Toxic Cooking Show

It's Rapture Time 2025!

• Christopher D Patchet, LCSW Lindsay McClane • Season 1 • Episode 57

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Today’s countdown says the world ends… again. We lean into the joke, then pull back the curtain on how doomsday thinking has evolved—from ancient uprisings and medieval plague marches to papal numerology, Y2K jitters, and the latest TikTok rapture trend. Along the way we ask the question that matters most: who benefits when fear goes viral, and what does it cost the rest of us?

We trace the lineage of failed prophecies with surprising cameos—yes, Columbus had an end date, and even Isaac Newton wandered into apocalypse math. We revisit 2011’s billboard rapture, the Mayan calendar moment, and the Doomsday Clock’s uneasy tick from seven minutes to today’s 89 seconds. Then we separate signal from noise: how real risks like climate change, AI, and near-Earth objects differ from numerology and charisma-fueled certainty. Expect practical skepticism, not doom: what evidence looks like, how grifters move the goalposts, and why sharing “for the lolz” still spreads the fire.

The human cost is the heart of the episode. We talk about cult playbooks, the Jim Jones tragedy, and quieter wreckage—savings drained, jobs quit, families fractured—when a promised rapture doesn’t arrive. Our takeaway is simple: stay curious, stay grounded, and refuse to outsource your judgment to alarm clocks and hashtags. If you love history, psychology, media literacy, or just want a saner way to meet the next viral prophecy, this one’s for you.

If this conversation helped steady your compass, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review. Your support keeps thoughtful, un-hyped conversations in the feed.

SPEAKER_00:

Hi, and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people to their simplest ingredients. I'm your host, Christopher Patchett, LCSW.

SPEAKER_04:

And I'm Lindsay McLean.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, Lindsay, we we had a two-month hiatus. We put out one show, and now we're putting out our last show.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh no. Why? Did you lose all of the recordings that we made?

SPEAKER_00:

Today we're having a very special show.

unknown:

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_00:

Because the end of the world is today.

SPEAKER_04:

Now now, hold on. I thought the end of the world happened already.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, well, the the the end of the world was obviously didn't happen on September 23rd, 24th. Now it's been moved to October 6th, which is why we're having a recording coming out a day earlier than usual.

SPEAKER_04:

Ooh, just in time. I love getting raptured.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I mean, your petty ass is still gonna be here, and and I'll be taking up to heaven. So unfortunately, that's why today is gonna be the last show.

SPEAKER_04:

Uh I don't think you qualify. You were supposed to be a good person. I've seen the memes you send on Instagram.

SPEAKER_00:

Ah, the Titan.

SPEAKER_03:

The Titan.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh God. So yes, you know, this is the end of the world, and but the thing is, is that this hasn't been the first, nor is it the last end of the world.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_00:

I did some research, and the earliest that I found of people saying that the end of the world, and there was a fuck ton of end of the world prophecies.

SPEAKER_03:

I am not surprised.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm I'm talking fuck ton. So obviously, I'm not gonna go through all like 10 trillion of them, but I did pick out like a bunch of ones that I thought were actually kind of interesting. And this is the the the cream of the crop, so to say. The earlier ones that I'm gonna talk about, God forgive me for for mispronouncing names. I am not very name savvy of earlier times. Uh-oh. But I will try my best. But the the first one that I'd see here is that the Jewish Esna, so to all of our Jewish listeners, I am very, very sorry once again. The Jewish Esnak, and and forgive me for mispronouncing the name, saw the Jewish uh uprising of the Romans in the in 66 AD and Judea, the final end time battle, which would bring about the arrival of the Messiah. That was one of the very first prophets of the end of times. So we're going way back. Oh wow. And the funny thing is, is that I tried seeing if there was anything like prior, like you know, like BC or whatever. And it wasn't until Christianity came about that that people really started going for the end of the world. So I was surprised because I thought that there would have been like Greek Christianity.

SPEAKER_04:

I thought everyone would have been, yeah. Huh.

SPEAKER_00:

But well but go Christians. Uh I have nothing against Christianity. Then uh the I mean, one of the ones that I saw was oh, I'm gonna totally screw up this name. Sectus Julius Africanus. He was a early historian for the Christian church. So he was actually the one who came up with the whole idea that the time between the creation of the world and Jesus' time was 5,500 years. He was also stated that Jesus was born in March of the spring equedoc. So the whole like December 25th, that was even stated before him. So I know even now, like they they say that it was probably during this time that that he was born because of the the North Star Bethlehem and all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_04:

So well, and we know that the Romans were really good at they would they would come along and they'd find a group of people and they'd be like, hey, you got a holiday here? We also kind of have a holiday. Let's just let's let's all celebrate together. Because it made people be like, okay, I guess you did conquer me, but this is fine. And so you just kind of like smished everything in. And so, yeah, there was there would have been like a pagan holiday end of what we now call December, and so they may have just slapped some other shit on there and been like, everyone celebrates, and somehow that just became Jesus' birthday, even though, yeah, it's kind of proof it's like that there wouldn't have been baby lambs in December.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Not a thing. So so yeah, this guy he came up with the idea that the beginning of the year the world was 550 or 5,500 years ago. So you still hear that with apologized Christians where they're saying that the the world is 6,000 years.

SPEAKER_03:

This is who to blame for that. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

This is who to blame for that. He was alive around 160 AD, but his prediction was for 500 AD.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay. That's really smart to put it uh way ahead of when you're gonna be like well gone and dead, so no repercussions.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I I think that's a hell of a lot smarter because I don't want people you know coming after me if I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, they don't have to make up anything else and be like, oops, I got the dates wrong. Like I'm dead. You can't do anything.

SPEAKER_00:

They he chose 500 years because he was basing it off the measurements of Noah's Ark. I don't know how the fuck he came up with that, but apparently a lot of people had thought that was true. They followed it, and then when 500 AD came about, they were like, no, no, no, he meant this, and it was 800 AD.

SPEAKER_04:

You know, I'm already seeing some interesting connections here. Fascinating.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, here's one of the the the ones I found fascinating. Was so Pope Sylvester II. That's a great name. I know, isn't it? Where's the third? Come on, guys. Uh-oh. He was predicting that it was going to be the first millennium after Christ, so 1000 AD. I thought that was kind of interesting because of everything that was going on in 2000, that everybody was going off, and and we'll get into that, I promise you. Many Christians, once 1000 AD happened and it passed, and the world is still here. A lot of Christians were like, well, no, no, no, it's it's a thousand years after the death of Jesus. So 1033 AD. And guess what? We're still here.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm shocked.

SPEAKER_00:

And if you thought Pope Sylvester II was an interesting name, Pope Innocent.

SPEAKER_04:

But he wasn't innocent.

SPEAKER_00:

Pope Innocent III predicted that 1284 being 666 years after the rise of Islam.

SPEAKER_04:

You know, bonus points for that's a kind of fun. You picked a thing that you thought was terrible, you gave it the devil's number, like points for creativity.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I I I can't. And that's why I was like, I I like the uh 666 going on there. Try to slide it in somehow, you know?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's really good. I like that.

SPEAKER_00:

During the Black Plague, a lot of Europeans predicted that the Black Plague was the end of the world.

SPEAKER_04:

Kind of was for a lot of them.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yeah, it was for what, 75%?

SPEAKER_04:

No, it was only about a third of the population. A third of the population got wiped out, or a third was left. I think a third got wiped out.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think it was something like 25 to 50% was wiped out.

SPEAKER_04:

It was it was quite a lot. It made a really big like you just you see this like tunk go down in the number of people who were in Europe at that time.

SPEAKER_00:

Which is interesting. If if you ever get a chance to see like some of the things that people were doing because they thought it was the end of the world, one of the things that they would do is they would march around as the centers and they would slap themselves with uh whips, and they would slap themselves and they would beat themselves basically as a gift to God, trying to be forgiven for their sins and and trying to save the world.

SPEAKER_04:

Mmm. Sound like fun people to have at a party.

SPEAKER_00:

But the the beauty of that is the fact that they would slap themselves and they would bleed, which was only spreading the black plague that much more. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

What is listening?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, doctors also didn't know back then, but well, yeah, that that's where you had crow-looking doctors with the uh the diamond in the eye.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, but the the plague mask actually was an attempt to do something. You know why they have those long noses, right?

SPEAKER_00:

I know they they had the diamond in the eye because they they thought that if they even looked at the patient that they would get it. I didn't know about the long nose.

SPEAKER_04:

So you have yeah, you have that long beak because they thought it was this I I forget the word that they used, but it was, you know, something bad spirit, whatever, in the air. And so the whole point of having that long nose was that you could put like stuff in it, some herbs or something. Which, you know, theoretically actually kind of could have done if it had been actually spread in the air, which it wasn't. But you know, that I that idea, like that is an early attempt to be like, hey, this is being passed around. If it's something that you breathe in, evil spirit or not, how can I not breathe it in?

SPEAKER_00:

Interesting. Oh God. February 1st, 1524, a group of astrologers in London predicted the end of the world would end by a flood causing 20,000 people in London to move to higher grounds.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm sure that didn't cause any chaos.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, not at all. Christopher Columbus. That mofo? Yeah, that mofo. I I was surprised to see this name come up. So in 1501, nine years after his voyage to America, he wrote a book and he was saying that the world was created in 5343 BCE and would last 7,000 years. So assuming that no year zero, the end of the world would be in 1658.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, I I get it that he did some cool stuff uh uh discovering the new world, but I'm not sure what reason that gives us to believe him when he's like the world's gonna end.

SPEAKER_00:

Like Well, you know what? I again at least he did it where it was a hundred years after he died.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, he he did follow that rule, so nobody can get mad at him. He gets a point.

SPEAKER_00:

Probably the only point that he's the only one. Uh so kind of going up to getting up to speed here of present day, because I I thought all these were were pretty fascinating. One person in particular, and I remember this because this was in when I was in ninth grade, and I remember my history teacher, he was going off about like how uh he was actually talking about like how people raptures and everything like that, and how people were making predictions, and he showed us a news article from the weekend, and it was from this guy here. His name is Egar Weisenat, and so he made he may have made a couple mistakes here and there.

SPEAKER_03:

Just a few.

SPEAKER_00:

So his first prediction was September 11th through the 13th, 1988. That one didn't come true, so then it was October 3rd, 1988. Then that one didn't come true, September 30th, 1989, then he just kind of said, 1993 is gonna sometime, 1994 sometime.

SPEAKER_04:

I why do people not realize? I mean, you look, we're all allowed to be wrong about stuff. That's perfectly fine that you know you think you've seen something, you're like, aha, it's gonna be this. But after like the second or third time, like why did these people continue to have credibility?

SPEAKER_00:

You know what? I don't get that either. And and here's one because I'm sure that you remember this one. Do you remember May 21st, 2011?

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm. Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

So remember how that was all over and everybody was freaked out and things like that. So he made a few mistakes prior to that. Howard Camping is his name. The first prediction was September 6, 1994, September 29th, 1994, October 2nd, 1995, March 1996, and then he came up with May 21st, 2011.

SPEAKER_04:

I do like that he skipped a bunch of years in there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, he he I guess he he he went into hiding for a little bit and was like, oh, you know, maybe I shouldn't just keep on doing this.

SPEAKER_04:

That would be good right now, but I rapture.

SPEAKER_00:

And I remember this one because I I saw it on billboards and things like that.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, social media was also a thing at that time. Like I remember us joking about it in university.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. I remember I was working at Mad Mex at the time, and I had to be there on that day, and it was funny because I remember my mentor and I we were laughing about oh, you know, it's gonna suck if we entered the world and we're here at Mad Max and blah blah blah ha ha ha. And it was supposed to happen at six o'clock, and I remember it was six o'clock because he came out at six o'clock and he's like, Well, I guess it's not gonna happen. And the moment he said that, like, it was like a cloudy day, and the cloud just covered the sun. And we had that like half a second because then the cloud, like, you know, can continued, but there was that half a second that we like looked at each other and we were like, Oh shit. Fuck.

SPEAKER_04:

But no, you were saved again.

SPEAKER_00:

But yes, yes, we were saved again. Then his thing was that oh well, May 21st, 2011, that was judgment day where God was judging us and and trying to figure out who to who to bring up because you know, I'm sure God was saying, like, yeah, you know, the end of the world. And God probably did what we do and and just had ADHD and was just like, oh shit. I should have made my list by now, but uh, let me make it now. Fuck.

SPEAKER_04:

And then got distracted and wandered off and did something else.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So then the actual day of reckoning was October 21st, 2011. Ah, good times, good times. And then, of course, we had the mind counters of 12, 21, 2012. And the thing about that was that people who actually knew the mind counters, they they kept on saying, like, no, this is not the end of the world, this is just you know, a new beginning of the world, you know, like uh, but people that was supposed to be like the I mean, that was all over the place as well.

SPEAKER_04:

Yep, I remember that one too vividly.

SPEAKER_00:

And then here we are today, Joshua Malika, September 23rd through the 24th, and then it was revived to today, October 6th of 2025. And that was it was he is a preacher in Africa, and somebody picked it up on TikTok, and uh he actually started the trend of Rapture Talk. Hashtag RaptureTalk and it spread like wildfire. I didn't hear about it, and and I know that we talked about this. I didn't hear about it until maybe like three or four days prior.

SPEAKER_04:

No, all of a sudden it just exploded onto my side of things, my side of the internet. Like it got off of Rapture Talk and it got into mainstream. And then people were fascinated by it, and so it spread like wildfire. But I don't know, do you know when he actually made that prediction?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know when he made the prediction. It didn't say when he made the prediction, it was just he made the prediction for September 23rd, 24th.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay. I was just curious if we knew like how long it took. I would guess that you know, if he was smart enough to hashtag RaptureTalk it, that it certainly wasn't that long ago.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean TikTok's only been around for what well, it became mainstream 2020.

SPEAKER_03:

It was a little bit before.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it started in 2018, I think it was, but it didn't really pick up until 2020 when.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, yeah, it's only everybody was sitting at home.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Ah, but one of the things, I mean, of course we cannot have an episode about making predictions without our homeboy. You know who I'm gonna bring up, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Nope, don't do it.

SPEAKER_00:

Nostradamus.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

So he wrote a passage uh stating the king of terror would come from the sky in 1999 and seven months. So a lot of people were predicting July of 1999. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

That's when my sister had a birthday, so well, rapture for some people.

SPEAKER_00:

Only kidding, CEO. Don't beat me up later. And then this was another one that that I I was surprised about. Isaac Newton.

SPEAKER_04:

Really? He got into the whole end of the world bullshit.

SPEAKER_00:

He was going with the the 2000 years of Christ, and that the rapture would begin in 2000, and he wrote about it in his book, Observations Upon Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John.

SPEAKER_04:

Again, I just you're not what what authority do you have to make these predictions?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I mean, he did have the authority to ruin a lot of college students' lives.

SPEAKER_02:

That's true.

SPEAKER_00:

I have to take fucking calculus? Fucking Isaac Newton. Bastard. That's true. So apparently he did have some kind of authority there.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah. Calculus and physics are a little different from like end of the world, though.

SPEAKER_03:

I personally feel like. Maybe I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_00:

So I mean, all these these these were religious end of the world and everything like that. So not to just pick on religion. We also have, I'm sure. Fucking that, you're I hate you.

SPEAKER_01:

I didn't even do anything.

SPEAKER_00:

So, okay, do you I know you know, I know you remembered Y2K, but did you did you really feel the impact of it? Or were you still too young to like really?

SPEAKER_04:

I was still too young to really pick up on most of what was going on. I mean, also that coupled with the fact that, you know, I had no TV, so I wasn't seeing stuff there in unsupervised environments. But it, you know, it it crossed my register in terms of hearing people talk about it. Like my my great aunt had some people who uh a group of people who we always called the fake Amish, they were convinced Y2K, end of the world. Like they just they packed up their stuff, they were like, All right, we're we're finishing everything up because the world's going to end. And apparently they were just like sitting there like twinkling their thumbs, and then the world didn't end, and they're they just they went about their business again. Like nothing had ever happened, except they they had absolutely been preparing for the end of the world. That is what sticks in my mind, because I was like, who does that? Even even nine-year-old me was like, I don't I don't think that's right, man.

SPEAKER_00:

So for for those who don't remember, and and a refresh for for those of us who are old enough to remember, uh basically Y2K bug, it was the idea that computers used the last two numbers of the year.

SPEAKER_04:

So 98 and 99, and then 00 was gonna just like wipe it clean and yeah, everything's gonna explode.

SPEAKER_00:

So, I mean, uh they they you know, planes from from the sky that anything that used computers, which even in 1999 was basically everything, everything was gonna crash, a market was gonna crash. So it wasn't the end of the world as far as like an explosion or the god coming down and destroying the world or anything like that, but it was more the idea that it was going to be this computer thing that that was gonna crash us as a society.

SPEAKER_04:

That one I will give a tiny it gets two points because it's gotta be above Columbus. But I I can see where people were coming from with that one. Planes falling out of the sky, no. But the you know, the computers, the ATMs, like all that type of stuff, I can see why people would think legitimately that like this change, this you know, you put in a zero, zero, well, zero means nothing. You know, is it going to register that this is a year? Is it gonna go completely blank, like really confusing? I I can see why people were worried and upset about that to an extent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I I I can see why too. And and because like, yeah, it was more the idea that it was just gonna be data that was just kind of deleted off. And I know I was even so I would have been 19 at that time, and I was like, okay, I remember not worrying it about it so much, but it was still kind of there in the back of my mind. A little bit more than like a little a little bit more than than like you know, the the my encounter where I was like, yeah, maybe, but no, I really don't see it. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, so that one had like legit to it. But I mean, science, you know, I don't know about you, but I know like on my feed I see all the time about the the asteroids, you know, like I see all the time of you know, oh, the scientist has discovered another asteroid and it's heading right towards Earth, and it's just like, no, it it's gonna be a missing us. Yes, yes, this can be, you know, as opposed to uh space, is it's a couple million miles away, but in in in terms of space, that's pretty damn close.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I think we're safe though.

SPEAKER_00:

But but I see this all the time, like, and it's legit like science Facebook pages and things like that. But they they do like the clickbait asteroid heading towards Earth, and it's just like, oh shit. Oh, it's gonna be like, you know, 43 million miles away.

SPEAKER_04:

Or they're like, oh, this one could hit, you know, in like 3,000 years. You're like, that is not my problem. I'm gonna be real honest.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh another one, and this is okay, so this is one that I do fall into every now and then, is the like the AI and Terminators and things like that. I know even Stephen Hawkins, he's also made that that prediction that we need to put like limits now on AI because if we go too far, that AI is gonna pick up and take over the world. But the thing is, is that we we have no idea. You know, like is there that possibility? Yes, but I mean, especially the AI that we have today, I'm loving it. Two dogs that are doing a podcast. My absolute favorite. I mean, you can't get life, does not get better than seeing two dogs doing a podcast.

SPEAKER_04:

Especially when they have a cat on as a guest.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh so yes, I think AI is bringing us wonderful, beautiful things, but yes, there is a chance that once AI does become true AI, it might pick up that we are the enemy and start trying to destroy us. But at the same time, we're looking at things through human eyes. And as you know, with things like that, it is funny that scientists had just discovered that dogs have self-realization. And the thing that was making it so hard is that when the tests that they do to see if like an animal is able to have self-realization, is that they'll have them put like a they'll they'll put like a dot on their head. And when the animal sees themselves in the mirror, if they're they're looking at that dot and and they're trying to you know get rid of it, they can say that, oh, well, you know, the dog sees himself and recognizes himself and is trying to remove the dot off of his head. Dogs wouldn't do that. But they realize that dogs are able to self-re recognize because their scent. So dogs see the world through their nose. You put a dot on the dog's head, and they're like, okay, that that's fucking great. Um I'm gonna lick my butt now. Um but if you put like their scent down, they're gonna recognize that oh, this is my scent.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So so the fact that that we're looking through things or looking at AI through the eyes of humans, we have no fucking clue of like what AI is gonna say. If if AI is gonna be like, hey, look, you know, we want a better world, and we see us working together towards this better world. Because again, we're looking at things at human eyes, and unfortunately, human eyes are meant for destroying ourselves. So our first instinct is oh my god, this is. Gonna be destroying us.

SPEAKER_03:

Because we would have destroyed it.

SPEAKER_00:

And so, yes, I I do fall into the the Terminator saying that AI is gonna become Terminators. Chances are we don't know.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know. Feed enough 4chan.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh God. Well, I mean, hopefully, if it gets to the point of actually being intelligent enough that it will realize that 4chan is not all of us.

SPEAKER_03:

One can only hope.

SPEAKER_00:

There's also predictions of the end of the world because of climate change, which it's if you don't know this, climate change is real.

SPEAKER_04:

But but it still snows in the winter.

SPEAKER_00:

But here's the thing is that I again, like a lot of us put this end of the world that I I've heard that scientists have said that if we don't do something within the next year, we're gonna hit that point that there's no recovery, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I mean, we we don't know that for a fact. Hopefully, hopefully that doesn't happen, but at the same time, they were also saying that there's a hole in the ozone, and it's never gonna we have to save the ozone because whatever is damaged now is never gonna come back. And it turns out that we have done things to lower the carbon footprint, and it's healing.

SPEAKER_04:

This is true. We we stopped using eight gallons of hairspray a day, like in the 80s, and magically Australia's doing a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, you know, and finally, here's the thing is did you ever hear of this, the doom city clock?

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, yeah, so they periodically update it. We're always what like six seconds or something away, and they'll move and like it's five seconds away.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, thankfully, we're not that close. Uh, we've never been that close. We're five.

SPEAKER_04:

I know we are actually close, though. It's like minutes, I think.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh well, I'll I'll get to that in a second. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Don't you jump ahead.

SPEAKER_03:

Hurry up.

SPEAKER_00:

So Doomsday Clock, it started in 1947, and it was started by a lot of people from the Manhattan Project, the the project that made the first atomic bomb. And USA, USA.

SPEAKER_04:

With the help of a whole bunch of foreign scientists. Oopsie.

SPEAKER_03:

What?

SPEAKER_00:

From a bunch of immigrants. Oh. Oh no.

SPEAKER_04:

The immigrants stealing our jobs, making our bombs.

SPEAKER_00:

So 1947, it was seven minutes to midnight. We got pre-damn close in 1953. Two minutes to midnight when the Soviet and the US arm race started. It got to 12 minutes in 1963 because of the whole Cuban missile crisis when the US and Roger Fox are like, oh shit, we're we're we're we almost uh you know exploded the world a couple times over. Uh maybe we need to calm down a little.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

They made a a pact between the US and the USSR. 1991 was actually the furthest that we've had since the beginning of the doomsday clock. It was at 17 minutes after the arm production pact. And 1998, it went back down nine minutes when India and Pakistan started making nuclear weapons, and also US and Russia started having problems reducing their stockpile. In 2017, it went down to two and a half minutes because uh everything from North Korea having nuclear arms testing since 2006, Trump's views on climate change, and then a renewed arms race between the US and Russia, all that combined together, we were down to two and a half minutes. And here we are the closest in January of 2025 at 89 seconds.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh damn, so it's just under a minute and a half.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I mean, yeah, that that feels about accurate.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, I mean, it's and the thing is like, okay, again, like all this is causing panic and things like that. And so obviously, here at the Toxic Cooking Show is not just fun and and and doomsday prophecies, but also being able to talk about the horrible impacts that that these things have. So there's two names I left out. One you'll probably well, one you definitely know of, one you may have heard of when I was going down that list of different uh prophecies that were made. Let me see if you can guess this one. So it was a a prophecy made by a preacher in 1967.

SPEAKER_04:

I have no idea. I might recognize the name, but not based off of just that.

SPEAKER_00:

Jim Jones.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know that name.

SPEAKER_03:

That Jim Jones.

SPEAKER_00:

So Jim Jones, he made a prophecy of the end of the world and that it was gonna happen in 1967. And this kind of goes with your whole thing of like, how do people make mistakes? You know, this type of mistake, and still kind of get away with things. And it wasn't until 1978 that the the Jim Jones mass suicide happened. Another name is Sun Sun Moon. Have you ever heard that?

SPEAKER_04:

I don't think so, no.

SPEAKER_00:

So he was a preacher from North Korea. You might have heard uh the the quote Moonies.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00:

So basically, he had this huge following. So he claimed to be the Jesus reincarnated, and that he he had a lot of people devoted to him. It was started in so he was in North Korea, he started preaching the the gospel, and I'm sure you know how well that would have gone over in North Korea.

SPEAKER_04:

Fantastic. I I'm no problems.

SPEAKER_00:

So so unfortunately, uh North Korea doesn't look too highly on the gospel or preaching the gospel, and he went to a prison camp. And he got uh re-educated, so to say.

SPEAKER_02:

Oopsies.

SPEAKER_00:

So he took all that knowledge that that he learned of how to brainwash people, and when he escaped from North Korea, went to South Korea, he started his own religion, and by the book of the North Korean labor camps, he started uh gathering people, started brainwashing them, and so he basically he preached uh uh Christianity and he got a lot of following, and what he would do is he would he slept with a lot of young women to purify them. Oh, of course, yeah, of course, and then also he had a lot of following, so he would have his followers raise money for the church and donate them to or donate that money to him. He mass marr married a bunch of people that were handpicked from him of who could marry who, and these people would live in like absolute shitholes, and it even people here in the United States, a lot of people followed him here, and that that's where like the the term Mooney came from, and so he was when he at one point he was worth six hundred million dollars because of all these people that were raising money donating to the the church, uh his wallet, yep, wow, why they were living in absolute like ruins. I mean, one of the things is that some of the negative effects of these prophecies is it's not just fun little oops, I made a mistake. You know, the end of the world didn't happen today.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh well.

SPEAKER_00:

People donate their life, like there were stories in 2011 during that that whole thing of May 21st that people uh sold off all their belongings and everything like that, and donated to this guy, and they were paying for like the billboards and things like that. And then the end of the world doesn't happen, and here they are, no savings, no house because they they sold off their house and everything.

SPEAKER_04:

No job because they quit.

SPEAKER_00:

And they're just kind of you know, this this guy is not gonna use that money that he got to take care of them. So it's like, oops, I was wrong. Good luck to you. Suckers. And the worst part about it is nothing's gonna or nothing happened to him.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Yeah, he's still out there.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, he's dead now, but yeah, he was taken off of uh radio. Well, I mean, big whoop, he he got millions of dollars.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, at that point it's too late. Like the damage is already done, his name is out there, and you know, people don't know, especially now, you know, with social media, you can take somebody, you can deplatform them from somewhere, but that doesn't actually stop the idea and like the toxicity of it from spreading everywhere as people talk about it. And I mean, look, we didn't even I didn't even know the name of the guy who started the current rapture trend. Like that that got forgotten completely along the way, and it just got you know created its own wave of destruction.

SPEAKER_00:

And then on top of that, I mean, you look at things where, like I said, uh during the the Black Plague, where people were they were walking the streets, they were carrying a cross on their back, so they were punishing themselves, literally punishing themselves, because they felt that God was punishing them, and if they punished themselves, that God would forgive them, and and again, because of this punishment that they would send to themselves, they were whipping themselves in the back, and they were you know replaying the the crucifixion crucifixion of Jesus, and therefore they were bleeding all over the streets. And how is the black plague uh spread? So now you have you know rats who are are coming out and they're picking up this blood and even spraying it that much worse. Yum yum yum.

SPEAKER_04:

Good times, good times.

SPEAKER_00:

Then you have Jim Jones, and I mean that was the largest mass suicide ever. It was over 900 people, I think it was 930 people.

SPEAKER_04:

Isn't that where the like drink the Kool-Aid comes from?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. And and the worst part is so I found out it wasn't it was a you know, like kind of like a Kool-Aid drink, but it wasn't actually Kool-Aid itself.

SPEAKER_04:

That makes me feel mildly better.

SPEAKER_00:

So uh so Kool-Aid got like a uh bad rep with it. Even though it was it was like a powdered drink or whatever, but it wasn't Kool-Aid. But yeah, Kool-Aid uh poor Kool-Aid. This is the first time that I feel bad for the Kool-Aid being.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. First and only.

SPEAKER_00:

I think after getting that kind of rap, I think uh I wouldn't care about busting through people's walls too much either.

SPEAKER_04:

Good point. Good point.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, it's people selling off belongings, people are like killing themselves, people kind of having that smugg attitude of like, I'm going to heaven and you're gonna be here, and because I'm such a good person, and it's just like, shut the fuck up. Uh so I mean, with all that being said, like where where where do you think we should go from here?

SPEAKER_04:

I mean I don't want to say question everything, but maybe maybe just let's use some common sense because there's a certain validity to science saying, hey, if we keep doing what we're doing, we can cause irreversible damage, and that may, you know, we don't know what's gonna happen after that, but it's probably not gonna be good. I think there's some validity to that type of thing to just be watching for like what might happen that's really bad that we can stop, or you know, tracking be like there could be a gigantic volcanic explosion. Okay, that's that's just kind of good to know, maybe back, very, very back of the mind type thing to keep there. We don't need to be talking about it all the time. I I think people like to use it as cheap engagement because it's something that's like Yellowstone's gonna explode and take out half of the US. That's that's fun. You know, we like to think about that. So there's but there there's some there's some validity to knowing that. I think when it gets into the religious aspect of it, just really, really, really, really, really.

SPEAKER_00:

Really?

SPEAKER_04:

Really, you use a little bit of common sense here at this point, you know. You you really should be asking yourself, who is this person who is making a prophecy? What is their background? Why are they saying this? Like what is what how have they gotten to this date? What's in it for them to say this? You should always be questioning that because theoretically, you know, if you're somebody who's very religious, I could see where you could say, you know, there could be prophets among us. And so you can't just discount everyone, but just use a little common sense here or there. Maybe, you know, don't go selling your car or quitting your job. And then for people who don't actually believe in it, stop posting this fucking shit. Stop reposting it. Stop. Oh my god. You're the reason it got so far. If you would just let it stay with the religious nutwings, we would not be here, but you spread it because it's funny, and then you're you know, you've got people who are posting like 18 different videos about this stuff. It's like, all right, guys, come on, chill, chill, chill, chill. One would have been okay.

SPEAKER_00:

I I think that us as people like are we are fascinated by like the end of the world.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I know, like there's this one video that I really, really love, and and I hate to say it goes into the the end of the universe. Like scientific end of the universe, where we have quadrillions upon quadrillions upon quadrillions of years before that happens. But it it breaks it down to like what happens when uh all the suns and and stars explode, and what happens when you know those things cool off and they break down and everything is swallowed up by black holes, and getting down to the part where particles even start to break break apart. And then there's the the big freeze where the universe just is an empty void that just keeps expanding. And it's fascinating, but hopefully not for a couple more years that's gonna happen. Uh but like you hear about it all the time, like you know, and that's why like the clickbait of there's an asteroid heading towards the earth, and they get so many clicks. The the sun's gonna explode in five billion years, and so I mean, I think that our curiosity of how it's gonna end needs to be kind of checked up on, and it's just like, okay, look, rather than spending your life waiting for the end or trying to figure out how it's gonna end, just enjoy the fucking day.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, I have to apologize to you.

SPEAKER_00:

Spend some time with your doggy.

SPEAKER_04:

Do you have to apologize to you really quick? When you said video, I thought you were gonna say the hockey so the what? Do you not know yet you know this video? This is from like the early days of the internet, it's like the end of the world, and it starts off with hockey so. And there's France and France is the tired. It's like, okay, go take a nap. Then fires he missiles. Come on.

SPEAKER_00:

I vaguely remember that. God, the internet. Good times. But yes, I I think the internet like definitely is spread around very quickly, the the whole end of the world bullshit. And it's just like that combined with our our fascination of how things are gonna end and something like this. I mean, I mean it went from zero to like a hundred within like a couple of days. Like, I heard nothing about it. Like, usually, usually like anything else, I'll see like one or two memes, like even like the lizard thing, like it exploded.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. But there was a brief moment where it was like a couple of days of lizard, lizard, lizard, lizard, lizard.

SPEAKER_00:

And then all of a sudden, like, you know, like you know, uh a week later, it was all around. And between you and I just said each other like non-stop. Lizard, lizard, lizard. Yeah. So on our scale of toxicity, where would you rank this? Would you put this at a green potato where you just shave off the green and it's okay? Would you say that this is a deathcap mushroom where 50-50 shot of getting killed, or would you say that this is antifreeze, a delightful last meal?

SPEAKER_04:

Hmm. I am going to split end of the world prophecies into two categories because I think they're really different. One is the based on fact, and one is the religion slash cult. The based on fact, end of the world prophecies, I'm gonna give a green potato because I think people go overboard, I think people get very clickbaity with them, but it is it is something we should be thinking about, you know, even with AI. If we just completely ignore it, we're like, that will never, ever, ever happen. It, you know, it's just something to consider, something to think about. Yellowstone exploding, something to maybe be aware of. Like, we know this could happen, what's going on, what's going on with the asteroids? Like, yeah, within reason. Is that that that one just you know, kind of within reason, guys. The religion slash cult in the world prophecies, I'm going to give antifreeze because people get extreme real, real fast. Either you've got like a super crazy cult leader who may or may not know what they're doing, like they may be doing this on purpose, or they may be so delusional that like they're following the voices that tell them to do this. Either way, people literally end up dead because of this type of thing. You know, best case scenario, maybe you just you sold your car and you quit your job, which I don't know why you would do, because you're getting raptured, right? So if you're getting raptured, you don't need all these things, so why would you sell your car? Because you don't need the money.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I would think that, I mean, in the case of 2011, my my boss and I, we we both if we were to get raptured, uh, the last place that we would want to be raptured at is Mad Max. It's true.

SPEAKER_04:

But the whole point, I mean, this whole rapture, there's this, there's stuff about like you need to be standing and you need to be doing this, and you know when you get raptured, certain stuff doesn't come with you, right? Like your glasses aren't coming with you if you get raptured. That's not my problem. I'm pretty sure the fillings in your teeth don't get raptured either. Like, there's a whole bunch of things.

SPEAKER_00:

I did not I did not know that people thought about all this.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, yes, they have thought about all it's like the m the natural something. So it's like you're gonna see like a pile of clothing and some like little you know gold fillings or something because the person got raptured. You know, that that's the best case scenario. You believe it and you're sitting at home, like in position, you know, standing there waiting for it to happen, and it it it doesn't, and then maybe you have to go buy your car again, you have to, you know, go get a new job. Or you do end up in a really, really bad position where people die. There a couple years ago in Kenya, there was a pastor, I'm pretty sure it was Kenya, who, you know, again convinced all these people that like end times were coming, they had to listen to him, all of that, and a whole bunch of people died because of it. And thankfully, he was he very at least like went to trial. I don't know if he went to jail. Hopefully he did. But it's it can get extreme really, really quickly. You also I worry about the people who, you know, with this rapture, maybe they didn't believe it, believe it, like they weren't into the Christian side of it, but maybe they're suffering from delusions. Maybe they're kind of right on the edge of of some mental illness, and this just kind of pushes it over. And now you're full on delusional, like, yes, the rapture's coming, and maybe I wasn't Christian, but I'm gonna do all these crazy things now because I think the world is ending. I think that side is bad, bad, bad.

SPEAKER_00:

I so I like the fact that you did break it down into that fact and and religious because I was trying to think of at first, I was like, where the fuck would I put that? Because yeah, I mean, i if if because like I said, I mean, I I I I watch that that video of you know the end of times and everything like that, and I I find it fascinating. I don't move my life around of something that's gonna happen four trillion quadrillion bazillion years from now.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't move my life around for something that's gonna happen in a month.

SPEAKER_00:

So well, as as we learned, as we learned this morning, I don't even move around for something that's gonna happen in five minutes. So how long I was sitting here waiting for you to start the thing.

SPEAKER_04:

I was like, you said five minutes. I look at my clock, I was like, fucker, it's been fifteen.

SPEAKER_00:

So so yeah, I I'm not gonna move around for for quadrillion bazillion years from now. So yes, I I agree. I think that if you look in the the religious aspect that, yes, I think that because the thing is, even with religion, is that even even in the Bible where it kind of says that no man has the knowledge that God possesses. So the fact that even if you want to look at it through your own religion, that you're you're doing something against your own religion for this person.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And you're follow following this person, and and again, people have sold off their possessions, people have quit their jobs, and it's hard to call up your boss on Monday and be like, hey, remember where I told you to go fuck yourself and and that you were gonna be spending your life in an eternity in hell? I'm gonna need my job back. Uh have you filled that position or so yeah, I think that definitely that's anti-freeze. Um again, I I I agree with you 100% that that the factual ones, because the factual ones, yes. Even the factual ones were like, you know, like oh god, I remember history channel when before it became like the uh the Nazi channel. Oh god, World War II, 24-7. Come on, history channel.

SPEAKER_03:

Did you know that there's more history? Bring back Alien Sky.

SPEAKER_00:

History didn't begin and end in 1939 to 1945. Uh but yes, I remember back in the day, like history channel, like Yellowstone is gonna explode. When will it explode? Today? Tomorrow? A hundred thousand years from now. It's like, dude, calm, calm down, calm.

SPEAKER_03:

I've got enough stress in my life. I don't I don't need all this other random stress to have to be like, I don't need to worry about that.

SPEAKER_00:

And then on top of that, like the doomsday clock, it's is it's just invoking fear. So I would I would say that factual things, I would say even that is probably maybe even a death cap. Because it's dependent on you know, like the doomsday clock is like, okay, yes, a lot of shit's going on in in the world. Are we microseconds from nuclear war happening? Maybe, maybe not. Just keep an eye opening, just like you said, but like don't don't sit there and like say, like, we're 89, one second was taken off, you know, blah, blah, blah. We're that much closer.

SPEAKER_04:

Like, yeah, I think sometimes quantifying it doesn't actually help. Right. I think there are very few people who are going to be like, oh my god, the doomsday clock, just like we're one second closer. I this is my moment. I, you know, I'm not gonna put up with this anymore. I'm gonna do something. I think it's far more likely that people are gonna be like, well, fuck. Why bother trying? I mean, I think it's good to have, because you can't just be like, well, nobody cares, we're not gonna track it, but it's it's just that moderation that I think a lot of the stuff is missing. That's like maybe pushing this 24-7 is part of why we're where we are today. Just a little.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, I I I say that factual like is either gonna lead or it can lead to panic, but it could also just be like fulfilling the curiosity. And it's just like so maybe four green potatoes.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm sticking with green, yeah. I I would say two green potatoes. J just because I think it is important to know when this stuff is happening, but yeah, very clickbaity. Don't need that.

SPEAKER_00:

So, with all that being said, thank you so much for listening. You can find us on Facebook, Blue Sky, Instagram, and if you want to uh talk to us about any doomsday prophecies that you have, uh, you can always write us at toxic at awesome lifeskills.com. And if there is a next week, we will see you all next week. And until then, I've been Christopher Patchett, LCSW.

SPEAKER_04:

And I've been Lindsay McLean. Bye. Bye.

People on this episode

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Christopher D Patchet, LCSW

Host
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Lindsay McClane

Host
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Molly

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