1
00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:07,480
Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of

2
00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:13,840
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is

3
00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:17,960
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

4
00:00:18,280 --> 00:00:21,640
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

5
00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:27,600
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

6
00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:39,239
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. London is one of the world's great banking cities.

7
00:00:39,360 --> 00:00:42,080
Speaker 1: There's no question there, and like so many parts of

8
00:00:42,120 --> 00:00:45,360
Speaker 1: London's history, we can trace London's banking roots back to

9
00:00:45,400 --> 00:00:49,360
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages five to be exact. But the city's

10
00:00:49,400 --> 00:00:52,920
Speaker 1: first bank wasn't so much founded as it was consecrated.

11
00:00:53,600 --> 00:00:55,800
Speaker 1: You see. That's when a church in London was made.

12
00:00:55,840 --> 00:00:58,440
Speaker 1: The home of monks who were already controlling the wealth

13
00:00:58,480 --> 00:01:01,960
Speaker 1: of monarchs and landowners us Europe, chartered by the Pope

14
00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:04,479
Speaker 1: in eleven nineteen. It took the order only a few

15
00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:07,680
Speaker 1: years before King Alfonso the First of Aragon had given

16
00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:10,440
Speaker 1: them a castle in his will. Maybe he liked that

17
00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:12,679
Speaker 1: each monk had to take a vow of poverty and

18
00:01:12,760 --> 00:01:16,120
Speaker 1: chastity before they joined the Order. Maybe he just wanted

19
00:01:16,120 --> 00:01:18,080
Speaker 1: to get a little credit with Heaven. When he set

20
00:01:18,120 --> 00:01:21,399
Speaker 1: out towards his final destination. But he wasn't the only one.

21
00:01:21,840 --> 00:01:24,400
Speaker 1: Within a few years, the monks were managing a massive

22
00:01:24,440 --> 00:01:27,880
Speaker 1: fortune around Spain, something like a third of the kingdom.

23
00:01:27,920 --> 00:01:30,360
Speaker 1: As representatives of the Church, the monks were the ones

24
00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:33,840
Speaker 1: to benefit. It didn't take long before the brotherhood owned everything,

25
00:01:33,920 --> 00:01:36,759
Speaker 1: from castles and mills to all the wool and wine

26
00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:40,600
Speaker 1: their lands produced. Even if the monks themselves were poor,

27
00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:43,880
Speaker 1: the order got rich, not least because any man who

28
00:01:44,040 --> 00:01:46,600
Speaker 1: joined and took the same vow of poverty had to

29
00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:49,480
Speaker 1: hand over his own belongings, and in those days there

30
00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:52,520
Speaker 1: were plenty of rich and powerful men taking the vows.

31
00:01:53,240 --> 00:01:56,160
Speaker 1: After all, this was the era of Crusades, and when

32
00:01:56,160 --> 00:01:59,840
Speaker 1: French and Italian armies invaded Jerusalem in ten it also

33
00:02:00,120 --> 00:02:02,880
Speaker 1: came the era of pilgrimage. By the time the monks

34
00:02:02,920 --> 00:02:05,640
Speaker 1: opened their chapel in London almost a hundred years later,

35
00:02:05,720 --> 00:02:08,320
Speaker 1: it was simply a new way station on a well

36
00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:11,560
Speaker 1: worn road for travelers from every corner of Europe on

37
00:02:11,600 --> 00:02:14,800
Speaker 1: their way to the city of Jerusalem. And that's where

38
00:02:14,880 --> 00:02:17,600
Speaker 1: the banking comes in, because one of the things that

39
00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:21,160
Speaker 1: hasn't changed about traveling a long distances that it's expensive,

40
00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:23,640
Speaker 1: but in those days, pain for a lot of things

41
00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:26,560
Speaker 1: meant carrying a lot of money. But if you've heard

42
00:02:26,600 --> 00:02:28,760
Speaker 1: the story of robin Hood you might see why rich

43
00:02:28,800 --> 00:02:31,760
Speaker 1: travelers didn't think lugging sacks of gold on the road

44
00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:34,280
Speaker 1: was a good idea. So they came up with a

45
00:02:34,280 --> 00:02:38,320
Speaker 1: better solution. Someone at the beginning of their journey, say

46
00:02:38,360 --> 00:02:40,840
Speaker 1: in London, could go to the chapel with their wealth

47
00:02:41,120 --> 00:02:43,760
Speaker 1: and leave it in the hands of the monks. In return,

48
00:02:43,840 --> 00:02:46,360
Speaker 1: the chapel would give the traveler a note of the amount.

49
00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:49,560
Speaker 1: We don't know today exactly what that kind of document

50
00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:52,440
Speaker 1: looked like, but there's no doubt it was less conspicuous

51
00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:55,240
Speaker 1: than stacks of clanking coins, and the next time the

52
00:02:55,280 --> 00:02:57,920
Speaker 1: traveler checked in with the monks, they could make a withdrawal.

53
00:02:58,240 --> 00:03:00,600
Speaker 1: Today we might take it for granted that banks worked

54
00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:03,680
Speaker 1: this way, and our international credit cards are a common

55
00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:07,839
Speaker 1: everyday item, but in the Middle Ages this was a revelation.

56
00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:11,399
Speaker 1: Once they started to become well known as bankers, though,

57
00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:14,560
Speaker 1: things started to get even more complicated. They were taking

58
00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:17,800
Speaker 1: deposits from merchants, yes, but even the rulers of France

59
00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:20,400
Speaker 1: decided that they should deposit all the royal wealth. With

60
00:03:20,440 --> 00:03:24,040
Speaker 1: the Order, it essentially made these monks the crown treasurers.

61
00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:27,600
Speaker 1: At one point the British royals followed suit, but it

62
00:03:27,639 --> 00:03:30,000
Speaker 1: was the Crown Jewels of England they deposited in the

63
00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:33,840
Speaker 1: chapel for safekeeping, and kingdoms all across Europe. The monks

64
00:03:33,880 --> 00:03:36,960
Speaker 1: became the financial middlemen between the people and the Crown,

65
00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:42,240
Speaker 1: even collecting taxes sometimes. Soon enough, these monks, sworn to poverty,

66
00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:45,800
Speaker 1: were the most sophisticated accountants around. They even got called

67
00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:49,480
Speaker 1: into audit the complex financial arrangements for other merchants and

68
00:03:49,520 --> 00:03:53,200
Speaker 1: wealthy nobles. If their chapel in London had become England's

69
00:03:53,240 --> 00:03:56,360
Speaker 1: first bank, the rest of their operation grew into Europe's

70
00:03:56,400 --> 00:04:00,640
Speaker 1: first financial services company. Here's the thing, though, The Order

71
00:04:00,720 --> 00:04:03,560
Speaker 1: was founded as the Poor Knights of the Temple of

72
00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:07,320
Speaker 1: Solomon at Jerusalem. That was their official name. But the

73
00:04:07,400 --> 00:04:09,960
Speaker 1: richer they grew, the harder it was to call them poor,

74
00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:13,600
Speaker 1: and that might be what started their bad reputation, especially

75
00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:17,440
Speaker 1: when it comes to murky and powerful international networks. So

76
00:04:17,480 --> 00:04:20,159
Speaker 1: their name the Poor Knights of the Temple came to

77
00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:25,080
Speaker 1: be defined as suspicious dealings, hoarded treasure, and vast conspiracies

78
00:04:25,080 --> 00:04:28,599
Speaker 1: as the years passed, and eventually those medieval pioneers of

79
00:04:28,640 --> 00:04:46,480
Speaker 1: international banking simply became known as the Knights Templar. Those

80
00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:48,880
Speaker 1: who look back on the good old days in America

81
00:04:49,080 --> 00:04:51,320
Speaker 1: often think of a time when kids could freely walk

82
00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:54,520
Speaker 1: the streets without care. Front doors were left unlocked at night,

83
00:04:54,760 --> 00:04:58,480
Speaker 1: there wasn't the threat of danger around every corner. In reality,

84
00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:01,720
Speaker 1: times were still problem att Nearly every decade of the

85
00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:05,240
Speaker 1: last century has seen war. During the nineteen fifties, Edgains

86
00:05:05,279 --> 00:05:09,080
Speaker 1: brutal crimes scandalized his quiet Wisconsin town. He went on

87
00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:12,480
Speaker 1: to inspire such fictional serial killers as leather Face and

88
00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:16,119
Speaker 1: Norman Bates. From the Great Depression to Vietnam, there wasn't

89
00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:19,320
Speaker 1: an era in history without its problems, and as the

90
00:05:19,400 --> 00:05:22,960
Speaker 1: years advanced, so did change, often at an alarming rate.

91
00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:26,359
Speaker 1: By the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties, the

92
00:05:26,360 --> 00:05:29,440
Speaker 1: world looked much different than it had even ten years earlier,

93
00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:32,640
Speaker 1: and parents were worried. Crime was on the rise. In

94
00:05:32,720 --> 00:05:35,960
Speaker 1: suburban Moms and dads were scared for their children. Many

95
00:05:36,040 --> 00:05:38,200
Speaker 1: of their fears were laid out in a nineteen eighty

96
00:05:38,240 --> 00:05:41,640
Speaker 1: book called Michelle Remembers a memoir of sorts by a

97
00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:46,280
Speaker 1: woman named Michelle Smith and her psychiatrist, Lawrence Pastor. In

98
00:05:46,279 --> 00:05:48,799
Speaker 1: the book, Smith claimed to have suffered through something called

99
00:05:48,880 --> 00:05:52,040
Speaker 1: satanic ritual abuse when she was five years old. The

100
00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:55,000
Speaker 1: book was eventually discredited, but not before it did some

101
00:05:55,080 --> 00:05:58,680
Speaker 1: serious damage to the national psyche. It kicked off an

102
00:05:58,680 --> 00:06:01,840
Speaker 1: era in American history and as the Satanic Panic, a

103
00:06:01,960 --> 00:06:05,400
Speaker 1: time when the media, law enforcement, and mental health industry

104
00:06:05,440 --> 00:06:08,720
Speaker 1: all started warning people about satanic cults that plagued their

105
00:06:08,760 --> 00:06:13,080
Speaker 1: small towns, and children were especially in danger. One of

106
00:06:13,120 --> 00:06:14,800
Speaker 1: the biggest stories of the day had to do with

107
00:06:14,839 --> 00:06:18,039
Speaker 1: a college student named James Dallas Egbert. James had grown

108
00:06:18,120 --> 00:06:20,279
Speaker 1: up in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, and from a

109
00:06:20,320 --> 00:06:22,400
Speaker 1: young age it was clear that he was a little

110
00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:25,760
Speaker 1: bit different. For one, he was a genius, having graduated

111
00:06:25,839 --> 00:06:29,479
Speaker 1: high school at the age of sixteen. In nineteen seventy nine,

112
00:06:29,480 --> 00:06:32,080
Speaker 1: he was enrolled at Michigan State University as a computer

113
00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:35,120
Speaker 1: science major. Being young and on his own in such

114
00:06:35,160 --> 00:06:37,279
Speaker 1: a new place had taken a toll on him. The

115
00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:40,880
Speaker 1: experience sent him into a spiral of depression and drug use,

116
00:06:41,240 --> 00:06:43,159
Speaker 1: and he'd fallen in with a group of other students

117
00:06:43,160 --> 00:06:46,880
Speaker 1: who had gotten him into a strange new form of occultism.

118
00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:50,680
Speaker 1: They would sit around a table each night reciting incantations

119
00:06:50,720 --> 00:06:54,479
Speaker 1: summoning demons and other hellish creatures from their dorm rooms.

120
00:06:54,839 --> 00:06:57,600
Speaker 1: Egbert's parents worried about him, but it all came to

121
00:06:57,640 --> 00:07:00,080
Speaker 1: a head on the day that James disappeared. No but

122
00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:02,200
Speaker 1: he knew where he had gone, so the police were

123
00:07:02,240 --> 00:07:05,799
Speaker 1: called in and his parents hired a private investigator named

124
00:07:05,800 --> 00:07:09,960
Speaker 1: William Dear. The investigator noticed a clue in the boy's

125
00:07:09,960 --> 00:07:12,600
Speaker 1: dorm room wall. He followed his hunch down to the

126
00:07:12,640 --> 00:07:15,800
Speaker 1: steam tunnels beneath the university, where it was clear that

127
00:07:15,880 --> 00:07:19,480
Speaker 1: James had been, and in the process his investigation unearthed

128
00:07:19,480 --> 00:07:22,480
Speaker 1: a lot about the troubled students. His trip to the

129
00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:25,160
Speaker 1: steam tunnels had most likely been part of the ritual

130
00:07:25,200 --> 00:07:28,840
Speaker 1: the students were performing related to their evening summoning sessions

131
00:07:28,880 --> 00:07:31,240
Speaker 1: back in the dorms, and it was this story that

132
00:07:31,280 --> 00:07:34,880
Speaker 1: the papers and news programs reported on could a satanic

133
00:07:34,960 --> 00:07:39,840
Speaker 1: cult be living on Michigan State's campus. Not long after

134
00:07:39,880 --> 00:07:43,240
Speaker 1: he went missing, James eventually called William Dear and told

135
00:07:43,280 --> 00:07:45,880
Speaker 1: him where he was. He had traveled from Michigan to

136
00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:48,440
Speaker 1: New Orleans, where he planned on taking his own life.

137
00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:52,320
Speaker 1: The investigator came down immediately to collect James and return

138
00:07:52,440 --> 00:07:55,240
Speaker 1: him to his family. The truth was that James had

139
00:07:55,280 --> 00:07:58,440
Speaker 1: faced severe depression and anxiety over a number of issues

140
00:07:58,440 --> 00:08:01,000
Speaker 1: in his life, but he begged dear not to tell

141
00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:04,760
Speaker 1: anyone without a valid explanation for his disappearance. Though the

142
00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:08,160
Speaker 1: press only had one thing to hold onto James's nightly

143
00:08:08,280 --> 00:08:11,360
Speaker 1: rituals with his friends. The only problem was that he

144
00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:15,120
Speaker 1: actually hadn't joined a satanic cult. He had been casting

145
00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:18,800
Speaker 1: spells and slaying creatures in a fairly new tabletop game

146
00:08:18,880 --> 00:08:22,520
Speaker 1: known as Dungeons and Dragons. And because the media couldn't

147
00:08:22,560 --> 00:08:25,600
Speaker 1: report on the truth about James, the theories and fears

148
00:08:25,640 --> 00:08:31,240
Speaker 1: about Dungeons and Dragons spread among concerned parents everywhere. Nowadays,

149
00:08:31,280 --> 00:08:34,040
Speaker 1: the game is played every day by kids, teens, and

150
00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:37,960
Speaker 1: even Hollywood celebrities. It's become a part of everyday culture.

151
00:08:38,440 --> 00:08:41,520
Speaker 1: But back then, Dungeons and Dragons was seen as a

152
00:08:41,600 --> 00:08:44,839
Speaker 1: menace and a gateway to the dark side. More than

153
00:08:44,880 --> 00:08:47,240
Speaker 1: just a game, it was viewed by many as a

154
00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:50,880
Speaker 1: roll of the dice for America's soul. Little did they

155
00:08:50,880 --> 00:08:53,360
Speaker 1: know it would be a critical hit