Motives: grift, occult influence, revenge

In this episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone dive deep into the fascinating and controversial origins of the Nation of Islam. Did you know that one of the largest Black supremacist religions was actually founded by a white man? Join us as we unravel the bizarre history of Wallace Fard Muhammad, his mysterious background, and the strange blend of conspiracy, occult teachings, and social movements that shaped the Nation of Islam.

We explore:

* The true identity and criminal past of Wallace Fard Muhammad

* How elements from white nationalist and occult groups were woven into NOI doctrine

* The infamous Yakub story and its roots in early 20th-century pseudoscience

* The influence of other movements like the Moorish Science Temple and Marcus Garvey’s UNIA

* The evolution of the Nation of Islam, its famous followers, and why many eventually left for mainstream Islam

Expect a wild ride through history, religion, and the psychology of cult leadership, with plenty of humor and critical analysis along the way. If you’re interested in the intersection of race, religion, and American history, this episode is for you!

Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more deep dives and thought-provoking discussions.Episode Transcript:

Malcolm Collins: HELLO SIMONE! You have been excited about this episode since I gave you the dirt because I was like, did you know, because I didn’t know this. I looked at the, everyone’s always joking about the whole Yakob story and Nation and Islam and what a bunch of silly beliefs and. And then somehow I was watching the video and it just dropped, like, and by the way, it was founded by a white guy.

And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The largest black supremacist religion. I think it’s the largest on earth right now. Was founded by a white guy. I was like, I need to drill in on that. This one, this, this is

Simone Collins: like fat positivity be being founded by chubby chasers, like by men.

Oh, no,

Malcolm Collins: no, no. It’s worse. It was founded by a white guy. As a joke to troll African Americans.

Simone Collins: So do we have reason to believe it was actually a joke and not, like, not something else?

Malcolm Collins: It was likely a way to make money combined with a joke.

Simone Collins: Okay. So like a scam. Okay. Wow. [00:01:00] Wow. Okay. Oh. Let’s get always so excited for this episode.

You have no idea. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Oh, I mean, it gets crazier. Many of the ideas in it were actually lifted from white nationalist conspiracy groups that would do mailers and you could like pay to have like mail sent to you about the way the world really works. You know how like when the internet started you could like.

Pay to get like the schematics for a time machine or something like that? No, in, like, if you go to like the 1920s, this was common for like religious stuff. Like, like, like, okay. I’d say like philosophical society stuff, paranormal society stuff. And a number of them were tied to white nationalist organizations.

Oh, Lord. Lord. And they were the ones that he constructed his religion out of. Oh no. So this is gonna get so crazy, so wild. Let’s dive in. And Simone just believe me, at first, and she had to Google the guy and she was like, no, no,

Simone Collins: no, no. I was like, no, he is definitely, there’s no way this is possible. I was gonna be like, well, actually it [00:02:00] was wrong.

Malcolm Collins: Keep in mind, this is like the religion of like Malcolm X and like Muhammad Ali, right? Like this is like major black people have followed this as like a faith structure. I think

Simone Collins: it’s pretty big even in Philadelphia if memory. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Yeah. And it, well, it’s, it’s shrinking now. It’s basically falling apart.

It’s probably good

Simone Collins: in light of this. I,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Okay. So the founder, Wallace d Farrad. Also known as Wally, DOD Ferard, Wallace Ferard, et cetera. He was a mysterious figure who appeared in Detroit in 1930s selling skills door to door in black neighborhoods claiming to be from the Middle East, variously Mecca, the east, the tribe of Shaba Shabaz most contemporary police records.

FBI files newspaper investigations from the 1930 to 1960s and scholarly research. Identify him as Wallace Do. Ford, a white man of New Zealand, European, and possibly mixed British [00:03:00] Polynesian descent. What born 1891 to 1893 sources differ. He was either born in New Zealand, Hawaii, or Portland, Oregon.

Conflict. He has a criminal record in California under the name Wally DOD Ford. Arrested multiple times in the 1920s for bootlegging and assault and a 1926 prison sentence in San Quentin for drug dealing. He is described by both court records and ex-wives as Caucasian. So. But note if you’re like, well, maybe he was a little Polynesian or a little something that like, that we know from all of his arrest records.

And when he was in prison, he was described on all of the records during that more racist period of history as Caucasian and all of his exes called him Caucasian. Oh boy. And we’ll, we’ll learn what he thought about black people in a second, which wasn’t a lot. Oh, no. He was married multiple times, two to three wives, some simultaneously and had children and used at least a dozen aliases.

He spoke as a pronounced New Zealand or British type accent. [00:04:00] Oh, okay, so, so how did this work? Because I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, this is start a black supremacist religion. Okay. So, 1930s Detroit Ferra began teaching black residents that they were the original people, the lost tribe of Shabbat.

Stolen from Asia, not Africa, and that white people were devils created by an evil scientist named Yaku. He claimed to be a prophet sent by Allah and eventually declared himself God in person. His teaching mixed elements of the. Garveyism Freemasonry, Jehovah’s Witnesses Islam very loosely, and science fiction like racial mythology.

No kidding fact, thousands of followers. Very quickly in the middle of the Great Depression, Elijah Poole. Later Elijah Muhammad became his most dev devoted disciple and was named a Supreme Minister. A fard disappeared completely in 1934, probably fled Detroit after a human sacrifice scandal involving one of his followers in intense police scrutiny.

The NOI teaches that [00:05:00] he quote unquote departed or was Allah, who completed his mission. Elijah Muhammad then took over and built the organization into what it became. Note that the Nation of Islam officially denies that he is white today. They hold that master fraud Muhammad. Was a quote unquote black man born in Mecca.

And that claims that he was con robio something or FBI files. However, virtually all non NOI, the Nation of Islam historians w would say, as well as Carl e Evers Messenger, FBI, files that have been declassified and the 1970s Detroit police records conclude that he was white and the same man as Wallace dod for

Simone Collins: Oh boy.

Okay, so I’m not crazy ‘cause I did a deep dive on the Nation of Islam, like beliefs and I thought he was, he was black. But then of course, that’s what I would’ve been told if I was just looking into the beliefs. So, okay. This is maybe why a lot of people who like found the other crazy stuff didn’t find this.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Because if you’re digging into it from their [00:06:00] own sources and instead, which is crazy enough, yeah. They’re not gonna tell you, you’re like, oh, I wanna learn more of this, this Yakob story. You’re not gonna, and we’re gonna go into where that story came from and everything. Okay?

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: All right. So of course, you know, the first thing I’m like is, wait, wait, wait.

Why did a white guy start a black supremacist religion? Right? So there’s three reasons that are hypothesized, okay? Four, just pure grift, conman, hustle. He had a long history of scams, bootlegging, and living off of women. Yeah. In early 1930s, Detroit was full of unemployed black migrants from the south who were desperate for hope and identity.

Mm-hmm. By posing as the exotic eastern prophet, he gained money. Followers paid dues and brought products. He sold free housing and sexual access to multiple women in the group. Several early members later said he had a harem like arrangement. This fits the pattern of dozens of cult leaders in American history.

Two influence from [00:07:00] earlier Oak Cult and more society teachers. He most certainly knew Noble Drew Ali, the founder of the Morris Science Temple, and may have been a member for a while. And we’re gonna go into these other religions that he drew from because they’re equally fascinating. He also borrowed heavily.

From an occult male order group called the Royal Fraternity of Master Meta Physicians, and from white philosophical writings about lost tribes, Atlantis and Yakob style eugenic stories that were floating around in the 1920s. He simply reversed the racial hierarchy instead of white people being superior.

Black people were the original gods and white people were devils. This was new and electrifying to his audience. And this is the more interesting one here.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Personal revenge or a psychological motive. Some researchers, especially Carl Evans in the Messenger, speculate that he may have had mixed raced ancestry himself and a deep resentment towards both white and black communities.

Mm-hmm. However, what I find most interesting is one of his ex-wives, [00:08:00] so remember the FBI released all the files they had on him. Well, they have interviews. One of his ex-wives note she didn’t think this would make her famous. She didn’t know anything that was gonna come of this. She was just. Talking to the FBI.

Right? In, in private, right? Like, and, and this was released like after she’s dead, right? So again, this isn’t like somebody trained to grift off of this. This is just somebody in a room with the FBI. Okay. Said that he hated quote unquote. In words, I’m not gonna say it called them stupid and yet made his living off of them.

It’s possible that the whole thing started as some elaborate troll or revenge fantasy that got out of hand which very interesting here. And I, I think that this is the most plausible, he likely made his money trolling this community. If you look at some of the other things that he sold, they were like blatant scams and he seemed to get off, off of blatantly scamming.

A community he saw as inferior to himself. Mm. And really liked sleeping with and living off of multiple women off of simultaneously. He had a history of doing this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It would just be his thing. It’s like how he [00:09:00] related to the world.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It is just his thing, right? Mm-hmm. So that, that is, appears to what happened.

So for more information on this, in 1957 the FBI interviewed Hazel Barton Ford FARs Common Law wife around 1919 to 1924 in Los. Angeles, who provided key insights into his private character. She described him as a white New Zealander Caucasian feature, soir Complexion, who operated a restaurant and had a criminal history.

Under the aliases of Fred dod More pointedly, she revealed FARs disdain for black people. He reportedly called them stupid and ignorant, viewing them as easy marks for exploitation rather than equals. Despite this, he made his living off of black communities first as Aman, then through the Nation of Islam, nation of Islams.

DOS and product sales. Oh, skills and lessons which I just find that really, really fascinating. Although, I mean, I guess

Simone Collins: when I think about it, so many cult leaders were inherently exploitative and dismissive toward their quote unquote, [00:10:00] adherence. So maybe this isn’t so crazy, like this is what I should expect.

Malcolm Collins: Well, you do see that, right? Like yeah. You know, and, and then they might begin to believe it after a while. Like, I mean, like what Joseph

Simone Collins: Smith did with all of his early adherence who are men and, and their wives, right? He’d like send them off to do something and they’d be like,

by the way, I’m taking them away, you know?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, the, we won’t get too hard into the, the moron stuff.

I decided to double check this just to make sure we’re not, you know, saying anything that’s not accurate here. So, , Joseph Smith introduced the practice of plural marriages starting in the 1830s, claiming it was a divine revelation. He had approximately 30 to 35 plural wives by the time of his death.

Many of these ceilings, , kept secret from even his wife, Emma, and about 11 to 14 of these women were legally married to other men at the time. Out of the 14 documented polland, Andrea ceilings, at least 10 involved, husbands who were not on missions at the time. But three to four of these instances had timing [00:11:00] unclear, and the, basically the husbands may have been away on something like a mission.

Malcolm Collins: I, I think I’m probably easier with Scientology. We love, it’s like El Ron Hubbard clearly. Did not believe it to start. I mean, it structured like a science fiction story. He was a science fiction author. Yeah. He joked about starting cults to make money before that.

Simone Collins: Totally, totally. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I do think he believed it by the time he died.

Simone Collins: You have, you have other Listen, I’m, well, I mean, my point with the LDS church is, I actually think with the LDS church eventually became, was fricking amazing. But I do think that there’s something about being an initial leader of a religious movement that, I mean it if you’re more exploitative there, there, there seems to be a correlation.

At least between exploitative behavior and

Malcolm Collins: Well, and, and, and I think it stopped when he started to believe he was God or one of God’s messengers. We’re not gonna go that deep into to their philosophy, but let’s, let’s talk about the other weird thing here. Why did he disappear? Like that seems weird, you know, you’re running a successful grift.

It seems like yet a pretty good arrangement going with this whole thing. Why did he just disappear out of nowhere in 1934, just as things were taking off? [00:12:00] Right. Well, we have a clearer answer to that one. In November, 1932, one of his followers, Robert Camille Harris, carried out a quote unquote human sacrifice to quote unquote bring himself closer to Allah, killing his roommate on an altar.

The police investigation put massive heat on fraud’s. Temple fraud was arrested. Fingerprinted in order to leave Detroit. He came back secretly anyway, got arrested again in 1933 and 1934 in his last known police interview, Chicago, May, 1933, then Detroit, 1934. He promised the police that he would disband the organization and leave forever if they let him go after being released in mid 1934.

He vanished completely. No confirmed sighting after that. Mm-hmm. So there’s two main theories, but let’s just get in his head here. Okay. So, okay. Yeah. You’re. A guy in your organization does a human sacrifice not great. You have started this as an intentional grift on people. Mm-hmm. It’s been a little hot time

Simone Collins: to skip town,

Malcolm Collins: but you’re like I have such a [00:13:00] good thing going there.

I should probably go back, see what I can do, et cetera. You go back, you get caught again almost immediately. Mm. And the police basically say, we’re detaining you indefinitely in, in association with that murder or. Disband the organization and get out of town. You try to disband the organization.

Everyone’s like, eh, I don’t think so. And even if you’re going to, why not just get outta town before disbanding? Maybe have a few people still send you money here and there. Right? Yeah. No, true, true. So he disappears from the record after that point. There’s, there’s two series. One is that he just, disappear left right. There’s been some unconfirmed reports that place a Wally Ford in California or New Zealand decades later. So maybe he lives quietly somewhere. I think that that’s a lot less likely. Because he doesn’t seem like the type of person who, as his religion got larger and larger, would’ve been able to not come back as the founder.

Oh, that’s a good point.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Like if it just disbanded, I could imagine him changing identities again and again [00:14:00] forever, and just grifting from one thing to the next. But you’re right. This got big.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That he was killed by rivals inside the movement. Elijah Muhammad, who took over after him later hinted that he had quote unquote departed on mother plane UFO theology, and also that quote unquote, hypocrites may have murdered him.

So, when the guy who takes over after him is like, well, you know, some people in our movement may have murdered him. I don’t know one way or the other. I think that is probably more likely what happened. But anyway, they, they say that he left on a UFO or was a law and left, so let’s get to some of these other religions and movements that inspired it.

Right? Gravy, have you heard of this? Are they referring to the sauce? No, it was inspired by somebody named Marcus Gravy. No. And his Universal in Improvement Association. I’m not even gonna say that, like sanitized version of that word. I don’t want, you know, I can see you worshiping

Simone Collins: a sauce based religion.

Demonetization,

Malcolm Collins: not [00:15:00] demonetization. Let’s get into Channel Band Saga. So I’m just gonna be very. Safe and what I’m talking about here, even though this is spicy as heck, ‘cause I’ve just given up doing the, we had a little arc where I was gonna pretend to be a good boy. I’m not gonna pretend to be a good boy anymore.

I can’t do that. No. There’s just too many interesting ideas and things going on in the world. No. People will find me again if, if YouTube decides to be very strict with me. But I, I, hope it doesn’t come to that. But anyway, so the key ideas of GRAS were that black people should be proud of their race and African heritage.

The Back to Africa movement, gravy tried to buy ships and resettle black Africans in Liberia. Black economic self-reliance, quote unquote buy black, black nationalism and separatism. . He argued for no integration with whites. At its peak, the UNIA had millions of members and was one of the largest black organizations in history.

Fard borrowed a lot from gravy, racial pride, separatism, economic independence, even the red, black, green flag colors. The big difference is gravy was a Christian who wanted to go back to [00:16:00] Africa while fraud taught that black people came from Asia and that Islam was the original religion, and that whites were literal devils.

The next place he drew information was the Maorish Science Temple which was active between 1909 and 1929. So the real name Timothy Drew, 1886 to 1929, was born in North Carolina. He claimed to be a prophet who had been initiated in Egypt and founded the first mass quote unquote Islamic movement for black Americans.

The more science. Temple of America, MSTA in Newark, New Jersey in 1913 then moved its headquarters to Chicago. Wow. So what’s really interesting is this was the first major black Islamic organization in the United States and this and another large early one was this other one. What you’ll learn, and we’ll go over here.

Later is they basically have very little to almost, and nothing Islamic about them. They’re not derivations of Islamic theology. They took Islam because you could tell [00:17:00] people from that period, I mean, it’s the 1920s. You don’t have the internet or something. Yes. It’s sort

Simone Collins: of foreign. Ooh.

Malcolm Collinc: It’s like, ooh, this is from a region where like darker skin color people live mm-hmm.

And is one of the old religions, you know?

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Moores, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collinc: Yeah, so it’s basically like a name that they could use that prescribed their religion was like ancient associations and partic, potentially black associations, but none of them really seemed to know much about what Islam was actually about.

Interesting. All right, , so it was in the Moish Temple. Black Americans were not inwards, but they were zy addicts. More specifically, Moores or Moorish Americans, descendants from Moabites or Canaanites their true religion. Was Islam, but an Americanized version with Judases and Buddha as prophets.

They should drop their slave names and add l or Bay exactly what the Nation of Islam also did. White people stole their history and nationality. Reclaiming marsh identities freeze them. The [00:18:00] red bay wait, would it be like

Simone Collins: Simone Bay, Malcolm L.

Malcolm Collins: I think it might be like L Malcolm, l Simone, Malcolm Or Bay?

Simon. Bay. Simon. Simon. Oh, it’d be L Malcolm I think in Be Simone. Be Simone.

Simone Collins: This

Malcolm Collins: might even be where the term like Bay, Hey Bay.

You know, like Blender. Oh my

Simone Collins: gosh.

Malcolm Collins: Tell each other Bay like, Hey Bay. What up? Like, yeah. That, that might be where this comes from. ,

It is not. So first the L ARB Bay, while it was very common in the Mor Temple, , when the, . Nation of Islam members started doing this while they did this. Rarely, the more common thing with n OI members was to replace their surnames with an X to symbolize the unknown surnames in their family history lost to Africa.

As for the modern use of the term bay, the term bay. Emerged in African American vernacular in the early two thousands as a shortened form of baby or babe uses a term of endearment for romantic partner, their close friends, or even [00:19:00] platonically among women. , , it has no connection that we know of to either the Moreish Temple or the Nation of Islam.

, So just a convergent evolution.

Malcolm Collins: The red fez was the crescent in the five pointed star, the Circle seven symbol, if you’ve seen that.

Uhhuh, the, like a black person wearing a fez? Yeah. That, that comes from this.

Simone Collins: Oh, oh my gosh.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. So how was he exposed to them? Far to lived in Chicago, the Morris Science Capital in the 19th, twenties and early 19th. Thirties. Mm-hmm. Several of Farbs earliest followers in Detroit, including Elijah Mohammad’s own brother, had previously been members of the MA Science temple When Peris arrested Ford in 19 32, 1 of the charges was that he was encouraging former ma civil science members to leave Drew Ali’s movement into join him after Drew Ali died in 1929, the Ms.

TA fracture into many rival fractions far to simply started his own splinter group, changed Maorish to Asic Tribe of [00:20:00] Shabazz and replaced the Circle seven Quran with his own two short books, secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam, and Teaching for the Lost Foundation of Islam. In a mathematical way and declared himself God instead of just a prophet.

I, I really like the, the, the names of the book, by the way. I’m teaching for the Lost Foundation of Islam in a mathematical way. Oh, right. Let’s do it. And I think Are short, easy reads both of these books as well. Right? That’s great. Yes.

Simone Collins: Oh

Malcolm Collins: my. Now here is where it gets really crazy. Okay. The occult mail order sources, especially the royal fraternity of the master of Meta physicians in the 1920s and the philosophical and Roan lore.

So Fards, most distinctive teachings and bizarre doctrines did not come from as long are gravy. They came almost verbatim from white occult groups that were mailing lessons to anyone who wanted [00:21:00] to spend a few dollars. Yeah,

Simone Collins: I mean. The only thing better than a cult is mail order. A cult, you know it.

It’s all the fun of a cult. None of the awkwardness of being with people in person. You know.

Malcolm Collins: By, by the way, before I go further, what are your thoughts so far? Is this, is this,

Simone Collins: I’m loving every bit of this. You’re such a good story. I’m so disappointed though, like I would much rather have this trend. Having taken place after black Panther got big and like I, what I want is a whole bunch of people to like try to build scams about Wakanda being real, but then for people to Yes, and it to the point of it actually being real.

Because I want this like black exceptionalism tech world. I think it, it would be so freaking cool. And I’m just really mad that that’s not what happened. ‘cause I want Wakanda to be real. I want Wakanda forever and I love their beautiful efforts in tech and it’s very annoying. So that’s my only, that’s what keeps occurring to me now.

I’m just angry about that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I hear you. I just, I find it so wild that I have watched so [00:22:00] many videos about the Yaku story. Yeah. I have never heard about all of this nonsense. Well, yeah. And I, I

Simone Collins: just, I think it’s one of those you know, that scientific study where they’re like, you know, count how many times they’re bouncing the basketball and then the, the subjects are watching it in a video and they totally miss, there’s a gorilla walking by in the background.

Yeah. The thing is with the nation of Islam, like Yaku and like. White people were created in this terrible experiment, blah, blah, blah. Something, something. Well hold on. Like, you’re just so distracted watching that, that they don’t realize the gorilla walking in the background of like, and this was all written by a white guy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the gorilla walking in the background that it was a, a white con artist who hated black people.

Simone Collins: Yes. Did you see the white con artist walking in the back? What? No. What, what, what,

Malcolm Collins: anyway, to continue here the royal fraternity of the master of meta positions based in New York and later moved to a mansion they called Peace Haven in New Jersey in the 1930s.

They ran full page ads in magazines offering quote unquote ancient wisdom for [00:23:00] $1. Their teachings included the quote unquote mother plane. Remember how the other guy, the guy after him who ran it, talked about the mother plane? Yeah. So the mother plane came directly from this organization. Okay. Or the quote unquote great wheel in the secai, A great spaceship that circles the earth.

Okay. They also also said Dyson sphere. Remember Yakob, the scientist from 6,000 years ago, okay? These guys also had an evil scientist from 6,000 years ago. Of course. Yes. Who created the white race on an island of Patmos, even though selective breeding and grafting compared to Yabo. Mm-hmm. So they, that story was literally lifted from this organization.

God forbid

Simone Collins: people create their own stories and get a little

Malcolm Collins: create. This is so annoying. Yeah. That the original people lived 76 trillion years ago on the moon. The FBI files and the Chicago detectives in the 1950s interviewed former members of this group who recognized entire paragraphs of Farrad secret lessons as [00:24:00] plagiarized from the master meta physician booklets.

So he just took some of the booklets and literally just my guys plagiarized. Them. No, I mean, that’s what a con artist would do. He’s like, oh, I need some crazy nonsense. He might have read one of these. Thought it was funny. Yeah, I’m

Simone Collins: a con, it’s not a writer. Don’t ask me to do these things. I,

Malcolm Collins: I think it’s more that he might have just thought it was ridiculous and stupid, and remember that he looked down on black people, so he is like, oh.

Simone Collins: They’ll this right up. It’s

Malcolm Collins: uniquely ridiculous and stupid. Oh boy. Like, let’s just like take it and, and add it to this. Right. And the, the, you know, 6,000 years ago, science on an island, you know, breeding the white race or whatever. Right. Could he have seen that and be like, oh, that would probably work well for some, like, you know, black communities or something.

Mm-hmm. If I’m trying to explain why white people are so bad, you know? Yeah. I’ll just do that. Right. Like, and he, he took Yaku from a different organization. We’ll talk about where he got them from. Okay. 1920s theosophy [00:25:00] persecution and ancient astronaut style books. So these books were popular in the occult world at the time.

You had the secret doctrine by have the Lansky, that’s the one who we talked about who, the, the tiny mustache man who we’re not gonna talk about on this channel anymore, shall not

Simone Collins: be named. No. No. Oh, but

Malcolm Collins: his army marched under their symbol, their Yes. Pagan symbol. The, the iCal Society.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And, and they were also known to have a lot of ties to those sorts of groups. ISIS unveiled God man. The World Made Flesh by George w Carly, a bizarre biblical alchemical interpretations that show up in the nation of Islam as quote unquote actual facts at 120 degrees. Works by a white supremacist occultist named Jane Church World, mu Lamar Books and William Dudley Pedley silver shirts F word, which I’m not gonna say ‘cause I don’t wanna get the, the video flagged.

Who wrote about quote unquote wheel shaped space crap and yaku like stories. So this, this was like [00:26:00] the silver shirts were related to like the brown and black shirts. I just don’t use the F word anymore ‘cause I don’t wanna get, you know, anyone triggered. Right? Far to simply took these white esoteric teachings and reversed the races and then package them as supreme wisdom.

Now. A fun one here is, is, is okay. How, how far were these groups? You know, so we’ll talk about the Theo Society. Yeah. Though Bobowski wasn’t explicitly A-N-A-Z-I. Mm-hmm. She predated them. Her quote unquote root racist theory posited Arian as the fifth most advanced race superior to quote unquote inferior races like semis and Africans.

Simone Collins: Fifth called, I dunno. Fifth is kind of like a. It’s, well, I think most

Malcolm Collins: of those races are ones that like we don’t know of is actually existing on Earth. I think they’re like the supernatural. Okay. She, she called them specifically semis in Africa, semi animal. So you can see why the, the, the H guy thought she was a, a real swell person.

The swell

Simone Collins: gal.

Malcolm Collins: And this [00:27:00] inspired German sfi or occult Arianism. And anyway, you, what, what’s funny about this is if you hear the ideology of the nation of Islam, you’ve got an extreme level of antisemitism within it. You’ve got an extreme level of sort of in-group supremacy, like we are the best people on earth, the, you know, and we need to like purify our genetic line.

Mm-hmm. And then you look at. Little mustache man ideology and you’re like, these two ideologies look remarkably similar. Mm-hmm. Was it convergent Evolution? And it’s, Nope. They plagiarized the same text. Gracious. They, they, they literally have antisemitism woven into them for the same underlying reason from the text that they boast to send from.

Which again, is just so fascinating.

Simone Collins: It is. It is genuinely fascinating.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway. So to dig into some of these other ones, ‘cause I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I wanna dig into some of these other belief systems [00:28:00] that he was plagiarizing. I wanna hear about occult systems kicking around in the 1920s, right?

So we’ve got the Royal Fraternity of Master Metas, founded in early 1930s by James Bernard Schaffer a self-proclaimed meta physician. This was a shirt lived cult that sold teachings via mail and in-person seminars. It gained notoriety in 1939 for adopting a baby Jean Gaunt, AKA baby jean, and attempting to raise her as immortal, though through mind over matter techniques.

No doctors, no negativity. Just positive thinking to conquer death. No, I should mention her in the interview I’m doing with Steven mulling you, because that sounds like his parenting style. I’m gonna ask AI what happened to her.

Malcolm Collins: I hope she’s okay.

Malcolm Collins: She was returned to her birth parents about a year, a after about a year was the cult, and she grew up to live a private, normal life. Okay. Phew. The cult, formerly known as the Royal Brotherhood, amen. [00:29:00] Physicians intended to raise her as an immortal being freed from death and disease at their Peace Haven.

Former Vanderbilt’s Estate on Long Island. The experiment ended in 1940. When her mother requested her back, it was later reported. Shortly after returning to home, Jean happily ate prunes a food for Britain on the cults strict eternity diet. The cult itself collapsed Soon after Schaeffer faced lawsuits and charges of grand larceny.

He was convicted and served five years in Sing, sing Prison. Following the lawsuits and legal issues, the RFM declared bankruptcy and the Peace Haven property was foreclosed and auctioned off in 1941. After his release, chauffeur opened an education center, but never regained his former successor wealth.

In 1955, John Barn, Bernard, s Chauffer, and his wife. Committed Unli by carbon monoxide poisoning. Leaving a note was instructions for their daughter to continue his work. As for Jean goer, she, she went on to live a life away from the public eye. In 2002, reports indicated she was alive and well, hey, maybe that, that long [00:30:00] living stuff worked.

But despite the

Simone Collins: prunes, how very dare she forbidden pr.

Malcolm Collins: So they were a mishmash, a theological goulash of Russian messianism, secret ancient wisdoms, Christian science, healing through faith and new thought mind creates reality. The core idea of them where the human mind could overcome all physical limits, including aging and death.

They taught that negative thoughts cause illness, and that positive metaphysics could achieve eternal use.

Simone Collins: Ah, yes. Once again, the power of wishy thinking strikes.

Malcolm Collins: Th this is the group where the concept of mother planes or great wheels in the sky came from. We talked about them a little before, but I wanted to dive in a bit more because I, well, maybe

Simone Collins: in the future when things die, we can just say that they went to the great and they’re also

Malcolm Collins: where the group of the evil scientists creating the.

Inferior white people, like white people came from the ya to the, they came up with that and they you know, fell apart. I, I wonder what they think if they knew that a version of their thing was still like really big. But it was like a. [00:31:00] Black supremacist organization. Then you have James Church word’s, mu theories.

Okay. A British American engineer popularized mu in the books The Lost Continent of Mu and sold publishers and Ads. Its quote unquote, h Ancient Secrets Mu with a Pacific Lost continent of a Motherland Men. Home to the NAL civilization 50,000 years ago, an advanced and peaceful civilization with monotheism and shared symbols, EG crosses influencing Egypt, India, and the Maya.

Mm. Destroyed by cataclysm survivor or seated global cultures dismissed evolution for creationism via ancient tablets. He claimed to de have decoded in India. The, he, he believed in like superior and inferior races. This guy he thought the Aryans were from you, for example. So this, this is what I’m saying, like, like these were actual like white nationalist ideologies that this was based on.

Then we have we got the, the, the tiny mustache man ideology. This ideology, the other ideology, they’ve got William Dudley Pell and the silver shirts. [00:32:00] So Pell 1890s. To 1965, a Hollywood screenwriter turned mystic, founded a fascist group called the Silver Shirts which ended Christian mysticism and spiritualism ly claimed out-of-body experiences with OC, cultism and politics, soul or afterlife, teaching wheel shaped UFOs in ancient races similar to theosophy.

So these wheels,

Simone Collins: why is

Malcolm Collins: everyone

Simone Collins: so excited about wheels?

Malcolm Collins: And a, a Christian militia movement against what they called Jewish bolshevism. And he was extremely pro teeny mustache man. Okay, so let, let’s go deeper on Yaku. All right. Would you like to know the, get a reminder on the Yaku story?

Simone Collins: Refresh me?

Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Alright, Yaku, born in Mecca with an unusually large head, symbolizing its intellect. Ah, yes. Discovered magnetic laws of attraction and repulsion while playing with steel exiled to the island of Patmos. Referencing the Biblical book of [00:33:00] Revelation with 59,999 of its followers for causing unrest. He conducted a 600 year eugenics experiment, selectively breeding lighter skinned individuals through grafting.

Killing of darker babies to produce a pale blue-eyed race inherently prone to wickedness and. I kid you not, this is what he said was their main thing. Triology or deception. Yes. They’re afraid

Simone Collins: that

Malcolm Collins: white people will perform triology on them, which they got from, you know, this horrible way that they were created and, um mm-hmm.

This, this race was allowed to rule for 6,000 years ending in 1914, after which black people would reclaim dominance over often via apocalyptic events like the mother plane or the UFO destroying whites. Now what’s another interesting thing here is that some of the whites after this eugenics experiment tried to go back to being black and like tried to like regain.

They’re like, like undo the eugenics experiment. Okay. But they didn’t have like a good template for doing this. And this [00:34:00] is where the Nation of Islam believes that monkeys and apes come from is that they’re literally white people that, that tried to become black again. Oh he presented, okay, I’m not gonna say anything.

Go ahead. He presented this in his doctrinal pamphlet, lost Found Muslim Lessons number two. Mm-hmm. A q and A style text to early converts As part of a series of secret lessons, Fard claimed divine revelation for the story positioning himself as Allah incarnate. Mm-hmm. And the myths of supreme wisdom to awaken Black Americans to their divine origins in white oppression.

Elijah Muhammad fared successor who led the NOI or Nation of Islam for about 1935 until his death in 1975 expounded and popularized it in books like The Message to the Black Man in America, 1965, where entire chapters detail ya Cobb’s process as a. Theod dsi or explanation for evil, justifying racial inequality as a temporary divine [00:35:00] plan.

A later Nation of Islam. Leaders like Elwise Frackman have defended it as a literal truth. So this isn’t something that they like, kind of believe It is like literal religious truths for them, sometimes citing modern genetics or archeology. EG, the omic heads is evidence for ancient black scientists. Morris Science, temple of America, MST founded.

By Noble Drew Ali, Timothy Drew in 1913. This was Fards most direct predecessor Ali’s teachings reference Yako Bytes as a figure named Yakob a West African Moore, who allegedly founded ancient civilizations with large headed scientific geniuses evidenced by Mesoamerican ec heads fart.

Possibly with an MST member of Chicago adapted this into a more militant anti-white narrative. Shifting yaku from hero to villain. Very interesting. Wait, what? I wanna know how he was the hero to begin with.

Okay, so I apparently he’s supposed to sort of like [00:36:00] represent ancient wisdom in, in early stuff, uh mm-hmm. And. It was supposed to be linked to like sophisticated ancient black societies. And, and, and what they had lost. And then he later, when, when, when, when we knew the doctrine of the Nation of Islam went, sort of was a crazier explanation.

Alright, so, what makes this different and similar to mainstream Islam, because I was interested in that as well. Right.

Simone Collins: I mean, I don’t know what, where is the, where is their shared ideology? I think it’s the more important question.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So they refer to God as Allah. Okay. And they refer to their places of worship as mosques, although originally they were called temples.

It appears that he didn’t know what Muslims called their police as of worship at first and then changed it to mosques when he learned.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They would also use greetings like as Salaam a ku and members performed to form a fair prayer lot. Though it’s modified and not always a standard. Five [00:37:00] daily prayers, a diet and lifestyle rules, they prohibit pork, alcohol and drugs, emphasis on clean living and modest dress.

Okay, women cover head and veils family values, which align with halal principles and Islamic moral codes. And they have a community, strong focus, strong emphasis on self-reliance and economic empowerment. So basically they dress kind of like Muslims and use a few Muslim words, right?

Simone Collins: Uhhuh, I mean,

Malcolm Collins: that’s

Simone Collins: better than them like.

Just going like Durka Durka and thinking that they’re doing proper prayers or something. But it, yeah. So what was interesting

Malcolm Collins: is pretty much any famous person that you’ve heard of that was ever in the Nation of Islam ended up converting to become just. An actual Sunni Muslim.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And the nation of Islam is more like you join it because you like, wanna find yourself in like black identity, it sounds like.

Mm-hmm. And then you do more research and you’re like, oh.

Simone Collins: And you’re like, that, that was a mistake. Let’s, that

Malcolm Collins: was a mistake. Yeah. Yeah. [00:38:00] Get something going for it. Yeah. So let’s talk about how they’re different from mainstream Muslims theology of God and Prophethood the Nation of Islam t-shirts that their founder, Wallace Fard Muhammad was God in human form, and that Elijah Muhammad was his prophet or messenger.

This violates Islam’s core principle. Racial mythology. Their doctrine includes the story of Yaku, which you guys know already. That is obviously not in Islam, their cosmology and eschatology. The idea of a mother plane, like a UFO spaceship is obviously not in Islam and the practice of the structures they do not adhere to anything like the five pillars of Islam.

So it, it appears they just chose it because they thought it. It sounded cool and nobody knew enough about Islam to really challenge them. Okay. That’s really the gist of it. So who was in the movement that you’ve heard of? Malcolm X. Right. Joined while in prison in the 1950s. He left in 1964 converting to Sunni Islam.

And he, he actually had disputes with Elijah Muhammad, with the guy who, good for [00:39:00] him. Alright. Yeah, like Muhammad Ali. Born Cassius Clay joined in the 1960s publicly announcing affiliation in 1964. Nice. But he converted to Sunni Islam Kareem of Jewel Jabar briefly associated with a movement in the 1970s before converting to Sunni Islam.

Mm-hmm. And then other people who have had affiliations are Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg. Snoop Dogg. No, Snoop’s, it ain’t so. And then Mary Bar Snoop dropped it. They all dropped it, right? Yeah. They’ve all dropped it to my understanding. Okay. Jay-Z apparently was connected through, through the Group 5% Nation, which they influenced.

Now how many members did they have? ‘cause we were gonna talk about that. They, at, at peak, they were around 30 south to a hundred thousand members. This was in the 1960s? Mm. Under Elijah Muhammad. Okay. Although some sources claiming up to a quarter million members wow. However if you’re looking at recent estimates, you’re getting around 50,000 members as of 2007.

That’s the most recent number we have access to.

Simone Collins: [00:40:00] So, fewer than the subscribers of Basecamp?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Fewer than the subscriber counted Basecamp. And in the uk you have around 2000 Latinos make up over 20% of the US membership in 2009. Latinos. Yeah. Latinos. All right guys. Go for it. I mean. And they had periods of growth from the 1950 to the 1960s and then they had a surge in the 1980s and late 1990s.

Okay.

This was due to targeting prisons, campuses and latino slash native communities. The decline factors. The major split in 1975. After Elijah Muhammad’s death, his son Wallace d Mohammad shifted most followers to Orthodox Sunni Islam reducing. So basically the main successor line, like it was this guy, then this guy, then his son, and then his son was like, this is stupid.

We should just be Sunni Muslims.

Simone Collins: Good for him. That’s, that’s like, that’s very wholesome. Yeah, it is actually.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Wow. And it’s been described in the shadow as former itself. [00:41:00] So, Simone, did you, you learn

Simone Collins: something new. This was fascinating, Malcolm, I’m really glad that you you, you found this nugget of, of fascination, and I love the weird wholesome twist at the end of like, oh, this was a mistake.

Let’s just, let’s just go. And, you know, it’s not Shia Islam either. It’s like, let’s go to just mainstream most common. Form of Islam. Just like, just do the right thing, guys. Okay. You know, you

Malcolm Collins: be Muslim. Like, why, why, why, why have all the

Simone Collins: he broke? Don’t fix it. Drop the wheel. Okay. This would be

Malcolm Collins: like if one of the Mormon, like head prophets was just like, guys packing it up.

We’re gonna be Protestants from now on. Made a mistake. We can still, I’m so, I

Simone Collins: know, man, I, I love the LDS church. Don’t you ever change guys, like our, our big argument to the LDS church is stop trying to get everyone to like you. It’s not going to happen. Like, just be weird. Okay. What do you [00:42:00] think of the Nation of Islam?

I mean, they’re pretty weird. They’ve got a, you know, sense of No, but they’re

Malcolm Collins: not fun. Weird. Okay. They’re, you know, I don’t have that. I like the Yakob story. That’s a no. That’s better than Zou. That’s so much better than Zeno. I don’t, because it

Simone Collins: involves in infanticide. You, you just, no. No. Mm-hmm. No, you don’t like it too, too gushy.

No. I love, I love LDS all the way, man. I am. I am a Mormon. An honorary Mormon as my, all my college friends would tell me that were Mormon.

Malcolm Collins: She used to hang out with all Mormons.

Simone Collins: So happy.

Malcolm Collins: Like when I heard that and what it got me longer thinking about this, like the moment I heard the guy tell, I was like, yeah, wait, that makes no sense. And second, why did anybody ever believe his story? It sounds so on. Its face, my God. Insane, right?

Simone Collins: It’s insane. I love it though. I love it. I love these conversations with you.

I’m glad we’re just gonna. We’re off the rails again. We’ll see how long we last. Yeah, we’ll see how

Malcolm Collins: long we last.

Simone Collins: Thanks everyone Who put the wind back in our sails. We were really Jim and a [00:43:00] autocracy. We were really, really though, like demoralized last week and so many people came forward like actually sub like, subscribe to like, show us very real generous support.

Yeah, tons of and Patreon. Tons of just comments supporting us. Okay, fine. Like we’re gonna go for it. As long as we can make this work, we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna try. And so thank you to everyone. Malcolm. I love you. I’m gonna bring up pumpkin soup before you debate the the dude about beating our children, and I love you.

Ciao.

Malcolm Collins: I’m the best at it. I’m, I’m a very good beater.

Simone Collins: You’re so good. It, it, it just slap all the children cross face. Anyway, Chacha, bye-bye. Cha cha cha. Chow cha. Chow cha cha cha cha.

Okay, Malcolm’s gone. This means I can try to think of the most embarrassing things to tell about him while he’s off screen. Okay, let’s go. God, my mind is blinking. He’s honestly so amazing. You don’t even understand what life is like, like with him. Every single day. Genuinely so fun. [00:44:00] He is, he is like the stereotype for the, the way that perfect husbands are supposed to be because he’s constantly complimenting me.

Like, which, which kind of it’s, it is wasted because I’m too autistic to care. Like I only really care about negative comments and which I never get from him. He’s so kind to me. Then I, I, I compliments just make me uncomfortable. ‘cause I feel like I have to pay them back. But he still constantly compliments me.

And it’s just like, wow, you look really good. And he means it because he will also tell you something is a really crappy when it is, which comes up all the time with the food. Because I often mess up. And yeah, he’s also very generous about that. Being someone who only eats one meal a day, it’s amazing.

He doesn’t cry when his meals are screwed up. Okay, but fun, embarrassing stuff about Malcolm. Oh, I mean, like weird details. Weird details. When I first started dating him, and this still happens, oh no. No. Hey, that looks better. There you go. Problem solved. [00:45:00] Yeah, something. Something I saved by the bell.

‘cause I was trying to think of embarrassing things to say while, while recording about you. Oh no. I just thought of a good one and No, but we have to start recording. So bring in Simone. Quick

Malcolm Collins: question. But it, so the way I’m gonna structure the debate with Steven Mullany, ‘cause I’m about to have a debate with him over several punishment.

I’m so excited

Simone Collins: for that. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Which is gonna be fun is I’ve decided to start it actually talking about polyamory. Okay. And I’m gonna point out that it’s never been a, a common practice in any growing Oh my God. Growing flourish. Oh God, I love this. And not beating children has also never, never happened once was in a growing and thriving civilization during its effect.

Wow.

Simone Collins: And you can’t just be like real gender gentle parenting has never been tried. Real polyamory has never been tried because No. Like no, there’s been enough time of this. Okay. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I’m gonna, I I can be like, . You see it in hunter gatherer tribes, but you do not see it in successful civilizations.

Yeah. And the moment we stopped

Simone Collins: doing it, dude. Well, and, and hunter [00:46:00] gatherer tribes. And you were just describing how like. One father, like one woman described how a man just like grabbed a crying child. Yeah. Well you have some beat his head against a tree until he died.

Malcolm Collins: No, you do have, you do have some hunter together tribes that do no corporal punishment of children at all.

But. You don’t see that in major civilizations. Mm. And so, I’m gonna point out that I’m, I’m going to try to frame the whole debate of framing it as like that kind of a luxury belief.

Simone Collins: Mm. You know, I like it. I like it. Yeah. Anyway, it’s gonna be good. It’s gonna be good. All right. It’s

Malcolm Collins: Mr.

Speaker: Torsten, watch out. Don’t get wet.

Torsten. Do not do that. Do not do that. Get outta there. You will get wet. Yes, I.[00:47:00]

Speaker 2: How, how?

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe