Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. London is one of the world's great banking cities.
Speaker 1: There's no question there, and like so many parts of
Speaker 1: London's history, we can trace London's banking roots back to
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages five to be exact. But the city's
Speaker 1: first bank wasn't so much founded as it was consecrated.
Speaker 1: You see. That's when a church in London was made.
Speaker 1: The home of monks who were already controlling the wealth
Speaker 1: of monarchs and landowners us Europe, chartered by the Pope
Speaker 1: in eleven nineteen. It took the order only a few
Speaker 1: years before King Alfonso the First of Aragon had given
Speaker 1: them a castle in his will. Maybe he liked that
Speaker 1: each monk had to take a vow of poverty and
Speaker 1: chastity before they joined the Order. Maybe he just wanted
Speaker 1: to get a little credit with Heaven. When he set
Speaker 1: out towards his final destination. But he wasn't the only one.
Speaker 1: Within a few years, the monks were managing a massive
Speaker 1: fortune around Spain, something like a third of the kingdom.
Speaker 1: As representatives of the Church, the monks were the ones
Speaker 1: to benefit. It didn't take long before the brotherhood owned everything,
Speaker 1: from castles and mills to all the wool and wine
Speaker 1: their lands produced. Even if the monks themselves were poor,
Speaker 1: the order got rich, not least because any man who
Speaker 1: joined and took the same vow of poverty had to
Speaker 1: hand over his own belongings, and in those days there
Speaker 1: were plenty of rich and powerful men taking the vows.
Speaker 1: After all, this was the era of Crusades, and when
Speaker 1: French and Italian armies invaded Jerusalem in ten it also
Speaker 1: came the era of pilgrimage. By the time the monks
Speaker 1: opened their chapel in London almost a hundred years later,
Speaker 1: it was simply a new way station on a well
Speaker 1: worn road for travelers from every corner of Europe on
Speaker 1: their way to the city of Jerusalem. And that's where
Speaker 1: the banking comes in, because one of the things that
Speaker 1: hasn't changed about traveling a long distances that it's expensive,
Speaker 1: but in those days, pain for a lot of things
Speaker 1: meant carrying a lot of money. But if you've heard
Speaker 1: the story of robin Hood you might see why rich
Speaker 1: travelers didn't think lugging sacks of gold on the road
Speaker 1: was a good idea. So they came up with a
Speaker 1: better solution. Someone at the beginning of their journey, say
Speaker 1: in London, could go to the chapel with their wealth
Speaker 1: and leave it in the hands of the monks. In return,
Speaker 1: the chapel would give the traveler a note of the amount.
Speaker 1: We don't know today exactly what that kind of document
Speaker 1: looked like, but there's no doubt it was less conspicuous
Speaker 1: than stacks of clanking coins, and the next time the
Speaker 1: traveler checked in with the monks, they could make a withdrawal.
Speaker 1: Today we might take it for granted that banks worked
Speaker 1: this way, and our international credit cards are a common
Speaker 1: everyday item, but in the Middle Ages this was a revelation.
Speaker 1: Once they started to become well known as bankers, though,
Speaker 1: things started to get even more complicated. They were taking
Speaker 1: deposits from merchants, yes, but even the rulers of France
Speaker 1: decided that they should deposit all the royal wealth. With
Speaker 1: the Order, it essentially made these monks the crown treasurers.
Speaker 1: At one point the British royals followed suit, but it
Speaker 1: was the Crown Jewels of England they deposited in the
Speaker 1: chapel for safekeeping, and kingdoms all across Europe. The monks
Speaker 1: became the financial middlemen between the people and the Crown,
Speaker 1: even collecting taxes sometimes. Soon enough, these monks, sworn to poverty,
Speaker 1: were the most sophisticated accountants around. They even got called
Speaker 1: into audit the complex financial arrangements for other merchants and
Speaker 1: wealthy nobles. If their chapel in London had become England's
Speaker 1: first bank, the rest of their operation grew into Europe's
Speaker 1: first financial services company. Here's the thing, though, The Order
Speaker 1: was founded as the Poor Knights of the Temple of
Speaker 1: Solomon at Jerusalem. That was their official name. But the
Speaker 1: richer they grew, the harder it was to call them poor,
Speaker 1: and that might be what started their bad reputation, especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to murky and powerful international networks. So
Speaker 1: their name the Poor Knights of the Temple came to
Speaker 1: be defined as suspicious dealings, hoarded treasure, and vast conspiracies
Speaker 1: as the years passed, and eventually those medieval pioneers of
Speaker 1: international banking simply became known as the Knights Templar. Those
Speaker 1: who look back on the good old days in America
Speaker 1: often think of a time when kids could freely walk
Speaker 1: the streets without care. Front doors were left unlocked at night,
Speaker 1: there wasn't the threat of danger around every corner. In reality,
Speaker 1: times were still problem att Nearly every decade of the
Speaker 1: last century has seen war. During the nineteen fifties, Edgains
Speaker 1: brutal crimes scandalized his quiet Wisconsin town. He went on
Speaker 1: to inspire such fictional serial killers as leather Face and
Speaker 1: Norman Bates. From the Great Depression to Vietnam, there wasn't
Speaker 1: an era in history without its problems, and as the
Speaker 1: years advanced, so did change, often at an alarming rate.
Speaker 1: By the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties, the
Speaker 1: world looked much different than it had even ten years earlier,
Speaker 1: and parents were worried. Crime was on the rise. In
Speaker 1: suburban Moms and dads were scared for their children. Many
Speaker 1: of their fears were laid out in a nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: book called Michelle Remembers a memoir of sorts by a
Speaker 1: woman named Michelle Smith and her psychiatrist, Lawrence Pastor. In
Speaker 1: the book, Smith claimed to have suffered through something called
Speaker 1: satanic ritual abuse when she was five years old. The
Speaker 1: book was eventually discredited, but not before it did some
Speaker 1: serious damage to the national psyche. It kicked off an
Speaker 1: era in American history and as the Satanic Panic, a
Speaker 1: time when the media, law enforcement, and mental health industry
Speaker 1: all started warning people about satanic cults that plagued their
Speaker 1: small towns, and children were especially in danger. One of
Speaker 1: the biggest stories of the day had to do with
Speaker 1: a college student named James Dallas Egbert. James had grown
Speaker 1: up in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, and from a
Speaker 1: young age it was clear that he was a little
Speaker 1: bit different. For one, he was a genius, having graduated
Speaker 1: high school at the age of sixteen. In nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: he was enrolled at Michigan State University as a computer
Speaker 1: science major. Being young and on his own in such
Speaker 1: a new place had taken a toll on him. The
Speaker 1: experience sent him into a spiral of depression and drug use,
Speaker 1: and he'd fallen in with a group of other students
Speaker 1: who had gotten him into a strange new form of occultism.
Speaker 1: They would sit around a table each night reciting incantations
Speaker 1: summoning demons and other hellish creatures from their dorm rooms.
Speaker 1: Egbert's parents worried about him, but it all came to
Speaker 1: a head on the day that James disappeared. No but
Speaker 1: he knew where he had gone, so the police were
Speaker 1: called in and his parents hired a private investigator named
Speaker 1: William Dear. The investigator noticed a clue in the boy's
Speaker 1: dorm room wall. He followed his hunch down to the
Speaker 1: steam tunnels beneath the university, where it was clear that
Speaker 1: James had been, and in the process his investigation unearthed
Speaker 1: a lot about the troubled students. His trip to the
Speaker 1: steam tunnels had most likely been part of the ritual
Speaker 1: the students were performing related to their evening summoning sessions
Speaker 1: back in the dorms, and it was this story that
Speaker 1: the papers and news programs reported on could a satanic
Speaker 1: cult be living on Michigan State's campus. Not long after
Speaker 1: he went missing, James eventually called William Dear and told
Speaker 1: him where he was. He had traveled from Michigan to
Speaker 1: New Orleans, where he planned on taking his own life.
Speaker 1: The investigator came down immediately to collect James and return
Speaker 1: him to his family. The truth was that James had
Speaker 1: faced severe depression and anxiety over a number of issues
Speaker 1: in his life, but he begged dear not to tell
Speaker 1: anyone without a valid explanation for his disappearance. Though the
Speaker 1: press only had one thing to hold onto James's nightly
Speaker 1: rituals with his friends. The only problem was that he
Speaker 1: actually hadn't joined a satanic cult. He had been casting
Speaker 1: spells and slaying creatures in a fairly new tabletop game
Speaker 1: known as Dungeons and Dragons. And because the media couldn't
Speaker 1: report on the truth about James, the theories and fears
Speaker 1: about Dungeons and Dragons spread among concerned parents everywhere. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: the game is played every day by kids, teens, and
Speaker 1: even Hollywood celebrities. It's become a part of everyday culture.
Speaker 1: But back then, Dungeons and Dragons was seen as a
Speaker 1: menace and a gateway to the dark side. More than
Speaker 1: just a game, it was viewed by many as a
Speaker 1: roll of the dice for America's soul. Little did they
Speaker 1: know it would be a critical hit