70. Teleportation 101
Here to explain what The New York Times cannot
You have heard of whitewashing, and greenwashing, but have you put much thought into sanewashing? I could define this term for you, but in this season of Easter — a time of worship of a fella who said it better to teach a person to fish than do it for them — let us cast our lines, readers, into the waters of the Internet for a sanewashing lesson.
Yesterday morning, just after 8 am Eastern, President Trump fired off this message on Truth Social:
Whether or not the rapid death of the President’s brain cells is news is one thing news organizations should figure out how to cover. But for our purposes of studying sanewashing, there is a more important question to ask if we believe that journalism is the first draft of history: why does The New York Times continue to create a sanitized version of Trump?:
On Easter weekend, he wrote online that “all Hell will reign down” on the Iranians unless they meet a deadline of Monday to make concessions or open up the Strait of Hormuz to ship traffic, adding, “Glory be to GOD!”
The president was emphatic about the targets in a follow-up post. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” he wrote. He cursed, mentioned Hell again and said, “Praise be to Allah.”
By omitting the “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH!” the largest newspaper in America wasn’t fundamentally removing the crazy from his message. But the newspaper was sanewashing it. It is not the job of a newspaper to sane-wash the words of one of the most powerful living humans.
It has been a banner week of sanewashing at The Gray Lady. Two days prior, on Friday, this so-called Newspaper of Record, implied in a headline that teleportation might be real:
Experts are dubious, it read, meaning they are “unsure,” or “unclear” on this whole teleportation thing. Better hedge, leave wiggle room, just in case teleportation turns out to be real. Then the Times might really look stupid. (Clears throat)
In its reporting on FEMA official Gregg Phillips, the newspaper wrote:
Things got stickier for Mr. Phillips last month, when an investigative report by CNN detailed how, on podcasts and social media, he had propagated other conspiracy theories, used violent rhetoric in discussing former President Joseph R. Biden, and recounted how, on two occasions, he had somehow found himself being moved, by forces beyond his control, dozens of miles from two different starting points in Georgia.
“Teleporting is no fun,” he said on the podcast “Onward,” which is hosted by a conservative activist.
On Wednesday, Mr. Phillips wrote on Truth Social, President Trump’s social media platform, that the incident took place while he was heavily medicated as part of a cancer treatment. But he also described it as a miracle performed by God.
“The word ‘teleportation’ was not mine,” Mr. Phillips wrote. “It was used by someone else in the conversation reaching for language to describe something with no easy name. The more accurate biblical terms are ‘translated’ or ‘transported’ — not new ideas for people of faith.”
The Times story is actually hilarious: a serious political reporter goes to the Waffle House in Rome, Georgia and the servers look at him like he’s nuts when he asks if a man ever teleported into their dining room.1 I laughed my way through until I reached Phillips’ own explanation of what he meant— that when he said he teleported, what he meant to say was he was translated.
You can also commit an act of sanewashing by not fully reporting out a story, which is what the Times did.
Teleportation and “translated” beings have come up in a big way in my work before,2 particularly in writing my first book, When the Moon Turns to Blood, published in 2022. If you understand the beliefs at the heart of this book, Phillips’ comments take on new meaning.
When the Moon Turns to Blood is about Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow — two people who grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who came to adopt more and more extreme, fundamentalist interpretations of the Church’s beliefs.
These were not some weirdos in the woods. Vallow was a cheerleader, then a beauty queen and gameshow contestant, then a mom in yoga pants and a big SUV; Daybell was a self-professed “gospel nerd” who went to BYU and had a family, who also aspired to be a famous writer.
Daybell claimed to have had two near-death experiences, or NDEs — the first when he went cliff-jumping at Flaming Gorge in Utah, the second while swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Those NDEs gave him the ability to see “beyond the veil.” He saw visions of the future, where the United States was in chaos. Frankly, his visions looked a whole lot like other visions being broadcast by popular writers at the time. The vision business was a good one.
Daybell and Vallow’s paths fatefully crossed at a conference in Utah. He was selling books; she was a fan of his writing. Their ensuing love story would leave a trail of dead behind.
My book isn’t just about Vallow and Daybell being “out there.”3 It’s about how they thought themselves infallible, like warriors or gods. Those beliefs were integral to understanding why they committed multiple murders. For their crimes, Vallow is serving multiple life sentences; Daybell is on death row in Idaho.
Believing yourself a translated being is not inherently harmful, deadly or murderous. And yet my book makes the argument that Vallow and Daybell were hardly the first people to take their ideas of being divinely-chosen to a harmful, deadly, murderous place.
In writing about extremism, I’ve often tried to combat how newspapers like the Times have pushed off extremist ideas as the stuff of weirdos. I try to explain how far-out ideas trickle into the mainstream.
Vallow and Daybell — who once seemed so normal to the people around them — came by their beliefs gradually, organizing small meetings with people who were interested in hearing new ideas about their faith. An excerpt:
The women gathered on the couch, and Chad sat on the coffee table in front of them and told them he had information to share with them on “translation.”
“Please teach us,” Lori begged him.
He began to tell the women about the physical, emotional, and spiritual levels one needed to ascend in order to become a translated being, and shared with them a scoring system to assess just how translated people were. He also told them he had a portal in his house where he could go to convene with spiritual beings from beyond the veil, who he was working with to help prepare for the Second Coming.
The pair thought themselves to be translated beings who could travel through portals, and teleport — much like this bigwig at FEMA:
Together, Chad and Lori believed they were “the head of the 144,000” that had been prophesied in the Book of Revelation. “They believed that was what their assignment was,” Gibb said. “They were trying to find people that would fit that group.” Later, investigators in Arizona would say they had evidence that both Lori and Chad thought they had “extraordinary abilities”— special powers, like teleportation, conjuring natural disasters, receiving visions. The pair continually assigned designations of “dark” and “light” to people in their lives, a code that cataloged who was possessed by a demon and who was not….
The pair collected statistics on all of the people surrounding Lori, tabulating how high their “vibration”— the strength of their spirit— was, how high their libido and trust level, and the percentage of dark and light inside of them. Those with high vibrations no longer needed to abide by the strict teachings of the LDS Church or to wear temple garments, which many Mormons wear as a matter of policy to shield themselves from temptation. At any point, a person could be possessed by a demon spirit or a “worm” or “slug” controlled by Lucifer. Those people then became “zombies.” It was possible for the spirit to leave the body, but only by a traumatic or fatal injury. The only way to keep a spirit from lingering in limbo was to kill the body it possessed.
Chad and Lori believed themselves to be “translated beings” who could not die or be seriously injured, who did not need sleep, or food, or to feel the sorrow of the world. Chad sent her a list of the “seven missions to accomplish together”: translating ancient records and writing a book about how people could become translated beings like themselves.
So what has been missed in the Waffle House story? First: context. It is known that Phillips believes the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. But in discussing translation and teleportation, he places himself in a world of those who might believe themselves divinely-chosen4.
Second: Phillips’ views are in line with Daybell and Vallow in more than one way. Last August, he wrote about his “dreams and visions" — another concept explored in my book.5 So many hyper-conservative “dreamers” and “visionaries” predict an apocalyptic future that mimics the Book of Revelations, where the world is ripped apart, and true believers are spared. Is this who we want in charge of FEMA?
The Times totally missed the irony of FEMA being run by someone who is so overtly conspiratorial because FEMA has long been at the heart of some of the most enduring American conspiracy theories. For decades, people have believed FEMA was secretly setting up camps all over the country in order to round up Americans and imprison them as a globalist government took over.
But if that was true, where were all these camps? I learned that asking that question didn’t really matter. An excerpt from a story I wrote for Playboy:
“Conspiracy theories can be impervious to evidence thanks to their own logical loophole. Rob Brotherton, author of the 2015 book Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories, tells me, “I’d go so far as to say that, logically, it’s impossible to disprove a conspiracy theory. They are inherently about secret knowledge. If the conspiracy was real, and if it was as good as the conspiracy theorists think it is, then of course there would be no definitive proof — that just means the conspiracy is working.”
As great as it was for the Times to dispatch a reporter to a Waffle House, they missed the bigger story. That the government continues to be dismantled by conspiracy theorists. It is irrelevant to look for proof to dismantle that a man said he teleported to Waffle House. For some people, you’ll never find proof they’ll believe.
But if you go looking, you will find a whole lot of people who think they are special, that maybe they can teleport if they try. So the bigger question in my mind becomes: how the hell did that happen, and what does that mean for the rest of us?
SOME MORE WORDS —
I have a new reported essay out this month in High Country News, which sees me driving 1,100 miles across the west trying to understand a man who blew up a Cybertruck in front of Trump’s Las Vegas hotel. It’s called “The War Within.” Please read it!
Ryan Haas and I are up to more reporting than two humans can possibly handle over at The Western Edge. Head on over there to see his latest story on Northwest police departments using AI-powered body cameras, and give our video podcast a whirl. Please consider becoming a patron of our journalism with a paid subscription!
And, in case you missed it, yes, I waded into the polyamory discourse:
LASTLY, SOME IN-PERSON STUFF —
If you find yourself in the neighborhood of Columbia, Missouri on Saturday April 18, I’ll be on a panel at Unbound Book Festival called “Woo Woo Cthulhu: Cults, the Occult and New Age” with authors Olivia Muenter and Joshua Wheeler. I will be spending the rest of my brief time in Missouri trying to pinpoint the locations John Williams put in his seminal 1965 novel Stoner.
On Friday, April 24, come to TOUGH SHIT, an event put on by Oregon Humanities that puts me in conversation with three of my fellow Portlanders: Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus, cultural strategist Kimiko Matsuda, community organizer Heart Free Pham and Oregon Humanities’ Adam Davis. I truly do not know if I have any thoughts that will be of any use, but hey, I’m down to try.
SNL made a great joke about this on Weekend Update: “A top FEMA official revealed in an interview that he once mysteriously teleported to a Waffle House 50 miles away...which is a phenomenon better known as drunk driving.”
What is my life even.
cuckoo-bird whistle
I don’t know anything more about Phillips’ religious beliefs, and have not seen any associations with the LDS church. But if you know more and you’d like to tell me, drop me a line.
As soon as I read the NYT story about teleporting to the Waffle House in Georgia I thought of your book and Chad Daybell. Ding, ding, ding. Alarm bells went off in my head.
Thank you for this! I felt like I was taking crazy pills when I read that NYT story about Phillips.