How did we go from this to this wow, or well at least to this. Stay tuned to find out… Hello everyone, I’m Dr Angela Puca, and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a Ph.D. and a university lecturer and this is your online resource for the academic study of magic, witchcraft, and all things esoteric. In this video, we will talk about the romanticising of Satan and how that evolved from
The conceptualisation of him as the arch-enemy of God, which is – by the way – not found in the Hebrew Bible but in the New Testament if we are to endorse a collation between Satan and the Devil.
But this, along with the history of the worship of Satan, may be topics for future videos. In fact, leave me a line in the comment section and let me know if you’d like me to cover these areas. Now we are going to discuss how Satan became a romantic hero for poets,
Artists and how that played a role in the rise of modern religious Satanism. My source for this video is going to be ‘Children of Lucifer’ by Ruben van Luijk, published by Oxford University Press. Yet, you are welcome to recommend and pursue the investigation of other academic sources.
As my long-time viewers know, I always encourage your independent research and to see my videos as appetizers rather than “the truth” on a matter. Research is always ongoing and it’s more important to master the skills to find and critically evaluate reliable sources rather than clinging onto information as
Truth. As they might and will likely be obsolete in 50 years, sometimes in 5 years. Right, premises out of the way! Let’s move onto the topic now… According to Van Luijk, Satanism is an invention of Christianity as it was within the context of
Christian religion and of a society shaped by Christianity that the idea of Satanism first arose. Christianity played, in fact, a central role in the proliferation of the concept of Satan as the Devil as well as Lucifer, lumping together different – and diverging – adversarial roles
And depictions found across the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. After all, if we define Satanism as the intentional religious veneration of Satan, it follows that there can be no Satanism without a Satan. Another element that played a significant role in the conceptualisation and imagery of Satan was the
Demonising of the Pagan Gods and of their worship. The well- known image of the devil as goat-footed and horned is reminiscent of the Greek God Pan and of the Fauni and Silvani of the Roman forests. In other parts of Europe, the devil has assimilated traits of native gods from other traditions.
For instance, in a late medieval Dutch miracle play ‘Mariken van Nieumegen’ he appears as “One- Eyed Moenen”, quite resembling the Nordic God Odin, whose worship had already been abandoned for centuries. But when and how did Satan start to be seen as a heroic figure instead of the embodiment of pure God-less evil?
Well, that happened after the Enlightenment and during the Romantic era. As Van Lujik highlights, there were two main cultural changes that fostered a reshaped idea of Satan. And these are: Secularisation and Revolution. The demise of the literal belief in Satan brought about by a more
Secular society was an essential prerequisite for the emergence of the Romantic Satan. Those who endorsed this poetic view of the Devil didn’t quite believe in the existence of a real Lucifer just as they didn’t espouse the reality of the Christian God. This transition led to abandoning the perception that Satan constituted an
Actual threat and allowed cultural space for re-imagining its mythic role and the possible relatability to our human condition. And, what appeared to be domineering during the Romantic era if not rebellion against the status quo, in the form of Revolutions?! As Satan’s fall started to be associated with proud, unlawful insurrection against
Divine authority, that appeared to mirror quite nicely that sense of popular and political insurrection against oppressing monarchs and the subjugating systems of government of the time. Giving new meaning to his role in the grand scheme of things, the Romantic Satanists
Transformed the fallen angel into a noble champion of political and individual freedom against a supreme power that deprives people of their agency, leaving submission as the only option. From the nineteenth century onwards, the romanticised perception of Satan has been linked to three key elements: sex and sexual liberation, science and reason,
Individual freedom and agency. These elements, perceived as adversarial stances to the Christianity morality, have fostered the birth of both the atheistic and theistic Satanisms. Satan, in his aspect of Lucifer the light- bringer now works against the dogmatism of religion
And, as a fallen one, he got associated with Earth, nature, and “the flesh,” particularly in its manifestations of passionate love and sex. This sexually charged representation was informed by the Book of the Watchers in First Enoch, which embeds the Lust of Fallen Angels
For the daughters of men in its narrative. Van Luijk argues that there are three crucial ways in which Romantic Satanism contributed to the late rise of modern religious Satanism. 1. For once, they mark the first historical appearance in Western civilization of an influential cultural current that positively revaluated Satan.
2. Second, they show a new, post-Christian, and post-Enlightenment way of dealing with myth and meaning. This allowed for a resurrection and reconstruction of Satan as a cosmic symbol with which modern people could sympathize and even identify. 3. Third, romantic Satanism exerted a decisive influence on the shape of the
Rehabilitated Satan that would continue to haunt nineteenth-century counter-culture and eventually emerge in modern religious Satanism. So, this is it for today’s video. Please, if you like my content and want me to keep the academic fun going consider supporting my work with a one-off donation on PayPal,
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Hello everyone, I am Dr Angela Puca and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a PhD and a University Lecturer and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magick, Esotericism, Paganism, Shamanism, Satanism and all things occult. I’m now at the University College, Cork
For the Conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism which we normally abbreviate as ESSWE Conference, that’s how we say it among us academics. I am going to deliver a paper on the Devil and re-interpretations of the Devil and relation with pop culture.
I filmed the video so that you can see it and tell me what you think about it. So now I will leave you to it and please, as always, consider supporting my work with a one-off PayPal donation, by joining Memberships or my Inner Symposium on Patreon,
That is if you want me to keep this project going and the Academic Fun going. I really appreciate any kind of help if you have the means at all, and otherwise liking, commenting, subscribing and sharing the videos with your friends is also a great way to help my project
And allow me to keep doing this academic content on all things esoteric. Now I’m gonna leave you to my paper and I hope you enjoy it and I hope I wasn’t too bad at delivering it, we will see. Future Angela will tell us.
This is past Angela, prior to the paper, by the way, so I’m still nervous as you can tell. Hello everybody. I’m Dr Angela Puca and today I will be talking about the Devil, the impact of pop culture in reshaping the archetypal adversary for contemporary magic Practitioners. So first of all I want to set the tone for the paper with a couple of quotes.
“Awake, Arise or be Forever Fallen.” from paradise lost by John Milton and “Wisest and fairest from the Angel’s sprung, God whom fate betrayed and left unsung.” I thought that these two quotations kind of set the tone for what we’re talking about,
Which is not as much as a hero or what became to be seen as a hero but more like a heroic figure with some heroic tones. First of all, let’s talk about terminology and I want to thank, I want to give thanks to Per
Faxneld because we went to Dublin together, we had very long conversations – he’s kind of the expert on Satanism and also esoteric Satanism. We had a lot of conversations, so I just want to acknowledge his help in getting a better understanding of the matter.
So here in this paper, I will be using the Devil synonymously for Satan and Lucifer. And also I’m not going to touch on theological themes in Christianity but more in depictions in pop culture and how that influenced esoteric Satanism and contemporary magick Practitioners.
Also the rationale, of course, for collating these figures is that in popular culture and literature these figures are used as synonymous, whereas I am, at the same time, aware that contemporary Practitioners now have established a distinction between Lucifer, Satan,
And the Devil. More specifically Lucifer, or instance, in Luciferian Witchcraft, it is seen as quite different from the Devil and from Satan. So I acknowledge the difference but it’s not what I’m talking about because I’m talking about the figure of the Devil and which includes Satan
And Lucifer and this happens to be the case that these are collated when it comes to pop culture and also in the scholarship, in the academic scholarship that I work with. So first let’s talk about the romanticising of Satan. So Satan became romanticised as a figure
As Van Luijk, if I’m pronouncing it right, explains in “Children of Lucifer.” There have been two cultural changes that posted a reshaped idea of Satan or indeed the Devil during the Romanticism and that happened after the Enlightenment with some also key changes that
Occurred in the Enlightenment, more specifically the secularisation. And during Romanticism, the process of secularisation that occurred during the Enlightenment allowed for people to not see the Devil or Satan as evil, in and of itself. So the ontological weight of this figure was
Lessened and that allowed for, that left enough space for people not to feel as fearful about this figure because if you have that a specific figure is associated with evil incarnate and you have a process of synchronisation that allows you not to see
That as the actual evil incarnate but more as a symbol of evil, that allows you to challenge that kind of symbolism because it doesn’t feel as threatening any longer. And also during the Romanticism, you have the famous political revolutions and so the combination of
The process of secularisation that allowed for the Devil to not feel as real and as scary, along with the revolutions and the association of the Devil with, you know, this person that has the arch… well he moves from being the arch-enemy of God to the person that was
Heroic enough to rebel against the most powerful creature on the earth. And that sort of mirrors what happened with revolutions because a monarch could have been seen as a sort of God and the people rebelling against the monarch could feel a sympathy for the Devil,
In that sense, because they would be rebelling against the main power, the dominant power. Now from the 19th century onwards. So we have this shift during the Romanticism and thanks to the process of secularisation during the Enlightenment, from the 19th century onwards
The romanticised Satan has been linked to a few different traits. So sex and sexual liberation, which comes from the idea, from the concept of Satan being a fallen angel which, you know, you have the base of that in Genesis 6 and then it is expanded more in First Enoch.
Science and reason, science and reason also become associated with the figure of Satan and Lucifer as the bringer of light and because it is associated with, you know, the rebellion not only against monarchy, in the political sense, but also the rebellion against the hegemonic Christianity and also individual freedom and
Agency. So then when it comes to esoteric themed-investigations of Satan and the Devil, we see that there has been a very interesting influence that Satanism has played on the left-hand path and left-hand-path traditions that are still in the contemporary esoteric milieu.
And Granholm and Petersen highlight the main traits of the left-hand path traditions which are an ideology of individualism, the goal of self-deification, the appraisal of life in the here and now and antinomianism, which is the rejection of social and cultural norms. Now, this re-imagined Satan as this rebellious figure, as
Someone who is able to rebel against God and at the same time is a link to sexual liberation and revolution and to science and reason, these are all elements that have fostered and we see that with Kenneth Grant, for instance and in Satanism but these have fostered the
Left-hand path and that’s why the left-hand-path tradition, among other things, you also see esoteric Satanism. And these are also elements that you find in esoteric Satanism as well because these are elements that are associated now with these re-imagined perceptions of the Devil.
Now when it comes to art and pop culture the first occurrences that we see, where we see a re-imagined figure of the Devil, where the Devil presents the kind of traits that I talked about, where first of all in “Paradise Lost” by Milton there was
Definitely a pivotal moment in literature where we see a re-imagination of the Devil, not as much as a hero but more as a heroic figure and it also inspired a lot of art. So if we see
Art and pop culture on a timeline we can see that literature comes first, in terms of depictions and re-imaginations of the Devil as this heroic figure that is able to rebel against the highest power and go towards a process of self-education or self-realization in its own terms.
Then we have depictions in art, which I’m not really touching on. Then we have music and then it really it arrives at Esotericism, Western Esotericism and how these depictions have been incorporated esoteric Satanism, in the left-hand path and as we will see,
They are also influencing or are useful to better understand contemporary Magick practices. Then we have, of course, there are many many literary pieces that have this kind of perception of Satan, you know, representing the traits that I just showed but I just selected
Three representative ones. So we have “Paradise Lost” which was a pivotal moment and it really affected the perception of Satan and the Devil from that moment onwards. Then we have the Italian poem “Inno a Satana” by Giosue Carducci and here Satan is depicted as Satan, reason and meaning,
Matter and spirit and you can see how this links very well with the first positive depiction of Lucifer in Esotericism, which is by Theosophy and we see that first positive depiction in the Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book ( The Secret Doctrine) where she defines Lucifer as the
Source of light and as a source of knowledge and a link to the achievement of gnosis. Then we have “The Hour of the Devil” by Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet and my favourite poet and in “The Hour of the Devil,” the Devil and Mary are going to a masquerade and the Devil
Describes himself as the king of the interstices and of poets and of everything that is created and is able to channel a creative force that goes beyond what is bounded by limits. So it gives a sense of a boundless creativity and also of a boundless sense of self-creation.
So I think that it is a short story “The Hour the Devil” or “The Devil’s Hour” depending on how it’s translated in English. But it’s really representative, I think, of the esoteric perception that we have in literature of the Devil in esoteric imagination.
Then we have, of course, the Rock and Metal scene which was expanded more earlier and especially the Black Metal scene in Northern Europe was extremely important setting the scene for the Devil and Satan as this figure that presents the traits that I showed earlier. So
A sort of creative figure that rebels against the most powerful creature and creates his own self on his own or her own terms. So some examples that present the elements that I showed earlier where, you know, that is associated with rebellion, sexual freedom,
Knowing your dark side and even humanism. You have “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones where the Devil is depicted as a man of wealth and taste. “NIB” by Black Sabbath where Lucifer is in love with humanity and this links well with certain forms of Satanism like LaVeyan Satanism.
And then “Lucifer Rising” by Rob Zombie where there is the sexual love allure that you find linked to the figure of the Devil. And then of course we have Marilyn Manson, you know, the whole of Marilyn Manson in just one song where it is connected to LaVeyan themes
Of the Devil. So you have the rebellion against the capitalist society, the hegemony, the Christian hegemonic morality and the centralised state power. So you have LaVeyan Satanism, it’s often described as an atheistic form of Satanism, even though the words of LaVey there are, you know, also elements that
Could be seen as theistic and there is, of course, Esotericism as well, part of esoteric practices. Then let’s move on to the TV shows. So this is the image that I use for my slides and it comes
From Lucifer, the TV show Lucifer and it is based on the DC Comics character in the Sandman series. Lucifer in this TV show is tired of being the Lord of Hell and he’s tired of punishing people.
So since he is bored and unhappy with his life in Hell he abdicates his role in defiance of his father and moves to LA where he runs his own nightclub called Lux, which means light in Latin and collaborates with the police department. And it’s interesting how he’s depicted because
Basically one of the reasons why he’s able to help the police department is because he is able to see the deepest desire of every person and once you know somebody’s deepest desire then you have a leverage on how to influence them. So here we have a depiction of Lucifer that, in a way,
Incarnates all the elements that I said earlier. So he’s very charming and sexual, he’s able to influence people, know their darkest desires, at the same time he’s independent and he helps people. So there is also this theme of Lucifer wanting to help humanity
Which is also another element you define in this re-imagination of the Devil and of Satan. Now I would say that this re-imagination of the Devil is an indicator of a general reassessment of ethics in our society, in a society that was prior, perhaps, to the Enlightenment and
Romanticism, was more influenced by a Christian, dichotomous morality of good and evil. But you don’t just see that with the figure of the Devil and Satan but even with other ‘so-called’ evil figures that in recent years, in recent decades have become more nuanced. So, for instance,
You have The Good Place, this is The Good Place this is Good Omens and here, in both cases, the Good Place is meant to represent sort of heaven and hell but they don’t use Christian terminology. So they call it the Good Place and the Bad Place. But then as you move forward there’s
Also one of the protagonists who is a moral philosopher, a professor, so there are interesting ethical discussions and you have this very romance perception of the Good Place and the Bad Place. So you can see how it is not, you know, you don’t have a perception of good and evil in such strict
Terms, not even of the so-called heaven the Good Place or the Bad Place. In Good Omens you have a demon and an angel, the demon is called Crowley. And even in this case and at first, it seems like
One is evil and one is good but then the more they progress, the more inevitably you realize that actually the two are interspersed and intermingled and it’s impossible to disentangle the two. And in “Vampire Diaries” and in “Buffy” you have the demonic figures such as vampires but
In both cases, you see that they actually have or develop a soul. So I think that this re-imagination of the Devil, which used to be seen as evil incarnate, and now in pop culture is depicted more as sort of the cool guy that allows you
To be free and to explore, you know, your sexuality or explore your individuality beyond the binds and the limits created by society or by a certain dichotomous morality. You see that also, across the board, not just with the Devil, that’s why, perhaps analysing the Devil,
Who has been considered in the Christian dominant ethics in western countries, certainly in Italy and that’s where I do most of my fieldwork, even though this is not based primarily on Italy but you can see how that Christian dichotomous morality is loosening up over time. So
You don’t have that very demarcated and stark sense of good and evil any more and that, you know that re-imagination of the Devil, perhaps, helps us understand this change better. Now let’s see why does pop culture matter. So pop culture matters for us scholars because it
Is a new ongoing myth-making. We see that even with new religious movements how important it is when it comes to TV shows and even comics, even video games, everything plays a massive role in how Practitioners, contemporary Practitioners create, make meaning of their practice. Because
I would say that religion and religious practices are ultimately about belief-making and myth-making and meaning-making, in all these things, you know, stories are important for human beings. Stories have value for human beings and if you see a story that is gripping, that you resonate with,
That will become part of the meaning-making process and the belief-making process that will inform your religious beliefs and your religious worldview as well. Also, TV shows and generally pop culture, even video games and yeah, literature can be gateways to religious practices and beliefs. So there are many, for instance, many Pagans that got
Interested in Heathenry or Norse Paganism thanks to “Vikings,” the TV show because they felt it resonated with them and they got interested in Norse Paganism. So it can be, in a lot of cases, a gateway to religious practices and beliefs and so it’s important for scholars to acknowledge that
So that we can better understand how these new religious movements that develop and how they develop and their conception. Also, it has a bi-directional resonance because pop culture influences viewers or consumers of the pop culture but at the same time, a show or
A specific pop-culture output becomes popular only in so far as it resonates with the viewers. So it means to respond enough to the Zeitgeist of the time to become popular and at the same time by becoming popular it influences people and their beliefs and how they make meaning of the world.
Now, why is this re-imagined Devil useful and to whom? To whom? To scholars, in this case, this re-imagined Devil allows scholars to better understand a few things. So the inclusion of Lucifer, the inclusion of Lucifer by Pagan and Magick Practitioners.
So, as I mentioned in my paper for the EASR on Hecate there are many Magic Practitioners that are currently working with Lucifer alongside either Hecate or Lilith and they employ Lucifer as… not employ, they work with Lucifer in a duodeistic scheme that is influenced by Wicca.
So that the idea of the Goddess and the Gods, they work with Goddess and God but in this case, it’s Lucifer and Hecate or Lilith – those are the most popular combinations. So it is this re-imagined Devil that allows Pagan Study scholars and Esoteric Study scholars to
Better understand how come contemporary Practitioners, even those that are not Satanists, they do not define themselves as Satanists, how come they are employing Lucifer and Hecate, for instance, in their practice. And that is because Lucifer is now associated, just as Hecate is,
To a darkness that allows to shed a light. So an enlightening darkness, if that makes sense. And also it still retains that perception of freeing you from certain boundaries. So for some people, it is useful, to something as it’s useful to work with Lucifer because it allows you to detach
Yourself from a certain Christian background that you may have been raised into. And also, as I said my in my paper on Hecate, you know Hecate is associated with shadow work which is connected to Jungian interpretation and Jungian psychological interpretations.
Also, it allows us to better understand the endorsement of a nuanced ethics, in this case, by Practitioners because I’m talking about how it can be useful for scholars but as I said, I think this is a trend that you see in the wider culture, in wider culture but especially
Within Magick Practitioners, I would argue. And also the emergence of ‘hex positivity.’ I don’t know if you guys are familiar with this term but hex positivity is a thing and it’s going on among the community of Magick Practitioners,
Even Thelemites and hex positivity is kind of a response to the Wiccan ethics when it comes to Magick. Where, you know the Wiccan ethics say everything that you do will come back threefold and so some Practitioners feel that we can assume, you know, light and love and that nobody talks
About the darker aspects of Magick and so some Practitioners have coined the term hex positivity and they talk about it on podcasts, blogs and their social media to mean that it is important to acknowledge the dark side of yourself as a Magick practitioner but also of your Magick practice.
And also the wider cultural exchange in society that inevitably affects esoteric practices. So I think that this is also important to acknowledge for us scholars because it allows us to better understand how esoteric Practitioners make meaning of their world and how
They interpret their ethics and I think that this re-imagined perception of the Devil, actually, really helps and has been quite influential for Magick Practitioners across the board. So thank you very much for your attention and I am also on social media.
I’m on TikTok and on YouTube. So in case you want to check out my work, which is not just about the Devil but I’m mostly a Pagan Studies scholar, I generally study Magick in religious practices. So thank you for your attention. [Applause]
♪ Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams, it’s good to see you guys in person. You were on our show a couple years ago for your last film – Someone Like Me – and now you’re here for Satan Wants You. Really excited to talk to you. Before we get into it,
Let’s just show a clip from the trailer. This is a clip from Satan Wants You. Joining me now from Victoria is Michelle Smith – a one-time victim of abuse by a Satanic cult – and Dr. Lawrence Pazder – the psychiatrist who helped her come to terms with that nightmare.
NEWS ANCHOR: The book is called Michelle Remembers. VALERIE PRINGLE: Michelle Remembers. BOTH: We wrote it together. VALERIE: The first publicized account of such rituals. They would put me in cages, sacrifice animals. VALERIE: Eating feces, and orgies, and dismembering fetuses, these were things that you experienced? MICHELLE SMITH: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Who are these people? Well, they’re a secret organization, they’re a secret society. Satan. When that book came out, I mean, all hell broke loose. It was a theory that there’s a Satanic conspiracy, and there are children who were kidnapped, stolen, and sacrificed. MAN: It’s known as “The Satanic Panic”
From the 1980s and ’90s. (Sighing) Sean and Steve, hoo-ah! That’s just a little bit of the documentary, but, in the trailer, it mentioned a book called Michelle Remembers. Can you tell us about that book, Michelle Remembers, Sean? Yeah, I mean, I grew up in Victoria,
So, Michelle Remembers is by two authors from Victoria. It is set in Victoria. For me, I mean, my family moved there right after the book was published, while the Satanic Panic was unfolding, and, they were everywhere, Michelle and Larry. They were on TV. They were on the radio. They were in the newspapers.
It was this story that everyone knew about in Victoria, and, like, layer, upon layer, upon layer, of it too, right? Like, stores downtown had Satanic altars in the back, and you had to look out for these people in black, and “Don’t go to the cemetery at night.”
What was it like to grow up in that environment as a kid? Scary. Right? And this, I mean, for me too, the thing about this is, like… you know, it’s how many? Forty years later? So it’s like you forget about all of this stuff until this came back into our life.
And I had no idea, as a kid. Like, you sorta– you’re like, “Oh, yeah, they’re connected to the Satanic Panic.” But I had no idea that the story touched millions and millions of people around the world. Sean, could you just tell us a little bit about who Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder were?
Michelle Smith was a young woman in Victoria, in the ’70s, who started seeing her psychiatrist – Dr. Lawrence Pazder, who everyone refers to as “Larry” – when she had a bad dream after a miscarriage, and this is sorta like the genesis for this book. They go into therapy. They–
And it goes from, like, you know, once a week to every day for eight hours at a time. And then, as they start going deeper and deeper into therapy, more and more memories start– are being recovered from Michelle about this terrible abuse she suffered at the hands of a Satanic cult
When she was five years old, in Victoria, BC. NAM: And Larry actually recorded those sessions. He recorded them. There’s actually video, as well, which, apparently, was burnt, but we got one of the tapes anonymously. One of the therapy tapes that no one has ever heard is in the film.
NAM: Wow. There was video?! STEVE: He recorded everything. He was, like– like, he– He wanted to be famous, didn’t he? One hundred percent. Didn’t he learn anything from Nixon? Like… Don’t– don’t leave– don’t– I mean, don’t, like, tell on yourself like that, man. He wanted to be famous, though. Like, he wanted to be known. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Steve, for people who may not remember this, the Satanic Panic, it was in the ’80s and ’90s.
What exactly happened? What was it about? It was a lot of just, like, wild accusations of people who were, basically, like, taking children and sacrificing them. That was, like, the main thorough thread of what the Satanic Panic was. Many people were definitely accused of it. It happened through daycare centres, anywhere where people really had, like,
Contact with children is where you seemed to see a lot of these cases begin to erupt. And, like, a lot of the people– I just have to say this too, right, like, if you were at all different in the ’80s, this is something that you could’ve been accused of.
Like, so, I mean, we’re both queer men. So many of the people who went on trial in a lot of these daycare cases were queer, right? Or, a single woman in her 20s who wasn’t married. You know, like, these people who were not
Just part of the mainstream culture, and that sort of like, “normal,” let’s just say “American family life,” like you could’ve faced this accusation. How do you defend yourself, right? Yeah, and, Steve, you know when Colin asked you that question, you kind of laughed, and I think you laughed because it’s–
When we hear “Satanic Panic” now, in the framework of, like, 2023, it’s kind of like, “That’s ridiculous.” But when we watch the documentary– and like you mentioned, people’s lives were impacted to the point where people ended up in jail, losing their jobs, losing their livelihood.
So, looking at it from, like, a 2023 viewpoint, how did people not know that this was kind of like, “We needed to ask more questions”? STEVE: I think the questions were being asked. I think you had media that was perpetuating what was, like, thought to be happening.
Valerie Pringle, who was like one of, like, Canada’s– NAM: A very serious journalist. Right? She’s on air asking Michelle if she was eating feces. Like, it was very– and, like, it was like, the noon newscast. Like, it was very– like, it was all over the place, and, it just–
I don’t know. Like, you had law enforcement who were participating. You just had all these authority figures within our society that were saying, “This is happening. This is true.” And so, everybody just– how can– how can you deny that, right? I think police officers who were specifically, like–
Like, that was “their beat” in a way. Like, they were occult specialists, which, it just sounds kind of wild to think about it now, but that’s what they were actually assigned to do, right? It’s like an X-Files episode. (Laughing) Mm-hmm, cops for Christ. Yeah, exactly. Cops for Christ.
Can you talk about what their families were going through while they were on tour with this book? You know, I mean, this is like, for us, you know, there’s several ways to approach a doc, right? So, like, we started with the book. That’s sort of where you start,
And then you expand out from that to sort of talk to all the other people who are around that. And when we started reaching out to the family, and also doing our research and realizing that, you know, we can’t find any interviews with a single family member,
Who, at that time, came out and said, “No, this– you know, this is my version of this “and it’s not correct at all.” So, for us it’s, like, reaching out to Larry’s first ex– first wife, ex-wife, his daughter, Michelle’s sister, Michelle’s best friend. This was a, like, new territory,
A brand new territory for a doc, which is so exciting. And also, like, it was so important for us knowing how big this book was, and how far it spread, and how much media it gained for 15 years, 20 years, and people still talk about it today, to have these family members
And get that story, and create a platform for them to actually be like, “This is the truth.” Well, Blanche Barton says it, right, in the doc, when she’s talking about the talk shows and the people that come on, and it’s all the people who are victims. And, she just says, like,
“Why didn’t they bring out the family members? “Why didn’t the family members ever come on stage and actually say, like, hold them to account?” ‘Cause it would make for bad TV. However, it makes for a great documentary, so… And were they excited to finally talk to you, to someone about this? Oh, yeah. I mean, when we– you know, I was a little nervous, too, doing this, knowing that there is a lot of trauma to this film as well, right? For them, for the other victims of the Satanic Panic.
It’s like, you laugh ’cause it’s, you know, Satanic Panic, but there’s also a real serious side to this. And when we called Larry’s ex-wife, Marylyn, for the first time, I mean, that was nerve-racking. And the funny thing is, like, just said, “Hey, listen, we’re gonna do–”
“we wanna do a film and we wanted to talk to you.” (Snapping fingers) Hour-long. It was like 40 years hadn’t passed at all. She had all the stories and just really wanted to talk to us. NAM: Well, how did you approach that? Because you mentioned that people hadn’t spoken to them.
So, like, Steve, when you call them up, what do you say to them to say– to get them to trust you? You know, you mentioned it’s very traumatic. How do you get them to open up and trust the process that you’re trying to do? I think with a lot of the people
That actually participated in the doc, we contacted, of course, like, other people that were close family members, and it’s just kind of you’re testing the waters, right? You’re seeing who wants to talk, who feels like they have something to say. And like with Marylyn, she’s helped, like, multiple investigators.
She’s kept binders full of just everything, like newspaper articles, anything to do with her divorce. NAM: She recorded one of the bishops, I think. STEVE: She recorded everything. She was like– She was savvy. She was really good. Like spy thriller, right? And so, really,
It was just like the path of least resistance for us, and who felt like they wanted to stand up on the stage and do it, and that’s kind of like the path that we took. Also helped that I was from Victoria for a lot of–
’cause, I mean, a lot of the story is set there, and especially for the family, it’s a shared experience that at least I have some understanding. You know, not at all to the level that they went through, but at least what the city’s like and what actually happened there. Were you kinda surprised
That this started in Victoria, in Canada? I mean, this went on to become very influential, especially in the United States. NAM: They even met the Pope. Well, yeah, and they met the Pope exactly. I mean… (Laughing) This all started in Victoria, BC. Yes, I was surprised. Victoria’s so snoozy. It’s not that kinda city, you guys. It’s not that kinda city, so… COLIN: I guess ’cause I don’t really think– I don’t know. I guess we don’t associate Canadians with ever having that kind of, like, influence on the global stage like that, except for maybe hockey, but–
You know, I mean, one of the claims in Michelle Remembers, of course, is that Victoria was one of the Satanic capitals of the world, right? Victoria, and Geneva, Switzerland, and that was– for a time in the ’80s, that’s what some people thought, so…
And so, it just– doesn’t that kind of make it so, you know, like, people are like, “Victoria is the capital of Satanism?” And it’s like, it just makes it, like, that much more believable because it’s just not believable at all. Like, you know? It felt like that kinda had a play happening.
I appreciated the fact that you, um, let the viewer kind of make up their mind on what’s happening. Who would you say whose fault it was, ultimately, this happened? That’s tricky. COLIN: Satan, obviously. Right? COLIN: I mean, those are the traits of the Devil, right? I mean, greed, influence, power. I think that there was so many different, like, social changes that were happening at the time. Um, like, religion was much more popular. It was much more through the culture. And they had a book that just dropped at the right time, and it kinda just, it clicked.
So, trying to place blame on people, I find it really tricky, because– It’s also hard though, ’cause it’s almost like everyone’s responsible. I mean, it’s like, A, the two authors, plus the institutions, plus the Church, plus the media for participating, plus people who didn’t speak up and say, “You know…”
For me, in our film, one of the takeaways is that moment when the Wiccan police detective Charles Ennis finally says, you know, like, “We, basically, all have a responsibility “to stand up and say ‘This is a lie.’ “And even if it– you know, can’t just say it once,
“you have to say it over, and over, and over again “until, you know, everyone realizes it is a lie.” But nobody realizes it. I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful. COLIN: Do any of the people, though, who were kinda, like, promoting this idea of Satan, like, Satanic ritual abuse,
Like the journalists at the time, like the media figures– like, you know, Maury Povich was around, was popular at this time, Geraldo, Oprah. I mean, I don’t know. Do any of them– have any of them ever come out and said, “Yeah, we messed up here. “This was not, like, credible at all
“and we shoulda done a better job”? Geraldo did give an apology, so I mean, he– you’ll see in the film, there’s– he did one very notorious show that influenced, you know, according to the sociologists– NAM: It was like a three-parter, right? Yeah, that the sociologist that we spoke to said,
“You know, this spread this, “you know, from just being sort of a rumour “into 12 million households, “or 40 million households in the US suddenly were like, “‘Oh, my God. There’s Satanists everywhere.'” Like, he played a big role in that, but he did apologize in the ’90s, which is something.
I mean, ’cause people were really hurt by this. You mentioned daycare. There was a woman by the name of Margaret Kelly Michaels. What happened to her? Oy. (Sighing) Again, she was working in a school, um, with young children, and a parent had accused her, right? SEAN: Mm-hmm.
And it went on to be a super long trial. She went to prison for five years. She was accused of heinous stuff and, like, basically, she was tarred and feathered. She’s had to carry that around with her for the rest of her life, and her life has kind of been ruined by it.
Like, it’s– these types of accusations, like, when people are calling other people, or accusing them of being pedophiles, um, it really– like, it ruins your reputation and it can ruin your life, and Kelly Michaels definitely has felt that. And we should say, I mean, these cases are still being brought to justice,
These false accusations. The film premiered at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, and there’s a case literally right now that is unfolding for a man who has been– you know, this is like 30 or 40 years of his life, and they’re saying, “No, this is not true now.”
Right? Like, it’s not just something from the distant past either, right? These people are still alive. There’s still people in prison. And, furthermore, you know, it’s easy to be like, “Oh, this is just the ’80s and ’90s.” This is happening right now. NAM: In what ways? Through QAnon and Pizzagate,
So that’s sort of the most recent iteration. The Satanic cult conspiracies now involving political figures and Hollywood actors drinking the blood of children to get adrenochrome, or whatever the magical chemical is, right, in the basements of pizzerias and all that stuff in the US.
And for us, I mean, this film, just this past week, there was an article, I think in The Epoch Times. Did I say that right? I don’t think I did. NAM: I think so, yeah. Yeah, did I? NAM: ‘E-P-O-C-H’, yeah, yeah. That basically there’s a Satanic ritual abuse survivor
Talking and saying– referencing our film and saying, “No, I’m actually a victim of Satanic ritual abuse.” And this is 2023, right? So, it is kind of scary. Like, this is something– I was looking for therapists– (Clearing throat) excuse me– last week, and I found a woman, downtown Vancouver,
And one of the things that she treated was ritual abuse. I was like– like, people are still– they’re still treating this. Like, it’s still, like– it’s still within society right now. Like, it is wild. You know, we’re repeating the mistakes of the past now, because a lot of people believe QAnon and Pizzagate.
People have been actually harmed by these theories. I mean, for us, this is another, like, layer to this film. I mean, what does it mean to be human? And why do we believe in things even when there’s no basis, or concrete evidence, or no basis in reality, right?
And this whole thing about storytelling constructing reality is definitely an element to this story, too, and all the different ways storytelling works, right? Like, you share information with a story, you educate somebody. But, you know, if you don’t like somebody, you can also make up a story to ruin their life and their–
You know, like, storytelling is great, it’s terrible, it’s part of being human. Mm-hmm. It truly– like when we can’t explain the things around us that are happening in our life, the easiest thing to fall back on is, a lot of the time, Satan, right? So, it’s just part of who we are.
The big thing that we saw was, like, it happened once, it’s happening again, and it’s probably gonna happen in the future. You mention, though, that, you know, I guess the first Satanic Panic of the ’80s and ’90s, when that was going on, there was a lot of social changes happening.
I think it was more visibility about LGBTQ folks, for example, and I think even now, we’re seeing, you know, more visibility of, like, trans individuals, and LGBTQ folks are also, you know, getting more acceptance, right, and I wonder if that’s playing a role. Just that, you know, the more–
The more we’re seeing changes to, like, gender, ideas around gender and race, if that’s somewhat, maybe, having a role in getting people to go down these kind of dark paths, like QAnon and that sort of thing. Well, definitely. I mean, typically, those are the people who have the devil in them, right?
Right, yeah. You know? And I think technology, too, is also another factor in this, right? Like, daytime TV, talk TV, was the thing in the ’80s and ’90s that spread this everywhere. You know, Facebook, Twitter, social media did it for QAnon and Pizzagate.
And Steve and I always talk now that where AI is, you know? We’re right at the cusp of it. Like, “What is gonna happen?” Comin’ in hot. We were just watching a video, actually, before we started, of an AI-created political commercial. And it looks real, like a hundred percent real.
STEVE: For the Republican Party? Yes. Oh, you knew exactly what I was talking about. Crazy, right? Yeah, yeah, it’s scary. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you mention– like, when I was watching the documentary, ’cause we’re talking about Satan, there’s an actual Church of Satan. What is that?
‘Cause I didn’t know what it was until I watched the documentary. The Church of Satan is– like when they try to distill it down, it’s basically, instead of following these rules, like in Christianity, of the things you’re supposed to be, they just celebrate humans as a whole. So, we have greed,
We have all of these kind of things that are considered negative parts of our lives, but the Church of Satan looks at humans as a whole person, as a whole thing, and that’s– they wanna celebrate that. Yeah, and what I love is– So, we have a former high priestess
Of the Church of Satan, Blanche Barton, as one of the participants in the film, and she says, you know, basically, “Satanism is not a tolerance of your differences. “It’s a celebration of differences,” right? It’s like, “We celebrate how different everyone is.” And I thought that was such a, like,
“Oh, who doesn’t wanna be part of that?” And it’s a complete opposite of what we’ve come to know as Satan. Mm-hmm. NAM: Right? And I thought it was really interesting that insurance companies played a role in Michelle Remembers. Do you wanna go down that– like, can you explain to us how that happened?
Because I was like, “Of course.” (Laughing) SEAN: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Money’s involved. Yeah, I mean, it’s an interesting thing. Like, both in Canada, the US, the UK, this happened, right? So, it’s like, you know, especially in Canada and the UK where there is public– what’s the word I’m looking for? Healthcare, obviously,
Where doctors are billing, like, the government. In the US, it’s different, too. But these doctors are billing and they’re bringing you in for, like, seven sessions a week, for hours, or maybe eight hours a day, and billing for it, and then the insurance companies are on the hook for it, right?
STEVE: And they were talking like millions of dollars, like, over the course of a year. And so, they kind of look at it and they’re like, “Wow, I have one of these patients. “Now, I can bring in their family members.” And all of a sudden, they’re making, like, five million dollars a year,
And so, it really turns into a scam. And this had to do with the therapists that were talking to people who were having these memories that these awful things had happened to them as part of the Satanic Panic. Yeah, I mean, here in Canada, we should say too, like, so you know, Victoria,
Michelle Remembers, that’s one thing. There was a case– like, cases in Southern Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and a really big one in Saskatchewan. It’s not just a US thing. This happened here, too, all at the same time as the US, the UK, Europe, Italy, Brazil, like, it’s Australia, New Zealand.
This was a worldwide thing. And Larry, I mean, we found one newspaper article. He consulted, it said, close to a thousand cases. A thousand of these cases. That’s a lot of money. And it really seeped into popular culture, right? Because I think, you know, Dungeons and Dragons– NAM: Music.
COLIN: Yeah, music, heavy metal. I remember an X-Files episode referencing the Satanic Panic. I mean, how– this was really widespread. Like, it really affected the public imagination in a lot of ways, didn’t it? Mm-hmm. I mean, I think it was hard not to. You hear these wild things
And your mind can just go wild with it, right? You can think of anything and it just– it really seeped into all parts of culture at the time. Like, religious horror was gigantic at the time. It’s funny because, in the book, you can actually see references to, like, The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby.
Like, somebody’s head’s spinnin’ around. Oh, yeah, you know, halfway through Michelle Remembers, there’s a woman who comes to one of the Satanic rituals and her head spins, like, it’s– Right. STEVE: Yeah. What’s funny about that book is the cover looks so much like a Stephen King novel. Right? Like Misery.
Yeah. Yeah, any, like Pet Sematary, one of those. Yeah. I think something that struck me is that people were believing this, like, Satanic ritual abuse is happening. You know, millions of children are being abducted, but, at the same time, you know, we learned in,
I guess, the early aughts, that the Catholic Church has been– you know, there’s a huge sex abuse scandal with children and priests and they’re covering it up. Women, for years, were not believed if they came forward with sexual assault, but people would believe in Satanism. Like, it’s just– it’s ironic, right?
Like, why do we go to this extreme thing and not the most logical thing? It’s weird. I mean, we’ve talked about that a lot, right? Like, it was– like, they were basically pointing their fingers saying, like, “Look over there. Look over there.”
While it was actually the Church that was doing all the things that they said that everybody else was doing. Like, it was, like, really crazy when you actually, like, look at it from that. It’s interesting. I mean, in Austin, at South By Southwest, we had an Indigenous journalist actually in the audience
For our world premiere, and it was the final question of the night, and he just started, you know, talking about residential schools and the Catholic Church, and that was a connection that we hadn’t made. But this was literally the Catholic Church stealing children and abusing them, and then neglecting them
To the point of death, right? Like, this is what the Satanists were accused of, but it was happening… For sure. …within the Church. It was just– yeah. NAM: Well, since we talked about that– we mentioned that Michelle and Larry– was he a psychiatrist or a psychologist? A psychiatrist. Psychiatrist.
They actually met the Pope. What was in it for the Church to be a part of this book, and this, what was happening with Michelle Remembers? I mean, it just got more people into the pews, right? And one of the priests, you know, thought he was gonna make a million dollars, you know? Like, they saw this as actual, like a best-seller like Jaws, right? Their editor in New York actually was the editor for Jaws. So, it’s like, all you see, you dig into this–
And that wasn’t in the movie, but it was just there’s so many layers to this story that you can’t even fit it into 90 minutes, you know? That was the main thing. So, many people just came up to us and were like, “Why can’t this be a three-parter
“or four-parter?” They just wanted more. NAM: Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the people, that was– well, Michelle wasn’t part of it. Did you ask her to be a part of it? STEVE: Yeah. And she said? She didn’t wanna participate. We contacted her twice over the course of about six months,
And she didn’t respond to the first email that we sent. And then, six months later, she did respond and she said she doesn’t wanna participate, which I understand. I mean, it’s been– I think it’s a weird part of your life to dive back into and especially if she doesn’t wanna recant, or, like,
You know, if she– What would you have asked her? Oh, God. I would’ve asked her– Like, literally, I just wanted– like this, at least in my head, was to create a space for her to tell her side of the story. Like the last piece of–
The last interview that we could find of them actually talking about this was in 1990. And then, after talking to all the family, from what we understand, Michelle has never said, “No, this is a lie.” or, basically, or “This is true.” So, it’s this grey area where I just would–
You know, if it wasn’t us, maybe there’s somebody else who can do it, but just to get what happened to her, you know? And I’m also really curious about how, you know, when you start something and you end it, from your point of view, as people were telling the story,
What did you learn at the end that you didn’t know going in, when you decided to make this project? For me, I just didn’t understand how widespread it was. I didn’t understand the Satanic Panic. I’m 42, so I, like, grew up through the ’80s, and I just didn’t know.
I didn’t know how many lives it touched. I didn’t know how widespread it was. It was just one of those things that you look at it and you’re like, “Wow, just had no idea.” And it’s, like, not that far away. If there’s one, I guess, like, takeaway
You want people to have from watching this film, what is it? And I’m thinking in the context of like we’ve talked about with QAnon and these kind of, you know, conspiracy theories. I mean, Trump’s still talking about losing the election. People are really, like, still are susceptible to this sort of thinking.
So, I guess– I don’t know. What do you– is there any, like, thing that we can do to, I guess, convince people not to go down these kind of rabbit holes? You know, I personally come from a really cynical, skeptical family. So, like, there’s a couple characters in the film
That I think people can learn a lot from – the FBI agent Ken Lanning, and the investigative journalist Debbie Nathan. I think everyone needs some more skepticism in their lives. Ask people questions. Ask “Why?” Right? And also take the time to think about rumours,
When you hear them, instead of just jumping on the bandwagon and riding off into the sunset, so… It’s really tricky though. There’s so many influences in our lives and I think it’s really hard to kind of navigate through and figure out what’s real and what’s not real.
And I think just as we go into the future, it’s gonna get harder and harder. NAM: Well, it’s a terrific documentary. How I started it is not where I ended, and then I still had a lot more questions. So, yes, maybe another two-parter? But where can people find the documentary? Do you have plans for distribution? We do. We’re gonna be playing Hot Docs. Right now, we’re finishing our festival run through spring, and then we’ll be doing our theatrical run in August. And it’ll be ready for streaming– Available on CBC starting this fall,
With a date to be announced. So, you can look for, like, SatanWantsYouFilm.com. We have all the dates, if it might be playing at a film festival in your city, or your region, and also on Instagram. If you wanna see all the Satanic stuff, follow us on Instagram. Awesome, Sean and Steve. Congratulations.
Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us today. This was great. BOTH: Thanks for having us. NAM: Thank you. ♪
– Hail oh deathless one. Who calls me from out of the pits? – [Voiceover] You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don’t want you to know. Here are the facts. In the 1980’s and 90’s people across the united states were convinced that satan worshippers worked in secret across the country. Stealing children for dark rights. Sacrificing animals and innocents and practicing sorcery.
In what became known as, “The Satanic Panic.” Numerous people alleged that they had been ritually abused during their childhood. They claimed that hypnosis and regression therapy revealed these long suppressed memories. Yet, when authorities investigated they ultimately found no proof to back up the accusations. Today the deluge of reports is considered part of
A moral panic. Like McCarthyism or witch hunts. Many people wondered if actual theistic satan worshippers existed at all. So, are there any real devil worshippers? Here’s where it gets crazy. Yes, though perhaps not the way you’d assume. Before we find devil worshippers we have to define the devil itself.
That’s tougher than it sounds. Afterall, one religion’s god may often be another group’s satan. Consider the Yazidis ethnic group. Often called devil worshippers by the nearby Muslim majority. The Yazidis worship an angel called, “Melek Taus.” Who in their religion refused God’s command to bow to Adam.
This bears great resemblance to stories of Shatam and Muslim lore. But the Yazidis don’t consider Melek Taus an evil deity. A similar disconnect occurs between gnostics and mainstream Christians. There are generally two broad camps in the world of genuine satan worship. Symbolic and theistic. The symbolic satan worshippers
Believe in philosophical aspects of satan as a concept. Or satan as an ideology. The theistic satan worshippers believe in a supernatural entity that can interact with the mortal world. Of these theistic satanists, many follow a Lucifer erratically different from the common Christian depiction.
Not an evil force, so much as a disruptive innovative one. Are there really any theistic satanists who genuinely believe they worship an inferno evil deity? While the tales of massive satanic conspiracies don’t seem to bear any fruit. There have been isolated cases of violent criminal acts
Carried out by people claiming to worship satan. And not just any ancient past either. In 2005, Louisiana pastor Louis Lamonica turned himself into the Livingston detective, Stan Carpenter. Lamonica listed in detail, ritualized child abuse that he and other members of his congregation participated in for a number of years.
This included things like animal sacrifice, ritual masks, and dedication of a child to satan. In 2011, Moises Maraza Espinoza confessed to killing his mother as part of satanic right. And there are a number of other proving crimes involving the use of satanic symbols and purported rituals. However, these crimes are not all representative
Of the satanic community. The majority of which, is law abiding. Despite these cyclical allegations of widespread, large scale of networks of devil worshippers, there simply hasn’t been any solid universally acknowledged proof. Those who believe in the conspiracies say the powerful groups have too much control to be reported.
And they point to other supposedly buried reports of abuse. Such as the infamous Franklin Case. Instead it seems that the only individuals or groups actually doing all of those sterotypical satanic things from Hollywood horror films are isolated and quite possibly, insane. Unless of course, there’s something more to the story.
Something they don’t want you to know. – So here comes satanism. Most of us would like to write off as harmless antics by some lunatic fringe. A few years ago maybe, but not now. We have seen that satanism can be linked to child abuse and murder. It has lead seemingly normal teenagers into monstrous behavior. They preach mysticism.
Other people, however, practice evil. And that is why we brought you this report tonight.
From a hip-hop power couple to an iconic ’60s band of mop-tops, many musicians have been accused of worshiping Satan. But were they just trying to sell records? Or is there some truth buried within the fiction? Now that Lady Gaga is considered a veteran and darling of the 21st-century pop firmament, it is perhaps
Easy to forget that the clean-cut lead of “A Star is Born” was considered a particularly risque performer at the start of her career. Cultivating a freak-art image that culminated in Gaga donning a dress purportedly crafted from raw meat to the MTV Video Music Awards in 2010,
The “Poker Face” singer made a claim for being one of the strangest pop stars out there. So perhaps it was no surprise that in 2012, rumors spread that Gaga’s coordinated public eccentricities had roots in something darker: blood-thirsty satanism. As reported at the time by NME, it was rumored that while on
Tour in the U.K., the pop star had stayed at London’s Intercontinental Hotel and left behind evidence of satanic rituals — namely, a “bath full of blood.” The story was originally spread by a website called Truthquake, with a hotel worker reportedly stating:
“Lady Gaga left large amounts of blood in the suite during a stay this summer. The incident was reported to the concierge, who was told to put it out of her mind.” No evidence of Gaga’s occult leanings was ever presented, however, and her team quickly refuted the allegation, which went no further.
In recent years, it seems the biggest pop stars in the world have made the conscious choice to adopt satanic imagery in their live performances. British singer-songwriter Sam Smith, for example, drew plenty of attention in 2023 when they took to the stage at the Grammys to perform
Their new single “Unholy,” dressed as Satan with horns emerging from their red top hat. When described in such terms, such a performance doesn’t sound particularly shocking. But it seems that the combined effect of the sexualized performance from the queer singer, as well as cage dancing from their co-star, Kim Petras, a trans woman,
Saw Smith draw an angry response from many prominent online commentators. Conservative senator and 2016 presidential hopeful Ted Cruz tweeted: “This…is…evil.” Meanwhile, other Twitter users described the devilish show as “satanic” and “a tribute to Satan.” Such tweets generated thousands of likes and retweets from horrified viewers. The furor around
Sam Smith’s 2023 Grammys performance was reminiscent of that which emerged after the adoption of Devil imagery by another chart-topping queer performer: Lil Nas X. Lil Nas X has a skill when it comes to getting people talking, with his 2019 smash single,
“Old Town Road,” generating a huge amount of discourse from commentators across the political and cultural spectrum for its catchy merging of trap and country music. But in 2021, Lil Nas took things up a level with the release of “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” the video for
Which involves the viral rapper descending to hell on a stripper pole to give a lapdance to Satan. While the blending of erotic, queer, and satanic imagery drew condemnation from conservatives, the tension was ratcheted up when the accompanying merch was announced: 666 pairs of limited edition
Nike sneakers, each made with a single drop of human blood. But even those who sought to praise Lil Nas X for his incredible success in the first act of his stellar career were seemingly taken aback by the devil imagery he employed in this video. Per Rolling Stone, later that year Lil
Nas began a public feud with the BET Awards after his team was forced to confirm that the rapper was not, in fact, a “satanist or devil worshiper” before his performance at the awards ceremony. “You know I’m keeping the energy positive.” Even veteran pop superstars
Can sometimes be accused of having an unholy relationship with the devil himself. In the last two decades, there has been no bigger celebrity couple than Jay-Z and Beyoncé, whose dominance over the world of popular culture shows no sign of abating. Nevertheless,
This has not stopped fanciful theories emerging of a supposed Faustian pact between the ultimate pop power couple and Lucifer himself … or maybe it is their incredible success that attracts it? The Carters have long been fodder for Illuminati conspiracy theorists, with some claiming online
That the pair exhibit symbols on stage to show their allegiance to a shadowy cabal, and others accusing the pair of witchcraft and devil worship. One example given by music writer Peter Bebergal is the symbology featured in Jay-Z’s “On To The Next One” video, which Illuminati hunters have
Claimed shows the rapper has entered into a pact with the Masonic demon god Baphomet. The most bizarre piece of “evidence” circulating on the internet that supposedly confirms the couple’s links to hell came with the announcement in 2011 that they were to call their newborn baby girl “Blue Ivy,” after which rumors
Spread that the name spelled backward is Latin for “Lucifer’s Daughter.” The rumor persists on platforms such as Twitter, though Latin dictionaries show that this is not the case. It is no surprise that, over the course of a career spanning more than 50 years, Ozzy Osbourne,
As frontman of proto-heavy metal rockers Black Sabbath, has perpetually been associated with satanism and devil worship. The Birmingham, U.K. band caused controversy right from the start, with references to the devil, horror-inspired riffs, and dark cover art featuring ghostly figures — all of which earned the band an audience that included many real-life occultists.
Though he was the vocalist, it wasn’t Ozzy who had penned the lyrics recounting a devil encounter for their debut’s opening track, “Black Sabbath.” They were actually the work of bassist Geezer Butler, who had at one time been interested in the
Occult but had abandoned it after reportedly encountering a ghostly figure in his bedroom. Nevertheless, Ozzy became the poster boy for rock and roll devil worship during the decades that followed, an image that proved marketable for future classic albums such as 1970’s Paranoid.
He was interviewed during the so-called “satanic panic” of the 1980s, though his devilish image has become more ironic in recent years, with the metal legend jokingly claiming that his affiliation with Satan was responsible for his avoiding infection during the Covid-19 pandemic. “I don’t, I don’t want to make anybody to start
Doing all of this devil worship crap because that’s not my intention.” Heavy metal is a musical genre that has long been accused of devil worship, an association that many bands working in the style have sought to amplify and capitalize on. The classic London heavy metal outfit Iron Maiden has
Been plying their trade for almost half a century — and, as it turns out, their devilish imagery is still enough to cause an uproar. Another band that got caught up in the satanic panic of the 1980s, Iron Maiden drew much attention from concerned parents the world over with the release of
Their breakthrough album, the commercial smash-hit The Number of the Beast in 1982. “Back in the early 80s there was a bit of a problems, especially in the States, with, uh, devil worship.” As recounted in a recent interview with the Miami New Times, founder and
Bandleader Steve Harris found the accusations of satanism “absolutely hilarious,” adding: “It was so ridiculous we thought we’d do something ridiculous back.” In response, the band inserted a joke satanic message on their following record, Piece of Mind, which could only be heard when played backward.
The classic rock group Led Zeppelin is famous for its devoted and cult-like fanbase, who pore over the symbols on albums such as Led Zeppelin IV for added clues to the meaning of the music. As noted by The New Yorker writer James Wood, worried parents in the 1970s often considered the
Sound of Zeppelin’s music to be demonic, with the intensity of the guitar sounds and the frenzied, pained vocals being a far cry from much of the music that was heard on the radio at the time. Concern over the true meaning of the band’s music later mutated into rumors about hellish
Messages in their most famous songs, notably that their 1971 classic “Stairway to Heaven” contained secret satanic messages, such as “my sweet Satan,” that emerged when the song is played backward. Though the existence of such messages is a myth, the truth is that Zeppelin guitarist
Jimmy Page was certainly interested in the occult for many years, according to Wood, so much so that he purchased the home of Golden Dawn leader Aleister Crowley. Some saw this as evidence that Page would be attempting to include satanic utterances in his records,
But as Page himself argued in an appearance at the Oxford Union, “It’s hard enough writing the music one way round, [let alone] backward.” In 1966, a claim by The Beatles star John Lennon that the band was “more popular than Jesus” caused
An enormous rift between the Fab Four and millions of offended Christians. As a result, many people boycotted the band and publicly burned their records, forcing Lennon to apologize. “I just said what I said and it was wrong, or it was taken wrong.”
However, in 2010 news broke that the Liverpool rockers may finally have earned the forgiveness of at least one denomination of Christianity. Per The Guardian, it was announced in the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano newspaper that the Catholic Church officially excused The
Beatles for anti-religious comments made by John Lennon at the height of the band’s fame. More recently, an image has circulated online that purportedly shows the Fab Four carrying inverted crosses, accompanied by a quote said to be from their press agent which describes the musicians as openly “Anti-Christ.” However,
The fact-checking website Snopes has decisively demonstrated this to be a forgery, doctored from a photo of the band proudly holding their Member of the Order of the British Empire medals. Fellow ’60s superstars The Rolling Stones were some of the earliest musicians to
Actively encourage their association with Satan. As described in Far Out magazine, Stones frontman and lyricist Mick Jagger reportedly became infatuated with the devil after reading the satirical Soviet novel The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, in which
A rather charming version of Satan returns to a corrupt Moscow and plays havoc with the locals. Jagger incorporated Bulgakov’s version of Satan into his lyrics for the Stones’ hit “Sympathy For The Devil,” which, though a timeless classic now, drew some criticism for the band, not least from prominent Christian musicians such as
Carlos Santana. Santana reacted to the song by telling NME in an interview: “I don’t have no sympathy for the Devil … The Devil is not Santa Claus. He’s for real.” Some have even suggested that the song is cursed, and have blamed it for technical
Failures encountered by the band and their entourage at the time of composition, as well as for the fatal disaster at the Altamont Festival in 1969. While Jagger has since dropped the satanist imagery that he continued to turn to during the decade for
Titles such as 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request, Stones guitarist Keith Richards has continued to playfully invoke his links to the underworld, telling Rolling Stone in 2002: “I’ve had very close contact with Lucifer — I’ve met him several times.” It is perhaps unsurprising that the much-missed starman David Bowie,
Who plunged into all kinds of esoteric subjects to furnish his songwriting, had several brushes with the occult over the course of his career. Like many musicians of his generation, Bowie was keenly interested in mysticism, with the Kabbalah and the work of Alistair Crowley featuring in his album artwork, videos, and lyricism for years,
As noted by his biographer Peter Doggett in The Man Who Sold the World: David Bowie and the 1970s. Unfortunately, Bowie’s long-term interest in the occult coincided with his growing use of cocaine, which developed into an obsession. According to the memoirs of his first wife, Angie,
At one point Bowie was becoming so paranoid that he had grown certain that Satan himself was living in his swimming pool. The addled rock star demanded an exorcism, which Angie helped to organize. Strangely, Angie claims that during the ritual, the pool did indeed
Bubble with no explanation, and a shadow in the shape of a demon was left on the bottom of the pool thereafter. She admits, however, that she too was taking cocaine at the time.
For thousands of years, people around the world have believed in the existence of Satan, an entity that is thought to be the embodiment of pure evil. But is Satan just a myth, a figment of our collective imagination? Or is he lurking, ready to tempt us and possess our souls?
Well, that is what we’ll try and find out. [music playing] [non-english singing] WILLIAM SHATNER (VOICEOVER): Jerusalem, Israel, the Holy Land. For thousands of years, religious pilgrims of many faiths have come to this sacred city to express their devotion to God. But just outside the walls of Jerusalem
Lies the Valley of Hinnom, an ancient place of unholy worship, where evil deeds were performed long ago in honor of God’s enemy, Satan. In the Book of Jeremiah, God reports through his prophet that people outside Jerusalem in a place called the Valley of Hinnom are sacrificing their sons and also their daughters.
And God explicitly says, I never asked you to do this satanic ritual, and expresses that he’s angry, that there’s going to be a terrible punishment for this. Historically speaking, in the days of the Bible, not everybody was faithful to the Lord. Satanism influenced the Israelite community.
And what they would do literally was they’d create a big pit of fire, and they actually would sacrifice their first-born male through the fire. This was performed in the Valley of Hinnom, which is actually the Hebrew word today for hell. I can’t imagine what would cause someone
To want to sacrifice their own child to anything for any reason, but this demonstrates how in antiquity, people believed that their crops wouldn’t grow, that the rains wouldn’t come, if they didn’t offer sacrifices up to some satanic demons, spirits, whatever. And now you have introduced this new being
That’s responsible for the bad things, and his name comes to be Satan. WILLIAM SHATNER (VOICEOVER): What can explain the shocking events that took place in the Valley of Hinnom thousands of years ago? Was it simply the result of human wickedness? Or is it possible that, as the biblical accounts suggest,
Satan and his demons were and still are real entities that have the power to influence people? Some people think of Satan as Beelzebub or Lucifer or the Prince of Darkness or the Evil One or Old Nick. And some of these names come from scripture. A lot of them come from folklore.
And if you think of Satan as this ubiquitous figure who’s constantly tormenting and tempting people, then it makes sense that the devil can be known by all of these different nicknames. Is there really a character of the Satan? Well, the definition of that is going to differ between the major world religions.
But fear of an eternal damnation in the afterlife has always been sufficient to keep people religious and in line with the beliefs of their religious clerics, who warn them that failure to comply will lead to an eternity of suffering in damnation. Or in other words, the stories from which this developed
Were to teach moral lessons. Throughout history, many religions have interpreted the world through the lens of having a figure of evil, Satan, who is responsible for evil in the world. According to Christian tradition, Satan was one of the most powerful and beautiful of the angels. He rebelled against God.
A third of the angels sided with Satan, and there was a war in heaven. Satan lost and was cast down into hell. Satan is the embodiment of evil, a fallen angel who tempts you to not follow your best values. He is a god of sorts, and he can offer
Something like that to us– great knowledge, control, mastery, the stuff of transcendence. Of course, it will cost us everything. After all, this is not a straight shooter. This is not somebody who’s going to tell the truth. His job is to tempt you. CHRIS BADER: Satan is believed to have tried
To tempt Jesus when he was in the desert with visions of earthly delights. So Satan is continually throughout the Bible someone trying to draw people from God to evil.
In the blue corner is the being supreme, the lord of love and reigning world champion in the infinite battle of Good vs. Evil, the one and only, God Almighty. In the red corner is heaven’s outcast, the devil from down below, the one and only Master
Of Deception and Father of Lies, The Prince of Darkness. That’s pretty much how the story goes, or at least that’s the tale many people tell. But Satan, he’s a complicated entity. There’s much more to him than most people know.
He’s not just a devil with a pitchfork who stands on your shoulder telling you to steal a candy bar; he has a long history, and he’s gotten up to stuff you wouldn’t believe. Today you’re going to learn a lot more about this overlord of the underworld! 50.
Ok, so first you need to know who Satan is. It’s a bit more complicated than you think, but we’ll try and make this one as short as we can. There’s a kind of devil in all the Abrahamic religions, but in Christianity, he plays a bigger role than he does in Judaism and Islam.
In all three religions, Satan is there to make people impure, to lure them to the dark side. The Old Testament talks about an entity that is an adversary of God. He’s there in the Book of Job, making life really hard for Job.
He kills Job’s children, his servants, and for good measure, he covers Job in boils. He does all this to see if Job will renounce his belief in God. So, there you go, Satan is there to mess with people’s beliefs.
Still, in that old book he was far from being a cloven-hoofed beast with horns that can spin a young girl’s head around. In the New Testament, there is talk of fallen angels. In the story of Matthew, there’s a devil-type thing that tries to persuade Jesus to give up his belief in God.
He’s yet again the tempter, the evil to all the good in the world. In short, there are lots of stories. There’s Lucifer, sometimes interchangeable as Satan, who is said to have rebelled against God, and with a gang of other fallen angels, they wage war against God.
Then you have Beelzebub, a flying demon who also is a kind of a Satan character. In the Book of Revelations, you have the Red Serpent, which you could call devilish, but what about this pitchfork swinging, constantly cursing guy who isn’t very photogenic?
Well, he was made up by some creative folks in the Middle Ages. Dante Alighieri wrote about Satan in The Divine Comedy in the early 14th century. This is how Satan is described in the “Inferno” part: He has three faces. He has a chest of ice.
He has mighty bat-like wings, crunching teeth, and he is generally a rotten thing. When the King James Bible became a best-seller after it was published in 1611, Lucifer, aka, the “Morning Star”, played a big part, as it did in John Milton’s 1667 masterpiece poem, “Paradise Lost”.
Now we have a much more wicked tempter, a more monstrous figure who’s a real brute. Satan was no longer just an angel that had switched jobs, he was something more terrifying. The cloven hooves and horns were often a feature, which relates back to Pan, a mythological
Half-goat, half-man figure that was always wild and irrepressibly horny. When you think about famine, plague, and the rest of the crappy things that made Europe a horrible home for a long time, it only makes sense that this devil turned into something absolutely terrifying. This is the guy evangelists conjure up in their nightmares.
He’s the entity that possessed witches and made Hollywood tons of money. The bottom line is the devil evolved throughout history. Ok, we had to get that out of the way. Now for some short facts. 49. Not surprisingly, when you go filling people’s heads with stories of this beast, it affects
Some folks in a bad way. In 2018, an Australian man beat his best friend to death because he thought his friend was Satan. Satanic serial killer, Richard Ramirez, once shouted at a victim, “Swear on Satan.” This one survived. Many did not.
In fact, a lot of killers have claimed to either be in the service of Satan or believe they are killing Satan. Either way, most people would believe Satan isn’t to blame. As you’ll see in this show, the devil is often a scapegoat. Well, that’s what the law thinks. 48.
A 2016 Gallup poll revealed 79 percent of the American respondents said they believed in God, but only 61 percent of people said they believed in the devil. 47. A similar poll went out in the UK, but only 18 percent of people said they believed in the devil. 46.
U.S. televangelist Paul Crouch once said that if you play a part of Led Zeppelin’s song “Stairway to Heaven” backward there is a Satanic message in there. This is how it allegedly goes: “Here’s to my sweet Satan. The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan.
He will give those with him 666. There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.” Guitarist Jimmy Page once said it was hard enough to write the songs forwards, never mind backward, too. By the way, some experts now say the number in the bible that represents the number of
The beast is 616. 45. There is a Church of Satan, but its founders don’t actually believe Satan, or God for that matter, exists. One of the high priests said believers are “insane” and he says Satan just represents someone who is an “adversary” or an “opposer”, someone who questions everything.
Recently, a British member of the Church of Satan said Satanism has less to do with doing bad things than it does with being atheist and libertarian. In the U.S, you can pay $225 and get a lifetime membership for the Church of Satan. 44.
Some people believe if Jesus is the son of God then the anti-Christ is the son of Satan. An example would be Damien Thorn in the Omen movies. 43. It’s been said the first of those Omen movies was cursed, with the reason being a lot of
Really unlucky things happened to the cast and crew. The weirdest of them all involved effects artist John Richardson. He was the guy responsible for creating the famous decapitation scene in the movie. During the filming of his next movie, he got into a car crash. He survived, but his passenger was decapitated.
On top of that, an animal trainer was killed by a tiger after making The Omen, and during the filming of The Omen, a stuntman was attacked by trained Rottweilers. 42. The Pope has been accused of being the antichrist from time to time.
Martin Luther once said the Pope “is the true end times Antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ.” 41. Quite a few American presidents have at one point been accused of being the antichrist. Those include Donald Trump, Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan.
Hilary Clinton has been called out, too. 40. Ok, so some people think the mark of the beast will appear on us all at some point. It comes from something written in the Book of Revelations. It goes like this: “He causes all, both small and great, rich
And poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” What could that mean?
Maybe subcutaneous technology could be the mark of the beast. In the past, people used to say the number 666 was hidden in barcodes. That’s been debunked, but people have now moved onto microchips under the skin. Some evangelicals have already said those chips will be the mark of the beast that gets
Under everyone’s skin. 39. Quite a few well-known people have said the Freemasons worship the devil. We don’t have any proof to back that up. Now we’ll talk about some really dark things the devil has supposedly been involved with. 38.
According to the “Canon Episcopi”, a text of medieval canon law dating back to the 10th century, witchcraft was alive and well in Europe back then. It says witches flew around on broomsticks, and one of their favorite destinations was the forest.
The forest is where they made love to demons, and sometimes killed infants in the name of Satan. 37. Things got much more heated in the 15th century. That was when the book “Malleus Maleficarum” was written, a treatise on witches that detailed the exploits of people possessed by Satan.
It might sound funny to you, but it led to massive persecution of people accused of being witches. Thousands of people were tortured and killed during decades of witch hunts. 36. The first European folks to make the New World their home weren’t much better.
The Puritans of New England talked about babies being born with claws and horns, which was a sure sign the devil had infiltrated the woman. Some of those puritans believed the Native Americans were “children of the Devil.” 35. It was mostly thanks to the Enlightenment thinkers in the 17th and 18th centuries that
Belief in witchcraft started to die. Unfortunately, some parts of Europe and the New World remained in the dark and dismissed what those thinkers said. Witch hunts stopped in most places, but belief in Satan remained strong. 34 Satan doesn’t just appear in Christian bibles,
He also shows up in the Talmud and has been discussed by Jewish rabbis at length, with some positing that Satan was involved in the story of Moses returning from Mount Sinai and that he may have played a role in the Purim story, which tells of how the Jews were
Saved from the Persian Empire. 33 And speaking of the Talmud, the origin of the name Satan actually comes from the Hebrew word which means “opposer” or “adversary” and was used in the Hebrew bible as a term for both human enemies of the Jewish people, as well as supernatural foes. 32.
In 1966, after the Beatles member John Lennon said his band was “more popular than Jesus”, people in the Southern United States took to burning Beatles’ records even if they loved them. Some people believe Lennon made a pact with the devil so he could get famous.
The devil got his due, though, because Lennon was shot dead in the street. 31. In the 1960s, the Beatles were accused of putting Satanic messages in their music. Decades later, an article in the Vatican newspaper praised the band for their melodic tunes. Now for something that may frighten you. 30.
In 2018, The Atlantic reported that priests in the U.S. were being asked to perform an unusual number of exorcisms. The article said, “The official exorcist for Indianapolis has received 1,700 requests so far in 2018.” That’s a lot for just one state, especially as there are only around 100 official Catholic
Exorcists in the U.S. 29. In 2020, in Panama, seven people died in a mass exorcism. The victims included a pregnant woman and her five young kids. An extremist religious group was blamed for the deaths when it was discovered members
Of the group held natives captive and beat them with bibles, burned them with torches, and cut them with machetes. This particular sect was denounced as “Satanic” by local church authorities. 28. The novel “The Exorcist” was partly based on the alleged demonic possession of a 14-year old American kid known as Roland Doe.
That wasn’t his real name. The exorcism was kind of like the movie, in that the boy allegedly spoke in a weird voice, things flew on their own around the room and the kid couldn’t stand to be near a holy cross. At one point marks just appeared on the kid’s body.
It’s also said he got up and broke a priest’s nose. 27. In 2014, two women in the U.S. were charged with murder after killing two children, aged one and two, during an exorcism. The women said the kids’ eyes had turned black due to the devil being inside them.
They badly beat two older kids, but they thankfully survived the ordeal. We found more recent cases of children being killed in exorcisms in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. If you think belief in demonic possession is dead, you are very wrong. 26. Parts of the bible talk about Jesus doing exorcisms.
This is from Mark 1:25/6, “Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him.” It’s a pity all exorcisms aren’t so quick and easy. 25.
The saying, “The devil is in the details” actually comes from, “God is in the details.” 24. Satan goes by other names as well as the devil, including, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, the Prince of Darkness, Lord of the Flies, the Antichrist, the Father of Lies, and Moloch. Ok, back to more dark details. 23.
In 1692, in Salem Village, Massachusetts, a group of young girls were accused of being in league with Satan. What happened next became known as the Salem Witch Trials. The accused girls, as well as women, and men, appeared at a special court to address the
Accusation that they were getting friendly with the devil, which of course wasn’t true at all. 22. 20 people in all were hanged by the neck in Salem for the crime of practicing the devil’s magic, but over time around 150 people were accused of being witches.
One of the men who was executed was pressed to death, which had to be a very painful way to go. The authorities thought if he was tortured he might spill the beans, but there weren’t any beans to spill. A Massachusetts General Court soon reversed the guilty verdicts, but that came too late
For the 20 victims. The youngest of the accused was a four-year-old girl named Dorothy Good. She told the court her mom had been talking to the devil. She was also said to bite people like a wild animal. The next fact is just plain crazy. 21.
Believe it or not, animals played a big part in the hysteria that happened at Salem. Yep, cats, dogs, and other animals were also said to be possessed by Satan. Some folks believed the animals were a kind of team member for the witches, and like some of the accused witches, they had to go.
In one instance, a girl had convulsions and it was believed she was a witch. She said the neighbor’s dog had bewitched her. That dog was immediately shot. A local minister later declared the dog innocent of any wrongdoing.
Later, another mutt took a bullet, even though the locals said it was a victim of evil. 20. Did they really do a float test on accused witches, or is that just made up? It’s not fiction at all and was in vogue in the 17th century.
Sometimes called “dunking” or “ordeal by water”, it would involve throwing a person, usually a woman, into a river. If she sank, she was innocent of working with the prince of darkness, but if she floated, well, obviously she was in league with Satan.
You might ask what the rationale was behind that, but let’s remember the Age of Reason was still a century away. Some people said water was pure, and that’s why it wouldn’t accept witches. You really wouldn’t want to show off your treading-water skills in those days. 19.
You might wonder what the difference is between a demon and the devil? Basically, the devil is the CEO of evil and demons are his managers. You could say those who demons possess are the folks on the lower end of the pay scale. 18.
The American anthropologist, Erika Bourguignon, spent a lifetime studying demons and she said 488 societies in the world believed in demonic possession. You don’t need Satan to have demons, but you need evil. In the past, if you were mentally ill sometimes people would say you were a victim of demonic possession.
That still happens today in some societies. A psychiatrist in northern Thailand once said he took his team to the villages far from the city. In some villages he found autistic kids locked in cages. Their families would offer chicken sacrifices to the evil spirit so it would leave the kid’s body.
Coming up next is something called “The Satan Defense.” 17. Satan gets the blame for a lot of bad things that people do, so you could call the poor fella a handy scapegoat. In 2016, a guy appeared in court after shooting two teenagers. One of them died and the other was badly injured.
What was the guy’s defense? He actually said Satan made him do it and so he was actually innocent. The guy, named Kody Lott, was actually incensed when the media said killing two kids on their way home from school for absolutely nothing was senseless.
Lott said the devil told him to do it, so how was it senseless. He will stay in prison until at least 2046. God might feature in the courtroom, but the justice system has no time for Satan. That’s kind of weird when you think about it. 16. Satan has little to do with Halloween.
No one is exactly sure how the tradition started, but it likely goes back to harvest festivals that were held pre-Christianity. The Christians, however, got hold of it and started calling it All Hallows’ Day, which was a day to celebrate saints and the faithful that had died.
This somehow turned into a night where people walk around dressed as Hello Kitty and maniacs put glass in candy. This next one is seriously messed up. 15. There is no shortage of people who claim they are the devil. These egomaniacs are everywhere and they span all age groups.
A recent case involved a naked woman breaking into a family’s house. The owner told her to leave, to which the woman laughed and then claimed she was the devil. All hell broke loose when the woman attacked the man and his family, even though he had a gun.
39 shots were fired but the woman wasn’t hit. Not only that, but she also managed to fight off all the family. The man later said, “She had the strength of four grown men.” Maybe she was the devil, or she’d been taking some serious drugs.
You can find multiple stories every year in the USA where people who do horrible things claim to be the devil. For some reason they are usually women. 14. There is a term, “She-Devil”, but it usually refers to a woman who manipulates men and does horrible things to them.
While sometimes we refer to Satan as a ‘he’, in reality, or super-reality, the devil is sexless. However, in Hebrew, the noun for Satan is a masculine noun. 13. If Satan is real, he must work around the clock, so much so he makes Elon Musk look lazy.
That’s because around 150,000 people die in the world every day of the week. Considering most of those people will not be faithful to God and will no doubt have a rap sheet of sins a mile long, the intake process for hell must keep Satan really busy. 12.
In the bible, it doesn’t say Satan created Hell. Nope, he was condemned to live in the inferno. He’d probably prefer a three-bedroom suite in Manhattan, but sinners can’t be choosers. The bible actually teaches us that Satan spends most of his time on Earth.
Hell is a little confusing, so we thought we’d refer to that paragon of truth, Billy Graham. In his writing he says the “everlasting fire was created for the devil and his angels”, and he also says that the devil can roam “through the earth going back and forth in it”.
There’s also the theory that sinners will be cast into the pits of hell only on judgment day, so right now they are on remand. Those who wrote the big book talk about Jesus mentioning “eternal life” and “eternal punishment”, but some Christian scholars argue that eternal punishment just means being
Wiped out, like completely being deleted from the big server in the sky. So, hell could be absolutely nothing. The idea of a goat-man with a pitchfork burning your toes with his cigar is entirely a modern fancy. It would have been alien to JC. 11.
The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a play about hell called, “No Exit.” A well-known phrase from that play is, “Hell is other people.” In the play, people die and end up in a waiting room, but the thing is, they are there for eternity.
They soon get on each other’s nerves, and that waiting room becomes a kind of hell. It sounds a lot like social media. Ok, we’ve reached the top ten now, time to ramp up the evil. 10. Some Christians, mostly of the ilk that have Jesus bumper stickers, believe in something called “The Rapture.”
This is when the world ends and the goodies on Earth with the once faithful dead will be beamed up “in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” This great kidnapping will lead to eternity in heaven. As for those left behind, things aren’t supposed to be great for them.
Maybe they will have a date with Satan at some point, or they might go on to act in a very popular TV series. By the way, most Christians don’t actually believe the big snatch will ever happen. 9. God was sometimes really wrathful; you certainly didn’t want to get on the wrong side of
God. In Genesis 3:14, God has some stern words with Satan, saying, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.” 8. You should know that you shouldn’t make deals with Satan because whatever he gives,
He’ll take back double. He once offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, but in the small print, there was a proviso stating that in return Jesus had to worship Satan. Jesus’ response to this offer was, “Away from me, Satan!” 7.
You’ve heard of the Seven Deadly Sins, but did you know some people say behind each one is a demon who can tempt you into committing that sin. The sins are: Pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. Satan himself is behind wrath. A prince of hell named Belphegor is the gluttony guy.
He tries to convince folks to get really rich, which we all know in the real world gluttony has its fair share of problems. 6. What do you think is the most committed sin by men? Greed? Sloth? Nah, it’s lust, according to some research we read.
Think about how often every day you have a sexual thought… for women that sin was pride. 5. Speaking of sexual thoughts, there are demons called Incubi and succubi. The former is a demon in male form that makes love to women in their sleep and the latter
Does the same but she is female and chooses sleeping men. Such stories were around a long time before Christ appeared on the scene, so they are not only Christian stories. In the past, these demons were sometimes accused of messing with a man’s health, while women were said to sometimes be impregnated by them.
Maybe demons weren’t the problem… Now for something very real. 4. There is a book called “The Devil’s Bible” that was written by a monk over a period of decades in the 13th century. It’s quite the tome, too, weighing in at 165 pounds (75kg).
Some people believe the devil himself was behind the book, but most folks think that the writer just had a lot of time on his hands. If you wrote all day every day the book would take about 20 years to finish. It got the name Devil’s Bible because of an illustration on page 290.
The legend behind the book says that a monk had broken his vows and faced being walled up alive. His other option was to agree to write a book that contained all human knowledge. That wasn’t going to be easy, but what’s a monk gonna do.
He tried writing the book, but it was too hard, so the story goes that he asked Lucifer for help in exchange for his soul. All he had to do was feature that picture of the devil. 3. Ok, so how would you contact the devil if you wanted to do a deal with him?
He’s obviously a busy demon, and you can bet he has a lot of requests. We looked online for, “How to contact Satan”, but there are no clear guidelines. There are a bunch of rituals you can find online that tell you how to summon demons, which usually involve evocation spells.
There is a new book out there containing such spells, although the International Association of Exorcists condemned it saying it was like putting a grenade in people’s hands. It’s aimed at kids, too, telling them if they have too much homework or life aint going
So well, they might want to draw some lines on the floor and “dial up some demons.” 2. The good news is that after looking at a bunch of Christian websites not one agreed that the devil can read your thoughts. Satan, unlike God, is not omniscient.
Nowhere in the bible does it say the devil can plant things in your head. Watch out though, because this is in the bible: “Brothers and sisters, be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.”
An interpretation of this could be that the devil is always there, just waiting for you to show some weakness. When he sees you are weak, he can somehow use his trickery to create circumstances around you that will tempt you to sin.
He also has a network of demons doing such bad work, demons that must have been busy during all those Catholic Church abuse scandals. 1. So, what is the fate of Satan? Can’t we just get rid of him?
According to the Book of Revelation, at some point Satan will be forced to hang up his gloves. This is what’s written about his forced retirement. “And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.
They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Amen. Now you should watch this, “50 Insane Cold War Facts That Will Shock You!” or, have a look at this, “50 Insane Facts About Vietnam War You Didn’t Know.”
– Back in the ’80s and early ’90s, a wave of troubling accusations swept across North America. – New and intense scrutiny on the activities of Satanic cults. – [Reporter] Stories of devil worship and Satanic cults corrupting young minds– – Unbelievable crime at the hands of Satanic cults.
– There were terrifying tales of secret Satanic cults bent on tormenting and corrupting the young. Heavy metal music had hidden Satanic messages. – Possibly Satanic messages on some rock music recordings. – Games like Dungeons and Dragons were luring kids to devil worship, and it got even stranger.
– The allegations of physical and sexual abuse of children at a babysitting service. – The dark world of ritualistic child abuse. – [Reporter] There’s a widely held opinion that what happened at the daycare was the devil’s handiwork. – Underground networks of Satanists were infiltrating daycares and preschools
To physical and sexually abuse children in occult rituals. Much of what fueled the panic was not real, but these claims led to a wave of high-profile criminal trials in the US, Canada, and beyond. The cases often followed a similar pattern, an initial report of physical or sexual abuse at a daycare would snowball, taking on a life of its own. Overzealous interveners, everyone from parents to police to counselors would question children, some as young as two years old, in ways now known to produce false allegations.
Children began to talk about animal sacrifices, blood rituals, secret tunnels, even cannibalism. Police would lay charges, prosecutors would take them to court, and the media would report uncritically on what seemed to be a growing threat. – [Reporter] Authorities searched frantically for evidence of an apparent ritual abuse epidemic across North America.
– Some cases would fall apart at trial or during appeal. Others resulted in wrongful convictions. Many of the accused spent years in prison, while others faced financial ruin and damaged reputations. As it turns out, the Satanic Panic may have its origins in Canada. When asked about the spark that set off the hellfire,
Many experts point to this book, “Michelle Remembers”, published in 1980, written by Canadian Psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder, and his former patient Michelle Smith. The book provided a template for the allegations of Satanic ritual abuse that followed. Pazder claimed he helped Smith recover repressed memories from her early childhood of a terrifying initiation
Into a secret cabal of Satanists operating near Victoria, British Columbia. – They would put me in cages. They would sacrifice animals. They would have a lot of candles, and chanting, and bizarre things I had never seen. – Did people think this was a fantasy? That you made this all up?
It was such hocus pocus that it couldn’t possibly have happened? – Well, I was one of the first to stand up and start to recount these kinds of things to bring it publicly. – There was no evidence or witnesses to Smith’s account, yet Pazder presented the book as a true story.
– The hard evidence is difficult to find, because if a child is sacrificed, that child’s body isn’t gonna be left. If it’s an Orthodox Satanic cult they’re going to burn the body and they’re going to eat it during ceremony so they’ll leave no evidence around.
– “Michelle Remembers” is also one of the first books to suggest that underground Satanic networks were not only real, but were infiltrating communities in and organized effort. Anyone could be a Satanist, your nextdoor neighbor, your dentist, or your daycare provider. It was an idea that stuck with many readers.
– The book is called “Michelle Remembers”. – The book became an overnight sensation, and Pazder and Smith received a lucrative publishing deal, about $1.2 million in today’s dollars. It also established Pazder as a sought-after expert on the burgeoning phenomenon of ritual abuse, a term he coined himself.
There was even talk of a movie deal with Dustin Hoffman playing Pazder. For the McMartin Pre-School trial in Manhattan Beach, California where seven daycare workers were accused of ritually abusing children, Pazder was flown down to be an expert consultant in Satanic cults for the prosecution. In another ritual abuse case in Bakersfield, California,
“Michelle Remembers” was used as training material by social workers who believed they had uncovered an extensive Satanic pedophile ring. Specialists in Satanic ideology were suddenly in high demand as more and more ritual abuse cases went to trial. In Austin, Texas, another self-styled Satanic cult expert was used to secure the convictions
Of daycare owners Dan and Fran Keller, who spent decades in prison before being exonerated. It became increasingly common to see ritual crime training seminars led by psychologists, church groups, and even the police. This is former FBI agent Ken Lanning, who studied the spread of the panic in the ’80s.
– [Ken] All the people network with each other, and they’d all get together and goes to seminars and discussions, and they’d be told, “This is what Satanists do and this is how they do it.” And so all that is planted through the use of these kinds of techniques, hypnosis and other ways,
That cause the spread of this kind of stuff. So many people say, “Well, you can’t identify these cases “unless you’ve been trained to learn about them.” And some of that training becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. – The commercial success of “Michelle Remembers” inspired dozens of copy-cat memoirs, which further amplified the perception
That Satanic ritual abuse was widespread, but there was never any evidence of a Satanic conspiracy. In 1994, a psychologist from the University of California researched over 12,000 accusations of ritual abuse, but found no substantiated reports of organzied Satanic groups who sexually abused children. In later years, as the panic died down,
Pazder tried to distance himself from the claims he made in “Michelle Remembers”. – I’m not there to believe or not believe, I’m there to try and understand what they’re trying to tell me of an experience. Whether that has actually happened to them or that is their way of trying to express
A profound pain that they’ve experienced. – But neither he nor Smith ever publicly renounced the book’s allegations. This strange period of moral hysteria serves as a reminder of what can happen when we abandon the pursuit of facts for a more sensational fiction. The question is have we learned our lesson?
I’m Lisa Bryn Rundle, host of “Uncover Satanic Panic”. You can listen to the series now on the CBC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts. – Is there a well-organized plot, an insidious design right now to program and influence the minds of our children towards the occult and witchcraft?
