And That's Why We Drink - Listener Stories: Vol. 110 featuring. Sarah Marshall

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

December is here and we sent a Satan symbol to the clouds to summon the awesome Sarah Marshall to join us for a batch of satanic panic themed listener tales. Today we hear about satanic Pokémon Tazos, panic at the truck stop, hypnosis gone wrong, possible devil worshippers in the woods, and more. And please... keep your frogs away from us… and that’s why we drink! Catch Sarah Marshall on her new show The Devil You Know: https://link.mgln.ai/HHprbw OR on You’re Wrong About: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/youre-wrong-about/id1380008439___________________If you think you or someone you know might be struggling with OCD, please don’t wait to get help. Go to https://learn.nocd.com/ATTWD and book a free call with their team to learn more. Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/ATWWD Promo Code ATWWD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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But who is going to be putting these together if we don't have something like ZipRecruiter? Because to make these holiday favorites, it takes a team of talented people from actors to editors. My favorite holiday movie being The Grinch from 1956, it took a lot of, you know, like really obviously talented people to make that happen. And when it comes to building a team that makes those things possible, whether it's for the entertainment industry or a wide range of other industries, you need to hire the right people. And the best way to do that is with ZipRecruiter. Right now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash drink. As you know, the best production of all this show was also made possible thanks to ZipRecruiter, in a very literal way, because

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Just go to this exclusive web address right now to try ZipRecruiter for free, ZipRecruiter.com slash drink. And again, that ziprecruiter.com slash drink. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. So we talk a lot about what makes this drink every week. But for some people, these kind of thoughts about what makes things scary in life feel so out of character that they can paralyze you with anxiety. They're often called intrusive thoughts. And they can be debilitating. That's what OCD or obsessive-compulsive disorder is like.

It can demolish your quality of life. and I know because I have OCD myself. And I was really fortunate when I started going to therapy and my therapist happened to have specialized in OCD and recognized it right away, but I think it would have taken me a lot longer to figure it out or to find any sort of guidance or help if I hadn't met her. And that's why I'm so thankful for no CD.

It's such a great platform. They make OCD feel so much less isolating because OCD often goes hand in hand with shame or not wanting to be open about these things. and not every therapist understands OCD or is qualified to treat it effectively, which can make it difficult to find the right help. OCD is highly treatable, though, with a specialized type of therapy called ERP or exposure and response prevention. With no CD, you can do live virtual ERP therapy with licensed therapists who specialize in OCD. No CD therapists are highly trained so they really understand OCD and they won't judge you

no matter what your thoughts are about, okay, no matter what. NoCD therapy is covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans. They also have an awesome community on there. I'm part of it. I love to see other people's success stories or just even venting, that kind of thing. If you think you or someone you know might be struggling with OCD, please don't wait to get help. Go to nocd.com and book a free call with their team to learn more. That's NOCD.com to schedule a free call and learn more. Happy December everybody. It is another listener's episode for you where we read your submitted stories. Sometimes they are spooky. Sometimes they are true crimey. But today we have a theme. It is all about satanic panic this month. Because we have an expert. We have an expert on our panel. It's the first time we've ever had a panel and we have an expert today. So I feel like that word is appropriate. Hello. Sarah, would you like to introduce yourself? Hi. Yeah. My name is Sarah Marshall. And, I am not a satanic panic expert, but I am proof that if you remain enthusiastic and interested in the same thing for 10 years or more, people will just decide to grade and flate you to an expert.

And if you want to, you can ride that all the way to Congress. I was going to say, people take that. Totally. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll give you the label. You don't have to accept it. Yeah, no, so put it on the table and cut off small slices to eat.

That's beautiful. Wow. How poignant. yeah this is uh sarah marshall can i let me know if i get anything else wrong but i'm going to call you a journalist a writer and a podcaster all those fit yeah okay perfect that is those are definitely objectively factual those are objectively and satanic panic armchair expert it's been a long year i don't know words anymore well we uh we have a few stories we're gonna read and of course if you have any feedback or input we would love to hear that or you know it's it's

pretty lax over here so we would love to hear your thoughts on people's experiences um christian do you want to start sure okay if i may all right actually maybe you should have started but it's too late um because this one is called satanic panic and Pokemon oh great great great That's one of my big fixations. Sarah's like, I'm already on the wrong podcast. This is already derailing. Okay. This is from Paola, she, her.

And it says, hi, everyone. I saw your story on Instagram asking for satanic panic stories and immediately thought of my mom. Oh, that's nice. My family is all originally from a small farming town in Mexico. Everyone knows everyone in their business type beat. On top of that, everyone is very Catholic. Yippee! Since it was such a small town, all the moms knew each other.

and gossip together and whatnot. So you best believe word gets around quickly. This particular story revolves around my brother. It takes place in the 90s when he was eight or nine before we moved to the States. Back then, when you would buy a bag of chips, lots of time there would be some form of collectible in the bag, usually a small toy, like something that would come in a kinder egg. My brother collected a specific kind called Tazos, small metallic or wooden discs with designs on it. He collected the Pokemon ones, and he had a lot.

I mean more than any other kid in town. And back then, games and collecting was taken very seriously. While my brother was amassing his collection, my mom was growing concerned. You see, all the moms would watch this news program called Primera Impacto, or First Impact, in English. It shared news, but was way too dramatic for its own good. Apparently, it ran a segment linking Pokemon to the devil. Detailing all the subliminal satanic messages in the show and the games, So as moms in the 90s, they all panicked and they believed it.

One day, my brother came home from school and found my mom in the backyard next to a bonfire. Oh, gosh. Burning all of his Pokemon. Yeah. And I just want to say, like, even if it were satanic, especially if it were satanic, don't burn it. You're just going to release all the demons. The devil energy. How come we're the ones who have to tell people that?

They should know. It's like that's the most ritualistic thing that's happened to these Pokemon. Right, you're probably creating the problem. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, right. Okay. What was in the fire, you ask?

Good question. All of his tazos. His collection was wasting away in a fiery blaze before his very eyes. This is very traumatic. Yeah. Yeah. You can imagine how distraught he was. M.

He's calling you out. It would basically be if someone burned your whole Pokemon card collection. It couldn't be done without me committing a crime afterwards. I gave the value of those demons on eBay today. Haunted, burned demonic Pokemon card. Yeah, that's actually probably you could get quite a profit. They're super rare, I guess. They're perfectly singed, you know?

That's right. In 90s, yeah, for sure. Originally satanic. She said she did it because he didn't want him being exposed to the devil's messages. To this day, we always bring it up whenever we want to give my mom grief. It's funny now, but probably not back then. In any case, that news show always ran crazy shit and spread a lot of panic back in the day. I'm not sure if it's airing still, but everyone has left.

prone to believing it now. I'm sure our parents have moved on to believing AI images of Jesus surfing on lava on Facebook or something like that. Justice from my brother and love you all lots. Bye-bye. Paola. The end. Paula. Wow. Yeah. I, you know, I remember going through a phase where I learned about music, like backmasking, which is like when you play a song backwards and it might have a message. Paul is a dead man. Kill him, kill him. Well, the Pokemon theme theme. song apparently when you play it backwards does say i love satan i love satan so not to not to you know you were in a past life a producer on this fucking television show i mean it was while you were

alive so that's probably not how that works but i feel like you'd fit right in like some sort of yellow journalism i feel like with like um with Pokemon's very well not very similar but i feel like it fell into the same uh you know blacklisted categories like harry potter and things like that I don't, I don't know why maybe it's because it's animals that are unnatural or something. I mean, what's your take on this, Sarah? Well, I mean, I think based on the story of the velveteen rabbit, we can't actually assume that all the Pokemon became real and wandered off into the countryside. Oh, my God.

Right. That's a great point. At the moment, the fire started and saved themselves and they're still out there somewhere. So I think that's really nice. But also, I feel like, I get, I mean, I have like a, a. blind spot in this area because I've researched the satanic panic for years but I personally have never believed in the devil and I just I don't care about the devil you know it's just not an exciting or scary area for me because I feel like like if you want to scare me just like put on you know anything on the

investigation discovery channel about a guy named Dale and I'll be sad you're in the you're in the right place yeah yeah yeah this is where M and I kind of have like the differing where I'm like ah fuck and M's always a little more being the Jewish one is always like I'll say the our father just in case you never know which one's going to work so it sounds like whatever saves me saves me you got to be pragmatic but yeah I feel like and this is the kind of thing where it's like and you know the the satanic panic historically there's been a lot of panic over children's toys and chelsea webbersmith over at american hysteria has done some great research on like you know specifically the panic around kind of like 80's Saturday morning cartoons.

And I think, like, for example, Rainbow Bright was supposed to be like, you can let your kids watch Rainbow Bright because she was, I don't know, pagan or something. It's, like, none of these things were a thing until they pointed at it and said that she's pagan and suddenly it's like, oh, I guess she is now. I don't know. Yeah, it's interesting that it feels like the people who are scared of the devil are seeing him in everything historically. And that's still been consistent. I got these little guys and everyone, and, you know, I read a review that was like, this Labibu, and they were like, oh my God, the church needs to step in. And I'm like, what is going on?

And it's like, well, I would like it if like we did more, you know, sort of to encourage overconsumption less as a function of organized relation. We could focus on that. But that's not what people are saying. Yeah, that's not the point. Right. Exactly. I'm like, I could understand your point if that were it. So I guess the idea that the devil is like, I don't know, I find it, I mostly find it confusing. and I just want to hear more about it honestly where it feels like there's this idea that the devil is like very powerful,

very scary can literally take your soul but also is like forced to do something as undignified. It's like sneaking in on like I know these aren't pogs but I'm just picturing pox. It looks like a pod. Yeah, yeah. He sneaks in on a pog.

Exactly. Like he must not be very impressive and or convincing or influential if he needs to like get little kids on board via. rainbow bright morning. If I were the Prince of Darkness, I would not be sneaking into people's houses on pogs, you know? I just wouldn't. I mean, maybe we just don't get it, you know? Maybe there's just a whole, yeah. Yeah, and that's okay. But I, you know, but the thing is like, speaking of AI images of Jesus, like, I do find it interesting that there is such a market, and this is kind of

getting back to, you know, what ElsaGate was like 10 years ago, but now I have the capacity to create like endless AI videos and have you seen the ones like the AI slot videos and this is like a defined genre of like cats accidentally cooking their kittens into like there's a mom cat and she accidentally puts her kitten in like some food that she's making because she's thinking about having an affair off they're always cats hello and then her husband comes home and they eat the kitten lasagna and then they realize what what's happening. happen and he calls the cat police and they arrest her and that's like the story and that's like genre of narrative that's being shown to like really little kids i'm assuming this is on the dark

web right like i wouldn't have access to this kind of it's just on kids youtube you know it's on my daughter's eye pad okay excellent good good good so we have like human beings who were intentionally terrifying children because it's like a little bit more profitable than doing you know back in the good days of 2019 when we just had like Eastern European kinetic sand slicing videos, which I'm very nostalgic for at this point. Beautiful. I would like to panic more about that, you know, but I guess since the devil isn't involved, it's not as exciting.

It's not as thrilling. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Well, yeah. And it's promoting family values because that mom cat was thinking about having sex. So that's why she killed her kitten accidentally. So it's really, it's very Christian, I guess. That's right. That's kind of what they would teach you in Sunday school anyway.

It is interesting that that's not at least equally demonic as Pogs, essentially. Yeah, that part's not a concern to the church. It's just the actual. Look, I was a very sensitive kid, and if I had seen one video of, like, a mom cat accidentally making her baby into meatballs, I would have never recovered. Oh, I'm barely recovering right now. I'm barely recovering just hearing about it for the rest of the day. Thank you so much. Yeah.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry to talk about it. tell you that this whole genre that's the fact that it's a genre makes me just want to cry yeah that it's a series it's like what else is going to happen to these kittens yeah a lot of like interkitten family murder yeah and not a problem at all um would you like to read a story or would you like us to read them to regale you with them i would love to read one okay would you like to read the next one? Yeah. Is that just like two form submission hypnosis? Number two. That's right. Okay. So oftentimes I'll have that last minute scramble, like trying to find a thoughtful gift, but then like having to swing the

opposite direction and get like a last minute gift card or something. No more of this, okay? This year I skipped the panic and gave an aura frame instead. It's such a great gift. They have unlimited free photos and video on there. you just download the ORA app and connect to Wi-Fi. So your receiver, your recipient does not even need to, you know, pay for an account or anything. It's so easy on the receiving end. That's honestly really easy on the giving end, especially because you can preload photos before it ships. And then when it gets to the recipient, they get to open it and see all these beautiful photos. I mean, you could do family photos.

You could also do something like real wild. I don't know. You could put like conspiracy theory pictures or like, oh, one time I used an ORA frame to surprise. my grandmother-in-law, I put the ultrasound picture on, I sent it to her frame and it showed up as a new picture. And that's how we told her she was getting her first great grandbaby. So, you know, there's lots of fun stuff you can do. You can get weird with it if you want, but we'll leave that to, you know, like a side chat, I guess. Every frame comes packaged in a premium gift box with no extra price tag. You can't wrap this kind of thing. Okay, it's just beautiful. You can

frame it. Let aura frame it. Let or frames frame it. Okay, I'm sorry. I need a now. For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get $35 off or as best-selling CarverMatt Frames. Name number one by wirecutter by using promo code ATWWD at checkout. That's A-U-R-A-Frams.com promo code ATWWD. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell-out fast, so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Dear Christine, who should always be named first, M, you're so Pretty. And Eva, thank you for keeping it all together for them.

I think they got us mixed up. You know what? Obviously, I'm the beauty of the group. Right, right, right, right. You know what? We'll figure, we'll litigate it all out after. Okay, so, so Laley writes, I'm a Capricorn, so I never thought I would have a story I could share on the paranormal side. God, this is an incredible start. Thank you. And I don't quote, light up a room. So my chance of being murdered.

is greatly reduced. But then M covered mesmer. I have a great and terrible story about hypnosis, specifically hypnotherapy. Oh boy. When I was young, we had family friends who would occasionally get to, wait, when I was young, we had family friends we would occasionally get together with. I loved going over to their house, but always thought the mom, let's call her, Elizabeth, was very nice, but weird. For example, the kids had the best toys, but Elizabeth wouldn't let me, the youngest by a year, play with the Barbies. She was convinced I would swallow the shoes, even though I was already quite past that stage in life. It wasn't until I was an adult that I understood that she struggled with severe anxiety. I believe it was anxiety that led her

to seek professional help from a therapist. Before I go farther, I want to say I'm a big supporter of therapy. I think working with a good therapist is so important, and I'm glad she was seeking help. Unfortunately, I think this therapist did more harm than good. Her therapist encouraged the use of hypnotherapy to uncover repressed memories. Oh. It is important to know that this was the late 80s slash early 90s in the midst of the satanic panic. The local newspaper was printing headlines like, quote, Satanism growing worry for police

and satanic cults growing in preserves, which I feel like that's supposed to be like National Forest or something, but it just makes me think about jam. I thought it too. I was like, we pickling them? What's happening? Yeah, you got to sterilize your jars. Are you going to get a satanic cult in there? Oh, my God, imagine.

Devilish marmalade. Yeah. So she goes on. The combination of the media flooding households with fear-mongering headlines and Elizabeth's extreme anxiety made hypnotherapy a disaster for her and her family. Elizabeth's therapist, quote, guided her to, quote, memories of her uncle being the leader of a satanic cell. The therapist helped create so-called memories of witnessing rapes and sacrifices,

both human and animal. She ended up believing that her uncle was positioned. by a demon, and friends and neighbors from her childhood were his followers. The poor women who already lived day to day with mundane fears, such as kids choking on Barbie shoes, also had to live in a world where she believed that people she once loved and trusted had performed satanic rituals on her, and anyone she knew could be a Satanist in disguise. Oh my gosh. The hypnosis led her to cut contact with her extended family and most of her friends.

She ended up being so rattled, she stopped going to work and was fired. She eventually cut contact with our family as well. I still think about her to this day and hope she got real help. Good luck to you and all your listeners. Be careful when it comes to hypnosis and stay away from Ouija boards. Those things are messed up lately. Oh my God. Wow, dude.

Okay. So, I mean, you hear about these things, right? And I guess obviously they happen. But it's wild to hear like, oh, I knew a woman who went through that exact scenario. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's like one of the funny things.

things about so much of the satanic panic is that a lot of us is that a lot of it didn't even rise to the level of news you know like you can have someone go through like very destructive and dangerous therapy as part of this bigger movement and unless it ended up in some kind of a massive lawsuit or you know it would just there's I think so many people out there with with these stories wow that's dark because it's like you're already vulnerable you're already mentally trying to find help and and not in the best place and then it's like oh, I know what I'll fix it. It means everyone around me I can't trust and maybe hurt me.

Oh, man. I mean, there are ways in which I think that the culture of the satanic panic itself came actually to resemble the kind of cult that they were looking for. And I realize I say the word cult like cult like a baby horse, but just, I mean, I don't know, you could picture a baby horse and it would be soothing. I love that. I love it. To the extent that there's an Oregon accent, that's like the only way that I can hear it

manifesting. Really? Yeah, these satanic cults, you know, just running wild and free. But I feel like, you know, especially in the therapy arm of it, there are, you know, there's kind of a distinct pattern of women, you know, seeking therapy. Starting therapy, having a therapist who's kind of bought in on this idea of recovering memories just like the therapist in this story and who basically will not stop until, you confirm their thesis, which is that any kind of depression or issues with mental health

probably just come from satanic abuse and you should probably just produce a story about it or else you're not going to get better. And that there's also this trend where, you know, for a lot of women who went through this, and it was overwhelmingly women who this therapy was targeted at, you would, you know, be in these long therapeutic sessions, potentially you would be under hypnosis, you know, not just for an hour, but for perhaps several hours at a time, especially if your insurance was covering that, which it used to. And you would go to groups with other people who were allegedly, you know, recovering memories of satanic abuse. You would kind of compare notes and often kind of feel like, well, if this is happening to this other person

in my area, then it must have happened to me because the theory is that, you know, by definition, you don't you're not in therapy for the things you remember you're in therapy for the things that you don't and then often if you know and kind of again like as this letter talks about the therapy would have this like very damaging effect on your life where you would like lose the ability to work lose the ability to parent potentially you were kind of being forced to spend so much time thinking about these traumatic experiences like in a hypnotic state that even if they had never actually happened, you were kind of creating the impact of them being a part of your life. And so the women who dropped out of this therapy or whose insurance stopped covering it or who got

dropped by their therapists for whatever reason or stopped going to these groups, often it was the case that you would just kind of, without putting that effort into telling yourself that this is what you had been through, it just stopped feeling real because it wasn't. Yeah, okay, I was going to ask that. I was going to ask if those memories persisted as real seeming or if they kind of faded. Yeah. Well, and I think that there were also some people for whom they did persist. I think it's probably very personal. And there's a new article that I wish I could remember the author of that came up maybe 10 years ago that talks about one of the effects of false confession being that if you are kind of in a situation where you are interrogated by the police long enough that you

or are told sort of kind of in a situation not too different from this type of therapy that, like, no, we know that you committed this crime, so you might as well confess to make it easier. That if you were asked to tell that story over and over again and told, you know, by authority figures that contrary to what you claim, this is actually what happened,

it's possible to create those memories for yourself and not be able to get rid of them. And there are some people for whom that stays very real and some people who are able to slip out of it. but it's also possible to believe that you committed a crime that you were physically incapable of actually committing. And I think that that's just a very, maybe something that we don't want to believe about how memory works, you know, because that's pretty scary. Yeah, and they talk about witness, you know, witness reports being very, very faulty, more faulty than people realized until they started studying it. And it's like you don't, like your brain can easily switch like a perceived thought into your own reality so quickly that.

yeah that's just like a slippery slope for for i'm glad i'm glad that that satanic panic has for the most part not become like a very very well i guess i don't know would you agree sarah that has not become like a very lasting like it kind of had its moment i think that it i mean it's interesting because i feel like we're living through some form of satanic panic now but it feels very different because i think it's like it's very much a politicized phenomenon and it's very much being used by the right and what's nice is that we don't have like well-meaning you know because in the 80s you have like not at all conservative but just kind of well-meaning feminists who got caught up in this out of the feeling that this was the only way that we were going to have any kind of care offered

for you know for people who had been through sexual abuse or or trying to prevent child abuse in the future and and so now it feels like it's very much a product of the right and it's really what we're seeing now is kind of anytime someone criticizes you anytime your policies seem crazy because they are anytime you're like needing to explain away the criminal history of the current

president you can just accuse your enemies of being Satanists and that's enough I guess it feels like it's being used more as a bandaid yeah or both why not well they're probably synonymous yeah what do you think I'm trying to figure out the best way to pose the

question but when do you feel like the quintessential satanic panic kind of died off and yeah or do you do you feel like it's kind of just um maybe redefine no i don't morphed morphed i guess because everybody who studies this has a slightly different answer i'm sorry what we're saying yeah yeah no i was going to ask if you thought it had morphed into something else but i i guess i mean politically i'm sorry gone keep cutting you off no no you're okay i guess uh with every everyone's at least in my world and in christian's world we're often surrounded by a lot of people who are like now proudly outspokenly into like you know witchcraft or you know more spiritualism and things like that how how did we go from satanic panic to this like space where everyone can yeah you know we're like witchy is just an aesthetic like yeah or like they can proclaim this stuff and there's no satanic panic that's you know kind of pressing them away from it yeah well it's funny because i just i was in um kind of East Kentucky, which is where the show, the satanic panic show that I have out, the devil, you know, where that story kind of starts, because we begin with a story about

this woman being chased out of town for daring to try and teach photography to teenagers because a rumor started that she was looking for blonde, blue-eyed kids to sacrifice. Sure. And it seems that that took off partly because of Patrick's Wazy movie was being filmed in the area. Oh. Oh, why not? Why not draw that conclusion? Of course.

And so I was like, I, you know, was in that part of the country having this feeling of like, wow, this is where, you know, I like being a stranger in town. I like being a woman who shows up and, you know, is doing something for the arts. And so I don't know, to me, starting with that story feels like this kind of, it could happen to me kind of a thing. And I remember going to a coffee shop. and getting, I think actually it was like a homemade kind of version of the Halloween Alani New, but it was called the Witch's Broom. So it was like a caramel and apple kind of like energy drink. It was very cute. And it was, it made me think about like, yeah, we've like commodified a witch aesthetic. We have the, we're living in the area of the Stevie Nix Barbie. So like we have sort of

witchiness certainly is doing well, you know, as as sort of a vibe that, you know, we understand as part of the aesthetics of the world that we live in. But I think the metaphor that I use is I'm just going back to like Stephen King's It as a comparison, which I'm not going to offer any spoilers, but basically the idea is that, you know, sometimes sometimes the great evil comes to town and it doesn't stop or die. It just takes a nice big nap and then it comes back. And then you have to come back and, you know, reunite with your friends. that's really nice.

Oh, and sometimes the devil flies in on a pog. You really never know what you're going to get. Sometimes, sometimes the pogs will set him free. Oh, my God. Wow, that's so beautiful. But what I think really is that a moral panic is always going to be useful for people who are in power to stay in power regardless of what they've done. Like that'll take, that'll be a push and pull forever.

And that's always going to be needed by people. Because I think in the 80s, there was this, you know, especially in the early 80s, we were beginning to reckon in a mainstream way with the reality of child abuse and child sexual abuse. And there was a simplistic question of like, who's doing this and why? And it's like, well, mostly men who just are known to the child who they're abusing and they're often protected by organized religion and not Satanism. Because like there's a lot of sexual abuse and like that is fostered by extremely hierarchical organizations like a church. It's like, no, look at the Satanist. It's like, no, the call's coming from inside the house.

Exactly. Yeah. So whenever the call's coming from inside the house. And again, today, right, where we have like, you know, we have a lot of rapists in the White House, like more even than in the past. I know. I'm sorry to say something that no one has noticed yet. I know. Awkward. Breaking news on him. That's why we drink. You know, but like if you have like a really, really scary man as president, you have to invent the idea of even scarier people. Right. Exactly. What are you going to point to? He was the bad guy. Yeah, you got to make somebody up. That's a really good point. He's a very scary guy. You have to really like stretch your imagination muscle.

Yeah, you got to get creative. Yeah, it's a real game of like slide a hand or redirection so you're not paying attention to the actual devil. It's just to quote Wallace Sean and the Princess Bride. What in the world is that thing? Oh, that's so good. And honestly, we don't quote that movie enough. No, and I guess this is also where we should. plug your other podcast,

you are good, which is a movie, a movie podcast. Well, that's where you're getting all your quotes from, I think, probably.

But both interests are shining in the same conversation. That's true. I think that the Princess Bride became so overquoted by millennials that we just put it on ice without time to take it back out. Yeah,

I was going to say, I think it's been, it's like you said with the it thing. Like, I think it's time. It's right. Take a nap. That is like a very friendly return.

Yeah, the Princess Bride is back in Derry. That's a good thing. Oh my God. Mandy Patinkin, let's just, like, live in that space for, yeah, for a little while. That would be great. Well, I've got a... Oh, lady.

I've got a third story for everyone. This is from Haley. And Haley, let's see, what she has to say. Hello, M. Christine et all. And Sarah. Tell me, I'm at all. At all. First off, love your podcast, and then Haley says some very nice things about...

us in our live show in Kansas City. Now on to your call for stories about satanic panic. As soon as I saw this prompt, I knew I needed to write in. I have the unique experience of, or I had the unique experience in college of having to learn about the satanic panic of the 1980s in reference to the rise of the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons. I will say now, brief trigger warning as the story will include references to depictions of suicide. My first year at college, we were assigned a first year seminar course where we learned

about a specific topic for a semester with the added bonus that faculty were supposed to use this class to teach students how not to fail at college, i.e. explaining deadlines, personal accountability, and planning for assignments. My class was taught by an eccentric but sweet professor who walked in on the first day of class with no shoes and a ponytail that went all the way down to his back. You know, you know it's going to be a good time when that's the future. That's what I'm like, I'm like, locked in. I'm like, I'll put my phone down for this. He's not like the rest. He's going to tell you where the chanterelles are. Yeah. I'm going to his, what do you call it? What's the office hours? Yeah. Yeah. He plays ping pong in there or something. For sure.

Bruise his own need or something. It's just bean bags in there. There's no like real chairs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You call him by his first name, obviously. Um, he proceeded to sit cross-legged, of course, on the table, of course, at the front of the classroom and said, call me John, literally, did I not just, I knew it. I knew it. I almost said Jeff. I was close, but John, yeah, it works. Promise I didn't read ahead. That was just a full, I could feel it in my bones. Now wait until we get to a beanbag, then we'll really have nailed it. Yeah. Call me John. You can call me professor or doctor, but I likely won't know you're talking to me if you don't call me John. This sets the tone for the whole class, then proceeded to show us the bridge

scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. John's seminar focused on the theme of analog game studies, where we studied any game that was not digital and pondered the ever-important philosophical question of what is a game and what counts as a game. This guy just got a degree and said, I'm going to start riffing in this class. And he's like, I'm going to get so high and then write a syllabus. But you know what? You actually do take something away, I'm sure.

Like, it's one of those classes where you're like. Yeah, I feel he's a real thinker. You're never going to forget on. Lateral thinking. I kid you not answering this question. Every class was a part of our participation grade. And the answer usually boiled down to, yes, this counts as a game. Okay.

Okay. Which leads us into the extensively covered or, oh, which leads us into extensively covering Dungeons and Dragons for a quarter of the semester. One of the first things John had us look at was reading articles and comics on how Dungeons and Dragons caused a rise in satanic panic in the 80s. Parents and religious organizations were growing more and more concerned that the act of playing Dungeons and Dragons would jeopardize someone's soul or that they were making a contract with the devil by playing this game.

This led to John assigning us a reading on a comic, and this comic depicts what a very conservative sect of Christianity believed Dungeons and Dragons was really doing. D&D was poisoning and destroying young lives, and I will now walk you through this comic. It starts with two teenage girls excitedly playing D&D, but they have to sign this mysterious and scary-looking contract with a dungeon master that seems untrustworthy. The dungeon master mercilessly kills one of the girls' characters in the campaign and does not make any attempt to soothe her when she is devastated about it. Oh, no.

The two girls go their separate ways and cut to one of the girls finding out that the friend is now dead and reading her suicide note where the friend says she blames herself for her own character dying. What? It's a very good chance this is a chick-tracked. yeah this is wild it was her fault that the character died and she implied that her suicide will somehow make this right like she deserves okay well gross the other girl reasonably horrified is not doing well uh but here steps in the church as a savior oh good she turns back she turns her back on d and d and the last image of this comic shows her gratefully staring at a light falling from the sky spotlighting her her her hair hands clasped and gays reverent jesus christ oh literally but literally my first thought after reading this was oh my god how did they make those jumps and logic did anyone actually believe this i stared at the page for a

full minute after just uh having a what the heck did i read moment my classmates shared the same sentiment when we discussed it in class and many of us had played dn d by that point as playing at least one session was a requirement of this class of course of course and obvious this guy just wanted just he just needed a you just needed it. Exactly. Obviously, our experiences were nothing like that. And at least I still think I have a soul. John then shared some stories about when D&D was up and coming when he was growing up and that this type of messaging was common. It led to us having a critical conversation on how facts can be misconstrued depending on who tells the narrative. Something that is super important to remember, especially with everything that is going on in the world today. That is all my story for now. I hope to write again. and soon this uh and best wish is haley so uh i mean it blows my mind every time i i see some

sort of overly religious material finding ways to make anything evil um it's always about the children which makes it so much more sinister like let the children play with Pokemon cards and pogs and dungeons like it's the nerdiest game ever it's it's silly like i just don't i don't know i don't know. Sarah, you probably have a wiser take, but I'm just like, especially about Dungeons and Dragons, I feel like that's a huge topic in gaming. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I, yeah, and I feel, again, like, you know, I have not, I played like very little D&D in my life. It's just like not my kind of thing. Um, not because of Satan, to be clear, but just, you know, we all, we all have our different ways of finding a hobby. I really, um, I really, if, if people want to,

to know. I think it's nice to just do a nice little craft and watch the Brady Bunch movie. I was going to ask. I was going to ask what your actual. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did want you said the Brady Bunch movie. One of my top ten. Excellent. So I just I've been having a real moment because I'm very into the movies that get whoever picks the free movies on YouTube is just doing a really good job. I like that. Yeah. Good job, Bethany. But while I'm watching investigation discovery about Dale and just like, well, you know. I mean, there's a lot of good free stuff about Dale as well. There's a lot. There's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of supply.

There is. So I had Adrian Dobb from the In Bed with the Right podcast on my show a while ago talking about D&D panic specifically and something he pointed out that I always remember is that the thing about sort of panic over D&D is part of the satanic panic was that it kind of left you no way to be a good kid. Because if you were like into metal or like kind of like, you know, a kid who liked to go. go to concerts and party, then, like, the devil is going to get you that way through rock and roll lyrics. And if you were, like, a dorky kid who just wanted to, like, keep to themselves and, like, do some fantasy roleplaying or, like, read, God forbid, some Lord of the Rings, then, like, that was also satanic. And I think it's very interesting that part of this was the idea that, like, teenagers were so

stupid that they couldn't tell the difference between fantasy and reality when, in fact, you look at these cases and you're like, I think the adults are the ones who can't tell. the difference and the kids were doing just fine seriously then they're like oh a dungeon master and you're like please just read like one more sentence about this game it's it's not what you think it is yeah it involves having a lot of graph paper and just like it's really boring and long i mean i you know i've had my time playing but i'm always like i just start being like okay i want to like do something more it's just playing pretend is all it is fun but it's like how is that how is that evil like isn't past the age when it's socially appropriate, I guess, but we should all be doing it for our

whole lives, you know? And also, I mean, again, kind of getting back to our theme of projection, it's like, if I think that the devil is constantly trying to do battle with me through a Pog, then like, I'm much more enmeshed in a fantasy world than my child who has like, you know, maybe three hours a week designated for, you know, being an L for whatever. Then I think about Pogs probably a lot more than any child does, which is already like, whoa, they can find a hobby. Seriously. Go do a. craft and watch the Brady Bunch movie. It feels like Satan that like, I don't know, and I thought about this a lot kind of

in, you know, and putting this show together is like, who is Satan like for Americans specifically or, you know, for Canadians as well? Because we looked at really the satanic panic across North America. And I think that if you're in a settler colonialist society, then Satan was very useful kind of in the early days of North America, the United States and Canada being settled by by white Europeans because you could accuse anyone who you wanted to massacre and whose land you wanted to take of being satanic, specifically for, you know, not having been converted to Christianity. And so it feels like from the beginning, the United States has sort of been very reliant on

Satan as a character who allows you to take whatever you want from somebody who has your stuff. Right. Right. Or somebody who has their stuff that you would like to take from them and not worry about. Right, exactly. And I feel like it's just a level of discomfort and of like something other, right? It's like, oh, if you like rock music, you're probably like a little bit on the outskirts. If you're playing like nerdy games, you're not the all American football star.

It's like, it's just a fear of your kids liking something that you don't understand. And it's like, and that's not like going to, you know, be the all American, you know, well-rounded, whatever stereotype. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then I think, like, I wonder if there was like any kind of a satanic panic for, like, like if you were a kid who just was fulfilling all expectations and just like, you know, playing football by day and I don't know singing about Jesus by night. That's satanic to Satan.

Um, actually. Yeah, those are that the Satanists are probably up in arms about those kind of kids. No, I like, it feels like if, if the parents didn't understand it or, you know, maybe it just started with all, you know, sex drugs and rock and roll or something. that if it wasn't going to church, if it wasn't being of Christ in some way, it must, if it's just, it's either black and white, it's either Christian or it's just the devil.

Or it's anti. Yeah. Right. You know, the old saying that idle hands are the devil's playground. Oh, yeah, there you go. People need time to let their, their thoughts wander a little bit.

It's going to be fine, you know? Yeah. I don't know. It kind of feels like it's drawing in graph paper. Like, it's almost assigning. It's like saying like, you know how you feel uncomfortable when your children are like growing up

and actualizing. as people and getting into things that you didn't choose for them. Well, that discomfort is coming from Satan and they shouldn't do that and you should control them for their entire lives and you are in the right. Satan's after you. Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Yeah. No, that's a great point. And I guess that does, it does still seep in today in our everyday lives. I mean, you know, we, it seems nearly everybody who works for us seems, I think, is queer, we're queer. we're a very big queer podcast over here and I I think a lot of us are you know when we were coming at it's if it's not I know I was worried about this I grew up in Virginia that when I came out if someone didn't understand it it was just immediately unnatural and thus not of God like it was it's a very um it just must be satanic if I can't understand it immediately it's unnatural

quote yeah so it really is just projection you're totally right wow yeah that discomfort of another story. Yeah, I just wanted us to sit in the discomfort of the morality panic. I know you were. Okay. I'm going to go next. Let's see. This one is called, oh, good, perfect, satanic panic in Ohio. That is where I'm from. Okay. This is from Faith. She heard. Hi, my name is Faith and I've been listening for a few years now. Took me over a year to get caught up to listen to new episodes as they air. You asked for satanic panic stories and I have a perfect example. I'm from southern Ohio near the hawking hills that is where i went on a trip with my friend in high school and um i don't know nothing interesting happened i'm like what happened there that i could say nothing

it's just beautiful a memory was like it however it is very trump trumpy up there um okay i'm from southern ohio near the hawking hills logan which is the town at the center of the hawking hills region is full of small town charm and wonderful people back in the 1980s in early october an engaged couple went missing. A few weeks later, their dismembered remains were found in a cornfield. The murder remained unsolved for years, and there was speculation of cult or satanic involvement. It was scary enough for the town to change trick or treat to daylight, and they still have them in the daylight, usually the Sunday before Halloween. The woman's stepdad was tried and sentenced to death for the killings. He was then retried and found innocent and released. Eventually, two men confessed to

the crimes and the real culprits were brought to justice. There was no occult or satanic involvement of any kind just boiled down to terrible people being terrible. There's an episode of buried in the backyard about this case. That sounds like an investigation discovery show. I don't know if it is, but it sounds like it. Yeah, totally. About this case, as well as an episode of Your Worst Nightmare Now, I can confirm that is an investigation discovery show. And it's a dozy. My mom grew up in Logan and remembers when this happened. There's lots of interesting lore and true crime in Southern Ohio. I'll have to suggest some haunted places for M to check out. Also, So I was supposed to see you in Columbus, but got COVID.

Wamp. Love you guys so much. Okay, so this is more like a crime, a real crime occurred, which is obviously horrible, then it got funneled into a satanic panic occult scare. And then they were like, so Halloween's over. Yeah. I wonder how many, like, was just any crime in the 80s just connected to Satanic panic? Or like what did you have to commit a crime and not have a satanic panic attached to it?

like an unsolved crime they would start looking that way is that true sarah i don't know yeah what's funny is that i was actually just reading about this case a couple weeks ago and i hadn't heard of it before but i was kind of reading i was preparing for um an american hysteria episode and kind of like ended up on this tangent um about kind of specifically accusations of satanism in ohio because there was just kind of partly because of it's i mean i don't i don't i don't know exactly why and that was kind of part of what we talked about that it was stickier in some places than in others but yeah kind of um there was like there were rumors at the time that there were like a lot of witches in Toledo specifically for some reason oh okay and I hope that that's still true

you know but yeah I hope so I don't know what about Toledo represent yeah right well and what I remember about this case is that the the stepfather of one of the victims was I think initially accused and convicted, not really on any basis, except that he was, you know, they were, I think, a relatively new family in town. They didn't, I think they didn't go to church. They were kind of like an unknown quantity for the people in the area. And I think that it sort of follows the same logic that if there's a crime that is just kind of too horrifying to sort of make sense of, and I mean, we do make sense of a lot of horrifying crimes, right? Like when we often, we often aren't that shocked by, you know, by a husband killing a wife because we kind of have internalized

that as part of the inevitable price of living in a patriarchy, I think. But if there's, you know, something that just sort of like that we can't fit into a narrative, even a scary narrative, then we will look to the outsider in town. And it feels like the satanic panic was just kind of a bigger, batter version of that same story. And I think that I believe in this case, that one of the defense theories on appeal was no actually it could have maybe it was a cult did you ever think of that so you got to maybe this guy was convicted of a cult's crimes and so that was a case of I think the satanic panic actually being somewhat useful as an alternate theory in a in a case with a very doggy conviction that was later overturned and so I think it's just that we I mean in Portland now like I used to I don't do it anymore because it was you know raising my blood pressure too much, but I used to look at, you know, next door for kind of my neighborhood broadly. And it was just like a lot of people freaking out over something that raccoons had clearly done, you know, but being like, some tweaker got into my backyard and threw my trash around

like a raccoon would. And it's like maybe it's like critters, you know? You know, it's so weird is there's a photo of the guy and he looks just like a raccoon. He's even like a raccoon. He's got those glowing eyes, you know, and cute little hands. And a tail. Yeah. Oh, holy shit. And he sleeps in a trash can. He's 18 inches high and he's fearless. But be careful out there. But I, you know, have kind of seen, you know, this time of people having a lot of anxiety,

partly because I think there's a lot of, you know, we've had a period in the past few years of a lot of propaganda about like, you know, don't protect our unhoused neighbors. Just fear them and dehumanize them. And then if you see something that, you know, probably was the work of critters. you have this sort of boogeyman figure to blame on it. So I think that also kind of in, I think the satanic panic kind of persisted maybe in some rural parts of America for longer,

partly because there's a sense of being forgotten and unprotected by government and this feeling of if something bad happens that we can't explain, then if we're not going to be protected, then we're going to maybe be more likely to entertain the worst possible fears. And I think that, and also if you're being told by authority, that, you know, satanic cults are out there and that they are very active, then it's not your fault that you're believing someone who tells you to believe them, you know?

Yeah. Well, do you, this might be more of a paranormal question, but do you think that there was ever a layer of just, like, being in denial that someone you know might have committed something and just wanting to blame it on the devil making them do it or anything like that? Like, I know there's, you definitely happen in true crime cases too, where people will say like oh he I swear he was possessed he would never do this and I mean this is just my own anecdotally there's also the case that uh that we covered the it's literally called the devil made me do it but I didn't know if that was if that played into like a broader like anytime there was

crime just to try to you know justify someone's actions like sort of dehumanize someone to be like oh that's the only way this could have happened sort of yeah yeah well there was yeah there was a a case, I think, kind of also in southern Ohio, I believe in the 80s, where basically a, a woman was dismembered and her legs were found separate from the rest of her body, basically. And so that's the kind of detail that just like really freaks you out and that people, you know, immediately started theorizing, well, I mean, of course it was a satanic cult that would do that because they would dismembering people. And so it just makes sense. And what turns out to have been the case is that the man who apparently killed her did that because he couldn't fit her body in the trunk

and so he had to cut off part of her body in order to make it fit. So it was just practicality, not the double. Yeah, and I think that's scarier, right? That is scary. Because like if I'm, if my body is going to be dismembered, then it's like in a way less scary for me personally to think, okay, well, it's this cult

and they're doing it for Satan and it's part of this ritual that they do and it's like the height of premeditated evil as opposed to somebody just killing you for no good reason and then for sheerly practical reasons cutting your body up to fit in the trunk of the car. You know, like if something awful is going to happen to me

it should at least be, you know, for because of the Prince of Darkness. And again, not because of some guy who was, you know, literally or metaphorically named Dale. Exactly. I was about to say it. You just took the words right out of my mouth. I mean, that makes sense. I guess if I knew that happened to somebody,

I would almost hope that evil did it. Because if a human does it, then I have to reconcile with like, the people can do that. And you're like, right, exactly. It's so much scary. You know, that's so often, you know, so many horrifying crimes are committed by some guy.

And you're like, why? And he's like, I don't know. I lost my temper. And you're like, Jesus Christ. Like that's Satan. He's Satan. Yeah. it's just scary it's just really freaky yeah um i think satan is doing a lot of heavy lifting

to distract us all from how scary guys are and i think that you know who he got the right podcast of the devil to give us something more fun to think about but he can take a break now we got to deal with this oh i'm so happy great points all around yeah oh beautiful beautiful um would you like to read the next one number five sir yeah yeah let me just pull this up here these are great by the way. It is wild. Yeah. Like we put the call out of them a few days ago.

And we got, I mean, we have so many, even put some extras in here in case any, you know, we needed any extras. But like, maybe we can read those someday for like a, yeah, Patreon or like a, um, listener episode. Have me back, please. Of course. Or, yeah, you come back on and read them because I need your input. After this, we're going to have to be calling you every time we get a satanic panic story.

I would love. Look, just put a little Satan symbol into the clouds. I'll see it. I just say the creepy little monster emotive. Oops. Great. All right. I'll go.

I'll start. Hi, I'm Christine and Eva. My name is Sandy, she, her, and I have been a listener since the beginning.

I saw your Instagram post asking for stories relating to the satanic panic. I don't know why, but I was surprised that I had a story to share. During high school, 2010 to 2014,

I lived in a small town in Saskatchewan, Canada called Martinsville. It was a quiet and small community. It has grown a lot since, but it holds a dark history. In 1992, a Martinsville mom began accusing a local woman

who ran a daycare of sexually abusing her child. The police began investigating and as they did, the accusations grew and grew until suddenly more than a dozen people, five of which were police, were accused of abusing

30 Martinsville children. These folks were charged with over 100 charges connected with running a satanic cult called the Brotherhood of the Ram, where they allegedly practiced ritualized sexual assault of children. It should come as no surprise that these allegations were false.

The interviews with the children are found to have been mismanaged and the hysteria was found to be connected to the hysteria happening in the U.S. because of the satanic panic. Not all was great in the end, however, as the son of the daycare owner was found guilty of molestation. However, there was no evidence of sexual abuse to the scale that the locals were claiming. One of the police officers charged,

one of the police officers charged was John Popowicz. He was a police officer from Saskatoon, a city about 30 minutes away from Martinsville, who had taken an interest in the case because he was so interested and he ended up being accused and charged. However, when the children couldn't pick him up in a lineup, the charges were dropped. In 2002, the government apologized and paid him a $1.3 million settlement. I'll attach some links, including a CBC article about one of the police officers who was accused and charged. there have also been some TikTokers and podcasts who have covered this story. The story is one that most, if not all people in Martinsville know.

I remember as a teenager, this was a common story told among friends, my friends anyway. And having lived there, it's hard to believe that something that crazy happened in such a quiet town. Anyway, thank you for reading. I love the show. Whoa. Okay. That's intense. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. what do you what do you think well my first question well i don't i'm not really a question to anybody but just my first thought is i wonder how many times there were there was a cry for satanic panic because there was some major crime like this and how many times satanic panic was actually how how like were their rituals actually involved was there quote satanism involved or like is that ever like is it ever like is it actually zero percent of the time or did anybody ever hear about it and go actually i would like to

participate in that yeah no yeah it's it it's zero percent right and you could make the argument that you know wow maybe somebody gets hit it really well and we don't know and and sure wow but it's zero percent because the and you know and the case i was just talking about with the uh severed legs um that was a case of a guy who according to the prosecution and again you have to take prosecutor theories with a grain of salt a lot of the time because, you know, they, they want to maintain a winning streak quite frequently. It would be embarrassing to lose something. Sure. And sometimes you're trying a case with kind of shoddy evidence and you just keep going. But, you know, that was the perpetrator in that case, at least according to the state, had, you know, some amount of interest in Satanism. You know,

he had some black candles, which were something that, you know, could be owned perfectly innocently. But, like, let's just say, yeah, okay, so what if he was a Satanist? What if he killed someone for his own idea of a satanic ritual? What if that was true? He was still acting alone. He was still committing murder for the same reason that people commit murder, which is not because he was in the grips of a larger supernatural power, not as part of some kind of a large-scale ritual, but for his own individual emotional means, because he wanted to for whatever fucking reason.

Because for whatever, exactly, because for whatever reason, he felt like it. Yeah. Even if he felt compelled, he still did. You know, like none of these daycare cases yielded evidence of satanic abuse. And what was tricky is that sometimes there would be a daycare where, you know, as in this case, there was evidence of some kind of, you know, kind of general, like normal. Every day, non-Satanic sexual abuse happening or children being abused because, you know, kids are very vulnerable and these things do happen. But the idea that Satan needed to be involved, I think, was weirdly kind of a comfort to people, right?

Because it implies that if people aren't worshipping Satan on a large scale, then they're not going to think to abuse your child. And yet it's a much more quotidian kind of a thing. or this wouldn't happen in my, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I also think that like there's, like our thinking on abuse has really grown a lot in the past few decades. And I think that something we're at least trying to recognize or that there's a lot more opportunity for people to see is that your parents may have generally meant well and yet still behaved abusively at times. Your parents may have been pillars of the community who weren't secretly Satanous and they still might have been very. abusive. They still might have been very cruel to you and been able to put on a good front for

other people. And Satan didn't have to be involved in any of that, you know? It's just human nature. No, Satan needed. And then also that people who aren't pure evil commit abuse, you know, that abuse is really about, we don't need any supernatural elements. It's an aspect of human relationships that you can't blame on an exterior force. It's just something that we all, have to work on kind of continually, and it's not something we're going to eradicate that easily. I feel like that kind of goes to the denial of, you know, not wanting to believe that your parents or someone you know or just human beings in general could possess the ability to do dark things. Right. Just being able to blame up on something else. And I think that

this is something that's really kind of pissing off conservatives, as is everything, I guess, lately but it feels very new this idea that like you shouldn't actually be mean to your children right that's bad for them right it builds character yeah like in the 80s we did kind of advocate like yeah you should be mean to your kids don't be too nice to them yeah what the heck you want them to throw a fit in the grocery store i don't think so you know it's like hmm yeah yeah that's a great point um okay we have uh i have another one which is long so bear with me everybody but I got a feeling. If Eva put it in, it's probably going to be great. So this is called Satanic Panic at the Truck Stop, which are great title.

I'm already sucked in. Great name. Hello, and that's why we drink fans. My name is Mel. They Vend. But I like that you said fans. That's way more fun. Oh, God, did I? Oh, Freud didn't slip. I hate that. Hello, fans. Hey, fans. Hey. Hello, and that's why I drink Friends. So sorry, everybody.

My name is Mel, they, them. And I'm from Chicago and a musician for a living. Wow, good for you. I'm currently 33 and have been touring a metal band since I turned 18. Oh, we get the metal music. Yay. This is going to be good. This is going to be good. You can imagine I've had my fair share of old bitties assuming I'm Satan incarnate. Is that a song lyric? That should be a song lyric. Being heavily tattooed and pierced and touring around with a van, RV, or bus full of equally tattooed, long-haired, big bearded, rejects for us. the last 15 years tends to bring on that stereotype and by the way i think i would feel the safest in my life hanging out with those yeah right in that van yeah um we had two very different experiences in the same truck stop in the middle of small town hillbilly rest up meets wrong turn meets deliverance scary kentucky all that combined kentucky i got to tell you sir i live in kentucky so i'm feeling um and i oh no is she going i don't know Is she gone on near it is what I mean she's she's gone on my end oh okay I was like it was

her hotspot might have gone out please stand by we have to step away and go get why answer the door I this is where this is where I tried to interject earlier um I Sarah I don't know if you know this about me but I do live in Kentucky so this all feels a bit targeted and I'm from southern Ohio so I'm like am I you're right in the thick of things yeah I'm in the epicenter I guess yeah you know you just got to support your local witches she grew up in a graveyard too so in my mind like she was just meant to be what is it Satan incarnate I was gonna say thank God I wasn't born in the 80s I probably would have been in her 70s I would have been in big trouble you would have had a lot of fun though you would have just been in trouble all the time probably

it's just been sad and playing dungeons and dragons by myself oh apparently as I was getting out of our bus that was stopped at a fuel pump to go in to use uh oh to go in to use the restroom and just whatever gas station filth I could fill my empty stomach with. A man approached our bus and met our drummer at the door and asked if we were a band and if he could check out our bus. No. That's a firm pass for me. Immediate no.

For some stupid reason, our drummer agreed. After the small town man. Classic drummer behavior. Classic drummer. You don't leave the drummer in charge of who gets in and off the bus. Please. You know, I know like one drummer and this is exactly their behavior. So I'm going to go off all experience.

after that small town man that had never been outside the city limits marveled at the amenities of our bus that might as well have been a high-tech spaceship to him he pulled out two giant gallon freezer bags full of weed and gifted it to us as he wished us well on our travels and he said quote he would be praying for a safe return for any normal person they might have been completely freaked out but for four wannabe rock star band members two crew people and a merch girl two freezer bags full of free drugs made us ignore the strangeness of the encounter. Yeah. That is, now that is how Satan's going to get in there. He's going to say free weed. Literally. He's like, it's a freezer bag especially, because those are more durable. The freezer bag? Like that, those are expensive.

This is, you're totally right. This is how the devil would trickle it. And it's going to work. Not even trickling. Kick the door down. Hiding under all the weed was a pod. Ah! It made, the drummer let it on the bus. Yeah. Well, the satanic panic doesn't begin until I finished

being in the bathroom, I got out to wash my hands and a woman looks at my heavily tattooed body, stretched ears, and pierced up face and she looked like she'd seen the devil. I took my time washing my hands, pulled my wallet out to count some money for the snacks I'd already purchased in my

mind, and continue to dawdle before I had to be stuffed on the bus en route to Florida for the foreseeable future. The woman then exits her stall, which she'd been mumbling in, which I later realized she was praying.

I was wearing a shirt from one of my favorite death metal band's Vital Remains, Love that, which had the world's old school death, or had the words old school death metal on it in giant letters. This old holier than thou bitch, oh my gosh, started the conversation by saying, I noticed your shirt mentions death and would like to let you know that death is not the answer. Death comes when God intends, and it's important to know where you're going. I responded Based on that, death is the answer But yeah, sorry

That's literally, what are you talking about? Death is certainly the guarantee of it all. Death is literally the only thing We all have in common, okay? Also, nobody loves death more than Christians who are like, just see it as part of their five-year plan. 100%. I responded by telling her that I thought I would come back here

to this very truck stop when I die because they had the freshest hot dogs and cleanest bathrooms of any of the truck stops I've ever been to. That's how you dishinged. that's how you de-escalate okay you go well you these hot dogs are the best i'll come here this is my heaven well then the jesus junkie asked if she could pray over me to which i agreed what wow i don't know what i would do either i'd be like just don't hurt me no i'd be like no i know it's hard to say no too it is i mean i'm i talk big game but like in the moment yeah the panic

i mean it's so jarring i'm like what other jarring thing could you do next if i say no to you I know what a normal prayer is as I grew up very strict Southern Baptist for the first 18 years of my life and have been prayed over many times. Oh, so you're like, this is old news to me. Okay, okay, okay. Get in here, the water's fine. Come on, yeah. This was not a normal prayer, though. This woman proceeded to do what I would explain as a don't do this at home, learned, self-learned exorcism.

No. I let her go on for about three minutes before my stomach really started to rumble for one of those jalapeno tortillas. tornado roller grill abominations. So I had to interrupt I had father bitch face is what we're calling her now. These are all really good lyrics. I feel like we've got to keep these in the

line up. Clearly someone in heavy metal who is ex-Southern Baptist is like... Yeah, it does fit. Yeah. It feels like the name Jesus Junkie should be said as a like a screamo kind of song. That's got to be on the shirt too. Like Jesus Junkie and then the death. Yeah. Yeah.

She reached in her bag and handed me a and told me, Jesus is the only answer. I told her, I'd keep that in mind the next time I was invited on who wants to be a millionaire. Quick, quick with it. I walked back to our bus with my new Bible, realizing that woman truly thought I was evil when I was just on my bus smoking free gas station weed, reading Y-A vampire romance novels, listening to podcasts, and forcing drunk band members to play battleship with me at 4 a.m. I am far from saying...

My parents are pretty evil, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I am far from Satanic, but not according to this woman. That night, we all signed the cover of the Bible and added our own artwork to the cover and sold it at our merch table for 50 books. Fantastic. It sold out within 20 minutes of the doors being open after our merch girl started telling people the story. So the moral of this story is don't judge a book by its cover, just say no to bathroom

extracisms, and mind your own business if you see someone who doesn't align with your beliefs or lifestyle. Holy shit. totally shit wow mel what in the world yeah being you know what feels i'm sure in their mind it is with the best intentions however nothing feels more evil to me than someone thinking they have to pray over me i'm like i am cannot be the scariest thing you've ever seen such a slight it's like excuse me you're like find someone else to pray over well is it a compliment is it like i'm so badass that i'm scaring these you know yeah but in a world of satanic panic I'm just like, I can't possibly, there has to be something more evil in your mind.

Like, if I'm it, then like, first, you haven't seen much of the world. But also, like, I don't know. I think it's so jarring to me. Again, I grew up in Virginia Newburgh that was, like, weirdly normal for people to just kind of corner you and be like, oh, I'm going to pray for you. And now I will be, I don't know, the one that cures you or, you know, is, you know, it's just such a weird feeling. And I wonder when that became normal, just approaching people and saying things to their face like that. Especially if satanic panic. And tell me if I'm wrong, but I imagine the 70s is when it kind of began the end of the 70s.

I don't really say 80s, 90s, but I feel like the sex drugs, rock and roll thing is kind of launched it. Yeah, and also I guess in kind of like the rise of kind of, I don't know, technology-assisted evangelism, I guess, where we had the beginning of televangelism and sort of. of this kind of like newly developing branch of Christianity that needed something to do. And I always bring up how Lindsay's Satan is alive and well on planet Earth, which came out in the 70s and is about like, you know, when your kids are doing macromay and learning about astrology, that's actually part of Satan's plan to get them used to supernatural type stuff. They're weaving his blanket right there about macrame. I mean it's and also I know they say that satanic panic is the 80s and 90s but like weren't the parents of the kids from the 80s and 90s kind of doing like the woodstock thing and all that like we don't weren't they kind it feels a little hypocritical but all of a sudden we're saying you know from the mainstream that felt threatened by that and that this was kind of the tide that because I think what we're living through now is really backlash to the gains that you know have been made in in women's rights and and also I think I I talk about the

the satanic panic being a backlash to women's lib, but I think it was just as much of backlash to gay liberation, you know, in this thing that we saw in the early 80s and, you know, with the failure of the passage of the ERA around that time too. And then kind of what it feels like it mirrors what we're living through now where if marginalized groups make really minuscule gains in terms of civil rights, that gives,

you know, the unnecessarily freaked out middle and excuse to panic. It like emboldens people and they feel like, oh, well, I have the right because, yeah because it's satiety is on my side and that's Satan right right right and I feel like it's it's I think it scares people to just sort of you know see somebody enjoying what they think that they aren't allowed to enjoy right and if somebody's like going around on a bus getting to see different parts of America like getting cool tattoos and like singing badass sounding songs and

having a band and like getting smoke and weed yeah guys yeah reading vampire romance like these are all fun things that you know if you feel that you're inhabiting a branch of religion that doesn't allow you to enjoy life that way then you have to you know brand that as as evil I guess I have never been prayed over yet and um I I hope I get to avoid it I do not know how I would respond I mean it's odd when it happens you just kind of stand there and then when they're done it's like I think they think you're going to like transform in front of them into like Jesus himself and I're waiting for you to like float or something. It's like a stranger asking you if they can like cue tip your ears, you know.

Yeah. We don't know each other. It's like this is my aura. Get the fuck out of here. I think if it, you know, I don't know what other feelings I'm supposed to be experiencing from it, but I never grew a Christian. I was just surrounded by a lot of Christians who weren't afraid to kind of be all up in my face. And I, I, it was just more of like an awkward silence. It's like when people are like singing happy birthday at a restaurant to you and you're just kind of like waiting for it to end yeah and then when it does end you're like thank you I don't know what what do I say how do I exit yeah that's kind of how it always felt

where I was like do you think that this this was going to fix me instantaneously I don't it was always odd what do you she just do a little twirl and be like look at that I can cool again like if that happens again you should really like jump it'd be like I haven't been able to jump in Thursday you know I mean something dramatic and be like make them think that they're like you know one that's hilarious but two i feel like that is that not how a lot of the exorcism stories i've covered happened where it's like you feel compelled to react to people praying over you right um i mean when i say it's you know always it's only happened i think twice in my life but it was still two times too many too many times part of me yes no but it's it's

so weird to just like yeah be threatened by the way that somebody lives and it just happens to be categorically different than what you were taught means success like it's just oh well she smokes you know or what were their pronouns i think they were they them they smoke weed and they're just going to bed late and they're just hanging out and for some reason that's ungodly simply because it's not what you do it's just but i think it's yeah i think i think i think sir made the good point too of like it's uh it's like a reactive thing to i don't get that i don't get to do the fun i have to restrict myself so why do you get to run around looking like that and why do you get to be happy looking like that playing you know playing battleship

whatever the fuck it's just jealousy and it's also like there doesn't have to be jealousy you could get on the bus babe you can hang out with us it's fine i don't know i think it's bigger than that though i think it's like the structure of it but yeah yeah yeah oh this is like a side note but i like recently rewatched um saved do you remember that movie big gentleman movie from like 20 years ago and it was so kind of like i don't know sundance kind of satire of the Christian right at the time. And it's about like, what if you were so devoutly Christian that you decided to have sex with your gay boyfriend to teach him to not be gay? And then, of course, that doesn't work. And he's sent to conversion camp and you are secretly pregnant. And your

best friend, Mandy Moore is, is trying to sabotage you. M's like pausing the Brady Bunch movie and being saved. Yeah. It's a, it's great. It's a really a lovely movie and something that struck me revisiting it is that it tells a story of like Christian teenagers who kind of who go against what they're taught to do but for good reasons and kind of at the end of the day come around to this idea of like I think the line that Jenna Malone has is if God wanted us wanted us all to be alike then why did he make us so different you know in this idea that we're living especially in this moment where it feels like religion is being and Christianity specifically is being co-opted by people who aren't really acting very Christian. It's kind of turned into a wealth

accumulation cult, if anything. And I feel like it's, I also just like, I don't know, I want to take this little moment with, with you here to say that I don't think that that's fair. And I think that if, I don't know, if anyone who's listening feels alienated from their faith by the bad behavior of people who seek to represent it, then they don't get to do that, you know? Beautiful. Beautiful. There is one quick one left if you wanted to read it.

Yeah, let's do it. Oh, okay, here I go. Oh, oh, I'm not in Ohio. That's just your turn. That's the only reason I'm not in Ohio anymore. I'm in Alabama. Okay. Sure. This should be interesting.

Satanic Panic in Alabama. So this is from Beth. Hello to all the, and that's where we drink crew, family pets, and inanimate objects. I'm excited to share. satanic panic story with you. It's 1988. Picture this. It's 1988. And my rebellious older cousin Susan, it's Susan. My rebellious older cousin Susan is living with our grandparents in rural Alabama. They lived on 10 wooded acres that backed up to a national forest. It is 20 miles to the nearest grocery store that kind of rural area. Our grandparents are gone for the weekend and Susan decides to

have a couple friends over. After sunset, they're all sitting on the back deck smoking, something when out of a freezer gallon bag by the way i'm sorry i meant to mention this earlier i really thought that guy was going to be the problem right me too i'm glad that all worked out what a red herring that's also the moral of the story isn't it though like the scary one is actually like the homie and like the one who should be the quote good person and the story is like actually the scariest exactly and it's like at first it's like well of course don't let dale who said glend dale on the bus and it's like no this dale just wants to look at your Stales got free weed.

Sometimes it's like my stepdad who just, well, not with the free weed, but like just wants to check out the engine or whatever the fuck is going on on this bus. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Side note. Let's see. So they're smoking something when they hear it.

When they hear it. Chanting. And it's coming from the wooded area behind the house. They wait a few minutes and the chanting isn't going away. It's getting louder. They step into the house and lock the door. They can still hear it even from. inside the house devil worshipers they whisper to each other they debate on calling the police

weigh whether or not they're sober enough to do so right because then you gotta yeah yeah the smell etc nothing to see here officer nothing to see don't look in my freezer uh okay way whether or not they're sober enough to do so outside the chanting continues their three teenage girls alone in the middle of nowhere Alabama so they decide to call the police miraculously the the cops show up quickly. Susan and her friends meet the cops out front and take them back while the chanting is still going on. Oh my god, there's like a siren in the background. That's from me. But I love it. It sounds like a sound effect. That's a sound effect. Now M, start chanting. Yeah. They all stand in silence listening. The officer asks if this is what

Susan has been hearing and she confirms it. The officer nods, pauses and laughs a bit before saying that's frogs. that's frogs you're hearing bull frogs down at the creek thanks satanic panic it was not in fact devil worshipers it was frogs the frogs on pox and can i just say i find frogs pretty scary i think they they're cute but a big frog like do not ever come near me with a big frog aren't any frog to me i don't need a single one of them um thank you so many people are confused by that stance but i really right they're just not jump their back legs are too strong if they're a little bit bigger they they could overpower us you know they're real ones are like a mile long they barely blink i don't like

that they i don't know where they're looking all the time are they apparently sound are they on the land are they fish you don't know yeah they can breathe anywhere there's no safe spot they have eggs red flag you'll never escape the front god that's a good story yeah that's amazing i love when even ends it on like a punchy little little joke and also you know what message i feel like so many these stories depend on what kind of a random cop that you got because you had gotten a different guy who was like, I don't know what frogs sound like and I'm willing to make an investigation out of this. Let's get into it. Let's do a search. Let's get an earth mover out here. Or he just got a Dale with a good head on his shoulders. Or it could be another cop who also whispers devil worshipers

and then all of you are scared, you know? Yeah. Wow. Okay. Well, that was a great one to end on. that was perfect thank you so much for coming on and you know joining our listeners humoring us and adding actual like uh factual information and yeah this was so fun and i guess i love your listeners and like i don't know let's like have a moment of appreciation for all the random alabamians who said it's frogs yeah i love that the cop laughed a little bit too like that's got to feel good like oh i'm getting called out these teenagers and it's like i was all just a good laugh. Now let's go home. I don't know. Don't you think based on the time that he had a little mustache? Oh, for sure. You got

to believe he had the mustache for sure, for sure. Oh, man. I love it. Well, thank you, Sarah. I really appreciate you. You mind pitching your show one more time so everyone can go check it out? Yeah, please check it out. We don't have any frogs in it, which is maybe a plus or a minus. Green flag. So it's called The Devil You Know. It's out from CBC podcast. We're going to have all the episodes out in the next couple weeks or you can you can listen to them all or you can listen to them very slowly we have bonus episodes you can listen however you want it's wherever you get your podcasts and you can also listen to my show you're wrong about where we've talked about about the satanic panic quite a bit over the years as well but never a good frog story like this one this was a first did you know i saw you

live sarah i saw you live i saw you're wrong about live and i was that um i was with Lisa Lampinelli. We went and saw your show. I remember where were we? Was that in Philly? Yes. Oh my God. Yes. It was so fun. It was so fun. So anyway, yeah, I encourage everyone to go check it out. It's a great show. It's a great podcast and it's a great live and, you know, all of the things. Yeah. We got to do those again. Well, it's just an honor. Thank you so much for having me and let's, uh, let's listen to more frog sometime soon. Yeah. Let's not. Let's listen to some satanic chanting. Okay. Yeah, I'll just leave it. I feel. I feel safer there yeah yeah go tramping around in the forest we'll find something good beautiful yeah come to kentucky we got lots of yeah all right and uh happy December and happy 2026 everybody because next time you hear a listener's episode from us it'll be next year so happy early new year sounds good bye