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Mayim Bialik's Breakdown

Part Two: Inside the Hidden World of Secret Societies: Dr. Richard Spence On How They Form & How They're Still Influencing Our Politics

Mayim Bialik's Breakdown

Mayim Bialik

Comedy, Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.85.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What if secret societies have been controlling the world from the shadows since the dawn of civilization?


In this explosive interview of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, Dr. Richard B. Spence — Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Idaho, expert on espionage, secret societies, and occultism, and co-host of the hit podcast Strange As It Seems — pulls back the curtain on the hidden organizations that may have shaped history, politics, and even the founding of the United States itself.


Dr. Spence breaks down the benefits of being in a secret society (and why you should care, even if you’d never join one), whether ancient secret orders have influenced the rise and fall of empires, how modern politics is subtly manipulated by groups we don’t even realize exist, and the psychological and mystical appeal that keeps these societies alive. He discusses whether secret societies help dangerous leaders rise to power, including shocking theories around Hitler’s rise, the true definition of "the occult", why many secret orders are accused of Satan worship or dark rituals, the most active and influential secret societies today, and how new ones are forming online in the digital age.


Dr. Richard B. Spence also reveals:

- Surprising parallels between ancient orders and modern Greek life (fraternities and sororities)

- Origins and influence of the Freemasons: were the Founding Fathers truly Freemasons, and what ideals did they embed into this country’s DNA?

- How secret societies evolve, and why some are actually designed as self-improvement programs

- Why these organizations can become “petri dishes for nefarious actions”, sparking revolutions and even government overthrows

- Why these groups have historically been male-dominated, and the surprising stories of female and even child secret societies

- How intelligence agencies may manufacture conspiracy theories as tools of psychological warfare

- Difference between misinformation vs. disinformation, and how each is weaponized

- Are modern day government agencies like the CIA really just secret societies with better branding?

- Fine line between secret societies, cults, and religions, and how they manipulate loyalty and belief

- Why it’s harder than ever to tell truth from deception, especially in the age of AI-generated misinformation

- And finally…could the MAGA movement itself be considered a modern-day cult?


This deep dive will make you question everything you thought you knew about power, control, and truth. TUNE IN to MBB to discover why the line between myth, conspiracy, and history might be thinner than you think…


Dr. Richard B. Spence’s podcast, Strange As It Seems: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@StrangeAsItSeemsPodcast⁠


Subscribe on Substack for Ad-Free Episodes & Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

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0:03.6

Shhh. Hi, I'm Miami Alec. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown. This is part two of our conversation with Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Idaho, Dr. Rick Spence. He's an expert in all things, Secret Society, the occult, Illuminati, Hitler's Rise to Power, and how Secret Society's played a role in that. In this part of our conversation, we're going to talk about the CIA.

0:28.8

We're going to talk about the CIA, we're going to talk about psychological warfare, the difference between misinformation and disinformation and how it's playing out in our current political climate. We're going to talk about brainwashing cult leaders, why people fall for unbelievable claims and how vague marketing words like great better, leave a lot up to interpretation and leave people vulnerable to leaders that have other objectives. We're also going to break apart what it means to make America great again. And is it the same thing that our founding fathers supposedly believed in as well?

1:06.8

And here is part two of our conversation

1:08.8

with Dr. Rick Spence.

1:10.5

Break it down.

1:12.9

You came to this idea our secret societies

1:15.3

inherently dangerous because they can do things

1:22.2

behind a veil of secrecy.

3:47.1

They can be, I mean, most them frankly are innocuous. Nothing really happens. If you knew what the secrets were, they really wouldn't be that interesting. But it is what other purposes those things, what purpose a group of like-minded people joined together in an atmosphere of Specialness and secrecy what what kind of other things can those be? turned to So it can become dangerous or it can become Nothing yet. It all comes down to the. This is where I think a lot of people start to try and find links because it's clear that people who are in these societies have trust and have affinity. They're like-minded in their thinking. So if you're a government official, maybe in the CIA, and you're trying to execute an operation, you may turn to someone who you trust from your secret society. And people are looking for the influence and the connection in government institutions as it relates to have they brought people in, have some of the interests or philosophies or ways of, or objectives of the secret societies been propagated into modern day institutions. Or you create bureaucratic secret societies like the CIA, which even though a branch of government functions separately for most of the others because remember,'s the whole essence in an intelligence agency? What's everything about secrecy? You exist as an agency to protect the secrets of your government and to acquire the secrets of opposing governments. Everything revolves around secrecy. The other thing which is common in that intelligence is deception. The way you do that is you deceive people. You lie. One of the things that I study in my research, our secret society is that occultism and spies, okay, the kind of trifecta of deception. And this is the thing that still amazes me, is just the amount that people lie.

3:53.5

And here's the truth,

3:54.8

human beings lie constantly about everything,

3:59.4

often for no particular reason.

4:03.3

Okay, we don't like to admit that, but that is it. You're, but lied to all the time. I mean, look at it, we're constantly subjected to advertisements. We're sort of used to that. And in fact, and advertisements are lies. They're never telling you exactly what this product does. They're never being honest away. It's it is a finessed information, which is meant to guide you to a particular thing, which is to buy their product, because to us, one extent or another, they're lying about what it actually does. See, we're so, we're so inured to advertising that we know it even noticed that they're just lies. Again, people that I've looked at and reached us and I said this about one guy that I've been looking at is that he's always lying except when he's telling the truth. And that was the thing that became so surprising about him. I said, I got so used to him just lying about things, you know, lying about his resume, lying about everything, then you find out that, no, wait, here, he actually told the truth about something. And that's kind of spooky because then you've got to figure that, well, every now and then he does tell the truth. And but when he tells the truth, it sounds almost exactly like when he's lying. And in fact, what he told the truth about would on the surface seem to be more improbable about what he lies about. And you don't know. And that because that's the kind of thing that drives my interest in a way. It's just trying to figure out to eventually be able to parse the truth. There's the little elements of truth from all of the lies that they're embedded in, because that's often what you'll find. Do these kinds of secret societies, including the CIA, kind of breed lies and breed sort of a tendency to also fabricate because of this sort of pressure cooker that you're in. I think of a lot of the conspiracy theories that are so prevalent right now. So much of that comes from, I think they're lying to us, this must be the explanation, right? I mean, are we sort of creating a system where no one can trust each other and that's where some of these conspiracy theories are thriving because we're losing faith in what we previously thought we could trust. And yes, this is a question vaguely about the current administration, which has told us you're being lied to. Don't listen to this reporter. Don't listen to this news story. Don't listen to this doctor. Truth itself is kind of up for grabs right now. It seems like a perfect breeding ground for more secrecy and more explanations for secrecy. Well everybody tells you being lied to. I mean, I just told you you're being lied to. So with that, but, but I have no power. So, and you are, that's, that mean that simple statement is true. You are constantly being lied to about things. But it's, there's another interesting distinction that has to be made between misinformation and it's much more insidious sibling disinformation. Misinformation is a mistake. That's like when somebody stops and asks you for directions and you give them what you think of the directions that later you realize that you know, you're, you know, with the pest of intentions, you were trying. Misinformation is a mistake. Disinformation is never a mistake. It is deliberate. And the purpose of disinformation is to usually, as the saying goes, lead the hounds away from the fox. Now to be good disinformation, this is the tricky part, must be mostly true. I'm getting Jeffrey Epstein vibes right now. Yeah, yeah. Disinformation must be mostly true because part of it will check out. You know, this oftentimes we're kind of lazy and we go through and well,

8:28.0

this guy said this and I checked it out and yeah, that was true.

8:33.3

Now, at that point, you get low old into a sense of thinking and you can go through

8:38.9

and you can find out, well, this is true and this is true and that's true.

8:42.2

So there may be, let's say, 10 key data points and nine of them are true. But one of them is the lie. And all the other nine are just to sell you the validity of the lie, which is actually the product you're being sold and and which you are now swallow along with the other ones, and that will lead you off into another. It will divert your attention. It will corrupt your thinking. It will lead the hounds away from the fox. And that's what the whole goal is. And the thing that you must appreciate is that none of that is an accident. Someone has spent a great deal of time and effort putting this all together with the specific purpose of deceiving you. And that's my childhood. How do you sleep at night? How do you trust anyone? Do you have a partner? Do you have friends? I'm asking you specifically. I have a wife that I trust as much as I do any human being. So not at all. No, no, no, no, that's not, you know, that the odd thing is, is that you would think that by this time I would be totally paranoid. I'm only slightly hurt. Now I can be even surprised myself in how trusting I can be of people. Look, I corresponded with a guy for years via email and I knew the fact that he wasn't telling me his real name. Of course they never do. And my wife would constantly say, I don't understand why you continue to talk with this guy and why you share information with him. And he won't, and he'll admit this, that he won't tell you his real name. There has to be some reason why he's not telling you his real name, because if you knew it, you'd run away. And I kind of suspected that was sort of true, but nevertheless, I would contit because it was a useful exchange of information. Even though I knew that on the other side of it that this individual was not, was being deliberately, they were hiding something, but I let them hide it. I eventually found that it wasn't nearly as, you know, there was nothing terribly nefarious about it a little bit, but not too much. You know, there's something you have to do when you meet people. You see, you just have to figure out what their intentions are, and that can often take a while. So, and you have to pay attention and not be overly impressed by outward appearances. Okay, here's one of the first things that will put me off or raise my suspicion. Because people are overly friendly. But it does it same with you as well. I mean, people you don't know who are over it. We like people being friendly, but people can be a little. Jonathan and I are very suspicious of anyone who's friendly. OK. You know, yeah. I mean, why? That usually takes time. The actual friendship between people takes a certain amount of time and trust to develop And someone who would say you have you not tried internet dating Dr. Spence no no I was within 10 minutes you can be having sex with someone doesn't mean you trust them Doesn't mean you trust them you trust them enough to exchange body fluids, but that's just this generation It all depends what you wanted out of the transaction. So that's true. That is true. Mine be Alex right there and is supported by optimizers. I struggled to get good quality sleep and I just thought like, oh, it's stress, but I learned during paramanopause and menopause, your hormones shift and it affects your magnesium levels. magnesium makes everything harder, not just sleep, but focus, mood, stress tolerance. That's why we added magnesium breakthrough by bioptimizers to our nightly routine. It's a blend of seven different forms of magnesium designed to support relaxation and overall sleep quality. Try it, see if you wake up more rest and refreshed. You've got nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Bioptimizers a 365 day, no questions asked, money back guarantee. Magnesium breakthrough is a fantastic way to improve that hormonal imbalance that especially happens with magnesium. And then you have better focus, you have better sleep hygiene in general. Bi optimizers makes it so easy. Here's what you get when you go to bioptimizers.com slash breaker and use the code breaker. 15% off your entire order and a free bottle of mass signs. That's bioptimizers best selling digestive enzyme added to your order automatically when you use our exclusive code. That's a $20 product free on top of your discount. This is a limited time offer while supplies last. You cannot get this on Amazon. You can't get it in stores.

13:45.1

The offer exists in one place.

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