Transcript
[00:00:00]
Music: “Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Theme Song” by Brian Keith Dalton. A jaunty, upbeat instrumental.
Carrie Poppy: Hello! Welcome to Oh No, Ross and Carrie!, the show where we don’t just report on fringe science, spirituality, claims of the paranormal. No way! We take part ourselves.
Ross Blocher: Yup! When they make the claims, we show up, so you don’t have to. I’m Ross Blocher.
Carrie Poppy: And I’m Kathryn Krick, and welcome back to our podcast.
Ross Blocher: Hm. I don’t know why I started a podcast with you, Kathryn Krick.
Carrie Poppy: I know!
Ross Blocher: I’ve got real issues with you! But I’m glad you—
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, that makes sense. And why would I do this at episode three of my own investigation?
Ross Blocher: (Chuckles.) I’m glad you come back though every week for me to harangue you about why I see you as completely sus.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, fair. Alright, let’s do this for an hour and a half.
Ross Blocher: Alright. Yeah, let’s talk about your faith healing techniques.
(They giggle.)
Carrie Poppy: Just kidding. I’m Carrie Poppy! I’m Ross’s cohost.
Ross Blocher: There we go. All is right with the world again. Yeah. So, if you’ve listened to our previous episodes, you know a bit about Kathryn Krick. Self—well, I was going to say self-proclaimed apostle. She was proclaimed by GeorDavie—her spiritual father in Tanzania, who occasionally visits the US—as an apostle! Which is like a big deal. And now she has this church. It started out small in 2017. It went gangbusters in 2021—I think was when it really took off.
Carrie Poppy: Took off, took off! Hold on, let me pull up my chronology! Let’s see! Let’s see!
Ross Blocher: Carrie is sharply intaking air. She is checking her notes.
Carrie Poppy: (Chuckles.) When did it take off? What would that mean? That means over 100 people?
Ross Blocher: Yeah, when like the 300 people showed up. I think that was 2021.
Carrie Poppy: That sounds right. You have a better memory for numbers. May 30th, 2021.
Ross Blocher: The lusty month of May. And since then, she’s been this huge online presence. She has a church here in Los Angeles. We’ve attended, and if you’ve listened to the past couple episodes, you’ve heard something about that. But we wanted this time to really focus on breaking down her faith healing. What we saw, what that deliverance service looked like. And already I’m naming two distinct actions: deliverance, which is the removing of demons, and healing, which is healing.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, healing a physical, mental, or emotional problem in the person sitting in front of you.
Ross Blocher: And she concludes each of her in-person services with this come up to the altar, come up to the big wooden box.
Carrie Poppy: Stage, if you will.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, stand around the stage, and I’m gonna—I’m gonna heal/deliver you.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. So, I hobbled up there, because I had a broken toe. AND STILL DO!
Ross Blocher: It’s still broken!
Carrie Poppy: Spoiler!
Ross Blocher: You and Cara are synced up. She badly stubbed her toe and thinks it might be broken.
Carrie Poppy: Oh no! (Gasps.) Which toe?
Ross Blocher: It’s a littler one—not the littlest, but the one next to it.
Carrie Poppy: Ooh, that guy. The pointer toe.
Ross Blocher: And she did it by jamming her foot into a little stack of sodas.
Carrie Poppy: (Chuckling sympathetically.) Oh, that sucks so bad. See, this is the thing too. It’s always the stupidest reason that you hurt your toe. You’re not like, (dopily) “Um, I was kicking a bad guy, and then I broke my toe.”
(Ross chuckles.)
It’s like, “There was Diet Pepsi on the floor. And then I took my cat shit out at 10PM, which is actually 6PM, apparently (inaudible).”
Ross Blocher: Someone’s like wearing their arm in a sling, and they tell me the story of like, (sadly) “Oh, I slipped in the shower.” Like, let’s come up with a better story. I’ll back you.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, let’s see what we can do here. (Laughs.)
Ross Blocher: Yeah, let’s massage this.
Carrie Poppy: So, who was in the shower? Death?! ‘Cause if you were trying to beat up the angel of death, then this is all of a sudden a really good hurt your toes story!
Ross Blocher: That’s a good story! Or maybe you’re trying some new sexual positions in the shower. That’s a good story!
Carrie Poppy: There we go! Say that! Say, (chuckles) “My husband and I were trying to conceive.”
(They laugh.)
“And now my arm is broken. Do you really want to ask more questions?”
(They laugh.)
Ho-ho-ho, it’s Christmas.
Ross Blocher: Merry Christmas.
Carrie Poppy: Merry Christmas, if you like it. If you don’t, I take it back!
Okay, so there were a bunch of healings at the end of Kathryn Krick’s faith service. And what did we do? Some people would go to a faith healing service, and they’d say, “That was weird,” and they’d go home, and they would not even think about it. What did we do?
Ross Blocher: We recorded it. Reviewed it later, and we broke it down. So, I see this as a very similar exercise to what we’ve done with psychics, because very often you go, you have this experience, and what you remember are the emotions. And you don’t remember the details. So, we’re like let’s dig into the details of one of these services. And she does them all the time! And maybe identify some themes, some techniques.
Carrie Poppy: Yes! And my favorite way is a spreadsheet. (In pure delight.) UGH, I love a spreadsheet!
Ross Blocher: Oh, Carrie made a great spreadsheet.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, thank you, thank you. I couldn’t get enough. Yeah, so we went back through all of these healings and analyzed them and tried to find through lines between them. And, yeah, should we start with the first faith healing?
Ross Blocher: Let’s do it. We already mentioned that this service was the better part of four hours.
[00:05:00]
But the faith healing portion itself was about 45 minutes. So, she’s already preached for a long time. We’ve already sung, all of that. But yeah. Take us into it.
Carrie Poppy: This feels like the climax. Right? This is what you’re working toward.
Ross Blocher: Oh yeah, absolutely. Right. Yeah. If you plot it as a graph of excitement. You know, oh, you start a little bit of excitement. We’re singing songs and stuff. And oh, she comes out. Cool! Woah! Yeah! Alright! And then—
Carrie Poppy: Oh, really boring talk. Okay.
Ross Blocher: She’s preaching. She wants our money. Okay. Oh, she still wants our money. Oh, a different way of saying that she wants our money. Okay. Yeah.
(Carrie chuckles.)
And then at the end, yeah. Come on up here and—woah! We’re going to all get healed! And like people are writhing and falling down and declarations are being made of complete and total healing! Big deal!
Carrie Poppy: Yes! So, the first person who comes up—we have him down as “boy of the night” in the spreadsheet. I believe that’s a Ross nickname.
(Ross confirms.)
So, he comes up to the stage, and I think he was from another country.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, he’s from Japan. And it sounded like he’d only fairly recently learned English from what he was saying. And he was confessing—because one of the first things that she has you do, she calls you up, she gets you in front of her.
Carrie Poppy: And then you do basically a public confession in front of the entire world on a livestream.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, tell us all the worst things that have ever happened to you or that you’ve done. Confess them now. Renounce them.
Yeah, he was renouncing a lot of things to do with his family, like even his aunt’s heart disease and like ancestors in his family. I didn’t quite make out all of that, but some of it was kind of this—as Kathryn would call it in her parlance—generational stuff. But then he said that he was posting impure videos in Japanese. That he had been doing that.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, I missed the posting. Okay.
Ross Blocher: And he mentioned pornography. He also mentioned demons that he had been visited by in the night. That’s a big thing for Kathryn, and she picks up on that.
Carrie Poppy: Oopsie, okay. Yeah. So, presumably, a reference to night hallucinations, which are really common. It’s like one in five people will at some point have like one of these night terror experiences or a night paralysis.
Ross Blocher: Mm-hm. And his seem to be specifically sexual. So, this has also been around for a long time. The Incubus. Mm hmm. The Succubus.
Carrie Poppy: Queen Mab. We’re referring to the phenomenon of people feeling like they are half asleep, and a spirit comes and has sex with them—either willingly or not willingly. This kind of varies.
Ross Blocher: And I think probably just good old-fashioned wet dreams. You’re having a sexy dream, and you wake up, and you’re—
Carrie Poppy: Alongside some kind of paralysis, usually.
Ross Blocher: But I think for her, that would count like—even if in your dreams you’re thinking impure thoughts, that’s from the devil, a demon.
Carrie Poppy: Right. And you are responsible for whatever your brain served you (chuckling) while you were literally unconscious. Yeah.
Ross Blocher: That’s right. I mean you could speak to something that’s there, but in this case, she assumes it’s a demon. So—
Carrie Poppy: But what—there’s like a really heartbreaking thing about this kid.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, so she’s already kind of interacted with him a bit. But then he mentions that he’s—
Carrie Poppy: Which did we say his age, by the way?
Ross Blocher: Early 20s.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, young guy.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. And then he mentions that he’s had homosexual thoughts.
Carrie Poppy: Thoughts, yeah, for a long time.
Ross Blocher: And then when he tells, again, the whole audience—because she’ll hold the microphone up to herself when she’s talking, and then she’ll—you know, like a reporter—put it in front of their face when it’s time for them to renounce or whatever. He then tells the whole assembled room, “Yeah, I thought that I was gay, but then I realized that wasn’t real.” And that got a big applause from the audience.
Clip:
Music: Orchestral, inspirational music.
Young Man: And I feel it from (inaudible). I thought that my identity is gay, but it was not. It was—my real identity is child of God.
Audience Member: Thank you!
(Boisterous applause.)
Ross Blocher: It’s just so sad. ‘Cause you’re probably gay. And it’s definitely okay.
(Carrie agrees with a laugh.)
Why are we clapping for this?
Carrie Poppy: Right. Counterpoint! This is definitely okay!
Ross Blocher: And we’re just reinforcing this. Oh yeah, I was like, “I’m not part of this crowd! I’m not clapping!”
Carrie Poppy: Oh my god. It is a brutal way to start out a faith healing. We have 13 people we have to get through. And number one, number one is young gay man from Japan who comes for being healed of his gayness. That’s a-number one. Merry Christmas, everybody!
(Ross chuckles.)
Yeah, no, it’s so brutal. And she receives this with the face of someone who’s like, (saccharinely sweet) “I know that it must have been so hard for you to bring this to me. But don’t worry, I love you. I’m enveloping you. Oh, it’s okay.” It so reminds me of like when I was in church, and they were like, “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” And like, I know that it comes from this good place, but it’s ignoring like that you have any responsibility in this other than a kind face.
[00:10:00]
And, you know, a sweet embrace. You have more responsibility than that here.
Ross Blocher: Right, and you’re using this voice that is—it almost sounds caricatured; it sounds simpering, but it’s very close to what Kathryn Krick is doing, as you’ll hear in these clips we’re going to insert in this episode. Which—
Carrie Poppy: It’s condescending.
Ross Blocher: It’s absolutely condescending. It makes me uncomfortable on so many levels. And it’s never like—it’s never a quick proclamation where it’s just like, “Okay, you are healed! Praise you, Jesus. Move on.” No, she’ll like just kind of start restating the same thing multiple times. It’ll take her a good paragraph just to get out what she’s doing.
(Carrie laughs.)
And in this case, she says, “I detach you from everything you said. Yeah, all of the above.”
Carrie Poppy: (Laughing.) Yeah, right. “I don’t know how to summarize this.”
Ross Blocher: “Everything on your list.” So, apparently he had like a list, and many people do.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, he had a physical list, yep.
Clip:
(Applause.)
Kathryn Krick: Hallelujah! And I’m going to declare everything written to God is free in you right now. I break every generational curse off your life, off of this—your family now, and I detach you from everything you have renounced, everything that’s on this list that you wrote. And I declare every spirit attached, every spiritual spouse, every intersexual spirit, the spirit that comes in the night—I declare all must go now in Jesus’ name.
Ross Blocher: Wow! Big. Okay. “May people be changed by your testimony.” Because that had come up, that he was now inspired to go speak his testimony in Japan. One thing she said there really made my ears perk up, and that was spiritual spouses?! And I was like what?! What is that?
Carrie Poppy: Yeah! So, when I first heard this, I assumed that it was people you’ve had sex with. And so, you’re sort of spiritually linked to them. Because this is an idea I heard when I was a teenager. Which is like, “You have sex with anybody, they’re kind of like your husband. So, now you need to, you know, repent of that and kind of sever that cord or you’re emotionally tied to them.” But no!
Ross Blocher: Yeah. And just a quick web search here. “A spirit spouse is a widespread element of shamanism distributed through all continents and at all cultural levels.” I immediately think of people having spiritual spouses in Antarctica. But these—
Carrie Poppy: Travis McHenry, let us know!
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) Yeah, are there any in Westarctica?
“Often, these spirit husbands/wives are seen as the primary helping spirits of the shaman, who assist them in their work and help them gain power in the world of spirit.”
(Carrie “woah”s.)
Yeah, so this is tied into her whole witchcraft thing.
Carrie Poppy: So, this is a witchcraft thing. Oh nooo.
Ross Blocher: Exactly. Somebody was saddling you with this spirit husband/wife who is giving you these impure thoughts and dreams.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, this is so bad. This is so bad!
Ross Blocher: And she’ll mention this a couple times. But like, woah! Did you learn that from GeorDavie? Might be one of his talking points.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, very likely. Very likely. Oh my god. You guys, listen. We never need to add agency. We never need to do it! If you are worried that someone—“Oh no, this person doesn’t realize that there’s an agent involved! That there’s a character involved! That there’s someone harming them.” Don’t worry! They’ve thought about it. Every human alive considers this first. We first think, “Oh no, another agent has done this to me!” And we have to be talked out of it. And Kathryn Krick is going backwards. She’s doing it backwards!
So, these people are like, “I don’t know, maybe, um—uh, I’m having a weird experience at night.”
And she’s like, “NO! That’s a demon!”
We don’t need this. We don’t need people to do this for us. It sends us into insanity. Literally, it can break your sanity. We don’t need it!
Ross Blocher: Preach!
Carrie Poppy: Thank you.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, that’s a good point. I think usually when an agent is involved—meaning another thinking person—
Carrie Poppy: Or animal, even.
Ross Blocher: You’ll probably know about it.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, quickly.
Ross Blocher: If that’s not it—and certainly consider that but try to find other explanations that don’t involve other thinking creatures. Because a lot of things are not explicable by other people and homunculi and invisible spirits. And—
Carrie Poppy: Right. Like with sleep paralysis, it’s you. The only character is you. And all your ancestors and evolution.
Ross Blocher: You may see really cool things when you’re on that drug! That doesn’t mean they’re real; that just means your brain is very interesting, and you’ve lit up some unusual parts of it.
Carrie Poppy: Mm-hm. That was you again.
Ross Blocher: And that can be very cool without necessarily invoking anything from the outside. And you’re right, yeah, Kathryn is taking us from our modern day, our modern age—where we’ve kind of gotten a societal hold on that—and saying, “Let’s go back to our more primitive brain and really search for who’s mad at you! Who’s trying to wreck your life? There’s somebody out there! You can’t see them, but we know about them by inference!”
Carrie Poppy: And how about I set up my church in downtown Los Angeles with the largest population of people with homelessness, mental illness, addiction in the developed world.
[00:15:00]
I set up there, and I’m like, “Everybody come in, and I’m going to try to extra convince you that spirits are causing your problems.” (Sarcastically.) Good. Good.
Ross Blocher: A population of people who don’t have a lot of money, but they have some.
Carrie Poppy: Mm-hm. Mm-hm, mm-hm, mm-hm. And it could be mine. Or GeorDavie’s.
Okay, sooo. Volunteer number two. (Chuckles.)
Ross Blocher: And you’ve labeled this volunteer “Despair”. Oh, poor lady.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, Despair.
Ross Blocher: Also, in her early 20s. Young Latina woman.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. Oh man, just a girl going through it. Like, the entire time she’s up there—six-ish minutes that she’s up on stage—she’s just writhing. She’s miserable, this poor girl.
Ross Blocher: Kathryn does this thing that really irritates me, and she does it all throughout this whole service. And that’s referring to every woman as (saccharine sweet) “hun”. “You wanna come up here, hun?”
Carrie Poppy: Oh! I didn’t notice that that was gendered. She definitely says hun a lot. Yeah.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, you know, she might have said it to some men, but it feels like every woman is, “Hun. Can I have you come up right now here, hun? God wants to heal you.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, she definitely says hun a lot. (Laughs.)
Ross Blocher: (Sighs heavily.) Stop it!
Clip:
(Applause.)
Music: Inspirational music.
Kathryn Krick: You, hun? Do you want get—? Can you come? Yeah, you’re together? Yeah, yeah, all of you. There is good. Thank you, Jesus. You can come stand beside her. God is freeing you right now, all of you. All of you right now, God is freeing them.
Ross Blocher: Two family members came up—a very young girl, like in her teenage years, and then maybe her mother. I don’t know, someone older. They both came up and flanked her, but they didn’t really say anything. They did pass out in the spirit and were lowered to the ground.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. So, this is a thing that’s expected, and sometimes it seems like Kathryn’s waiting for it. Which is after she does the healing on you, you’re kind of expected to fall backwards into the arms of a collecting agent.
Ross Blocher: And I think this plays a big role, because—I’m just gonna spoil it outright. I’m sorry, but we don’t see any spontaneous healings where a broken arm becomes straight or—
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, nothing obvious.
Ross Blocher: —someone in a wheelchair gets out and starts doing somersaults. Nothing like that.
Carrie Poppy: Right. Carrie’s toe stops hurting, and she can walk normal.
Ross Blocher: (Chuckling.) Yeah. We do see lots of people being overcome, coughing, retching, crying, falling over. This is dramatic! And sure, there’s gonna be a part of everyone’s brain there that’s thinking, “Oh wow! People don’t normally do this!” I went to the office yesterday. Nobody retched.
Carrie Poppy: But you know where you do see this kind of stuff in our everyday life without demons? Funerals!
(Ross concedes with surprise.)
Right? It’s that kind of like, “(Strangled sound) I don’t even know what to do with my emotions! (Strangled, stuttering noise.)” You know, that kind of guttural—(chuckling) Ross is really liking this demonstration, I can see it. (Laughs.)
Ross Blocher: I have not seen that funeral! But it sounds like a rollicking good time.
Carrie Poppy: But you know, like in our culture, we have like a little more—rein it in.
Ross Blocher: Opportunities where we are able to express strong emotion.
Carrie Poppy: At Ella’s funeral, everyone was crying but also kind of trying to rein it in a little, because that’s like sort of more the tradition in our culture. But like—but you know, you hear about the mourners who are, you know, wailing their heads off. And people used to hire people to wear black and mourn and all that. And it feels like that. Like, I am—I really am feeling something, but I’m also demonstrating how much I’m feeling it.
Ross Blocher: And maybe it’s a bit of catharsis. Maybe it’s kind of a little fun to have an opportunity where like, “Oh, we can do this! We can just fully just let it all out where we don’t normally.” And in fact, as much as this is us kind of analyzing this thing and saying overall it’s not helpful, I do look at these people crying and saying their greatest sins out loud and think for many of them there could be a really positive benefit just to be like, “Wow, I’m finally putting it out there. I’m saying—”
Carrie Poppy: The confession part.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, “This has been silent for me for so long. You know, I’ve been crying to myself, but now I can just like bawl and let it all out.” I can see that, in that moment, releasing a lot of neurotransmitters. So, you’re feeling endorphins, and you’re feeling different! You know, in a different state of mind. I can see why that element might be a release.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I think that’s the real argument for confession.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. But we were talking about people falling over. And I think kind of like stage hypnotism, this is sort of an expectation that you have when you’re attending this. You’ve seen other people fall over. And not only do you have men—tall, strapping men; there was four of them in this service—who are taking turns getting behind everybody who might fall over, but you also have either one of those strapping men or some other person with the ministry—they’re ready with blue blankets.
[00:20:00]
And so, as soon as you topple over, if you go backwards, within seconds you’ll have a blue blanket launched on top of you. There’s also a woman carrying around a bucket.
Carrie Poppy: Yes! I didn’t notice her until I was watching the video, but yeah. She is waiting for someone to vomit.
Ross Blocher: Like our amigos at Rythmia, they’re ready for people to throw up. And yeah, we didn’t see that. You’d see people like cough and look maybe kind of ill, but we didn’t catch any vomiting. But yeah, the bucket—
Carrie Poppy: I wonder what they call that volunteer position. “Oh, you’re on the bucket today!”
Ross Blocher: “Oh, you’re the vomiter (volunteer).”
And they have a big roll of paper towels inside the bucket. So, they’re ready. Just have to remove the paper towels first, and then—
Carrie Poppy: Mm-hm. And she’s ready. She’s following each person around the stage. I didn’t see her until I was rewatching the video, and I was like look at this character!
Ross Blocher: “If you’re gonna spew, spew in this.” She doubled as a Spanish translator as well, which is very helpful. So, yeah, she was doing the Lord’s work there.
(Carrie chuckles.)
But anyways, yeah, just thought I’d lay that out while we’re talking about this young woman. Her family members kind of passed out very quickly, didn’t say much. But they fell backwards, they were caught, and they just kind of sat there with the blue blankets on them until their relative was dismissed.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. And it’s very funny to see everybody stand up, because they’re acting as if they’ve swooned. But then when the moment’s over, usually they’re like, “Alright! Well, the blood pressure in my head didn’t actually change, so time to get up now!”
Ross Blocher: It’s always fascinating to watch kids in all this.
(Carrie laughs and agrees.)
Because I can remember my perspective as a kid seeing this kind of stuff happen around me like, “Huh. This is what adults do, I guess. Oh-kay.” And you know, you’re looking up at all these expectant faces and like, “Huh, okay, so this is normal? Okay. What are you doing? That’s normal. Okay.”
But yeah, there was this—I assume—younger sister. And she got up after all of this and looked as nonchalant as can be like, “Okay, are we done laying down now?”
Carrie Poppy: “Alright. The six minutes are over.”
Ross Blocher: Nice little half-nap there. But yeah, what happened with her sister?
Carrie Poppy: So, yes. Despair, as we’re calling her. I think the reason she actually stood up is because she has been violent to her boyfriend. She was saying that she has been—
Ross Blocher: Seemed to be her biggest complaint.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, has been hitting him.
Ross Blocher: She felt really guilty that she’s been hitting her boyfriend. Okay.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Yeah, makes sense. And so, she has now attributed this to like, you know, demons or spirits or whatever. So, Kathryn asks her what she wants to renounce. And she’s like, “Well, the thing I was mostly embarrassed about was hitting my boyfriend, but okay. I mean, weed, porn, masturbation.” And you could see her kind of like is this—? Is this what you want?
Ross Blocher: Yeah, what kind of—yeah, “What kind of stuff are you looking for? Uh, yeah, yeah, I masturbate a lot.”
Carrie Poppy: “Boy, I mean, I already mentioned beating up my boyfriend, but okaaay. Um, sometimes I smoke pot? Um.”
Ross Blocher: She mentioned—at some point you just call out esoteric concepts, yeah. “(Stammering.) I renounce jealousy, rejection, anger, manipulation, confusion, control. But you know, pretty much like hitting my boyfriend.”
(They laugh.)
Carrie Poppy: Yeah! “I really feel like it’s the hitting my boyfriend thing.” And Despair also says that she has this rejection sensitivity. She feels rejected a lot. Kathryn removes the demons by removing word curses. Um. Which I guess means someone’s out loud saying a curse on you. I guess?
Ross Blocher: Sounds right.
Carrie Poppy: And that makes Despair convulse. So, she hears that, and she has some sort of emotional reaction, because she starts doubling over and kind of heaving. “Uuugh.”
Ross Blocher: Yeah. And you know, spiritual world confirmed! Look how she reacted when those words were said to her!
Carrie Poppy: Look at the abreactions!
Ross Blocher: This is the most supernatural thing that you’re going to witness is people’s reactions.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, and the person having the reaction probably doesn’t even really know—I guess sometimes they know they’re the show, but you don’t even have to. You could be thinking, “I’m not the proof.” You know what I mean? There’s just this sort of defusal of evidence.
Ross Blocher: And there’s so much reliance on what other people are doing in that moment like, “Oh wow, well she just did all that, and okay, well I guess that’s kind of what I should do when I get pulled up on the stage. Okay, let’s just run with it.” I really do feel like it’s akin to stage hypnosis.
Carrie Poppy: Uh-huh! Oh, totally. Yep. I would totally agree.
Ross Blocher: And Kathryn always ends with these very strong, declarative statements. She says that God is finishing it now!
Carrie Poppy: Yes, because God had begun his healing before. So, this kind of implies that this woman—maybe she’s even been here before, but she’s clearly gotten healings before.
Ross Blocher: Oh, good point. Yeah, there are a lot of repeat customers. We’ve already seen quite a few. And I’m sure Kathryn recognizes people that maybe she’s already done this for. That’s where it gets really awkward with the language, because Kathryn’s declaring total healing! For everyone, of all curses! But then the next time they show up, “And also this curse!” You know, like really? Did you not get that one before when you said all curses?!
Carrie Poppy: Right, and why are my symptoms exactly the same?
[00:25:00]
Ross Blocher: So, Kathryn spoke, complete freedom now. Freedom and peace to every part of your body and your mind.
Carrie Poppy: So, that lady is fine now. She will never have a problem again. Isn’t that right?
Ross Blocher: Never again.
Carrie Poppy: Now, what’s weird is she continued to lay there writhing and crying, and I would say didn’t look happy.
(Ross confirms.)
But! She was scared of her despair, and that’s that.
Ross Blocher: But as Kathryn will remind us time and time again.
Clip:
Music: Inspirational music.
Kathryn Krick: Thank you, Jesus. I declare now that The devil cannot steal what you have received. Some of you have been healed. You know you were healed. Some of you have been freed; you know you were freed. The devil hates this, and he wants to make you think that it didn’t really happen. I expose this lie now, and I declare that you are healed. That you are free. And the devil can never win! Too bad, devil!
(Cheers and applause.)
Carrie Poppy: (Exasperatedly.) Alright.
Ross Blocher: And she’s just preparing you for the inevitable realization later when all of the excitement dies down and all the hormones go back to their regular levels, you’re gonna be like, “Wait a second! I still feel really bummed about this! I still have all the same problems I did before. My ailments have not gone away.” That’s the devil telling you that nothing happened.
Carrie Poppy: It might feel like it’s reality testing. It might feel like it’s analyzing the evidence.
(Ross “ugh”s playfully at each suggestion.)
It might feel like it’s taking a step back and asking yourself, just giving yourself a critical thinking moment.
Ross Blocher: Horrible.
Carrie Poppy: But actually, it’s none of those things!
Ross Blocher: It’s another agent! The devil! Who’s there waiting in the wings to point out, “Wait a second, Kathryn Krick sounded very confident, but nothing actually changed materially. Huh.” Yeah, bad thoughts. So, that’s a little bit of that thought control, one of the aspects of cult detection.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. I find all those terms like so impenetrable, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, it’s certainly pushing—
Ross Blocher: It’s a thought-stopping cliché. It’s meant to—
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s certainly pushing those impressions on people.
Ross Blocher: It’s meant to warn you in advance when your brain starts doing this natural thing to make sense of the situation. “Uh, I’m already pre-installing a pop up that’s going to guide you back to Kathryn.”
Carrie Poppy: Yep, definitely. Alright, so what about the repentant mother?
Ross Blocher: What does she have to repent for?
Carrie Poppy: Well, first of all, I should say—I wrote down that she’s in her late 40s. What do you think? She’s up on your screen. What do you say? Did I get it right?!
(Ross confirms.)
Yessss! I’m very bad at ages.
Ross Blocher: A Caucasian woman. The only one, really, that we saw.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, she’s the only person in our spreadsheet that we guessed was Caucasian.
Ross Blocher: You weren’t called up. You were Caucasian.
Carrie Poppy: True. Kathryn Carrick is Caucasian, but yeah, her audience is largely not. Yeah, we called her the repentant mother. This poor woman.
Ross Blocher: Also welcomed as “hun”.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, so she was just standing off to the side. She’s stage right.
Ross Blocher: (Voice pitched high.) “Can you come here, hun? God is freeing you!”
Carrie Poppy: Boy, I saw this on video. Like, this woman was not making a ruckus at all. It was like Kathryn went from stage left to stage right, and she needed someone, and it was this woman who she made eye contact with.
Ross Blocher: That’s a good point! Kathryn will kind of mix it up amongst the crowd, as you would want to—not feel like you’re just ignoring one side of the room. Maybe everybody would start relocating to that side of the room if you were doing that. But also, she’ll pass over people who are wearing crutches and looking up expectantly.
(Carrie chuckles and confirms.)
She’ll pass over a woman just like violently shaking in the front row. And like you said, sometimes she’ll grab someone who’s just sitting there kind of benignly, and they’ll have this look of like, “Oh! Me?! Oh—alright. Sure.”
Carrie Poppy: “Me? Okay, great! I did have something in mind, so sure. Okay. We’re all standing there with something in mind. So, okay me.”
So, yeah, this woman I guess has battled addiction for many years, and it sounds like probably child protective services took her kid away.
(Ross agrees.)
And as she tells it, she’s doing much better now and wants her kid back. But you know, once that process has started, it’s really hard to roll back. And so, she’s sobbing, and she says, “I want to renounce that my son got taken from me because of my disease. And I’m sober now, and I want him back. But I want to renounce the broken heart that I have for my baby, and I want to renounce the anger that he has for what happened.” And oh my goodness. A situation—
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Your heart goes out to this woman and wishes she were not here.
Carrie Poppy: Right. A situation that needs like actual problem solving. You know, like oh yeah, your brain is caught on this. That makes sense. It’s time to like, really go for it. Like, let’s problem solve this situation instead of doing this.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Let’s look at what your legal options are and let’s look at precedent of how other people have handled similar situations. And maybe you can start a visitation before you work on custody or something like that, you know?
Carrie Poppy: And maybe not. Maybe the answer is acceptance. All I know is the answer is probably not standing here and having a lady wave her hands over you.
Ross Blocher: Indeed. She also renounces being stubborn, being rebellious, lying, worrying, doubt, fear. So, everybody can kind of come up with a list of things that have been present in their minds that feel like personal failings.
[00:30:00]
Carrie Poppy: Mm-hm. So, Kathryn breaks her generational curses.
Ross Blocher: More agent-icity.
Carrie Poppy: Yep. Removes spirits of addiction and fear. So, not removing addiction and fear, but spirits of them. Agents.
Ross Blocher: And declares, “Be free completely, now!”
Carrie Poppy: And it’s very funny to see this on the video, because the repentant mother’s eyes are closed, and she kind of misses her cue a little. And it reminded me of when Kathryn is getting her anointing and falls too early.
Ross Blocher: Falls down before the oils hit her head.
Carrie Poppy: This lady falls a little too late. But she teeters a bit, she falls backward. And the guy—who I’m calling Slick Guy.
(Ross laughs.)
The one who, if I had to put a bet on Kathryn’s boyfriend, it would be him—he catches her, puts—someone puts a blanket on her.
Ross Blocher: Okay, yeah, all of the catchers—and boy, what a catch—are wearing like light colored shirts, some jeans, some slacks. But yeah, they’re always around, and they’re kind of doubled bodyguards/catchers of people who fall over. And they’re—
Carrie Poppy: The weirdest vibe.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, it’s a strange vibe.
Carrie Poppy: So just like security officers or something. Nothing that reminds me of God.
Ross Blocher: But also, they’ll run around if something needs to be done real quick. There’s one guy in particular that I’m quite fond of that I call Supermodel Jesus.
(Carrie agrees and chuckles.)
And he looks like Jesus but a little more filled out. Jesus, as in the western depiction of the White guy with long kind of flowing hair, not as long as traditional Jesus. But he’s got a beard, a nicely kept beard.
Carrie Poppy: And Chandler Bing hair.
Ross Blocher: Oh yeah, I can see that! Yeah, kind of waves on either side. And he looked like the others, but he just stands out to me. Like, they all kind of keep their eyes sort of down on the ground. They’re always in this like position of submission, just ready to go where they need to be but not draw attention to themselves. And he always looks to me like he’s three seconds from crying.
Carrie Poppy: Woah! I need to pay more attention to this guy, because Slick Guy looks to me like—
Ross Blocher: He’s a little tuned out, as far as I’m concerned.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, he looks like someone who’s like trying to scare me with his presence.
Ross Blocher: Oh, interesting! Okay. I remember seeing him earlier as we walked in. He was just kind of near the entrance, keeping an eye on things. And he gave us both kind of the “what’s up” sort of nod. He just—you know, he just didn’t seem as dedicated to his craft.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, interesting! See, he strikes me as just like the suspicious in-taker. The—who are those people at Scientology? OSI? OSA.
Ross Blocher: OSA, yeah. Office of Special Affairs.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, the people who are kind of like—okay. And they’re like hired to be suspicious. I feel like he’s hired to be suspicious.
Ross Blocher: Oh, yeah! To let you know that you’re being observed, and this should affect your behavior. Buzz off. Leave Scientology alone. But yeah, anyways, I’m quite smitten with Supermodel Jesus. But you see, he’s a little red in the face. And look, he looks like he’s about to cry! I’m showing Carrie this photo I’m very proud of.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, very evocative.
Ross Blocher: And I showed it to some of my friends last night and—both gay and straight, they all looked at him and went, “Oh, yeah! Okay! Give me more Supermodel Jesus!”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. I mean, it does seem like you might have stayed in Christianity if this had been your Jesus.
(They laugh.)
Very taken with him. (Playfully.) Happy birthday.
Ross Blocher: All of them, they take turns. So, one service—you know, you won’t see one guy, but you’ll see two of the others. Or you know, there’ll be some new guy. So, I assume there has to be some sort of like quick training that they get. “Okay, you stand behind. You’re always ready. Here’s how they fall. Here’s where you want to grab them. Make sure you’re not touching their breasts.”
Carrie Poppy: Mm-hm, mm-hm. Good advice.
Ross Blocher: I’ve seen them kind of like reaching their hands out. They’ll have their hands in this supplicating posture. And I’ll see them even sometimes like kind of tap on the back of the person to kind of say, “Hey, I’m here. So, if you feel the need to fall—”
Carrie Poppy: Oooh! Should you feel the need to fall backwards—
Ross Blocher: I’ll be here to grab you!
Carrie Poppy: And I don’t know why that would be. It certainly wouldn’t be because I tapped you.
Ross Blocher: Because that looks better than what also happens sometimes, which is somebody kind of checking behind them like a kid in a temper tantrum. You know, like, (frustratedly) “I’m really mad, and I want to demonstrate it, but also—(quieting) let me make sure that the ground is clear before—”
Carrie Poppy: “Let me take a look here and make sure that everything’s good.”
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Sometimes people kind of look behind them. Is this clear? Can I fall backwards? And you’ll see a very controlled fall. I was going to make a 9/11 joke, but. (Chuckles.)
Carrie Poppy: Really controlled demolition. Yeah.
Ross Blocher: And then they’ll, you know, like lay themselves down in a controlled move of the spirit.
So, I just—I find this incredibly fascinating, this sort of studied role that these men have as the catchers.
Carrie Poppy: Totally, yeah. And they’re communicating a lot with that role. I mean, they’re basically telling people to fall.
Ross Blocher: So, if I had to guess someone that Kathryn Krick is secretly in a relationship, I’m going to put my money down on Supermodel Jesus.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. I’m going to put it down on Jesus himself. Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap.
Ross Blocher: Okay, so—well, let’s talk about this for a second. So, Kathryn Krick does not claim to be married. And in fact, you found in her book, The Secret of the Anointing, she says she wishes she could have gotten married.
[00:35:00]
Carrie Poppy: Yes. She had at one point—until basically she was called to ministry, she really wanted to be a wife and mother and, when she was called to ministry, felt grief that this was going to take up most of her time, and she may not be a wife and mother anytime soon.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. And in the last episode, you heard her on that TV show saying, “Oh, I hope God provides the right one for me. I’m a virgin.” That was at the age of 24. Now she’s 32.
Anyway, so I was just thinking in my mind she’s not married. But I was watching videos of her, and all of a sudden I realized, wait a second! She wears a wedding ring, or a ring on her left ring finger. It’s this purple triangle shape.
Carrie Poppy: Amethyst, maybe?
Ross Blocher: Yeah, it’s quite large. Yeah, it’s either an amethyst or something else that’s purple. And so, I went back in older videos, and I found a window between early 2017 and later 2018 where in one she wasn’t wearing the wedding ring in anything before that. And then anything after, she’s wearing the ring on her wedding finger. So, I started to harbor the suspicion (whispering) she might be secretly married. I don’t know, maybe because I just feel bad for her if she doesn’t have any legitimate way to have sex with another person.
(Carrie laughs.)
I don’t know. I feel bad for her. I don’t feel bad for the guy.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Assuming that she wants to.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Maybe it’s not her thing. Also, totally fine.
Carrie Poppy: But if she wanted kids…
Ross Blocher: From the show that we saw, it seemed like, you know, she was into that. Anyways.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, good point. Good point. Like, she at least—yeah, has a sex drive. Yeah.
Ross Blocher: So, we tried to obtain marriage records, but you need more info in California.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, I don’t think she’s married. It doesn’t strike that suspicion in me. But also, like her life is so cloaked in mystery that like you say that and I’m like, “Huh. Could be!”
Ross Blocher: I thought it would be a fun reveal if she was, because there would be a lot of hypocrisy there in things that she’s said and done. But you pointed out with the book that she would be outright deceiving people if she was hiding that. So, I am now on the side of her not being married. I just thought I’d register that she’s always wearing that ring!
Carrie Poppy: You were vibe clawing! You were vibe clawing the ring.
Ross Blocher: I’m vibe clawing hard. (Laughs.)
Carrie Poppy: See, on this show we do not speculate. We wouldn’t. But what we do do is vibe claw. But we will label it! We will label it. Next, we have probably my least favorite healing of the day. We called him Undefeated.
Ross Blocher: Oh yeah, this poor guy. Ugh.
Carrie Poppy: Oh my god. Oh my god.
Ross Blocher: A Hispanic man. He has been a minister himself.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, he was a missionary and went to Bible college and has gotten a number of healings.
Ross Blocher: And he kept letting her know like, “Oh yeah, I know this stuff. I know. I’ve done this. But I got cancer.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. “I tried. I have cancer that is spreading.”
Ross Blocher: So, something’s going on. Again, because of all this agent-icity, it can’t just be that cancer randomly affects people without any reflection on what they’ve done.
Carrie Poppy: And that it’s spreading right now, as I stand before you talking to you—quite quickly; it’s famous for that. So, she—of course, what’s the solution? Get him to renounce something! Get him to confess something. But he has confessed a lot of stuff already, so he’s at a loss. He’s like, “Okay, I went to rehab a long time ago.” It sounds like this was years ago.
Ross Blocher: “But I’m Kathryn Krick, and I have a hammer. So, where’s your nail?”
“Oh, but this doesn’t apply in this situation. I’ve been a faithful servant of the Lord.”
Carrie Poppy: And he had like waved her down, too. So, she’s like, “I don’t know! Give me something.”
So, he’s like, “I went to rehab a long time ago. I thought I had renounced everything. I even went to Bible school. I was a missionary.” He’s like, “I tried to make up for this!”
Ross Blocher: In other words, none of this works!
Carrie Poppy: Yes! But, he says, “But I believe. I believe it’ll work. I believe it can.”
Ross Blocher: Even him there, he didn’t come up on the stage. He was still on the ground, but she’s holding the microphone to him. And even then, he’s like using this opportunity to preach about Jesus and Jesus being the only way. It’s like—(sighs sadly).
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, and his wife, son, and daughter are standing with him. He says something about avoiding drugs, and I couldn’t tell if he meant the drugs he used to be addicted to, or if he meant like chemo, treatment.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, quite likely.
Carrie Poppy: But—so, she says, “I speak all of the cancer out of your body, in Jesus’ name.”
Ross Blocher: Okay, does all mean all?
Carrie Poppy: I think so. She says, “Praise God, your faith is a releasing healing to you now, I break every generational curse of illness and cancer, every spirit of infirmity, cancer, and death, and all witchcraft.” Which he had not mentioned. No one had mentioned witchcraft!
Ross Blocher: But she loves to invoke witchcraft. It’s everywhere.
Carrie Poppy: But isn’t it interesting she did not invoke it with the one White person, but she keeps invoking it with all the Latino people.
(Ross affirms thoughtfully.)
Huh. He had not mentioned it. So, she heals him, he looks just like desperate but elated, because there’s no—he doesn’t know! Like, is he gonna go back to the doctor, and they’re gonna say, “Hey, all these cells are no longer there all over your x-ray.”
[00:40:00]
Ross Blocher: I mean he does fall down on the ground, either out of expectation or maybe he’s feeling it in this moment. But, ugh, I just—I know that’s not gonna change anything for him. At least, there’s no way for us to confirm during this healing service that anything happened. And we’ve already been forewarned that later on when we ask such questions, we’re just, you know, being affected by the devil! But what about this man with cancer, who needs attention, timely attention?!
Carrie Poppy: Within a minute, the whole family is standing again. Which I was like—so, Drew has pretty significant syncope, which means like he faints easily. And so, I see someone get faint, eeeh, once every two weeks—something like that—I see this happen with Drew. And he can manage it, but like he has to sit down for definitely more than a minute when this happens. So, like I’m just sort of used now to the rhythm of fainting, at least in Drew. And I’m like you’re getting up? You’re getting up already like under a minute later?! Like, you didn’t—there was no blood pressure drop! This was all persuasion.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, yeah. I’m trying to think if we’ve witnessed people falling over where it feels like it was completely out of their control. Uh, I mean, there would be candidates for that.
(Carrie agrees.)
But none where I would say, “Oh, for sure, like the blood just dropped out of her and she, you know, couldn’t help herself.” Uh, interesting.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. And I definitely don’t mean all these people are pretending. I don’t think they are, but I do think like there’s this element of convincing all of them that like something really profound and physiological happened. And the proof is in the pudding; you fell over. And it’s like, well, like really examine that yourself. Did you fall over? Or were you like, “Oh, this is the part where I fall. I kind of feel like falling. Oh, there’s the teeter. Here I go.”
Ross Blocher: Yeah, it’s really being relied upon as a form of evidence. Because otherwise, all you have is Kathryn Krick’s very confident words and then people’s reactions.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. She’s using you as the evidence, so what do you think? (Chuckles.) You know?
Ross Blocher: Well, I mean, it would be super uncomfortable. And this is what you and I would have to do, which is just to stand there and say, “Okay. Thanks. Hmm. Okay. I’m not—I mean, I don’t feel anything right now.”
Carrie Poppy: Oh yeah. You mean if she had healed us?
Ross Blocher: Yeah. To like, in the moment, not follow the script, not fall down, not to say, “Thank you. Oh yes, I’m all better.” But just to be like, “Okay, and how am I supposed to note this?” You know, that’s hard to do in front of a crowd.
Carrie Poppy: It is. This was going through my head when I was like trying to get her to call me up for my toe healing. I’m like, okay, so, you know, I need to—
Ross Blocher: I want to be open and receptive, buuut—
Carrie Poppy: Right? The best Carrie needs to show up and be willing for the possibility that you’ll heal my toe. And if you don’t, then within seconds, I need to change my goal to confronting you! Great!
(Ross laughs.)
I can’t wait! But then, you know—
Ross Blocher: Cut the live stream, cut the live stream!
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) Yeah, so I was kind of dreading it. But she didn’t call me. I also think maybe I should not have worn my Harvard sweater that day. I think I stuck out.
(Ross laughs and agrees.)
Like, frowning Harvard student on crutches by herself, looking pretty pissed off.
Ross Blocher: With the quizzical and pissed off alternating looks, yeah. Might have had something to do with it.
Carrie Poppy: I’m usually better at hiding it, I think.
(Ross laughs.)
But man, this time—even afterward, I was telling you like I could not put on a happy face here. It was rough.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, yeah. This poor pastor guy was still on the ground when they started interviewing his wife. And she was a Spanish speaker. So, the bucket lady came by to translate. And so, the wife renounced Santería, witchcraft, from her ancestors and maybe a few other things, but then Kathryn—whenever Kathryn gets a list and she can’t keep all of it in her head, she just says like, “I release you from all of that.”
Carrie Poppy: “Everything you said.”
Ross Blocher: “And the family and the children, all of you are released. All the spirits must go.” And then the wife also falls down to join her husband. Yeah, and Kathryn says, “Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus.”
Carrie Poppy: Yuck. Okay!
(Ross chuckles.)
Then there was a woman I’m calling Peace.
Ross Blocher: She actually said her age.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, 57.
Ross Blocher: 57. Like Heinz ketchup. Like a fine Heinz.
Carrie Poppy: What had I guessed in that column? 25? 15?
Ross Blocher: No, you wrote 57. Because she said it.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, good, good, good, good. You guys, I’m so bad at guessing age. Here’s what I think it is. I’m 40. And my whole life I’ve heard like when you’re 40 like, oh, that’s when it all tanks. But I’m still hot. So, it throws everything off for me.
Ross Blocher: (Chuckles.) Ugh, yeah. What do you do?
Carrie Poppy: Now I don’t know how old anybody is. Everyone I see, I’m like, they’re hot. I don’t know. They’re my age.
Ross Blocher: Up is down. Left is right. Okay.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. 40. Are you attractive? You’re 40. I don’t know. Yeah, so that’s what’s happening for me. Okay, so!
Ross Blocher: These forty-ian (Fortean) times.
(They cackle.)
Carrie Poppy: That’s pretty good.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, it ties in with our podcast. Eh? Eh?
Carrie Poppy: That’s pretty good! Okay, okay! Look at this guy over here! Merry Christmas!
Ross Blocher: Sorry, listeners, I’ve already earned my keep for the day, so it’s just gonna be Carrie from here on out. See ya!
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) Okay, so Peace.
[00:45:00]
She was stage left. She’s female. I’m guessing mixed race, maybe Black and Latina. And she locks eyes with Kathryn and raises her handwritten list—so, she has come prepared. Uugh.
Ross Blocher: We’ve talked about her before. Because she’s there with her son, who is autistic, she says.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, nonverbal autistic boy.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, and earlier when they were in the crowd, like his hands are just kind of constantly jittering and running around. He touched me a couple times, because I was within arm reach. Yeah, his hand will run into his pants. It’ll run up into his nose and into his ear, you know?
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, he has what’s called stereotypies, which are these like motor behaviors and verbal behaviors that just read as unusual for, you know, the rest of us.
Ross Blocher: And in the last episode, when I mentioned that handwritten note that I saw someone was holding—it was Peace, this woman that we’re calling Peace.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Okay, yeah. So, she locks eyes with Kathryn. She’s raising her handwritten list. Kathryn brings her up there. And the first words, basically, out of this woman’s mouth are basically like, “I am struggling so much with my family.”
(Ross sighs.)
So, her husband, I guess, has a similar condition. She said, it said he, I think, doesn’t have an autism diagnosis, but like a lot of the behaviors are the same. So, it seems like all the caregiving burden has fallen to this woman. So, I write down in the spreadsheet “caregiver stress”. And then I realized as I was filling out this spreadsheet how many times I was writing caregiver stress.
Ross Blocher: Oh, really? Oooh!
Carrie Poppy: Like, so many of the women that she calls up. They—you know, you really have to be sort of looking for it. You have to be making a spreadsheet, right? Because there’s so much other goop in there. “Oh, also my grandfather was in Santería.” “Oh, also my brother does this!” “Oh, and I don’t know, like one time I did pot.” Meh, meh, meh, meh, meh.
But then like when I actually get to, okay, but what was the thing that made you stand up and go to Kathryn Krick? A lot of the time, it was this.
Ross Blocher: I am the person in the family who’s looking out for another person, multiple other people. I’m bearing that burden all the time. I’m exhausted. I’ve been doing hard work. Let me come, so you can do easy work and say it’s all good.
Carrie Poppy: And I have recognized myself as like the person in the family responsible for the entire family. And so, Kathryn, what she will do when this happens is, she doesn’t heal the boy standing next to her. She doesn’t heal—when there’s a woman with a boy in a wheelchair, she doesn’t heal the boy in the wheelchair. She doesn’t heal this nonverbal kid. All of her healing is still directed at this woman! Right?
Ross Blocher: That’s true. She’ll talk about a sound mind and other things. But you’re right, it’s all addressed to—yeah. Okay.
Carrie Poppy: To her. Yeah. It’s like she accepts that. “Oh, you’ve taken the whole burden for the family? Wonderful. Wonderful! This makes my job so much easier! I will heal him through you and make this your responsibility!”
Ross Blocher: Interesting. Yeah. And she looks pretty well-to-do. Like, just the way she’s dressed. She’s dressed nicely, has a nice purse.
Carrie Poppy: She’s—yep. She’s carrying a clutch. She’s got pretty, gold earrings. Yeah. So, I think—I thiiink Kathryn probably recognizes her as seed money.
Ross Blocher: (Makes a garbled, grossed out, exhausted noise.) That’s what I say to that. Blargugh.
Carrie Poppy: So, of course, Kathryn encourages her to keep coming back with more and more seed so this transformation can continue.
(Ross sighs heavily.)
Because she might not see a cure immediately, you know? She may need to hold out for it, but if she keeps coming back with more money, then she may see success in curing her son’s autism.
Ross Blocher: You know, I was scanning the subsequent Sunday healing services, and I don’t think I’ve seen that woman and her son again. I could be wrong about that, but I hope that’s the case.
Carrie Poppy: And this is only a few weeks ago, so.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, there’s been like maybe four or five services since then.
Carrie Poppy: Maybe it worked. (Snorts a chuckle.)
Ross Blocher: Yeah, maybe it worked. Or maybe this woman kind of realized, wait, nothing’s changed.
Carrie Poppy: Nothing has changed. I need more support. Maybe I need to use my money on getting support. Actual support.
Ross Blocher: Man, this is a bummer, guys! It’s a bummer. It’s a real bummer.
Carrie Poppy: Merry Christmas! It’s Christmas Eve as you’re listening! Set out those presents for the little ones!
(Ross giggles.)
Okay. How about the next person, who we have down as Adult Wheelchair User?
Ross Blocher: Who’s not there, but—yeah, Kathryn starts scanning the crowd. And she’s like, “Where was—? I saw someone in a wheelchair. Uh.”
Carrie Poppy: “I have no other description of them. I didn’t pay attention. I just know there was a wheelchair.”
Ross Blocher: “Are they no longer here?” And so, someone points out a child in a wheelchair who has very similar attention issues to the boy we just saw. And she’s like, “Okay, but no, not that one. There was another wheelchair. Okay, well, I just have a message for that person, wherever you are.”
Carrie Poppy: (Chuckles.) And the message is: “If anyone knows them, the person in the wheelchair, I send this anointing to you and declare healing to you—freedom and healing.”
Ross Blocher: (Sarcastically.) Well, that did a lot.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, cool. So, if you’re that person, let us know if that worked.
[00:50:00]
Promo:
(Sci-fi beeping.)
Music: High-energy synth interspersed with clips of Jean Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Benjamin Harrison: Last week, The Greatest Generation, the comedy podcast about old Star Trek TV shows—like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, and Voyager—just had its 500th episode!
Adam Pranica: And Greatest Trek, the podcast about the new Star Trek shows—like Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Discovery—just had its 250th episode.
Ben: So, whether you have a task that’s roughly 750 hours long, or you want to learn about some of the production techniques that go into making one of the greatest franchises in television history, you should give us a try either way!
Adam: The Greatest Generation and Greatest Trek, the best reviewed, most listened to Star Trek podcasts in the world. They’re on Maximum Fun.
(Sci-fi beep.)
Ross Blocher: Okay! Moving on to now the mother of the young boy in the wheelchair.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. So, this is a Latina woman. I have her down as mid-40s.
Ross Blocher: Sounds about right.
Carrie Poppy: Phew, yes!
Ross Blocher: And we get the translation again.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, right. So, a lot of these people are using earpieces to hear a Spanish translation, but this woman isn’t. She’s just got the woman with the bucket translating for her. So, yeah. So, her son, who’s wearing a shark shirt—really cute little like probably eight-year-old kid—is in a wheelchair, nonverbal, autism most likely. Yeah, it seems like Kathryn doesn’t even need an explanation of why she’s standing in front of her. But she says, “What do you want to renounce?”
And so, she says, “I want to renounce any generational curse of witchcraft.” And it made me wonder like well, okay, you are volunteer number seven. She keeps mentioning witchcraft. Did you actually have the idea that there was witchcraft in your family, or did you hear it seven times? Right?
Ross Blocher: Right! Right. Or have you attended this church before in general and just know that bad things in your life means witchcraft? “And I have a son who’s, you know, not physically and mentally like I would expect him to be. I’m gonna blame witches. Generational curses.”
Carrie Poppy: Right. “I’m a Spanish speaking Latina woman living in the United States.” I can definitely imagine that she’s been taught that whatever her like ancestral religion might be is actually demonic. So, she’s probably internalized that. But anyway, so. Kathryn of course accepts this. Oh good, she has renounced witchcraft.
And again, caregiver stress, right?
(Ross agrees.)
She didn’t mention shame or guilt, but Kathryn keeps like saying, “I want to remove your shame; I want to remove your guilt.” So, there is like this burden you see on this mother of just the burden of the family.
Ross Blocher: Someone has to stand in the gap, and it’s just been her, because no one else can do it or is doing it.
Carrie Poppy: Mm-hm. So, Kathryn says, “I break every generational curse. I remove every demonic sacrifice made upon this boy’s life. I declare every spirit of infirmity that makes problems in his mind, that makes his mind and body not function properly. All must go now in Jesus’s name. I declare he has a sound mind. I speak complete healing to his mind and body in Jesus’s name.”
Ross Blocher: She declares, “All guilt, all shame to go from you. And this heaviness that you carry all the time, I speak it to be lifted off of you in Jesus’s name!” And just like she was doing with the singing earlier, this is just her kind of like—I don’t know—having this sort of verbal scat performance, you know, where she just kind of rephrases things in different ways, and it just sounds so positive and affirming. “And yeah, I declare it now. It’s completely confident. It is gone. I have said it!”
(Unimpressed.) Great. You said all those things.
Carrie Poppy: And you can see in Kathryn her kinda having to keep the spirit up a little. You know, she’ll cure you. And then if you don’t fall over or something, she’s like, “(Sighs.) Okay. Alright. Not exactly what I wanted.”
Ross Blocher: “Oh, you’re not—? Are you not entertained?! Are you not satisfied?!”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Okay. And I wonder if she feels doubt in those moments, if she goes like, “Did it work? Did something happen? Did I do it?”
Ross Blocher: Oh, that’s a good question. Yeah, what’s going on in Kathryn Krick’s mind? Because I’ll admit my first thought is that she’s just feeling annoyance. Like, you didn’t play along well enough! Like, don’t you realize I already said you’re completely healed, and you’re still kind of writhing around and upset? Or you’re still looking depressed and ignored?!
And like you said, she’ll kind of regroup and do sort of a quick round two, just to be like, “I declare you completely healed! Okay, hun. Go back. Sit in your seat.”
Carrie Poppy: You’re supposed to do a sort of victory lap. Why aren’t you doing it?
Ross Blocher: And then again, this patois of just, “Praise Jesus. Thank you. Hallelujah. Thank you, God. Thank you so much.”
Carrie Poppy: “You did it again.”
Ross Blocher: That’s sprinkled in all the time, just as kind of like a transitional statement. What was it? An exhale statement? Is that what you came up with last time? Yeah.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. She just keeps talking. So, yeah, that’s just another example of like claiming to cure developmental disability, neurodivergence.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. And you know, people are coming here because nothing else has been a panacea.
Carrie Poppy: Right. Yeah. Okay. So, next we have the Concerned Grandmother. Is this fun?! We having fuuun? Putting the presents under the tree, turning on the animatronic Santa! Ho-ho-ho!
Ross Blocher: Concerned Grandmother!
Carrie Poppy: Concerned Grandmother! Early 60s, Latina, downstage left.
[00:55:00]
Look at her!
Ross and I are looking at a picture of her. She looks miserableee.
Ross Blocher: Her husband is up next to her. I don’t think he really said anything. I think he was just there as window dressing.
(Carrie agrees.)
And yeah, boy, those—I was going to say bouncer guys—the catcher guys. They’re just—they’re on it. They’re always right behind whoever’s being talked to.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. The guy behind her this time, he’s concerned. That guy’s involved emotionally. Unlike Slick Guy. Okay, so, in this case, Kathryn did zero in on her and actually I think wanted the woman from this family as opposed to the rest of the family. Because she was like, “You! You, you there! Are you together? Can you come?” And she’s like—she’s like, “THE LADY!” (Laughs.)
Ross Blocher: Yeah, and this was a line she used a lot. Which, uh, reminds me of like a cold reading, because it sounds really specific and impressive, but it’s just from Kathryn. She said—
Clip:
Kathryn Krick: You. You. You, here? You together? Yeah, can you come? God is touching you right now.
Carrie Poppy: She keeps saying that! It’s such a funny phrasing to say to someone who doesn’t realize it’s happening. I’ll tell you if I’m touched!
Ross Blocher: But she’s got her lines. And this is one of those things where it all blends together when you’re just there and, you know, she’s saying her thing. But then you realize she has lines. And this is one of her lines. “God is healing you right now. God wants to heal you. God is touching you right now.”
Carrie Poppy: Touching. Mm-hm. Just like, touching is so specifically like—(offended) I’ll tell you if I’m touched! You know?!
(Ross laughs.)
Speaking to me, maybe. Touching me?!
Ross Blocher: Well, it’s hard to refute, though. Like, “Oh, okay, well, God is thinking about me in the moment? I didn’t know that! I don’t feel touched, but—” It’s such a noncommittal phrase.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s very unspecific. So, this woman has a daughter whose son is autistic. I mean, this is—word’s getting around.
(Ross agrees.)
Word’s getting around that this is one of the things she cures.
Ross Blocher: And she has like an actual sermon about curing autism.
Carrie Poppy: And schizophrenia.
(Ross sighs.)
Yep. Yeah. So, she seems to not really know what to renounce.
Ross Blocher: But this also makes me so uncomfortable. And we’ve talked about this, but she pulls her up on the stage. “Yeah, God is touching you right now. Do you want to renounce anything?” Like, what?! You called me up! And now you’re asking me to like give you this laundry list of like terrible things I’ve done?!
Carrie Poppy: Public confession! You have 120,000—wait, how many followers does she have on YouTube?
Ross Blocher: Oh boy, does she have followers! Yeah. This lady is prolific.
Carrie Poppy: 585,000 subscribers on YouTube? So—
Ross Blocher: Yeah. For over 2,000 videos on her personal channel. Over 1,000 videos on the 5F Church YouTube. There’s just so much material. And yeah, tens and hundreds of thousands of followers.
Carrie Poppy: I’m thinking about this woman who gets called up to stage and you say like, “Confess! Confess in front of all these people!” And you’re like livestreaming it?!
Ross Blocher: There’s 120,000 people on TikTok who are now going to hear your confession. Right. If they’re tuning in.
Carrie Poppy: And then she puts it on YouTube, you and I watch it, and it’s just like what are we supposed to—? Like, we can’t anonymize this now!
(Ross agrees.)
Right? Yeah. So, she puts everybody in this very awkward position. So, this woman says, “Well, my daughter’s son has autism. Satan’s making my life so miserable. I trust God that he’s gonna free my family, because we’re in a lot of pain.” And she’s crying. Yeah, again, caregiver stress. That’s what that sounds like to me!
Ross Blocher: Yeah! Goodness. Boy, you’re right. That is quite the theme.
Carrie Poppy: Right? So, she says, “Yes, God’s gonna free you right now. He loves you so much. He’s gonna take away this bondage, this pain right now.” She removes every generational curse. She breaks every curse of witchcraft, infirmity—
Ross & Carrie: (In unison.) And division.
(Ross chuckles.)
Carrie Poppy: Thank goodness. “And I speak healing to you and your body now. And all of the depression and darkness must go from you completely now, in Jesus’s name.” So, she sees this woman is miserable. I see it too.
Ross Blocher: Okay. It all must go! Okay. I mean, none of those statements leave any room for doubt or failed performance. And yet she just keeps saying them knowing—like, she knows it’s not going to happen the way she’s speaking it!
Carrie Poppy: Oh, you think she knows?
Ross Blocher: Because she’s warning you constantly how to prepare for the crush of reality later, when you get off your high and you get back home, you have your lunch, and then you’re like, “Oh. Everything’s exactly the same as it was yesterday.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, she’s externalizing all that cognitive dissonance, I think. She doesn’t want to—I think she’s really struggling inside. That’s how I see it.
Ross Blocher: (Sighs.) And yet she persists!
Carrie Poppy: She persists. Kathryn, if you’re listening, it’s just not working. Like, really! It’s not working. You’re not doing the thing! And that’s so much responsibility to take on and then ignore!
Ross Blocher: And I know that you’ve been taught that you just have to proclaim it and believe it and it’ll be real, but it’s not! It’s not real.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, it doesn’t appear to be. Or if it is real, wonderful. Do some checks and balances.
[01:00:00]
Follow up, figure this out, then you can prove it to the entire world.
Ross Blocher: Fair point, and we are happy to partner with you on that too. If you want to actually find out whether this works or not, there are ways to test that!
Carrie Poppy: We will help. We’ve talked about how to figure this out. We won’t get into the details, but we will figure it out!
Ross Blocher: We were exchanging ideas. Yeah, like we can actually identify some people with measurable things that aren’t purely subjective and find out, yeah, is it changed? And then this is the scientific process. You pick some people that have the same condition. You get as large a cohort as you can. And then you perform the healing on some of them, but not on the others! So, you can see if it’s spontaneous remission, if it’s something that gets better over time. Does it happen equally in both groups? This is part of the scientific process. Maybe you want to do that—
Carrie Poppy: Which works faster, faith healing or chemo? You know, like this can be done!
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Maybe you start doing that before you just confidently tell everybody that they are healed!
Carrie Poppy: Mm-hm. Mm-hm. That seems like the way to do it.
Ross Blocher: I mean, if you care about people getting better. Maybe you don’t!
Carrie Poppy: Maybe you don’t. So, that woman’s up there for three minutes. And next we get—I called her Teller, because she didn’t speak for so long.
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) Oh yeah, I was like, why did Carrie call her Teller? Okay.
Carrie Poppy: (Chuckles.) She eventually speaks. But actually, respect to this woman, because Kathryn just seems to kind of not realize—
Ross Blocher: Fill the space?
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, I think she got in a groove, and she didn’t realize like, “Oh, I forgot to ask this woman what her whole deal is.” She just starts healing her, and then the woman kind of has to press herself back into Kathryn’s vision.
Ross Blocher: Oh, yeah. This is like talking to my mom. You can—
(Carrie laughs.)
Sometimes it’s just a fun game just to let her go for like 10 minutes and just see if she ever notices that you haven’t said anything. She can do that for 10 minutes. Yeah.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, wow! Wow. Okay. Put the phone down.
(Ross agrees with a laugh.)
Yeah. You can put the phone down and walk away.
Ross Blocher: I learned as a kid just to go by the tone of her voice if I needed to say like, “Oh, definitely not.” Or—
(Carrie laughs.)
You know, I’d be reading a book next to her on a long car ride and just be like, “I think so.” And you know, just keep reading. And I’d just know by the tone of her voice what she needs to hear. And then she goes on for another five minutes.
Carrie Poppy: Wow. So, she may have this laundry list of things she thinks you believe that were just like what you said while reading a book.
Ross Blocher: I fully agreed to them. Yeah. I have no idea.
Carrie Poppy: She’s walking around like, “I don’t know, Ross loves Reagan. But it doesn’t make sense with the rest of the stuff he says.”
(They laugh.)
Okay, so Teller.
Ross Blocher: I hereby renounce Reagan.
Carrie Poppy: Teller is a—okay, let’s see if I did this right. Early 30s?
Ross Blocher: Yeah! Yeah, you’re right. And she’s got what looks to be a son who’s probably 12.
(Carrie confirms.)
And he’s another one where, you know, it’s just fun to watch the kid’s reaction. ‘Cause he looks, you know, ever so slightly amused? I don’t know. He’s just—he’s absorbing information.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. I also felt like he was just sort of like politely going along but smirking a little bit.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. He’s got his hands behind his back, and he’s like, “Oh, isn’t this all very interesting? Look what my mom is doing. Look what you’re doing. Oh, that guy behind me is ready to catch me! Well, I’m fine. I’m not going to fall.”
(Chuckles.)
You know, I just—I don’t know. I so empathize with the young kids in the situation. Because I just—(sighs) I just remember that, like taking this in.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, yeah, and I empathize with this MOTHER’S CAREGIVER STRESS! Having just gone through losing Ella, I just see this woman crying about having too much to take care of her family. And I’m like (strained sound).
Ross Blocher: Yeah, and she’s got what looks like her husband next to her. He doesn’t really say anything. And he looks, you know, very moved. And he’s got his head bowed and everything. So, he respects the process here.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. So, Kathryn doesn’t really ask her to renounce anything before she starts breaking curses. I think she just forgot.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, that happened at least three times I can remember, where Kathryn goes straight into breaking witchcraft or generational curses without even asking them—like you say—what it is they want to renounce.
Carrie Poppy: So, she breaks every generational curse of witchcraft. Again, never mentioned. Latina woman, isn’t that interesting?
Ross Blocher: (Pointedly.) Strange.
Carrie Poppy: And going to healers that were not of God. Again, never mentioned. And removes spirits of lack, depression, and every spirit causing so much striving.
Ross Blocher: So much striving.
Carrie Poppy: She starts crying. She falls on the floor wailing, and Kathryn’s like, “Thank you, Jesus!”
(Chuckles.)
It’s just such a funny response to someone like wailing on the ground in front of you.
Ross Blocher: In misery. “Yeah. Thank you, Jesus!”
Carrie Poppy: (Screaming.) “I’m having the worst Sunday of my life!”
(Peacefully.) “Thank you. Oh, thank you, Jesus.”
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) But you know, this important process is happening. You know. Thank you, Jesus, for that. Yes, but you’re right.
Carrie Poppy: It’ll all be worth it. So, Kathryn kind of cluelessly walks away and like starts to do this healing with the whole crowd!
Ross Blocher: She thinks she’s done, but this lady is not done.
Carrie Poppy: Teller’s like, “Excuse me, I never spoke.” So, Teller will stay there.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. “You’ve already removed all witchcraft and generational curse, but I’m still upset! I want to talk about it.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah! Like, “Hello! You didn’t ask me why I’m here at all.” So, she stays on the stage. This is so baller.
[01:05:00]
I mean, she’s laying there and everything. She’s not like being aggressive about it. But she’s like, “No, I’m not done.”
Ross Blocher: Oh, was she one of the forward fallers? You know, you wait for people to fall backwards, but there’s a fair contingent of people who—
Carrie Poppy: Yes, kind of kneel fall.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, like—yeah, they’ll crumple forward. And so, you can then sense the guy standing behind them like, “Well! Alright, I was ready! But they can fall forward. That’s okay.” You know, without hurting themselves.
Carrie Poppy: “We’re going to need three more people for the front now.”
Ross Blocher: So, yeah, she’s on her knees. And her flanking son and husband are just kind of praying or looking around.
Carrie Poppy: So, it takes five minutes for her to finally be able to say something.
Ross Blocher: ‘Cause she’s talking to my mom! And Mom just keeps going. So, now she has some things to renounce. She renounces hate, self-hate, suicidal thoughts, and not being a good mother—which I doubt is the case.
Carrie Poppy: I doubt it too. I’m like—I’m looking at this little bored boy, and I’m like it seems like you have like a reasonably comfortable life that you’re—
(Ross agrees.)
I mean, like I’m sure he still suffers. Human beings suffer. But I’m like, no, it seems like she’s like protecting her family, you know?
Ross Blocher: He looks like a smart, well-adjusted kid as far as I can tell.
(Carrie agrees.)
I’m sure you’re doing great, Mom.
Carrie Poppy: But Kathryn says, “May you be an amazing mother now.”
Ross Blocher: Alright, well that’s nice.
Carrie Poppy: Is it?! It implies that she hasn’t been.
Ross Blocher: But again, Kathryn does her little, “I detach you from all of it. Like, everything that you mention. All.”
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) “You appear to still be on the stage. I detach you from all of it.”
Ross Blocher: Oh, and this is a thing that she does sometimes, too. “Every spirit attached must leave you completely in Jesus’s name in three! One, two, three!”
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) It’s like trying to get a kid to be quiet on the count of three.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, yeah. Well, at least in this case, she’s now prepped the woman so she knows that’s when I’m supposed to fall over, on three. She does. She’s caught. She gets the blanket and hangs out for a little while.
Carrie Poppy: And she gets a little star on her name on the chart at the front of the classroom.
Next will be a group anointing, which Kathryn tried to start during Teller’s healing.
Ross Blocher: When she was ignoring Teller, yeah.
Carrie Poppy: Right, but—so, this is kind of split up, but—
Ross Blocher: She wanted to do this like for not only everybody in the room like, “Hey, maybe I didn’t call on you, but guess what? You’re completely healed!”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, so she’s gonna do a big healing for everyone in the room and everyone watching online.
Ross Blocher: On the internet.
Carrie Poppy: And I’m thinking, phew! ‘Cause I got a broken toe. This is what I’m here for, lady. Good.
Ross Blocher: Okay, finally. You didn’t get called up, but you got called out.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, exactly. So, anyone who feels demonic oppression should come down to the front as much as possible. So, encircle the stage.
Ross Blocher: And Carrie shuffles forward.
Carrie Poppy: I try to do it, okay.
(Ross makes creaking noises.)
“If you need freedom, come close, and accept this anointing now.” So, I hobble closer. She wants us to think about the ways that we’ve opened our doors to demons.
Ross Blocher: Okay. Just in case you didn’t already have this narrative firmly planted in your mind, let’s suggest some methods by which you could be assaulted by invisible creatures that we have created to describe your problems.
Carrie Poppy: And she’s given us so many options before now. We’ve got witchcraft. We’ve got Ouija boards. We’ve got having sex. We’ve got pot. Like, you have so many options, but in case you can’t think of anything, she has a backup plan. She says it might be your ancestors.
Ross Blocher: See, you wouldn’t even know about that. Most people don’t even know who their great-great grandfather or grandmother were.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, good point. Do I? (Beat.) Nope.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, see, we lose this stuff quickly. But the demons don’t forget!
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Do I even know all my grandparents’ names? Yes.
Ross Blocher: I definitely know all my grandparents’ names.
Carrie Poppy: Great grandparents? No, definitely not.
Ross Blocher: I’ve got part of the great grandparents.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. I barely knew my grandparents.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, it’s amazing how quickly that gets lost.
Carrie Poppy: Mm-hm. Her first example is witchcraft done in the past. Favorite example. But she wants us to speak aloud our renunciations, and God will touch us as we renounce. So, I’m standing there mumbling like, (quietly) “I don’t know, I guess I—you know, I lied to my friend about going to the movies. I don’t know.”
(Ross chuckles.)
(Mumbling.) “As always, I’m too… proud? I don’t know. Uuuh.” (Laughs.) Right? Were you doing this?
Ross Blocher: Trying to—yeah, I think I was hearing people around me say their various mistakes, and I think I offered something. I can’t remember what. I’ve done bad things!
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, you know what? If I had something really specific to say, here’s not where I’d say it.
(Ross laughs and agrees.)
I wouldn’t say it on this podcast or put it out on the internet on this YouTube channel!
Ross Blocher: Yeah, but if you do find that video on YouTube or TikTok, and you can isolate Carrie’s audio and enhance—because usually modern operating systems let you do that. You can say, “Enhance, enhance, enhance.” At least, that’s what happens on TV and movies.
Carrie Poppy: Oh yes, I’ve seen this. I’ve seen this. Yes, yes.
Ross Blocher: Then you can hear all of Carrie’s heart poured out.
Carrie Poppy: Actually, I would respect anyone who grabs me on this video and then puts a voiceover and insists that it’s me.
[01:10:00]
I would respect it.
(Ross cackles.)
So, if you want to do that and be like, “I’m really sorry for my plans to murder Ross, which is definitely a thing I said.”
(Ross guffaws.)
Then I’ll respect it.
Ross Blocher: And if you can time it for when I glance over at Carrie like, “What?”
(Carrie laughs.)
Even better. Yeah. Oh, well, and I was here rooting for your healing. I don’t think I was trying to get healing for myself. ‘Cause I feel alright.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, fair. So, you were muttering things I’d done.
(They laugh.)
Ross Blocher: Yeah. (Grumbling.) “Carrie with her (mumbles).”
Carrie Poppy: “That’s that time that we went to the earthing guy, and she slammed her hand into the table, Jesus Christ. I renounce that.”
Ross Blocher: My foot’s all healed up and clear. So, you know, can’t pray about that.
Carrie Poppy: Oh! Is that right? Completely? Fantastic.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Completely! I declare it completely healed in the name of Jesus!
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) If my foot ever itches again, I’ll deny it!
Ross Blocher: Yeah, no. It’s been good.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, so here are some of the complaints that she thinks we might be dealing with. Addiction, abuse, infirmity, rage, anger, depression, anxiety, religion, condemnation, shame, mental problems, mental illness, mental disease, mental disorder, autism, spirit of lack, stagnancy, demonic hooks that make you sexually attracted to the wrong person. Spiritual spouses.
Ross Blocher: She’s remembering the young Asian man that we started with.
Carrie Poppy: Ah, maybe. Spiritual spouses. Spirits who disturb sleep and give demonic dreams. Division. Divorce.
Ross & Carrie: (In unison.) Jezebel!
Carrie Poppy: Hell yeah! What’s up, girl? I hope you’re listening. Confusion, suicide, death! Death! And self-harm.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, maybe just death of people around you or something. I don’t know.
Carrie Poppy: I don’t knooow! I think she’s doing a corpse reviver.
Ross Blocher: When she gets going with her laundry lists, you always have like these items that just don’t fit with however you’ve built this list. And all of a sudden you’re like, wait, death?! How does that fit into everything else you just said?
Carrie Poppy: Oh, I’m just thinking like you’re gonna cure death? Are we finally doing it?! You’re raising the dead? Can I bring a corpse in here? Oh my god, we gotta bring a corpse in there.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, or you know, maybe that’s something that’s created a stumbling block for you. (Chuckles.) Oh, Carrie’s wide eyed and thinking about how she can get a corpse into this service.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughing.) There’s gotta be a way—okay, there is someone listening to this who has recently had a pet die that is not underground.
Ross Blocher: Oh no. Oh no.
Carrie Poppy: Who is like, “This is actually what I want to do.” If you don’t—if you’re like, no, that—like, okay, here, honestly, it would creep me out if it were Ella. I wouldn’t want to do it. So, if you don’t want to do it, let yourself off the hook. But if you hear this and you’re like, “That would make me feel good about this coming to completion. That would do something for me if you took my dead cat to Kathryn Krick.” If that is how you feel, let me know. And I will.
Ross Blocher: I’m not carrying this person’s dead cat. You can, okay.
Carrie Poppy: I will!
Ross Blocher: Or maybe you’ve been thinking about donating your body to science. And you’re like, “I’m going to donate my body to Oh No, Ross and Carrie!. When I do eventually pass, they can take my body to Kathryn Krick.”
Carrie Poppy: (Snorts a laugh.) To whomever.
Ross Blocher: And say like, “Hey, I know you’ve been meaning to raise the dead. I got a—”
Carrie Poppy: I feel like a human body, there’s—it’s gonna be a lot more stuff to work around.
Ross Blocher: I can’t remember when it was or which service, but Kathryn Krick did make almost a joke about that. “Raising the dead? Not so much!” Like, realizing, yeah, we haven’t done that. At least not yet.
Carrie Poppy: Mm-hm! Mm-hmm! Yeah. Okay, yeah, we gotta get a corpse.
(Ross laughs.)
But I will be respectful to your corpse, and I will give it back.
Ross Blocher: Oh, give it back to your family? Okay.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, to the family. That’s the service I will provide. I will take that course of action.
Ross Blocher: Or the medical school.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. There’s gotta be a way! Someone’s listening, and they’ve got it, and they’re gonna email us.
Okay, so, next we have one more personal healing. And it only happens because, as you were noting, this woman appears to be getting on Kathryn Krick’s nerves. She’s standing in the front.
Ross Blocher: Oh, front and center!
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, she has some sort of tremor.
Ross Blocher: And she’s been doing this the whole service. So, while we’re singing songs, while Kathryn is giving the sermon, this woman is violently shaking.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. She has like some kind of tremor that’s also it seems like being made more pronounced by this environment.
Ross Blocher: There was this young boy. I kept looking at him just to get his reactions as he was looking. ‘Cause he had such inquisitive eyes; he was just looking around everywhere. And he kept looking at her, you could just see him taking in this woman who’s shaking and saying, okay, this is a thing adults do. Okay.
Carrie Poppy: And it is! True.
(Ross agrees.)
But so, this woman, I mean, I think has just, you know, some sort of condition that makes her quiver. But Kathryn is looking at her, and she’s like, “Oh my God! I already healed you at some point. You’re still shaking. Why?!”
Ross Blocher: Probably. But you’re showing up on my livestream as this woman in the front row.
Carrie Poppy: Right! Exactly. I need to address this.
So, she comes to this woman in the front row and approaches her personally. And she says, “Hun, you’re free! You’re free! No more demons inside!”
Ross Blocher: Yeah, totally sounds like, “Don’t you remember we dealt with this before? You can stop shaking now.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, “You’re not doing it right.”
[01:15:00]
Ross Blocher: And this woman seems just like so into this. My sense is that she wants this healing more than anything else, and she’s a devoted follower. And yeah, it felt like a little bit of a brush off. Doesn’t call her up or anything, just kind of addresses her in the front row.
Carrie Poppy: I’m also just thinking like, if I assume that this is some kind of a tremor or whatever, like that’s the kind of thing that you’re constantly thinking like please don’t comment on my tremor. Like, please don’t make that the thing in the room, that I’m tremoring, you know?
I don’t know; that’s how I’d feel.
Ross Blocher: I mean, I will say I did see her at other times not shaking as violently, so I’m not sure what brings it on.
Carrie Poppy: Hard to know. But yeah, I don’t know. I guess that’s just to say you don’t even know what’s going on with each person. But so, the woman does start crying harder. She kind of buckles over as Kathryn’s saying this to her. And so, Kathryn again is like, “Thank you, Jesus! Oh, thank you!” She looks so much more upset! Thank you!
And then Kathryn says, “It’s time for this woman to walk in her authority, her dominion, walk victoriously. None of this, you know, being overwhelmed by demons anymore.” And then finally we go back to the group anointings. We can’t end it on this woman. So, for all of us here, God is telling us to be proud of him, proud of the new wine. She says, “No one can steal your joy, your FIRE!” She kind of shouts that. “May this fire increase. Now, you all have received today. This anointing has truly been released to every one of you. All you need is a mustard seed, and you have received.”
And I tell you, Ross, (through gritted teeth) I have been holding on to this mustard seed since like 2008! I keep holding and holding and holding and making the show and showing up again and saying, “Here’s my mustard seed. I got it again!”
Ross Blocher: Where’s the tree?
Carrie Poppy: Yes, exactly. And I still don’t get the mustard!
Ross Blocher: And this reminds me of a phrase that I saw Kathryn Krick’s critics use quite often.
Carrie Poppy: The Krick-tics.
Ross Blocher: (Chuckling.) Yeah, that’s right. Which is a word of faith theology. The idea that you can like speak things into being. It’s like this real incorporation of like the—
Ross & Carrie: (In unison.) Law of attraction.
Ross Blocher: Mm-hm. And you know, most mainstream Christians find this kind of heretical and not scriptural, but that’s totally what she’s going for with this. “All you need is this mustard seed, and you have received it! I declare it so! I declare this! This is declared. This is total and complete.”
Carrie Poppy: It also leaves this room for, “If it doesn’t happen, it must have something to do with your faith. It must have something to do with you not believing enough.” It reminds me of when I was working with the IIG, where you still do stuff with paranormal testing—great group. But I remember one time testing something and the person just being so adamant that it was the number of unbelievers in the room that had screwed it up, even though they weren’t even involved in the test. It was like there were too many unbelievers observing! OBSERVING! And that screws it up. Okay, I’m sorry, your magic is not very powerful if I can do that by watching.
Ross Blocher: Right. Yeah, totally. What does that say about this ability? And it’s a common thing that comes up, so we’re usually pretty mindful of that. And we’ll even ask like, you know, “Would you prefer fewer people in the room? Because we can send them off to watch by Zoom or whatever.”
Carrie Poppy: This may have been very early. I’m thinking like 2010 or something this happened.
Ross Blocher: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s something that people bring up. So, we have to be conscious of it. You know, like are you feeling confident right now? Does everything feel good that you can perform what you say you can perform?
Carrie Poppy: Did you have lunch?
Ross Blocher: Right. Exactly. Are the lights just right? Yeah, like anything we can do to make sure that they agree to the conditions. But—
Carrie Poppy: Do you need Drew Carey to show up personally? We will go and get him.
Ross Blocher: Almost inevitably later on, then you get these new concerns that pop up like, “Oh, was there a microwave in the room? Because that will mess with it.”
(Carrie chuckles and agrees.)
You know, whatever it may be. But yeah, Kathryn is just declaring all of these things that could be affecting anyone within earshot, either in person or online. So, she’s got this list of every sickness—cancer, diabetes, kidney problems, autoimmune disease, endometriosis, Lyme, lupus, brain disorder, tumors. Maybe you’ve been hurt by religion or church leaders. Maybe it’s people-pleasing or desire to fit in. It’s just this like long, long list that she’s kind of just worked like an actuarial table into her mind and can spout off when she needs to.
Carrie Poppy: And why even list all these things if it’s truly covered by just saying everything?
Ross Blocher: A) to fill space. I think she just likes to talk and feels like, well, it won’t be as affecting if I just say everything succinctly.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, it feels—maybe this is me projecting, but it feels a little OCD-like. It feels a little like, “If I didn’t say this exact phrase, they might come back next week and not have got it. So, I need to say depression, I need to say anxiety, I need to say obsessive thoughts, I need to say—” You know, it’s just like if everything means everything, go ahead and say everything.
[01:20:00]
Ross Blocher: Right, and I think also she’s hoping there’s going to be people online who are just going to be kind of listening, and all of a sudden that one thing that’s true in their lives—”Oh my goodness, you mentioned endometriosis! That’s me!”
(Carrie agrees.)
Then they’ll be like, “Oh, that, that was meant for me. That was God talking to me. I better show up in person next time.”
Carrie Poppy: Yep. Yeah. Whether she means to do that or not, that’s happening.
Ross Blocher: That’s Romper Room effect. You know, like, “Oh, I see Jessica, and I see David, and I see Michael, and I see Antoine.”
You know, then you on the other end, you know, you’re like, “Oh, who are all these other kids? (Gasps.) You said my—you said Susan! I’m Susan!”
Carrie Poppy: I haven’t heard this term—Romper Room effect before. What’s that?
Ross Blocher: It was a TV show.
Carrie Poppy: What it makes me think of is televangelists, who are like, “There’s a man out there who has a watch that just started working. Send me $200.” It’s just like you send that out to the universe to enough people, and you get a hit.
Ross Blocher: It was this TV show that ran from—wow, 1953 to 1994. And the host would look through this kind of invisible mirror—you know, it doesn’t have a glass in it—and say like, “I see—” and then mention the names of all the kids that she was seeing.
And then for the audience, they’d be like, “(Gasps.) Wow! Oh, you actually—you got me! How’d you know?”
Carrie Poppy: Oh yeah, for some people. And then even if you’re in the majority who doesn’t get hit, you’re still amazed by being near it. And then maybe you get hit another time.
Ross Blocher: And if you run through all the popular names of that era, you know, “Jennifer, Laura.”
You know, someone’s going to hear their name and be like, “Wha—?! That’s me!”
Carrie Poppy: Just like mediums, like the stage mediums who stand there and go like, “I’m getting a Mary. Who’s the Mary from? Oh my god. It’s over here. Wow! We found someone over here who knows a Mary.”
Ross Blocher: It is mediums, but I want to call them media. ‘Cause that’s just plural of medium.
Carrie Poppy: Psychic media.
(They laugh.)
Ross Blocher: Okay. Thank you. That’s what I needed. Yeah. So, you know, for whatever reason she’s doing it.
But boy, so much of this is just carried on her confidence. The—just whatever human proclivity it is about Kathryn Krick that she is willing to say these things. Because most people have some kind of stopper that keeps them from saying these things that are, I would say, patently misleading.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Irrational. So, she tells all those diseases to leave and then tells us that some of us here are going to be targeted by the devil on a misinformation campaign where he’s going to try to convince us that we’re not healed. She doesn’t use the term misinformation campaign, just so you know. And she says, “Too bad, devil! They are healed and free, and we will stay healed and free.” Okay! I guess I don’t need to come back next week?
Ross Blocher: Yeah, like at the end of this, if you’ve been listening to her, like everything imaginable in the room and everybody watching should be completely dealt with and solved and settled!
Carrie Poppy: Yes! She says, “Complete healing, no pain in the entire body, abundant energy and strength.”
I want to go back to all those tired moms and be like, (cheerfully) “Did she do it? Abundant energy and strength? You’re so happy now? There are no family problems? You’re all done now?”
Ross Blocher: Or did she just say it, and she’s an insane person who just says things that you shouldn’t say because they’re kind of harmful when you think about the implications?
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, yeah. At least an insane thing to say.
(Ross agrees.)
Yeah. She seems well, which is perhaps something to hold her to account for, you know? Like, be more responsible.
Ross Blocher: But I don’t know if it’s just that she doesn’t know how to draw things to a conclusion, or that she likes to drag things out or what. But even after this, she’s declared all that. There will be these additional rounds of like chants and shouting, like “Jesus” gets chanted for a long time. Speaking of the whole word of faith thing, she has everyone repeat like, “I am freed. I am healed.” Over and over. I’ll put some of these clips in. It’s just—it seems manic. And you know—
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, compulsive mantra kind of stuff.
Ross Blocher: Right. And she gets so high in her own register too. And so, you could tell she’s feeling something.
(Carrie agrees.)
But I sense there being this early Kathryn that we’ve gotten indications of that also is just convinced like, “Well, I just need to proclaim it and believe it, and it’ll happen. And so, oh, well, if I’m having any doubts, I need to respond to those with being even louder and more assured!”
(Carrie agrees.)
And she’s gotten caught in this horrible loop.
Carrie Poppy: YES! I know! This is how I see it too. I see her up there, and I’m like, girl, oh my god! What have you done? You know, like what have you done?
Ross Blocher: “Is 11 not working? (Screaming.) I’m gonna turn it up to 12! This one goes to 12!”
Carrie Poppy: But like, you know, you got maybe manipulated by this guy, GeorDavie. I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s doing it on purpose. No idea. But like you got convinced by this guy, and now you are doing it yourself. Like, take responsibility! Look at what you’re doing! You know? (Frustrated noise.)
Anyway.
(Ross laughs.)
Okay, so, she tells all those diseases to leave.
[01:25:00]
She tells us to be free to live in the new wine, and then she starts screaming, (screaming) “Hallelujah! Jesus, we praise you!” She seems really happy.
I wrote down, “I don’t think much has changed.” Then she tells us—
Ross Blocher: (Chuckling.) That’s the devil.
Carrie Poppy: Yep. She reminds us we might not immediately feel it physically, but declare you’re healed. And then she asks us if anyone’s wanting to give a special seed thanking God for your freedom today. More money!
Ross Blocher: Here’s your opportunity. Yeah. Just in case you weren’t in the first round that threw their envelopes on the stage or the second round of people at their seeds, why don’t you head back, grab one of those envelopes, and come back with a special seed! Not money. Seed.
Carrie Poppy: Special seed. Still makes me think of sperm.
Ross Blocher: You can all—(chuckles) yeah. You can also do it from your phone! But at this point, people are starting to mill out. Some have already left. The crowd has definitely died down. But yeah, there’s this invitation to come bring a little more seed their way. What are they gonna spend it on? Who knows?
Carrie Poppy: And then no one really moves. So, she just is like, “Okay, I’ll let you go back to your seats.” And then we do! We’re like, oh, okay, it’s over. That’s fine. Okay, sit back down. There’s going to be a little bit of like paperwork now. A lady comes out and tells us about the next few services.
Ross Blocher: Oh yeah, she sends up Pastor Heather. That’s right, Pastor Heather has some. Yeah, and we’re definitely numerically decreased at this point. And then that’s where Kathryn would decry the people for leaving early.
Carrie Poppy: Do not leave early!
Ross Blocher: Do not leave early!
But yeah, she just gives us general announcements and stuff and some more praise Gods and hallelujahs. And yeah, then we are released. But boy!
Carrie Poppy: (Chuckles.) And so, as you carol about your houses and your neighborhood and—
Ross Blocher: You hang up the tinsel.
Carrie Poppy: You put the stocking by the fireplace and light your menorah a little bit late. May you reflect. And whatever other holiday you celebrate, I don’t know. I grew up Christian; I’m sorry about that. Whatever you celebrate, please, take a moment and think about Kathryn Krick, who’s maybe ruining lives. At least you’re not doing that! What do you do? You’re an accountant? It’s fine! Yeah!
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Rest assured in that. And if you are a caregiver, know that you’re doing the best you can.
Carrie Poppy: Probably. I don’t know. Are you?
Ross Blocher: If you’re a listener to Oh No, Ross and Carrie! and a caregiver, you’re probably doing a pretty darn good job. And you know what?
Carrie Poppy: Probably most.
Ross Blocher: Every now and then your energy is going to give out, and that’s normal. That’s human.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. Here’s my role. Okay. If you are struck with guilt right now about your parenting, ‘cause you’re like, “Ugh, Oh No, Ross and Carrie! don’t who I am. How can they just say that to me? Now I’m going to sit and ruminate about whether I am a good parent.”
If this is the first time you’ve thought about it, probably not an issue.
(Ross agrees.)
But if you’ve thought about it a lot, because you’re kind of like, “There are some things I want to change, because I’m not so—” Sure, spend time thinking about that. Put that on a bumper sticker, Kathryn Krick.
Ross Blocher: Talk to a therapist at least.
Carrie Poppy: If you want.
Ross Blocher: They might have some good recommendations.
Carrie Poppy: (Flatly.) Maybe. It’s the end of 2023, I don’t know.
Ross Blocher: Carrie is losing all hope in the mental health field.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, not all but a lot. A lot.
Ross Blocher: (Laughing.) Well, we just keep ending this on a very poor Christmas message, but we hope you’re all getting some good time with family.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. May your joy increase over this period and may you find peace in respecting your own thoughts and thinking things through yourself and not handing them over to a stranger. There we go.
Ross Blocher: There we go.
Well, that’s it for our show. Our theme music is by Brian Keith Dalton.
Carrie Poppy: This episode was edited by my very good friend… Ross Blocher.
Ross Blocher: And our administrative manager’s Ian Kremer!
Carrie Poppy: You can support this and all our investigations by going to MaximumFun.org/join.
Ross Blocher: Yes, please do. Please support us. We don’t want 10% of your income. Use that on other things.
(Carrie makes a high-pitched noise.)
Manage your own charitable giving. What?
Carrie Poppy: Eeeeh, if you want to give us 10% of your income, I’m not saying do not.
Ross Blocher: I’m saying do not! But you can support us.
Carrie Poppy: Depends on how much you’re making. We do some good things on this show. But we’re gonna spend it probably on like the Goop cruise, so think it through.
Ross Blocher: (Chuckles.) Yeah. Support us in a way that does not harm your financial stability. But yes, by all means, let the seed flow to Oh No, Ross and Carrie!. Because yeah, we’ll use it for—
Carrie Poppy: Cum on our face.
(Ross “pft”s.)
Well, seed! Seed flow toward! Yeah, cumming.
Ross Blocher: Sure! Yeah. Uh-huh. No, I get the reference. And remember!
Clip:
Music: Inspirational music.
Kathryn Krick: All addiction must go. All rage and anger must go. All depression must go. All anxiety must go.
[01:30:00]
Every spirit that came through abuse must go. Every spirit of infirmity must go. Every spirit of religion, condemnation, shame must go. Every spirit of mental problems. Every spirit behind every kind of mental illness, mental disease, mental disorder. Autism must go, in Jesus’s name. Every spirit of lack must go. Every spirit that holds you back—stagnancy, keeping you stuck must go. I declare every witchcraft, demonic hook sent upon you must be removed.
Prophetically, with manipulation, I see some people—it’s like—it’s a demonic hook, so that you would be romantically attracted to someone, or sexually attracted to someone, physically attracted to someone. I speak this hook to be removed off of you now, in Jesus’s name. Thank you, Lord. I speak every spiritual spouse must go, every spirit that comes in the night, that brings torment, disturbs your sleep, that gives you demonic dreams, that touches you sexually in the night. This must go now in Jesus’s name.
Music: “Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Theme Song” by Brian Keith Dalton. A jaunty, upbeat instrumental.
Promo:
Music: Bright, bouncy synth.
Cameron Esposito: Cameron Esposito here, comedian and host of Queery. Every week, I get to interview someone amazing from the LGBTQIA+ community. Some queeros! I chat with them about their lives, loves, careers, and more. I’ve talked to, you know, giant celebs, Trixie Mattel, Lena Waithe, Tegan and Sara Quin, but also astronauts, reverends, nurses. It’s funny, it gets deep, and hopefully it makes you feel like you’re part of something. Join me every Monday on Maximum Fun to listen to Queery with Cameron Esposito.
(Music fades out.)
Transition: Cheerful ukulele chord.
Speaker 1: Maximum Fun.
Speaker 2: A worker-owned network.
Speaker 3: Of artist owned shows.
Speaker 4: Supported—
Speaker 5: —directly—
Speaker 6: —by you!
About the show
Welcome to Oh No, Ross and Carrie!, the show where we don’t just report on fringe science, spirituality, and claims of the paranormal, but take part ourselves. Follow us as we join religions, undergo alternative treatments, seek out the paranormal, and always find the humor in life’s biggest mysteries. We show up – so you don’t have to. Every week we share a new investigation, interview, or update.
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