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Speaker 1: If you have your own story of being in a

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Speaker 1: cult or a high control group.

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Speaker 2: Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abusive power

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Speaker 2: that you'd like to share.

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Speaker 1: Leave us a message on our hotline number at three

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Speaker 1: four seven eight six trust.

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Speaker 2: That's three four seven eight six eight seven eight seven eight.

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Speaker 1: Or shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.

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Speaker 2: Trust me, trust for trust me.

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Speaker 1: I'm like a swat person.

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Speaker 2: I've never lived to you, and we never have a live.

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Speaker 2: If you think that one person has all the answers, don't.

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Speaker 1: Hello.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to trust Me, the podcast about cults, extreme belief

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Speaker 2: and manipulation from two Sweet Birthday babies who've actually experienced it.

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Speaker 2: I've low blank the real sweet birthday baby.

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Speaker 1: And I'm Megan Elizabeth. Happy birthday, Lola.

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Speaker 2: Thank you. By the time this comes out, my birthday

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Speaker 2: will happen yesterday, but on the day of recording it

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Speaker 2: is today, and I am thirty five, and it's fucking weird.

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Speaker 3: It's weird right, well, Welcome. It's a crazy age.

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Speaker 2: I used to think that adults who said that they've

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Speaker 2: still felt like teenagers were dorks.

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Speaker 3: Such dorks.

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Speaker 2: I was like, why no, you don't like stop talking old.

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Speaker 2: I know, and now I'm like, no, but I really do.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think if you don't have kids, you

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Speaker 1: kind of don't change a lot or like anything deep traumatic.

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Speaker 1: One of my best friends is a twenty four year

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Speaker 1: old boy. I'm like, how is this possible?

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Speaker 2: I mean, one of my best friends is in her

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Speaker 2: mid twenties too. It doesn't feel like there's a difference

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Speaker 2: between us. I feel right, you know.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that's just my theory or maybe I'm

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Speaker 1: just really immature, but uh, it's strue.

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Speaker 2: I do think having kids changes. I do think that

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Speaker 2: makes people grow up in a different way. And I'm like,

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Speaker 2: I'm still here in La Yeah, I make the baby exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's crazy. Today our guest is Asia Romano. I guess

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Speaker 2: we should have said that culture writer at Vox, who

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Speaker 2: has written on online extremism and moral panics, among many

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Speaker 2: many other things. They are going to tell us about

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Speaker 2: their own experience with the Culti Church, which led them

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Speaker 2: to become interested in how similar culty dynamics exist throughout

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Speaker 2: our culture, and how those experiences were the origin of

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Speaker 2: their interest in moral panics, which is why we brought

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Speaker 2: them here today to dive into the Satanic Panic, our

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Speaker 2: favorite topic.

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Speaker 1: I just realized that Satanic panic kind of rhymes, which makes.

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Speaker 2: It one of our the rhyme as reason effect.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, brilliant guys, good job.

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Speaker 1: They'll walk us through the origins of the modern Satanic Panic,

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Speaker 1: how it ramped up with films like The Exorcis, and

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Speaker 1: how debunked books like Satan's Cellar and Michelle Remembers helped

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Speaker 1: create a cultural phenomenon of people believing they had recovered

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Speaker 1: memories of Satanic ritual abuse, something we now know is

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Speaker 1: not a thing, which led to the imprisonment of numerous

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Speaker 1: people for crimes they didn't commit.

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Speaker 2: Yikes, some of whom are still in jail, which is frickin' horrible.

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Speaker 2: Plus how this is all tied to fear of the

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Speaker 2: queer community, How these ideas persist today in the form

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Speaker 2: of QAnon and a number of other panics, and whether

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Speaker 2: art is at risk. Before we dive in, Megan, tell

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Speaker 2: me what's your goal, de yous thing? Is it my birthday?

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Speaker 3: Is it me?

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Speaker 4: Is it?

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Speaker 3: I think it's you. I think it's your birthday.

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Speaker 1: And then my second one, just in case we need

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Speaker 1: another one. I was looking into the satanic panic and

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Speaker 1: why it seemed to come back with such a bizarre roar,

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Speaker 1: and I realized it was really Obama and giving gay

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Speaker 1: people the right to marry. So basically I was reading this,

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Speaker 1: you know, uh preacher speaking about how Obama is the Antichrist,

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Speaker 1: and he was saying, if you read Daniel seven twenty five,

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Speaker 1: the Antichrist will seek to change God's most basic moral laws,

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Speaker 1: and he will do this without any opposition, at least

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Speaker 1: in the beginning.

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Speaker 3: So people really jumped on.

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Speaker 1: That as him trying to get gay marriage legalized, and

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Speaker 1: that was the reason he was thought of as the

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Speaker 1: anti Christ. And I feel like that brought up a

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Speaker 1: lot of these satanic fe in what culture.

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Speaker 2: Again, what was the verse? I want to just read it.

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Speaker 1: With Daniel seven twenty five. He will seek to change

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Speaker 1: God's most basic moral laws, and he will do so

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Speaker 1: without any opposition, at least in the beginning.

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Speaker 2: That is incredibly fascinating and we'll talk about that in

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Speaker 2: the interview. But yeah, that that is a really good point.

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Speaker 2: It's like, I mean, historically, whenever there's a great change,

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Speaker 2: there's a great backlash to it, and it causes a

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Speaker 2: lot of fear because humans don't like change, our brains

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Speaker 2: are resistant to it. It makes us uncomfortable, and you know,

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Speaker 2: especially if your foundation of belief is this sort of

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Speaker 2: extreme religious Yeah, it makes sense approach. Yeah, it makes

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Speaker 2: sense that that would be your response. It's the wrong response,

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Speaker 2: but I understand how it's happened and has continued to

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Speaker 2: get worse and worse, and we will dive all all

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Speaker 2: into it. But yeah, yeah, I mean my actually, Michael

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Speaker 2: D's thing is also pertaining to the subject we're talking

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Speaker 2: about today, which is just this idea of recovered memory,

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Speaker 2: and we've talked about it a bit on the podcast,

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Speaker 2: but I just you know, you kind of mentioned that

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Speaker 2: we should maybe talk about it again because it's been

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Speaker 2: a while and not everyone has listened to every episode,

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Speaker 2: which I am appalled if you haven't. But Lucian Greeves

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Speaker 2: from the Satanic Temple, not to be confused with the

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Speaker 2: Church of Satan, they are different. The Satanic Temple does

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Speaker 2: great work, great work for women's rights and helping women

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Speaker 2: get abortions. But Lucian Greaves spoke a lot about this

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Speaker 2: like idea of recovered memory and Satanic ritual abuse and

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Speaker 2: how it is not gone. And actually I don't remember

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Speaker 2: if I talked about this before. I don't want to

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Speaker 2: put anyone on blast, but a mental health professional that

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Speaker 2: I had spoken to tried to refer me to a

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Speaker 2: woman who's associated with that same network of people that

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Speaker 2: do recovered memory. And I didn't have the heart to

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Speaker 2: tell him because he's kind of old. I didn't have

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Speaker 2: the heart to tell him that his friend is a quack. Shit.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I probably should at some point, but so you guys,

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Speaker 2: if you don't know what this means. So there is

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Speaker 2: such thing as like spontaneous recalling of memories where you're like,

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Speaker 2: oh my god, I completely forgot about that thing. And

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Speaker 2: there is such thing as you know, if you have

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Speaker 2: a very severe trauma, you might dissociate parts of the experience,

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Speaker 2: but generally speaking, you will remember them spontaneously or when

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Speaker 2: you remember them, you're like, oh my god, I forgot

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Speaker 2: about that. It's not like I have uncovered this like

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Speaker 2: network of abusive people and this like these like years

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Speaker 2: of abuse that I experienced that I.

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Speaker 5: Had no idea existed.

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Speaker 2: That typically occurs when it's being led by a therapist

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Speaker 2: who's maybe asking leading questions and there are a number

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Speaker 2: of therapists who are this very very irresponsibly doing this

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Speaker 2: thinking it is a genuine therapeutic practice. But it is

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Speaker 2: interesting because you will notice their patients repeatedly are having

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Speaker 2: these similar childhood experiences that they're talking about because they're

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Speaker 2: all being led by the same person.

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Speaker 3: It's interesting.

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Speaker 1: My mom and her twin sister do not remember a

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Speaker 1: thing about their childhood, not a single thing, like who

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Speaker 1: is your third grade teacher?

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Speaker 3: We don't know who was this, We don't know.

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Speaker 1: So maybe if they went to really intensive therapy they

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Speaker 1: would start to remember. I don't know how it all works,

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Speaker 1: but I completely agree with you people. It's not a

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Speaker 1: normal thing to suddenly uncover this network of very conspiracy

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Speaker 1: like things that one therapist is telling many people is

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Speaker 1: probably true about their childhoods.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean there's no evidence for it.

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Speaker 2: That's the thing, Like, regardless of what we think, the

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Speaker 2: scientific community is very much on board with everything that

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Speaker 2: happened in that era recovering memories of Satanic contual abews

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Speaker 2: had no evidence. Yeah, it was completely debunked. This is

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Speaker 2: not a thing. And now I'm guessing we will see

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Speaker 2: a resurgence of this. Yeah, It's a tricky area to

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Speaker 2: really talk about because memory is so subjective malleable. Well

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Speaker 2: it's subjective, but it's malleable. And as we talked about

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Speaker 2: two episodes ago, I mean, every time we remember something,

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Speaker 2: we are reinterpreting it. It's not files in our brain

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Speaker 2: that we're pulling out and we're just looking at it.

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Speaker 2: We are reinterpreting them every time we look at it,

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Speaker 2: which is why EMDR is so effective, because we're changing

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Speaker 2: our relationship to our memories and like neutralizing the pain

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Speaker 2: of them, which is a constructive approach to looking at

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Speaker 2: old memories because we're doing it knowing exactly what we're

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Speaker 2: getting into. But chances are if it involves being sewn

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Speaker 2: into a human corpse looking at you till swap, or

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Speaker 2: if it involves like cabal of people around a fire,

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Speaker 2: probably didn't actually happen. Yeah, we should have someone on

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Speaker 2: who is an actual memory expert in this particular area,

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Speaker 2: and this is their focus and their specialty because it

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Speaker 2: is so interesting. We could talk about it for hours.

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Speaker 2: That is all just to preface how we talk about

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Speaker 2: recovered memory later, because all of these allegations came from

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Speaker 2: recovered memory that had no physical evidence. No, they weren't

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Speaker 2: corroborated in any way, and it was just strictly the

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Speaker 2: witness memory that was essentially pulled out of them by

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Speaker 2: the people who were doing the investigation. That's why it's dangerous. Yep,

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Speaker 2: all right, let's get into it.

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Speaker 3: Let's talk to Asia.

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Speaker 2: This show is sponsored by Betterhelp.

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Speaker 1: The holidays can be very exciting, but they can also

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Speaker 1: be challenging for some of us, and having someone to

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Speaker 1: talk to about how you're feeling can truly make all

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Speaker 1: the difference.

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Speaker 2: So give a gift to yourself this holiday season with

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Speaker 2: Better Help.

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Speaker 5: Megan, have you been to therapy?

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Speaker 1: But I have, and it is the most excellent thing

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Speaker 1: I've ever done for myself. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

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Speaker 1: Getting somebody else's unbiased opinion is the best thing you

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Speaker 1: can do for yourself, especially around the holidays.

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Speaker 2: There was a time in my life where I would

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Speaker 2: journal and I'd be like, I don't need therapy. I've

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Speaker 2: got this covered. And then I went to therapy and

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Speaker 2: I was like, turns out I didn't have it covered.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I'd always be like, I can talk to my

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Speaker 1: friends about anything.

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Speaker 3: Turns out the.

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Speaker 2: Fashial therapist a professional is a little bit better, very

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Speaker 2: much so. As the world's largest therapy service, betterhelp has

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Speaker 2: matched three million people with professionally licensed and vetted therapists

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Speaker 2: one hundred percent online, Plus it's affordable.

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Speaker 1: Just fill out a brief questionnaire to match with a therapist.

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Speaker 1: If things aren't clicking, you can easily switch to a

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Speaker 1: new therapist anytime.

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Speaker 3: It couldn't be simpler.

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Speaker 2: No waiting rooms, no traffic, no endless searching for the

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Speaker 2: right therapist.

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Speaker 1: Learn more and save ten percent off your first month

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Speaker 1: at betterhelp dot com slash trust.

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Speaker 2: That's better help h e LP dot com slash Trust.

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Speaker 2: Welcome Asia Romano to trust me. Thank you for joining.

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Speaker 4: Us, Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 2: So I bound you because I was looking up the

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Speaker 2: Satanic Panic. We really wanted to do a Satanic Panic episode,

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Speaker 2: and you did this amazing explainer for Vox, And then

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Speaker 2: I started looking at all your other articles and I

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Speaker 2: love them.

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Speaker 5: I'm like, OK, you're.

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Speaker 3: A fan girl. All for other articles.

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Speaker 2: I was sending my Yeah, I was sending Megan articles.

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Speaker 2: I loved your take on in or Heard and the movies.

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Speaker 2: How horror movies this year, for some reason, are villainizing

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Speaker 2: old people and I'm very excited to talk to you today.

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Speaker 2: You mentioned in an email to us that part of

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Speaker 2: the reason for your interest in sort of extreme belief

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Speaker 2: for extreme thinking was that you yourself had a kind

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Speaker 2: of run in with a cultic group.

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Speaker 5: Can you tell us about that?

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Speaker 4: Sure? Yeah.

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Speaker 6: So I went to college at Indiana University. It's known

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Speaker 6: for Indiana Basketball, but it's also a huge campus, but

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Speaker 6: kind of like very all the stuff is mainly in

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Speaker 6: the center of the campus, so it's really possible to

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Speaker 6: kind of have a small campus feel even though it's

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Speaker 6: a giant population.

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Speaker 4: The sophomore year that I was.

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Speaker 6: There, I was at the music school, which is kind

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Speaker 6: of isolated by itself, like a conservatory environment almost, and

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Speaker 6: one of my friends had gotten into.

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Speaker 4: This cult that was on campus. Kind of happened only

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Speaker 4: all over campus.

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Speaker 6: This was kind of at the peak era of the cult.

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Speaker 6: It was the International Church of Christ or the Boston

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Speaker 6: Churches of Christ, which I don't know if you guys

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Speaker 6: are familiar with that one. It's charismatic leader was a

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Speaker 6: guy named Kit McKean who had kind of fallen out

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Speaker 6: with the mainstream Church of Christ's movement and it kind

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Speaker 6: of formed his own ideas and his own kind of

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Speaker 6: branch off of the inner of the Churches of Christ,

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Speaker 6: the one that you're familiar with, and it kind of

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Speaker 6: because it was sort of like a branch off of

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Speaker 6: a denomination, it kind of took a while, I think,

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Speaker 6: almost like a decade or more for people to really

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Speaker 6: kind of recognize that it was a cult and for

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Speaker 6: the mainstream Church of Christ to kind of officially distance

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Speaker 6: itself from it. So during that decade, it was really

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Speaker 6: kind of recruiting heavily at college campuses across the country,

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Speaker 6: especially in Indiana for some reason. And so I kind

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Speaker 6: of walked right into it before I was still I

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Speaker 6: was a member of my evangelical church. I was raised

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Speaker 6: Southern Baptist. I'd consider myself an atheist now, but at

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Speaker 6: the time I was still very still religious, and I

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Speaker 6: had made a couple of days before I started school

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Speaker 6: my sophomore year, I had been thinking, oh, well, I

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Speaker 6: really kind of want to get back into going to

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Speaker 6: church again, so maybe someone will invite me to church.

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Speaker 6: And then like the day I was back on campus.

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Speaker 6: The next day, my friend who was in the music

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Speaker 6: school with me, was like, Hey, come to church with me.

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Speaker 6: I was like, sure, So I went to church and

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Speaker 6: I went to her worship service and was just immediately

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Speaker 6: weirded out, like immediately, like the moment I walked in

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Speaker 6: the door, like they were doing love bombing, they were

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Speaker 6: doing very aggressive like I just got the weirdest feeling

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Speaker 6: the moment I walked.

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Speaker 4: In the door.

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Speaker 6: It was so strange, and I could kind of tell

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Speaker 6: from the way that they were talking about the Bible

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Speaker 6: and the way they were talking about like what you

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Speaker 6: were supposed to do to be a member and a

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Speaker 6: good standing of the church, that it wasn't that something

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Speaker 6: wasn't right. And I just had all kinds of red

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Speaker 6: flags going up and I couldn't really even put my

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Speaker 6: finger on water. But after the service, the leader came

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Speaker 6: over to talk to me, and I asked him a

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Speaker 6: question about theology, because that's what you do when you're

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Speaker 6: a sophomore in comfege, like I know the Bible, and

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Speaker 6: he got really aggressive with me, and his answer like perfect.

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Speaker 4: From my understanding.

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Speaker 6: I'm not experted by any means, but my understanding in

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Speaker 6: my experience of watching them is at the International Church

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Speaker 6: of Christ then and now is very aggressive in promoting

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Speaker 6: the idea that its actions make you worthy of being

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Speaker 6: saved and going to heaven that and they were really

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Speaker 6: aggressively pushing this idea that you had to basically be

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Speaker 6: working for the church at all times. Just my basic

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Speaker 6: question to him that day was, well, what about you

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Speaker 6: know Ephesians. I think it's what two eight that says

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Speaker 6: by faith? Are you saved through grace not by work?

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Speaker 6: So that no man can boast?

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Speaker 4: And he got so mad at me.

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Speaker 6: Wow, Like his face changed, he got red in the face,

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Speaker 6: and he just started not yelling at me, but very

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Speaker 6: very close to like aggressively like getting hostile with me.

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Speaker 6: And from that moment I was like an enemy of

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Speaker 6: this local campus cluster of the international Church. Most of

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Speaker 6: my sophomore year was just sort of kind of almost

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Speaker 6: inadvertently taken up with telling people to stay away from

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Speaker 6: this cult.

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Speaker 4: And one of my friends.

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Speaker 6: Had actually been recruited by them. She lived on my

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Speaker 6: floor of my dorm with me, and she had gotten

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Speaker 6: so far through the recruiting process that she was about

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Speaker 6: to go to a weekend retreat with them until we

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Speaker 6: were on the bus one day and we started chatting

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Speaker 6: and she started telling me about her new church group,

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Speaker 6: and again the red flag started going up and I said, don't,

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Speaker 6: it's a cult, and she just you could just sort

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Speaker 6: of like immediately see like the realization dawn in her

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Speaker 6: when I said it's a cult.

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Speaker 3: Ah, how lucky that she ran into you.

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Speaker 6: Literally like she was going to go the next day

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Speaker 6: and I found her and ran made to her the

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Speaker 6: day before and it was just really there were a

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Speaker 6: lot of surreal moments like that, and I almost kind

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Speaker 6: of in a way became like.

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Speaker 4: A front of me, like they see me on the

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Speaker 4: around campus and say hi to me.

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Speaker 6: I don't know, like we had this really strange relationship

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Speaker 6: by the end, And in the end, I think I

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Speaker 6: just sort of moved on, and I think the cult

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Speaker 6: itself kind of lost a little bit of power overall,

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Speaker 6: just nationally, because, as I said, the Official Church of

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Speaker 6: Christ eventually kind of distanced itself from Kit McKean, and

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Speaker 6: he was sort of deposed from the movement because there

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Speaker 6: were concerns about how culture it was getting. But then

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Speaker 6: he went and sort of rebranded essentially and rebranded the

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Speaker 6: International Church of Christ. And I just googled it right

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Speaker 6: before coming to talk to you guys, and there's an

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Speaker 6: article in the New Zealand Herald from this year about

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Speaker 6: about this cult lobbit. Yeah, so there's still at it.

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Speaker 2: Wow, according to those Wikipedia quote, our favorite accurate source.

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Speaker 2: It's furthermore, at least thirty nine institutions, including Harvard and

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Speaker 2: Georgia State, had outlawed the organization at one time or

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Speaker 2: another for violating rules against door to door recruit or harassment.

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Speaker 2: Somehow we've it's never come up, I don't think on

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Speaker 2: the show.

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Speaker 1: Oddly, I just spoke to somebody at a party last

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Speaker 1: weekend who was raised in it.

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Speaker 2: Really, Yeah, I know that is.

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Speaker 4: Such a coincidence.

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Speaker 3: It's very strange.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a weird little concentences with that.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I would love to learn more about it.

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Speaker 1: It sounds very very aggressive.

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Speaker 6: They didn't really do this to me, but there were

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Speaker 6: people I knew that said that they had left the

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Speaker 6: group after kind of realizing how toxic it was, and

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Speaker 6: they had more like direct harassment. Like one guy told

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Speaker 6: me that he was pretty sure that they'd broke it

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Speaker 6: into his dorm room.

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Speaker 5: My god, Oh.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, like stuff like that.

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Speaker 5: Okay, well that.

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Speaker 3: Later, I know, glad to be the one to tell you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for raiously, So this experience with this group. I mean,

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Speaker 2: did this sort of generate an interest in you in

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Speaker 2: extreme religions, like tell us about that? Yeah.

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Speaker 6: Well, at the same time, another one of my friends,

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Speaker 6: there was a strange year for me religion wise in

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Speaker 6: general world, because I think when you are brought up evangelical.

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Speaker 6: I'm sure you guys have heard many people say this.

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Speaker 6: You know, you're raised with a certain set of really

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Speaker 6: entrenched beliefs, and a lot of times when you go

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Speaker 6: out into the world, you know a lot of those

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Speaker 6: beliefs get challenged, and so you're constantly questioning, you know,

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Speaker 6: what do I believe versus what.

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Speaker 4: Have I been taught right my whole life.

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Speaker 6: It was really interesting to me at the time is

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Speaker 6: that I was also casually getting involved with the campus

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Speaker 6: car Safe for Christ, and I spent most of that

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Speaker 6: year kind of, you know, exploring, trying to figure out

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Speaker 6: where I was religious wise, and it was really interesting

387
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Speaker 6: to be battling this cult that was like an obvious cult,

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Speaker 6: but then to also kind of be investing in this other,

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Speaker 6: much larger and much more widely sanctioned and legitimately mainstream

390
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Speaker 6: organization that was in many ways every bit is coll

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Speaker 6: like right, and in ways that I didn't quite want

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Speaker 6: to accept until I was near to the end of

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Speaker 6: the semester and I kind of saw like how the

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Speaker 6: kind of brainwashing worked, and like the rhetoric worked of

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Speaker 6: like especially an organization like Campus Crusade for christ. I

396
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Speaker 6: don't know if you guys are familiar with it, but

397
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Speaker 6: it is also very action focused to like it's very

398
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Speaker 6: much like you have to go on missions, you have

399
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Speaker 6: to raise money to fund your mission, and you have

400
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Speaker 6: to basically just pray that money will fall into your

401
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Speaker 6: lap and that then you will get this money cheap.

402
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Speaker 6: The organization and God will be glorified. Like it's it's

403
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Speaker 6: very very cult like in the way that it drives

404
00:19:24,840 --> 00:19:29,119
Speaker 6: people to focus on results driven ministry, if that makes sense.

405
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Speaker 6: And I was sort of watching all this and sort

406
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Speaker 6: of realizing this and grappling with this structure kind of

407
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Speaker 6: playing out in my friendships with people in that group,

408
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Speaker 6: and until I finally kind of realized. I was having

409
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Speaker 6: lunch with a friend one day and a friend was

410
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Speaker 6: listening to me talk about both groups at once, and

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Speaker 6: she just sort of brutally said, it sounds like they're

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Speaker 6: both cults. And honestly, at the time, I was really

413
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Speaker 6: like what, no, Like this is a legitimate organization. But

414
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Speaker 6: then I went away and thought about it, and I

415
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Speaker 6: realized that she was right.

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Speaker 2: So, you know, do you remember Gloria Jackson Nefertiiti. We

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Speaker 2: had her on once. She was on the Spectrum and

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Speaker 2: she was with Campus Crusade for Christ.

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Speaker 6: And I think that was kind of the thing the

420
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Speaker 6: kernel of my interest, like realizing that these two things

421
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Speaker 6: that seemed very different on the surface were actually very

422
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Speaker 6: similar in terms of their structure and in terms of

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Speaker 6: how they rehiffied certain dynamics, you know, certain power dynamics especially,

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Speaker 6: And because I lived through both of those experiences at once,

425
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Speaker 6: I think I sort of kept comparing everything else that

426
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Speaker 6: I ever saw to those two types of extremes and

427
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Speaker 6: how they were sort of one was very obviously like

428
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Speaker 6: out in overt and one was much more like beneath

429
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Speaker 6: the surface. And I became way more interested in the

430
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Speaker 6: one that was beneath the surface and trying to like

431
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Speaker 6: unpack it, so that I personally never fell for that again,

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Speaker 6: you know, And I think that that's really why. And

433
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Speaker 6: now I've kind of come to the point where I

434
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Speaker 6: see everything as a cult, Like like I honestly, like

435
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Speaker 6: if it's a Silicon Valley startup, I'm like, that's a cult.

436
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Speaker 4: It will reveal itself.

437
00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:01,240
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, yeah.

438
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Speaker 2: Totally viewing this like current conspiracy theory landscape that we're

439
00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:10,120
Speaker 2: in through that lens of like fundamentalist Christianity, I forget

440
00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:13,480
Speaker 2: that they are like so inextricably linked because you don't

441
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Speaker 2: necessarily always hear them talking about God when they're talking

442
00:21:16,840 --> 00:21:19,920
Speaker 2: about conspiracy theories, but you've written about this a lot.

443
00:21:19,960 --> 00:21:26,240
Speaker 2: They're sort of fundamentally connected to this fundamentalist Christianity history, right.

444
00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:28,439
Speaker 6: A lot of how they real people in is like

445
00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:31,160
Speaker 6: not really telling you what the real agenda is right

446
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:34,800
Speaker 6: until you're until you're in, until you've gotten hooked on

447
00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:37,960
Speaker 6: whatever the rhetoric they're feeding you is. And then it's

448
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:39,800
Speaker 6: kind of like scientology, like they don't tell you that

449
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:42,360
Speaker 6: there are aliens until you've like you've sunk so much

450
00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,439
Speaker 6: into the group that you can't back out.

451
00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:48,639
Speaker 2: From the creators of doctor death scamfluencers and over My

452
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Speaker 2: Dead Body. Wondery goes deeper into complex true crime stories

453
00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:53,960
Speaker 2: to give you an inside look at the facts, and

454
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Speaker 2: now Wondery is launching the ultimate true crime fan destination

455
00:21:57,440 --> 00:21:58,000
Speaker 2: Exhibit CE.

456
00:21:58,320 --> 00:21:59,840
Speaker 5: It's truly criminal.

457
00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:03,320
Speaker 1: Deep into the most devious scams, manipulative cults, and the

458
00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:07,040
Speaker 1: coldest of cases. Wondery's Exhibit C lets you view all

459
00:22:07,080 --> 00:22:09,879
Speaker 1: the evidence through a detective's lens, taking you step by

460
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:13,280
Speaker 1: step through the twists and turns of each true crime case.

461
00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:17,320
Speaker 2: Join the Exhibit C online community to access exclusive show merchandise,

462
00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:20,080
Speaker 2: member only content, and to hear directly from top criminal

463
00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:23,200
Speaker 2: and social justice experts, witnesses, and investigators as they take

464
00:22:23,280 --> 00:22:25,440
Speaker 2: us beyond the evidence and into the case file.

465
00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:28,119
Speaker 1: I love this podcast because I feel like it brings

466
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:31,359
Speaker 1: me a layer deeper into the cases that I'm interested about.

467
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:33,320
Speaker 2: I love the idea of going through all these stories

468
00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:36,560
Speaker 2: through the lens of the detective because as someone who

469
00:22:36,760 --> 00:22:39,160
Speaker 2: wanted to be a detective when I was a teenager

470
00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:42,640
Speaker 2: and took steps toward becoming a detective until I decided

471
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:44,800
Speaker 2: to be a singer, I'm so fascinated by all the

472
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:47,520
Speaker 2: ins and outs of cases and how you pick apart

473
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:50,399
Speaker 2: the evidence. Join now by following Wondery Exhibit C on

474
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:52,760
Speaker 2: Facebook or find us on the web at wonderyexhibits c

475
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:55,399
Speaker 2: dot com and listen to true crime podcasts on Wondery

476
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:56,920
Speaker 2: and Amazon Music Exhibit C.

477
00:22:57,200 --> 00:23:01,719
Speaker 5: It's truly criminal. Start us at the beginning.

478
00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:04,280
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously moral panic has been going on since

479
00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:07,399
Speaker 2: the beginning of time, but start us at the modern

480
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:10,040
Speaker 2: American history beginning of the satanic panic.

481
00:23:10,119 --> 00:23:11,320
Speaker 5: Tell us how that kind of began.

482
00:23:11,840 --> 00:23:15,399
Speaker 6: Sure, sure, so if you recall the sixties or not

483
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:17,440
Speaker 6: that you can recall the sixties, but if you think

484
00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:20,640
Speaker 6: about like where we were after World the World War,

485
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:23,440
Speaker 6: you know, you had this kind of push into from

486
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:27,879
Speaker 6: the fifties and McCarthyism into the counterculture era, right, you

487
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:31,480
Speaker 6: had this explosion of you know, hippies and drug culture

488
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 6: and sexual freedom right and a lot of things that

489
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 6: really pushed back against the prevailing cultural norms. Within that

490
00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:43,040
Speaker 6: tension between this new era of you know, freedom and

491
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:48,479
Speaker 6: personal individuality and individual expression and this traditional kind of

492
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 6: more regressive cultural politics, you had the emergence of these

493
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 6: kinds of people who really transgressed in ways that seemed

494
00:23:56,359 --> 00:24:00,359
Speaker 6: so profoundly horrific, like the Manson family. I think it's

495
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:04,040
Speaker 6: the biggest and most obvious touchdown here. You know, like

496
00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 6: that was nineteen sixty nine, right, and so you had

497
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 6: the Manson family murders kind of setting the stage for

498
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:14,639
Speaker 6: this idea that this new cultural era was producing something

499
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:18,639
Speaker 6: evil and awful and like profoundly unsettling that sort of

500
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 6: in itself like worked its kind of magic on the

501
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 6: American populace, right, and it kind of laid the stage

502
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:29,480
Speaker 6: or set the groundwork for the emergence of these I

503
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:32,640
Speaker 6: guess you could just call them satanic memoirs, like basically

504
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:36,159
Speaker 6: these faked memoirs that appeared in the seventies and the

505
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:41,479
Speaker 6: early eighties where basically people claimed to be escaped former

506
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:45,159
Speaker 6: members of satanic cults that were doing all kinds of

507
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 6: monstrous things like killing people and enacting sexual abuse upon

508
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:53,400
Speaker 6: babies and then eating them like a bunch of like

509
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 6: horrifically over the top things that they were claiming really

510
00:24:57,280 --> 00:25:01,119
Speaker 6: really happened. Yeah, And these memoirs were best sellers because

511
00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 6: of course they would be. And you also had to think,

512
00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 6: this is the era of the Exorcist, right, So, like

513
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 6: the Exorcist was teaching everybody that Ouiji boards weren't a

514
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 6: party game, they were actually a gateway to the devil. See,

515
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:13,160
Speaker 6: this was just in the air, it was like everywhere,

516
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 6: and so if you had somebody with an air of

517
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 6: authority telling you that, yes, there are cults, there are

518
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:23,640
Speaker 6: satanic cults where unspeakable atrocities are happening and no one

519
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:26,160
Speaker 6: knows about them, but the person next to you could

520
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 6: be in one.

521
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 4: You can see how.

522
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 6: Quickly that spreads and manifests as this fear of anything

523
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:36,360
Speaker 6: that's different, this fear of anything that is too much

524
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 6: a part of the counterculture, just too out there.

525
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:42,479
Speaker 2: Yeah right, quick side note, So, as far as The

526
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 2: Exorcist and the aftermath of the Exorcist, something that I

527
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 2: didn't know until relatively recently was that Linda Blair who

528
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 2: was the one who was possessed in the movie Reagan. Yeah, yeah, Reagan.

529
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 2: She's fourteen years old. After that movie came out, people

530
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:58,400
Speaker 2: thought that she was actually satanic.

531
00:25:58,440 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 5: Yeah, her life was run.

532
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, her life was ruined. Here's a quote from Slash Film.

533
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 2: After Billy Graham's declaration that the film was tainted by

534
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,920
Speaker 2: the influence of the Devil himself, unhinged zealots began sending

535
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 2: the fourteen year old Blair death threats and hate mail,

536
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 2: claiming that she was somehow glorifying Satan due to her

537
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 2: participation in the movie.

538
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:16,040
Speaker 5: The backlash was so.

539
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 2: Severe that it began to pose a threat to her safety,

540
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:19,639
Speaker 2: causing Warner Brothers to hire a bodyguard for her.

541
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 5: Vidults.

542
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 2: She's a freaking teenage actress.

543
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: So it shouldn't have been so good at it.

544
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's awful.

545
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:29,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and it makes sense, Like I get

546
00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 2: how the Manson murders would create this panic. I mean,

547
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 2: if that happened in this era, I think we'd all

548
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 2: be freaking the fuck out. We should be freaking out

549
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 2: more about the mass shootings that are happening. But whatever,

550
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 2: that's his tale for another day. But so, yeah, so

551
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 2: there's this panic in the air. After family driven fifties

552
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 2: where everyone was nice and quiet and no one really

553
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:50,520
Speaker 2: spoke up about the bad things in the world, now

554
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:53,959
Speaker 2: there's this fear driven counter culture era. Tell us about

555
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 2: some of these guys who wrote these books. Do we

556
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 2: know anything about them who claimed that they were farmer safe?

557
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:02,919
Speaker 3: Say, did anybody ever say that didn't really happen? Or

558
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 3: is everybody stuck to the script?

559
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:05,200
Speaker 6: Yeah?

560
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:05,359
Speaker 7: No.

561
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:08,959
Speaker 6: Like, the first really big one was in nineteen seventy two.

562
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,400
Speaker 6: It was this book called Satan Cellar. It was by

563
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 6: this guy who was a self proclaimed Christian evangelist named

564
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 6: Mike Warnkey, because that's also part of it too, like

565
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 6: you have to not only escape the cult, but you

566
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 6: have to like find Jesus right right to kind of really.

567
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 4: Give it that extra boost.

568
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 6: So he basically just made it all up. Like he

569
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 6: said that his whole childhood was spent kind of working

570
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 6: his way through the ranks of this terrible cult, and

571
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 6: that he became eventually like a Satanic high priest, so

572
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 6: like he made himself the super Saiyan of the Satanic cult,

573
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 6: I guess before realizing that it was evil and he

574
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 6: left it or whatever.

575
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 4: But this was ultimately discredited.

576
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 6: I think a journalist finally just investigated all the claims

577
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 6: and found that they were nonsense.

578
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 4: So that was discredited.

579
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:54,760
Speaker 6: And then the next one was kind of the big one.

580
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 6: I think there were some others, but the really big one.

581
00:27:57,040 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 4: So it's this book called Michelle Remembers. Going back to

582
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 4: what I said.

583
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 6: About how like if a person an authority tells you

584
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:04,880
Speaker 6: that this is happening, then it must be true.

585
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 4: Right.

586
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:07,120
Speaker 6: Well, this is a big deal for this book because

587
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 6: it was co authored by a psychologist named Lawrence Pasder,

588
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 6: and in this book, he basically claimed to have kind

589
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:19,680
Speaker 6: of helped this girl named Michelle Smith through recovering her

590
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:22,840
Speaker 6: past memories be a hypnosis, which we now know is

591
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 6: completely not a real science, but he basically helped her

592
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 6: uncover memories of this lifetime of horrific abuse because she

593
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 6: had repressed that she was a member of the Church

594
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 6: of Satan. We're talking about Anton Lavay. I haven't really

595
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 6: talked about him, but like this would be Anton LaVey's

596
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 6: Church of Satan, but like an older, like more arcane

597
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 6: version of the Church of Satan.

598
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 2: So they're saying it's the same church, but it just

599
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 2: goes back much longer than people think.

600
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 5: Okay, interesting, so kind of like the.

601
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 4: Da Vinci Code or whatever of Satan.

602
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 6: She basically claimed all these things, and because it had

603
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 6: that sort of stamp of pseudoscience attached to it, because

604
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 6: there was a legitimate psychologist attaching his name to it,

605
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 6: it made the claims feel much more strongly, or I

606
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 6: guess land much more strongly with the public. But they

607
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 6: were like all the claims were debunked. People who researched

608
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 6: this wound up talking to her family, and the family

609
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 6: was like, we don't know where she's getting this, so like, basically,

610
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 6: it just was not It just never happened. Obviously, the

611
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 6: Internet didn't exist, so the debunking claims could not travel

612
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 6: as fastly as this best selling book could. Right, So

613
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 6: what happened was that very early on in the eighties,

614
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 6: Michelle Remembers started to be used as basically a textbook

615
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 6: for police and other officials who were investigating crimes of

616
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 6: this nature.

617
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 5: No, it makes me so mad. It makes me so bad.

618
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 4: Really, it should make you mad.

619
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 6: I mean, it's horrible, Like I think, one thing we

620
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 6: know if you are a true crime fan, any true

621
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 6: crime fan will tell you that many many, many, many

622
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 6: many many many of the tried and true criminal investigative

623
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 6: technique that we have grown up hearing about all the

624
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 6: time are completely ebull shite, so like, the vast majority

625
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 6: of them are.

626
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:06,959
Speaker 4: Just based on nothing.

627
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:09,719
Speaker 6: And this is one more Like Basically, people were being

628
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 6: handed this book and told to read it and research

629
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 6: it and then go out and research all they could

630
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 6: buy cults. And there was this whole like mini industry

631
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 6: almost of people, you know, teaching law enforcement officials how

632
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 6: to recognize cults and so forth, and how to be

633
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 6: wary of you know, science of Satanic ritual abuse, which

634
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 6: is what became the term for this supposed alleged abuse

635
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 6: of children in Satanic ritual cults.

636
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:39,719
Speaker 2: So who are these people that are peddling this? Do

637
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 2: they have their own churches that they're leading?

638
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 3: Are they?

639
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously Michelle Remembers made them a lot of

640
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 2: money because it was the best seller. But in your

641
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 2: article you wrote about Mike Warnkey, John Todd, Herschel Smith,

642
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 2: and David Hanson, did they have a connection to the

643
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 2: religious right? I mean, was there an underlying like sort

644
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 2: of fundamentalist motivation or is just my I think.

645
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 4: A mix of both.

646
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 6: Like a lot of them were from evangelical churches and

647
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:08,560
Speaker 6: from even more kind of extreme mist wings of evangelical

648
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:10,720
Speaker 6: denominations that would like the kind that would put out

649
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 6: tracks and so forth. Like Jack Chick is one who

650
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 6: was very famous for putting out all types of like

651
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 6: moral panic tracks until he died. He died a couple

652
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 6: of years ago, right, So until he died, he was

653
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 6: putting out these tracks and just handing them out to people,

654
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 6: and they were just full of like the fire and

655
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 6: brimstone version of Christianity, and a lot of that is

656
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 6: always traditionally been about scaring people, you know, scaring people

657
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 6: straight as they call it. A lot of this was

658
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 6: motivated by that. A lot of it was also motivated

659
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 6: by money, because there's huge amounts of opportunity to be

660
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 6: had in convincing people that you have secret knowledge.

661
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 4: Right.

662
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 6: Anytime you can get a bunch of people, a bunch

663
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 6: of law officials to be like, oh, talk to that

664
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 6: guy because they know the truth about satanic cults, then

665
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 6: there's opportunity there. So I think definitely there's a mix

666
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 6: of both.

667
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 1: I also think that a lot of people probably believed it.

668
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely Yeah. I think some very smart

669
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: psychologists where like, yeah, I'm really getting to the bottom

670
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 1: of the repressed memories.

671
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 5: Oh for sure.

672
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 2: But I mean in terms of the people who claimed

673
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:11,520
Speaker 2: that they had these experiences in their childhood, yeah.

674
00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:13,000
Speaker 5: I mean I think they believe it.

675
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 3: Yeah.

676
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:13,719
Speaker 5: I know.

677
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: I had a friend to actually trigger, but she ended

678
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: up killing herself. She had all these memories that a

679
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: therapist helped her uncover and then she realized that they

680
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: weren't real, and it like broke her. But she thought

681
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: that they were real.

682
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 5: Get in trouble.

683
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 6: Yeah, Wow, that's exactly what happens. Like, I think when

684
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 6: you kind of go through something like that, I think,

685
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 6: especially if you're in a kind of religious community that

686
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 6: is encouraging you to think.

687
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 4: In certain ways.

688
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 6: Like we said that with cults all the time, Like

689
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 6: people get so wrapped up in the fantasy of this,

690
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 6: even if it's like a fantasy of their personal trauma.

691
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know that that becomes really.

692
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 6: A part of their identity and a part of how they,

693
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 6: you know, relate to themselves. A lot of times they

694
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 6: don't want to give that up because that's become a

695
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:01,200
Speaker 6: kind of an in first way, become a source of

696
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 6: security for them.

697
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 1: I relate to that like it's my trauma and I've

698
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: put it in this narrative and don't take.

699
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 5: It for me totally. Yeah, Yeah, that makes sense.

700
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we talk about this way too much and

701
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 2: we need to find some other examples. But Teal Swan, Yeah,

702
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 2: it seems like her idea of her childhood, whether or

703
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 2: not she really believes it, I imagine she really believes it

704
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 2: at this point is a huge part of her identity

705
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 2: and the narrative of her life. And so to admit

706
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 2: that that's not real at this point in her life.

707
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 2: I can't imagine what that would do to your sense

708
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 2: of self.

709
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: She said, stuff like that she was sewn into a

710
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 1: corpse during a ritual.

711
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 4: Stuff like that.

712
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 6: Well, I think also the more you lie, the more

713
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 6: you have to keep lying to show up the first lie. Right, Yeah,

714
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 6: so after a time like you're probably lying to yourself

715
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 6: just in order to keep the ruise going.

716
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 5: Right.

717
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 2: So, there are all these people who are coming out

718
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 2: with these books talking about their repressed memories of Satanic

719
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 2: ritual abuse.

720
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 5: None of them have any evidence.

721
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 2: None of this has ever been proven, and yet in

722
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 2: filtrate the culture to the point where law enforcement is

723
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 2: taking very seriously and believing that it's a credible type

724
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 2: of science recovering repressed memories of Satanic ritual abuse. And

725
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 2: also it becomes a part of this idea that Satanism

726
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,840
Speaker 2: is linked to actual murders and crimes.

727
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:21,839
Speaker 5: This is a real thing.

728
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 2: If you listen to satanic music, if you watch satanic movies.

729
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 3: Whatever.

730
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 2: Can you talk about some of the trials that came

731
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 2: out of this era where people actually went to jail

732
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 2: when there wasn't real evidence.

733
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 6: Oh yes, So there were dozens and dozens of criminal

734
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:42,839
Speaker 6: prosecutions over accusations of satanic ritual abuse, and many of

735
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 6: them resulted in very long jail sentences, which is just

736
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 6: horrible on like to even think about. Although eventually almost

737
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 6: all of them were ultimately overturned, some of them really weren't.

738
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 6: There was one woman who basically died before she could

739
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 6: be exonerated, and she spent like twenty years in jail,

740
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:06,480
Speaker 6: like and just like horrifying, horrifying acts of criminal injustice

741
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:10,720
Speaker 6: over this stuff. The most famous one was the McMartin trial,

742
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 6: which is famous even though it actually really never went anywhere.

743
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:15,680
Speaker 4: Like they tried and.

744
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:20,360
Speaker 6: Tried and tried for years to basically accuse daycare members

745
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:24,520
Speaker 6: of the Stay Care in California of satanic ritual abuse.

746
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:29,240
Speaker 6: So seven staff members accused of abusing forty one children.

747
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:31,279
Speaker 6: So they spent years and years and years, and this

748
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:35,480
Speaker 6: became the most expensive trial in California history, and it

749
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 6: like ultimately went nowhere, Like they just had nothing. So finally,

750
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:41,840
Speaker 6: after like six years of trying to prosecute these people,

751
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 6: they just finally accepted that they had no evidence.

752
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,359
Speaker 2: Wow, I mean, and that's a lucky one. Imagine being

753
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 2: one of the people being accused of that, and you

754
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 2: have to go through six years of trials defending yourself

755
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 2: as not a child.

756
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 5: Attacker, rapist, whatever.

757
00:35:57,320 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 2: But then there are all the people who did go

758
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 2: through that and then did end up in prison.

759
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 6: Right, And most of those were not very like widely

760
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 6: publicized cases, but those are usually the ones where like

761
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 6: the people involved actually wound up spending like decades in prison.

762
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:13,280
Speaker 1: Why did the preschool one start? How did that even begin?

763
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 6: Basically because kids say weird things, you know, and they're

764
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 6: really coercible. If you stop the question a child without

765
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:21,800
Speaker 6: knowing what you're doing, it's really easy to get a

766
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:24,160
Speaker 6: child to go, oh, yeah, that person touched me inappropriately.

767
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 4: And then this just sort of ballooned.

768
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 6: This is how all of these began, just with like

769
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 6: paranoid parents and paranoid officials, you know, not knowing what

770
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 6: they were doing and kind of fumbling their way into

771
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 6: suddenly feeling like they had this giant criminal organization on

772
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 6: their hands and they had to uncover a terrible pedophilic

773
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:44,839
Speaker 6: sex trafficking ring. There was also a lot of like

774
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 6: psychologists again, people with no actual evidence arey or research

775
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 6: in this field, claiming that you could get a child

776
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:55,839
Speaker 6: to like uncover their repressed memories, or like give them

777
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,400
Speaker 6: a doll and show them where the person abused you

778
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 6: by touching the doll. You know, things that are just

779
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:05,560
Speaker 6: subjectively not good science, but they were being taken seriously,

780
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,280
Speaker 6: and they were leading law enforcement down this path.

781
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, adults, we are all extremely coercible

782
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 2: if we're in a high pressure, high stress situation and

783
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 2: we're being made to feel like there's a particular answer

784
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 2: that we're supposed to give and what we said isn't

785
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:22,960
Speaker 2: like what they're looking for. We've seen it over and

786
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 2: over and over again. Very educated, reasonable people have been

787
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:31,319
Speaker 2: coerced into confessions because that's just how our brains work

788
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 2: under stress. Yet, let alone a child or somebody with

789
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 2: an intellectual disability. The idea that testimony alone with no evidence,

790
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 2: with no physical evidence, no corroborating evidence other than you know,

791
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 2: these confessions that like random fucking cops are getting out

792
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 2: of children, it's just very scary. I wouldn't trust a

793
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 2: cop to get a non coercive story out of most people.

794
00:37:57,120 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 6: This also plays into the innate prejudices that people have

795
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 6: towards whoever they're accusing. Right, Like, so the best example

796
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 6: is probably or the one that most people are familiar

797
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:07,759
Speaker 6: with is the West Memphis three.

798
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 2: Right.

799
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:10,719
Speaker 6: Yes, So you had these three teen boys who were

800
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:13,879
Speaker 6: you know, basically just ostracized by the community because they

801
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 6: wore black and they were goths, and they were you know,

802
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:20,720
Speaker 6: just living their you know, unapologetic goth subculture life, and

803
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,440
Speaker 6: basically that was all people needed to accuse them of

804
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 6: triple homicide.

805
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 4: So that was bad.

806
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And that was an example of a coarse

807
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:32,799
Speaker 2: confession as well, right from yes, one of the one

808
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 2: of the boys, Yeah, yeah, one of.

809
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:37,799
Speaker 6: The boys basically like was completely unprepared for for what

810
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:40,640
Speaker 6: happened or to be accused and basically kind of got

811
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 6: sort of pushed into fingering the other two and.

812
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:44,359
Speaker 4: Then and then that was it.

813
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 6: Basically, Damien Echols is sort of like the spokesperson of

814
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:49,480
Speaker 6: the group because he's considered kind of like the most

815
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 6: educated one among them, and he was always just so

816
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:54,839
Speaker 6: vocal about how this was this was really just about

817
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 6: small town politics and people not liking the fact that

818
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:00,479
Speaker 6: they didn't fit in, right, And I think that really

819
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:01,879
Speaker 6: really spoke to people.

820
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,400
Speaker 2: Right, Can you talk a little bit about how why

821
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 2: this all sort of converged in the eighties, Like what

822
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 2: was happening culturally in this time in the eighties and

823
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:14,640
Speaker 2: early nineties.

824
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:18,120
Speaker 6: You know, in general, we were sort of dealing with

825
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:21,360
Speaker 6: the end of like rgnomics, and we were dealing with

826
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 6: the end of the Cold War and sort of the

827
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 6: collapse of many of like the old ways of doing things,

828
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 6: if that makes sense, you know, and we're sort of

829
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 6: really kind of looking for something new to galvanize us.

830
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 6: I mean, I think for people on the evangelical right

831
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 6: and like the religious right, they were really trying hard

832
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 6: to make a culture war happen, and they had been

833
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 6: trying hard for decades, and they had really kind of

834
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 6: gotten they were starting to get like a foothold around

835
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 6: the time that all of this was happening by kind

836
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:55,880
Speaker 6: of tying all of this sphere about you know, the

837
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 6: counter culture and the sphere of you know, Satan in

838
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 6: with this fear of liberalism as like a general concept

839
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:07,959
Speaker 6: that sort of kept coalescing throughout the eighties, especially because

840
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 6: you had evangelical leaders really kind of understanding how or

841
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 6: really figuring out during that period how to like codify

842
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 6: a lot of.

843
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 4: This language, if that makes sense.

844
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:21,680
Speaker 6: So let's say I tell you that the music you

845
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:24,719
Speaker 6: listen to is satanic? Right, Like, so I put the

846
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 6: fear of going to hell in you about like listening

847
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:29,760
Speaker 6: to Metallica, right, or listening to a CDC.

848
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 4: Right.

849
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 6: But then I turn around and I blame licentious liberal

850
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 6: culture for introducing that.

851
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:39,919
Speaker 4: Music to you. Does that make sense.

852
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:44,279
Speaker 6: I'm tying a culture that is that that can be

853
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 6: seen as like anti religious right to your corruption as

854
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 6: an individual right, and I'm blaming all of this on Satan.

855
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:56,760
Speaker 6: What I've essentially done is I've said that, like liberals

856
00:40:56,760 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 6: are satanic, this makes sense, and they got really really

857
00:41:01,719 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 6: good at doing this during this period. And so that's why,

858
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 6: like by the time we get to like the two thousands,

859
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 6: you have this rise of like the Tea Party, You

860
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:13,359
Speaker 6: have this rise of like people who are really really

861
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 6: good at tying all this together in a rhetoric that

862
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 6: feels it feels both very familiar but because it's like

863
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:24,279
Speaker 6: really tied to like evangelical rhetoric, but also feels kind

864
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:27,880
Speaker 6: of radically different because it's so steeped in like anti

865
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 6: intellectualism and seeped in racism and seeped in over homophobia,

866
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 6: like on and on and on right because they've basically

867
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:37,719
Speaker 6: been able to kind of merge and fuse these two

868
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 6: sides of the ideology.

869
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:41,720
Speaker 4: Does that make sense totally?

870
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:43,319
Speaker 5: Yeah, brilliant move.

871
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 2: Can you talk about this like how it's connected to

872
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:53,399
Speaker 2: fear of the LGBTQ community and and kind of bring

873
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,920
Speaker 2: that into today because there is a total resurgence of

874
00:41:56,960 --> 00:41:57,840
Speaker 2: this right now.

875
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 6: Oh absolutely, absolutely so. Basically the queer culture has always

876
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 6: been seen as villainous, like that's just always been And

877
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:10,920
Speaker 6: this almost doesn't even have that much to do with

878
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 6: the evangelical, like like extreme extreme evangelicals have not necessarily

879
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:19,279
Speaker 6: needed to push this narrative very far because it has

880
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 6: always existed in the culture, right, like we've always demonized,

881
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:27,360
Speaker 6: in stereotyped queer people and portrayed them as freaks and

882
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:32,839
Speaker 6: portray them as as sexual offenders and as deviants and

883
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 6: as morally debased and especially as pedophiles, like we have

884
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 6: there's a long cultural history across the world of basically

885
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:48,319
Speaker 6: accusing gay men of being pedophiles. A lot of this

886
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 6: probably has to do with like the the role of

887
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 6: ancient Greece and in the world, in the cultural world,

888
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 6: but also it's bullshit, right, So when you look at

889
00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:01,160
Speaker 6: the way that all of the speeds.

890
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 4: Into like modern queer like queer phobic rhetoric.

891
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:10,439
Speaker 6: You get a lot of using the idea of this

892
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 6: conspiracy like this on this very very old, ancient conspiracy

893
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:20,799
Speaker 6: about satanic like ritual abuse and like like blood rituals

894
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:24,279
Speaker 6: and blood harvesting. Right right, we're seeing a lot of

895
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:29,719
Speaker 6: that being tied into like separate but also ancient existing

896
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 6: rhetoric about queer people wanting to prey on children. So

897
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:39,240
Speaker 6: those two things very easily, like almost snapped together like logos,

898
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 6: right like like homophobic building blocks, they just there they are.

899
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:47,160
Speaker 5: So yeah, yeah, it's interesting. There's a fear.

900
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:51,879
Speaker 2: I mean, there's this conspiratorial you know rise. Obviously there

901
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:55,440
Speaker 2: are all kinds of different branches of that, and it

902
00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 2: looks kind of different for everyone. It's like a you know,

903
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 2: curate your own conpiracy theory situation we have right now.

904
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:07,359
Speaker 2: But the themes that consistently come up are fear of

905
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:14,120
Speaker 2: you know, pedophiles, human trafficking of children. And then also

906
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 2: there's there seems to be this hatred of trans people

907
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:21,319
Speaker 2: in particular, as well as just general satanism. Oh it's

908
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:25,240
Speaker 2: this you know, satanic cult that is drinking the blood

909
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:28,759
Speaker 2: of children, and we must stop them. These It's it's

910
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:31,520
Speaker 2: really interesting to see how it all kind of connects

911
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 2: and when you and also anti Semitism that seems to

912
00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:35,919
Speaker 2: always be there as well.

913
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:39,359
Speaker 6: Oh right, it's always it always comes back to anti Semitism. Yeah,

914
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:42,800
Speaker 6: something I didn't really talk about pertaining to the eighties,

915
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 6: and I was not sure if you guys wanted to

916
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 6: go this route, but like I actually participated in another

917
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:51,799
Speaker 6: We did a round table earlier this year about the

918
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 6: novels of Frank Pretti and like the outside like influence

919
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:59,480
Speaker 6: they had on evangelical culture because it terms out like

920
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 6: a bunch of us at Vox at the Box Culture

921
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:03,920
Speaker 6: Pod had all read these books when we were kids,

922
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 6: and it had all been kind of like mildly to

923
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:09,320
Speaker 6: slightly to like majorly traumatize with them, were like impacted

924
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 6: by them. I don't even want to say traumatized. But

925
00:45:11,200 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 6: like when you talk about like creating a world where

926
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:20,440
Speaker 6: you're fighting Satan, these books were they kind of preceded

927
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:22,319
Speaker 6: the Left Behind books, but they were all part of

928
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 6: the same same like rise in Christian fantasy and Frank

929
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 6: Peretti's novels really kind of like they were the first

930
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 6: major Christian fantasy bestsellers, and they really took off. And

931
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,320
Speaker 6: what he did was and he kind of later walked

932
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:38,239
Speaker 6: this back, like I think later he was like really

933
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:42,360
Speaker 6: embarrassed that his novels had led to this legacy. But

934
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 6: what the very first novels essentially did were they essentially

935
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 6: kind of made you see and like visualize that there

936
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 6: was like a demon behind every like liberal that you

937
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:54,360
Speaker 6: ran into on the street. Like literally like in his

938
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 6: books there are like demons sitting on the shoulders of

939
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 6: these people, like whispering into their ears and making them

940
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 6: say they and so like he has this whole like

941
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:05,680
Speaker 6: in the first novel it's called this present Darkness.

942
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:09,680
Speaker 4: The flawed is that this uh there was a duology.

943
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 6: There were two books like that were together, and then

944
00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:13,760
Speaker 6: he went not to write another of other like separate books.

945
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:16,080
Speaker 4: But these this first two are basically.

946
00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:19,400
Speaker 6: About the small the small town college professor or sorry,

947
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 6: the small town college.

948
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 4: Uh lay back up, the.

949
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 6: Small town preacher fighting alongside uh cop and I think

950
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:34,560
Speaker 6: you're a reporter, and they're all like fighting together, these

951
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:40,759
Speaker 6: like three Christians in this like giant culture war that

952
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:44,960
Speaker 6: is being spearheaded by their local liberal arts college. Wow,

953
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:49,359
Speaker 6: and like and like everybody in the book, like the

954
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 6: entire universe of like angels and demons like congregate around

955
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 6: this small church and around this small college for like

956
00:46:56,760 --> 00:47:01,360
Speaker 6: this giant like like epic, you know, Marvel Cinematic Universe

957
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:06,239
Speaker 6: battle for the Souls of mankind and it's all about it.

958
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:09,799
Speaker 6: And like in the book, like these people are trying

959
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 6: to kind of figure out what's happening why by navigating

960
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:15,680
Speaker 6: the relationships with the people that they run into. So

961
00:47:15,760 --> 00:47:18,360
Speaker 6: like your your liberal arts professor sounds really good and

962
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 6: she has a lot of nice things to say about yoga.

963
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 4: But she's evil.

964
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 6: And she's got a demon on her shoulder, and there's

965
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:27,959
Speaker 6: like demons all over the place.

966
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:29,839
Speaker 4: So he shows.

967
00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 6: You, like like what's happening on the surface, which is

968
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:35,799
Speaker 6: that these just seem like nice, friendly, normal people who

969
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:39,759
Speaker 6: want to be nice to you, like the liberals. But

970
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:43,040
Speaker 6: then he shows you that behind their niceness there are

971
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 6: like demons in every corner, these like giant, hulking things,

972
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:46,359
Speaker 6: And like.

973
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:49,360
Speaker 4: Millions of Christians read these books? Did millions of Christians

974
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 4: read these.

975
00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to read anything like that, Like, so

976
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 1: Christian that those were considered non Christians.

977
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 6: Yeah, but like this was like this fantasy that that

978
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:07,640
Speaker 6: liberals are literally like possessed by demons and that all

979
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:10,320
Speaker 6: of these nice things that they have to say about

980
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:14,160
Speaker 6: just getting along and just wanting equality and just wanting

981
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:17,560
Speaker 6: everyone to love each other, like that's all Satan speaking,

982
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:21,960
Speaker 6: Like that is all like you were being deceived by

983
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 6: Satan because their real agenda is to take your children

984
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 6: and feed them to the homosexuals and to corrupt them.

985
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 6: And like this is such a like the way that

986
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 6: those books really like made that visual for people is

987
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:39,279
Speaker 6: something that I think we don't really like many people

988
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 6: still don't understand. Like often when you hear people like

989
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:44,880
Speaker 6: Marjorie Taylor Green talk and you're just like what is

990
00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:47,719
Speaker 6: she saying? What, like where are her ideas coming from?

991
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:50,040
Speaker 6: Like this is a woman who literally believes that there

992
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 6: is a demon sitting on your shoulder.

993
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:56,560
Speaker 2: Like the I mean he's like, I mean, I mean

994
00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:57,359
Speaker 2: everybody knows.

995
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 4: Everybody knows that, like queer people really are villains.

996
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 6: And we're proud of it, right, But the thing is

997
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:08,960
Speaker 6: that like that that fundamental underlying like view of the

998
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:12,960
Speaker 6: world where like everything is sort of like this, it

999
00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:16,279
Speaker 6: has hidden agenda and is like people who say that

1000
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:18,719
Speaker 6: they just want one thing, you're actually manipulating you because

1001
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:21,400
Speaker 6: they really want something much darker and more sinister. Like

1002
00:49:22,040 --> 00:49:25,240
Speaker 6: that is something that I think that isn't really widely

1003
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 6: understood when we talk about like why conservatives believe the

1004
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:31,880
Speaker 6: conspiracies that they do and why they believe what seemed

1005
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:35,480
Speaker 6: like really far fetched, like impossible things.

1006
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:39,200
Speaker 2: Right, so they've been primed by this like culture that

1007
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:41,680
Speaker 2: they grow up with. Potentially, I don't want to say

1008
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:44,719
Speaker 2: some of them have been primed conspiratorial people have been

1009
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:50,439
Speaker 2: primed by these like fantasy, these like fantastical ideas about

1010
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:51,080
Speaker 2: a war.

1011
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 5: Between good and evil.

1012
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:55,880
Speaker 2: And that seems to so like hearing you know, Q

1013
00:49:56,440 --> 00:49:59,520
Speaker 2: theories or whatever, especially in a time of you know,

1014
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:03,360
Speaker 2: great turmoil and division, like I can imagine that that

1015
00:50:03,440 --> 00:50:07,560
Speaker 2: would like resonate and feel familiar and also expanding on

1016
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:09,640
Speaker 2: those ideas in a way that feels really exciting and

1017
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:10,560
Speaker 2: creates meaning.

1018
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 5: And so it makes sense to me.

1019
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:16,640
Speaker 2: And also just given how much of a how much

1020
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:20,399
Speaker 2: culture has changed in the past few years, how much

1021
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 2: progress has been made, how much you know, traditionally, like

1022
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:27,320
Speaker 2: women weren't supposed to talk about things that had happened

1023
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:29,440
Speaker 2: to them, and people of color, you know, were just

1024
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:33,360
Speaker 2: supposed to deal with whatever violence they were experiencing or whatever.

1025
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:35,279
Speaker 2: So much of that has changed in the past few years.

1026
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:37,360
Speaker 2: It makes sense that there would be this like terror

1027
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:40,960
Speaker 2: of that change in reaction to that, because that's kind

1028
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:42,399
Speaker 2: of always how it goes, right.

1029
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 1: I mean, well, yeah, I was going to say, the

1030
00:50:45,160 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 1: first time I really saw this pop up in my

1031
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,120
Speaker 1: adult life was Obama. I remember being at a like

1032
00:50:51,239 --> 00:50:53,719
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving dinner. This wasn't with my family, but it was

1033
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:57,839
Speaker 1: with people that I don't know. They just kept saying

1034
00:50:57,840 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 1: Obama was the Antichrist.

1035
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:05,120
Speaker 2: Like what, Yeah, Yeah, it's new, and new is scary.

1036
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:07,239
Speaker 5: New is scary for for.

1037
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 3: Everyone, very strange.

1038
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:11,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's not to say that everything that's happened

1039
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:13,239
Speaker 2: has been good. I think cancel culture has a lot

1040
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:16,360
Speaker 2: of problems. I think there are you know, it's a

1041
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 2: very complicated situation, But overall, the culture has changed a lot,

1042
00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 2: and the like, you know, the traditional roles of everyone

1043
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:26,879
Speaker 2: in the world are sort of shifting in a way

1044
00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:29,600
Speaker 2: that you know, it is logical that there would be

1045
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:32,440
Speaker 2: now a sort of resurgence of conspiracy theories and like

1046
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:33,360
Speaker 2: black and white thinking.

1047
00:51:33,520 --> 00:51:36,799
Speaker 6: I guess right, right, it's a pushback against the you know,

1048
00:51:36,840 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 6: the rise of social media and the way that social

1049
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:41,879
Speaker 6: media has made everyone more visible and given more given

1050
00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:45,279
Speaker 6: everyone more of a voice, and like people who you know,

1051
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:48,919
Speaker 6: have long been in positions of relative social power, right,

1052
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:55,040
Speaker 6: seeing that entire cultural shift and like structural societal shift

1053
00:51:55,520 --> 00:52:00,400
Speaker 6: away from them towards people who have traditionally been marginalized. Right, Like,

1054
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:03,560
Speaker 6: just look at the outpouring of hate and resentment towards

1055
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:06,520
Speaker 6: trans people who have just literally been doing nothing and

1056
00:52:06,560 --> 00:52:09,920
Speaker 6: now suddenly have become the you know, the front line

1057
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:13,839
Speaker 6: of this incredible, incredibly intense phase.

1058
00:52:13,480 --> 00:52:14,200
Speaker 4: Of the culture war.

1059
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:17,680
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah, Like, like trans people are not like, we're

1060
00:52:17,719 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 6: not the ones out here being like pronouns pronouns pronouns

1061
00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:22,840
Speaker 6: like no, those are like that's all coming from the

1062
00:52:22,920 --> 00:52:25,400
Speaker 6: right as a way of demonizing us for existing.

1063
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:30,120
Speaker 2: You know, so they just like, hello, we exist, right,

1064
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 2: we would like to.

1065
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 6: But see, the thing is that like the increased visibility

1066
00:52:35,160 --> 00:52:38,360
Speaker 6: that social media and the Internet and just meet like

1067
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:42,799
Speaker 6: modern media in general gives people to say, hey, we

1068
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:46,120
Speaker 6: exist is threatening to many people.

1069
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:48,280
Speaker 4: So that's that's sort of why.

1070
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:50,880
Speaker 6: That's another reason why these conspiracies are so like have

1071
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:54,680
Speaker 6: so much appeal, right because I think they they offer

1072
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:59,080
Speaker 6: a narrative that allows people to center themselves once again, right,

1073
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:02,640
Speaker 6: Like they get to be like the vanguards of the

1074
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:06,080
Speaker 6: fight for for for good and evil against all of

1075
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:09,400
Speaker 6: these new and strange things and people that they don't understand.

1076
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 2: Right, why do you think I mean, if you could guess,

1077
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:15,880
Speaker 2: we're all speculating here, but like, why do you think

1078
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:20,919
Speaker 2: pedophilia even just in terms of like you know, the

1079
00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:27,680
Speaker 2: wayfair conspiracy or whatever new thing comes up in any

1080
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:31,279
Speaker 2: given moment, Like why do you think this like bloodthirsty

1081
00:53:31,719 --> 00:53:36,600
Speaker 2: pedophile cabal is like particularly happening right now?

1082
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:40,799
Speaker 6: Is Like yeah, I mean I think that's that's such

1083
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 6: a good question.

1084
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 4: Like why now?

1085
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:46,279
Speaker 6: I think it has a lot to do with kind

1086
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:49,880
Speaker 6: of this this resurgence in extremism in general, right because

1087
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:53,120
Speaker 6: you have so many people doing what you call it

1088
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:56,759
Speaker 6: like shifting the origin window, which the original window is

1089
00:53:56,800 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 6: basically like the the society or more for what is

1090
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:04,880
Speaker 6: acceptable thought, you know, like prior to the era of

1091
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:09,000
Speaker 6: trump Ism, we would have said that white supremacy and

1092
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:11,799
Speaker 6: and and over racism et cetera. Were not they were

1093
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:16,759
Speaker 6: outside the overtin window, right, But like through the Trump

1094
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:19,319
Speaker 6: era and through the mechanisms of the Trump era, like

1095
00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:21,840
Speaker 6: of Trump coming too power, we have shifted the Overton

1096
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:24,719
Speaker 6: window so that it's now acceptable to say things like, oh,

1097
00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:26,479
Speaker 6: do we know that trans people are really women?

1098
00:54:26,600 --> 00:54:28,719
Speaker 4: Like do we know? Like do we know that you

1099
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:30,080
Speaker 4: know that that?

1100
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:32,919
Speaker 6: And that like whatever Knyie West is doing right now,

1101
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:36,400
Speaker 6: like like the fact that it's acceptable to say aborrn

1102
00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:38,680
Speaker 6: things in public, or at least people are trying to

1103
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:40,640
Speaker 6: act as though it's acceptable to say a born things

1104
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:43,279
Speaker 6: of public Like that has shifted the overtin window, right,

1105
00:54:43,680 --> 00:54:47,920
Speaker 6: So you have this this opening up of extremist language

1106
00:54:47,920 --> 00:54:50,359
Speaker 6: and extremist thought in a way that I think kind

1107
00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:54,480
Speaker 6: of sets the stage for for people to be like, Okay,

1108
00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:57,960
Speaker 6: well if if if this is happening on like one

1109
00:54:57,960 --> 00:55:00,759
Speaker 6: side of the Overton window, like if if this extremism

1110
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:03,279
Speaker 6: is sort of pulling people to the right, the way

1111
00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:06,240
Speaker 6: that they get pulled to the right is by giving

1112
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:09,000
Speaker 6: them something equally extreme to react to you on the left, right,

1113
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:13,280
Speaker 6: so like they have to have something to be scared

1114
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:15,359
Speaker 6: of that's even more extreme than the thing that they're

1115
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 6: being drawn to.

1116
00:55:16,239 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 4: Does that make sense? Yeah?

1117
00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:19,879
Speaker 6: So, like the thing that they like, what's the thing

1118
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:25,040
Speaker 6: that everyone is universally like appalled by that pretty much

1119
00:55:25,040 --> 00:55:31,719
Speaker 6: transcends politics. It's it's people blood letting babies and harvesting

1120
00:55:31,760 --> 00:55:35,319
Speaker 6: them for whatever. Like, like it's something that's that's so

1121
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 6: appallingly over the top that you would never believe it

1122
00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:42,719
Speaker 6: was real. But if you get enough, like the conspiracy

1123
00:55:43,320 --> 00:55:46,320
Speaker 6: rhetoric makes you believe it's real, Like, if you really

1124
00:55:46,360 --> 00:55:48,400
Speaker 6: believe that there are people out there on the left

1125
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:53,879
Speaker 6: that are secretly sex trafficking and or harvesting children for

1126
00:55:54,239 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 6: secret blood letting rituals, then if you really believe that,

1127
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:00,480
Speaker 6: of course you're going to make that your whole You're

1128
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:01,960
Speaker 6: going to make the fight against that your.

1129
00:56:01,800 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 4: Whole life, right, because it's appalling.

1130
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:06,640
Speaker 6: It's like it's unthinkable if it's real, right, But of

1131
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:07,439
Speaker 6: course it's not real.

1132
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:11,719
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, I mean we've said this in our

1133
00:56:11,800 --> 00:56:15,239
Speaker 2: last episode with you know, conspiracy theory psychologists, But like,

1134
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:18,520
Speaker 2: child trafficking does happen all the time, but it doesn't

1135
00:56:18,719 --> 00:56:22,879
Speaker 2: look like that. It looks like poor children in poor

1136
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:25,359
Speaker 2: communities being you know, it's just not.

1137
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:28,080
Speaker 6: As franchise first, you know, like they they're put in

1138
00:56:28,160 --> 00:56:32,799
Speaker 6: vulnerable situations and then they're trafficked, and this whole like

1139
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:35,320
Speaker 6: moral panic does nothing to actually help them out of

1140
00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:38,160
Speaker 6: those vulnerable situations before they get trafficked. So it's like,

1141
00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:40,520
Speaker 6: you know, it's kind of like it's kind of like

1142
00:56:40,520 --> 00:56:43,040
Speaker 6: the whole abortion debate, Like everybody wants to protect children

1143
00:56:43,080 --> 00:56:44,640
Speaker 6: until they're actually born, and then no one wants to

1144
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:49,000
Speaker 6: protect them from being shot or from being you know,

1145
00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:51,319
Speaker 6: from being marginalized if there are people of color or

1146
00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:53,840
Speaker 6: if they're queer, like then they just have shitty lives.

1147
00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:58,080
Speaker 4: So you know, it's just there's a lot of.

1148
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:01,879
Speaker 6: Like illogic that that that's built into these these these

1149
00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:02,840
Speaker 6: types of panics.

1150
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:07,719
Speaker 2: Right we on our next episode, we're going to interview Morbid,

1151
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:10,880
Speaker 2: the musician who was who the Internet decided was a

1152
00:57:10,960 --> 00:57:12,040
Speaker 2: murderer after.

1153
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 5: The Elisa Lamb case.

1154
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:18,680
Speaker 2: Oh God, And I'm very curious, Uh, I just would

1155
00:57:18,720 --> 00:57:20,320
Speaker 2: love to hear your thoughts on like you know, little

1156
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:23,360
Speaker 2: nas X did a Satan themed video and everyone decided

1157
00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:25,800
Speaker 2: he was a satanic pedophile. Like do you think that

1158
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:30,000
Speaker 2: art is at risk right now?

1159
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 4: No?

1160
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:34,040
Speaker 6: No, I really truly don't like little nase that ate that,

1161
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:38,400
Speaker 6: like he anticipated the response and built his video around

1162
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:42,720
Speaker 6: anticipating the response, and in his role again as a

1163
00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:45,040
Speaker 6: queer villain, is knowing that you're a queer villain, that

1164
00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:47,680
Speaker 6: you're going to be villainized, and learning to embrace your villainy.

1165
00:57:48,160 --> 00:57:50,160
Speaker 4: So like I think for him.

1166
00:57:50,360 --> 00:57:54,400
Speaker 6: That, you know, Montero was all about embracing that status

1167
00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:57,720
Speaker 6: as a queer villain and finding his identity through it, right,

1168
00:57:57,800 --> 00:57:59,600
Speaker 6: So that was actually a very self.

1169
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:00,480
Speaker 4: Empowering thing for him.

1170
00:58:00,600 --> 00:58:03,960
Speaker 6: Yeah, and and like there was no way for anybody

1171
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:08,000
Speaker 6: to win because he had anticipated the responses so neatly

1172
00:58:08,080 --> 00:58:10,040
Speaker 6: that he was like offering you know, he offered a

1173
00:58:10,120 --> 00:58:12,280
Speaker 6: drop of blood and Nikey shoes too.

1174
00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:13,000
Speaker 2: That's true.

1175
00:58:13,120 --> 00:58:16,000
Speaker 4: Oh well, I guess he was. You know, he's sort

1176
00:58:16,040 --> 00:58:16,960
Speaker 4: of anticipated it.

1177
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:19,400
Speaker 6: And the reason I think that that's important is that he,

1178
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:23,160
Speaker 6: like he showed how easy it is to defeat this

1179
00:58:23,240 --> 00:58:25,200
Speaker 6: if you actually just think about it for two seconds,

1180
00:58:25,240 --> 00:58:28,560
Speaker 6: Like it's possible to just anticipate what the the arguments

1181
00:58:28,600 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 6: against you are and then embrace them so effectively that

1182
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:34,840
Speaker 6: they become that they become seen and shown for the

1183
00:58:34,880 --> 00:58:35,880
Speaker 6: absurdity that they are.

1184
00:58:36,040 --> 00:58:39,800
Speaker 2: Right, He's actually, you're right, he did an amazing job

1185
00:58:39,880 --> 00:58:40,840
Speaker 2: of that.

1186
00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:41,680
Speaker 5: That was trolling.

1187
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:45,160
Speaker 2: But then I think of like Marina Bramovic or you know,

1188
00:58:45,560 --> 00:58:49,040
Speaker 2: after this Balenciaga thing, which granted that campaign was was

1189
00:58:49,440 --> 00:58:50,360
Speaker 2: very distasteful.

1190
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:51,240
Speaker 5: I don't know why I.

1191
00:58:51,280 --> 00:58:55,440
Speaker 2: Did it, it was bad, but it launched this like

1192
00:58:55,840 --> 00:59:00,280
Speaker 2: sort of reassessment of all of these earlier fashion campaigns

1193
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 2: that were even remotely like edgy.

1194
00:59:04,160 --> 00:59:04,960
Speaker 5: And I've seen.

1195
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:08,520
Speaker 2: Also Twitter threads go like extremely viral talking you know,

1196
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:12,600
Speaker 2: I'm a horror film maker, so talking about anyone who

1197
00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:16,280
Speaker 2: likes violence in movies, they're sick, there's something wrong with them.

1198
00:59:16,760 --> 00:59:18,760
Speaker 6: And well, I think, yeah, you're talking to here about

1199
00:59:19,080 --> 00:59:23,080
Speaker 6: about the kind of the rise of purity culture, and

1200
00:59:23,240 --> 00:59:27,320
Speaker 6: the kind of the influx of purity culture and its

1201
00:59:27,400 --> 00:59:32,360
Speaker 6: infiltration into mainstream conversations like you see like Tumblr twains,

1202
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:36,680
Speaker 6: for example, shaming other people and harassing other people through

1203
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:39,320
Speaker 6: the norm like the mechanisms of purity culture. Even though

1204
00:59:39,320 --> 00:59:43,840
Speaker 6: they probably would never identify as Christian right or identify

1205
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:47,439
Speaker 6: as religious right to any degree, they still have been

1206
00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:51,720
Speaker 6: so I guess almost they've they've come to learn the

1207
00:59:51,800 --> 00:59:53,960
Speaker 6: language of social justice so well that they are now

1208
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:57,880
Speaker 6: like misappropriating it and misusing it to attack anybody that

1209
00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:01,680
Speaker 6: they that they deem problematic. And I think that's almost

1210
01:00:01,720 --> 01:00:04,280
Speaker 6: a separate thing from what is happening with the.

1211
01:00:04,200 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 4: Established, like the.

1212
01:00:08,000 --> 01:00:11,640
Speaker 6: At least a less a less connected thing, you know,

1213
01:00:11,720 --> 01:00:14,400
Speaker 6: because I think there's so many people. You see so

1214
01:00:14,400 --> 01:00:17,480
Speaker 6: many people kind of drawming upon these moral panics that

1215
01:00:17,520 --> 01:00:20,000
Speaker 6: are begun by the religious right and then sort of

1216
01:00:20,080 --> 01:00:23,240
Speaker 6: like taking them immediately to absurd extremes on social media

1217
01:00:24,200 --> 01:00:26,480
Speaker 6: without actually being connected to the religious right.

1218
01:00:26,600 --> 01:00:27,920
Speaker 3: What would that look like?

1219
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:30,400
Speaker 1: What was what does what does a tumblr tweens say

1220
01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:31,280
Speaker 1: these days?

1221
01:00:32,360 --> 01:00:33,640
Speaker 4: Oh God, do you really want to know?

1222
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 7: Like, there's like a whole thing in fandom right now,

1223
01:00:38,400 --> 01:00:41,640
Speaker 7: in fantom spaces where like there's this argument that if

1224
01:00:41,680 --> 01:00:44,400
Speaker 7: you ship people that you're evil and you're you're a

1225
01:00:44,440 --> 01:00:46,760
Speaker 7: pedophile and you're disgusting, and so they have this whole

1226
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:47,760
Speaker 7: they've evolved.

1227
01:00:47,440 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 6: This whole like label. Yeah, like if you ship characters,

1228
01:00:50,560 --> 01:00:52,600
Speaker 6: then you're evil. So they've a bobbed this whole label

1229
01:00:52,760 --> 01:00:55,720
Speaker 6: called pro shipper that you have to like declare if

1230
01:00:55,720 --> 01:00:57,520
Speaker 6: you're a pro shipper so that you can then be

1231
01:00:57,720 --> 01:01:01,600
Speaker 6: like like reviled and like most people are what the

1232
01:01:01,640 --> 01:01:05,920
Speaker 6: hell is this? Yeah, it's crazy.

1233
01:01:06,120 --> 01:01:07,520
Speaker 5: I mean, it's so it's so interesting.

1234
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:09,680
Speaker 2: It's the Yeah, you have all of these different sort

1235
01:01:09,720 --> 01:01:12,600
Speaker 2: of sub sections. You have your quan on and then

1236
01:01:12,640 --> 01:01:16,880
Speaker 2: you have your you know, purity culture evangelical people, and

1237
01:01:16,920 --> 01:01:20,160
Speaker 2: then you have your conservative own the LIBS people, and

1238
01:01:20,200 --> 01:01:23,360
Speaker 2: they're all different, but there is this sort of overlap

1239
01:01:23,400 --> 01:01:25,800
Speaker 2: that's happening that I just think is super interesting and

1240
01:01:25,920 --> 01:01:27,440
Speaker 2: scared a little scary.

1241
01:01:27,520 --> 01:01:29,160
Speaker 4: I think it is an overlap.

1242
01:01:29,200 --> 01:01:31,360
Speaker 6: And I think one thing that's really interesting about is

1243
01:01:31,400 --> 01:01:34,600
Speaker 6: that like most of the people who like, the best

1244
01:01:34,600 --> 01:01:36,840
Speaker 6: example I can think of was the Amber heard, like

1245
01:01:37,200 --> 01:01:40,360
Speaker 6: the demonization of Amber heard during the Depth Herd Child right,

1246
01:01:40,400 --> 01:01:43,880
Speaker 6: because you had people really in the mainstream, like on

1247
01:01:43,920 --> 01:01:48,040
Speaker 6: TikTok all over TikTok, just like running with the narrative

1248
01:01:48,120 --> 01:01:50,800
Speaker 6: that she was this liar. Right, But where did that

1249
01:01:50,880 --> 01:01:53,520
Speaker 6: narrative come from? It came from Johnny Depp and his

1250
01:01:53,520 --> 01:01:57,560
Speaker 6: supporters and like people on the far right who were

1251
01:01:57,680 --> 01:02:02,800
Speaker 6: literally like spending years by bots and promoting this narrative

1252
01:02:02,880 --> 01:02:05,280
Speaker 6: and getting it into the culture so that it could

1253
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 6: then percolate into the mainstream.

1254
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:07,720
Speaker 4: And then suddenly it was just.

1255
01:02:07,640 --> 01:02:11,320
Speaker 6: Like the truth about the trial, but it wasn't the truth,

1256
01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:14,040
Speaker 6: and people just ran with it without really realizing that

1257
01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:17,080
Speaker 6: they've been manipulated. Right, So I think this idea that

1258
01:02:17,400 --> 01:02:20,960
Speaker 6: you know, even though these these conspiracies seem really out

1259
01:02:21,000 --> 01:02:24,680
Speaker 6: there and you can pinpoint how extremist their origins are,

1260
01:02:24,800 --> 01:02:27,800
Speaker 6: they do still they cancel have an impact on you

1261
01:02:27,840 --> 01:02:29,080
Speaker 6: and your daily life.

1262
01:02:29,200 --> 01:02:32,320
Speaker 2: Oh totally. I mean people in my life I see

1263
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:34,440
Speaker 2: believing things on the Internet that I'm like.

1264
01:02:34,360 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 6: You, guys, I don't.

1265
01:02:35,080 --> 01:02:37,400
Speaker 4: It's like there's no evidence for it, don't.

1266
01:02:39,480 --> 01:02:41,960
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, the Amber heard thing.

1267
01:02:42,200 --> 01:02:45,000
Speaker 2: Just in case anyone doesn't, let like, no, I think

1268
01:02:45,160 --> 01:02:47,480
Speaker 2: the majority of people do think that. I mean, most

1269
01:02:47,520 --> 01:02:50,200
Speaker 2: people in my life think that Amberherd was completely lying

1270
01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:51,840
Speaker 2: and made the whole thing up and punched herself or

1271
01:02:51,880 --> 01:02:54,400
Speaker 2: like made like put makeup on herself.

1272
01:02:55,080 --> 01:02:57,280
Speaker 6: It's absurd that did not happen. She did not lie

1273
01:02:57,680 --> 01:02:59,840
Speaker 6: putting makeup. She's not putting makeup on herself, like just to.

1274
01:02:59,840 --> 01:03:03,600
Speaker 2: Be Yeah, yeah, I mean I we also, I mean

1275
01:03:03,760 --> 01:03:06,080
Speaker 2: when we got some hate messages after we talked about

1276
01:03:06,080 --> 01:03:08,200
Speaker 2: it a little bit, just in that, like they did

1277
01:03:08,240 --> 01:03:10,760
Speaker 2: have a toxic relationship. She may have been a toxic person.

1278
01:03:10,840 --> 01:03:13,360
Speaker 2: But also there was a good deal of evidence in

1279
01:03:13,400 --> 01:03:16,440
Speaker 2: favor of him being violent toward her. It doesn't mean

1280
01:03:16,440 --> 01:03:18,439
Speaker 2: that it's a good you know, that she is good

1281
01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:21,240
Speaker 2: and he is bad and whatever. That's obviously very complicated

1282
01:03:21,320 --> 01:03:24,600
Speaker 2: toxic dynamic. But like we're what can you tell us

1283
01:03:24,600 --> 01:03:27,240
Speaker 2: about the bots? Thing? Just really fast was that there

1284
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:30,760
Speaker 2: were there were bots that were that were purchased to

1285
01:03:31,440 --> 01:03:32,520
Speaker 2: sort of oh oh yeah.

1286
01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:36,080
Speaker 6: Yeah, so like basically like like Amber and Johnny Depp

1287
01:03:36,160 --> 01:03:40,560
Speaker 6: both bought bots to kind of like react and promote

1288
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:41,280
Speaker 6: their messages.

1289
01:03:42,160 --> 01:03:44,360
Speaker 4: But but depth basically.

1290
01:03:44,040 --> 01:03:47,080
Speaker 6: Like bought more bots over time, and those bots like

1291
01:03:47,160 --> 01:03:51,320
Speaker 6: got much more amplification through the through social media than

1292
01:03:51,800 --> 01:03:55,760
Speaker 6: uh like just as a in general. And actually, my

1293
01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:59,520
Speaker 6: friend Constin's Grady. She my colleague, She's a box colleague

1294
01:03:59,560 --> 01:04:03,640
Speaker 6: of mine. She wrote on the trial like back in

1295
01:04:03,640 --> 01:04:07,240
Speaker 6: like twenty seventeen or twenty eighteen, like when Johnny Depp

1296
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:10,200
Speaker 6: and Amber heard were getting there, we're going through the

1297
01:04:10,200 --> 01:04:13,280
Speaker 6: British court system. Yeah, she wrote about it this then,

1298
01:04:13,400 --> 01:04:16,840
Speaker 6: and she noted at the time that whenever she wrote

1299
01:04:16,840 --> 01:04:21,960
Speaker 6: about this trial she would get exponentially more bots in

1300
01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:26,720
Speaker 6: her replies responding to her on behalf of Johnny Depp

1301
01:04:26,760 --> 01:04:32,080
Speaker 6: and like defending him and attacking her and noting basically

1302
01:04:32,480 --> 01:04:34,720
Speaker 6: that was something that stood out to her because you know, she,

1303
01:04:34,880 --> 01:04:37,040
Speaker 6: like me, writes, we both write about fandom a lot,

1304
01:04:37,080 --> 01:04:39,480
Speaker 6: and whenever she wrote about this trial, it was just

1305
01:04:39,600 --> 01:04:43,520
Speaker 6: like noticeably different that she would get so much more replies.

1306
01:04:43,600 --> 01:04:45,440
Speaker 6: And this was long before this year, Like this was

1307
01:04:45,480 --> 01:04:48,320
Speaker 6: back in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, you know, and like

1308
01:04:48,400 --> 01:04:51,160
Speaker 6: even then, they were kind of really laying the groundwork

1309
01:04:51,240 --> 01:04:54,080
Speaker 6: for this narrative, which I think is something that has

1310
01:04:54,120 --> 01:04:55,320
Speaker 6: not gotten talked enough about.

1311
01:04:55,600 --> 01:04:58,640
Speaker 4: And also like there was a I have to go

1312
01:04:58,640 --> 01:04:59,080
Speaker 4: look this up.

1313
01:04:59,120 --> 01:05:00,880
Speaker 6: I'm not really sure how much money he spent, but

1314
01:05:00,960 --> 01:05:04,960
Speaker 6: like Ben Shapiro, who runs the Daily Wire, like bought

1315
01:05:05,000 --> 01:05:09,200
Speaker 6: something like fifty thousand dollars worth of negative anti Amber

1316
01:05:09,240 --> 01:05:12,760
Speaker 6: heard ads to run on Facebook during the trial. And like,

1317
01:05:13,160 --> 01:05:15,320
Speaker 6: what does Ben Shapiro the Daily Wire have to do

1318
01:05:15,440 --> 01:05:18,160
Speaker 6: with this trial? Nothing, absolutely nothing, But he just wants

1319
01:05:18,240 --> 01:05:21,040
Speaker 6: to spread this. He wants to help spread this misogynistic

1320
01:05:21,160 --> 01:05:23,840
Speaker 6: narrative that Amberhard is a liar because he knows that

1321
01:05:24,000 --> 01:05:27,560
Speaker 6: doing that will undermine feminists, will undermine the Me too movement,

1322
01:05:27,600 --> 01:05:32,240
Speaker 6: will undermine you know, women accusing men of sexual assault.

1323
01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:34,919
Speaker 2: And will give him more clicks because the culture where

1324
01:05:34,960 --> 01:05:37,800
Speaker 2: it war is the whole thing that he runs on.

1325
01:05:38,160 --> 01:05:39,520
Speaker 4: Yes, completely.

1326
01:05:40,760 --> 01:05:44,160
Speaker 2: Crazy. Well what do you think, what do you how

1327
01:05:44,160 --> 01:05:46,480
Speaker 2: do you think we get past this or through this?

1328
01:05:46,600 --> 01:05:48,200
Speaker 5: What do you think? How will this?

1329
01:05:51,200 --> 01:05:52,040
Speaker 4: I wish I knew.

1330
01:05:52,480 --> 01:05:54,520
Speaker 6: I think I think maybe the only way to do

1331
01:05:54,680 --> 01:05:57,280
Speaker 6: is create a conspiracy theory that's even more alluring on

1332
01:05:57,320 --> 01:05:59,960
Speaker 6: the left and then and then like you know, I'm

1333
01:06:00,040 --> 01:06:03,280
Speaker 6: maybe Joe Biden is secretly a superhero.

1334
01:06:02,720 --> 01:06:07,160
Speaker 2: Like Dark Brandon. Dark Brandon, Okay.

1335
01:06:06,920 --> 01:06:07,800
Speaker 4: I mean maybe that's it.

1336
01:06:07,880 --> 01:06:10,560
Speaker 6: Dark Brandon was It was actually kind of like remarkably

1337
01:06:10,680 --> 01:06:13,960
Speaker 6: effective when when when people on the left began to

1338
01:06:14,080 --> 01:06:17,840
Speaker 6: use it ironically to counter what people on the right

1339
01:06:17,880 --> 01:06:19,880
Speaker 6: were doing, Like, it was effective and it really got

1340
01:06:19,880 --> 01:06:22,800
Speaker 6: a lot of people's attentions. So I mean maybe that's

1341
01:06:22,840 --> 01:06:26,120
Speaker 6: the only way, Like maybe just constantly countering these narratives

1342
01:06:26,120 --> 01:06:30,640
Speaker 6: with something even more interesting and more positive and upbeat

1343
01:06:30,720 --> 01:06:31,600
Speaker 6: is the way.

1344
01:06:33,000 --> 01:06:34,920
Speaker 2: Well, is there anything else that you would like to add?

1345
01:06:35,720 --> 01:06:36,920
Speaker 4: Don't tiny cults?

1346
01:06:39,040 --> 01:06:39,240
Speaker 1: Yeah?

1347
01:06:40,800 --> 01:06:41,120
Speaker 3: Cool?

1348
01:06:41,880 --> 01:06:44,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. And where

1349
01:06:44,000 --> 01:06:45,400
Speaker 2: can people find you and your work?

1350
01:06:46,080 --> 01:06:47,960
Speaker 6: Well, I would say Twitter, but who knows about that.

1351
01:06:48,920 --> 01:06:53,160
Speaker 6: I am at vox. My byline is just under my

1352
01:06:53,200 --> 01:06:58,960
Speaker 6: name Asia Romano. I'm on most social media platforms as bookshop.

1353
01:06:59,720 --> 01:07:01,600
Speaker 6: See probably find me there if.

1354
01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:02,960
Speaker 5: You look awesome.

1355
01:07:03,720 --> 01:07:07,040
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for this enlightening conversation.

1356
01:07:07,400 --> 01:07:08,880
Speaker 4: Where's my pleasure? It's a lot of fun.

1357
01:07:09,000 --> 01:07:09,560
Speaker 5: Okay.

1358
01:07:10,480 --> 01:07:15,000
Speaker 2: I truly feel like I could do like five episodes

1359
01:07:15,040 --> 01:07:17,840
Speaker 2: straight on moral panics and satanic panics because they're so

1360
01:07:18,000 --> 01:07:21,200
Speaker 2: fricking interesting and relevant. But it's okay, it's okay, just

1361
01:07:21,240 --> 01:07:22,280
Speaker 2: scratching the surface.

1362
01:07:22,400 --> 01:07:23,760
Speaker 5: We'll do more later on.

1363
01:07:23,880 --> 01:07:25,480
Speaker 3: We got to start somewhere. Okay.

1364
01:07:25,520 --> 01:07:28,920
Speaker 2: So, Megan, have you ever remembered something that you were like, whoa?

1365
01:07:29,000 --> 01:07:30,880
Speaker 2: I completely forgot about that.

1366
01:07:31,040 --> 01:07:32,920
Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, this is really crazy.

1367
01:07:33,000 --> 01:07:36,760
Speaker 1: So about three and a half years ago, I moved

1368
01:07:36,920 --> 01:07:40,040
Speaker 1: into the house that I live in now, and I'd

1369
01:07:40,080 --> 01:07:43,160
Speaker 1: been living on my own in an apartment and I

1370
01:07:43,240 --> 01:07:45,920
Speaker 1: had a like, very nice life, but there was something

1371
01:07:45,960 --> 01:07:49,560
Speaker 1: about this particular house and the people that lived here

1372
01:07:49,640 --> 01:07:53,280
Speaker 1: that made me feel a sense of family and safety.

1373
01:07:53,520 --> 01:07:57,360
Speaker 1: And I don't know, my nervous system was just like whoa,

1374
01:07:57,880 --> 01:07:58,480
Speaker 1: you can let go.

1375
01:07:58,600 --> 01:08:01,320
Speaker 3: I think living alone had me like really scared.

1376
01:08:01,360 --> 01:08:04,120
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was, but I would be

1377
01:08:04,160 --> 01:08:08,160
Speaker 1: brushing my teeth and I would remember a doll that

1378
01:08:08,280 --> 01:08:12,560
Speaker 1: I had completely forgot existed, and I'd be like, did

1379
01:08:12,600 --> 01:08:14,080
Speaker 1: I have I'd ask my mom, you know, did I

1380
01:08:14,080 --> 01:08:17,800
Speaker 1: have a doll named like whatever? And she and I'm like, yeah,

1381
01:08:18,120 --> 01:08:20,439
Speaker 1: hi Anna. My mom would be like, how do you

1382
01:08:20,479 --> 01:08:24,639
Speaker 1: remember that? And just the weirdest memories started to come

1383
01:08:24,680 --> 01:08:25,120
Speaker 1: back to me.

1384
01:08:25,240 --> 01:08:27,439
Speaker 3: None of them were bad at all.

1385
01:08:27,800 --> 01:08:31,960
Speaker 1: They were so innocuous, but they were true and completely

1386
01:08:32,520 --> 01:08:34,080
Speaker 1: cut off from.

1387
01:08:34,080 --> 01:08:37,120
Speaker 3: My normal memory. Yeah, so that was interesting to me.

1388
01:08:37,439 --> 01:08:37,640
Speaker 6: You know.

1389
01:08:37,760 --> 01:08:41,320
Speaker 1: I think we just you and I like discussed how

1390
01:08:41,360 --> 01:08:42,519
Speaker 1: careful we want to be.

1391
01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:45,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I feel like that happened to me recently,

1392
01:08:45,640 --> 01:08:49,880
Speaker 2: and now I'm forgetting what it was I remember. But

1393
01:08:50,040 --> 01:08:53,040
Speaker 2: I it's almost like I'm so used to remembering the

1394
01:08:53,080 --> 01:08:56,960
Speaker 2: things I always remember that even just sort of thinking

1395
01:08:57,000 --> 01:08:59,840
Speaker 2: about a different era that I don't normally think about

1396
01:09:00,040 --> 01:09:02,519
Speaker 2: can bring up new memories. I remember Avitel and Dan

1397
01:09:02,640 --> 01:09:05,400
Speaker 2: and our friends both saying that when they went to EMDR,

1398
01:09:05,439 --> 01:09:08,680
Speaker 2: they started remembering details of their memories that they like

1399
01:09:09,080 --> 01:09:10,120
Speaker 2: totally forgot about.

1400
01:09:10,120 --> 01:09:11,160
Speaker 3: It's so weird.

1401
01:09:11,439 --> 01:09:15,240
Speaker 1: Everybody go do MDR, especially if you have trauma, it's

1402
01:09:15,439 --> 01:09:16,040
Speaker 1: a miracle.

1403
01:09:16,200 --> 01:09:17,240
Speaker 5: I didn't have that happen.

1404
01:09:17,320 --> 01:09:22,240
Speaker 2: My experience was, Oh, I'm feeling feelings associated with this,

1405
01:09:22,600 --> 01:09:25,160
Speaker 2: but I can't. But for me, I was like, I

1406
01:09:25,200 --> 01:09:29,080
Speaker 2: feel like this might be adding my adult perspective onto

1407
01:09:29,720 --> 01:09:31,440
Speaker 2: the experience.

1408
01:09:31,120 --> 01:09:33,040
Speaker 3: Probably, but that's okay.

1409
01:09:33,120 --> 01:09:35,360
Speaker 2: That's that's like a great part of the process. But

1410
01:09:35,400 --> 01:09:37,920
Speaker 2: it wasn't like, Oh, I'm remembering these details, which I

1411
01:09:37,960 --> 01:09:39,840
Speaker 2: kind of wanted. I'm like, I I wish I had

1412
01:09:39,840 --> 01:09:42,320
Speaker 2: the I if I took the Limitless pill, that would

1413
01:09:42,320 --> 01:09:44,480
Speaker 2: be the thing I would I would want to remember everything.

1414
01:09:44,479 --> 01:09:45,040
Speaker 3: I would want to.

1415
01:09:45,040 --> 01:09:48,479
Speaker 2: Be so good, but it's probably best for my mental

1416
01:09:48,520 --> 01:09:51,360
Speaker 2: health that I don't to be on Probably i'd be

1417
01:09:51,439 --> 01:09:52,960
Speaker 2: ruminating non stuff.

1418
01:09:55,240 --> 01:09:57,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a memory. Is a weird thing. It's a

1419
01:09:57,479 --> 01:10:01,720
Speaker 1: tricky thing. But definitely did have that experience, and it

1420
01:10:01,880 --> 01:10:06,479
Speaker 1: made me really curious about why my sense of safety

1421
01:10:06,840 --> 01:10:08,920
Speaker 1: made those memories come up for me.

1422
01:10:09,040 --> 01:10:09,959
Speaker 3: It was so strange.

1423
01:10:10,240 --> 01:10:12,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we could talk. I could talk more about

1424
01:10:12,840 --> 01:10:15,080
Speaker 2: that too, but we'll get into it another time. This

1425
01:10:15,160 --> 01:10:17,120
Speaker 2: show I really relate to the idea of like, once

1426
01:10:17,160 --> 01:10:19,040
Speaker 2: you feel a sense of safety in your life, like

1427
01:10:19,120 --> 01:10:22,040
Speaker 2: something kind of changes in your body and yeah, yeah,

1428
01:10:22,320 --> 01:10:25,760
Speaker 2: super interesting. All right, guys, we are three quarters of

1429
01:10:25,800 --> 01:10:28,920
Speaker 2: the way through Conspiracy Month, and next week we will

1430
01:10:28,960 --> 01:10:33,080
Speaker 2: have a victim of conspiracy theorists tell us all about

1431
01:10:33,160 --> 01:10:37,840
Speaker 2: what that is like. And in the meantime, Merry Christmas.

1432
01:10:37,560 --> 01:10:41,080
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays. We're so glad you guys joined

1433
01:10:41,160 --> 01:10:43,439
Speaker 1: us here today. We can't wait to see you again

1434
01:10:43,520 --> 01:10:46,960
Speaker 1: next week, and as always, remember to follow your gut,

1435
01:10:47,000 --> 01:10:48,720
Speaker 1: watch out for rad flax.

1436
01:10:48,560 --> 01:10:53,320
Speaker 3: And never ever bie Hey.

1437
01:10:57,760 --> 01:11:00,439
Speaker 2: Trust Me is produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rap and

1438
01:11:00,479 --> 01:11:01,960
Speaker 2: Steve Delemator.

1439
01:11:01,439 --> 01:11:03,400
Speaker 1: With special thanks to Stacy Para.

1440
01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:05,760
Speaker 2: And her theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

1441
01:11:05,960 --> 01:11:06,760
Speaker 3: You can find us.

1442
01:11:06,680 --> 01:11:11,000
Speaker 1: On Instagram at trust Me Podcast, Twitter at trust Me Cultpod,

1443
01:11:11,240 --> 01:11:14,080
Speaker 1: or on TikTok at trust Me Cult Podcast.

1444
01:11:14,280 --> 01:11:17,640
Speaker 2: I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.

1445
01:11:17,360 --> 01:11:20,920
Speaker 1: And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Babraham

1446
01:11:21,080 --> 01:11:22,120
Speaker 1: Hicks on Twitter.

1447
01:11:22,280 --> 01:11:24,599
Speaker 2: Remember to rate and review and spread the word