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Hey everybody, welcome to 
Splintered Spirits Podcast 

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hosted by me, Gary and my nephew
John Santa from Santa Paranormal

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where we try to answer the 
question, what are spirits by 

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talking to different experts in 
the paranormal field, mediums, 

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investigators or evaluating, 
documenting spirit 

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communication. 
Now, if you ever joined our live

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stream, you've probably seen the
comments turn to Jesus, stop 

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talking to demons or these are 
Satan's minions. 

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Listen, we get it. 
People are scared. 

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But scared of what, exactly? 
This week, I'm diving head first

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into the devil's playground, not
to summon him, but to understand

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why Satan has such a grip on our
collective imagination. 

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Joining us is Doctor Joseph 
Laycock, associate professor of 

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religious studies at Texas State
University and an expert in what

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most of us were told to stay 
far, far away from new religious

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movements, AKA cults, exorcism, 
spirit possession, and the moral

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panics that swirl around them. 
He's the author of Satanism from

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Cambridge Elements, The Exorcist
Effect, Religion, Horror and 

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Demonic Belief, and the upcoming
Penguin Book of Cults out this 

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October. 
Today we're asking who is Satan 

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really? 
Why does this image still 

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terrify millions? 
And why do some people think 

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talking about ghosts is the 
first step to inviting the devil

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into your home? 
Let's separate the fear from the

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facts and see if the devil's 
really in the details. 

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Let's dive into the 
conversation. 

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Professor Joe, how are you 
today? 

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I'm doing great. 
Where do I find you? 

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I am in Austin, TX. 
Is that where you're from? 

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From Austin, Yeah, I grew up 
here. 

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And you decided to Did growing 
up in Texas have anything to do 

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with your field of study? 
A little bit in the, you know, I

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was a scrawny, nerdy kid and I 
like to play Dungeons and 

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Dragons back in the 80s. 
And, you know, everybody told me

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that this was Satanic and I was 
going to end up worshiping the 

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devil and committing suicide. 
So and, and now that Stranger 

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Things is out, everybody was 
like, oh, yeah, that was a thing

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in the 80s, wasn't it? 
That was my life. 

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Oh my God, that's great. 
That's funny. 

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It's let me throw this on here. 
So I'm getting feedback from all

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that Dude, I grew up in, you 
know, look, I'm, I'm 50 years 

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old. 
I grew up in the 80s and in the 

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90s as well. 
And we had all of that Satanic 

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panic and all of that stuff, 
which is insane. 

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And it's just, it's hilarious. 
And, and the reason really, I'm 

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so glad you, you could, you were
able to join me today because 

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the reason I wanted to talk to 
you is because ever since I 

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started this podcast with my 
nephew, the the comment section,

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I think, I guess I'm going to 
hell, dude, in a handbasket. 

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I'm going to be delivered there.
My nephew gets it constantly. 

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You know, it's like when he's 
talking to spirits, It's all, 

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you know, these are demons. 
What are you doing? 

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You're letting yourself in. 
You know, you're letting them 

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come into your life. 
The devil, you're letting the 

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devil in. 
And I wanted to get to the 

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bottom of, you know, basically 
the devil you know or the devil 

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you think you know. 
You know what? 

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What does that mean? 
And what do? 

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Why do we think the way we do 
about the devil? 

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Right? 
So like, so tell me. 

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Let's just start at the 
beginning. 

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What? 
You know what was the Satan 

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originally in in text? 
Right, So you know when I tell 

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my students in religious studies
is I can't tell you whether the 

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devil is real or not, right? 
That's up to you. 

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I work for the state of Texas. 
We don't want the government 

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telling you what to believe 
about God of the devil. 

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What I can talk about though, is
how people throughout history 

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have understood the devil and 
that is definitely changed. 

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So if you read the the Hebrew 
Bible, which Christians the Old 

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Testament Satan's basically not 
in it and and Christians will 

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say what are you talking about? 
Satan gives Eve makes read the 

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apple. 
If you actually read Genesis 3, 

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it says the serpent was the 
cleverest of all the wild 

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animals. 
That's what it says. 

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Nowhere does it say the devil 
turned himself into a snake and 

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all this kind of stuff. 
That was later Christians 

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interpreted this, the serpent to
be the the devil. 

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And then later we have the book 
of Job, which is probably where 

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the devil gets the most play in 
the Hebrew Bible. 

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And that starts out in heaven. 
And Satan just walks up to God 

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in heaven. 
And it's pretty clear that he 

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does this all the time, that he 
and God are cool, right? 

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If you read, if you read the 
book of Job, Satan and God are 

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basically friends. 
And they make this bet about, 

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you know, this Job who's his 
very loyal follower but has a 

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pretty sweet life. 
And Satan says, yeah, but I bet 

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if I ruin Job's life, he won't, 
he won't worship you anymore, 

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right? 
He's he's just a suck up. 

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So Satan in this story doesn't 
like people at all. 

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He's very anti people, but he's 
very pro God and and Satan means

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the adversary in the sense of 
like a prosecuting attorney. 

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Right, right. 
In in in the story you just 

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described, isn't that basically 
then? 

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You know Trading Places was a a 
remake of the book of Job were 

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the 2 rich guys just you know, 
screwed with Dan Aykroyd the 

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entire time in that sense to see
if he would turn to crime. 

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Yeah, it is. 
I mean, it's just essentially. 

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Because it's the original riches
to rags story, right? 

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And what also gets left, you 
know, and at the end of the 

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story, Job has this sort of 
conversation with God where he 

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doesn't curse him because why 
are you doing this? 

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And God says, you don't ever get
to question me. 

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I'm freaking God. 
And then he, he restores all of 

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Job's wealth and his cattle and 
stuff like that. 

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But but Satan had killed Job's 
kids and those kids are still 

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just as dead. 
At the end of the story. 

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Job gets to have new kids, but 
it's, it's, it's a, it was a, 

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it's an ancient text and it's 
from a very kind of brutal time 

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in, in, in human history, right.
Also, at no point does Job say, 

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oh, well, I get to go to heaven 
because I was loyal. 

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They didn't believe in heaven 
back then. 

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And he says, I have nothing to 
look forward to but descending 

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into Sheol and Sheol is the 
underworld basically. 

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You know, people understood that
you die and you just sort of 

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have the shadowy existence in, 
in, in the grounds, right. 

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And so when when Christianity 
comes along, things have 

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changed. 
And, you know, Jews are now 

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living under the influence of 
the Roman Empire. 

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They're shaped by Greek culture 
and Greek philosophy. 

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And they've encountered a 
religion out of Persia called 

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Zoroastrianism. 
And Zoroastrianism says there's 

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a God of good and a God of evil.
And they're basically both 

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equally powerful, right? 
The other thing that's happened 

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is the the story that the Jews 
have told themselves is there's 

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only one God in the whole world,
and he only has one temple, and 

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it's in Jerusalem. 
That's the only place you can be

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worshipped. 
And a bunch of people who prayed

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as Zeus came and conquered it. 
So, so how does that work? 

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And they said, OK, well, 
something God is a God of, of, 

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of love and he's all powerful. 
So he must have let something 

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evil take over the world. 
So God's not really in control. 

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He's temporarily put this evil 
power in control of us. 

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Who could it be? 
Who could this evil power be? 

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Well, when they go and look at 
the, the Hebrew scriptures in 

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the, in the Old Testament, 
they've got two things they can 

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work with. 
So they've got Satan who hates 

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humans but is loyal to God. 
And then in Genesis 6, there's 

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this weird passage that says the
sons of God saw the daughters of

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men and that they were beautiful
and they came down and they they

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had children and the children 
were called the Nephilim. 

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And there were there were giants
in the earth. 

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It's a really weird passage. 
You see this passage on ancient 

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aliens and stuff like that all 
the time. 

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OK, But so now we have Satan 
who's loyal to God but doesn't 

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like people. 
And we have these these angels 

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who descend, who like people a 
little bit too much, actually, 

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that's kind of their problem. 
But they're they disobey God. 

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And you put those together and 
you have what Satan is in 

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Christianity, which is a a 
fallen Angel who hates humans 

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and hates God. 
And now we can say This is why 

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the world isn't working the way 
it's supposed to work, because 

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this character, Satan, is 
temporarily running the show. 

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That is super interesting. 
You know, it really is. 

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It's like I grew up Catholic 
and, you know, now I would say 

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I'm an atheist of it. 
And, you know, my, my 

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interpretation of the devil is 
that he inspires the best music 

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primarily, right. 
So. 

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And it's like, you know, yeah. 
And it's just, it's the coolest.

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But, you know, and it's, I never
understood that. 

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Like, wait a minute. 
If it always felt to me when 

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they would tell us, you know, 
these fire and brimstone that 

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that sort of probably stemmed, 
you know, come from Dante's 

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Inferno, that sort of imagery or
something, you know, then that 

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here's this guy who's punishing 
all the bad people. 

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And to me, my whole thing 
growing up in this, in the 

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Catholic faith was like, well, 
that seems like he's working 

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with God in that. 
And it's, it's like if he's 

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punishing bad people, that's, 
you know, that seems like he's 

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in cahoots. 
I would it almost be like if he 

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was luring me in to do bad 
stuff, I'd be rewarded by that 

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guy. 
Why would he make me like try to

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trick me and then hurt me later?
What what's what? 

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That's weird. 
If he's trying to get even with 

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that guy, I'd be like, hey, come
to my house. 

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My parties are better. 
Like that's how I always thought

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of it. 
You know, like, so it never made

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sense that there was like, and 
then, you know, like God would 

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punish you. 
Well, that goes against 

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everything that you're taught 
that what God is about. 

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So it's like, you know what, you
did a bad thing. 

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Sorry, you're going to you're 
going to jail run by my guy down

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there. 
But then you're trying to also 

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tell me he's not your guy. 
He's your adversary who wants to

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be you. 
So why would he help you with 

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this prison system? 
Like I and then I was out. 

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I'm like, you know what this is 
this there's clearly just a 

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scare tactic to try to, you 
know, prevent to keep me in 

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control. 
I just always felt it was a 

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control tactic and you know, is 
that did that, when did that 

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sort of idea? 
And I'm sure I'm not the first 

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person to have that idea. 
So when, when is that? 

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How did that start to come 
about, or when did that sort of 

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philosophy or thing start to 
breakthrough the system in a 

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way? 
Yeah, so, so God has always had,

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you know, a big stick, right? 
And, and the traditional 

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Israelite understanding of, of 
course God is going to hurt you 

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if you don't follow God's laws. 
Of course he will. 

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And he probably won't do it in 
person. 

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God has all kinds of monsters 
that will, that do his bidding. 

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God has hit men. 
He'll have you swallowed by a 

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whale. 
He'll send flying venomous 

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serpents at you. 
I mean, he'll do all this awful 

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stuff. 
He's he's got it's. 

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Quite the video game, isn't it 
Joe? 

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It's quite the video game. 
Yeah, there's a book that just 

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came out by Esther Hamori called
God's Monsters, and it describes

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all these like messed up 
creatures in in the Hebrew 

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Bible. 
And basically, you know, God is 

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king of the monsters. 
You know, God made all these 

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things in case you ever cross 
him. 

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And I think if you went to the 
ancient Israelites and you said 

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your God sounds really cruel, 
they'll probably say, yeah, 

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yeah, he's cruel. 
Like, So what? 

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He's powerful. 
He's the most powerful thing in 

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the universe. 
So we're going to follow him no 

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matter what he says. 
I'll kill my own kid if he tells

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me to. 
It's only later when when you 

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have this idea of God loves us. 
God doesn't want anything bad to

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happen to humans. 
Now we have a problem right now 

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we have to find some way to 
justify what in in religious 

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studies is called the problem of
evil, right? 

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Why is it so terrible to be a 
human being with all the stuff 

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we have to deal with? 
If the world is being run by 

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this all powerful, all loving 
God and an attempt to solve that

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is to say, well, there's this 
figure, the devil. 

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The devil causes all the bad 
stuff. 

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God causes all the good stuff. 
That's crazy. 

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That's right. 
You said earlier you mentioned 

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like you described him as a 
prosecutor or like an attorney. 

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Is that like the? 
That's what the word means? 

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Yeah, it's it's in the sense of 
like one who is accusing you, 

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right. 
And and not like accusing you in

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like, like a mean girl making up
a rumor about you, but really 

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trying to say like you haven't 
done what you said you're gonna 

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do. 
Like you're in breach of 

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contracts, right. 
You had a covenant with God. 

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You didn't keep it and, and 
maybe Satan is right and you 

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really actually deserve to be 
punished. 

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And maybe Satan's doing his job 
a little too enthusiastically 

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and you actually deserve some 
some mercy. 

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But that's what the word Satan 
kind of originally signified. 

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It's fascinating. 
So what? 

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So as I said, like in our in our
chat, in our podcast and in the 

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chats in our live streams, we 
get a lot of people telling us 

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to turn to Jesus to rebuke 
singing, right? 

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What do you think it is about 
the paranormal, you know, that 

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triggers this like evangelical 
panic in people who are super 

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religious to do that to us? 
Yeah, it's, it's really 

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interesting. 
So we know sociologically from 

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sociologists who study 
paranormal beliefs, if you 

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believe in God, you're more 
likely to hold a paranormal 

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belief. 
And they define paranormal 

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beliefs as believing in ghosts, 
believing in UFOs, believing in 

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psychic abilities and things 
like this. 

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But they also found that if you 
go to church services every 

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week, you're less likely to 
believe in paranormal things. 

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And what they attribute that to 
is you have pastors and priests 

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saying all this stuff. 
It's it's demonic, it's of the 

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devil, right? 
And, and to some extent, 

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sociologically, this is about 
brands, right? 

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If you're telling people our 
church and our Bible and our 

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tradition, we know about the 
supernatural. 

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We know about all the secret 
forces in the universe. 

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You don't want people then going
and talking to a psychic, right?

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Or talking to a medium. 
You want them to be coming to 

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you and kind of getting all of 
their truth from you. 

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And so very early on in the 
history of Christianity, by 

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about the 2nd century, there was
this idea of, well, the other 

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00:14:25,160 --> 00:14:28,520
gods that people pray to, Zeus 
and the gods of Rome and all 

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00:14:28,520 --> 00:14:30,760
this stuff. 
It's not that they aren't real. 

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They're real, but they're 
actually demons. 

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These are actually fallen angels
who have tricked humanity into 

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thinking that they are gods of 
Thunder and love and war and 

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wisdom and so forth. 
And what they really want humans

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to do is first of all worship 
them instead of the one true 

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God, and 2nd to give them blood 
sacrifices because that was a 

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00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:53,480
common practice in the Roman 
Empire when Christianity was 

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00:14:53,480 --> 00:14:56,120
beginning as you would make 
animal sacrifices to the gods 

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00:14:56,560 --> 00:14:59,200
and Christianity. 
Christianity. 

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00:15:00,120 --> 00:15:02,240
Christianity not make animal 
sacrifices. 

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00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:04,280
I mean, that's one reason why 
Christians were kind of singled 

283
00:15:04,280 --> 00:15:06,120
out, as they said you. 
Know because it wasn't doing 

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what the Romans were doing. 
Like the Romans were into it. 

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Christians were like, no, OK. 
Exactly. 

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00:15:11,200 --> 00:15:13,120
And the pagans would say, look, 
you know, look at all the 

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00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:15,920
wonderful things that Rome has 
done and and the gods have given

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00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:19,400
us victory over enemies and you 
won't sacrifice like a dove. 

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00:15:19,440 --> 00:15:21,600
You know what's wrong with you? 
Right, but. 

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00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:25,400
The Christians would say, 
because you're not giving that 

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00:15:25,400 --> 00:15:29,920
bloody animal to, you know, 
some, some benevolent God like 

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00:15:30,080 --> 00:15:31,840
Zeus, you're giving it to a 
demon. 

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00:15:31,920 --> 00:15:35,000
You're giving it to someone who 
lost a war thousands of years 

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00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:38,080
ago in in heaven. 
And that idea is pretty firmly 

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00:15:38,080 --> 00:15:41,280
established in Christianity 
within only a couple centuries. 

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That's OK, right? 
It's so, it's so amazing. 

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00:15:47,440 --> 00:15:53,440
What are some of the most 
comparable, you know, in other 

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00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:56,440
faiths? 
How does that all tie into this 

299
00:15:56,440 --> 00:15:59,360
idea of Satan and Jesus? 
And it's like when you start 

300
00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:03,200
looking at like, yeah, this this
guy over here had 12 apostles. 

301
00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:07,480
And this person here had like, 
where does the devil rock, you 

302
00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:11,320
know, sit in other faiths and 
other practices? 

303
00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:13,480
And how does that compare to 
what we all know? 

304
00:16:13,560 --> 00:16:16,840
You know what these other people
believe is the devil today? 

305
00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:20,360
Yeah. 
So, you know, most, most Jews 

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00:16:20,360 --> 00:16:23,720
don't really believe in a devil,
right, Because they would say 

307
00:16:23,720 --> 00:16:26,000
it's really not in our in our 
sacred texts. 

308
00:16:26,200 --> 00:16:29,800
There are Judaism's a very old 
diverse religion. 

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00:16:29,800 --> 00:16:31,240
There's lots of different forms 
of Judaism. 

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00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:35,200
And there are things like the 
Dibic, which is a possessing 

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00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:38,240
spirit that appears in Jewish 
folklore and things like that. 

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00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:43,080
There are stories of the rabbi's
who are exorcising demons. 

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00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:48,480
The other religion of the book 
is Islam, and in Islam the devil

314
00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:52,480
is called Iblis, which means the
whisperer and pretty similar to 

315
00:16:52,480 --> 00:16:56,080
the devil in Christianity. 
But the difference is that the 

316
00:16:56,160 --> 00:17:02,400
devil is either an Angel or 
something called a jinn, and the

317
00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:06,599
jinn are made from fire and 
they're like human beings. 

318
00:17:06,599 --> 00:17:10,200
Angels don't really have free 
will in Islam, but Jin can 

319
00:17:10,200 --> 00:17:12,520
choose to be good or they can 
choose to be evil. 

320
00:17:13,240 --> 00:17:18,200
And so Iblis is told by God, 
I've created this thing. 

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00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:20,599
It's called Adam. 
It's a human. 

322
00:17:20,599 --> 00:17:22,319
It's awesome. 
I want everybody to come and bow

323
00:17:22,319 --> 00:17:25,599
to and it's my best creation. 
And Iblis refuses. 

324
00:17:25,599 --> 00:17:27,560
He says, I'm not going to bow to
this thing that you made out of 

325
00:17:27,560 --> 00:17:31,560
dirt because that would make me 
a bad Muslim, right? 

326
00:17:31,560 --> 00:17:34,400
Muslims are only to honor God. 
I'm not going to honor something

327
00:17:34,400 --> 00:17:37,360
that's that's not yours. 
And they get into this arguments

328
00:17:37,760 --> 00:17:40,560
and IBL says, I'm going to show 
you your creation actually isn't

329
00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:43,560
that great. 
And so IBL means the whisperer. 

330
00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:47,480
So the idea is IBL is constantly
kind of tempting us to to 

331
00:17:47,480 --> 00:17:52,720
disobey a God, to choose our own
path instead of what God wants 

332
00:17:52,720 --> 00:17:54,000
for us. 
And there are traditions in 

333
00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:57,840
Islam that eventually this this 
squabble between God and IBL 

334
00:17:57,840 --> 00:18:01,000
will be will be reconciled. 
So it's a somewhat more 

335
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:04,720
sympathetic view of this figure 
than in Christianity, where it's

336
00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:08,320
really just absolute evil and 
has to be destroyed. 

337
00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:12,240
And then other religions also 
have to explain the problem of 

338
00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:15,120
evil. 
And so if, for example, in 

339
00:18:15,120 --> 00:18:17,920
Buddhism, we have this figure 
called Mara, who's often 

340
00:18:17,920 --> 00:18:21,120
associated with the devil by 
Christians when they look at 

341
00:18:21,120 --> 00:18:26,080
Buddhism, and Mara is basically 
the God of reality as we know 

342
00:18:26,080 --> 00:18:28,120
it, right? 
So Buddhism says we're kind of 

343
00:18:28,120 --> 00:18:30,760
living in the matrix and we have
to become enlightened and sort 

344
00:18:30,760 --> 00:18:34,920
of transcend the cycle of death 
and reincarnation. 

345
00:18:35,320 --> 00:18:37,240
And Mara doesn't want anybody to
do that. 

346
00:18:37,640 --> 00:18:40,440
And so when Buddha is about to 
become enlightened, after years 

347
00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:46,600
of meditation, Mara sends like 
sexy, like nymph women to try to

348
00:18:46,600 --> 00:18:50,200
distract him. 
Mara unleashes an army of demons

349
00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:53,280
on him and the Buddha turns 
their arrows into flower 

350
00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:57,440
blossoms just like we see in in 
the Matrix. 

351
00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:01,000
So it's a different, it's a 
different tradition from a 

352
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:03,800
different part of the world, but
there are some similarities of 

353
00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:06,640
there's kind of this invisible 
force that controls the world 

354
00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:09,560
and our religion is helping us 
to to fight back against it. 

355
00:19:09,960 --> 00:19:14,720
So it sounds like every person 
or religion needs a scapegoat 

356
00:19:15,680 --> 00:19:18,800
and escape. 
The easiest one is Satan. 

357
00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:22,400
Is that fair to say? 
It's like we have to figure out 

358
00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:25,320
how to. 
Yeah, everybody wants to explain

359
00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:27,320
the problem of evil. 
Right Now, if you have a 

360
00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:30,880
religion like the Yoruba 
religion of West Africa where 

361
00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:33,240
you have multiple gods and 
goddesses, you know, they might 

362
00:19:33,240 --> 00:19:35,800
just say, well, some of those 
gods are jerks, right? 

363
00:19:36,360 --> 00:19:38,080
So that's why bad things are 
going to happen. 

364
00:19:38,360 --> 00:19:41,040
But if you have a religion that 
says, well, kind of there's this

365
00:19:41,040 --> 00:19:44,000
order to the universe, right? 
Or especially there's an all 

366
00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:47,040
powerful, all loving God. 
Well, now the problem of evil is

367
00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:50,480
much harder to solve. 
And the sort of Christian 

368
00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:54,120
version of, well, God caused all
the good stuff, Satan caused all

369
00:19:54,120 --> 00:19:57,240
the bad stuff, doesn't act from 
a philosophical perspective, 

370
00:19:57,240 --> 00:20:00,360
does not fully solve it, right? 
Because Christians say, well, 

371
00:20:00,760 --> 00:20:02,520
God will punish Satan though, 
right? 

372
00:20:02,560 --> 00:20:05,920
Jesus will return and Satan will
be cast into a lake of fire. 

373
00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:08,600
God's only allowing us to go on 
for a little while. 

374
00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:12,160
But a philosopher might say, OK,
but if I have a vicious pit 

375
00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:14,280
bull. 
And I just let it loose to the 

376
00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:17,320
park and it starts mauling 
children and I say don't worry, 

377
00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:20,680
in 5 minutes I'm going to leash 
my Pitbull and it won't maul 

378
00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:23,080
children anymore. 
Well, I'm going to jail for 

379
00:20:23,080 --> 00:20:25,040
that. 
Right, right. 

380
00:20:25,560 --> 00:20:29,800
I'm not, I'm not innocent of the
damage that my pet Pitbull that 

381
00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:33,360
I've unleashed is, is, is doing.
And Christians might say, well, 

382
00:20:33,360 --> 00:20:36,280
but that's trying to judge God 
by the standards that we would 

383
00:20:36,280 --> 00:20:40,600
judge a human or, or whatever. 
But you know, in in philosophy, 

384
00:20:40,600 --> 00:20:44,160
when you really get to questions
like why are some babies born 

385
00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:46,240
with leukemia? 
Yeah, right. 

386
00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:50,240
It's really hard to say that 
that that fact of our life can 

387
00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:53,040
be reconciled with this idea of 
an all powerful, all loving God.

388
00:20:53,200 --> 00:20:54,640
It's hard. 
Yeah, for sure. 

389
00:20:55,040 --> 00:20:57,960
It's like I think my thing in my
philosophy class back in the day

390
00:20:57,960 --> 00:21:00,640
was, you know, if God is all 
powerful, can he create a rock 

391
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:03,400
so heavy that even he can't lift
it right? 

392
00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:05,920
Like that was the that was the 
fun game. 

393
00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:13,920
So as this, how was the start 
Satanism or the Church of Satan 

394
00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:18,640
or these sort of like as a 
religion, How far back is that? 

395
00:21:19,120 --> 00:21:21,480
Can that be true? 
Is that like the late 60s or is 

396
00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:25,040
it even earlier? 
And then what is, you know, how 

397
00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:28,760
did that come about in the in 
this whole, in this thing? 

398
00:21:29,320 --> 00:21:32,520
Right. 
So this is this is contentious 

399
00:21:32,520 --> 00:21:34,520
history, right? 
Well, we can all agree on is in 

400
00:21:34,520 --> 00:21:38,800
1966, Anton Lavey creates this 
religion called the Church of 

401
00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:42,280
Satan and it's an above ground 
religion with members. 

402
00:21:42,280 --> 00:21:44,320
And there's people who are 
saying I am a Satanist, here is 

403
00:21:44,320 --> 00:21:46,720
my membership card and so forth,
right? 

404
00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:50,680
Did, did Satanism exist before 
that? 

405
00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:53,880
It's pretty murky, right? 
I mean, there are conspiracy 

406
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:56,480
theorists who will actually say,
well, Satanism is older than 

407
00:21:56,480 --> 00:21:59,880
Christianity, which historically
speaking, that doesn't make any 

408
00:21:59,880 --> 00:22:01,360
sense. 
But those kinds of claims are 

409
00:22:01,360 --> 00:22:05,120
out there that this is this 
ancient, a cult that goes back 

410
00:22:05,120 --> 00:22:08,040
to, you know, child sacrifice in
the Old Testament, stuff like 

411
00:22:08,040 --> 00:22:12,720
that. 
The word Satanism appears in the

412
00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:17,240
1500s when we have the 
Protestant Reformation and 

413
00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:21,120
Europe enters 200 years of wars 
over religion, Right. 

414
00:22:21,360 --> 00:22:25,200
So prior to that, the only 
church in Europe was the 

415
00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:27,480
Catholic Church. 
Now you have Catholics and 

416
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:30,640
Protestants fighting each other.
And pretty quickly these 

417
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:33,160
accusations get made of you say 
you're a Christian, but you were

418
00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:37,600
actually a Satanist, right? 
You actually worship Satan. 

419
00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:41,240
And then the Catholic Church 
says, well, we believe in 

420
00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:45,120
transubstantiation. 
So when we do communion, we 

421
00:22:45,120 --> 00:22:49,160
believe that the bread and wine.
So transubstantiation, Catholics

422
00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:52,360
begin to say, but when we do 
communion, the priest has the 

423
00:22:52,360 --> 00:22:56,720
power to miraculously turn the 
wine into Jesus's blood and turn

424
00:22:56,720 --> 00:22:58,640
the the wafer into Jesus's 
flesh. 

425
00:22:59,120 --> 00:23:02,240
And these rumors start to form 
that Satanists are sneaking into

426
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:05,600
Catholic churches and they're 
trying to wait until communion 

427
00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:09,960
when those those holy wafers are
passed out and sneak them away 

428
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:12,600
and take them home because 
that's actually Jesus body. 

429
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:14,960
And now the Satanists, because 
the Satanists know that 

430
00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:17,640
everything the Catholic Church 
does is really true, can now 

431
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:22,320
stomp on that wafer in a black 
mass and basically torture 

432
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:25,560
Jesus, right? 
And let me tell you this real 

433
00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:26,720
quick. 
When I was in, I went to 

434
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:28,840
Catholic school for eight years.
A lot of the kids in my class 

435
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:30,920
were altar boys. 
They would constantly sneak into

436
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:33,200
the rectory and steal the wafers
to keep them in their pockets to

437
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:35,720
have a snack in class. 
And it was like some of the 

438
00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:39,080
unused ones that were blessed, 
you know, during the, the daily 

439
00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:41,800
masses that didn't get to, you 
know, it's like they would just 

440
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:43,440
take those, they have them in 
their pocket and they're just 

441
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:45,520
sitting there snacking during 
the, you know what I mean? 

442
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:48,840
It was like, it's sickness, a 
lot of them. 

443
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:50,920
So if it hasn't been blessed, 
it's just a cracker. 

444
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:53,040
But once it's blessed, that's 
actually these, they are 

445
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:55,680
blessed. 
But what's important here is as 

446
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:58,800
far as we know, there, there 
were no Satanists, right? 

447
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,600
Nobody was coming to steal 
these, these, these wafers. 

448
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:05,760
This was an argument that they 
were using against Protestants, 

449
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:07,480
right? 
And it was basically the logic 

450
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:10,760
of like the old cereal 
commercials with like lucky 

451
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:13,000
leprechaun, the tricks rabbit 
and stuff, right? 

452
00:24:13,360 --> 00:24:15,480
The cereals got to be good 
because all these cartoon 

453
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:17,840
characters are trying to steal 
it all the time, right? 

454
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:21,320
Our, our, our interpretation of 
communion must be true because 

455
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:23,280
why the Satan is coming for it 
all the time. 

456
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:26,760
So, so beginning in the 1500s, 
we have all these people being 

457
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:30,720
accused of being Satanists. 
We even have some people who are

458
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:35,160
put on trial for basically 
holding black masses and are 

459
00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:38,440
executed and stuff like that. 
What's not clear, though, was 

460
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:42,720
any of this ever real? 
Was anybody ever actually doing 

461
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:45,120
this? 
And some historians disagree. 

462
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:47,640
Most historians, I think, would 
say probably not, right? 

463
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:49,760
Probably these were just sort of
urban legends. 

464
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:52,400
Some of them say, well, well, 
maybe there's a little grain of 

465
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:54,120
truth to this. 
And, you know, if you tell an 

466
00:24:54,120 --> 00:24:56,560
urban legend, enough, people 
will kind of act it out. 

467
00:24:57,120 --> 00:24:59,840
So we don't really know if there
were any Satanists before Anton 

468
00:24:59,840 --> 00:25:01,840
Lavey. 
But Anton Lavey sort of took all

469
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:05,000
these rumors, which he learned 
about through novels and horror 

470
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:07,600
movies and said, I'm going to do
this in real life. 

471
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:09,720
I'm going to take the parts of 
Satanism I saw in these horror 

472
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:13,200
movies that I think are cool and
which is the rebellion and the 

473
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,440
kind of, you know, resistance to
authority. 

474
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:19,800
And the parts about, you know, 
killing babies or whatever that 

475
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:21,840
I'm just going to leave behind 
because I'm making this up 

476
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:23,600
anyway. 
So I can just use the parts that

477
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:24,720
I like. 
Right. 

478
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:27,440
I mean, he, he had a lot of 
inspiration from like, you know,

479
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:29,920
Crowley, like Aleister Crowley 
and stuff like that. 

480
00:25:30,120 --> 00:25:33,600
Isn't that part of his whole? 
Yeah, I mean. 

481
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,480
And that's like the early, 
that's, isn't that the early 

482
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:38,240
1900? 
Like, what's Guy Aleister 

483
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:39,120
Crowley? 
The 20s? 

484
00:25:39,120 --> 00:25:42,400
Yeah, Aleister Crowley's payday 
was, was was basically the 20s, 

485
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:43,840
right? 
Yeah. 

486
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,160
So Crowley definitely studied 
Aleister Crowley. 

487
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:51,160
He said that he didn't take 
anything from him, but he he 

488
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:54,600
definitely did. 
If you read the Satanic Bible, 

489
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:57,280
which which by the way, the 
Satanic Bible came about because

490
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:00,760
of the movie Rosemary's Baby in 
1968. 

491
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:02,840
And that was a that was a novel 
first. 

492
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:05,760
It was a best selling novel. 
So Avon came to Anton Levae and 

493
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:08,720
said, could you write something?
It could be really anything, but

494
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,000
as long as it mentions like 
Satan and witchcraft, we can 

495
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,400
sell this book. 
There's a huge market. 

496
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:17,520
So Levae kind of slammed 
together the the Satanic Bible. 

497
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:23,080
And so for parts of it he took 
the the so-called Enochian keys,

498
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:25,440
which are part of kind of 
ceremonial magic that he would 

499
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:27,760
have learned about through 
studying Crawley. 

500
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:30,440
So that's part of the contents 
of, of of that book. 

501
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:34,600
So Crawley was an influence. 
There was a French novel called 

502
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:38,200
The Boss, which describes a 
black mass in Paris. 

503
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,960
And he took that and kind of 
used the novel to kind of make 

504
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:46,440
a, a black mass a ritual. 
There were movies from the 30s 

505
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,200
and 40s, old black and white 
movies that depicted satanic 

506
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:51,400
cults. 
So he drew on that as as well. 

507
00:26:52,120 --> 00:26:55,120
And, and so he was just really 
good at kind of taking bits and 

508
00:26:55,120 --> 00:26:58,880
pieces from all over the place 
and putting together a, a 

509
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:02,880
religion and also a kind of 
philosophy, a kind of humanist 

510
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:07,320
philosophy of trying to be your 
best self and kind of have the 

511
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:10,600
most fun. 
So, and unlike L Ron Hubbard, he

512
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:12,720
really couldn't figure out how 
to make that kind of money out 

513
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:14,760
of it either. 
So unfortunately, so it's like, 

514
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:16,960
which is fat. 
That's amazing to me. 

515
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:22,680
So you know that. 
So if you started that in around

516
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:25,640
the 60s, I guess then that would
lead you to like the 80s, which 

517
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:29,160
is that Satanic Panic, you know,
And I'm actually, I think I 

518
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,400
mentioned you, I have another 
project, documentary project I'm

519
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:33,960
working on about the West 
Memphis 3. 

520
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:37,000
And I know the one of the 
attorneys from that case with 

521
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:41,480
those kids, those teens were 
railroaded and it was due to the

522
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:45,240
Satanic panic of the, of the 
late 80s, early 90s. 

523
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:49,920
What, what again? 
Does it just still come down to 

524
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:55,760
the same thing is it's just the 
the unexplained and just finding

525
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:59,720
a reason to hate and it must be 
sane. 

526
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,440
I mean, is that really what the 
Satanic Panic was all about back

527
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:04,520
then? 
Like in that level? 

528
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:06,960
Well, it's, it's interesting 
because Christianity has always 

529
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:11,040
taught that there's a devil, but
in certain periods in Christian 

530
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:13,920
history, the idea of the devil 
has been very much downplayed. 

531
00:28:14,360 --> 00:28:17,560
And other parts it's, it's been 
really amped up. 

532
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,920
And occasionally you get not 
only is there the devil, but the

533
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:24,360
devil has human agents, which in
early modern Europe, they would 

534
00:28:24,360 --> 00:28:26,640
have said are witches, right? 
They would have gone on witch 

535
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:28,760
hunts. 
And, and the 80s was basically 

536
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:31,320
just a witch hunt, except now 
we're calling the witches 

537
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:34,520
Satanists. 
So the question sociologists try

538
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:37,680
to answer is what, what is it? 
What's going on in the culture 

539
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:40,480
where this this flares up? 
What causes it to flare up? 

540
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:44,240
And one interpretation I think 
is plausible is that when 

541
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:49,320
society starts to change too 
fast, some people freak out and 

542
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:53,320
start basically accusing their 
neighbor, right, of being a 

543
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:56,080
witch or a Satanist or something
like that, right. 

544
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:59,560
So, so the dark ages in Europe 
really didn't have a lot of 

545
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,960
witch hunting. 
People believed in witches, but 

546
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:04,240
they generally were not burning 
people at the stake. 

547
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:07,840
And then once the wars of 
religion start and, and people, 

548
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:10,840
things start changing very fast.
Now I have thousands of people 

549
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:15,160
accused of witchcraft. 
SO1 interpretation is the 60s, a

550
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:17,680
lot of change real fast, a lot 
of changes to the culture. 

551
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:21,080
And the 70s, which is really 
where the Satanic panic begins, 

552
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:25,200
is kind of the hangover. 
It's for that that that 

553
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:29,240
revolution of the 1960s. 
And so you get you get very 

554
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,320
early on Christians kind of 
making these wild claims about 

555
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:36,640
satanic conspiracies. 
And then the 80s, it really 

556
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:38,680
explodes. 
And there's a couple of reasons 

557
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:40,760
for that. 
But, but one thing that people 

558
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:45,440
have noticed is it was mostly 
daycare providers who were being

559
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:48,800
accused of being Satanists. 
So they would say, you know, you

560
00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:51,120
drop your kid off at daycare, 
you pick them up at the end of 

561
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:53,200
the day. 
Well, the daycare provider is a 

562
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:56,840
Satanist and they were like 
torturing your kid and things 

563
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:59,240
like this all day. 
And they have them cleaned up 

564
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:01,320
when you when you pick them up 
from from school. 

565
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:04,480
So the the longest, most 
expensive trial in American 

566
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:08,160
history before the OJ Simpson 
trial was the Mcmartin preschool

567
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:11,400
trial where this whole family 
was accused of basically running

568
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:14,840
a satanic daycare center. 
And of course it was all it was 

569
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:16,320
all made-up. 
So here's the thing. 

570
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:20,000
Why, if you if you said someone 
in your town is a Satanist, you 

571
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,400
probably wouldn't think it must 
be the preschool teacher, right?

572
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:27,280
Not today for sure, but was that
because people started to work 

573
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:29,280
or when people started to use 
daycare more? 

574
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:34,560
Exactly, exactly because in the 
80s we switched from the kind of

575
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,640
Leave it to Beaver family where 
dad goes to work and mom stays 

576
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:40,720
home to now the norm is the 2 
income family. 

577
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:44,120
So what sociologists think 
happened is a lot of parents 

578
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:47,440
felt I'm forced to send my kid 
to all these people that I don't

579
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:51,640
know, these strangers. 
And so it felt like there was 

580
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:55,280
this evil force trying to, you 
know, undermine your authority 

581
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:56,920
as a parent and mess up your 
kids. 

582
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:00,520
And the claim of the daycare is 
run by Satanist. 

583
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:04,360
It kind of gave expression to 
that, to that frustration. 

584
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:06,760
So. 
So we don't really know quite 

585
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:10,840
why Satanic Panic got so bad 
when it did in the 80s, but 

586
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:13,360
definitely changing economics 
was a factor. 

587
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,560
The realization that child abuse
is a thing, that there really 

588
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:21,280
are people who abuse children, 
was was probably a factor as 

589
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:24,040
well. 
And then repealing the Fairness 

590
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:27,880
Doctrine in media set the stage 
for things like the Geraldo 

591
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:31,240
Satanism special, right? 
Which really scared the hell out

592
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:34,560
of a lot of Americans. 
So sensational media was part of

593
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:37,280
it too. 
It's amazing how many things can

594
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:40,560
be traced back to Geraldo, by 
the way, when you really start 

595
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,680
to dig into it, like some of the
stuff that he that he discovered

596
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,840
and and stories he broke and and
culturally changed. 

597
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,080
Fascinating to me. 
Well, I was on Geraldo in in 

598
00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:54,320
2009. 
I had lunch with the guy who 

599
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:58,960
produced that Satanism special 
in 1988 and he just said our 

600
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:02,440
ratings were so good we just 
killed it with a Satanism 

601
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:05,800
special. 
He was so proud all these years,

602
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:08,280
right? 
So many people's lives have been

603
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:09,680
ruined by it. 
So thank you. 

604
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:11,480
I'm so glad the ratings were so 
high. 

605
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:14,320
Poor kids. 
You just like heavy metal music.

606
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:20,840
You know, how does this lead to,
you know, this belief and you 

607
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:24,640
know, whether the psychological 
aspect of Satanism or believing 

608
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:29,560
in saying, how does that play 
into possession as a religious 

609
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:33,240
concept and as a psychological 
or cultural phenomenon? 

610
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:36,120
You know, like when you're 
talking about possession and it,

611
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:38,720
and if you're possessed, it's 
never by anybody cool. 

612
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:41,760
It's always by the devil. 
It's like, you know, it's just 

613
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:44,640
like, it's not, you know, Frank 
Sinatra isn't possessing me. 

614
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:46,840
I didn't learn to sing really 
well and start picking up chicks

615
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:49,200
at every bar. 
It's like, no, it's the devil. 

616
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:50,920
You know what I mean? 
It's like, what, what's the 

617
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:51,920
deal? 
What how does that? 

618
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:55,040
How did that roll out? 
Yeah. 

619
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:57,920
So possession is also, it's one 
of these things where there's 

620
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,240
really no possession in the Old 
Testament, no one's getting 

621
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:04,160
possessed by demons. 
If they are, it actually says 

622
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:06,480
it's an evil spirit of the Lord,
right? 

623
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:08,880
So God wants you to be possessed
and, and, and freak out. 

624
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:11,720
In the New Testament, though, 
first of all, people are getting

625
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:13,760
possessed everywhere. 
Everybody's possessed. 

626
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:17,320
Jesus has to cast out demons as 
apostles has to cast out demons.

627
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:21,840
And these are demons, right? 
And it's not quite queer. 

628
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:26,040
It's not quite clear what people
in the 1st century understood a 

629
00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:29,040
demon to be, but they're 
definitely not from God. 

630
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:30,680
These are these are kind of evil
things. 

631
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:33,400
And the way that we know Jesus 
the Messiah is, he has this 

632
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:37,400
ability to to to command them. 
So that's really baked into core

633
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,000
Christian texts, right? 
People get possessed by demons 

634
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:42,200
and Christians are the true 
religion because they have the 

635
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:46,600
power to cast this out, right? 
And, and in other religions, 

636
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:49,320
there is also spirit possession.
But in most cultures that are 

637
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:52,560
not Christian, like you said, 
it's a little bit more neutral. 

638
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:56,120
So if you're getting possessed, 
it could be, could be something 

639
00:33:56,120 --> 00:33:58,440
really bad. 
It could be something that's 

640
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:00,520
fairly like neutral. 
We just have to figure out why 

641
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:02,240
the spirit is here and make it 
move on. 

642
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:05,480
It could even be good, right? 
You could be like a shaman and 

643
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:09,000
you're being possessed by 
helpful A a a spirits, right? 

644
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:12,199
Or it could be Apple, It could 
be undiagnosed epilepsy as well.

645
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:15,600
Is that that right? 
Well, absolutely right. 

646
00:34:16,199 --> 00:34:20,400
You know, possession is it is a 
way of diagnosing something is 

647
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:23,159
wrong with somebody. 
And actually in the Gospels, 

648
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:27,400
most of the people that Jesus is
casting spirits out of, they're 

649
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,719
the symptoms that they are 
possessed are things like they 

650
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:33,520
are deaf or they they are lame. 
They can't walk. 

651
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:35,760
It's a disease of the body, 
right? 

652
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,880
It's, it's later that we come to
think of possession as being a 

653
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:42,080
disease of the soul, right? 
Where you, you act like a 

654
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,400
different person, right? 
Or a little girl, you know, 

655
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:49,000
browse in a man's voice, right, 
that she's Pazuzu or, or 

656
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:50,080
something like that, Right, 
right. 

657
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:53,360
So, so then once people are 
possessed, well, the one 

658
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:55,320
question is, well, why is this 
person possessed? 

659
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,560
And the church has had different
thoughts on that over the years,

660
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:01,320
but, but very early on they 
said, well, it could be that 

661
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:04,120
someone cursed you, right? 
That someone used magic to 

662
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:07,560
basically get a demon to attach 
itself to you. 

663
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,520
So very early on, there's a 
connection between basically 

664
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:13,440
witchcraft or Satanism and, and 
possession. 

665
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:16,920
And in the era of witch hunts, 
if, if people thought you were 

666
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:21,000
possessed by a demon, you could 
freely say, you know, Billy over

667
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:24,240
there is the person who sent 
this me into this person, 

668
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:26,480
They're a witch. 
And if you that Billy is 

669
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:29,880
probably going to die. 
So. 

670
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:32,960
So being possessed actually 
gives you a lot of power within 

671
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:38,000
this culture. 
Oh my God, that is awesome. 

672
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:43,520
I mean, it really is quite it's 
it's really, I mean, they really

673
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:44,920
did right. 
They really used it. 

674
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:49,280
It was a it was a useful tool 
tool to get rid of your your 

675
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:52,360
enemies or adversaries or people
you might have been jealous of 

676
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:54,120
or. 
Yeah, absolutely. 

677
00:35:54,240 --> 00:35:57,000
And and, you know, we don't 
think of the Salem witch trials 

678
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,520
as a possession story, but 
really it was right. 

679
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:03,080
The the Puritans understood to 
be bewitched, right? 

680
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:05,160
To have these spasms and things 
like that. 

681
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:08,240
That was because a witch had 
sent a demon to basically attack

682
00:36:08,240 --> 00:36:10,680
you, right? 
And so once these girls are 

683
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:13,680
diagnosed as being bewitched, 
they can pretty much accuse 

684
00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:17,440
anybody of being a witch, right?
And a lot of people are saying, 

685
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,160
Oh, well, there was Hallucinan 
genic fungus. 

686
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:22,400
It's I don't believe that that 
was true. 

687
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:25,120
Those theories were were pretty 
much all debunked very early on.

688
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:28,080
I think that most of these girls
were just doing this. 

689
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:31,200
One of them even said, well, we 
did it for the sport, right? 

690
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:35,240
It was fun to act possessed. 
And then once somebody's dead, 

691
00:36:35,240 --> 00:36:37,480
you can't really say, oh, gosh, 
I was just kidding. 

692
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:39,360
I didn't really want you to hang
somebody. 

693
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:42,320
Now you've got to you've got to 
ride this out, right? 

694
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:44,320
So that that seems to have been 
what was happening. 

695
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:50,040
Right. 
Oh, oops, yeah, you can't really

696
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:51,400
do it. 
That's funny, man. 

697
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:55,200
What? 
So in the in the Bible, how many

698
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:59,440
actual, as you were saying, it's
primarily what it's the New 

699
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:02,320
Testament where the devil is 
around like, so I'm just trying 

700
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:05,280
to think of the stories that I 
can remember, you know, from 

701
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,480
from growing up. 
Obviously like Revelations, 

702
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:12,560
there's references to the to the
devil, Jesus in the desert, 

703
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:14,520
right? 
That's like the big one, right? 

704
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:19,440
Like Mr. Temptation himself. 
And what's the, what's the 

705
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:22,800
biggest misunderstood thing 
about, you know, those two 

706
00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:27,160
stories in regards to the devil 
that might not have been lost in

707
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:30,320
translation? 
Right, so, so the logic of both 

708
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:34,280
of those stories is the devil is
running the show, right, That 

709
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:37,760
God is sort of temporarily left 
the building and or is asleep at

710
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:40,440
the wheel sort of. 
And the devil is running 

711
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:43,160
everything. 
And the arrival of Jesus means 

712
00:37:43,160 --> 00:37:45,320
that this is about to end, 
right? 

713
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,800
That the Kingdom of Satan is 
about to come to an end. 

714
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:52,360
And Jesus as the Messiah is, is,
is going to sort of restore the 

715
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:54,800
world to the way that God meant 
it to be. 

716
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:59,160
So all the demons recognize 
Jesus before the humans do, 

717
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:02,120
right? 
So with the story of the, the 

718
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:05,080
Garrison demoniac, which is 
where our modern ideas of 

719
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:08,800
exorcism come from, where this 
guy is living in a cemetery and 

720
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,280
he can RIP through chains 
because he's super strong. 

721
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:15,520
And Jesus ends up sending all of
the demons out of him into pigs.

722
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:20,320
You know, those demons recognize
who Jesus is immediately before 

723
00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:23,080
the humans do. 
And so Satan coming in and sort 

724
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:24,800
of confronting Jesus in the 
desert. 

725
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:31,760
This is also kind of signifying 
that Jesus arrival has cosmic 

726
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:34,000
significance, right? 
This is going to change the 

727
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:36,360
order of everything. 
And then Revelation, which is 

728
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:38,040
the last book written of the 
Bible. 

729
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:41,800
This is kind of the early days 
of the church where, well, OK, 

730
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:44,280
Jesus has come and gone and 
things actually are are worse 

731
00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:48,920
than before, right? 
Because because not long after 

732
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:53,720
Jesus's crucifixion, there was 
an uprising against the Romans, 

733
00:38:53,720 --> 00:38:56,560
and the Romans came in and 
destroyed the temple in 

734
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:59,800
Jerusalem, and they crucified 
everybody trying to defend the 

735
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:01,480
city. 
And it was really, really brutal

736
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,600
and awful, right? 
So clearly, if you think all the

737
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:07,880
bad stuff is coming from Satan, 
Satan's still very much in 

738
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:13,000
power, right, By 70-CE. 
And so Revelation is saying, 

739
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:17,280
yeah, but actually we're we're 
basically, we're going to get 

740
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:20,160
our revenge, right? 
We're going to, we're going to 

741
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:22,440
things are going to get really 
nasty and terrible, but in the 

742
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:26,440
end, we will be avenged. 
And everyone, whoever persecuted

743
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:29,360
us, including Satan, they're 
going to be cast into a lake of 

744
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:33,560
fire for eternity. 
And when they actually sort of 

745
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:36,720
decided what books are going to 
go in the Bible, there were 

746
00:39:36,720 --> 00:39:39,600
early Christians who said 
Revelation is this really nasty 

747
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:42,480
book. 
Like, I thought our religion was

748
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:46,160
about love and this is all about
punishment and war and lakes of 

749
00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:48,760
fire. 
But they decided that, you know,

750
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:51,880
it was important enough that for
this sort of vision of where 

751
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,240
history will end according to 
Christianity to include it. 

752
00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:57,720
And then today we have 
Christians who are totally 

753
00:39:57,720 --> 00:40:01,000
obsessed with Revelation and 
read everything that happens in 

754
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:07,040
the news as sort of, you know, 
the next step in this, this 

755
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:11,200
ancient book, which of course is
written in symbolic language so 

756
00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:13,360
it can be interpreted kind of 
however you want. 

757
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:15,840
Right. 
There was a great meme that was 

758
00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:17,760
travelling around a few years 
ago. 

759
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:22,240
I'm sure if you saw it, it was 
like a guy, he travels through 

760
00:40:22,240 --> 00:40:25,600
time, he meets up with himself 
and he's like, what? 

761
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:27,120
What's going on? 
And he's like, you know, it's 

762
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:28,480
like, Nah, dude, everything's 
great. 

763
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:30,520
He's like, you know, the world 
is safer. 

764
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:32,360
It's better. 
It's like, you know, was what 

765
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:33,400
happened? 
He's like, well, you know, a 

766
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:34,960
couple years ago, Jesus came 
back. 

767
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:38,200
He's like, oh, that happened. 
He's like, he's like, Oh my God.

768
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:41,640
So everyone was saved, like, 
well, no, you know, it's like he

769
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:44,360
took all the Christians away. 
And once they were all, once 

770
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:46,560
they like he promised and he 
left us here. 

771
00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:48,560
And it's like once they were 
gone, we started to, you know, 

772
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:51,520
really focusing on science. 
We sort of came up with real 

773
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:53,120
rules. 
It's like we didn't have any of 

774
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:54,800
the problems. 
And it's really, he's like, 

775
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:56,640
well, I'll be damned. 
He's like, you kind of are. 

776
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:00,240
But it's great, you know what I 
mean? 

777
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:01,920
It's a really funny sort of 
thing. 

778
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:04,520
And I'm not doing it justice. 
But it was like that whole idea 

779
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:08,560
of revelation in a new way of 
like, yeah, finally get rid of 

780
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:11,040
these people are holding us all 
back from civilization. 

781
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:14,680
What would you. 
So look, you know, what would 

782
00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:19,040
you recommend? 
How would you handle other than 

783
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:21,040
just ignoring them? 
But like, what's the message to 

784
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:24,760
somebody who's like, says John 
and I are talking to the devil 

785
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:27,840
or we're doing the devil's work 
or like, what is that sort of 

786
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:32,200
like, listen, you know, like, 
how do you, I don't even know if

787
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:34,400
you can ever change someone's 
mind these days. 

788
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:37,320
But is it? 
What's the messaging on it other

789
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:41,840
than mocking them? 
Yeah, I, I, I don't know. 

790
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,840
I mean, I, I, I study religious 
cultures. 

791
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:48,160
I don't really try to, to, to 
change them so much. 

792
00:41:48,720 --> 00:41:51,920
And I, I am like you said, I'm, 
I'm pretty dubious that anything

793
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:54,760
that you say would make them be 
like, gosh, you're right. 

794
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:56,360
I guess I was being a little bit
no. 

795
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:57,440
You. 
Can't. 

796
00:41:57,440 --> 00:41:58,840
You can't. 
Those days are over. 

797
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,760
I will say, though, that William
Peter Blatty, who wrote The 

798
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:05,440
Exorcist, he was Catholic and he
believed in demonic possession. 

799
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:09,480
And he in his last book, he 
said, you know, the more I look 

800
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:12,760
into this, the more I think that
these are not demons. 

801
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:16,880
These are spirits of the dead. 
And these are, these are in some

802
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,920
cases spirits of the dead 
behaving very, very badly. 

803
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:23,200
But I actually think that these 
are the dead and these are not, 

804
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:26,480
you know, fallen angels or 
beings of pure Hellfire and evil

805
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:29,960
like like my church taught me. 
So he made that change. 

806
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:33,120
I think he made it himself, just
sort of being thoughtful about 

807
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:35,480
the evidence for a long time, 
but I find that significant. 

808
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:37,760
Yeah, that's pretty wild. 
That's a pretty wild way to 

809
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:42,840
think about it, for sure. 
Let's see over here. 

810
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:44,880
I'm just looking at my I have so
many questions for you, dude. 

811
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:46,360
I'm not going to be able to. 
I'm sure I'm not going to be 

812
00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:51,960
able to get through them all. 
Do you find that the that 

813
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:58,080
people, the more intense that 
people believe in Satan is how 

814
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:00,760
intense they are in their belief
in God? 

815
00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:03,800
Is it like an equal sort of, is 
it a coin? 

816
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:06,640
I mean, is it really like the 
other side of a coin for them? 

817
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:10,680
Yeah, I mean, I think you can 
definitely have people who 

818
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:14,480
totally believe in God and don't
believe in the devil at all, 

819
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:18,840
right? 
The the Nicene Creed doesn't 

820
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:21,040
actually say anything about the 
devil, right? 

821
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:24,400
Nicene Creed was composed as 
sort of the official version of 

822
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:27,760
Christianity when the Emperor 
Constantine convened a council 

823
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:29,680
of bishops. 
And there's a lot of stuff you 

824
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:31,760
got to believe according to 
Nicene Creed, to be a good 

825
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:33,080
Christian, right? 
You got to believe in the 

826
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:35,760
resurrection of the dead. 
Jesus was born of a virgin, 

827
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:38,320
spoken of the prophets. 
Also, you don't have to believe 

828
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:40,840
in a devil, right? 
So there are some Christians who

829
00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:42,640
have said you can have Christian
without the devil. 

830
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:45,480
Now, if you believe in the 
devil, you're probably also 

831
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:48,080
gonna be a very religious 
person, and you're gonna also 

832
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:51,480
believe in God. 
The sociologist I mentioned 

833
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:55,760
studied who believes in demonic 
possession and the devil the 

834
00:43:55,760 --> 00:44:01,400
most, and they map this out by 
by cross referencing that with 

835
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:04,960
things like your age, your 
education level and so forth. 

836
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:07,280
And they found out, well, first 
of all, they found out if you 

837
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:10,560
believe in the devil and demonic
possession, you're more likely 

838
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:12,480
to live in the South. 
If you live in the United 

839
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:15,040
States. 
That was one big pattern, right?

840
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:20,920
And you're more likely to be 
screwed by society, right? 

841
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:24,080
You're more likely to make less 
money, have less education and 

842
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:26,280
so forth. 
So one thing that they kind of 

843
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:31,920
postulated is if you have kind 
of been sort of left behind by 

844
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:35,960
society, you are more likely to 
adopt A view of, yeah, my life 

845
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:37,880
could be a lot better. 
But I know that this is all 

846
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:41,000
because of the devil, right? 
These are the forces of evil 

847
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:42,680
doing this to me. 
Have they? 

848
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:46,160
You know, I'm a other people 
have said this and I'm tend to 

849
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:49,320
believer in it that in every 
accusation is a confession. 

850
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:54,280
And has there ever been any 
studies about from people who 

851
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:58,920
are, you know, this is not the 
right word, but you know, 

852
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:04,920
Satanic zealots, people who who,
you know, proselytize about 

853
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,840
Satan at you and like you're 
with the devil that they've 

854
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:11,480
either had some history of doing
wrongdoing or something bad in 

855
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:12,880
the past. 
You know what I mean? 

856
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:15,160
Are they more likely? 
Is there any correlation or 

857
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:17,800
connection between people who 
have done some pretty bad shit 

858
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:20,720
who then accusing people of 
being Satanists themselves? 

859
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:23,320
Yeah, I think there is. 
So I wrote a book called 

860
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:27,360
Dangerous Games which was about 
Christians attacking Dungeons 

861
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:30,920
and Dragons in the 1980s, which 
was this huge thing back in the.

862
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:32,560
80s I remember dude, I know it 
well. 

863
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:33,440
For sure. 
Yeah. 

864
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:36,240
So, so the people at the core of
that, like, one thing that they 

865
00:45:36,240 --> 00:45:39,120
were saying is, well, when 
people play this game of 

866
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:43,040
imagination, they basically make
themselves insane and they can't

867
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:45,600
distinguish fantasy from reality
anymore, right. 

868
00:45:46,240 --> 00:45:49,560
But if you look at the people 
making those claims, they were 

869
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:52,680
the ones who had a very weak 
grasp on reality, right? 

870
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,880
They were the ones saying stuff 
that was totally bonkers. 

871
00:45:55,880 --> 00:46:00,240
So for example, there was a 
there was a, a chick track. 

872
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:03,000
And for folks who don't know 
chick tracks are these little 

873
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:07,920
comic books smaller than a 
postcard, And they usually have 

874
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:09,840
some story about someone going 
to hell. 

875
00:46:10,280 --> 00:46:12,600
And this guy Jack Chick made 
them and you're supposed to 

876
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:15,520
leave them at bus stops and, and
things like that to evangelize 

877
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:17,360
people. 
And there was one about Dungeons

878
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:21,080
and Dragons called Dark Dungeon.
And you can Google Dark Dungeon 

879
00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:23,280
and you can go find this. 
And at the end of it, there's 

880
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,120
this, there's this pastor with 
his handlebar mustache. 

881
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:28,400
And he says we're going to burn 
all of our DND books. 

882
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:31,240
Well, that guy with the 
handlebar mustache was named 

883
00:46:31,240 --> 00:46:35,080
John Todd. 
And John Todd said that he was 

884
00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:39,440
raised in a witchcraft family in
New England and that his 

885
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:41,480
witchcraft name was Lance 
Collins. 

886
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:43,920
And he was part of the 
Illuminati that controls the 

887
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:46,200
whole world. 
And he would go to churches and 

888
00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:50,080
he'd say, I'm raising money to 
help other witches come to 

889
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:52,200
Jesus. 
But it's going to take a lot of.

890
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:54,720
Money, always. 
Happen. 

891
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:57,240
Takes money dude. 
Takes money to get people to. 

892
00:46:57,400 --> 00:46:59,000
Jesus. 
And then and then people said 

893
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:02,080
this is the 70s. 
So people said, you know, your 

894
00:47:02,240 --> 00:47:05,200
name was Lance Collins and 
you're from a witch family in 

895
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:07,600
New England. 
Everything you're saying sounds 

896
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:10,600
a lot like the soap opera called
Dark Shadows. 

897
00:47:10,720 --> 00:47:14,680
That was really big back then. 
And and he said, well, you see, 

898
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:17,920
when I was a witch, I went to 
Hollywood and I showed my family

899
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:19,880
diary, these Hollywood 
producers. 

900
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:22,840
So actually that the show is 
ripping off my life. 

901
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:28,640
I'm not making up this bullshit 
story based on a on on ATV show.

902
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:34,680
And then he eventually like 
sexually assaulted someone and a

903
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:40,000
child was declared basically too
mentally ill to stand trial and 

904
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:42,440
died in a in a mental 
institution, right? 

905
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:45,000
So you'll talk about someone 
with a poor grasp on reality, 

906
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:47,360
but this was the guy telling 
everybody, right? 

907
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:52,920
Witches are everywhere, you know
D&D will will cause people to 

908
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:55,640
worship the devil. 
And most of the people that I 

909
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:57,560
found making these claims were 
like this. 

910
00:47:57,560 --> 00:48:02,440
I found so many people making 
utterly insane claims. 

911
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:04,280
There's this guy William 
Schnobelen. 

912
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:08,520
Big anti D&D guys said that he 
literally was a vampire and fed 

913
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:11,840
on human blood exclusively of 
course. 

914
00:48:12,720 --> 00:48:14,560
Just just. 
Absolutely bizarre stuff. 

915
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:18,360
Mike Warnke said he was in 
charge of 5000 Satanists in Los 

916
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:20,600
Angeles. 
This was all debunked by an 

917
00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:23,360
evangelical magazine. 
So yeah, all these people are 

918
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:26,920
big, big liars, and some of them
are also doing pretty nasty 

919
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:31,120
stuff when they're not making 
these accusations about others. 

920
00:48:31,720 --> 00:48:33,720
Right, you know, it's right. 
It's like, that's sort of the 

921
00:48:33,720 --> 00:48:37,560
thing to me that I, I, I feel 
like when someone accused us or 

922
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:41,720
in the, in the chat of, you 
know, being Satanist and like, 

923
00:48:41,720 --> 00:48:44,560
dude, there's something going on
with you that you don't like 

924
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:47,880
about yourself that I worry 
about, You know, that, that it's

925
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:52,480
really, it's fascinating. 
Well, and one of my mentors was 

926
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:54,480
David Frankfurter at Boston 
University. 

927
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:56,360
He wrote a book called Evil 
Incarnate. 

928
00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:59,000
And that book is basically 
saying, how come throughout 

929
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,320
history we have said, you know, 
all our problems are caused by 

930
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:04,480
this. 
This group of people, they look 

931
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:07,520
like everybody else, but they're
actually pure evil. 

932
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:11,680
And they do these evil rituals 
and they they eat babies and 

933
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:14,880
they do weird sex stuff, right? 
These were the claims made in 

934
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:17,440
the 80s. 
But but going back in time, 

935
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:19,720
these claims were made about 
witches and Jews. 

936
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:23,000
And now it's Democrats. 
Right, Democrats, I know it's. 

937
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:24,520
Now it's Democrats. 
Crap. 

938
00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:26,880
Yeah. 
And, and this was the same stuff

939
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:29,600
that the early Roman pagans said
about Christians. 

940
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:32,920
It's like Christians eat babies 
and they do weird sex stuff, 

941
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:33,920
right? 
That's. 

942
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,200
Interesting. 
So, so Frankfurter says we seem 

943
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:39,280
to be kind of hard wired to do 
this. 

944
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:43,200
And he says, I think this is a 
form of intellectual laziness, 

945
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:45,800
right? 
That when you have a problem, 

946
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,600
you could think really hard 
about what's actually causing a 

947
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:51,000
problem, maybe think of some 
ways to try to solve it. 

948
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:54,640
Or you could just say it's my 
neighbor, they're a witch. 

949
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:56,360
They're, they're baby eaters, 
right? 

950
00:49:56,520 --> 00:49:59,240
Blame them for being babies. 
It's what's the, you know, we 

951
00:49:59,240 --> 00:50:01,520
talked a lot about it, but what 
would you say? 

952
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:04,360
Thank you so much for your time.
I, I really do, but I love it. 

953
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:05,760
I think it's, I think it's 
wonderful. 

954
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:08,160
I think ROI is going to love 
hearing all of this. 

955
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:12,720
What are What are some of the 
biggest myths about Satanism 

956
00:50:12,720 --> 00:50:16,560
that should be debunked? 
What is the what and Satan and 

957
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:18,760
Satanism when they use these 
phrases? 

958
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:20,960
What are which? 
What are the the biggest ones? 

959
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:24,400
Yeah, so I mean, Satanism, it's 
a very nebulous word. 

960
00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:25,960
It doesn't really mean very 
much. 

961
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:30,960
So in 1992, the FBI looked into 
claims of satanic child abuse. 

962
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:34,480
And what the FBI agent said was,
you know, it seems to me that 

963
00:50:34,480 --> 00:50:37,280
Satan means something different 
to everybody, right? 

964
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:40,400
And this was they said, you 
know, the Ayatollah of Iran says

965
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:42,960
we're the great Satan. 
You know, that the entire United

966
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:46,280
States is, is, is Satan. 
So it doesn't really help us 

967
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:48,840
solve crimes to focus on are 
they Satanic or not? 

968
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:51,160
Because that word doesn't really
mean much, right? 

969
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:52,720
So that's the first thing to 
understand. 

970
00:50:52,720 --> 00:50:55,360
The second thing is that most 
people who say I am a Satanist 

971
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:58,480
do not believe in a literal 
Satan, right? 

972
00:50:58,480 --> 00:51:01,320
They are, they are atheist. 
Anton Lavey was an atheist 

973
00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:06,880
so-called non theistic Satanist.
For these people, Satan is kind 

974
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:09,800
of like their favorite fictional
character that inspires them, 

975
00:51:10,120 --> 00:51:13,280
right? 
So one way I explain it is like 

976
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:15,800
if I have to go to the gym and 
it's leg day and I don't wanna 

977
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:18,440
do leg day. 
But I think that like Batman's 

978
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:20,600
really cool. 
I might be, you know, Batman 

979
00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:24,800
wouldn't skip leg day, right? 
Doesn't mean I think Batman's 

980
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:28,280
real, right? 
And the other thing is they do 

981
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:32,720
not understand Satan as being 
the Satan of the Bible who hates

982
00:51:32,720 --> 00:51:35,920
all mankind. 
Their idea of Satan comes much 

983
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:38,840
later from the Romantic poets of
the 1800s. 

984
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:44,840
So people like Lord Byron and 
Percy Shelley and they kind of 

985
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:48,200
reimagined Satan as being kind 
of the, the ultimate rebel, 

986
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:52,200
someone who won't back down to 
authority, someone who believes 

987
00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:54,560
in, in injustice and, and, and 
so on. 

988
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:58,160
So that's the Satan that they 
are kind of looking to as a role

989
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:01,840
model, not the Satan that 
Christians know of being sort of

990
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:04,800
pure evil and, and and hating 
humanity. 

991
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:08,640
Now when Now when did the idea 
of? 

992
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:12,120
I think I might know the answer,
but you can just confirm it for 

993
00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:13,720
me. 
Like the idea of, you know, this

994
00:52:14,160 --> 00:52:18,440
horned demon Satan verses isn't 
he supposed to be like super 

995
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:20,600
good looking and charming, 
right? 

996
00:52:20,600 --> 00:52:24,600
Like what's the when did that 
sort of and how do we take hold 

997
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:28,760
of those two versions of him? 
Yeah, so the Bible never really 

998
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:31,760
says what Satan looks like, 
right? 

999
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:35,560
And there are passages saying, 
you know, Satan can appear as an

1000
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:40,640
Angel of light. 
Most people think that the the 

1001
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:45,040
images that we associate with 
the devil today are because 

1002
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:47,760
early Christians were 
interacting with pagans, right? 

1003
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:53,920
And so it comes from Pagan gods.
So the God Pan had horns and 

1004
00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:56,920
goat legs. 
Hades, the Lord of the 

1005
00:52:56,920 --> 00:53:01,320
underworld, had a pitchfork, 
right? 

1006
00:53:01,320 --> 00:53:04,200
It was actually called a Bidens 
because it has two prongs and 

1007
00:53:04,240 --> 00:53:07,200
instead of three. 
So Satan gets a pitchfork. 

1008
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:10,840
But there's also an idea that, 
you know, Satan's a spirit. 

1009
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:13,680
Satan can have whatever body he 
wants to have. 

1010
00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:16,800
He can look however he wants. 
He can appear as a snake, for 

1011
00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:20,240
example. 
And in the Middle Ages, Thomas 

1012
00:53:20,240 --> 00:53:23,120
Aquinas, the Catholic 
theologian, said, I think that 

1013
00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:26,760
what happens is spirits, they 
don't have bodies, but they, 

1014
00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:29,360
they, they're super fast. 
So they can like, they can like 

1015
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:33,160
smoosh together, air real fast 
and condense it into whatever 

1016
00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:35,560
body they want. 
And, and so really they, they 

1017
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:37,000
can appear however they want to 
look. 

1018
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:39,600
They don't have a true form. 
So where does that, where does 

1019
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:43,080
that idea of like the Super good
looking St. in their Lucifer, 

1020
00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:46,480
you know, come from versus, you 
know, I I totally get like, you 

1021
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:49,040
know, Pan and the half goat 
thing, you know, and the and the

1022
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:52,400
and that image of him, but where
did the like the handsome 

1023
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:55,600
Lucifer come from? 
I mean, probably the earliest 

1024
00:53:55,600 --> 00:53:58,920
roots of it are in that passage 
in Genesis 6, which describes 

1025
00:53:59,240 --> 00:54:02,200
angels taking human women and 
having sex with them and, and 

1026
00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:05,960
getting them pregnant, right. 
And I guess the angels could be 

1027
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:09,000
really ugly. 
But I think when people hear 

1028
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:11,960
that story, they think, well, 
these probably, you know, these 

1029
00:54:11,960 --> 00:54:14,240
were probably says they were 
beautiful women in the text. 

1030
00:54:14,240 --> 00:54:17,440
They probably took the form of 
of of beautiful humans. 

1031
00:54:18,040 --> 00:54:20,600
And then in the New Testament 
when Satan appears to Jesus in 

1032
00:54:20,600 --> 00:54:22,720
the desert, he takes the form of
a tempter. 

1033
00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:26,080
So he is probably trying to 
appear in a way that will at 

1034
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:28,920
least make you a lower your 
guard. 

1035
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:32,560
And then in the early modern 
period, part of the lore becomes

1036
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:35,720
that a demons are having sex 
with humans all the time, right?

1037
00:54:35,720 --> 00:54:38,360
This is where we get the idea of
the incubus and the succubus and

1038
00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:41,560
so on. 
And in witch trials, people were

1039
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:45,480
basically being tortured and 
made to confess you had sex with

1040
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:47,880
the devil, right? 
So we get all these images of 

1041
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:52,280
sexy demons and devils. 
And some people have said, you 

1042
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:56,360
know, it really seems like it 
was the religious people 

1043
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:59,840
interrogating these accused 
witches who were preoccupied 

1044
00:54:59,840 --> 00:55:02,760
with the devil and, and 
literally asking these these 

1045
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:05,840
women accused of witchcraft 
questions, like was the devil's 

1046
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:08,920
penis bigger or the same size as
a human? 

1047
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:12,360
Right? 
These really these really kind 

1048
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:15,440
of salacious questions. 
And they seem to have kind of 

1049
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:19,200
dirty minds. 
And, and one theory of this is 

1050
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:22,160
there was sort of an idea of 
maybe this isn't even real. 

1051
00:55:22,160 --> 00:55:24,200
Maybe these people aren't really
witches, maybe there aren't 

1052
00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:27,400
really demons and so forth. 
But there was an idea that if 

1053
00:55:27,400 --> 00:55:30,320
you have sex with something, 
it's definitely, definitely 

1054
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:32,560
real, right? 
This is like to know something 

1055
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:36,080
in the biblical sense. 
So, so that by creating this 

1056
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:39,080
archive of all these witches 
have admitted that they not only

1057
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:40,720
saw demons, they had sex with 
them. 

1058
00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:45,120
This is sort of helping to prove
that this sort of supernatural 

1059
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:48,920
worldview must be really real. 
It can't just be a a rumor or a 

1060
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:52,360
hallucination or something. 
And then again, it goes back to 

1061
00:55:52,360 --> 00:55:55,280
like, you know, every accusation
is a confession where that guy 

1062
00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:58,840
who accusing that poor woman was
probably it was just coveting 

1063
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:01,480
her and jealous of her. 
She was probably sleeping with 

1064
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:04,920
somebody else. 
And he's like, did that devil 

1065
00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:06,760
have a you know, is he bigger 
than me? 

1066
00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:09,560
Is he like, you know, I just 
want to just before we bury, 

1067
00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:13,280
burn you alive for, you know, if
I can't have you, no one will 

1068
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:17,600
sort of thing, which is, you 
know, I wouldn't be surprised if

1069
00:56:17,600 --> 00:56:19,800
that's how it went down, right. 
And of course these women will 

1070
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:21,320
say anything because they're 
being tortured. 

1071
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:25,000
So it's like, yes, the devil has
this huge barf penis and. 

1072
00:56:25,000 --> 00:56:27,440
But not as big as yours. 
That's, you know, brother, 

1073
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:30,400
brother John. 
It's like, you know, it's like 

1074
00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:33,360
just in case, you know, just is 
that get me off the stakes. 

1075
00:56:33,360 --> 00:56:35,760
I don't, you know, it's like, 
what do we do here? 

1076
00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:40,080
Joe? 
I, I can't thank you enough. 

1077
00:56:40,080 --> 00:56:42,760
I, I find this conversation 
super fascinating. 

1078
00:56:42,760 --> 00:56:43,840
You make me want to go back to 
school. 

1079
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:46,880
I bet your class is a blast. 
I mean it really, I mean, it's 

1080
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:51,840
super fun because these kind of 
myths and this kind of the 

1081
00:56:51,840 --> 00:56:58,600
constant, you know, religious 
implications of paranormal that 

1082
00:56:58,600 --> 00:57:01,480
we deal with. 
Like my nephew and I were I, I 

1083
00:57:01,480 --> 00:57:02,880
tend to believe in what my 
nephew believes. 

1084
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:05,800
If you if you do believe in 
spirits, and do you, do you 

1085
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:10,200
believe in spirits? 
So I am, I am agnostic about all

1086
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:14,440
of these, these things, but I 
will say that some of the text 

1087
00:57:14,440 --> 00:57:19,560
that I have found in my research
are so weird that I, I'm really 

1088
00:57:19,560 --> 00:57:22,840
flummoxed to think of any 
explanation for what, what, 

1089
00:57:22,840 --> 00:57:24,320
what, what they could be 
describing. 

1090
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:26,800
So I teach my students, when we 
look at these things, to have 

1091
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:30,640
modesty, right? 
We weren't there when these 

1092
00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:35,360
things reportedly occurred. 
So yeah, it could be things like

1093
00:57:36,200 --> 00:57:38,680
undiagnosed mental illness or 
something, but we don't know 

1094
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:41,360
that, right? 
So if we weren't there, I think 

1095
00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:43,480
that we shouldn't rush to 
assumptions one way or the 

1096
00:57:43,520 --> 00:57:48,480
other. 
My nephew's over the belief that

1097
00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:52,840
he, he believes that spirits are
because we all have energy in 

1098
00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:54,520
US, right? 
Brain synapses, literally 

1099
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:58,200
literal electric energy that 
cannot be created or destroyed. 

1100
00:57:58,360 --> 00:58:00,400
And he just is of the mindset 
and the belief. 

1101
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:03,560
And I tend to, based on the 
things I've seen and heard these

1102
00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:07,640
days being around him, you know 
that when we pass, that energy 

1103
00:58:07,640 --> 00:58:11,680
is dispersed. 
So spirits or ghosts are the 

1104
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:16,720
memories of the living that is 
attached to this energy that is 

1105
00:58:16,720 --> 00:58:20,000
dispersed because we nobody 
really knows what's going on or 

1106
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:23,440
how the mind works and what 
happens to our energy. 

1107
00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:26,840
It has to go somewhere. 
And it's a fun thing. 

1108
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:30,080
And also, it's a fun sort of 
theory to prove and try to talk 

1109
00:58:30,080 --> 00:58:33,080
to other people about it from 
all different aspects from like 

1110
00:58:33,080 --> 00:58:36,640
yourself, from a very religious 
and, you know, based on the 

1111
00:58:36,640 --> 00:58:39,360
accusations we get. 
I want to answer these people 

1112
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:43,240
somehow about what this is 
versus, you know, pure 

1113
00:58:43,240 --> 00:58:45,800
scientists who are like, you 
know, it's nonsense. 

1114
00:58:47,920 --> 00:58:51,440
But again, Joe, thank you. 
Thank you so much for your time.

1115
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:58,040
It is, it is incredibly 
enlightening, you know, to to 

1116
00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:00,360
get into all this because it's 
like, you know, like I love to 

1117
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:03,200
taunt the audience a little bit 
with a, with a good hail Satan 

1118
00:59:03,200 --> 00:59:06,160
every now and again. 
Like, you know, if you put an 

1119
00:59:06,160 --> 00:59:08,400
Aussie picture up here, it's 
like that's that's how I grew 

1120
00:59:08,400 --> 00:59:10,760
up, you know, and I love it. 
It's like it means nothing to me

1121
00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:13,240
one way or the other, other than
had the coolest music, like I 

1122
00:59:13,240 --> 00:59:14,400
said before. 
Yeah. 

1123
00:59:14,960 --> 00:59:18,840
And the people that are get 
scared by it, man, they get so 

1124
00:59:18,840 --> 00:59:21,720
scared, they get so scared. 
And it makes me wonder like, 

1125
00:59:21,720 --> 00:59:25,720
well, what's going on in your 
life that this is, this is what 

1126
00:59:25,720 --> 00:59:28,640
you're worried about? 
Me talking to a spirit and 

1127
00:59:28,640 --> 00:59:31,160
accusing me and pulling me away 
from it. 

1128
00:59:31,160 --> 00:59:34,600
But that's it, man. 
That's all I got for it. 

1129
00:59:34,600 --> 00:59:38,960
And I, I really appreciate your 
time and I will certainly point 

1130
00:59:38,960 --> 00:59:41,520
everybody to your books. 
They should read them. 

1131
00:59:41,640 --> 00:59:44,960
I registered the one that the 
Cambridge books on saying, which

1132
00:59:44,960 --> 00:59:47,480
is it's awesome. 
It's just great. 

1133
00:59:47,880 --> 00:59:49,760
It's just a wake up. 
It really is. 

1134
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:51,880
It's just like, get educated, 
you know what I mean? 

1135
00:59:52,600 --> 00:59:56,000
It's like, it could so easily 
have been Mother Goose that it 

1136
00:59:56,120 --> 00:59:58,720
could have been the Bible and 
those stories, you know what I 

1137
00:59:58,720 --> 01:00:00,440
mean? 
It's like, let's just wise up. 

1138
01:00:01,840 --> 01:00:03,320
But that's it, man. 
Thank you so much, Joe. 

1139
01:00:03,320 --> 01:00:05,600
I appreciate your time. 
All right, thanks for having me,

1140
01:00:05,600 --> 01:00:06,880
this was fun. 
Good. 

1141
01:00:06,920 --> 01:00:08,480
Thank you. 
Take care, man. 

1142
01:00:08,680 --> 01:00:12,720
All right. 
Thank you all for listening to 

1143
01:00:12,720 --> 01:00:14,280
this episode of Splintered 
Spirits. 

1144
01:00:14,480 --> 01:00:16,960
Be sure to like, follow and 
subscribe to our YouTube channel

1145
01:00:16,960 --> 01:00:19,000
and wherever you get your 
podcasts. 

1146
01:00:19,320 --> 01:00:21,600
Now go put on that Aussie 
record, even that Beatles 

1147
01:00:21,600 --> 01:00:23,440
record. 
Maybe even play it backwards. 

1148
01:00:23,440 --> 01:00:25,280
See what happens. 
I bet nothing does. 

1149
01:00:25,280 --> 01:00:27,760
You just have some fun. 
Have a good one guys, see you 

1150
01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:28,160
next time.