Satanic Panic Part 1

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[00:00:24] you cash back real money in your pocket. Plus, have you heard of the Satanic Panic? I know of it from movies and stuff. I think the gate has to do with it, which is an awesome movie, and maybe I'm wrong, but is the Satanic Panic also part of, if you played records backwards, you'd hear the devil or some shit?

[00:01:40] Yeah, that's certainly part of it,

[00:01:41] but that's just the tip about the Satanic Panic is that there's no good option. It either means that a mass hysteria swept this country and sparked a panic that put innocent people in prison, some of them almost to this day,

[00:03:00] or a powerful Satanic cabal is doing unspeakable things

[00:03:03] to children right under our noses,

[00:03:04] and there's really nothing we can do to stop them.

[00:03:07] Yeah, I guess it could nice guy because I don't really know much about Thomas Edison and I don't really have an opinion on him. I'm pretty sure I called him a monster and said that he stole shit from Tesla.

[00:04:20] So if anything, knowing nothing at all,

[00:04:22] I come out looking pretty clean in this.

[00:04:24] I knew he stole stuff from Tesla,

[00:04:26] but there was a whole bunch of other stuff on it. Yeah. Is it a usable Ouija board? You have to bring your own plan chat or whatever, but it seems to be it's the board. It's the board on his on his gravestone. So yeah, pretty cool. Really? It seems like Maryland's got a lot of interesting Ouija history there. And I'm glad that a Maryland resident was able to introduce us to a couple of those things in real time. So thanks again, Sharon. It's so, so cool. I think we're actually going

[00:05:41] to put a little, little blog post about. None of those people who booed have a podcast now, so fuck them. No, but my point is the gory details are out there on the internet if you're curious, but we're gonna avoid discussing some of those details on this episode unless they are directly relevant to the case at hand because they're just cruel and disgusting and very hard to have a laugh about. So hold your horses. We got a call are investigated and how the investigators are trained, because in many of these cases, they were investigated terribly and trained terribly and did nobody any favors. And then finally, as a note at the top of the show, discussion of the Satanic Panic involves a lot of conspiracy theories. We were

[00:08:22] going to touch on some of them, but like a no brainer that he didn't. But I don't know. Well, I mean, it's it's interesting because I think really the reason the Satanic Panic is such an interesting thing to study now is that

[00:09:41] QAnon and Pizzagate and? Broadly, I would define the Satanic Panic as the collection of cases of Satanic ritual abuse, the grit people's imaginations and nightmares late in the last millennium. These cases almost always sprang up from the stories of a child

[00:11:01] about something bizarre that happened to them at home went on in a trailer park. It's always like, did you hear that the Vanderbilts had a secret worshiping the devil tunnel under their property? It seems like there was like this powerful wealthy class that seems to dabble in the occult more than just people trying to get by regular ass people.

[00:12:21] Well, that's the difference, I think, between 80 And it was the first time that there was a wave of kids being sent to daycare en masse and having other people watch them en masse and that some of this might have been tied into this sort of national creeping fear that for the first time we were really leaving our kids alone with strangers and that bad things might be happening to them

[00:13:41] while we're doing that.

[00:13:42] Yeah, said the same people who, one generation earlier,

[00:13:45] there's photos during the Dust Bowl

[00:13:46] where it's like kids that level. I mean, I have dreams that aren't great. I mean, everyone knows that. Everyone knows that about me. But I guess they're not. I didn't know how ritualistic your dreams were. Yeah, I mean, I guess some of it's probably horror stuff. Some of it.

[00:15:00] It's probably the music you listen to, the video games you play, that's what I've been

[00:15:03] told.

[00:15:04] That's what's causing this.

[00:15:05] Yeah.

[00:15:06] Yeah. of medieval witch trial type problem where otherwise rational people are willing to dull out punishment without a shred of physical evidence. And sometimes because the lack of physical evidence is literally presented as proof that Satanists are real and powerful. Yeah, I know exactly that's interesting. The fact that we can't find any evidence means they're very good Satanists and that's

[00:16:22] you know, a normal person would have left evidence.

[00:16:25] But someone who had, you know, be azelbub is their boss or whatever, they have a way

[00:16:28] of cleaning this up. Yeah, like it's exciting in a way that like going to Hogwarts would probably be exciting, but you know, it's like, oh shit, you know, I'm going my everyday going to work like a regular idiot, but you know, you're saying I could go to Hogwarts. There's a magic is real. It's just unfortunately, you know, with Harry Potter magic also comes, I guess, whatever

[00:17:41] this shit is, which is which is terrible.

[00:17:42] Yeah, no, I mean, I agree.

[00:17:44] I think when we get into some of the more outlandish accusations later, we'll talk about happening and it was happening maybe in the house next door to mind. But I'm already tying myself in knots. Let's go back to the beginning before my head explodes. We probably will cover at some point exploding head syndrome. I've experienced it. I don't know if Chris has, but just that's, you know, just people who heard that phrase and thought, are they going to cover that? We might. We might. I have. I'm experiencing it right now.

[00:19:00] No, I mean, I'm in the traditional medical sense.

[00:19:01] No, I know.

[00:19:03] There are cases of all kinds of religious and moral panics that stretch back centuries, movie, which is like they're all in on it, like the town's in on it. Yeah. Which is also one of my greatest fears. That for me must do so much for this because it's like not only is it you see satanic shit, but then also the you see it's a group of people doing satanic shit and no one knew. So that really drives home this idea. Yeah. Rosemary's baby was 68.

[00:20:21] So Rosemary's baby was before the omen and before the exorcist.

[00:20:25] If anything, then Rosemary's baby might have really like gotten this into the heads

[00:20:28] of a lot of people.

[00:21:25] that out. Yeah, Chris and Ed read bedtime stories. Oh, that's not a terrible idea. That's not a terrible idea. We have terrible voices. Maybe kids will be up all night if we did it, but that's not

[00:21:29] a bad idea. That's the secret. We're going to pair our terrible voices with terrible books,

[00:21:34] and maybe it'll be entertaining. Oh my gosh, I'm going to stay on this. We're going to do this.

[00:21:39] Michelle remembers was co-written by two people, a woman named the Beach Boys, I'm pretty sure had a fucked up doctor who would who would keep him all fucked up for his own personal gain. Well, Lawrence Pazder was Michelle Smith's psychiatrist and she had been seeing him since 1973. The trouble really started after she had a miscarriage in 1976. and 64% of abused survivors forget their memories. But then you check and the website giving you that statistic is the homepage of smart, which stands for stop mind control and ritual abuse today. Oh my God. And I'm sure the lovely people at smart are well intentioned, but you know, I suspect

[00:24:20] they have an agenda.

[00:24:21] Yeah, I also can't believe that they're that high on the Google results.

[00:24:24] Yeah.

[00:24:25] An organization like that. Wikipedia and summarize a little bit of the top articles. This is Bing or Google? This is Bing. Both of them do that to fuck people over. Like both of them do that so that you don't actually click on the website and then that website doesn't receive the clicks, then that website doesn't receive any money from like advertising because there's no impressions being made. My point was going to be though. Yeah, tell me more about fucking Big Daddy Bing over here who's trying to fuck over the little guy, your best friend Bing.

[00:25:42] Listen, to be clear, we are not receiving any compensation from Bing.

[00:25:46] Or anyone, we're not receiving compensation from anyone. I'm explaining all this information just to discuss a little bit of this idea of repressed memories and recovered memories because that's so much a part of the birth of satanic panic lore. No, it's fine. I think people, people like our tangents. They always say they love our tangents. So it also serves as a case study for exactly that of always click the second link and click

[00:27:00] the third link because this is what happened.

[00:27:01] So I click the link.

[00:27:03] It takes me to the homepage of smart stop mind control and ritual abuse today.

[00:27:08] And we do need shirts from them. site. It goes to just a completely different webpage, which I don't know if that was done on purpose to make it look like there was a link, or if somebody made a mistake or whatever, which wouldn't be very smart. No. No, it wouldn't be. But, you know, it's just a small case study in how misleading information can be. And

[00:28:20] I'm not even saying that this study was performed by somebody with an agenda, but it was certainly that explores it from all angles is like no matter which side you pick, you can find evidence and studies that kind of back up whatever your feeling is, particularly about recovered memory and abuse and trauma and all that stuff. There's been so many studies kind of in the wake of these satanic pain in cases that have been done on early childhood abuse that has been forgotten can be remembered later. However, these leaders also agree that it is possible to construct convincing pseudo-memories for events that never occurred. The mechanisms by which both of these phenomena happen are not well understood. At this point, here, this will keep you up at night too, it is impossible, without other

[00:31:03] corroborative evidence, to distinguish a time I had a dream that I left my car somewhere. And for the first couple hours of that day, I kept being like, oh, that's right. I gotta go pick up my car from outside of so-and-so's house.

[00:32:22] And then like, by the time I had to drive anywhere,

[00:32:24] I was like, wait, what am I thinking?

[00:32:26] My car is outside and I must have Yeah, they're from Victoria, Canada. Come on, Canada. You guys have a history of some of these psychiatrists and psychologists kind of playing fast and loose with this shit. Like, I think they have good people trying to rein this in,

[00:33:42] but come on, Canada, get your shit together.

[00:33:44] Yeah.

[00:34:48] with blood from the body parts of infants and her story, the book climaxes in an 81-day ritual that summons Satan himself and as well as Jesus and the Virgin Mary and Michael the

[00:34:55] Archangel who removed all of Michelle's physical scars that would prove that any of this ever happened

[00:35:01] to her. And also Michael is the one you're supposed to be with. Yeah. I think they were both married to other people at the beginning of all this. And then by the end of it, they were together, which it's a bad

[00:36:23] look to be like, oh yeah, also we're chastised him publicly as part of his like apology tour. Whereas this, you know, who did apologize in the 80s, Geraldo did an episode or two on Satanic Panic. And he did after the fact credit where credits do Geraldo publicly apologized and said, you

[00:37:40] know, we should have looked into this a little bit more carefully and not presented all this

[00:37:44] stuff as fact.

[00:37:45] Didn't her although also give away our position in like one of the Iraq or Afghanistan conflicts? find any record of and the cemetery where she claimed a lot of this abuse took place is surrounded by residential neighborhoods on three sides. So all the screaming and chanting and baby sacrificing, it seems like somebody would have seen something at the time, but no one ever did. So those are good neighbors.

[00:39:00] Just mind your mind your fucking business.

[00:39:02] That's why I like.

[00:39:03] Yeah.

[00:39:04] That's true.

[00:39:05] No fucking snitches in Victorian BC. shit dude. So I can see why people kind of got into that but that's not fit to print. No way dude I'm I'm bleeping all that shit that's not for us. But yeah I guess you're saying it was a hit. Anyway that same year that it comes out 1980 rumors start spreading around the country that the Procter and Gamble logo who are you know people who make like deodorant and toothpaste. There's rumors

[00:40:23] that the logo itself is satanic. Now this I have actually heard of this I have to do anything about it. Oh my God. This is what's funny is like, what is that say 80s? Like if you didn't catch it wherever that was seen, it just wouldn't exist. So people could easily make that up to be like, oh, you missed it, you missed it at seven o'clock, you did that. But even today, I hear politicians and fucking everybody else say shit that they say something entirely different

[00:41:41] four days later and people forget.

[00:41:43] Or like, don't go look at the goddamn internet.

[00:41:47] And so I can't even surprised if he was like, hey, I'll sell my soul to the devil for fast burgers. A lot of McDonald's food probably tastes like licking Satan's butthole. So no way, I love McDonald's. You're fucking crazy, dude. I'll fucking lay on the track. I'll join the

[00:43:00] church's day and to keep McDonald's for a while. But what I find so funny is that potentially

[00:43:04] this means there was like somebody out there who was panicked and was like you turn over a McDonald's cup and it was whatever Bible verse from the satanic Bible was under there. And if it was just like in your face. Yeah, or just as, just as Hail Satan. I mean, it wouldn't say Hail Satan. I don't want to say like, you know, call Jesus for a good time. No, that would be very controversial. But that is to say Bible verse without the,

[00:44:20] the language is coded.

[00:44:21] Yeah.

[00:44:22] John 3 16, you kind of got to know where to go.

[00:44:24] Yeah, yeah.

[00:44:25] So for this one, if it was like,

[00:44:26] I don't know anybody entire article because it was behind a paywall and God knows I wasn't paying to read this whole thing But there was a Christian today article from 1982 that did call all this proctor and gamble stuff out for just being crazy bullshit

[00:45:46] Unfortunately, the article was called the terrible 70s, the cultural mood, Michelle remembers, the rumors about Proctor and Gamble and McDonald's. But it all set the table for was a wave of mental health and law enforcement experts, or so-called experts, taking recovered memory syndrome and rumors of Satanism extremely seriously,

[00:47:03] which unsurprisingly ended up being very bad for lots of innocent people. served half their lives in prison for the murder of some boys that they certainly did not commit. But the town got up in arms over the fact that they seemed like the kind of kids who would be Satanists, have rumors spread, and they were summarily prosecuted and found guilty of these terrible crimes that they didn't commit.

[00:48:20] They have since been released.

[00:48:22] And if you haven't heard of the West Memphis kiss, kiss is old. Yeah, no, kiss is old. Don't let their definitely dying their hair fool you. They are old as fuck those guys. Yeah, I mean, they're old. And I know at one point, they were rumored that kiss stood for nights in Satan's service, which is what I'm referencing.

[00:49:42] Yeah, I don't know if the band kind of famously did a comic book with Marvel in the late 70s, where they each put their blood in the dye that was gonna be used to print all the comics. They clearly were goofballs who knew this is theater, this is dumb.

[00:51:00] The most controversial artist I feel of the present day

[00:51:03] is Lil Nas X because he of the Satanic Panic though. Nobody was trying to burn their records or anything. And those guys really felt dangerous. They felt like they were maybe real bad kids.

[00:52:20] Who's bought an album since they've been popular?

[00:52:22] I don't know how you burn your digital download's, the CEO, was giving buddy according to several unverified claims to the church of Satan. So yeah, I guess this is all starting to track for me. Maybe that's what's still going on here. Gotta look at everyone who's done a McDonald's collab through Satanist colored glasses or whatever. Yeah, but almost anyone since then,

[00:53:41] I feel like has been approaching it

[00:53:42] with a very kind of silly, you know,

[00:53:44] it's all theater kind of thing.

[00:53:45] Or even like Sam Smith, for that song Demons that blew up the news cycle for a bit with that thing they do where it's like we heard the subsets people so let us show it on repeat to more people than probably would have ever seen it otherwise. Yeah exactly. You know that's how I discovered it. I discovered it on the news but I was not upset and I thought it was cool but yeah just enough satanic imagery to get people upset again. You know it sets middle Americans. My favorite scared all-time listeners

[00:55:02] middle Americans go on. But I think to anyone who listens to music at all it's pretty clear that it's necessarily directed at anything or anyone, but the people making it do get excited than people get pissed. Oh yeah, I mean, as a horror writer, I like upsetting people to a certain extent. You know, I at least do my art, like on a person to person basis, I never really want to upset anyone. Man, you know how many people I have met from that world, from your terrible world,

[00:56:22] where I like just the most pleasant people,

[00:56:25] like everything.

[00:56:26] I have met people who have made movies that, one of the country's most famous satanic panic cases. It's also one of the longest, craziest, and most expensive court cases in American history. And that's exactly what we're gonna be talking about next week in part two of our dive into the fiery pits of satanic panic hell. It only gets wilder from here, so make sure to come back next Thursday to hear about what did and did not go down,

[00:57:40] both above, below, and impossibly the toilets

[00:57:43] of Manhattan Beach, California.

[00:57:45] Plus, Ed and I are gonna take a look

[00:57:46] at an actual police training document