

[00:05:29] Jordan Harbinger: That's a little cringe, right? That's like, "I'm a serious exorcist. I don't believe in this movie stuff. It discredits the whole profession." That's what you'd be thinking if you believed your own nonsense, you would think. It's like bounty hunters don't like Dog the Bounty Hunter, because they think he's a bit of a clown. You know what I'm talking about? I don't know if they have that over there. 

[00:05:47] Andrew Gold: Yeah, I do. 

[00:05:48] Jordan Harbinger: They're like, "This isn't a real bounty hunter. He's just a TV guy. It's a little bit of a reality show gig. Like it's not a thing that makes us all look good as an industry." This guy is like leaning into it the other way. And he's like, "Oh yeah, I've seen kids. Their heads didn't turn around once. It turned around seven times.. That's the kind of demons I'm up for. Let me post my face on this movie poster, not tongue in cheek at all, somehow." 

[00:06:09] Andrew Gold: We were shocked when we saw that. And then we go in and he's playing the music, tubular bells from the exorcist film during his mass. So I think he just thought, "You know what? I'm going to go full in this. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to really go and get sensationalist and get people to come in, who are excited by the movies." And the thing is exorcism only really works in the way they wanted to, if the person being exorcised has seen either of those movies or has seen, you know, adverts or little clips. They know how to react.

[00:06:38] Jordan Harbinger: Right. Because otherwise they're like, "When do I stop and let the demon go? Or do I just keep going? And like, do I ride around or do I just scream? Do I bite, scratch, or do I just lay there?" You're right. You really have to know how to play. It's like wrestling, right? Professional wrestling. You have to know that when the guy stomps his foot and hits his fist towards you, that you're going to, supposed to pretend that you got hit in the face. You can't just be like, "That's weird. You didn't make contact. Do you want to try that again? Oh, I'm supposed to jump up when you lift me up in the air. And I'm supposed to pretend like I'm really hurt. Okay, I got it now," right? Like it's like that. You'd have to be in on the joke. 

[00:07:09] Andrew Gold: Yeah. And we all know wrestlers or fans of wrestling who take it so seriously that they get to the point where they sort of, on some level, believe that it's real. And you'll know that if you ever ask a wrestler, whether it's real or not, because they go completely berserk at you for even suggesting it might not be. 

[00:07:25] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:07:26] Andrew Gold: So you do have to get to a state of believing it's real. These people, who are often young and in this exorcist case, young women, are very vulnerable and they've got things like OCD, anorexia, bulimia. Schizophrenia is a common one. So all these sort of mental conditions that resemble in some way, how you might expect a demon to take hold of you. You know, your body is doing things and your mind is doing things that you don't want it to do. That's a very scary thought. And when you're surrounded by people who are saying to you, like you've got two choices, you either go to a psychiatrist, who's going to talk to you for like 10 years and maybe you might get slightly better because that's where we're at really. I mean, it's hard to treat mental illnesses. It's a lot of work or you've got someone going, "Oh, but haven't you heard about this exorcist fellow. He'll just take you for one hour and do a thing on you. Get a demon out," and then your mind is going to go towards that. The confirmation bias, you'll only listen to that one and you're going to go, "Well, it's obviously a demon." Basically, he goes around taking women out of a psychiatric ward who are suffering with things like schizophrenia. 

[00:08:30] Jordan Harbinger: Literally taking them out of a hospital? 

[00:08:32] Andrew Gold: Yeah. There's a particular one that I went to go and see. His assistant, we find out during the film, who's called Laura. She had schizophrenia and was basically in a mental institution and psychiatric ward for her entire adolescents. And as soon as she came to the end of adolescence, she got to an age where she's allowed to check herself out. And the exorcist got her from there and did an exorcism on her. It's called El Exorcismo de Laura, the exorcism of Laura on YouTube. You can find. 

[00:09:01] Jordan Harbinger: We'll link it in the show notes. 

[00:09:02] Andrew Gold: I'm giving him like marketing and stuff now. 

[00:09:05] Jordan Harbinger: Go ahead and give this guy a bunch of Google Adwords money. No, I mean, look, it is interesting to watch. You can just also just watch your documentary, which I assume he doesn't get paid for.

[00:09:14] Andrew Gold: Yes. 

[00:09:14] Jordan Harbinger: We'll link to that in the show notes. Don't give this con man guy, any Google Adwords money. And by the way, one note on the wrestling, wrestling is incredibly athletic. The athleticism is very real. The performance aspects are very real. These guys are really, really badass strong fit performers. I don't want people to be like, "Oh, Jordan thinks that wrestling is a joke." It's like Cirque du Soleil. It's very, very, very impressive. It's just they're not really smashing each other's spines over their knees, at least not on purpose. That part is acting right. So before we get a thousand emails about how wrestling is a real thing, and I should step in the ring with stone cold Steve Austin, to tell him that it's not real. I get that. That element is real. The pain part is also somewhat real, but they're also not trying to kill each other like it looks. 

[00:09:56] Andrew Gold: It's a slight indictment of the world and how we all are, that you have to say that because you didn't say that they were not impressive. But I agree, you do have to now state in case people, because people want to misinterpret, don't they?

[00:10:08] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Or they're just really, really into wrestling. And they're like, "I can't believe that you don't think this is real." And they're going to mostly, it's not that they're going to be mad. Someone's going to take a lot of time to explain to me how it's real. And I don't want them to waste their time. I have friends who are semi-pro and actual pro wrestlers. I know these guys are beasts, right? It's like the equivalent of saying, "Oh, you're only a division one college level football player. You're not a real football player." It's like, no, you're a real football player just. Just cause you're not an MMA fighter, but you're a wrestler, it doesn't mean that you're not like tough and impressive and great. I always try to note these things because it's not just people get offended — my audience is great. Someone's going to spend like 30 minutes writing an email that I don't really need to read because I already know. And it's mostly that.

[00:10:52] Andrew Gold: Yeah, I get that. You'll get a lot of letters from people who believe in exorcisms. I've been getting them for years. 

[00:10:57] Jordan Harbinger: I don't know how many people in — look, write me, if you think exorcism is real. I'm not even sure how many, although in 250,000-plus whatever people who listen to this, there's going to be a few, but I don't think it's probably that many.

[00:11:09] Andrew Gold: You let me know. 

[00:11:10] Jordan Harbinger: Maybe I'll be surprised by the amount of people that believe that demons possessing people are real. I hope not. That seems obviously fake, right? 

[00:11:19] Andrew Gold: Yeah. I think it will be more on your YouTube page than people listening to the audio. It's the YouTube ones. 

[00:11:24] Jordan Harbinger: That's for sure. The YouTube comments are sewage and I never really read them. I have an intern that does that, but yeah, poor intern is like psychologically — speaking of psych, maybe they need an exorcism after handling some of the comments that I've seen on YouTube. 

[00:11:37] So this guy goes and grabs, and I say that sort of tongue in cheek, he grabs people from the psych ward and he's doing this. To be fair, some of that is placebo effect, right? Like he does an exorcism and they're like, "I am cured because some of them believe that at least for a while," or am I giving them too much credit? 

[00:11:54] Andrew Gold: No, no, no. It's absolutely the case. That was where, you know, you want to make a documentary interesting. You don't want to go in and say like, "Okay, this guy's obviously a fraud." "Oh, he was a fraud." And by the way, he is a fraud. 

[00:12:04] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:12:04] Andrew Gold: But the interesting part is where people did get better. And of course, placebo suggestion hypnosis. These things do work. It's just that they don't deal with the core issue. Now, the thing is, some people do have just temporary lapses of mental health, right? There's particularly adolescents. It's such a difficult age. So there are people who just sort of do need that sort of kick and they can get out of it. Relatively few, I mean, a lot of, most people, they've got real mental health issues, but some people need that sort of kick and they get up and then they sort of get to an age they're 20, 21, by the time. You know, other people, they'll be better for like a year, two years, three years, and then it all starts to fall apart again.

[00:12:43] So it's sort of, it's a temporary fix. But these people, as soon as the exorcisms were done, they were like, "Wow, I feel amazing. Like, everything's better. Like my OCD is gone. My bulimia is gone. I'm going to start eating now. I'm going to start everything." And it's like, "All right, slow down, slow down." And you know, every time, a few months later, or a year later, they're back to square one, unfortunately, but it does, it does sort of work.

[00:13:06] Jordan Harbinger: You followed up with some of the people and you're like, "Hey, are you still cured?" And they're like, "No, I'm back in the hospital." 

[00:13:10] Andrew Gold: Yeah. 

[00:13:10] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:13:11] Andrew Gold: That's it. So, it took a lot longer than we thought. So I was going back and checking a few months later and then a few months after that, and I was like, "Oh my God, they're not going to fit in with the narrative that I'm trying to do here. Oh, no, they're still better." 

[00:13:22] Jordan Harbinger: "Oh I might be wrong. Oh, wait. Nope. They're not better anymore." Like just the timeline wasn't stretched out enough. 

[00:13:27] Andrew Gold: Yeah. It took about a year and a bit. I went back to Argentina, went to see how they all were and yeah, there was three women and they were all back to square one. 

[00:13:37] Jordan Harbinger: A year though. It was a long time, but I'm guessing if they went in for like another exorcism, it might not then last a year. It might last like six months and then the next one is three months. And then pretty soon they need it every week or it stops working entirely. Because I'm thinking if I just needed an exorcism one afternoon, a year to not have an eating disorder or serious depression or OCD, I mean, that's kind of a fair trade, even if it's total bullshit, right? 

[00:14:00] Andrew Gold: Yeah. Like I was saying, particularly for adolescents who are probably going to get better in a couple of years anyway, and that sort of gets them through that stage. So exorcism isn't all bad. It's sort of in the way that it's right. It's right for the wrong reasons or it's wrong to the right reasons.

[00:14:13] Jordan Harbinger: Of course. 

[00:14:15] Andrew Gold: It's backwards, isn't it? 

[00:14:16] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:14:17] Andrew Gold: But I mean, so one person did say, "Oh God, he's a fraud, blah, blah, blah." And then another woman I spoke to said, "Yeah, he's awful. I hate him." Because she kept going back, you know, over the month, And it's exactly, as you said, she wants to get back more and more. And then the exorcist got frustrated with her and started saying like, "Look, you're not doing — there's something you're not doing right. You're obviously wrong and all these stuff."

[00:14:38] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I mean, you always blame the victim when your bullshit doesn't work. That's how cons work, right? 

[00:14:41] Andrew Gold: Exactly. 

[00:14:41] Jordan Harbinger: It's like, "You didn't believe hard enough." "Well, okay." "It's never like, "Oh, there's no such thing as an exorcism." Psych, right? You can't do that. 

[00:14:51] Andrew Gold: He wouldn't say that, no, but she, this particular woman was like — so I was like, "Oh great. Now she's going to turn to like therapy and stuff like that. How fantastic." And then she said, "So what I'm doing is I'm seeing a new priest who's going to be doing multiple exorcisms on me every week." And I was like, "Oh, congratulations." 

[00:15:05] Jordan Harbinger: "For just three times the price, you know, for my — yeah. I just have to not go to school anymore and I can pay for it." This is a stretch, but it's a little bit like multi-level marketing. You get people who do these MLMs and like some people go, "Wow, that was not good. It was a scam. I can't believe I've felt for that, lesson learned." But a huge number of them go, "Yeah. You know what? It turns out that this was kind of a scam," and I go, "Ooh, thank God." And then they go, "You know, I'm doing this other thing now." And I'm like, "No, it's a multi-level — this is another MLM." And they're like, "Yeah, the other one didn't work because dah, dah, dah. But this one works better. It's a different product and it's a better structure." And I'm like, "You're out of the frying pan into the fire. You have the same belief problem here. It's the same issue. You're just onto the next. It's almost like an abusive relationship." "That guy was really bad for me. He used to hit me and treat me poorly." "Doesn't the new guy do the same thing?" "Yeah. But it's a little bit different." "Well, okay. How?" And it's there's no, but it's not different. 

[00:15:54] Andrew Gold: It's exactly the same kind of thing. People will fall for things over and over again. And it doesn't even necessarily mean they're not intelligent. It's just like— 

[00:16:01] Jordan Harbinger: No, of course. 

[00:16:02] Andrew Gold: —flaw in their reasoning. 

[00:16:03] Jordan Harbinger: It's a flaw in the reasoning. And that's kinda what I wanted to talk about a little bit here. The documentary was interesting, right? Because in the beginning, you're not really sure if he believes in what he's doing. You know, there's no such thing as an exorcism. So we kind of start on the whole page of like, "Well, this is wrong, but like, is everyone delusional or just, you know, is he like, kind of in on that?" And then after a while you realize he is a two-bit con man pulling a ruse and taking his victims for the ride, but he's also — surprise, surprise — kind of a terrible person. Like, didn't he threaten you? There's a time where he brings you into a closet. What happened in the closet? 

[00:16:35] Andrew Gold: Well, so yeah, he started to get a bit tired with my line of questioning because I started to ask more about the young women that he was around. This one particular one, who was his assistant, who he had exorcised. I was asking him, you know, wherever her parents were. She was early 20s at this point and he sort of mid 50s and she'd been there for quite a few years at that point. I said, "Where are the parents?" And he's like, "They've moved abroad or something like that," which is unusual for Argentinians, but they've gone off somewhere. And this girl, a woman, Laura — and I was asking me a few little questions here and there. And at one point I was talking to another journalist who goes to speak to the exorcist all the time. And he's like the link between the exorcist there and all the newspapers in Argentina, this particular journalist. And he didn't like me being on his turf. So he basically told the exorcist that I had asked about Laura and him and said, "Why do they kiss each other?" Which I hadn't seen. 

[00:17:26] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, that's interesting. Did he make that up or did he go, "I know this is going to be a trigger point for him and it's true"?

[00:17:31] Andrew Gold: Yeah. I think that's what happened. 

[00:17:33] Jordan Harbinger: That's what it was. Huh? 

[00:17:34] Andrew Gold: I think so. Yeah. 

[00:17:35] Jordan Harbinger: Oh weird. 

[00:17:36] Andrew Gold: So I went to this mass where it was a big mass. There are loads of people fainting everywhere outside. Like I'm talking about thousands of people in the suburbs of Argentina. They're out in the church. The church is packed. This is pre-Corona time. They're out onto the street. The streets are like, shut down. There were so many thousands of people like going berserk. 

[00:17:55] Jordan Harbinger: This is his church. 

[00:17:56] Andrew Gold: Yeah. Yeah. So I turned up there one night, just expecting to just sort of talk to some of the people who are being exorcised and all this stuff and help perform an exorcism. I got to do them. Not believing in it, but just like, "Okay, this is how it works." And he's not there and the crowd are going like crazy. They're going, "Where is he?" It's getting towards midnight now. And then this Laura comes out and she says, "Andrew, can you just come backstage?" And I'm like, "Oh, what's this about? Okay. I don't know what's going on." So I go backstage and he ushers me into this little storeroom, like between a closet and a store room. And he wouldn't let my cameraman, David, go in. 

[00:18:30] And this was quite scary because we're out in the middle of nowhere at this point. We're really far from the center of Buenos Aires. We've got like nothing, nobody knows we're there. I sold this later to the BBC, but I made it just off my own back, just me and my friend Davids. We had no protection. We had no security, nothing. It's just the two of us there and a friend of another friend of ours who came as like an assistant. 

[00:18:50] So they sort of locked me in this room. There was like five or six of them. And they started becoming very abusive and getting right in my face and the exorcist comes right up to me and he goes like, "Why have you been asking so many people about my relationship with Laura?" And I was like, "Oh," and I was nervous. My legs are turning to jelly at this point because I'm thinking like they could kill me here. I'll just be another statistic out in the middle of this like area, you know? And I was like, "Oh, you know, it was just interesting that you've found her and you've helped her. Haven't you? And you've made everything better and all this stuff," and he goes, "But why did you say that we kiss on the lips?" And I was like, "Ah, I didn't say that." And then the other guy comes forward, the journalist, he goes, "Yes, you did." And then other people came forward going, "Yeah, you asked me that as well." "I had never asked that, it didn't even come into my mind." 

[00:19:34] Jordan Harbinger: That's interesting. They ganged up on you for this. It's so weird. 

[00:19:38] Andrew Gold: They really laid into me. My cameraman was trying to get in the room and he's like banging on the door. They're keeping him out. I didn't even think about it at this time, but at the time, sorry, but I had a microphone still on my lapel. So it was recording everything. And to be honest, you know, he ends up screaming and screaming and he's making me call him. Like, I'm like saying, "Yes," like si," and he's going like, "Yes, father." And I'm like, "Si, padre." And he's like, "I'm a bishop. You talk to me like a bishop." I'm like, "Si, obispo. Yes. Bishop," all this mad stuff. And it went on for like hours. In the film itself, we've got like five, six minutes of that. Like it's all kicking.

[00:20:15] Eventually, he sort of just lets us go. And he goes off to his mass with his thousands and thousands of people. And me and David, we are just like shaking, thinking, "God, we're going to die. We've got to get out of here." 

[00:20:26] Jordan Harbinger: I mean, there's thousands of people. And if he's like, "These are demons," they're going to tear you to shreds. They're going to tear you to absolute shreds, literally. 

[00:20:32] Andrew Gold: Yeah. He was saying things like that. He was saying, “The devil is in the house tonight. That's why I'm late," that kind of thing. David and I, he starts filming, because you've got to keep filming, he's filming me. He didn't get the video footage of me inside, of course, when I was being shouted at, but we got it all on audio. And he starts sort of filming me walk out and I'm having to like walk over like bodies and bodies on the floor in these little corridors, squeezing over and round people. They're all like foaming at the mouth. And they're looking at me like, you know, and that the priest had said something to the mall about something about the Falklands as well. He's going, "Look, they're British. They took the Falklands." So people are looking at us a bit — like we didn't know what was going to happen. We get outside eventually. It took so long to squeeze past all these bodies, squeezing past everyone on the street again. And eventually we sort of go towards like a dirt road, hoping that like a taxi will come. And then David says to me, "Oh, you know what? I had the cap on the camera the whole time that we were walking out." And I was like, "What do you mean?" "Okay, can we just go?" And he was like, he's like a proper director, and he's going, "No, no, no. We can't leave here without showing you leaving. We already didn't have you inside the closet, right? So what we're going to show you for the end of the film, you've got nothing." So I was like, "I'm not going back in there." And he's like, "You are." So we had to go back in. So we start, we go back up the street, climb over about a thousand bodies and all that stuff, and then turn around. Then David starts filming me from the back and I had to walk out again. 

[00:21:51] Jordan Harbinger: You're so lucky he didn't see you coming back and be like, "Okay, that's the last straw man."

[00:21:55] Andrew Gold: Yeah. We knew that. 

[00:21:57] Jordan Harbinger: You're so lucky. 

[00:21:58] Andrew Gold: Yeah. 

[00:21:59] Jordan Harbinger: Good God. 

[00:22:00] Andrew Gold: We worked on that film for like months of our life and it had to be right. And the thing is without him going mental like that at the end, we had an okay film, you know, and I wasn't a known entity. 

[00:22:11] Jordan Harbinger: No. That really did make it. It made it because he was so batshit crazy at the end. You were just like, "Okay, not only are you a fraud, but you're an aggressive sort of sociopath as well from the sound of it." 

[00:22:21] Andrew Gold: Yeah. 

[00:22:22] Jordan Harbinger: And it really did. He really did sort of like do the exact opposite of what he probably intended on doing. Like, he was like, "I'm going to scare them. They're never going to show this." Meanwhile, it's like, "Look at this crazy fool we got on camera. You're never going to believe this." BBC was like, "I wasn't really going to buy it. But nah, I got my checkbook out because of that mental breakdown that this dude has in the last five minutes of the documentary." He is a psycho. 

[00:22:45] Andrew Gold: A hundred percent. And we didn't realize that sort of the next day, David and I were talking, we thought, "Wait, did we record that bit when I was in the room?" You know, it was all like that. "Have we got that and we listened back to it?" And now, we're no longer scared at this point, we're just listening to the edit. And we were just like giggling and laughing. He made us, he made the film, and he was livid when it went out in the end. He sent us some very angry emails, but you know, what can you do? 

[00:23:12] Jordan Harbinger: You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Andrew Gold. We'll be right back.

[00:23:17] Special thanks to Intuit, the company powering products like TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint, and Credit Karma. 

[00:23:22] This episode is also sponsored by StoryWorth. Now, this is a very cool, unique sponsor. This holiday season, right? I wanted to do something more special since my mom who turned 80 this year is not going to be around forever, unfortunately. And that's why I sent my mom's StoryWorth. This is an online service that will help write their life stories into a book, which is a cool heirloom that you can pass down to your kids, grandkids. So what they do at StoryWorth is they email your relative or friend a thought provoking question of your choice. So you pick from a list of questions. And your mom, for example, answers them and they turn it into a book which includes photos. It's a keepsake. I've learned so much about my mom from this product. I can't believe what StoryWorth has pulled out of my mother that I didn't know. And I just can't recommend this enough. I want to give this to just like everybody important in my life, because the answers to these unique questions are so telling they really illustrate personality. You find out all these cool things that happened or happened to or around the person that you love. So once Jayden is old enough, this will be a great way for him to learn more about his grandparents too. I just can't recommend this highly enough. 

[00:24:30] Jen Harbinger: With StoryWorth, I'm giving those I love most, a thoughtful, personal gift from the heart and preserving their memories and stories for years to come. Go to storyworth.com/jordan and save $10 on your first purchase. That's storyworth.com/jordan to save $10 on your first purchase. 

[00:24:45] Jordan Harbinger: This episode is also sponsored by Simple Mobile. At Simple Mobile, you get the no contract advantage. Those other mobile companies make you think you're in control, but you're really not. They lure you in with shiny new phones and then lock you into long-term contracts. But Simple Mobile is different. You can get a 30-day plan starting at 25 bucks. You can also get the latest smartphones, or if you have a compatible phone you love, you can bring it. Just text BYOP to 611611 to see if your phone is compatible. It's the reliability you need when you need it all on a powerful nationwide 5G network with no mystery fees, no activation fees, and no contract — ever. All for less money and no contract — ever. 5G capable device and SIM required. Actual availability, coverage, and speed may vary. 5G network not available in all areas. 5G upload speed, not yet available message and data rates may apply. Visit simplemobile.com/privacy policy for — you guessed it, the privacy policy. Service plan required for activation. Terms at simplemobile.com. Simple Mobile, out with the old, in with the simple. 

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[00:26:05] And don't forget, we've got worksheets for many of the episodes. If you want some of the drills and exercises talked about during the show, they're in one easy place. That link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com/podcast.

[00:26:16] Now back to Andrew Gold. 

[00:26:19] This is a guy who probably doesn't really want to attract that much. Like he wants to be famous in his little province, but the last thing he wants — I mean, Argentina is, it's a developed country, right? There's a district attorney or whatever equivalent somewhere in Buenos Aires, who's probably like, "I could make my career, getting this guy off the map and putting him in prison for defrauding all of these people." Like he wants attention in so far as that attention is marketing. But he doesn't want negative attention insofar as it's obvious that he is raking poor and indigenous and rural people over the coals in the name of, what? The Catholic church, which is probably also not super thrilled about him. 

[00:26:58] Andrew Gold: Lutheran. 

[00:26:59] Jordan Harbinger: Lutheran, okay. By the way, did you end up calling anyone who's like a real bishop? Because obviously I'm guessing he's a fake. Like the whole thing's fake, right? He's not licensed or trained or anything. 

[00:27:08] Andrew Gold: Well, it's very complicated because in my mind I'm an atheist and I respect everybody else's so I think all of it's sort of fake. And it just feels like different levels of fakery just to me personally. And so we did, yeah, I emailed like the Argentine Lutheran whatever. And they said they didn't know who he was. And then I emailed like an American one and then they said they did know who he was and that he had like turned up for an exam. It was something confusing like that. It was something rather, but I don't know how hard it is to take that exam and become a Lutheran exorcist anyway.

[00:27:41] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. Of course. Look, I understand that you don't believe in the church, the doctrine of the church and that's fine, but aside from all of that they're still kind of — like, I don't know about Freemasonry or anything like that, but I can't just walk around being like, "Yeah, I'm a freemason. Are you? You want our email list?" you know, whatever. No — and if you say that you're a rabbi, someone can go, "Oh, in what Schule?" Or belief aside, there's still a hierarchical organization that has to say you're allowed to do whatever it is you're doing in the name of our church, I assume, right? Otherwise, what's the Pope doing? There's a whole structure for this whole thing. Yeah, maybe we don't go there, but there's a whole structure for this whole thing where it seems like somebody would have a vested interest in being like, "Oh, this is a scammer, who's literally using the name of our church to con people out of money." Because the dude is making bank that has to be, anybody who has thousands of followers who are there on the floor, riding around and paying him, even if they're paying them five bucks for an exorcism. And it's probably way more than that. How much was it? Did you get a price quote? Is there a price list in the front? 

[00:28:45] Andrew Gold: He's very slippery about it. He always insists whenever anyone asks that they're totally, totally free. He was like, "It's the Lord's work. It's all free." But he has a shop and the shop sells stuff like sunflower oil or whatever, and tiny, tiny little vials of sunflower oil, which would cost like, you know, 10 cents or less. And he'll sell them for like 10 pounds each. 

[00:29:07] Jordan Harbinger: So 10 British pounds. So what is that like 15 bucks or something like that?

[00:29:10] Andrew Gold: Yeah. 13, 14 bucks, or whatever. And so, yeah, everybody's sort of, you come for the exorcism. Everybody's coming to watch and then you stay for the shop and you stay for it. It's a clever setup they've got, it's smart. It's horrible but it's smart. 

[00:29:26] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Like I can't help it if people buy 13 magical t-shirts that are museum gift shop. The museum is free. What are you complaining about, right? 

[00:29:33] Andrew Gold: Yeah. 

[00:29:33] Jordan Harbinger: But you need this. I assume you need the sunflower oil and the holy water and all this other stuff to keep the demons away from you for the period after your exorcism. So you're really spending, even if you're only spending 13 bucks, you're probably spending way more at the shop. These are people that maybe make that kind of whatever they're spending in a few weeks or even a month, depending on how rural this area really is. So he's making a lot of money. It's a very vested interest in keeping the scam going. And at the end of the documentary, it's pretty clear that him and this, like 20-year-old girl are romantically involved and he's probably he's minimum what? He's kind of like three times her age or something or almost. 

[00:30:09] Andrew Gold: We found pictures after like going through snooping through Facebook and everything. We found these pictures that had been put up of him with Laura on holidays, several different holidays in like Madrid and places like that. And again, for someone from this part of the world to be holidaying in Madrid and Europe and stuff, it's almost unheard of for people from that sort of area, that part of Buenos Aires. So he's making good money and yeah, I don't know why he's taking her on these holidays and you know, it's all a bit, you know, it's fishy. 

[00:30:37] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's self-explanatory that it's sketchy and that he's a fraud. So you kind of then have this presumption that he's up to no good kind of all around 360, like plot twists. He was the demon the whole time. 

[00:30:49] Andrew Gold: Yeah. He thinks I'm the demon, you know, and we sort of juxtapose a bit of him saying that about me being the devil in his house and that kind of thing. And also, I can't say he's a fraud because the BBC lawyers advised me against of actually saying he is a fraud. So it's possible he believes in what he does. And I don't really know, but there you go. I mean, he doesn't speak English, so it doesn't matter. 

[00:31:09] Jordan Harbinger: Right. I'll say it. He's a fraud. And that's just my opinion, man. You've lived in a lot of different places. You speak a lot of different languages. I mean, I rarely meet people that speak. What is it? Five languages. Wait, is it five, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese. Am I missing anything besides English? 

[00:31:24] Andrew Gold: Well, here's the thing. I think it's a bit sneaky because I phrase it as I learned to speak five languages. And one of those is English. 

[00:31:31] Jordan Harbinger: Right. So you're like letting people assume that you're at the same level potentially with all of these, but really— 

[00:31:36] Andrew Gold: Well also there's a sixth one. It's like, I've learned speak five. They're like, "Well, you've already got English, what are the other five?" 

[00:31:42] Jordan Harbinger: Right, right. Okay. Yeah. Clever as if five languages is something to sneeze at and you're like need to be tricky to layer one in. Why does speaking the foreign language help other people underestimate you? You kind of talked about that with me pre-show, and Louis Theroux, I love that guy. People who don't know who he is as a journalist as well, who he's kind of like this nerdy English guy that just stumbling around, doesn't know what he's doing, you know, ends up in a Scientology camp or cult. Is it the accent or is it the fact that he's like a 6"5' weighs, you know, 110 pounds soaking wet, nerdy looking dude who kind of is good at bumbling into things or making it look like he's doing that? Is it real? Or is it the language? 

[00:32:22] Andrew Gold: I've watched him a lot and you closely because I grew up wanting to do what he does and that's part of why I do what I do. And he says, he's just being himself, but you know, he's half American. His dad is Paul Theroux, who is a famous American travel writer. His cousin is Justin Theroux who's married to, was married to Jennifer Anniston. So he knows the American culture very, very well. He started by that. He learned through Michael Moore, he worked with Michael Moore on TV nation. So that's how he got his start. So he's very aware of the subtle communication between sort of Americans and Brits.

[00:32:57] When he walks into this room with a Nazi, the neo-Nazis would probably be used to maybe an aggressive interviewer or something. And Louis comes in and he doesn't judge, although he probably is in his head, you know, and just says, "Oh, hello." And it's like, oh, that's not what the Nazi guy expected. And he gets them to sort of be themselves. And you do see the humanity through that, but then they also let their bad side slip out as well. That's what Louis does, which is brilliant. He doesn't do too many documentaries in non-English speaking countries. That's one of the reasons I wanted to learn a few of these languages, you know, Spanish. So I could do South American documentaries. That's where there's loads of interesting things, you know, South America, German because I was looking into pedophiles over there, and French, I just loved the language, Portuguese, Brazil, you know, it's crazy and so on. 

[00:33:43] When you go over there, just like Louis with his English accent, seeming a bit tweak and quaint to American is I know that when I'm talking to the exorcist at the very beginning of the film, for example, The Exorcist, I'm making fun of him. And I'm saying to him, like, "So how many vampires do you know?" And just ridiculous things and I wouldn't be able to get away with that in England, probably not even in America, because they would know I'm making fun of them, but because I'm sort of speaking, almost broken Spanish, they can hear I'm sort of a foreigner, they're treating me as this sort of naive innocent guy who couldn't possibly have an ulterior motive. So it does give me that advantage. You know, this is similar to British American thing, but even more, I think. 

[00:34:22] Jordan Harbinger: It's interesting because you'd think it might almost be the opposite. Like, "Dang, this dude's Portuguese is pretty good. Maybe he's not a total dumb ass that I can fool with my corny fake exorcism routine," right? 

[00:34:32] Andrew Gold: So my Portuguese or my Spanish is not as good as the local Spanish or Portuguese. So I'm always going to sound a bit stupid. 

[00:34:38] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's good. I think now I'm like, "Ah, this is why people like it when I speak to them in a foreign language because I seem even dumber than I actually am." That is endearing. Yes, that is endearing. 

[00:34:49] Andrew Gold: Yeah. 

[00:34:50] Jordan Harbinger: There's something to that. I like that. Okay. Interesting. I don't want to get too good at these languages I'm studying. You know what I mean? I don't want to lose that advantage. 

[00:34:58] Tell me about the crazy baby lady. This one was you spent a long time learning from people about belief and, and, and this woman, I don't want to go too deep into her story. Essentially she's like this anti-abortion activist. But she's complex in many ways more complex than you might think. And I'm assuming you came to the same conclusion. 

[00:35:17] Andrew Gold: I got a bit maybe frustrated with the exorcist film and that I wasn't able to be this objective journalist. So I went into the abortion one trying to be as objective as possible. Some people would say, that's not my debate to have my fight to have, whatever. I should say, put my cards on the table, I do lean towards the pro-choice side myself, but I totally understand and respect both sides. And it was just really interesting meeting this woman who just as soon as I saw her, she's in Argentina, you know, people calling her the crazy baby lady, I was like, "Right, she's got to be the next documentary." Documentary is about things like abortion that's usually a little bit more serious and worthy, and not the kind of things I make. I like to make quite sensationalist entertaining stuff. I just really enjoy that. 

[00:35:57] Jordan Harbinger: Whimsical? Is that the right word for it? Maybe not. 

[00:36:00] Andrew Gold: As well as well. Yeah. Well, there are throwbacks to — you know, you don't meet many people like the exorcist nowadays at least in Europe and fewer and fewer in the US maybe. And the crazy baby lady, she's a little bit like a Westboro Baptist Church kind of character, just so eccentric. So, you know, I've got to get into her head. So it took months and months to get her onboard because she's not very trusting because a lot of pro-choice people send her photos of their aborted fetuses and stuff like that to annoy her to and stuff like that. But eventually she said yes, and she took me on the school run with her kids to pick up her kids and she made us dinner and stuff like that. And she was just lovely. She was so nice to me. 

[00:36:40] But then the next day I would see her in the news again, outside an abortion clinic or a clinic where they are screaming at young women who are very vulnerable and in a position where they don't know what to do with their lives. And she's like screaming at them throwing like plastic fetuses at them. And I'm like, "How do I put that woman together with the woman that I was with yesterday, who's making me lunch and whatever." And I saw her a little bit, like, you know, we all have an aunt or a grandmother or a father or a brother who just has different opinions to us. It made me really think about belief. And I thought, "Does she really, really in her heart of hearts think that a one-day-old fetus as in the conception was the day before, does she really think that that is killing a life? Or is it something deeper? Is she concerned maybe about losing her conservative way of life against a current of progressives, who she sees as holding different ideals to.

[00:37:33] So it gets so complicated and I think it always, and always with these sort of culture war debates, that goes far beyond the actual issue at hand. It's not necessarily about choice and it's about two — one conservative elite, bourgeoisie who doesn't want to lose that status. And another sort of progressive younger, normally demographic who wants to have more control and equality. And it's so complicated, but it just made me think like she doesn't think that she's doing evil. She doesn't go to these abortion clinics thinking I'm going to be horrible today by screaming at people. And then you think about anything in life, apart from psychopaths, does anyone do things knowing that it's bad and horrible. It's really complicated. 

[00:38:15] So that was a huge learning curve for me. And I've tried to sort of be as objective as possible in journalism because that's a dying art objectivity in journalism. It's all about activism nowadays. 

[00:38:26] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, you're not wrong. I think she was especially complex because as you uncovered later or you disclosed later in the documentary, you're going to have to correct the record here. Her father was some sort of accomplice right-hand man to a fascist leader who had actually murdered thousands of leftist or people who are his political enemies that he said are leftist, which, whether that is true or not. And then he stole their children and sold them to people that were a part of his sort of inner circle or agreed with his political beliefs. So this guy's like Hitler adjacent, and then his right-hand man, his pseudo Goebbels or whatever or Himmler is her dad. And now she's just this fervent conservative, but you can't really be a fascist in today's Argentina, at least not so openly, so she just like takes this one little element of that regime maybe, and then turns it up to 11 and just becomes the crazy baby lady.

[00:39:21] Andrew Gold: Yeah. It's hard to know what's going on in her mind, but yeah, you're right. Her father was the lawyer to Videla who was a dictator. I think it was the '80s who, as you say, yeah, murder people and disappeared their babies. So in Argentina, even now, every now and then they will reunite a baby with like their original grandmother or their mother or something like that. And it will be cause for national celebration, you should see this stuff. I'm sure you can find it on YouTube of the moments that they're reunited and it's like bitter sweet and devastatingly emotional. But the whole country celebrates these moments and her family is very well known over there and sort of very connected. And she was part of that, I suppose. I mean, at the same time, it's not her fault she was born into that. 

[00:40:03] Jordan Harbinger: And she was a child or a teenager at most. So it's hard to blame her, but her father was obviously a capital POS, right? Like her father was a horrible person who knowingly destroyed tens of thousands of lives. Or was an accomplice there too? 

[00:40:18] Andrew Gold: Yeah, it appears to be the case. And I don't know him personally. I'm very careful. Now, you see I'm being careful— 

[00:40:25] Jordan Harbinger: You have to be. I don't have to be careful. 

[00:40:26] Andrew Gold: —even if the person helps disappear. 

[00:40:28] Jordan Harbinger: Sue me and we'll get the evidence out on the record. You know, I'll happily do discovery to see if your father was a fascist POS who murdered people. Go ahead and send me all your documents.

[00:40:37] Andrew Gold: What's hard is it I spent so much time with her and because I had to ask her those exact questions I had to say, "Is it not hypocritical for you to be the face of the pro-life campaign? Given you come from the family almost directly responsible for disappearing, so many children, you know? 

[00:40:52] Jordan Harbinger: And adults for that matter, like you were a murderer — you think fetus murder is bad. Try murdering 30,000 fully grown adults and then stealing their children, which is what your dad was helping Videla do. 

[00:41:01] Andrew Gold: Yeah. But maybe that's why she does what she does in some twisted way. 

[00:41:06] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's interesting. She's an interesting figure. What does it say about belief in the mind? You mentioned that you learn a lot about the human mind and belief and people talk about the need for better critical thinking, which I do all the time. I talked to a lot of people about critical thinking. I love it. It's the core element of the show, but the real core skill here really is skepticism so that we don't end up having our brains take us on an emotional ride in the first place. It's just that I don't put the word skepticism in the intro to the show because people confuse that with cynicism and for other reasons as well. We want to mitigate the emotional response and the cognitive bias. But what did you learn or what do you feel people should learn from this particular story or these stories that you present?

[00:41:46] Andrew Gold: Well, she's pretty smart, right? And critical thinking — so I think back to someone I had on my podcast called David Robson. He wrote The Intelligence Trap, a book that came out, I suppose, last year. And it's all about how the smartest people we know often made the biggest mistakes. And he looks into people like Einstein, for example, who in his later years made a lot of mistakes. But then the big one for me was the writer of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle was the writer, Sherlock Holmes. He believed in fairies at a time, by the way, where nobody did believe in fairies. He wrote Sherlock Holmes, you know, the master of deduction, which you could say isn't just a synonym for critical thinking. You know, he's the master of critical thinking, of being able to think in a logical rational way. He invented that character. He must be a genius himself, Arthur Conan Doyle. And yet he believed in fairies because he saw a child that did a prank. 

[00:42:37] There was a couple of 15-year-old girls in like, I don't know when, it was the '30s or something in the UK, who put up like a picture of fairies. And he was like, "Well, it's clearly true." And where they had put a pin through that belly to just put the picture up, he thought that was a belly button. And he was like, "Oh, it's proof that fairies can have children." And this is how Arthur Conan Doyle fell out with Houdini, who was his best friend at the time who was more of a logical thinker, I suppose. If the master of critical thinking can lead us to fairies and fairies having children and procreating, that sort of put me in a place where I thought, "Okay, critical thinking is not enough." 

[00:43:10] I mean, the crazy baby lady is super smart. She's really, really smart. And she's come to a totally different conclusion to what I've come to and what many of us have come to with regards to pro-choice and pro-life, right? How often do you see on Twitter people are saying, "Oh, we need to make critical thinking more of that"? And they're saying something bonkers— 

[00:43:29] Jordan Harbinger: All the time. 

[00:43:30] Andrew Gold: Yeah. Who's critical thinking, are we doing like, so things are very subjective. Things are very complicated, I think. And I think this is just me and I might be totally wrong in this. But what I've learned from interviewing with these people is just to try not to judge too much and to try not to go too far one way or the other, and to stay reasonably grounded. I think that's all you can do and accept that you're probably wrong about a lot of stuff. That's all we can do. 

[00:43:54] Jordan Harbinger: Here's a phrase I never thought I would utter on the show. Let's talk about pedophiles. 

[00:43:58] Andrew Gold: Sure. 

[00:43:59] Jordan Harbinger: You know, not many people are covering this, at least not in depth and certainly not in the way that you're doing it because it is, so the taboo is super strong. It's a repulsive topic. As a father. I have a gut reaction and I don't think I could have done this myself and remained objective in any way. Tell me about this because it really is — I don't want to say fascinating and interesting, but I guess it really is. I mean, it truly is. It's also really disgusting. Just so people are clear on this. 

[00:44:25] Andrew Gold: Yeah. It's another one. That's like because I deal with controversial subjects, I'm sort of drawn to them and drawn to the darkness. I'm fascinated by things that were told, "Don't talk about that." And I'm like, since I was a kid, I was, "Why? Why don't talk about it? What's the problem with talking?" Some people would argue, you know, by talking about it, you're enabling and whatever. You're right to put out that sort of disclaimer. And I would echo it by saying like, "Yeah, of course, like, it's a really tricky subject. It's really taboo and you know, you and I would never, ever defend any adult touching — you have to go into, into this subject by saying that. I'm not about to defend them. I'm actually just interviewing them. 

[00:45:01] I moved to Berlin and I was thinking, "What can I do next?" You know, I've done exorcisms. I've done abortion. And it so happens that Berlin has the world's only clinic for pedophiles that doesn't ever report them to authorities. The clinic basically lets these people who they know could offend children. Let them back onto the street without telling the police. The flip side of that is a lot more people actually voluntarily go to the clinic because they know they're not going to be reported. It's a really complicated one and people want to sort of shut there is to it. And people don't want to talk about it. But the fact is that in the US right now, I think it was one in nine girls are sexually abused. That's not even including other kinds of abuse, neglect, and physical, whatever. That is tens of millions of women. In men, it's slightly less, but it's still a lot of people. You're talking about tens and tens of millions of people in the US.

[00:45:50] Horrible. That's horrifying. Yeah. And what do we do? We just sort of sit there and go like, "Well, let's not talk about pedophilia because that makes us feel bad." And it's like, come on. If you want to stop criminals, you know, if you want to stop the murderers and stuff, you look at the murders, you try to understand. I went to this clinic and I started talking to the doctors and over the months after that, they gradually started introducing me to some of the patients, took ages to get access to them and to earn their trust, to actually meet them. 

[00:46:18] So, yeah, I ended up meeting loads and loads of different, you know, they're pedophiles. That's what they are. Even now a skirt around the word because the word has so much power now. 

[00:46:28] Jordan Harbinger: It's creepy. It's a creepy word too. I mean, everything about it is just disgusting really. 

[00:46:33] Andrew Gold: Yeah. You can't think of a creepier one really? Which I guess, again, it drew me to the subject, but it was difficult. The first guy I met, called Max. It's not his real name. They don't give me their own names. And he said to me, "Yeah, I can meet you today. Come down to this address." So I go down to the address and it turns out it's a public swimming pool. And I'm like, "That is weird," because by the way, I should add all the people I met are supposedly non-offenders who have graduated from this program in Berlin. So these are supposed to be very, very well behaved guys. 

[00:47:03] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. 

[00:47:03] Andrew Gold: And I turn up to interview him in the pool or whatever outside the swimming. And he's there and he hasn't told me this. He said there are three young girls, 11 and 12 years old. Yeah. So I was petrified. Firstly, at the whole situation that's going on, but also on a selfish level, like what the hell am I doing here? Am I an accessory to something? 

[00:47:23] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Like what happens if something happens? And he's like, "Well, I was there with Andrew Gold," and you're like, "Nah, I was interviewing him." Well, you must know something about it. It didn't strike you as strange that a grown man was there with three young girls. "Yeah, it did. That was the point of the interview." Yeah. That's so weird. I don't even know if I can handle that seriously. 

[00:47:38] Andrew Gold: Man, I had to be very careful and you know, it was a weird thing, actually. I didn't expect this to happen because I'm very emotionally sort of stable. I mean, stable in the sense that I don't get overwhelmed too easily. But after I spoke to him, he told me he was babysitting the girls and that the mother was aware of his condition and just fully trusted him.

[00:47:56] Jordan Harbinger: I don't freaking believe that. Not for a minute. What mother—? I mean, she's, that's, no. Wow. 

[00:48:03] Andrew Gold: But you know what? I met her and she is somebody who's an extreme leftist. And she believes that these people are given a hard time. She believes him, she trusts him. She's known him for a few years and she said, you can take my kids swimming. And the thing is, I get the idea of wanting to trust people — you know, just because you're attracted to maybe women of your own age, right? It doesn't mean you go and attack them. So I get— 

[00:48:28] Jordan Harbinger: That's true.

[00:48:29] Andrew Gold: —concept. 

[00:48:29] Jordan Harbinger: But women, my own age can consent also— 

[00:48:32] Andrew Gold: Exactly. 

[00:48:33] Jordan Harbinger: —children cannot. 

[00:48:34] Andrew Gold: This is the thing, and he's obviously getting some sort of pleasure from taking them swimming as well. So it's just so inappropriate. It's so out of order and I went across to the other side of the street, I left quite quickly. I straight away emailed the clinic just to sort of say like, "Hey, I've seen this happen. This doesn't seem right. What's going on? Surely you've told him he's not supposed to be doing this." And after doing that, I sat down in this park and I just sort of wept. It was such a strange emotion. I didn't expect it, it just took hold of me. It's never happened in my life. Apart from that one moment, I just sort of broke down in a park shaking. Someone came over. "Are you okay?" And I was like, "Oh, I'm fine." I obviously can't tell them what I've just witnessed. And I went and spoke to the clinic and they said, "Look, there's nothing we can do. We don't have his actual real details. And for all we know, he's not offended anyone, anyway."

[00:49:25] Jordan Harbinger: This episode is sponsored in part by Intuit, the company, powering products like TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint, and Credit Karma into it works for what you work for and whether that's a small business or just you as an individual. Intuit's innovative products make managing your finances and setting yourself or your business up for success simple. For individuals using TurboTax online, error recognition catches mistakes you might've missed because you're juggling your taxes and chasing a toddler around the house. That's what it's like around here anyway. Like when you're inputting bank information to get your tax return, if you misplace a digit in your routing number or your account number, Intuit's AI can detect common errors like this on the fly. So you can correct it and get your return actually on time. Keeping accurate accounts can be time-consuming. Sometimes I can't keep track of it all. I mean, I never can actually. So I partner with a QuickBooks certified bookkeeper who maintains my books for me, right from my laptop. They understand my type of business, which few people do, and they manage my books with accuracy. So I can focus more on creating the best podcast for all of you. More time means more amazing guests. And with Mint's budgeting tools and recommendations, it can help you save for whatever you want. For me, I'm putting my gym equipment in the backyard so that I can park the freaking car in the garage. Discover how Intuit's innovative products can help you see what's possible at intuit.com. 

[00:50:40] This episode is also sponsored by Glenfiddich. Glenfiddich breaks from the single malt scotch whisky norm, and helps redefine what it means to be rich. Very easy these days to get bogged down in material success when the currency of the new rich is getting more time and enjoyment out of what we've already got. Andrew Gold, this is an interesting cat. So he spent a bunch of time traveling, living in different countries, learning a bunch of different languages. And now he chases really interesting people and stories around the world and makes little documentaries about them. And that's how he earns his living. I mean, does that sound familiar? This guy and I have a lot in common and I really clicked with him. And I think he really has a great idea of how to enjoy and get the best out of his work and out of his life. And I really commend him for that. And it's thanks to Glenfiddich that I'm able to bring guests like this on the show and present them to you. 

[00:51:26] Jen Harbinger: Skillfully crafted, enjoy responsibly. Glenfiddich 2021 imported by William Grant and Sons Inc. New York, New York. 

[00:51:33] Jordan Harbinger: This episode is also sponsored in part by Peloton. It's tempting to wait until the holidays to start achieving your fitness goals. It's cold. The roads are hazardous to go out. It's so cozy at home, but Peloton makes working out simple, convenient, and fun, and they make the workout experience. So entertaining. You'll actually look forward to working out. Peloton has got a powerhouse roster of instructors like Jen's favorite Cody Rigsby who brings an infectious energy to class, always makes us laugh out loud. If you get motivated by being around others who are also breaking a sweat, you never have to work out alone on Peloton. There's a camera. You can sweat with other people while you ride with coworkers, family, friends, perfect strangers. You can work out with interest groups like working moms of Peloton or Peloton parents send high fives on the leaderboard. Their community is really strong. They've really got this right. And Peloton also has an endless class variety to keep your workouts feeling fresh, cycling, strength, yoga bar, which is very difficult meditation, which is even more difficult and more. 

[00:52:28] Jen Harbinger: Visit onepeloton.com to learn more. Try Peloton classes free for the rest of the year, new members only. Visit onepeloton.com/app to learn more. Terms apply. Peloton, when your workout is a joy, it's a joy to work out. 

[00:52:44] Jordan Harbinger: I'm hearing it secondhand, it's traumatizing. There's a minor trauma in me hearing about it because I'm sitting there thinking like, "Yeah, you're right. Okay. There's women around me. I'm attracted to them, I don't go and attack them." The difference is if I'm around a woman, she's like, "Ah, maybe Jordan is attracted to me." Okay, so she's familiar with that situation. She's an attractive woman. I'm 40, she's probably in her 30s or 40s or 50s, whatever. This is a familiar situation, which she knows how to handle. An 11-year-old child has no idea what is going on in another person's head. They've never experienced that before. And it just reminds me the fact that this guy and this dumb ass mother thinks that that's okay. It's just like saying, you're a heroin addict, and I'm like, "Oh, you know what? I have all this heroin. Can you hold onto it? Don't do any of it though. That would be bad for you. And this is my heroin. You need to hang on to it. It's very important. I got to get it to a medical patient," and you go, "No problem. I am a heroin addict, but I'm not going to do your heroin." "Okay, great. I'll be back in three weeks." The idea that I would come back and expect you to have that drugs sitting there on your dresser, that you've looked at it every day. And for that to be completely untouched is ludicrous and irresponsible. And I would never expect anyone to do that. With your own children, I just can't even get close to wrapping my head around this. Talk about being blinded by your politics. How freaking stupid are you? 

[00:54:05] Andrew Gold: You're spot on. And that's a really good point about the blinded thing. Look, I met a lot of different patients and a lot of them were really, really well-meaning people who were, as far as I know, of course, I can only believe what they tell me, well behaved. The clinicians I spoke to do believe the vast majority of pedophiles, they make up one percent of the male population, which is a lot when you think about it. It's a lot of people. 

[00:54:27] Jordan Harbinger: That's a huge ass number of people. Yes. 

[00:54:29] Andrew Gold: Larger than the army. 

[00:54:31] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Look, if you're at a crowded gym, one of the people in there is a pedophile.

[00:54:34] Andrew Gold: That's right.

[00:54:34] Jordan Harbinger: Statistically speaking. 

[00:54:36] Andrew Gold: Well, your listeners, my listeners, there will be people among them. And I don't say this as a dig to anyone. There will be people who are listening now who will recognize this in themselves. Now, the vast majority never offend. And that's a relief because you wouldn't. You know it's wrong. So there were three types of pedophiles. There were the types who are basically psychopathic and they're going to do what they do anyway. We can't really stop them. We can try. You've got the type that would never offend. That's most of them, these are normal guys who, unfortunately, have this condition. They're never going to offend. Don't worry about them. So those are two types. Don't worry about them. 

[00:55:10] The problem is the middle, the ones in the middle who are tempted. And you talk about believing your own politics, the problem with all of us, not talking about it for anyone still listening, going like, "Oh, I don't want to talk about this." The problem is that the only people who do talk about it are them. And these people get together in communities and they tell each other, "Oh, it's not a problem if you babysit a bunch of kids." They need to be disavowed of that notion. And the only way that's going to happen is if we start to talk a little bit more openly, and that doesn't mean accepting what they do, it means criticizing what they do, but at least we're talking. At least we're saying, "Okay, what should somebody, somebody who might be listening now, what should they do?" Well, if they're in Germany, they can go and get help from a therapist who will disavow them of these cognitive biases. If they're in the states and they go to a therapist and say this, they will be reported to the police. If they're in Australia, same thing, UK, same thing. 

[00:56:03] Jordan Harbinger: By doing this reporting, we've basically ensured that people who want to go, "Dude, I got this weird ass problem." They literally have nowhere else to go, except for online where people are like, "Yeah, here's how you get away with this," or worse, right? 

[00:56:15] Andrew Gold: Yeah. I did a podcast recently, an episode with a geneticist, totally different subject, but it's Kathryn Paige Harden. She had a big argument with Sam Harris as well about genetics and stuff, but she's just written a book about eugenics. And the reason I mentioned it is because it's similarly controversial and she made the same point. She said, "If we can't talk about eugenics," and she doesn't mean she believes in eugenics, which is the concept that, you know, certain races are better than others, but she says, "Because it's so taboo, nobody talks about it. So the only people who know about eugenics are white supremacists in forums, all discussing it and using that cognitive bias to twist it to their own reasoning." That happens with any taboo group of people. If you make something taboo, you force them underground. 

[00:56:56] So what the clinicians say, you know, there are three risk factors that they teach these pedophiles who come in — and you've got to remember, like, these are people who are willingly coming in. There were bad people who don't come in. The ones who are willingly coming in, they want help. 

[00:57:09] Jordan Harbinger: They know that there's something wrong with them, right? 

[00:57:12] Andrew Gold: Yeah. 

[00:57:13] Jordan Harbinger: In terms of them being an anomaly and possibly dangerous. 

[00:57:16] Andrew Gold: Exactly. 

[00:57:16] Jordan Harbinger: A sociopath is not going to go, they're going to go, "Am I going to a therapist? I like being a horrible person who victimizes other people," right? That's them. And then there's people who are unaware of it. But as soon as it creeps up to consciousness, we want them to have somewhere to go. I can reluctantly get behind that. 

[00:57:32] Andrew Gold: Exactly. And you know what? It is hard because a lot of people listening to this, they haven't even thought about this stuff before.

[00:57:38] Jordan Harbinger: Of course. 

[00:57:38] Andrew Gold: This is very hard and I need to constantly remind myself that I've been dealing with it for two years now as I've been investigating it. So I have become a little, not exactly desensitized, but yeah, compared to the beginning, when I was weeping in a park. So what they've said, these clinicians, there are three risk factors for these people who might offend. One of them is being around children, right? That sounds pretty obvious. 

[00:57:58] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:57:58] Andrew Gold: But you'd be amazed because that episode of my podcast with a pedophile, it was episode six, a guy called Silas. 

[00:58:04] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I listened to it last night. 

[00:58:05] Andrew Gold: Yeah. So, as you recall, he was saying to me, like he needs to be around children and it will help him. And I said, what are you talking about? If you're further away from them, you can't touch them. And that's how strong the cognitive biases with him. He thought that being nearer to them makes them less dangerous somehow. So that's one of the things, the second thing was getting drunk or taking drugs that, of course, makes them more likely to offend. And the third thing is something that they can't control, but we can. That's stigmatization. That doesn't mean that you can't criticize — it's so complicated, but basically the clinic where they go to in Berlin keeps getting graffitied with "hang the pedophiles" and stuff like that. You know, we know we have criminals, we know with any kind of criminal in prisons and stuff, if you make them feel more part of society, then they're less likely to offend.

[00:58:50] So it just comes down to this, like, do we want to react emotionally and angry and show everybody how anti-pedophile we are, which should just be obvious, right? It should just be obvious that we are all anti-pedophile, but okay, do we want to just show that or do we actually want to stop children being abused?

[00:59:05] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, no, you're right. 

[00:59:06] Andrew Gold: Yeah. It's just about talking about it a little bit more. Not accepting even a morsel of like adult, child touching anything, never. The statistics on that and how it ruins a child's life are just like, you know, absolute, it ruins any child's life if anything like that happens to them. And these people need to learn that. 

[00:59:23] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I mean, this guy Silas from the podcast, this pido, he did say, "Oh, I would never do that because I know it harms the child so much." And he's like, "And I love children," and which was a creepy sort of thing to hear. 

[00:59:35] Andrew Gold: Yeah. 

[00:59:35] Jordan Harbinger: Because even though you know, that that's coming, but what was really weird for me man, was he's like, "Oh, I love making friends with children and playing with children, children love when I play with them because it's really fun." And I'm thinking, what kind of adult man? Like I have a two-year-old child I play with my son. Obviously, we play in the sandbox and we'd like wrestle and stuff like that. And I throw a ball back and forth. I would not for at least not for longer than a few minutes, really be that interested in playing with somebody else's kid. It's my kid, so it's fun. If it's my kid and other kids, it's fun. I have no interest in like going and playing soccer or going swimming with a bunch of ten-year-olds that doesn't even remotely— 

[01:00:14] Andrew Gold: It would be a chore. 

[01:00:14] Jordan Harbinger: It would be a chore. It would be an actual chore. I'd be babysitting. And it wouldn't be interesting, the relationship that I have with these people. And I put that in air quotes would be, there'd be nothing stimulating and interesting in any way at all. It would be rather irritating to have to deal with that even if my kid was there. I'd be like, all right, I'm spending time with my kid, watching him swim. The rest of it, it's literally just how much am I getting paid per hour to watch these kids freaking swim for the next three hours? I don't want to deal with this. You know, this guy was like, "Oh, we have these great fulfilling relationships." And I just don't understand. You had to be thinking, why are you stuck at age nine, mentally? You have to have some sort of traumatic damage to your brain or something in order to find a relationship with a child fulfilling when you're an adult.

[01:00:59] Andrew Gold: Yeah. 

[01:00:59] Jordan Harbinger: A friendship, like you're not on equal footing, you're an adult, their children. It just doesn't make any sense to me. 

[01:01:05] Andrew Gold: Yeah. You're insightful with the word stuck. There's no exact consensus at the moment in the world with doctors and stuff about what makes someone a pedophile. It's all really complicated.

[01:01:15] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[01:01:16] Andrew Gold: But there is a theory of sort of getting stuck, you know, that an eight-year-old might like an eight-year-old girl and a nine-year-old and a nine-year-old and 10 and 10. And it sort of changes as you get older. It even happens as you get into your 30s and 40s. I remember being 20 and looking at a 32-year-old woman is like, "Oh God, that's like my mom or something," you know? And then you get to 32 and it's suddenly they look different to what they, how they did. 

[01:01:37] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[01:01:37] Andrew Gold: That's most people. 

[01:01:39] Jordan Harbinger: You're 40 and somebody who's 32 is like, looks like a child and you're not an actual child. It should be clear here. They look like they're in college. And they're like, "I'm not in college. I'm 35." And then you just look in the mirror and you go, "Damn, I got these crow's feet creeping. I'm old now." 

[01:01:53] Andrew Gold: Well, you look fantastic, Jordan.

[01:01:55] Jordan Harbinger: It's the lighting. But thank you. 

[01:01:56] Andrew Gold: Yeah. 

[01:01:57] Jordan Harbinger: This reminds me of kind of like the Michael Jackson thing, where he's literally having 10 year olds or 11 year olds, and he's going to Disneyland with them and it's like, he's really enjoying that at this really weird level that makes everyone else completely uncomfortable.

[01:02:10] Andrew Gold: Yeah. Yeah, that's it. They get sort of — and Michael Jackson, again, you don't want to diagnose from afar, but he's the one I would go to as well. And, you know, he was clearly abused. He didn't have a childhood and he seemed to get stuck at that age. 

[01:02:22] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[01:02:23] Andrew Gold: And it's a funny thing with these guys because it's not just the sexual stuff. It's like, it seems to be something more they want, as you were saying about this guy on my podcast, Silas, he wants to hang around with them. He wants to have friendships with them. Stuff that for us would be a chore, they seem to be stuck in childhood. So like I say, they need to go to therapy. They need to be disavowed of that, of the notion that that's okay. And this guy in particular, Silas. He was 18 and the head boy or class president of his high school, you know, a position of power. It's very scary. And we have to be very careful around him and he needs help. 

[01:02:56] So at the moment I've written a book on the subject about all these experiences, and it's just tough to find at the moment a publisher that will take it on because it's such a difficult subject which sort of missed the point I'm trying to make. Because at the moment, we're doing very little to curb, child abuse. Fortunately, I'm making a radio documentary about it as well. And it's just won some award called the Whickers Award or whatever. So it's going to start to get made in the coming months. Because that is the aim. It's like, what is anyone doing to prevent—? When it's your child, you care. It could be anyone's child. So yeah, I feel quite passionately about as we've gone on, you know, as I've continued investigating this. 

[01:03:30] Jordan Harbinger: Obviously, I got triggered up in this. I mean, as a father, I just can't, I would absolutely tear this guy to shreds. And I know that — look, if you haven't offended, you haven't done anything wrong. But the idea that somebody would even be a danger to society like that makes me think that risking prison would be worth it, which is not how we solve this problem. Because if I say murder all the pedophile. No one's going to come out and say, "Hey, I think I have this weird mental condition. No, I'm going to get murdered by Jordan Harbinger or a bunch of other people who think the same way." And that's not going to stop kids from getting abused. So really I'm making the problem worse when I express those kinds of feelings, which, you know, sucks. 

[01:04:07] By the way, when you say disavow them, do they use that word that way in the UK? Disavow means I have nothing to do with this, but we would say disabuse them of that notion, which means like, don't let them keep thinking that. Like either that's a British thing or I've never heard that used that way or you're misusing that word. What do you think it is? 

[01:04:24] Andrew Gold: I have always said disavowed. No one stopped me. 

[01:04:26] Jordan Harbinger: I've just never heard it used that way. Because I would say we need to disabuse them of that notion. I've never heard anybody say disavow them of that notion. I'm not totally— 

[01:04:35] Andrew Gold: What does disavowal mean then? 

[01:04:36] Jordan Harbinger: It means like, so in Mission Impossible, the OGs TV series from like the '80s or '90s, whenever it was, they would say, "If you get caught, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your existence," which means they just say, "Hey, we don't know this guy."

[01:04:48] Andrew Gold: Right. 

[01:04:49] Jordan Harbinger: We don't know anything about it. 

[01:04:50] Andrew Gold: Someone will email in— 

[01:04:51] Jordan Harbinger: I don't know if you can disavow someone else and it caused them to do something. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. 

[01:04:58] Andrew Gold: If I am wrong, I'm pleased I used it about four times— 

[01:05:00] Jordan Harbinger: Minimum. 

[01:05:00] Andrew Gold: And then I'm expecting the minimum. 

[01:05:01] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Like a bunch of times to the point where we can't fix it, which is why we're leaving the grammar lesson in the show here. Anyways, yes, many people will email and you bet your bippy on that one. 

[01:05:13] Andrew Gold: Yeah. 

[01:05:13] Jordan Harbinger: Now look, I don't want to go on too long. I really have enjoyed this conversation with you. I enjoyed your podcast and the documentaries. I will say that I did also listen to the podcast about the guys who crashed the airplane in the Andes mountains and then had to eat each other. Is that the exact same group that was in the movie Alive or is it a different plane crash? 

[01:05:31] Andrew Gold: Yeah, that's them, that's them. 

[01:05:32] Jordan Harbinger: Same group. 

[01:05:32] Andrew Gold: Yes. I mean, it's just a case of — you know, a lot of our podcasts are fairly similar. There's a crossover isn't there. We want interesting people. It's just as simple as that. And I couldn't think — you know, literally, On the Edge is the name of the podcast, I couldn't think of anything more on the edge. They were literally on the edge of a mountain for 72 days. 

[01:05:48] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[01:05:49] Andrew Gold: And it was great because that was a way I could use my languages. There aren't many times in the podcast you're able to do that. And I knew that, look, these guys are getting older. If anyone knows about this with the Andes plane crash that happened now, I think it was 40 years ago or more. They landed on a mountain. Most of them died in the crash, but there were like 30 of them still alive. There was that movie Alive about them and they had to eat the dead. It's the most horrific thing I've ever heard, but you know, it's a theme of mine, I guess, to go towards the darkness. And I wasn't going to shy away from that one. I mean, cannibalism, which they don't like that word because cannibalism implies it's sort of a habit or a custom. This was sort of forced. They were forced to eat each other to survive.

[01:06:30] Jordan Harbinger: So what, again, when it's not part of it, like when it's not ritualistic, cannibalism, what is it called when you're like having to eat dead humans? Could it be necrophage. 

[01:06:40] Andrew Gold: Yeah. necrophage, that's the word he used. 

[01:06:44] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. Because that means dead and eat in Latin or whatever it is. I can't find it on Google, but that's what that would mean. By the way, your podcast network automatically injects advertising into the beginning of the end of the show. I'm sure you knew that. So I just wanted to let you know that during the ad or during the show for people who had crashed into the Andes Mountains and been forced to eat one another, at the end of the show, there was an ad for a meat company. 

[01:07:15] Andrew Gold: Oh no. 

[01:07:15] Jordan Harbinger: They were like, "Hmm, I really love such-and-such brand, you know, ham. Oh yeah. It's just tasty." And I was just thinking, this is the weirdest, and I know it's an accident because I know how dynamic ad insertion works. 

[01:07:26] Andrew Gold: Sure. 

[01:07:26] Jordan Harbinger: Really gross. I don't remember the brand and it's lucky for them because I would never want to associate my meat brand. And it makes me think like, do they transcribe the show? And there's like somebody talking about eating meat and they're like, "Oh yeah, put in meat ad in there. They're already thinking about eating meat. 

[01:07:44] Andrew Gold: Maybe. You know, when I was living in Germany. So they all came up in German. So, you know, which was strange. My English podcast and then suddenly like, [Foreign Language]. 

[01:07:55] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's geo-targeting so it depends on the IP address that you're from, but the meat thing was a little bit on the nose, especially because I'm like, how often are their meat companies advertising on podcasts? I mean, it's not exactly, it's not a mattress, right? It's it's pretty rare. I just thought it was really funny that there was a freaking meat ad on your podcast about people having to eat one another after a plane crash, which did remind me to ask you.

[01:08:17] And I'm surprised that you didn't ask this or maybe you did, the answer was kind of gross. Did you ask what human flesh tastes like? 

[01:08:23] Andrew Gold: No. 

[01:08:24] Jordan Harbinger: It's dark. 

[01:08:25] Andrew Gold: It was too much. He's like, he's a 72-year-old man. He's like in his little room and stuff and I just read his whole book and the book is quite religious and a lot of stuff about God and they sort of use a lot of the imagery of like eating the body of Christ as sort of, I suppose you have to in that instance, sort of as a way of living with yourself, I guess, although they had no choice. 

[01:08:49] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[01:08:50] Andrew Gold: There was nothing to eat there. I mean, they were in freezing cold temperatures as well, like minus a million or whatever for like three months. And they only had like socks that they had like no shoes on and stuff. They'd never been in the snow because they were from warm climates and they were going over to Chile to play rugby. So they'd never, ever been in the snow. They were totally unprepared. They had to like put snow in a box and a wine bottle and like put it in the sun for like hours and hours to get drops out of it for water, because the snow like burned their mouths. It was just horrific. But yeah, it was such an emotional ride reading this guy's book.

[01:09:21] And then to get him in front of me, this sort of slightly frail older man who was so lovely and smiling. He said to me after a little bit like, "You know what? I'm a bit tired. Can we speak in Spanish?" Because we were speaking English at first. So we went to English, went to Spanish, sorry, and I had to use a translator over him. I think it still works. And it's very emotional that episode. It's the only one I've edited and I was crying while editing it the bit where he gets saved. Just the most amazing story. From the beginning. I knew I'm not going to ask this guy what it tasted like. Of course it went through my mind though. 

[01:09:54] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I wondered about that because it seems like my dark curiosity wants to know. Obviously I'm never going to do this, you know, hopefully I'm never going to have any situation where this is something that I need to do. And I totally understand why he has to say like, "Oh, it's the body of Christ." Although the body of Christ tastes like wafers from my experience and the blood tastes like wine. It's weird how that works. But the idea that he had to survive off of that, I mean, it might even be worse if you're religious, because you feel like this is really wrong and we're not supposed to do this. Whereas me as somebody, who's not a person of faith at all, I'm kind of like, "Look, this dead person would totally under—" If I died and people ate me, "I'd be like, oh good, at least I had some use after I kicked the bucket," right? I don't think so, I don't really have any strong feelings around that. I feel more bad that you're almost lucky if you died in the beginning of that ordeal until of course they got saved, which none of them necessarily knew what was going to happen.

[01:10:49] Andrew Gold, thank you so much, man. Always a great conversation. I really do enjoy your work. 

[01:10:53] Andrew Gold: Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me on. It was an absolute pleasure to be here. 

[01:10:58] Jordan Harbinger: As usual, I've got some thoughts on this episode, but before we get into that, I wanted to give you a preview of one of my favorite stories from an earlier episode of the show. My friend, Steve Elkins found a lost city in the jungle that most people never even knew existed. I'm not even kidding. It sounds insane. This has to be one of the most incredible stories I've ever recorded on the show. I know you're going to love this one. 

[01:11:20] Steve Elkins: The legend of Ciudad Blanca or White City in English goes back probably 500 years to the best of my knowledge. People have believed that there is this civilization out there and the local indigenous people have their own legends. It has about five different names of which I can't pronounce — about this culture, this civilization that lived out in the jungle at one time. One of the other monikers for the city in current times is Lost City of the Monkey God. Maybe there's some truth to this legend. I kind of felt there was something to it. 

[01:11:54] The Mosquitia Jungle where it's located in eastern third to Honduras is one of the toughest jungles in the world. And by accidents of geography and history, it's remained pretty much unexplored until recently. I have a map made by the British in the 1850s. And on that map, it says Portal del Infierno over that part of the jungle. And it was called the Gates of Hell because the terrain was so tough. A lot of people have gone looking for it. Some went in and some never came back. 

[01:12:23] A director friend of mine introduced me to a guy named Captain Steve Morgan, and he was a lifelong adventurer, explorer, treasure hunter, and raconteur, nice guy, really pretty smart. And I said, "Let's go." And then 1994, we headed out to Honduras for an unknown adventure, looking for the Lost City. 

[01:12:44] Jordan Harbinger: For more with Steve Elkins, including the details on how they discovered the city and made one of the most important archeological discoveries of the century. Check out episode 299 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. 

[01:12:57] Really interesting guy, that Andrew Gold. I’m looking forward to more from him. By the way, he's got a podcast called On the Edge with Andrew Gold. We'll link it in the show notes. He is a pretty good interviewer. You'll like it if you like my show. Links to all of Andrew's stuff will be on the website in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com. Please use our website links if you buy books or anything from any of our guests, it does help support the show. Worksheets for episodes are in the show notes. Transcripts are in the show notes, and there's a video of this interview going up on our YouTube channel at jordanharbinger.com/youtube. I'm at @JordanHarbinger on both Twitter and Instagram, or just hit me on LinkedIn. 

[01:13:30] I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships, using systems, and tiny habits over at our Six-Minute Networking course. And that course is free. It's over at jordanharbinger.com/course. I'm showing you how to dig the well before you get thirsty and build those relationships before you need them. Most of the guests on the show subscribe to the course. So come join us, you'll be in smart company where you belong. 

[01:13:51] The show is created in association with PodcastOne. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Millie Ocampo, Ian Baird, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Misrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know somebody who's into weird hoaxes or upcoming documentarians, this is a good one to share with them. Hopefully, you find something great in every episode of this show. Please share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show, so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. 

[01:14:24] This episode is also sponsored in part by LifeLock. If you're among the majority who use the same password on multiple accounts, credential stuffing is a cyberattack. You should understand. Credential stuffing is when cybercriminals get your username and your password off the dark web, try to gain access to your accounts ,and steal your private information. It's important to understand how cybercrime and identity theft are affecting our lives. Every day, we put our information at risk on the Internet. In an instant, a cybercriminal can steal what's yours. Sometimes it even harms your finances, your credit, your reputation. Good thing, there's LifeLock. LifeLock helps detect a wide range of identity threats. Like your social security number for sale on the dark web. If they detect your information has potentially been compromised, they'll send you an alert. 

[01:15:07] Jen Harbinger: No one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses but you can keep what's yours with LifeLock by Norton. Join now and save up to 25 percent off your first year, by going to lifelock.com/jordan. That's lifelock.com/jordan for 25 percent off.