[00:00:10:22]    

We're here in Bolivar Square in the middle of central Caracas,

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as you might be able to tell

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[RYAN DUFFY
VBS.TV]
from the cathedral behind me.

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Venezuela is, like most Latin American countries,

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predominantly Catholic.

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Now, the interesting bit here, is there's a good bit of Santería and spiritism in the mix as well,

[00:00:24:13]

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and we've recently found a particular group of saints that fascinates us.

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They're called the Santos Malandros, translated roughly as the Holy Thugs.

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Now, it's either kind of perfect, or really troubling

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that in Caracas, widely regarded as the world's most violent city,

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the Venezuelan people are worshipping at the feet of tiny statues

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of now dead armed criminals.

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[THE HOLY THUGS OF VENEZUELA]

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Over 14,000 people were killed in Venezuela last year,

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and Caracas has the highest murder rate per capita in the world.

[00:01:03:21]

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Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian revolution may have reduced poverty in this oil-rich country,

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but he's yet to bring any sense of safety or security to the streets.

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It's in the middle of all this violence

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that the cult of the Holy Thugs was born.

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The Holy Thugs are part of a very unique mix

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of Catholicism and Spiritism,

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so we first visited

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[TULIO HERNANDEZ
SOCIOLOGIST]
with sociologist, Tulio Hernandez

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to try to get our heads around it.

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Venezuela is a country that has
created its own heaven,

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and its own national religiosity.

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It's a peculiar mix of indigenous values,

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African spirituality,

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and a very loose interpretation
of the official religion.

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And what's interesting about this
religion is it mostly attracts

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the poorest sectors of the population.

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He explained that the main goddess of Venezuela spiritism

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is María Lionza,

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who is represented, of course,

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as a naked lady riding what looks to be an antipode.

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María Lionza,

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essentially the queen of all saints.

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Below her, there's a whole bunch of other saints grouped into courts.

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There's the court of doctors,

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Indians,

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Africans,

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Vikings and even of revolutionaries.

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The newest court, and the one that best
represents what's going on in Caracas today,

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is the Calé Court,
or the Court of Thugs.

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This is the latest court to appear,
during the last 10 or 15 years

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in this world of the Venezuelan spirits.

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Every court has a leader,

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and the leader of the Court de Malandra, or the Court of the Thugs,

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is Ismael Sanchez.

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So, it's mid-afternoon and we just got to the cemetery here in Caracas,

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and right over here is where Ismael Sanchez is buried

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along with the other members of the Holy Thugs.

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This is where everyone comes

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to pay their respects.

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He was like all of us.

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But because of all the miracles
that he has performed here on earth,

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people have made him
into what he is today.

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He helps people who are in prison a lot.

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People often ask him to help
get someone out of jail,

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to undo their chains
so that they can be free.

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But it also depends on what they did.

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Many were caught for murder,
so it really depends on their sin.

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You summon him, pray to him
and ask him for help,

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and he lets you know if they will come out
or if they will be punished.

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In the Venezuelan popular religion,

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it is believed that the dead
don't ever fully go away.

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Somehow they stay to
take care of us here on Earth.

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You ask the dead for help,
you ask them for protection.

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At the cemetery, we met Omar,

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the unofficial caretaker of Ismael's shrine,

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and his buddies, Johan

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and Vumande,

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who both seem to be spiritism priests of some sort.

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Ismael Sanchez was a great man.
He helped the poor a lot.

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That's why I always carry him,

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as you can see here.

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People say he used to steal,

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but if he ever stole it was only for
his people, for his neighborhood.

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So that everyone could eat.

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He was like a Robin Hood.

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He stole to give to the poor.

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Of course, you can't say that's good,
because a crime is a crime,

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but we're not here to judge anyone.

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And well, in his struggle,

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after being a criminal for so long,

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sadly he was killed.

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He was shot to death.

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He was shot in the back. He was killed
by a cop who shot him in the back.

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He died in the '50s or '60s.

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We talked a lot about Ismael.

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There are another few saints

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in a similar fashion

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who are part of this group.

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Can you tell us about some of the others?
Who is that right there?

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This is Malandro Pelón.
Miguelito, "The Baldy."

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He used to rob people too.

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He didn't really do
anything good for humanity.

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Over there,
that's Isabelita.

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Her name is Malandra Isabel.

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This is Freddy, "The Turkey."

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And here are the others.

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That one is called "The Mouse."

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That one is "Crude Oil."
He was black, you know?

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And that one is Malandra Elizabeth.

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Everyone has their own way
to worship them.

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People bring flowers, some bring them
drugs too, of course.

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People bring white and blue candles, too,

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but what he really liked the most
was anisette and cigarettes.

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This is how you do it.

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You cross your heart,

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and then you give him the cigarette
like this, so that he can smoke it.

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Cigarettes were his obsession.

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About how many people are coming through each day

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to pay respects or celebrate or whatever they're doing,

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and how long are they staying?

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A lot of people come here everyday.

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They give him his tobacco, they have
a drink with Ismael and with all of us.

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We have a good time.

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But a lot of people also come and cry.

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They come here because a family
member is sick or in jail, so they cry.

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A lot of people come and
ask for someone to be killed.

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"Please kill that person for me,
because he killed my son."

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The murderer she's asking to be killed
is a worse person than the one he killed.

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Do you understand?

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Here we don't worship evil,
we worship the good.

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But at the same time,

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if someone in my family is killed,
I have to seek revenge.

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You can't just come
and ask for bad things...

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But,

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if it's in self defense,

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and you need help with some things,
then that's up to you.

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We live in a world where

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we could say that 99.9% of people
have evil thoughts in their heads.

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They're always thinking of hurting someone else because of envy, greed, etc.

[00:07:39:10]

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At some point, we saw a funeral procession drive by

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and we were told that it was a kid murdered in the nearby slums that weekend.

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Soon after, we heard a few rounds of automatic weapon fire

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and decided it was time to leave.

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When burials take place,

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the number of shots that people
fire up to the sky

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are a sign of how fierce
their vengeance will be.

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Leaving the cemetery just now,

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we drove by this shop

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and noticed they have a bunch of the Holy Thugs displayed in front.

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We're going to pop in and check them out

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and see if we can meet the folks who run the place.

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We met the shop owner,

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a spiritist named Clara,

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who said she could only talk to us with Ismael's permission,

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so she went back to her altar to ask him.

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That's my boy, Ismael,

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the leader of the pack,

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and the rest of the pack as well.

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This is Antonio.

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He's got a pretty serious scar.

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It's right there above his eye

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from a knife fight that Antonio got into.

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Fresh out of the Thunderbird,

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it's the one Holy Thug who came from Jersey,

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Jonny.

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Tomasito is...that's a serious dude.

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He also has the Nike hat.

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He is, perhaps, a little more devious than the rest.

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He's somewhat concealing his weapon.

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Clara eventually invited us back,

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where she actually offered to channel Ismael himself, for us.

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This is an altar
that belongs to Melandro Ismael.

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He helps with healing and can
even perform open heart surgeries,

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but it has to be through
mediums who can channel him properly.

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If you have drug addiction problems,

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he could help you get out of it.

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He also helps a lot of people
who have strayed into the wrong path.

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He helps delinquents get out of that life,
if they have true faith.

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If you believe in something strongly enough, even a glass of water could cure you.

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But if you don't have faith,
nothing anyone could do will help you.

[00:10:00:19]

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I can see that there's a Hindu
spirit that protects you.

[00:10:07:07]

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Do you particularly like
Egyptian and Hindu things?

[00:10:11:04]

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Yeah, I'm very interested by them, certainly.

[00:10:14:16]

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You should actually visit the Great Pyramids.

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You are a person with good light,

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[00:10:22:14]    

and one of your great grandfathers
is always with you.

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[00:10:25:16]    

You can see that just by looking at me?

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[00:10:28:09]    

I am a clairaudient medium.

[00:10:29:23]

[00:10:30:05]    

What I just told you is what
Ismael asked me to tell you.

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[00:10:35:02]    

It's a very complex science,
and one has to know how to use it.

[00:10:39:06]

[00:10:41:03]    

We said goodbye to Clara,

[00:10:42:01]

[00:10:42:05]    

picked up some statues,

[00:10:43:05]

[00:10:43:09]    

and got on our way.

[00:10:44:15]

[00:10:46:08]    

Human beings need
to believe in something...

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[00:10:50:07]    

in something, to be able
to focus our thoughts.

[00:10:53:04]

[00:10:53:22]    

When you think about it,
there has to be something spiritual,

[00:10:58:18]

[00:10:58:24]    

something higher than us.

[00:11:00:23]

[00:11:02:01]    

For many Venezuelans,

[00:11:03:01]

[00:11:03:05]    

living in poverty and amidst all of this violence,

[00:11:05:12]

[00:11:05:21]    

believing in the pure and perfect Catholic saints

[00:11:08:06]

[00:11:08:10]    

is a bit more of a stretch

[00:11:09:17]

[00:11:09:21]    

than believing in the more familiar and flawed figureheads like Ismael.

[00:11:13:02]

[00:11:13:18]    

No religion can profess absolute truth.
None of them.

[00:11:17:18]

[00:11:18:06]    

Nobody is going to tell me
there's something totally good or totally evil.

[00:11:22:13]

[00:11:22:19]    

That's a lie.

[00:11:23:14]

[00:11:23:20]    

There's nothing 100% good
and there's nothing 100% bad.

[00:11:27:14]

[00:11:28:09]    

The Holy Thugs are basically the way,

[00:11:33:04]

[00:11:33:11]    

that people who are directly
or indirectly involved

[00:11:39:11]

[00:11:39:19]    

with this tragic moment
that Venezuela is going through

[00:11:43:00]

[00:11:43:08]    

of very high homicide rates,

[00:11:45:09]

[00:11:45:16]    

where those who die
are mostly the poor,

[00:11:48:03]

[00:11:48:08]    

and within the poor, the young,
and within the young, the men.

[00:11:51:10]

[00:11:51:24]    

They are a way to heal this deep wound

[00:11:57:08]

[00:11:57:18]    

caused by the loss of so many
young people.

[00:12:02:08]