Rabbit Hole Report

I think I am going to invite you all to go down rabbit holes that I go down. You can ignore this email, but every now and then I will just post what streams of consciousness and conversations I am having in the shadows.

Today is Friday, and by most accounts it’s the best day of the week. I used my Caraoke feature on the Tesla this morning to sing out loud the this song:

Turn that up if you are a free person in a free world and sing it loud…you will feel young. It worked for me as I drove my 10-year-old to school today. I felt like I hit every note, which is just an ear illusion if you play a song loud enough to drown out your voice.

This week I spoke to an author from Portland who wants to write about my intentions to create a militia with my friends. It’s a small militia formed with love for peace and safety. But that might be the same way other violent gangs started, so I am being very thoughtful and including many advisors in my process.

So when I talked on the phone with Leah Sotille, the author of the book When the Moon Turns to Blood, my curiosity turned to her works and the stories she investigated.

I had heard plenty about Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell, but never did any real reading or investigation about what went down over the last decade. With ChatGPT I have created a framework to do book and story deep dives. It saves me time, because I want to learn what is in all the books of the world without reading them all.

So here is the email I made for you all from summed up I had last week:

How a Book About Jesus, Zombies, and Portals Led to Murder

I fell down a rabbit hole this week.

It started with Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell — the so-called “Doomsday Couple” who murdered Lori’s kids and a few others. Their story isn’t just another true crime case — it’s a lesson in how spiritual beliefs, when untethered from reality, can become deadly.

Here’s what I learned:

• They were Mormon… sort of. Lori and Chad were raised in the LDS Church but eventually veered into a strange offshoot world of fringe prophecy, doomsday prepping, and spiritual rankings.

• They believed people could become zombies. Literally. Lori thought her children had been taken over by dark spirits and were no longer “alive.” Killing them was seen as a form of spiritual rescue.

• Chad wrote apocalyptic novels — fiction, kind of — that Lori treated as scripture. They were full of end of-times visions, spirit battles, and chosen people destined to lead the 144,000 into the Second Coming.

• They were obsessed with another book called Visions of Glory by John Pontius. It’s about a man’s near-death experience where he sees Jesus, future earthquakes, portals to other realms, and the collapse of America. Chad and Lori took it as a prophetic blueprint.

• They believed they were immortal leaders sent to prepare the world for Christ’s return. Everyone else was either an ally or a “dark” spirit to be eliminated.

And no, they weren’t on drugs.

But spiritual delusion? That can act like a drug. Their shared beliefs gave them a euphoric sense of power, purpose, and righteousness — enough to justify murder.

Here’s the quote that stuck with me:

“They created a private theology that was increasingly dark and detached from reality.”

That made me ask:

What theology isn’t detached from reality?

Here’s one way to think about it — a spectrum of belief systems:

But then I spiced it up with more examples for those still reading and interested:

A belief system gets dangerous when it leaves behind metaphor and mystery and starts demanding action based on certainty — especially when that action harms others.

Grounded theologies don’t pretend to have all the answers.

They offer practices, not prescriptions.

They invite reflection, not obedience.

And they tend to make people better, not worse.

That’s the rabbit hole.

No neat bow, just a few thoughts about stories, symbols, and the strange places they can take us when we forget they’re stories.

Stay safe in your beliefs and Happy 4:20 Friday my Lovelies!

Scott X

PS, I am getting back into the motion of learning and then writing about it. I plan to start posting a few times each week with my Book Reports. I feel that my words are pretty pathetic when compared to the many great works published over the last 2500 years. I am going to do a new flavor of Book Report so you can choose to digest the great stuff that’s been said without consuming endless words that most modern humans do not have the time for. Think TikTok book feed via email. Gonna try it out, please give me feedback along the way.

The first Book Report will tie together with this email. It’s a book called Sapiens.