You Want a Piece of Me?

Explicit content warning

04/25/22 • 71 min

Everybody collects something; but for the Imperial Tradition Christian churches, that collection has some really weird stuff. Not just the bones of saints and a handful of miraculous statues, but enough "holy prepuce" to fill your cereal bowl, and the miraculous rehydrating blood of the saints of Naples can help wash all that down. This isn't your regular daily mass - join us to see what other strange relics the Catholic Church has been collecting.

Learn more about John the Baptist, Hiram McDaniels (from Welcome to Night Vale), St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the rose petals of St. Catherine, the shroud of Turin, Mary's milk, the True Cross, the Bones of the Magi, the official classification of holy relics, and the veneration (WORSHIP!) of saints.

All this and more....

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[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: It feels like it's been a long time since we've been here, but it really hasn't. We recorded last week.

[00:00:17] Preston Meyer: We did record last week, but you know where it is a while since we've been in this place talking about weird things in Christianity.

[00:00:28] Katie Dooley: Yes. If you liked our Saints episode, you're gonna love this episode of

[00:00:34] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:38] Katie Dooley: So what are we talking about today? That's...

[00:00:40] Preston Meyer: Well, we're looking at holy relics. There's a lot of relics of a lot of different religious traditions. Today, we've decided to focus on just Christian relics. I think it's interesting, most people really hate comparing churches to Ripley's Believe It or Not! Exhibits.

[00:00:58] Katie Dooley: What? No!

[00:00:58] Preston Meyer: This whole... Because we all know Ripley's Believe It or Not! Is mostly nonsense and weird things pushed together to make cool things to look at. And sometimes religion is a little bit that way. But the parallels go deeper than the inclination to doubt the veracity of outrageous claims. We also do have jars filled with human body parts.

[00:01:21] Katie Dooley: So many jars, so many body parts, so many body parts from the same person?

[00:01:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:01:26] Katie Dooley: When you should only have one.

[00:01:28] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah. It's it's really crazy. We've got saints that according to the evidence of if you can call it that, of the claims of various churches around the world, the saint had two full bodies and extra legs and arms.

[00:01:49] Katie Dooley: Yep. So man... And Saint Bernard is gonna appear again just briefly but...

[00:01:56] Preston Meyer: Good times.

[00:01:57] Katie Dooley: If you're a fan of Saint Bernard, our our Discord family sure likes Saint Bernard. So, yeah, there's a relic just for him.

[00:02:08] Preston Meyer: Yep. Uh, relics of religious importance come in all shapes and sizes and a variety of classifications. As I was looking into this, I thought it was kind of cool that the imperial tradition Christians, mainly talking about Catholics and Orthodox Christians, and that tradition that survives a little bit in Lutheranism and a handful of other Protestant groups, the old Protestant groups like the Church of England, um, there's three classes, more or less strictly this three classifications is the Catholic, Roman Catholic tradition, but it's observed a little bit by others as well.

[00:02:46] Katie Dooley: It's also just a nice classification system.

[00:02:48] Preston Meyer: It's handy.

[00:02:49] Katie Dooley: I saw it come up in some of my research.

[00:02:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So the first class is literally anything directly connected to Jesus, or in addition to that, the earthly remains of a saint. Their body parts, pretty much.

[00:03:06] Katie Dooley: Their body parts.

[00:03:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, the second class is any object associated directly with a saint. Uh, like something they touch, something they owned, something that was theirs. Um, and these...

All this and more....

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[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: It feels like it's been a long time since we've been here, but it really hasn't. We recorded last week.

[00:00:17] Preston Meyer: We did record last week, but you know where it is a while since we've been in this place talking about weird things in Christianity.

[00:00:28] Katie Dooley: Yes. If you liked our Saints episode, you're gonna love this episode of

[00:00:34] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:38] Katie Dooley: So what are we talking about today? That's...

[00:00:58] Katie Dooley: What? No!

[00:01:21] Katie Dooley: So many jars, so many body parts, so many body parts from the same person?

[00:01:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:01:26] Katie Dooley: When you should only have one.

[00:01:49] Katie Dooley: Yep. So man... And Saint Bernard is gonna appear again just briefly but...

[00:01:56] Preston Meyer: Good times.

[00:01:57] Katie Dooley: If you're a fan of Saint Bernard, our our Discord family sure likes Saint Bernard. So, yeah, there's a relic just for him.

[00:02:46] Katie Dooley: It's also just a nice classification system.

[00:02:48] Preston Meyer: It's handy.

[00:02:49] Katie Dooley: I saw it come up in some of my research.

[00:02:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So the first class is literally anything directly connected to Jesus, or in addition to that, the earthly remains of a saint. Their body parts, pretty much.

[00:03:06] Katie Dooley: Their body parts.

Previous Episode

Growing Up in a Cult - an Interview with Sarah Snyder

Our first interview episode, with the lovely and talented Sarah Snyder. She grew up in a cult, but has escaped. She isn't just surviving, she's thriving. We're proud to call her a friend, and grateful for her willingness to share her story and her advice.

The traditions that revere Jesus are diverse, and some of them are so far off the mark that they are hard to recognize as Christian. Some even abhor the Christian label, hoping to stand out as different -- It's easy to agree, when they lean into authoritarianism.

All this and more....

Trigger Warning: SA

You can also watch this interview on YouTube.

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

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-----

[00:00:13] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie. We're doing things a little different today, aren't we?

[00:00:17] Katie Dooley: Oh, you sure are.

[00:00:19] Preston Meyer: We're recording through Zoom instead of all of our really nice software.

[00:00:24] Katie Dooley: I know, I miss you.

[00:00:26] Preston Meyer: Right? It's so weird. You're so far away.

[00:00:28] Katie Dooley: I know.

[00:00:30] Sarah Snyder: It's very nice here. I'm going to throw up in my mouth a little bit.

[00:00:33] Katie Dooley: I know, I actually think some of our listeners probably think Preston and I are married, but we're not. Definitely not.

[00:00:43] Preston Meyer: Um, I mean, a few too many people have called you the other wife.

[00:00:47] Katie Dooley: I know you say Preston is actually my second husband, not my first. So, um. Yeah.

[00:00:52] Sarah Snyder: There's a line up, right?

[00:00:56] Katie Dooley: Uh, so we're doing things differently for good reason today on the.

[00:01:01] Preston Meyer: Holy Watermelon Podcast. It feels weird not saying it synchronized.

[00:01:07] Katie Dooley: I know, because we're on Zoom. We can't. So today we have the amazing Sarah as our guest today. And Sarah is a publicist. And she's not a very good one because she didn't send us her bio. So I'm literally winging this. I'm kidding. She's one of she's the best publicist I've ever met. She has a brain I am always in envy of. And she's on our show today because she was raised in a cult.

[00:01:38] Sarah Snyder: It's true. Thank you. Except for... Except for the publicist part. It's one of those things where you. People say like the mechanic doesn't want to fix his own car. Same thing here. I'm a publicist, but I didn't want to write my own bio. That's all it is.

[00:01:51] Katie Dooley: I had that conversation about my industry like two hours ago with someone. I was like, I don't do my own stuff.

[00:01:59] Preston Meyer: But it's tricky to write your own bio like unless you know exactly who you're pitching to and exactly what they want, you're either going to overshare or undershare.

[00:02:09] Sarah Snyder: That's why people pay me. It's great. I'm like, I'll take care of this for you.

[00:02:14] Katie Dooley: So yes, after you hear Sarah's amazing story today, pay her lots of money to do publicity.

[00:02:22] Sarah Snyder: Not related, but okay, cool.

[00:02:24] Katie Dooley: Absolutely unrelated, but you may as well get something out of it.

[00:02:28] Preston Meyer: Could work out, you don't know.

[00:02:29] Sarah Snyder: That's true. You never know.

[00:02:31] Katie Dooley: You don't know who's listening. And I'll also add that Sarah's joining us from the States. We have a handful of American listeners, mostly Canadian, but maybe we'll get a few more Americans.

[00:02:42] Preston Meyer: According to Spotify Analytics, more than a third of our listeners are American.

[00:02:47] Katie Dooley: That means two-thirds are Canadian, though.

[00:02:50] Preston Meyer: No, it's not two-thirds. We've got a nice diverse bundle. We're just over half Canadian. Yeah, I pay attentio...

Next Episode

Audits & Aliens

Scientology gets a lot of bad press (and most of it is hard to refute), but we're going to shed a little light on the sci-fi religion of L Ron Hubbard, and explore the aspects of this authoritarian cultus that make it so enticing to initiates and so terrifying to survivors.

What happened to Shelly Miscavige? Why is Tom Cruise reported to be leaving the church when he's up to his neck in it with David Miscavige? There's a lot more to this space-age religion than Dianetics, pseudo-science, and alternative facts. It's all fair game, now. Hail Xenu!

They say you can't take your engrams with you across the Bridge to Total Freedom. We can't make you operating thetans, but we can give you the tools to protect yourself from them. These suppressive persons will take you on a voyage that rivals the power of Hubbard's Sea Org.

Check out our previous episode, "Fake Me to Church," to learn more about authoritarian cults.

All this and more....

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Learn more on our official website

[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: I'm waiting for you to say hello to me.

[00:00:13] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie.

[00:00:13] Katie Dooley: Hi, Preston.

[00:00:16] Preston Meyer: Oh, man, what a good day.

[00:00:18] Katie Dooley: Today is a blessed day. If you're a Scientologist,

[00:00:22] Preston Meyer: Right? Yay! Dianetics it's the anniversary.

[00:00:27] Katie Dooley: Happy anniversary, Dianetics! Today on the.

[00:00:31] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon podcast.

[00:00:34] Katie Dooley: Um, I feel like we should say that we're not actually that excited about Dianetics having a birthday,

[00:00:40] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, as far as anniversaries of books go, meh. I've never celebrated the anniversary of a book before today, so there is something special about this.

[00:00:52] Katie Dooley: I guess so. And as far as religions go, also meh. Or maybe even more ehhhhh.

[00:00:59] Preston Meyer: It's not so meh

[00:01:00] Katie Dooley: . We're here living in 2022 and Scientology is living in 3022.

[00:01:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they they play with a bigger calendar though to. That Xenu business was like 75 million years ago.

[00:01:17] Katie Dooley: Wow. We're gonna get into Xenu. I just have, like, a fun little note that usually we're pretty tolerant about religions, but we're gonna rake this one over the coals.

[00:01:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah. This, uh, we'll try and be pretty objective, but there will be times where it gets really hard to do that.

[00:01:38] Katie Dooley: Yes. But again, so this is the anniversary of Dianetics. It is actually a very important Scientology holiday, May 9th. Um, so yeah, let's get this crazy show started.

[00:01:50] Preston Meyer: All right. Oh, man. Yeah. So being a Scientologist gets really expensive. It's remember how I talked about how Freemasonry and the ancient Egyptian religions and some of the Druids traditions? They're like tiered mystery schools where you got to move up from one layer to the next. That's an expensive process. Here it is.

[00:02:14] Katie Dooley: I've heard. I was trying to figure out how much Tom Cruise in particular had spent on Scientology, and it's estimated about 25 million. But there was a multi-millionaire in Atlanta who has spent 360 million on Scientology.

[00:02:27] Preston Meyer: Okay, that's definitely more than the cost of going through the the Operating Thetan levels. There's definitely some extra donations there and whatnot.

[00:02:35] Katie Dooley: Still far too much money to spend on this organization. Um, so some stats that I thought were interesting and keep this one in mind in particular as we get into the cost of things, is that on national censuses, there's only about 30,000 Members of Scientology. So that's across that was taken from the US, Canada, Great Britain or sorry, United Kingdom. And I think Australia or New Zealand censuses, it only totaled about 30,000 people. And then when we started talking about how much money they have, I think there's a little bit of l...