Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Josh here, and for this week's select, I've
Speaker 1: chosen our two thousand seventeen episode on Satanism. It proved
Speaker 1: to be a pretty eye opening episode and was much
Speaker 1: less upsetting and much more enjoyable than the title might suggest.
Speaker 1: So sit back, relax, and listen up to how satanism works. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: it's us Josh and Chuck, and we just wanted to
Speaker 1: say that if you have very strong religious beliefs, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you may want to skip this one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about Satanism in this episode and
Speaker 1: what seems like glowing terms, but um, for my part,
Speaker 1: at least, I was just trying to have a little
Speaker 1: fun with it, So I hope that comes across. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have an intellectual conversation about Satanism. How about that?
Speaker 1: All right? Agreed? Alright, Well onto the show, Chuck, Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Seated directly
Speaker 1: across from me is one Charles w Wayne Charles Chuckers Bryant.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good, yells above himself. Ye, and there is
Speaker 1: um old scratch to my right Matt. Matt, do you
Speaker 1: let people know your last name? Oh yeah, you're a personality,
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, but I don't want him to get kidnapped.
Speaker 1: Guest producer Matt Frederick of the Old Days, Uh, co
Speaker 1: host of stuff they don't want you to know, and
Speaker 1: now supervising producer for podcasts. Man, we don't let our
Speaker 1: producers talk on our episodes, so we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: beat that out. Matt says, that was a huge announcement.
Speaker 1: You just said, yeah, nice, well, congrats Matt, and Matt's
Speaker 1: been working here forever just like us. Nice, lovely wife,
Speaker 1: lovely child. Yes, great family, loves Indian food. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. Oh yeah, yeah, it's as bread and butter
Speaker 1: as it were. It's a gey and non Now he's
Speaker 1: afraid to talk, which he should be. Uh, Matt's here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So thank you, Matt. And Hail Satan. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: Hail Satan, Hail Satan, Chuck hal Satan. Josh. It's funny
Speaker 1: I went from and when reading this, the thinking Satanists
Speaker 1: are just libertarians too. No, Satan this are kind of Republicans.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean that. You'll see what I mean
Speaker 1: philosophically in some ways I don't mean. And then I thought,
Speaker 1: I'm a Satanist, did you did you have in a way?
Speaker 1: I mean, I read some of the stuff and the
Speaker 1: there f a q on their website and some of
Speaker 1: their fundamentals, and they're there. There are eleven rules of
Speaker 1: Earth and their nine Satanic statements. Will read all that stuff.
Speaker 1: I thought, geez, I agree with a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: They're thirteen things to avoid getting gouged at the grocery store.
Speaker 1: What Satanists are not, almost assuredly, are not uh, evil
Speaker 1: people who meet in dark churches to perform ritual blood
Speaker 1: sacrifice and eat hearts and then draw pentagrams on they
Speaker 1: may draw pagrams. Yeah, that's that parts actually true. But
Speaker 1: there's there's more things that Satanists are not. I think
Speaker 1: if you're coming to this blind um without knowing anything,
Speaker 1: you'll probably be surprised about just how kind of groovy
Speaker 1: they are. And this is the Church of Satan. But
Speaker 1: I'm talking about mainly uh No, I think you can
Speaker 1: you can apply what you just said to all Satanists,
Speaker 1: because if you're a Satanist, you would take umbrage at
Speaker 1: the idea that somebody who actually believes in the supernatural
Speaker 1: entity Satan as not a Satanist, because Satanism, by definition,
Speaker 1: at least modern Satanism by definition, is an atheistic philosophy.
Speaker 1: So there's no supernatural entities of any kind to Satanists.
Speaker 1: So somebody who worshiped Satan would be a devil worshiper.
Speaker 1: It is a completely different kind of thing. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the I didn't even finish the last thing. Well, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, I got off track. The last thing I
Speaker 1: thought when I was reading about the Temple of Satan
Speaker 1: is that these are just liberal hippies. The temple is Satan,
Speaker 1: the Satanic Temple, Satanic Temple. They are they are. Um.
Speaker 1: I saw them compared to or analogized as a dark
Speaker 1: yes men. You know, the yes Men. No, oh, you
Speaker 1: gotta check out the yes Men. There's a couple of
Speaker 1: yes Men documentaries and they basically do this, but it's
Speaker 1: not satanically associated. And I wonder why it was satanically associated.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it sounds like you're a bunch of liberal
Speaker 1: hippie scientists. To me. Well, we'll get into all that, okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: So we're talking Satanists and Satanism if you couldn't tell,
Speaker 1: because we have been saying Satan a lot um. And if,
Speaker 1: like Chuck said, um, you're coming into this blind, let
Speaker 1: us illuminate for you, let us bring the light. Then
Speaker 1: we both group goatees for this episode exactly typically and
Speaker 1: shaped our heads and horns. Jon and Strickland actually could
Speaker 1: do a man sort of an amateur Anton LaVey if
Speaker 1: he wanted to. He could. I'm sure he does at home,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. All right, so let's
Speaker 1: go back and this is a grabstor article so you
Speaker 1: know it's got the goods um and talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the origin story of Satan, which um, we
Speaker 1: will lead up to sort of what the modern version
Speaker 1: of that is. But if you're thinking red guy with
Speaker 1: a pitch fork and pointy hooves, it's uh tries to
Speaker 1: lure people away from God to do bad things that
Speaker 1: kind of came around later. So we need to go
Speaker 1: back further to the Hebrew Bible, which the Christian Old
Speaker 1: Testament is derived from. And there's a lot of uncertainty
Speaker 1: on what Satan actually meant, depending on how you want
Speaker 1: to translate the Hebrew term, right, and the reason there's
Speaker 1: uncertainty is because Satan wasn't a figure in early Judaism.
Speaker 1: Because the early Jews believed that all God was all things.
Speaker 1: God was good, God was evil, God was responsible for
Speaker 1: everything in the universe. There wasn't what we understand now
Speaker 1: or anybody who thinks of the Judeo Christian ethic now, um,
Speaker 1: there wasn't dualism, which is, there's good and the bad,
Speaker 1: there's light and the dark, and they they equal each
Speaker 1: other out. And early Judaism this didn't exist. It was
Speaker 1: all in one, So there was no need for Satan, right.
Speaker 1: But as this concept of an all benevolent, loving God spread,
Speaker 1: this question arose, which was, well, wait a minute, if
Speaker 1: God is just so benevolent and loving, why does he
Speaker 1: why does he or she um let bad things happen?
Speaker 1: And so the need for the concept of Satan emerged
Speaker 1: later on, and because of the um early Judaism's proximity
Speaker 1: too Persia, which was ruling the land at the time
Speaker 1: at about like the six to third centuries b c. Um.
Speaker 1: Persia had Zoroastrianism, which had dualism. So they kind of
Speaker 1: introduced uh, the Hebrew faith to dualism, and hence Satan
Speaker 1: was originally born. Yeah, so there's no like consensus when
Speaker 1: you look at these old texts what these translations mean.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it is an adversary or an opponent to God.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's uh, he's like the the
Speaker 1: an attorney and than's legal system. Throw in the book
Speaker 1: at people like um al Pacina. Oh yeah, quite literally.
Speaker 1: What didn't you play the devil or did he as
Speaker 1: a lawyer? Right? Devil's advocate with Kanu. I don't think
Speaker 1: I ever saw that. I didn't either, but I mean
Speaker 1: we were both alive at the time, so we know.
Speaker 1: Uh there uh you know, you look at all these
Speaker 1: different forms of what the word meant back then before
Speaker 1: it became the modern version we all know. And the
Speaker 1: one kind of common thread through all of them, though,
Speaker 1: is that Satan was an outsider who was sort of
Speaker 1: against the man and these established values that everyone else
Speaker 1: seemed to believe in right, or established rules or just
Speaker 1: even the establishment in general. Yes, he's the antithesis of that. Correct.
Speaker 1: You get into the Christian New Testament and it starts
Speaker 1: to clear up a bit um where there is a
Speaker 1: single being called Satan who is supernatural, and it's a
Speaker 1: direct opposition to God and is usually used as a
Speaker 1: as a tool God uses as a in the Bible,
Speaker 1: at least as a test, like go down there and
Speaker 1: test these humans to see if see see which way
Speaker 1: their allegiance lay. Right. Um. That Satan's called the scriptural
Speaker 1: Satan or Satan o the scriptures, right yeah. Um. He
Speaker 1: also kind of comes out of nowhere in the New
Speaker 1: Testament to tempt Jesus in the desert, I believe, um.
Speaker 1: And I mean you know all this right, am I right?
Speaker 1: It was in the desert? Well yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: by the way, just to back up to that last
Speaker 1: episode when the stuttering when I didn't hear the story
Speaker 1: about Moses the Bible with a coal in his mouth
Speaker 1: or whatever everyone wrote in it was like, it's not
Speaker 1: in the Bible. Don't feel bad. It was from something else, right,
Speaker 1: it was from the Disney movie. Yeah. So um. But
Speaker 1: in one of the gospels in the New Testament, um,
Speaker 1: And no need to write in to let us know.
Speaker 1: But it's in one of the gospels in the New
Speaker 1: Testament that Satan appears to Jesus to try to tempt him,
Speaker 1: and he's kind of brought in almost like he's a
Speaker 1: character that everybody should know. But if you're just reading
Speaker 1: the New Testament from beginning to end, you're like, what,
Speaker 1: who's this guy? But they apparently another gospel makes mention
Speaker 1: that Satan was the serpent in the garden of Eden.
Speaker 1: So he's a big tempter. He's he's bent on corrupting
Speaker 1: man and getting man to stray from God's flock. Basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're these Uh, there's certain demons that are named
Speaker 1: properly in the Bible, um, like Beelzebub and belly aal um.
Speaker 1: And again it's just sort of conjecture on our part
Speaker 1: whether or not that's referring to Satan or whether it's
Speaker 1: a generic evil. Um, it's just sort of difficult to
Speaker 1: what it wasn't was the devil with the horns and
Speaker 1: the pitchfork that we all think about. No, in those
Speaker 1: earliest names for the devil, like Beelzebub are actually corruptions
Speaker 1: or alterations of competing religions gods. Right, So, early Christianity
Speaker 1: and um, I guess Middle Judaism had this kind of
Speaker 1: tendency to take other religions gods and make them the
Speaker 1: evil characters and their religions because they wanted Christianity to flourish,
Speaker 1: right exactly, They wanted to make the competition look bad
Speaker 1: as a way to do it was a smear tactic
Speaker 1: in a campaign to get converts. Right. So, biel's Abub
Speaker 1: is actually a corruption of ballalls of which is you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, ballalls of all, but all the ball the Exalted.
Speaker 1: I think if you say that one more time, people
Speaker 1: appear um and ball be a apostrophe. A l was
Speaker 1: the main deity of the Canaanites and the Phoenicians who
Speaker 1: were competing with the early Christians at the time. And um,
Speaker 1: if you say balls of that means lord of the flies,
Speaker 1: not lowerd the Exalted. So it was like it was
Speaker 1: a slam on their the main their competition's main god.
Speaker 1: And that's where biel Zebub came from. And that's actually
Speaker 1: that will become a common play in the Christian playbook
Speaker 1: of smearing the other guy's gods by making them um
Speaker 1: evil figures in Christian mythology. Platoon Rata bals Abub. Remember
Speaker 1: there was a Dead Milkman album called Bell's a Bubba. Yes,
Speaker 1: it had like that guy on a tractor on the
Speaker 1: cover that was bla um well, the same with Lucifer.
Speaker 1: And when we finally got the English language King James
Speaker 1: Bible in sixteen eleven, Lucifer was really a Latin term
Speaker 1: for morning star. But in that version of the Bible
Speaker 1: they say, no, what that really is is the name
Speaker 1: of Satan, right, And he was the light bringer, the
Speaker 1: one who would reveal the truth to people that they
Speaker 1: were actually being held down by God. Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: not the Christian way, right. So what you were saying
Speaker 1: by co opting all these are not co opting but well,
Speaker 1: kind of co opting these bad religions another band, um,
Speaker 1: that's actually a real band name. Yeah, correct, Uh, these
Speaker 1: bad religions and saying those are the bad ones. They would.
Speaker 1: That's how the like the devil that we know today,
Speaker 1: the Satan sorry that we know today, has taken shape
Speaker 1: because they like the Greek god Pan had the cloven
Speaker 1: hoofs and the horns. Uh back us. The Roman god
Speaker 1: is where you get this insatiable um Bacchanalian decadence um, which,
Speaker 1: as we'll see with the Church of Satan um is
Speaker 1: it too far off? They certainly love their orgies and
Speaker 1: they're trades of fine meats and roasted Meats and Jesus. UM.
Speaker 1: So in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, then this
Speaker 1: this mythology, Christian mythology has expanded. You get a couple
Speaker 1: of books that were very key into shaping who we
Speaker 1: think of today as Satan. One was John Milton's epic
Speaker 1: poem Paradise Lost. Then of course Dante's Divine Comedy. Um,
Speaker 1: this is where we got the idea that Satan was
Speaker 1: an angel expelled from heaven because of his pride, who
Speaker 1: then said Tony will defeat to the Lord. These are
Speaker 1: actually from two books written by dudes. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of the mythology about Satan that Christians understand as Satan,
Speaker 1: and that just people in the culture generally understand is
Speaker 1: Satan don't show up anywhere in the actual Bible, Old
Speaker 1: Testament or New Testament. All that stuff came afterwards, So
Speaker 1: chuck the The Enlightenment was another turning point then big
Speaker 1: time for the conception of Satan. And this is his
Speaker 1: evolution is like a scary, supernatural, otherworldly figure. Um takes
Speaker 1: a different turn because the Enlightenment was based on rational thought.
Speaker 1: Secular humanism finds its roots in the Enlightenment, and um,
Speaker 1: they started to come to see Satan as a kind
Speaker 1: of a creative force, almost uh foil to the establishment,
Speaker 1: this idea that Satan is um the opposite of the
Speaker 1: established norms and customs and moral goods um, and that
Speaker 1: he's kind of like a handy archetype for that. So
Speaker 1: he stops, he loses some of his supernatural um, yes,
Speaker 1: and is replaced by metaphorical Yeah. And I think that's
Speaker 1: that seems to be the one that the Church of
Speaker 1: Satan sort of identified with a little more. Was it
Speaker 1: Satan was just a just a freethinking dude. Yeah, apparently
Speaker 1: that's where they that's where it finds its roots. Was
Speaker 1: the Enlightenment very interesting, which makes sense because most Satanists
Speaker 1: would be probably humanists secular humanists, um, although they're individualists.
Speaker 1: But you can make a case that that's an individual
Speaker 1: humanism um. And that's you know, that comes out of
Speaker 1: the Enlightenment as well. So, um, you want to take
Speaker 1: a break and then keep going, or you want to
Speaker 1: keep going, Let's take a break and we'll talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about witches right after this. So I promised
Speaker 1: talk of witches. Um, we did it in the jeez,
Speaker 1: that was a long time ago. We did an episode
Speaker 1: on Witchcraft UM many many years ago, and if you
Speaker 1: are a witch or a Western esoteric, you were probably
Speaker 1: one of two groups of people to be accused of
Speaker 1: worshiping Satan in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. UM. Basically,
Speaker 1: anything anything in opposition to organized Christianity was Satan worship, right,
Speaker 1: And that's the same thing as as saying your God,
Speaker 1: your creator, Deity is like Satan and our religion. It's
Speaker 1: the same thing. Anything that's in opposition to Christian thought
Speaker 1: is automatically heretical, heretical, and the kind of almost like
Speaker 1: the lazy shorthand way of describing it is it's Satanic.
Speaker 1: You know, Satan, He's scary and evil, right, Well, what
Speaker 1: these people think is satanic? Yeah, And if you listen
Speaker 1: to the episode on Witchcraft, UM, and we haven't, I
Speaker 1: know stuff you miss in history class did a good
Speaker 1: episode on what really happened in Salem, which will probably
Speaker 1: cover that at some point I mentioned, but I think
Speaker 1: everyone pretty much knows at this point about sixty people,
Speaker 1: mainly women, were put to death in the American colonies,
Speaker 1: in Europe and UM under the guise of being Satan
Speaker 1: worshippers and witches and practicing witchery, and by all accounts,
Speaker 1: they generally were you know that, I don't like the
Speaker 1: way that lady looked at me in the town today,
Speaker 1: or you know what she I think she stole milk
Speaker 1: from my cow, or I want her land, or I
Speaker 1: want her land, or um, my wife is jealous of her. Um.
Speaker 1: So they're all witches. Let's burn them. Let's throw them
Speaker 1: in lakes and see if they float. Um, and let's
Speaker 1: burn them because if they don't float, then they're not
Speaker 1: which is drowned. And and early physicians had more than
Speaker 1: just a small hand in this as well. They in
Speaker 1: accusing especially like folk healers and midwives of being witches
Speaker 1: again to basically forced the competition out. Yeah, where do
Speaker 1: we talk about that one? In that seem more recent?
Speaker 1: Remember maybe Great Robbin They talk about that in Great
Speaker 1: Robbing feels like it does. There were also things called
Speaker 1: esoteric orders, which were I don't even know what you
Speaker 1: would call that today, basically kind of any group that
Speaker 1: didn't subscribe to mainstream Christianity, so like the Mason's or
Speaker 1: the Illuminati thing. Uh yeah, and like they were Christian
Speaker 1: at base gnostics, but then they had like, yeah, they
Speaker 1: had this other occult ideas in addition to it. Right,
Speaker 1: So like the Kaither's or Cather's are a good example
Speaker 1: of that. They were in I think like the twelfth
Speaker 1: of fourteenth century France, and they were like Christian plus right,
Speaker 1: they were they Caither's means like the pure ones um.
Speaker 1: They were so Christian that they felt like just being
Speaker 1: a normal, pious Christian wasn't enough, and you actually had
Speaker 1: to be baptized again but basically like a born again
Speaker 1: Christian process. But in again like twelve thirteenth century France,
Speaker 1: they were considered heretics and they were persecuted. You could
Speaker 1: call them an esoteric order because it didn't follow prescribed Christianity,
Speaker 1: orthodox establishment Christianity to a t. It either was lacking
Speaker 1: some or had extra and then you're you're a heretic.
Speaker 1: And hence Satanists and esoteric order believed in Dan brown
Speaker 1: books basically that that all that stuff is true. All
Speaker 1: the stuff he writes about is about like esoteric orders. Well,
Speaker 1: and here's the thing though, they were all labeled as Satanists.
Speaker 1: But but there's there's no evidence whatsoever that any of
Speaker 1: them we're Satanic. And like in truth. Yeah, you know, well,
Speaker 1: I was reading about one the Luciferians. They actually they
Speaker 1: may have been, although their concept of Satan wasn't that
Speaker 1: he was evil. Their concept was that he was the
Speaker 1: one true deity and that he had been tricked into
Speaker 1: being kicked out of heaven unfairly by a treacherous Jehovah,
Speaker 1: and that um, it was actually Lucifer who was supposed
Speaker 1: to be in charge, and that Jehovah was oppressing everybody.
Speaker 1: So if that's true, then yes, as far as the
Speaker 1: Church goes out, is as satanic as you can possibly
Speaker 1: get in your beliefs, because they were in total opposition
Speaker 1: to the Church in their beliefs as well. But that's
Speaker 1: I mean, for the most part, most of these other
Speaker 1: groups were not in any way, shape or form satanic
Speaker 1: as as you would think of it today. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and Ed even points out and here the grabster that
Speaker 1: by that that there's there's no evidence in world history
Speaker 1: that there's ever been any long term organized group of
Speaker 1: people that worship Satan as some evil entity. That's a
Speaker 1: huge one, because that's that's one of the ways that
Speaker 1: Christianity was able to smear its rivals by by suggesting
Speaker 1: that they were part of a huge, massive cult, Satanic cult.
Speaker 1: And I mean like, if if there's a supernatural entity
Speaker 1: that's bent on getting you and making your life terrible,
Speaker 1: and there's actually people on earth who are following this person,
Speaker 1: it's going to make you stay to the straight and
Speaker 1: narrow of your prescribed religion even more, right, Baron Brimstone
Speaker 1: and whatnot. Yes, I grew up with that, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. I can't remember which show I think it
Speaker 1: was during Satanic Panic. We talked about the Devil Worship
Speaker 1: House in Stone Mountain that it was the scariest place
Speaker 1: I had ever driven past on the way to steak in.
Speaker 1: Ale Man, I mistaken, Ale? Are they done? They're surely
Speaker 1: they're around, right, There's probably like one in Vegas and
Speaker 1: one in Hong Kong or something weird like that. It
Speaker 1: would be funny for the one on Hong Kong was
Speaker 1: like this retroobrack themed American thing, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: America in the eighties. Um, all right, well let's talk
Speaker 1: about Anton LaVey. Then what time has come? Oh wait,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to say one more thing. Um,
Speaker 1: So in the I think the fourteenth century, the Knights templar,
Speaker 1: another esoteric order, but a military order. We're accused of
Speaker 1: worshiping Batha Met, and Batha Met is Satan with like
Speaker 1: the goat's head and horns. Um, that's the great looking
Speaker 1: statue they tried to put up in Oklahoma. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: Batha Met is most likely an alteration or mistranslation or
Speaker 1: something of Mohammed, and that it was used to basically
Speaker 1: include Mohammed as uh Satan in the Christian ethos when
Speaker 1: the Christians first encountered Muslims during the Crusades. So it
Speaker 1: was like the same thing, but a thousand years after
Speaker 1: they did it to Biel's Abub, they did it to Mohammed.
Speaker 1: And we should do like a tin parter on the
Speaker 1: Crusades starting now. I just tried to think of I
Speaker 1: would be up for that. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: think so. Um, all right, can we invite Anton LaVey
Speaker 1: in the Ghost of Anton LaVey it is Jonathan's strickling. Uh.
Speaker 1: So this dude, he was born. He is the founder
Speaker 1: of the Church of Satan. If you did not know that, Um,
Speaker 1: a cup of picture of him. You've probably seen him before.
Speaker 1: Bald head goatee. Uh you know. It does bug me
Speaker 1: about all Satanists is if you just look up photos
Speaker 1: of prominent ones or meetings, they're always doing these faces.
Speaker 1: Yeah like you never I mean actually, ironically, the only
Speaker 1: one I've ever seen smile in a picture is the
Speaker 1: current High Priestess. His name is Peggy, which I think
Speaker 1: is adorable. She's this is a cute old lady. Yeah
Speaker 1: and not even that old, but yeah, she's like really
Speaker 1: old lady. Huh yeah, oh no, she smiles and photos,
Speaker 1: but every other picture, like you know, their eyes are
Speaker 1: big and they're frowning or they're licking their teeth or something.
Speaker 1: Come on. I was on the True Your Statan website
Speaker 1: yesterday and um, I saw a picture of some Satanists
Speaker 1: all smiling. But it was because Anton LaVey had a
Speaker 1: naked woman over his knee and a spanking area. So
Speaker 1: they do smile in some pictures. Okay, yeah, well that
Speaker 1: makes sense. So Levey was born Howard Howard Leave Howard
Speaker 1: Stanton Leave in Chicago, and um, the more I read
Speaker 1: about him and his early years supposed early years, the
Speaker 1: more he sounded like l Ron Hubbard. Yeah kind of,
Speaker 1: because um, l Ron Hubbard and Anton LaVey both. If
Speaker 1: you ask them about their backgrounds, they'll tell you one thing.
Speaker 1: If you ask someone else, others who like Lawrence Wright,
Speaker 1: who does research, they say, I really can't find any
Speaker 1: evidence of this stuff that they claimed. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: if there was anyone who subscribed to lying, it's just
Speaker 1: as much as you possibly could. As a form of showmanship,
Speaker 1: Anton LaVey was definitely that guy. Yeah. So he says
Speaker 1: that he had a very colorful upbringing. He worked at
Speaker 1: a circus, he was worked at side shows. He was
Speaker 1: a police photographer, which may have been true. He was
Speaker 1: a very talented organist who worked burlesque shows. Um. If
Speaker 1: you ask other people who have done research, they say, now,
Speaker 1: kind of was this suburban kid in suburban San Francisco
Speaker 1: not super interesting? Um. One thing that everyone will say, though,
Speaker 1: is that he was interested in the occult. He was
Speaker 1: interested in pulp horror novels and magazines, love Craft, love
Speaker 1: love craft, and he was interested in Uh. He was
Speaker 1: very much turned off by the double standards what he
Speaker 1: perceived to be the double standards of mainstream Christianity, because
Speaker 1: supposedly he would playing these burlesque shows and see how
Speaker 1: these men there then the next day see them in
Speaker 1: the churches, and that had a real impact on him,
Speaker 1: supposedly that he was just like this is yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: he didn't like phonies, phones, driving crazy m and holding Caufield. Right.
Speaker 1: Uh so the in um the nineteen sixties and this
Speaker 1: is kind of like with l Ron Hubard again. He
Speaker 1: started Levey started hosting these lectures on paranormal and he
Speaker 1: had a lot of h flair, and everyone was like, man,
Speaker 1: who is this guy's kind of cool? And he talks
Speaker 1: about things like indulging in all the worldly things. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't feel bad about it. You should masturbate and have
Speaker 1: sex and have sex with tons of people at once
Speaker 1: if you want, and just do whatever pleases you. It's fine,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. And so people in the sixties
Speaker 1: were like, there was a time in the late sixties
Speaker 1: where he was there's this great article in the Telegraph
Speaker 1: when when he seduced Hot when Satanism seduced Hollywood or
Speaker 1: something like that, where it was sort of the thing
Speaker 1: two be a Satanist and to go to these parties
Speaker 1: because you would go in and and there would be
Speaker 1: drugs and ink and nakedness, like eyes wide shut up
Speaker 1: in there and everyone from like some of the Beach
Speaker 1: Boys to Sammy Davis Jr. Too. Liberaci Liberacci was a Satanist.
Speaker 1: He said he was for a while. I didn't know that. Uh,
Speaker 1: Sammy Davis Jr. Definitely was. He even had a TV pilot, uh,
Speaker 1: that he tried to get made about like a sitcom
Speaker 1: that was Satan friendly that he like worked for the
Speaker 1: Devil or something that it was supposed to be really bad,
Speaker 1: and he had only made one of them. But um, oh,
Speaker 1: so there is So it's out there somewhere. Well, supposedly
Speaker 1: you made a pilot that never went beyond that. Jane
Speaker 1: Mansfield was another famous Satanist. Yeah, so it was a
Speaker 1: big thing and Charles Manson kind of ruined all that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeahs being cool to go to the Church of Satan.
Speaker 1: But at any rate, Levee was making waves and in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six created officially the Church of Satan. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine published the Satanic Bible, which is pretty
Speaker 1: interesting to read through. I never read it all, but
Speaker 1: I read quite a bit of So. One of the
Speaker 1: things that he's accused of is um plagiarism and his
Speaker 1: his adherence still to this day, they kind of acknowledge
Speaker 1: it a little bit, but they more put it like, no,
Speaker 1: he was building on an earlier work, but he didn't
Speaker 1: really give credit to But there was a book, UM
Speaker 1: so he wrote the Satanic Bible in sixty nine publish UM.
Speaker 1: There was a book published in eighteen ninety, I think
Speaker 1: it was UM called Might Is Right and it was
Speaker 1: written pseudonymously by UM a guy named ragnar Red Beard.
Speaker 1: Ragnar Red Beard wrote this book and it was extremely
Speaker 1: um into social Darwinism. It was individualistic to the point
Speaker 1: of being anarchistic. It had all of the requisite eighteen
Speaker 1: nineties racism and sexism attended to it as well. But um,
Speaker 1: the point of it was is like like, why would you,
Speaker 1: you know, love your enemies? This whole doctrine of love
Speaker 1: is bs where animals and if you have an enemy
Speaker 1: should go out and beat him up because there's your enemy.
Speaker 1: You don't need to love him, you need to love yourself.
Speaker 1: And UM. It was really just a surprising book that
Speaker 1: apparently still a lot of people read today. UM. And
Speaker 1: apparently Anton LaVey read it and adopted a lot of it.
Speaker 1: But then he also wrote a lot about ritual and
Speaker 1: stuff as well and prescribe certain kinds of rituals in
Speaker 1: the Satanic Bible and supposedly the three main types of
Speaker 1: rituals of greater magic. There's greater magic and lesser magic.
Speaker 1: But in the greater magic um rituals there is UH compassion,
Speaker 1: there's UH and that's not just for others but also yourself.
Speaker 1: There's lust, and then there is um destruction. Yes, and
Speaker 1: all of them are meant as they're meant for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the person doing this, they're meant for you. There meant
Speaker 1: is it what was called the intellectual decompression chamber where
Speaker 1: you can just get rid of this baggage that you've got.
Speaker 1: And they're like, it's it's nothing more than this little
Speaker 1: psycho drama that you're performing for yourself to just make
Speaker 1: yourself feel better. Yeah, Like lust is to release your
Speaker 1: sexual urges. Like they'll say, Christianity teaches you to repress
Speaker 1: all that stuff that ain't that ain't no good for you.
Speaker 1: You need to go release uh these urges. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: walking around with all this stuff that's like hanging on you, Like,
Speaker 1: get rid of it so you can go be happy
Speaker 1: and stop dwelling on this. It's the same with destruction,
Speaker 1: cleansing oneself of anger towards someone who has done you
Speaker 1: a injustice, Like why sit on that deal with it?
Speaker 1: You're sitting there stewing about it. Smash the face, go
Speaker 1: put on your velvet robe. Well no, no, that was
Speaker 1: that was But that was that's That's something that Satanism
Speaker 1: has long been accused of, is like being violent toward others.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that they say, like, no, don't
Speaker 1: be violent toward others. Um they even say like you
Speaker 1: don't certainly don't owe anybody being nice to him or
Speaker 1: anything like that. But um, there there seems to be
Speaker 1: kind of a I haven't seen any overt calls to violence.
Speaker 1: It just seems to be like a if if that's
Speaker 1: what you deem is right, as long as you're following
Speaker 1: these other prescribed paths that seem to kind of avoid violence,
Speaker 1: that it's more just like you. It's it's centered on you,
Speaker 1: and you need to focus on yourself. And if you
Speaker 1: focus on yourself, then you're probably going to stop wanting
Speaker 1: to smash that other guy in the face, because you're
Speaker 1: gonna get rid of that baggage. Can I read the
Speaker 1: eleven Satanic Rules? Of the earth please. Number one. Do
Speaker 1: not give opinions or advice unless you were asked. Okay, bad.
Speaker 1: Number two. Do not tell your troubles to others unless
Speaker 1: you are sure they want to hear them. Yeah's not bad.
Speaker 1: Number three. When in another's layer, show him respect or
Speaker 1: else do not go there respect some one's home. Number four.
Speaker 1: If a guest in your layer annoys you, treat him
Speaker 1: cruelly and without mercy. Number five. Do not make sexual
Speaker 1: advances unless you are given the mating signal. That's sort
Speaker 1: of that's a sixties way of saying, I'm down with
Speaker 1: affirmative consent. Do not take that which does not belong
Speaker 1: to you unless it is a burden to the other
Speaker 1: person and he cries out to be relieved. Okay, like
Speaker 1: you know. Don't rob people of stuff. Relieve me of
Speaker 1: this glass of diet coke. I can't stop drinking. Number seven.
Speaker 1: Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it
Speaker 1: successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power
Speaker 1: of magic after having called upon it with success, you
Speaker 1: will lose all you have obtained. That's a little pruty.
Speaker 1: I didn't even hear that full when I trailed off,
Speaker 1: so long number eight, do not complain about anything to
Speaker 1: which you need not subjec act yourself. And finally, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good I think that one bears repeating. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: I say, finally, that's only right. Oh you want me
Speaker 1: to repeat that, please do not complain about anything to
Speaker 1: which you need not subject yourself. Or nine do not
Speaker 1: harm little children. But I should probably repeat that one too,
Speaker 1: do not harm little children, because that's a big deal.
Speaker 1: There are all these people that think, like, you know you,
Speaker 1: uh you, you sacrificed children and you have perform sex
Speaker 1: with children, and that's what Satanists do, and they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're not into that at all. No. One of the
Speaker 1: things that the Satanic Temple who will talk about in
Speaker 1: a little while point out is that um, there have
Speaker 1: been a lot of cases of UM people who are
Speaker 1: supposedly exercising demons from children, who have actually harmed and
Speaker 1: in fact killed children, and that there's no doubt. I
Speaker 1: think we talked about this in the Satanic Panic episode two.
Speaker 1: There's no documented cases of Satanists harming children because they're
Speaker 1: against it, and in fact, they won't even accept anyone
Speaker 1: under the age of eighteen into the church. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: self consent is extremely important to Satanists of all stripes.
Speaker 1: The idea of being forced into indoctrinated into any church
Speaker 1: before you're you can make a decision for yourself really
Speaker 1: goes against the idea of individual liberty and thus Satanic
Speaker 1: thought number ten. Do not kill non human animals because,
Speaker 1: like you said, they called humans animals too. In fact,
Speaker 1: they said that we're not much better even than animals.
Speaker 1: Just an animal reminder, it is, do not kill non
Speaker 1: human animals unless you are attacked or for your food,
Speaker 1: like if a cheetah pounces on you kill it if
Speaker 1: you want to eat the cheetah. Uh. And then finally,
Speaker 1: drum roll eleven Satanic rules of the Earth. When walking
Speaker 1: into open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you
Speaker 1: asked him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him. Nice.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a tenacious d lyric, it does. But
Speaker 1: the way you you counted down it was like a
Speaker 1: letterman list like that. That was good man, I miss Dave.
Speaker 1: I wonder how many um long time listeners we've lost
Speaker 1: with this episode. I don't know. Uh, do you want
Speaker 1: to take another break? Yeah? I mean, there's still so
Speaker 1: much more, but we gotta break at some point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a break, all right, Chuck, We're back
Speaker 1: with Satan. Remember the kids in the hall? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Kevin McDonald, I think with Satan. Uh was that him? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good stuff. Uh. So we've been talking a little
Speaker 1: bit about the philosophies of the Church of Satan. Um
Speaker 1: just real quickly, there are nine Satanic sins and again,
Speaker 1: I hate to say it, but this is sort of
Speaker 1: appealing to my brain. The nine Satanic sins or stupidity, pretentiousness,
Speaker 1: solop sis um self, deceit, herd, conformity, lack of perspective, forgetfulness,
Speaker 1: forgetfulness past orthodoxes, counterproductive pride, and lack of aesthetics. A
Speaker 1: lot of those are really really tough to explain. Anton LaVey, Well,
Speaker 1: some of them are pretty self evident, but um forgetfulness
Speaker 1: of past orthodoxes. Levy wrote this list in seven and
Speaker 1: it's on the Church of Satan website. If you're interested
Speaker 1: to go check it out because it's some of them.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, yeah, it kind of makes sense. Sixty
Speaker 1: seven eighty seven I saw oh really well as copyrighted
Speaker 1: so the takeaway is that what's leavey what the church
Speaker 1: is Satan and lava in Satanism, what it really is
Speaker 1: is atheistic, anti Christian. Ah, well, that is something that
Speaker 1: you said, that's really important. The Church of Satan, specifically
Speaker 1: the one founded by Anton LaVey Is has positioned itself
Speaker 1: as counter to Christianity. It really does not like Christianity.
Speaker 1: Um and as a result, it's allowed itself to kind
Speaker 1: of be drawn into a lot of pedantic nous and
Speaker 1: arguments that it shouldn't And it almost seems like they
Speaker 1: feel they need to justify themselves because of putting themselves
Speaker 1: in that position. Um. So if that kind of turns
Speaker 1: you off, well then friends, you're gonna love the Satanic Temple. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if if you were interested in that, you can
Speaker 1: become a member of the Church of Satan by sending
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars to a po box right that you
Speaker 1: can find on their website. But you get a membership,
Speaker 1: hard and that's it. That's all you get. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: there's there's actually a lot of criticism among Satanists of
Speaker 1: the Church of Satan because, um, you know, they they
Speaker 1: haven't done anything for a really long time. And a
Speaker 1: lot of people give credit to Levy for founding the
Speaker 1: Church of Satan and that while he was alive the
Speaker 1: churches started thriving, but after he died, the church kind
Speaker 1: of died with him in the eyes of a lot
Speaker 1: of Satanists, especially Satanic Temple adherents that I've seen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's now headed by Peter Gilmore, who I think. I
Speaker 1: think John Hodgman is actually sort of a pal of his.
Speaker 1: Now I believe that. I have to say it showed
Speaker 1: a lot of restraint by Peter Gilmore and not to
Speaker 1: change his name to Peter grim More. Uh. And then,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, Peggy the drama as the High
Speaker 1: Priestess right now, but I agree. Moving on to the
Speaker 1: Satanic Temple, it's pretty fun because they have something out
Speaker 1: there called the Satanic Children's Big Book of Activities. I
Speaker 1: think it was given to me by by Matt Frederick,
Speaker 1: was given to me by someone, but it's called the
Speaker 1: Satanic Children's Big Book of Activities. Uh, and it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: We talked about that for sure on Internet round Up
Speaker 1: for sure. And um, that was just like one and
Speaker 1: a string of I don't want to say countless because
Speaker 1: if I bothered too. I could count them, but there was.
Speaker 1: There's like a string of basically political, Satanic based political
Speaker 1: um projects that the Satanic Temple has taken on that
Speaker 1: really kind of define who they are, right. They are
Speaker 1: part performance art, very much political activists and are trying
Speaker 1: to basically use They say that they they're using Satanism,
Speaker 1: although they all subscribe to philosophical, atheistic human secularism, Satanism
Speaker 1: minus the social Darwinism and the ie Ran libertarianism um
Speaker 1: that they're they're using Satanism though in the popular conception
Speaker 1: as a poison pill for the church versus State debate, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can also buy shirts and hoodies and coffee,
Speaker 1: so with this they use this poison pill. These lists
Speaker 1: of projects. One of them was the Satanic Children's Activity Book,
Speaker 1: which they printed up to distribute at schools. I think
Speaker 1: there is a school in Florida where Christian evangelists were
Speaker 1: handing out pamphlets at a public school. So the Satanists said, oh, well, great, Well,
Speaker 1: if they can do it, then any religion can do it.
Speaker 1: Because the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of any religion
Speaker 1: or endorsement of religion by the by the government, so
Speaker 1: we can go do it too, so they start handing
Speaker 1: out Satanic stuff. And anytime the Satanists roll into town
Speaker 1: and say us too, that usually means that the local
Speaker 1: city council or the state even puts an end to
Speaker 1: the implicit Christian endorsement of what that's going on. Christian
Speaker 1: endorsement via politics. Um. And by the way, when I
Speaker 1: say that that children's work book is wonderful and if
Speaker 1: you're out there going why did you say that? I
Speaker 1: go check it out. It's literally stories about kids being
Speaker 1: more accepting of others and being friendly and sharing. And
Speaker 1: it's like any children's book, but the kids wearing like
Speaker 1: the Instagram teachers and stuff. Yeah, which makes me wonder,
Speaker 1: like what about this? Why called themselves that? It seems
Speaker 1: like they just are another trying to rabl rouse and
Speaker 1: get attention. But I think they might get a little
Speaker 1: further if or maybe that's the whole point. I think
Speaker 1: we'll in part using it as the like if you
Speaker 1: this actually happened. There's a town in Arizona, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure which one, but they had a habit of opening
Speaker 1: their city council meetings with a Christian prayer. Well, most
Speaker 1: likely every single person in that town that the city
Speaker 1: council represents is not Christian um. But since it was,
Speaker 1: there was a there was some landmark court ruling I
Speaker 1: can't remember when, maybe two thousand fourteen UM or the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court said, uh no, it's actually okay as long
Speaker 1: as they don't prohibit any religions from doing this. The
Speaker 1: Satanists showed up and said, well, here comes the Satanist
Speaker 1: We're gonna give a benediction to open up your city
Speaker 1: council meeting. And the city council said, okay, nobody's gonna
Speaker 1: do prayers anymore. That's kind of what their job is,
Speaker 1: to shut it down. But if they if they just
Speaker 1: did it like, well, the secular humanists are here and
Speaker 1: we're gonna say a prayerybody be like, well, who cares.
Speaker 1: That's fine. But the people who are so afraid of
Speaker 1: Satanists are so afraid of Satanists that they are um
Speaker 1: there there. They would just they would rather stop the
Speaker 1: city council implicitly endorsing the Christian prayer than to allow
Speaker 1: the Satanic prayer as well. That's how it works, and
Speaker 1: it's the same with the statue in Oklahoma, he said, Oh, well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna put up your statute. We're we're gonna put
Speaker 1: up one of what's it called baff Met which again
Speaker 1: I know you've seen the statue. We both love it
Speaker 1: just because it's so cool looking. It looks like the
Speaker 1: cover of some great heavy metal album. It does. But
Speaker 1: it's like lying, yeah, the two kids looking up adoringly
Speaker 1: at him and chuck. The Satanic Temple has another thing
Speaker 1: going on right now too, a new initiative that they
Speaker 1: started right which is the after School Satan Club. And
Speaker 1: again I have to laugh. It just sounds funny, but
Speaker 1: what it is, it's an after school curriculum um to
Speaker 1: teach reasoning and social skills to kids basis and again
Speaker 1: as a counter something called the Good News Club, which
Speaker 1: is an Evangelical Christian after school program. So again they're saying,
Speaker 1: you got yours, will have ours. Yeah, And there's another
Speaker 1: two thousand one Supreme Court ruling that said, you know what, sure,
Speaker 1: we can have religious after school programs. And the the
Speaker 1: just the floodgates opened and the Lucian grieves, who's name
Speaker 1: is Doug Mesner. He's one of the founders of the
Speaker 1: Satanic Temple he says, we're doing this because the Good
Speaker 1: News Club is creating a need for it. If they were,
Speaker 1: if they were just doing this in churches rather than
Speaker 1: public schools, we wouldn't have our after school Satan club.
Speaker 1: But they are, so we are. Yeah, here's a quote.
Speaker 1: While the Good News Club focuses on indoctrination, stilling children
Speaker 1: with a fear of hell and God's wrath, after school
Speaker 1: Satan clubs will focus on free inquiry and rationalism. We
Speaker 1: prefer to give children appreciation of the natural wonders surrounding them,
Speaker 1: not a fear of an everlasting otherworldly horror. Uh. However,
Speaker 1: being a member of the Satan Temple or the Church
Speaker 1: of Satan is not to say that you can just
Speaker 1: be very much out with it these days. A lot
Speaker 1: of those folks, even if they are really just secular
Speaker 1: humanist atheist at heart, they do want to associate with
Speaker 1: the Satanic templar churches Satan. They a lot of times,
Speaker 1: you'll still keep it quiet, keep it a secret, because um,
Speaker 1: you will get people don't get what it's about, and
Speaker 1: they will think, well, again, the people still believe that they,
Speaker 1: you know, have blood sacrifice, and you know sacrifice animals
Speaker 1: and eat the hearts out of goats and things like that. Right,
Speaker 1: And there have been people in history, um, who have
Speaker 1: killed in the name of Satan. Sure, and that's who
Speaker 1: people point to and say, see see Satanists or killers.
Speaker 1: And it's like, no, that person was out of their mind.
Speaker 1: They're mentally ill, or they were pretending to be mentally
Speaker 1: ill so that they would get a lighter sentence, and
Speaker 1: that's what they were doing. That they weren't actual Satanists. Again,
Speaker 1: a true Satanists will point out that um, Satanists are atheists,
Speaker 1: that they see Satan as a construct, as a metaphor
Speaker 1: shorthand for something that goes against the norms, that questions
Speaker 1: the establishment and says, how do you know what you're
Speaker 1: saying is right? Is right? Who says yeah, and we
Speaker 1: don't even worship Satan per se? We really if you
Speaker 1: want to say anything worse of ourselves as individual gods.
Speaker 1: Peter Gilmore calls it I theism that's catchy in the
Speaker 1: lower case I. He's like, yes, Gilmore, Eugenius, what did
Speaker 1: you say? His name should have been grim more and
Speaker 1: more or kill more? Um. Yeah. Richard Ramirez, David Berkowitz,
Speaker 1: Son of Sam talked about demons um Ricky Casso famously
Speaker 1: in the seventies, I was an American teen who killed
Speaker 1: someone in the name of Satan and much too Angus
Speaker 1: Young Chagrin was hauled into court with this a C
Speaker 1: d C T shirt on. Uh, we're not gonna get
Speaker 1: too much into this because you can go listen to
Speaker 1: our great episode on the Satanic Panic of the eighties
Speaker 1: from January five. But um, in short, it was a
Speaker 1: It was a time where people like Ozzy Osbourne and
Speaker 1: Judas Priest were making use of Satanic imagery purely for
Speaker 1: gags and selling wreck words. Uh, none of it was.
Speaker 1: I mean today there are some legit creepy dark metal bands.
Speaker 1: They are very much more overt with their lyrics and things.
Speaker 1: But I think Ozzy Osbourne has definitely been outed as
Speaker 1: you know, not some Satan worshiping google. You know, anyone
Speaker 1: who's ever seen him on television can tell you that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean it bears fleshing out. There are there
Speaker 1: are like supposedly the Goths scene in UM Germany in
Speaker 1: particulars where um neo Nazism and Neopaganism kind of come together.
Speaker 1: A lot of people point to that as some sort
Speaker 1: of neo Satanism. But again, if you're talking about Satanism
Speaker 1: with a capitalist as an atheistic philosophy, and somebody murdering
Speaker 1: in the name of Satan holds about as much water
Speaker 1: as somebody murdering in the name of the Easter Bunny,
Speaker 1: you got any thing else? Yeah? This is Let me
Speaker 1: quote with a finish with a passage from the Satanic
Speaker 1: Bible on love. Satanism has been thought of as being
Speaker 1: synonymous with cruelty and brutality. This is only so because
Speaker 1: people are afraid to face the truth, and the truth
Speaker 1: is that human beings are not all benign, are all loving.
Speaker 1: Just because the Satanist admits he is capable of both
Speaker 1: love and hate, he is considered hateful. On the contrary,
Speaker 1: because he's able to give vent to his hatred through
Speaker 1: ritualized expression, he is far more capable of love, the
Speaker 1: deepest kind of love, by honestly recognizing and admitting to
Speaker 1: both the hate and the love he feels. There's no
Speaker 1: confusing one emotion with the other. Without being able to
Speaker 1: experience one of these emotions, you cannot fully experience the other. Wow.
Speaker 1: Either Dr SEUs or Anton LaVey that Zoroastrian dualism if
Speaker 1: I've ever heard it. Uh. Well, if you want to
Speaker 1: know more about Satanism, well go look up this article.
Speaker 1: It's a Aubster article um on how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And since I said grabs, there's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: Hello Chucking, Hello Chuck Bryant and Josh Clark Hello, very formal. Uh.
Speaker 1: On stuttering, I've stuttered for most of my life. I
Speaker 1: say most of my life because it started when I
Speaker 1: was five. As you mentioned your show, there are several
Speaker 1: several different ways it can happen. I would always try
Speaker 1: to think of a different word to use when I
Speaker 1: got stuck, and that would result in very strange sounding sentences.
Speaker 1: I would define stuttering his inability to coordinate breath flow
Speaker 1: with words. Blocking on a word or sound would often
Speaker 1: result in a cessation of breathing entirely. Kind people often
Speaker 1: tell me that stuttering does not bother them, But the
Speaker 1: fact is, when I stutter, my internal reaction is that
Speaker 1: I feel and sound like a fool. I rationally, I
Speaker 1: know that is not true, but that is what I
Speaker 1: often feel. Nonetheless, and of course, unkind people abound, and
Speaker 1: I often heard as a child, reactions like don't you
Speaker 1: know what you want? From other kids and adults, laughter
Speaker 1: and derision. Often I'd hair just sing it. And while
Speaker 1: it's true that singing and speaking are operated by different
Speaker 1: parts of the brain, life is not a musical and besides,
Speaker 1: I hate musicals, So at the age of sixty seven,
Speaker 1: I would never have thought that I'd end up talking
Speaker 1: on the phone and dealing with the public for a living.
Speaker 1: I still occasionally stutter and sometimes feel pretty badly, but
Speaker 1: I've learned to just live with it. Sometimes feel as
Speaker 1: I get older, I just don't give a darn anymore.
Speaker 1: That allows me to relax and stutter less. That is
Speaker 1: a perk of aging, not caring. Uh. Stress brings it
Speaker 1: out and does as as talking about my difficult into
Speaker 1: our childhood. I'm a singer. I'm one of the resident
Speaker 1: shanty singers at the National Maritime Historical Park at Hyde
Speaker 1: Street Pierre in San Francisco, and it performed in front
Speaker 1: of large audiences. Singing is not a problem, but introducing
Speaker 1: songs can be. You might say I'm the mel Tillis
Speaker 1: traditional song and that lovely email well from Richard adrian Owitz.
Speaker 1: Thank you Richard. I love that one, Yeah good one,
Speaker 1: and everybody us in San Francisco down to go down
Speaker 1: to Fisherman's Wharf and see Richard check up the show
Speaker 1: The mel Tillis of Shanty Singing. I love it. If
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us, you can
Speaker 1: send us an email. Send it off to stuff podcast
Speaker 1: at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.