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Speaker 1: Trust me. Trust me. I'm like a swat person.

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Speaker 2: I've never lied to you.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that one person has all the answers?

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Speaker 1: Don't welcome to trust me? The podcast about cults, extreme

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Speaker 1: belief and the abuse of power from two muppets, that

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Speaker 1: was all I had the top about.

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Speaker 3: Hey, Lola, I think I might have COVID. So this

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Speaker 3: might be the fever talking, but I was thinking today

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Speaker 3: it could be too Beyonces.

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Speaker 1: That is blasphemy. We are not Beyonces. This is completely ridiculous.

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Speaker 4: Okay, that was part. Do not let the beehive come

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Speaker 4: after me. Okay, Okay.

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Speaker 1: To be clear, y'all, we are not in the same room.

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Speaker 1: She's not giving me COVID. She might not have COVID.

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Speaker 1: We don't know yet.

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Speaker 4: I'm Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth.

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Speaker 1: Today our guest is Lucian Greaves. He is the co

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Speaker 1: founder of the Satanic Temple, who you may have seen

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Speaker 1: in the documentary Whom Pardon Me, whom you may have

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Speaker 1: seen in the documentary Hail Satan, which is available on Hulu. Now,

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Speaker 1: Lucian's going to talk to us about whether or not

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Speaker 1: they actually believe in Satan. Hint no how they differ

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Speaker 1: from the Church of Satan, and some of the stunts

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Speaker 1: and lawsuits they've pulled off to promote freedom of religion

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Speaker 1: in America and justice in general, including putting up Satanic

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Speaker 1: statues to highlight the hypocrisy of the Christian idea of

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Speaker 1: religious freedom, and why it's actually not a laughing matter.

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Speaker 1: It is not just a joke. It's very serious.

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Speaker 3: We're also going to get into the Satanic Panic of

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Speaker 3: the eighties and nineties, which is so fucking interesting and cool.

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Speaker 4: And then he talks about false.

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Speaker 3: Memories and how an organization within the Satanic Temple is

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Speaker 3: battling quack conspiracy theorists therapists that falsely recover memories. That's

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Speaker 3: so creepy that it terrifies me that people do that.

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Speaker 3: They recover memories of Satanic ritual abuse in their patients,

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Speaker 3: and it traumatizes them kind of unnecessarily. I actually had

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Speaker 3: a friend who went through something very bad with that experience.

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Speaker 1: Really well, we'll have to talk more about that on

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Speaker 1: another episode.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty crazy.

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Speaker 1: I like how you said it was the Satanic panic

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Speaker 1: was cool.

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Speaker 4: It was cool, So I said, hey, you guys, I

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Speaker 4: for sure have COVID it.

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Speaker 1: Was so cool that they sent people to prison just

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Speaker 1: for listening to Mitella.

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Speaker 4: It was not cool. But it's I feel like I

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Speaker 4: just say interesting too much.

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Speaker 1: You say interesting a lot. It is interesting, It is interesting.

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Speaker 1: What's an what's a good synonym for interesting? Fascinating?

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Speaker 4: Fascinating? Yeah? Oh, how peculiar? That's fascinating?

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Speaker 1: What an intriguing? Reply Megan? Well, hey, so I would

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Speaker 1: like to know what the cultiest thing that happened to

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Speaker 1: you this week was.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So, staying on the line of reasoning that I

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Speaker 3: might be making no sense, have I talked yet about how.

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Speaker 4: Names are a cult and how I want to change

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Speaker 4: my name?

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Speaker 1: No?

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Speaker 4: Okay, cool.

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Speaker 3: I want to change my name, and so does my boyfriend,

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Speaker 3: and there's just such a fear in me of not

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Speaker 3: being Megan.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, hang on, what do you want to change

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Speaker 1: your name too?

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Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't know yet. It's really hard

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Speaker 4: to change your own name.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I have a cousin who's done it. Actually, technically

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Speaker 1: now have two cousins who've done done it, because one

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Speaker 1: recently transitioned, but the other one just changed it for

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Speaker 1: the fun of it. You know, I kind of changed

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Speaker 1: my name, but not legally.

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Speaker 4: Oh really, what was your name before?

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Speaker 1: My legal name is Candace Melanocus. I'm letting you guys

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Speaker 1: in on a big secret. My real name is Candace.

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Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Nobody calls me Candace's. It actually

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Speaker 1: displays how little someone knows me if they call me Candace,

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Speaker 1: thinking they're like in my inner circle or whatever. Right,

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't that hard. However, I didn't do it legally,

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Speaker 1: so I don't know if that's Are you planning on

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Speaker 1: doing it legally?

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Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't know yet. I just I

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Speaker 4: want to be something more exciting.

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Speaker 3: Beyonce, she just talks about how you know, she's Sasha

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Speaker 3: Fierris in her mind and it becomes a whole different person.

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Speaker 4: And I want my own Sasha Fierris.

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Speaker 3: So that's my cultiest thing of the week that I've

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Speaker 3: been kind of sorting through my feelings with.

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Speaker 4: It's been surprising.

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Speaker 1: So do you think do you feel like the name

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Speaker 1: Megan kind of keeps you in a particular Yeah, indoctrination.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a vibe. And my boyfriend Chris hates the

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Speaker 3: name Chris, So I don't know. I think we'll probably

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Speaker 3: never do it, but we've been talking a lot about it.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's pretty fun. Yeah. My favorite thing is now

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Speaker 1: is that I meet people and they're like, oh, you're

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Speaker 1: such a Lola, and I'm like, oh my god, thank you.

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Speaker 3: You're like, thank you. I named it myself. What if

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Speaker 3: I changed my name to Lola Blanc?

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Speaker 4: Legally?

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Speaker 1: It'd be great for the podcast?

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Speaker 4: What's the cultiest thing that happened to you this lovely week?

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Speaker 1: You know, I was struggling to pick one because my

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Speaker 1: brain has been doing some weird shit this week. I

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Speaker 1: don't know what's going on. I'm like, I need something,

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Speaker 1: I need something, guys. But the one I'm gonna choose

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Speaker 1: to talk about rather than going all dark with it is,

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Speaker 1: uh my friend Danin, who is more TikTok savvy than

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Speaker 1: I am. I am not very TikTok savvy. I'm over thirty.

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Speaker 1: I can't I can't do it. But fairy TikTok? Have

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Speaker 1: you seen fairy TikTok? No?

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Speaker 4: What is that? Yo?

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Speaker 1: There are so many people in this world who genuinely

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Speaker 1: believe in fairies. It is mind blowing. Do you know

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Speaker 1: about this? Yeah?

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Speaker 4: Oh for sure?

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Speaker 1: Do you believe in fairies. I don't know, Megan, I

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Speaker 1: don't know.

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Speaker 4: I don't know. I think I don't know yet. I

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Speaker 4: don't know.

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Speaker 1: Fairies are the bigfoot of the TikTok era because it's

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Speaker 1: like no one's ever gotten a clear video or photo.

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Speaker 1: They're always blurry, they're always obscured. But it's like just

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Speaker 1: enough to keep people convinced that they're real.

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Speaker 4: Oh wow, did you see euro Vision?

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Speaker 2: No?

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Speaker 4: Oh? Really that Wilferrell movie no, oh my god, you

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Speaker 4: have to watch it.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, there's a fairy involved, but I don't know my

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Speaker 3: feelings on it. I do think that they're really interesting,

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Speaker 3: and I do know that several older women have stopped

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Speaker 3: me in my life and gone, you're a fairy because

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Speaker 3: I have really fairyish ears.

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Speaker 1: Well, you're you're Elvin, Elvin, Elvin Elfish.

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Speaker 4: I guess you are Elfish too, Yes, but elves aren't fairies.

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Speaker 1: No, But I feel like there's a there's a similar

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Speaker 1: If you look elfish, you look fairyish. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I have a pixie haircut.

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Speaker 3: Eh, eh, okay, well cool, Now I have a reason

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Speaker 3: to get on TikTok there's.

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Speaker 1: A girl who is like guys, I'm literally a fairy.

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Speaker 1: And you might be thinking, oh, yeah, she looks it's

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Speaker 1: like a fairy, like she's cute and stuff. But no, like,

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Speaker 1: I'm literally a fairy. I'm like a fucking fairy queen.

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Speaker 1: And I don't think she's joking.

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Speaker 4: Whoa.

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Speaker 1: And people think that they have fairies because these mushrooms

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Speaker 1: sprout out, sprout up in their yards in a circular formation.

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Speaker 1: Little do they know that's how mushrooms grow.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, why would that be a sign of fairies?

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Speaker 1: Apparently fairies are associated with mushrooms or something.

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Speaker 4: Oh they sound awesome.

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Speaker 1: One girl's TikTok was like I put out milk and

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Speaker 1: honey for my fairy and it's gone. People are just

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Speaker 1: you know, everyone is so hungry. They're so hungry for

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Speaker 1: some explanation and some meaning. And I understand it, because bro,

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Speaker 1: I've been there this week. But I do not fucking

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Speaker 1: believe in fairies.

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Speaker 3: Yeah much, Yeah, I mean I kind of believe in

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Speaker 3: them in like a very old world way.

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Speaker 1: What does that mean?

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Speaker 3: Okay, like thousands of years ago, I think maybe there were.

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Speaker 1: Fair like tiny humans with wings flying around.

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Speaker 3: Oh no, I don't think they had wings or anything,

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Speaker 3: but I think that they probably.

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Speaker 4: You know what, you know what.

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Speaker 3: We talked a little bit more about who we're gonna

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Speaker 3: interview today before I go on the record.

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Speaker 1: You guys, fairies are not real, but you know what's real,

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Speaker 1: believing in yourself get through this time. Lucian, our guest today,

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Speaker 1: is similarly not a proponent of magical thinking. Is that

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Speaker 1: a good transition?

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Speaker 4: Yes, it's perfect.

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Speaker 5: He has not.

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Speaker 1: This is not the most cult cult episode. However, we

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Speaker 1: talk a lot about religion and and I think that

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Speaker 1: the Satanic Panic is so interesting. Oh absolutely, all right,

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Speaker 1: let's talk to Lucian now.

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Speaker 4: All right.

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Speaker 1: Welcome Lucian Graves.

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Speaker 4: Thank you so much for coming my pleasure.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: So you are one of the two founders of the

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Speaker 1: Satanic Temple, and we wanted to have you on because

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Speaker 1: that is a group that I think the average person

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Speaker 1: would maybe put into the cult category without actually understanding

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Speaker 1: the group at all. There's a documentary about you guys

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Speaker 1: called Hail Satan, which is out on Hullo and it's

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Speaker 1: so good. It documents your journey and these like hilarious

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Speaker 1: stunts that you guys do to draw attention to the

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Speaker 1: hypocrisy of the Christian perspective. On freedom of religion in

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Speaker 1: America and the importance of the separation between church and state.

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Speaker 1: So tell us about your background and how you decided

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Speaker 1: to start the Satanic Temple.

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Speaker 5: I guess the most formative thing for me in the

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Speaker 5: earlier years that would have driven me to this was

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Speaker 5: an awareness of the Satanic panic during the eighties and nineties,

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Speaker 5: when daytime talk shows were taking seriously these claims that

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Speaker 5: there was this international network of Satanists trafficking children, cannibalizing people,

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Speaker 5: drinking blood, and doing all kinds of grotesque anti human rituals.

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Speaker 5: And there was this kind of survivor movement that grew

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Speaker 5: up around these claim people who mostly had recovered their

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Speaker 5: memories during hypnosis and other such procedures that were meant

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Speaker 5: to retrieve otherwise compartmentalized and repressed traumatic memories, the same

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Speaker 5: kind of techniques that would be used to draw forth

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Speaker 5: memories of alien abduction and past lives, that is to say, false.

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Speaker 1: Memory, confabulations, false memories.

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Speaker 5: It was a really interesting topic to me, and more

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Speaker 5: interesting still was the fact that there is still a

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Speaker 5: pretty strong fringe within the mental health field that still

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Speaker 5: endorsed these practices and still sold people delusions under the

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Speaker 5: guise of therapy. I started really investigating these conspiracy theorists

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Speaker 5: after a while and really grew to be interested in

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Speaker 5: what is the reality of Satanists and Satanism. And I started,

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Speaker 5: you know, finding all different types of self identified Satanists,

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Speaker 5: and I really had an infinity for this idea of

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Speaker 5: non theistic Satanism. But at the time when I met

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Speaker 5: up with Malcolm and we eventually formed the Satanic Temple,

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Speaker 5: there was needed to be some kind of organizational action

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Speaker 5: that would make such an organization relevant.

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Speaker 2: You know, to declare yourself as Satanist is.

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Speaker 5: Not you know, it's not typically considered a good career move.

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Speaker 5: It's not considered a good move to ingratiate yourself into

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Speaker 5: communities or whatever else. And knowing the background of the

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Speaker 5: Satanic panic and false accusations, you know, it seemed a

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Speaker 5: little bit kind of suicidal at the time.

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Speaker 2: So from the very.

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Speaker 5: Beginning, we had long term plans to make sure that

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Speaker 5: our efforts were vindicated and that people would really understand

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Speaker 5: what we were doing. And I think you can see

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Speaker 5: in the Hail Satan film they kind of cover this

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Speaker 5: notion that I really was not interested in being a

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Speaker 5: public person, and I wasn't, but it was that kind

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Speaker 5: of desperation for vindication, making sure that people really understood

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Speaker 5: the important so the issues we were confronting that I

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Speaker 5: really started stepping in and agreeing to take that role

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Speaker 5: of having my face and voice put to all of this.

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Speaker 5: And I have to say, after this amount of time,

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Speaker 5: from twenty thirteen till now, I think that in all

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Speaker 5: of my wildest imagining as to where this would go,

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Speaker 5: a lot of this has played out into the best

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Speaker 5: case scenario. And I think people already think of Satanism

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Speaker 5: a lot differently than they did in the eighties and nineties,

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Speaker 5: while on the other hand you have a revival of

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Speaker 5: the Satanic panic with things like qan on. So things

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Speaker 5: are really polarized and in some ways nothing has changed,

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Speaker 5: but in others a larger audience I think is more

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Speaker 5: able to see what we actually stand for and accept it.

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Speaker 5: And as the theocrats in the United States gain more

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Speaker 5: and more power and make more and more bald faced

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Speaker 5: efforts to instantiate a coup, I think people intuitively then

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Speaker 5: understand how this mythological con constructive satan as a rebel

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Speaker 5: against theocratic tyranny makes sense two things.

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Speaker 1: One we recorded this before the actual coup attempt happened,

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Speaker 1: and two just to make sure everybody's following here. So,

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Speaker 1: a theocracy is a form of government in which a

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Speaker 1: deity of some kind, like you know, God, is recognized

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Speaker 1: as the supreme ruling authority. A theocracy is the opposite

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Speaker 1: of what America was founded on because the First Amendment

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Speaker 1: specifies that to quote, Congress shall make no law respecting

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Speaker 1: an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

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Speaker 1: So people get worried about America becoming theocratic to the

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Speaker 1: point of defying the Constitution when those who govern us

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Speaker 1: prioritize their own religious beliefs, generally Christian when making laws,

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Speaker 1: aka not keeping church and state separate. Did you grow

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Speaker 1: up religious.

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Speaker 5: Kind of off and on? My parents were a bit

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Speaker 5: mixed that way. My dad's side of the family was

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Speaker 5: Catholic and my mom's side was Protestant, so I got

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Speaker 5: to see both churches intermittently, and they would go through

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Speaker 5: phases sometimes where sometimes I'd have to go to Sunday

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Speaker 5: school and other times they just say fuck it or whatever.

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Speaker 2: But I got to see enough of it to really

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Speaker 2: dislike it.

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Speaker 1: So I mean, I'm just gonna ask this obvious question

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Speaker 1: because there might be people listening who aren't familiar with

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Speaker 1: y'all and your practices. Do you worship Satan?

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Speaker 5: Now, we're really clear with everybody that we're non theistic,

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Speaker 5: which is to say, we don't believe in a literal,

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Speaker 5: supernatural entity of Satan. And it's interesting to see how

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Speaker 5: people translate that. We have things on our website that

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Speaker 5: explain the value of non theistic religion, what this all

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Speaker 5: means to us. And it's not uncommon that there will

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Speaker 5: be some type of conservative press that's talking about us

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Speaker 5: and they'll quote us in full. They'll go to our

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Speaker 5: website and they'll pull something about non theistic religion, our

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Speaker 5: kind of anti supernaturalist stance, and things like that, and

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Speaker 5: then they'll translate it for their audience by saying, in

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Speaker 5: other words, we are just trolls using the name of

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Speaker 5: Satan to get attention, and that's not accurate. You know,

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Speaker 5: there's always people asking us why does it have to

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Speaker 5: be Satan. We agree with what you're doing, we understand

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Speaker 5: your values, but once you do so much better if

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Speaker 5: it weren't Satan. And they think, I think being that

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Speaker 5: we're non theistic, that the choice of the iconography and

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Speaker 5: mythic backdrop of this is completely arbitrary.

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Speaker 2: That we at.

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Speaker 5: Will could feel just as strongly about something else.

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Speaker 2: But that just isn't true.

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Speaker 5: I can point to non theistic Jewish communities and they

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Speaker 5: can't just decide, well, you know, we'd ingratiate ourselves more

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Speaker 5: into the community if we were just if we took

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Speaker 5: on Christian rituals and practices. Well, that doesn't speak to

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Speaker 5: how they contextualize themselves in the social order, or their

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Speaker 5: ethics or anything else. You know, all of these holidays, rituals,

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Speaker 5: and things like that, they're meaningful to them in a

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Speaker 5: supernatural context.

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Speaker 1: Right, So on your website, your mission is stated as

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Speaker 1: to encourage benevolence and empathy, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical

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Speaker 1: common sense, oppose injustice, and undertake noble pursuits. I mean

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Speaker 1: it sounds like almost almost a political goal. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess it is a sort of a political goal,

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Speaker 1: given how political some of your statements have been. How

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Speaker 1: would you describe the stunts that you guys have done.

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Speaker 5: It depends on what you're talking about. But the public

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Speaker 5: facing stuff that we do is not all that we do.

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Speaker 5: You know, we've had scholars of religion and stuff start

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Speaker 5: looking at as sociologists and everything. And of course Penny

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Speaker 5: Lane when she started doing the documentary, you know, on

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Speaker 5: the face of it, you see that we've done these

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Speaker 5: activities that have generated a lot of press and caused

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Speaker 5: a lot of shock amongst communities. The idea that Satanists

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Speaker 5: start claiming equal access when they open some kind of

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Speaker 5: public forum for religious expression, and then we come along

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Speaker 5: and say that in the name of pluralism, you know,

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Speaker 5: you need to accept Satanists too. And it's easy, I

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Speaker 5: think if you if you're just perusing to think that, well,

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Speaker 5: that's an excellent prank. And you know, on both sides

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Speaker 5: of the political spectrum, there's people who don't want to

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Speaker 5: accept this as some kind of genuine religious movement. I mean,

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Speaker 5: there's the conservatives who don't want to give us that credit,

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Speaker 5: and then there's some people on the left who would

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Speaker 5: rather we were these pranksters who don't trouble their conception

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Speaker 5: of religion as being something that's one hundred percent toxic

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Speaker 5: in demands that you believe intellectually insulting things that aren't true, totally.

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Speaker 1: I want to just kind of describe some of the

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Speaker 1: stuff that you guys have done. So in twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 1: there was a rally in Little Rock protesting the installation

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Speaker 1: of a monument of the Ten Commandments. Counter it, y'all

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Speaker 1: installed the statue of Baphomet, which caused quite a stir.

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Speaker 1: Can you give us some examples of some some other

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Speaker 1: things that you guys have done.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, we did a similar thing in bell Plaine, Minnesota.

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Speaker 5: They had a Christian veterans memorial up in a park,

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Speaker 5: and in order to justify that, they said that the

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Speaker 5: park was a free speech zone and it was a

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Speaker 5: limited public forum for veterans memorials. So we offered to

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Speaker 5: make our own. They approved it, and then I guess

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Speaker 5: they were just they thought they were calling our bluff.

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Speaker 5: So at the point where we actually finished this and

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Speaker 5: we're going to deliver it, they then rescinded permission for

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Speaker 5: us to put our monument in the park and removed

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Speaker 5: all monuments.

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Speaker 2: From the park. So the Christian one wasn't there either.

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Speaker 5: They weren't willing to actually have a public forum. They

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Speaker 5: were just looking to display one thing clearly and unconstitutionally.

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Speaker 5: But We've also done equal access claims in areas where

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Speaker 5: they open up public meetings with prayers, We've offered to

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Speaker 5: give invocations. There was the passive distribution of religious materials

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Speaker 5: in a school district in Florida where they allowed religious

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Speaker 5: groups to kind of set up tables and give out

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Speaker 5: Bibles and literature about Christ and contraception, things like that,

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Speaker 5: and we offered our own completely unobjectionable if you took

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Speaker 5: out the Satanic references, nobody would object any of it,

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Speaker 5: a little activity book. But this was enough to cause

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Speaker 5: a whole meltdown in the community to the point where

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Speaker 5: they again removed the public forum and said that they

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Speaker 5: were no longer going to have any religious materials in

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Speaker 5: the schools at all. And also on the front of

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Speaker 5: schools where they allow religious encroachment, there's these after school clubs,

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Speaker 5: the good News clubs, that try to indoctrinate kids into

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Speaker 5: this health fire and damnation thinking.

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Speaker 2: And there's some.

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Speaker 5: School districts that will end their school day early and

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Speaker 5: fill that time with a good News club. So some

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Speaker 5: parents who might not be inclined to have their children

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Speaker 5: indoctrinated into these things, you know, we're sending them in there.

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Speaker 5: For kind of babysitting purposes. So in those schools we

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Speaker 5: moved to open up our own after school Satan clubs,

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Speaker 5: And we also offer religious exemptions for children in schools

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Speaker 5: who might suffer corporal punishment because they still allow punitive

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Speaker 5: beatings of children in certain schools. And we've been fighting

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Speaker 5: really hard to protect the religious reproductive rights of our

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Speaker 5: membership in the face of all these kinds of weasel

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Speaker 5: bills that are trying to make getting an abortion prohibitively difficult.

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Speaker 5: In the case of Missouri, we had a member who

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Speaker 5: wanted to terminate her pregnancy, and in Missouri they had

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Speaker 5: an informed consent law that demanded that seventy two hours

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Speaker 5: prior to having the abortion procedure, she received materials that

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Speaker 5: tell her that essentially having an abortion will murder a

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Speaker 5: unique individual human being, and she's supposed to contemplate this

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Speaker 5: for seventy two hours before getting the procedure. Our argument

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Speaker 5: was that we don't agree with the statement. We feel

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Speaker 5: it's a statement of religious perspective contrary to our own.

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Speaker 5: Our membership doesn't need to be subjected to it, and

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Speaker 5: therefore the seventy two hour waiting period.

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Speaker 2: Is all and void.

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Speaker 5: We just went through a series of ridiculous rulings and

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Speaker 5: dismissals on that. The first one was it was so

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Speaker 5: infuriating after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars going through court,

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Speaker 5: you get a judge ruling that because he waited nine

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Speaker 5: months to give a ruling and she couldn't be pregnant

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Speaker 5: any longer, the case is moot, so he's throwing it out.

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Speaker 5: And then we appealed several times and we never got

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Speaker 5: an actual ruling on any of the real legal claims

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Speaker 5: that we were making. All we got was dismissals from

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Speaker 5: technicality and that kind of thing. We appealed all the

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Speaker 5: way up to the Supreme Court declined to listen to it.

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Speaker 5: But in advance of that, we had asked if the

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Speaker 5: Supreme Court did hear our case, that Barrett be recused,

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Speaker 5: But they indicated that in response for our requests, that

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Speaker 5: she would not have been recused.

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Speaker 4: What does that mean, well.

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Speaker 5: That she would have heard the case despite her open

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Speaker 5: and clear biases.

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Speaker 3: Ah, do you find I'm from the Midwest, where I

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Speaker 3: know a lot of people's feelings on this run very high.

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Speaker 3: I mean, do you feel like it's super dangerous?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 5: You know, people will ask if I get credible threats. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: you know, because I say I get threats all the time,

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Speaker 5: and they say, well, does appear to be a credible threat?

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Speaker 2: And I don't know. I have no idea.

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Speaker 5: We'll know once when something happens. But I must say,

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Speaker 5: I'm really glad the election is finally over, because for

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Speaker 5: a while I was just kind of plugging along in

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Speaker 5: on my social media. You know, I'm active on Twitter.

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Speaker 5: I would post things, and my audience would say things,

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Speaker 5: and we would interact and things like that. And it

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Speaker 5: seemed like all in the course of one week sometime

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Speaker 5: over the summer, all the election time trolls popped up,

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Speaker 5: and all of a sudden, I was posting things and

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Speaker 5: some Trump supporter would try to start an argument or whatever,

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Speaker 5: and all of a sudden, all these memes were popping

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Speaker 5: up all over the place, and some of them from

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Speaker 5: high profile conservative pundits, where they would be saying, if

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Speaker 5: you're going to be tearing down these memorials, and they're

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Speaker 5: talking about Confederate memorials or other such memorials that speak

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00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:40,080
Speaker 5: to what they consider their heritage or history, and they

440
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 5: would say, then we should be able to tear this

441
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:45,520
Speaker 5: monument down, and it would inevitably be a picture of

442
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:50,320
Speaker 5: our Baphomet monument. And that was really disturbing to me

443
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:53,680
Speaker 5: because the baf Met monument is not on public grounds.

444
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:58,200
Speaker 5: It's in our headquarters in Salem. And I know that

445
00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:02,160
Speaker 5: a lot of this kind of mob isn't discerning enough

446
00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:05,879
Speaker 5: to understand the difference. And somebody might think themselves a

447
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 5: hero for going and doing destruction to our property or

448
00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 5: hurting one of us, And it kind of feels like

449
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 5: it's a matter of time.

450
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:17,439
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I'm sure it's worth it because of

451
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:20,320
Speaker 3: the things that you're fighting for. Like, what are you

452
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:22,400
Speaker 3: most passionate about.

453
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 5: I'm really quite passionate about getting people to finally realize

454
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:31,639
Speaker 5: the destruction that the theocratic movement in the United States

455
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:35,600
Speaker 5: has been doing, not just in the United States but globally.

456
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 5: Now you see, you know, places like Brazil or Hungary

457
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:43,960
Speaker 5: where they have, you know, deeply evangelical theocratic leaders really

458
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:48,879
Speaker 5: trying to push an anti LGBTQ agenda and anti abortion agenda.

459
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:52,359
Speaker 5: And who knows what their next causes will be after

460
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 5: that if they make enough headway there, but it's it's

461
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 5: certainly nothing good and I feel very disheartened. A lot

462
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:04,440
Speaker 5: of time tis when people fail to understand the kind

463
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 5: of existential threat this movement poses. And I feel that

464
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:13,679
Speaker 5: somewhat reflected in people's reactions to the Satanic Temple itself,

465
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:17,919
Speaker 5: where even now they look at things we do, like

466
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 5: our fight to put up the Bafmet monument in Arkansas,

467
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:26,359
Speaker 5: as this massive, hilarious prank, the outcome of which isn't

468
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:29,800
Speaker 5: terribly important to them so much as what they see

469
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 5: as the humor value in us doing it at all.

470
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:36,400
Speaker 5: But how these things turn out are of grave importance

471
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 5: for generations to come. In defending pluralism, can.

472
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:45,359
Speaker 1: You define pluralism for anyone who doesn't know what pluralism means?

473
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 5: Yeah, pluralism is ensuring in the religious context, ensuring government

474
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 5: viewpoint neutrality, that they're not showing preference to one religious

475
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:57,200
Speaker 5: point of view over another, and if they do pass

476
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:01,879
Speaker 5: laws respecting a religion in any way, giving access for

477
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:07,680
Speaker 5: religion to public grounds, giving exemptions or privileges to religion,

478
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 5: that they do it in general, that they don't value

479
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:17,400
Speaker 5: a religious perspective over another, or diminish the civic capacities

480
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,200
Speaker 5: of non believers in any way at the same time,

481
00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 5: and that's a real battle to be fought right now,

482
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 5: because there is a real strong movement fighting for Christian supremacy.

483
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 3: I remember in my middle school they would literally tell

484
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 3: us that America was successful economically because we were a

485
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 3: Christian nation.

486
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 4: Just a little memory popping up for me right now.

487
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 5: And that was in a public school curriculum.

488
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:45,679
Speaker 3: No, it was a private school, but it wasn't a

489
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:49,160
Speaker 3: religious private school, so still weird, right.

490
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't realize. Actually, I'm embarrassed to say that

491
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 1: the words under God weren't added to the Pledge of

492
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 1: Legiance until the fifties.

493
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 5: Right, And at the time even the ACILU was relatively

494
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 5: silent on that issue because there was this prevalent notion

495
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 5: that they were fighting against these godless communists and that

496
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 5: the one way for us to really steal ourselves against

497
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 5: this was to fall back on old traditions and values,

498
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:22,680
Speaker 5: this idea that Christian values were intertwined within our constitutional

499
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 5: structure somehow, which is all absolute bullshit. But at the time,

500
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 5: there was this argument that these words under God served

501
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:35,239
Speaker 5: some kind of secular purpose and that it could be

502
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:40,400
Speaker 5: interpreted very broadly, and that rather than advancing one religion

503
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:44,680
Speaker 5: over another. It was merely ceremonial and patriotic. But now

504
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:47,879
Speaker 5: what we see is that the fact that under God

505
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 5: is on this money is on our currency is often

506
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:55,680
Speaker 5: used as people's arguments to convey that we're also therefore

507
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 5: a Christian nation. And because we're a Christian nation, Christians

508
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 5: are given some kind of moral license to legislate the

509
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:07,479
Speaker 5: behavior of other people in their lives, their reproductive rights,

510
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 5: their sexual identity and orientation, and all those types of things.

511
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 5: So even when you have these things like displays on

512
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 5: public grounds or they're putting up a Christian display to

513
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 5: the exclusion of other points of view, it does not

514
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 5: stop there. And that's why, you know, I can't express

515
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 5: it enough. These things are not a joke. And the

516
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:34,160
Speaker 5: outcomes of these fights, these battles we're fighting are very serious,

517
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 5: and it's very important that we win these things to

518
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 5: preserve our democratic liberties. Right.

519
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: You know, there might be someone who listens to this

520
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 1: and they are still Christian, or maybe think that what

521
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: you're saying is that you are against all Christian values

522
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 1: and you hate Christianity, And I just want to hear

523
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 1: you clarify, because I know that that's not the case.

524
00:28:57,040 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 1: What you're advocating for is everybody to have the freedom

525
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: equal freedom of religion and it not seep into the

526
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: political sphere because they're the separation of church and state

527
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: is supposed to be what this country's founded on. And

528
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: I think taking religion out of politics is not discrimination,

529
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: it's freedom.

530
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 2: Right.

531
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 5: Well, there's a lot there in that question, because it

532
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 5: reminds me of the people who will also make comments

533
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 5: to us decrying our hypocrisy and not calling out Islamic

534
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 5: theocrats in the like. And our flavor of blasphemy is

535
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 5: particularly Christian, and that's not just because we are looking

536
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 5: to insult or harass Christians. It's because we grew up

537
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 5: in a Christian environment. The blast we mean something to us,

538
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 5: you know, it's our declaration of independence from a superstition

539
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:53,479
Speaker 5: that a lot of us may have held earlier in

540
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 5: life or whatever. We don't really care what other people

541
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 5: believe in what they're doing, so long as they're not

542
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 5: trying to impose it on everybodybody else. And if there

543
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 5: were states in the United States where Islamic theocrats were

544
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 5: doing the exact same thing as the evangelicals, we'd be

545
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 5: fighting against that in the very same way. That's just

546
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 5: not what's happening here, nor do we have a real

547
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 5: presence in the Middle East or anything like that. So

548
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 5: I think people really misunderstand, you know, where we're coming

549
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 5: from with this, that you know, the symbols, the iconography,

550
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 5: everything else don't actually mean anything to us. It's all

551
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 5: about what it means to other people. And that's that's

552
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 5: really not the case. It means something to us too,

553
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 5: and the question of whether or not Christians can embrace

554
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 5: what we're doing. Something I pointed out in a lot

555
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:42,959
Speaker 5: of interviews is that at the end of Hale Satan,

556
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 5: you see that climactic rally, and I'm speaking at a

557
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 5: podium and to have a bulletproof vest on. There are

558
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 5: people milling about with guns and everything else. What you

559
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 5: don't see in that film is that the speakers before me,

560
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 5: two of them were Christian ministers from Arkansas, and they

561
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 5: understood that we were the Satanic Temple. They understood that

562
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 5: I was the keynote speaker, but they also felt very

563
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 5: strongly that putting up the Ten Commandments monument to the

564
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 5: exclusion of other religious voices, was a real threat to

565
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 5: what they thought of as our American democratic values. Wow,

566
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 5: I do value pluralism and allow people to engage with

567
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 5: religion on their own terms without government coercion.

568
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 4: That's cool.

569
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 3: I'm just wondering, if you know there are other groups

570
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 3: that worship Satan for real, how do they interact with

571
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 3: you guys?

572
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: My question was actually some other cool but I was

573
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: gonna ask about the distinction between the Church of Satan

574
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: and the Satanic Temple. But yeah, are there also other

575
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: groups who genuinely worship Satany?

576
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 2: Yeah?

577
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 3: Are who like come and like think they're gonna you

578
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 3: guys are gonna have a great time together and then

579
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 3: get mad or I don't know.

580
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 4: I'm just trying to like think it through in my mind.

581
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 5: We don't get a whole lot of that in our chapters.

582
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 5: From what I understand, we don't get a whole lot

583
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 5: of people really having a terrible understanding of who we

584
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 5: are and what we do. They get that sometimes, but

585
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 5: they correct those people, they weed them out or whatever.

586
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 5: But what we have gotten is a lot of people

587
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 5: really seem to understand what we're about, really embrace the

588
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 5: idea of having an atheistic religious community. But as for

589
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 5: the question of other organizations, we're in this Internet era

590
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,719
Speaker 5: where anybody with an account can claim to be an organization,

591
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:34,240
Speaker 5: and that's pretty much what Satanism is now, beyond the

592
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 5: Satanic Temple and even the Church of Satan that was

593
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 5: a thing in the sixties and seventies. Now it's pretty

594
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 5: much a Twitter account that just complains that the Satanic

595
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 5: Temple aren't real Satanists because we don't properly venerate Anton Levy.

596
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 5: But even the Church of Satan claims to be non

597
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 5: theistic Satanists, and so if you're going to consider them

598
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 5: worthy of consideration at all, as you know, supposedly the

599
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 5: second biggest Satanic organization, though I would object to the

600
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 5: idea of characterizing them as an organization even they're non theistic.

601
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 5: So sometimes on social media I've gotten people sending crazy

602
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 5: messages about how pissed off satan is and how pissed

603
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:20,520
Speaker 5: off they are at my representation of Satan or Satanism

604
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 5: or whatever because they fashioned themselves theistic. But that's not

605
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 5: a very large population. I'm sure I haven't done any studies,

606
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 5: but it's pretty clear that those are lone random fools.

607
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: I just want you to tell our audience about that.

608
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:43,200
Speaker 1: Like baby Stunt I'm talking.

609
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 5: About, Oh, the one Vice covered where there was the

610
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 5: counter protest at the anti abortion rally and some of

611
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 5: our people dressed up in baby suits, and yes, is

612
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 5: fetish babies. The whole idea, I guess was that, you know,

613
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 5: they were fetishizing this idea of the baby or whatever.

614
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 2: I don't know.

615
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm still kind of torn to this day.

616
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 5: That was a Detroit Chapter thing, and you know, it

617
00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:11,600
Speaker 5: got attention, but whether the message got across or not

618
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 5: is fairly uncertain. I do know that there was an

619
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 5: interesting kind of backstory to that Vice piece that really

620
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 5: covered this, and it was that, you know, Vice had

621
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 5: cameras on me for a while. You know, they had

622
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 5: people following me around, and I had done a debate

623
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 5: with a candidate for governor and Missouri at the time,

624
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:36,240
Speaker 5: we had done this kind of other protest action against

625
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:40,279
Speaker 5: an organization that was spreading conspiracy theories in the name

626
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 5: of mental health care. So we had all these kinds

627
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:46,280
Speaker 5: of issues being filmed and explored in this Vice piece,

628
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:49,000
Speaker 5: and they eventually came out with like this ten minute

629
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 5: piece that really just focused on this theatrical baby protest

630
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 5: in Detroit. Later on, it turned out that they fired

631
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 5: the editor because some emails of his leaked out and

632
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 5: he was trying to play both sides of the political

633
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 5: spectrum with the pieces that he was leading on editing,

634
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,320
Speaker 5: and that piece was one of them. So I feel

635
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 5: like it cut out all the content in his emails.

636
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 5: He was just kind of like writing to editors at

637
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 5: Breitbart and saying things like check out this crazy shit.

638
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:24,400
Speaker 5: I don't know, that's just kind of an interesting, little

639
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:26,240
Speaker 5: little peck story.

640
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:28,120
Speaker 4: I was just going to ask, if you plan on

641
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:30,320
Speaker 4: ever running for office.

642
00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 5: I think I'd really hate the job. Yeah, I think

643
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:36,840
Speaker 5: i'd really hate the job, But I really really hated

644
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 5: the idea too, of being a public figure, of being

645
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 5: the guy to argue with Tucker Carlson on Fox News

646
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 5: and things like that. And after a while, you know,

647
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 5: I've settled into this. So if I felt sufficiently compelled

648
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 5: by the need to try to do good by taking office,

649
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:59,400
Speaker 5: I think I could, you know, get past the loathing

650
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:02,880
Speaker 5: of that of being in that position.

651
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:04,360
Speaker 1: I'd vote for you.

652
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 4: Yah, got my vote.

653
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:11,799
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the Satanic Panic. So I first

654
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:14,439
Speaker 1: learned about the Satanic Panic from watching the Paradise Lost

655
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 1: documentaries about the West Memphis Three for anyone who doesn't

656
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: know who the West Memphis Three are. They were three

657
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 1: teenage boys in Arkansas who listened to Metallica in the

658
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:26,760
Speaker 1: nineties and were falsely convicted of murdering three young boys

659
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:29,799
Speaker 1: in an alleged Satanic ritual. Now, they were convicted because

660
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:33,480
Speaker 1: of a coerced confession, there was no actual evidence. But

661
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 1: there was this whole panic sweeping America in the eighties

662
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 1: and nineties, so this was actually really emblematic of the

663
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 1: time everyone was accusing people of being a Satanist. It

664
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:45,719
Speaker 1: was essentially a weird modern version of the Salem witch Trials.

665
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:50,839
Speaker 1: So out of this comes these recovered memories. I'm using

666
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 1: air quotes recovered memories. So talk to us a little

667
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: bit about this side of things, because I know that

668
00:36:57,080 --> 00:36:58,880
Speaker 1: this is something that you guys talk about.

669
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:03,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, people are really quite aware.

670
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 5: I think a lot of people are keenly aware of

671
00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 5: QAnon now and it's kind of revival of the Satanic Panic.

672
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 5: Fewer people, I think, are really quite clear on the

673
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 5: Satanic Panic of the eighties and nineties, in this kind

674
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 5: of recovered memory movement and things like that. As being

675
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:24,640
Speaker 5: kind of the intellectual precursor of QAnon. If you can

676
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:29,279
Speaker 5: really allow that tortured use of intellectual in this context.

677
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 5: A lot of people look back and they find it

678
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:35,360
Speaker 5: humorous that people were in a panic about things like

679
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 5: dungeons and dragons or backward masking and heavy metal music.

680
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 5: And I think there's still this kind of notion that

681
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:50,800
Speaker 5: the Satanic Panic was really initiated by extreme right evangelicals,

682
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:55,360
Speaker 5: Helen Brimstone kind of preachers and others just trying to

683
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 5: revive the idea of the devil to get people back

684
00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 5: into churches. This is where people sometimes don't appreciate what

685
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:06,239
Speaker 5: I'm saying, because they don't want to think that these

686
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 5: conspiracy theories sometimes can have bipartisan support. But the fact

687
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:13,719
Speaker 5: of the matter was that in the eighties and nineties,

688
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:17,279
Speaker 5: the Satanic Panic had the power it did because of

689
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 5: this kind of unholy union between the left and the right.

690
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 5: There were those evangelicals, there were those preachers, you know,

691
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 5: there was that superstition. But there was also old school

692
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 5: feminists who understood that victims of abuse in domestic settings

693
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 5: and then cases of sexual abuse were being under recognized,

694
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:43,239
Speaker 5: and their idea was that the solution to this was

695
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 5: to believe any claim of abuse, because people just didn't

696
00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 5: make claims of abuse if they weren't true.

697
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 1: I just want to note here. I feel like it

698
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 1: goes without saying, but you just want to clarify. Believing

699
00:38:55,160 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: victims is generally correct wisdom. It starts to get hairy

700
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:02,359
Speaker 1: when there's a questionable third party messing with the mind

701
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:06,840
Speaker 1: of the accuser and you know, implanting memories. Also the

702
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 1: idea of the psychological establishment and certain feminists within it

703
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:13,840
Speaker 1: coming together in the nineties with evangelicals in the eighties

704
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:17,160
Speaker 1: to promote the idea of believing all child abuse claims,

705
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:20,440
Speaker 1: even when they were ridiculous. It's been discussed in a

706
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 1: variety of books on the Satanic panic, and I would

707
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:24,239
Speaker 1: like to read a bit more about it.

708
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 5: But as we see with like QAnon exploiting believe the

709
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:33,919
Speaker 5: children and claiming to be advocates for victims of trafficking,

710
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:38,840
Speaker 5: people can then use survivors of real abuse as human

711
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:44,840
Speaker 5: shields against scrutiny of their bizarre conspiracy theorist claims. And

712
00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 5: to me, it's a real disgraceful maneuver. But it's something

713
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 5: you see QAnon doing right now, you know. But when

714
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:54,840
Speaker 5: you start tying these things in with rational support movements

715
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 5: and things like that. That's when it grows really quite dangerous.

716
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 5: In the mental health health profession, there's still a kind

717
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 5: of fringe movement that advocates for this use of recovered

718
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 5: memory therapies to draw four recollections of abuse. And they

719
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 5: still advocate for these notions that there is a satanic

720
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 5: conspiracy intentionally using trauma based mind control to separate people

721
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 5: into different personalities, and various personalities have specific programming that

722
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:31,880
Speaker 5: can be triggered by different keywords, color flashes, or whatever

723
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:36,360
Speaker 5: indicators are supposed to bring these personalities out to fulfill

724
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 5: their function. I mean, this sounds like real fringe tinfoil

725
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 5: hat stuff, and it is. You might think that it

726
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 5: sounds so fringe and tinfoil hat is to not even

727
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 5: be worthy of anybody's attention. But there's a whole kind

728
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:56,360
Speaker 5: of professional organization full of therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists who are

729
00:40:56,480 --> 00:41:01,320
Speaker 5: really invested in conspiracy theories that give people crippling delusions

730
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 5: in the name of therapy. And this organization is called

731
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 5: the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Association

732
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:11,280
Speaker 5: the ISSTD. They hold annual conferences where they talk about

733
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 5: the Illuminati, satanic ritual abuse, and other such things. Wow,

734
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 5: they offer continuing education units to mental health professionals for

735
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 5: seeing them talk about these things. They've done a lot

736
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 5: since we've started publicly exposing a lot of their bizarre materials.

737
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 5: They're starting to do terminology changes again. And while they

738
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:36,719
Speaker 5: had a ritual abuse mind control special interest group, they're

739
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 5: simply going to refer to these issues as organized abuse.

740
00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 5: And I guess it was because the organization that was

741
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 5: accrediting their continuing education units was no longer going to

742
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 5: do so for seminars that involve mind control, satanic ritual abuse,

743
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:54,720
Speaker 5: or other conspiracy theories.

744
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 2: So instead of.

745
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 5: Changing what they're talking about, they're going to change their

746
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:02,840
Speaker 5: We're going to fight to make sure that that doesn't

747
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:06,319
Speaker 5: happen and that the name change is recognized for what

748
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 5: it is. Hopefully, the more we hammer on these people,

749
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:12,320
Speaker 5: the closer we'll get to getting them taken out of

750
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 5: the field. Because nothing's more horrifying to me than to

751
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:17,720
Speaker 5: think of somebody who's actually been a victim of sexual

752
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 5: abuse or trafficking going to a mental health professional for

753
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 5: this and being told that what they recall or what

754
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:26,839
Speaker 5: they experience is only the tip of the iceberg, and

755
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 5: that there's a deeper conspiracy that they have forgotten somewhere

756
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 5: within that they can draw out. And then they start

757
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 5: being indoctrinated into bizarre conspiracy theorist memories that they never

758
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:41,239
Speaker 5: had and start cultivating traumas that they never needed to

759
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:42,319
Speaker 5: have a false memory of.

760
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:42,919
Speaker 2: To begin with.

761
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 1: Right, So, there's a common misconception that forgetting a trauma

762
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 1: and then spontaneously recalling it is the same thing as

763
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 1: having a repressed memory that you can uncover. I think

764
00:42:57,080 --> 00:43:00,880
Speaker 1: memory is something people really misunderstand. And every time we

765
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: have a memory, we're essentially reconstructing it, right, So we're

766
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:08,760
Speaker 1: not playing it back in our minds, we're like calling

767
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:11,560
Speaker 1: it up and recreating this memory, which is why people's

768
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: stories change over time. So repressed memories are essentially debunked.

769
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:17,360
Speaker 1: Is that correct.

770
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 5: There's no clear evidence that there is a discrete mechanism

771
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 5: that represses memories, that just kind of redacts neatly specific

772
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:34,720
Speaker 5: memories just to preserve our feelings. You do have people,

773
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 5: of course, who have undergone traumatic things and they'll engage

774
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 5: in thought avoidance where they can forget these things or

775
00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 5: sometimes in the case of sexual abuse, maybe they're too

776
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 5: young to understand the context of it, you know, maybe

777
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 5: they forgot about it, and that is traumatic when they

778
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 5: recall it. You know, there's nothing that's forgivable about sexual abuse,

779
00:43:56,480 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 5: and it doesn't give any justification for it. By refuting

780
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 5: this idea of repressed memory the way some of the

781
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:05,799
Speaker 5: conspiracy theorists would like to say, you're obligated to leave

782
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 5: these things or else your pro sex abuse or whatever.

783
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 5: And it may really seem like it's splitting hairs to say, well,

784
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 5: you can forget something traumatic and then be cue to

785
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 5: remember it, But there's not a discreet mechanism by which,

786
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 5: you know, the mind redacts these things for you. But

787
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:26,240
Speaker 5: it makes a world of difference when you're talking about

788
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 5: things like multiple personality disorder now called this sociative identity

789
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:34,280
Speaker 5: disorder and what causes it, you know, because this whole

790
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:39,040
Speaker 5: idea is premised on this notion that uniquely traumatic memories,

791
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:43,120
Speaker 5: traumatic enough to be repressed, are what form the basis

792
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 5: of a kind of unique personality inside somebody that is

793
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:52,839
Speaker 5: also unavailable to their conscious recollection kind of thing. So

794
00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 5: there's this whole kind of field built on this notion

795
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:00,960
Speaker 5: of repressed memories being a certain speci thing and not

796
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 5: merely forgotten, and that's what we kind of fight to correct,

797
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 5: get people to recognize where the science is at.

798
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:09,239
Speaker 3: Right.

799
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the examples that come to my mind just

800
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 1: to kind of make it more concrete. Well, first of all,

801
00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 1: we've talked about till Swan before. I can't remember if

802
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:18,839
Speaker 1: we've talked about this on an episode we've released yet,

803
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 1: But she do you know who she is?

804
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:22,759
Speaker 5: Yeah, she's a lot of fun.

805
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:30,280
Speaker 1: I believe that she was abused in the satanic ritual

806
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:33,320
Speaker 1: abuse growing up and was forced to climb into another

807
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:37,280
Speaker 1: human body, a corpse, which I believe is a memory

808
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:40,319
Speaker 1: that was recovered for her again in air quotes by

809
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 1: someone who helps all kinds of other people air quotes

810
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: recover their memories. There's also this family someone I know

811
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:50,240
Speaker 1: is doing a documentary actually on the Thurston County ritual

812
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: abuse case. The story is wild. So these two young

813
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:57,839
Speaker 1: girls became convinced that their dad had sexually abused them

814
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 1: in a series of like b was satanic rituals, and

815
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 1: at first I believe he denied it, but then their

816
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:06,359
Speaker 1: pastor apparently convinced him that he had in fact done it,

817
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 1: and so he began to believe it himself, and he

818
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:14,800
Speaker 1: confessed to all of these extremely crazy satanic ritual things.

819
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:17,120
Speaker 1: There was even one accusation that was made of him,

820
00:46:17,120 --> 00:46:18,560
Speaker 1: and he was like, I don't remember doing that. I

821
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 1: didn't do that, and he was told to go pray

822
00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 1: about it, and he went and prayed about it and

823
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:25,799
Speaker 1: came back with a detailed confession. It was actually a

824
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: test by a psychologist who was seeing him at the time.

825
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 1: No one had actually made that accusation. So anyway, now

826
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 1: he maintains that he didn't actually do these things. He

827
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 1: went to jail. Apparently his kids still believe it. But yeah,

828
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 1: so this stuff can ruin people's lives in a lot

829
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 1: of ways. People who have just run of the male trauma,

830
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:46,560
Speaker 1: their trauma can be deepened and deepened and deepened because

831
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:48,799
Speaker 1: they're adding all these things that never happened, or they're

832
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: creating traumas that never existed in the first place. But

833
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 1: it's just in general, super dangerous practice.

834
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 5: Well, there was a study done in Harvard where they

835
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 5: were kind of testing the traumatic value of false memories,

836
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 5: and they were working under the assumption which I think

837
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:11,480
Speaker 5: will all agree with that recovered memories of alien abduction

838
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 5: are false memories. And they didn't bother to investigate the

839
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 5: claims of alien abduction. We're just we're just taking this

840
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 5: at face value that the alien abduction narration is isn't true.

841
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:27,240
Speaker 5: It's a false memory. And that's that's where I stand

842
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 5: on it. But they had people who had traumatic memories

843
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:35,359
Speaker 5: of alien abduction and this is this is real, this

844
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:38,440
Speaker 5: is this is a thing. And I have gone to

845
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 5: support groups for people who, you know, felt they were

846
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 5: abducted by aliens. And it's not funny. It's not funny

847
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 5: to see people who are really really damaged by these

848
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 5: ideas and doing bizarre things to keep themselves isolated from

849
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 5: an invisible threat. And in the Harvard study, they were

850
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:05,359
Speaker 5: testing psychophysiological responses to script driven imagery, which was to

851
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:08,440
Speaker 5: say that they would have the person who believed themselves

852
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:11,879
Speaker 5: a victim of this read a script that would kind

853
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:16,600
Speaker 5: of trigger these emotions along with the trauma, and compared

854
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:22,400
Speaker 5: against people who had verifiable traumas like in wartime experiences,

855
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:25,920
Speaker 5: real severe traumas, these people with false memories of alien induction,

856
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 5: they ranked up there. You know, there's psychophysiological response was

857
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:34,840
Speaker 5: such that it indicated that they were reacting to real trauma.

858
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:37,840
Speaker 5: Which isn't to say these things that happened were real.

859
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 5: It's that the false memories functioned like real traumas. And

860
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:45,279
Speaker 5: when you think of that, and I think of the

861
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:49,279
Speaker 5: people I saw at a ritual abuse mind control conference

862
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:53,600
Speaker 5: talking about these horrible things they believed it happened to them,

863
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:57,759
Speaker 5: while at the same time saying things like until I

864
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 5: was in my thirties and went into therapy, I thought

865
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:05,759
Speaker 5: I had loving parents in a great family and that

866
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:08,200
Speaker 5: kind of thing, and then I learned that they were

867
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:12,759
Speaker 5: all part of this intergenerational Satanic cult. You realize that

868
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:17,359
Speaker 5: they had been pulled from their familial support network, you know,

869
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 5: based on the bizarre claims of irrational therapists. And this

870
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:25,239
Speaker 5: is not a thing of the past. Gray Faction is

871
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:29,080
Speaker 5: the segment of the Satanic Temple that deals with these issues,

872
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:34,120
Speaker 5: and you can see the website Grayfaction dot org. It

873
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 5: was horrifying, I think around twenty ten now two thousand

874
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 5: and eight, which is modern times in the way that

875
00:49:41,640 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 5: it's well passed what sociologists would demarcate as the end

876
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 5: of the Satanic Panic. In nineteen ninety five, But there

877
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 5: was a millionaire mother, a pharmaceutical mogul in New York

878
00:49:55,239 --> 00:49:58,880
Speaker 5: City who killed her own eight year old autistic child

879
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 5: because in her mind he wasn't actually autistic. This child

880
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:08,520
Speaker 5: was not able to verbally communicate, but they used facilitated

881
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:13,839
Speaker 5: communication to diagnose him with multiple personality disorder, and facilitated

882
00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:18,680
Speaker 5: communication has been debunked, and the idea of multiple personality

883
00:50:18,719 --> 00:50:23,480
Speaker 5: disorder is controversial, to say the least. And then, of

884
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 5: course this leads to the idea that he was abused

885
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 5: by some kind of bizarre satanic cult and that he

886
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:32,399
Speaker 5: was never going to be free of it, and so

887
00:50:32,440 --> 00:50:35,239
Speaker 5: she ended up murdering him. There were a lot of

888
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:38,720
Speaker 5: articles written about this. It was a salacious story because

889
00:50:38,719 --> 00:50:41,040
Speaker 5: he had this millionaire mother and she kills her own

890
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:44,640
Speaker 5: eight year old child. Yet none of the stories really

891
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:49,560
Speaker 5: covered the fact that she went to ISSTD therapists. She

892
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:52,520
Speaker 5: went to a woman named Ellen Lacter, who was at

893
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:55,360
Speaker 5: one point to chair I believe of the Ritual Abuse

894
00:50:55,440 --> 00:50:59,200
Speaker 5: Mind Control Special Interest Group in the ISSTD. And we

895
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:02,880
Speaker 5: don't know the kind of those discussions, but our thinking

896
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:05,919
Speaker 5: was that it's an outrage to think that maybe if

897
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 5: this mother had gone to a professional that had who

898
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:13,680
Speaker 5: would help disabuse her of these bizarre beliefs she had,

899
00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:17,719
Speaker 5: rather than helping cultivate them, maybe that child would still

900
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:22,279
Speaker 5: be alive. And that's why we fight as we do

901
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:26,920
Speaker 5: against this organization, the ISSTD, and try to get people

902
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:32,240
Speaker 5: to realize the ongoing damage caused by the Satanic panic,

903
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 5: which itself is still ongoing.

904
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:39,160
Speaker 1: So scary. Do you have like a list of signs

905
00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:43,360
Speaker 1: that your therapist might be a conspiracy therapist? I mean, like,

906
00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:46,320
Speaker 1: how can someone tell the difference between someone who's legitimately

907
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:48,680
Speaker 1: trying to address your trauma and someone who's like leaning

908
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:50,240
Speaker 1: you down a very dark path.

909
00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:54,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, some people might not go directly there, you know,

910
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:58,319
Speaker 5: but I think if you go into therapy if you're depressed,

911
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:01,239
Speaker 5: you know, if you're having you can't hold a job,

912
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:04,719
Speaker 5: whatever your your melese is. If you go to a

913
00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:09,360
Speaker 5: therapist and a therapist says, well, you know, have you

914
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:11,800
Speaker 5: have you ever been you know, abused by your parents

915
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:15,279
Speaker 5: in some way that could be causing this And you

916
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 5: say no, and they say, well, you know you may

917
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:21,440
Speaker 5: have been and not recall it. That's a red flag

918
00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 5: enough for me to think you would be justified and

919
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 5: saying fuck you, you quack in walking out of the office.

920
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 5: There are a lot of reasons, you know, people can

921
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:34,040
Speaker 5: have the kind of problems that they do. There's a

922
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 5: lot of reasons people get frightened for no reason or

923
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 5: depressed or whatever. You know, it's not this kind of

924
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:43,280
Speaker 5: blank slate solution where you know, you can see somebody's

925
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 5: reaction on one thing and divine the absolute cause at

926
00:52:47,320 --> 00:52:51,560
Speaker 5: the root. And when you have somebody go straight to that,

927
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:55,440
Speaker 5: it's clear you're dealing with a dangerous quack who feels

928
00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 5: they have one solution to all questions and they really

929
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:01,280
Speaker 5: have no idea where science stands today.

930
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:05,080
Speaker 4: I have one more question for you. I mean, it

931
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:05,680
Speaker 4: feels like a.

932
00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:09,720
Speaker 3: Lot of what you do is deal with ending superstition,

933
00:53:10,239 --> 00:53:12,600
Speaker 3: and that's something I still struggle a lot with. I'm

934
00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:16,120
Speaker 3: just wondering if there's anything that you're superstitious about.

935
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:20,640
Speaker 5: I you know, we can mitigate our superstition to the

936
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:24,200
Speaker 5: best of our ability. Yeah, I think that's something you

937
00:53:24,360 --> 00:53:27,800
Speaker 5: really should do. I mean, we'll never truly be rid

938
00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:31,600
Speaker 5: of people just having their intuition that, against the odds,

939
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:33,839
Speaker 5: things are going to go well or whatever. Why would

940
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 5: you in certain circumstances if that's all you've got, you know,

941
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:40,919
Speaker 5: or maybe if you behave a certain way, even if

942
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:42,879
Speaker 5: nobody notices it, you know, things will go better.

943
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:43,360
Speaker 2: Anyways.

944
00:53:43,400 --> 00:53:46,399
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, maybe that's true because maybe it helps

945
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:49,960
Speaker 5: your psychological state or whatever, or maybe you could consider that.

946
00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:51,720
Speaker 2: A bit superstitious.

947
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 5: When I was in Phoenix, Arizona, on trial for one

948
00:53:56,160 --> 00:53:59,120
Speaker 5: of our cases as a plaintiff, the defense was trying

949
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:03,640
Speaker 5: to take away authenticity as a religious group, you know,

950
00:54:03,760 --> 00:54:06,520
Speaker 5: saying that ours wasn't a religious claim, we didn't deserve

951
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:10,040
Speaker 5: religious protection because we weren't a real religion. It didn't work,

952
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:12,320
Speaker 5: by the way, the federal judge ruled in our favor

953
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:15,439
Speaker 5: on that one, even finding against us on the core

954
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 5: of our claim. The idea was that how could we

955
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:20,400
Speaker 5: be a religion if we were just kind of like

956
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:23,239
Speaker 5: looking at things from a scientific vantage point and willing

957
00:54:23,239 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 5: to change our views along with that. And I said, well,

958
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:28,759
Speaker 5: that's not really the whole story here. You know, we

959
00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:34,399
Speaker 5: have this kind of existential notion of this struggle of

960
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:37,399
Speaker 5: justice against tyranny and that kind of thing, and these

961
00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:43,120
Speaker 5: aren't scientifically provable values. But there's something that really kind

962
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:47,480
Speaker 5: of contextualizes this framework of our idea of where we

963
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:51,319
Speaker 5: stand in the universal order, that kind of thing, and

964
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:53,759
Speaker 5: that was good enough for the judge who kind of

965
00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:56,920
Speaker 5: quoted that part and his ruling finding us, you know,

966
00:54:57,040 --> 00:55:02,239
Speaker 5: to be absolutely a religious entity. So while there is that,

967
00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:06,080
Speaker 5: I think if you really recognize that you were holding

968
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:10,440
Speaker 5: to something irrationally, you should consider that, you know, and

969
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:14,040
Speaker 5: you certainly shouldn't insist that anybody else buy into that

970
00:55:14,080 --> 00:55:18,160
Speaker 5: belief if you have no tangible evidence for it. So

971
00:55:18,280 --> 00:55:22,840
Speaker 5: our fight against superstition, I think, you know, falls more

972
00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 5: heavily on getting people to recognize what is superstition and

973
00:55:27,640 --> 00:55:32,040
Speaker 5: making sure that they don't do anything to insist that

974
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:35,480
Speaker 5: their superstition be imposed upon others.

975
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:39,520
Speaker 1: Right smart, Yeah, I like thought justice as an intangible,

976
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,360
Speaker 1: nearly superstitious quality. I really like that. That's that's really interesting.

977
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:45,640
Speaker 1: Do you have any final things that you'd like to

978
00:55:45,680 --> 00:55:49,800
Speaker 1: say or share or final messages for the folks out there.

979
00:55:50,080 --> 00:55:53,480
Speaker 5: You can find more material about the Recovered Memory movement

980
00:55:53,480 --> 00:55:57,600
Speaker 5: in our fight against it and against conspiracy theorists and

981
00:55:57,719 --> 00:56:00,839
Speaker 5: the Satanic panic in general at gray Faction dot org.

982
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:03,800
Speaker 5: We have a lot of things in the near future

983
00:56:03,840 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 5: coming up people should check out also the Satanic Temple

984
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 5: dot tv to see our streaming platform where you can

985
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:13,920
Speaker 5: see a lot of activities and shows that some of

986
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:17,520
Speaker 5: our people make. We've also opened our tst V HQ,

987
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:20,680
Speaker 5: our virtual headquarters, and we have events coming up there.

988
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:24,680
Speaker 5: It's a whole new kind of interactive platform for people

989
00:56:24,719 --> 00:56:27,080
Speaker 5: to play around with, and it's it's working out well

990
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:31,080
Speaker 5: so far, and people might not know it. But I

991
00:56:31,239 --> 00:56:33,839
Speaker 5: have a I have an album coming out that I've

992
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:37,000
Speaker 5: recorded one of the members of the band The Locust

993
00:56:37,120 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 5: and Dead Cross and another member from the band Planet

994
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:44,880
Speaker 5: B and Slayers, old drummer David, and we're.

995
00:56:44,719 --> 00:56:50,560
Speaker 2: Called Yeah and we're called Satanic Planet. And I don't know.

996
00:56:50,960 --> 00:56:53,359
Speaker 5: We're finally done with our final mixes, but I have

997
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:55,560
Speaker 5: no idea still when the when the album is going

998
00:56:55,600 --> 00:56:57,759
Speaker 5: to come out. But we have great videos in the

999
00:56:57,800 --> 00:56:58,640
Speaker 5: works too.

1000
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:01,080
Speaker 4: So amazing. Where do they buy do on social media?

1001
00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 2: It's just a Lucian grieves awesome?

1002
00:57:03,840 --> 00:57:09,279
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you so much anytime? All righty mag Gin,

1003
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:11,760
Speaker 1: would you join the Satanic Temple.

1004
00:57:12,040 --> 00:57:15,880
Speaker 4: Absolutely, They're fantastic. Hell yeah, me too, Oh yeah, I

1005
00:57:15,920 --> 00:57:16,600
Speaker 4: think that you know.

1006
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:20,720
Speaker 3: I still have a lot of my own superstitions to

1007
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:23,400
Speaker 3: work through before that would be something that I would

1008
00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 3: be comfortable doing.

1009
00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:27,040
Speaker 4: But you know, I just think it's really fucking cool.

1010
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:31,040
Speaker 1: I am so into the idea of nontheistic religion because, yes,

1011
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:35,160
Speaker 1: religion can provide such a helpful community and support system,

1012
00:57:35,240 --> 00:57:38,680
Speaker 1: and I think we all need to feel connected to

1013
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:41,320
Speaker 1: other human beings on a level that is not just

1014
00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 1: about like work or get partying or something. I don't know.

1015
00:57:45,880 --> 00:57:49,400
Speaker 1: Will I join the Satanic Temple, It remains to be seen,

1016
00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:52,040
Speaker 1: but I'm very, very aligned with all of their goals,

1017
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:54,920
Speaker 1: and I think they have an excellent sense of humor

1018
00:57:55,120 --> 00:57:57,920
Speaker 1: on top of doing really really important work. So I

1019
00:57:57,920 --> 00:58:01,440
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe this time next year. Uh huh, WELLA

1020
00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:02,760
Speaker 1: is gonna be a peristys.

1021
00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:05,720
Speaker 4: Let's see about that. And you're you are directing one

1022
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:06,520
Speaker 4: of his music.

1023
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:09,320
Speaker 1: Videos, Well we'll see. Fingers crossed, I'm I have an

1024
00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:11,919
Speaker 1: idea I'm excited about, so that would be it would

1025
00:58:11,920 --> 00:58:13,840
Speaker 1: be so much fun. I my god, Oh my god. Oh.

1026
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:17,240
Speaker 1: I just want to quickly say, we had a few

1027
00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:20,520
Speaker 1: people suggest as to the question of what we should

1028
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 1: name our fans. We had a few people suggest we

1029
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:24,800
Speaker 1: call them trustees. How do you feel about that.

1030
00:58:24,880 --> 00:58:28,080
Speaker 4: Oh, I like it. It makes it sound like we're

1031
00:58:28,080 --> 00:58:30,840
Speaker 4: dealing with money, which we're not. No, we are not.

1032
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:34,680
Speaker 1: At all, not yet.

1033
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:37,439
Speaker 4: I love it.

1034
00:58:37,640 --> 00:58:41,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for listening, Trustees, and as all is,

1035
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:45,640
Speaker 3: remember to follow your gut watch out for red Class.

1036
00:58:46,200 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 1: I never ever trust me, my