You're Wrong About - Summer Book Club: "The Satan Seller" (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

We continue our journey through Mike Warnke's 1972 "memoir" about his rise through the ranks of Satan Inc.  This week, Mike gets a promotion, attends a regional conference and dabbles in some light human trafficking. Despite filling this book with his wildest imaginings, he cannot conceive of a non-patriarchal institution.Support us:Hear bonus episodes on PatreonDonate on PaypalBuy stickers, magnets, T-shirts and moreWhere else to find us: Sarah's other show, You Are Good Mike's other show, Maintenance PhaseSupport the show

Yeah, he's like, you know, I never been a Satanist, but I have been a masochist with a boring job. 🎵 Welcome to You're Wrong About, the podcast that would never charge you until you're hooked. Ooh! Wow! That's good, because we do that. We're like Dean the Satanist. I am Michael Hobbs. I'm Sarah Marshall.

And if you want to support the show, we are on Patreon at patreon.com slash You're Wrong About. And you can also buy t-shirts or donate on PayPal or do nothing whatsoever. Or you can just send us good vibes, because maybe you're a scary witch. 🎵 And today is the part two, the two towers of our deep dive into the Satan cellar, or Satan's cellar. The Satan cellar. I can't get the spelling. I can't get the apostrophe situation down.

It's a weird title. It's a really weird title. And I also realized when I was listening to episode one that I think that you think that the author of this book is Mike Wormke, like lowly worm. I noticed that too. And that's a reasonable mistake to make, because the words sound extremely similar. I know. But it's Wormke, like he's warning you about the Satanists.

Not like he's a little worm for making up a book. I may or may not continue to call him that. I don't know. All right. So where are we picking up this time? First of all, I would say that this is our Empire Strikes Back, actually. Oh. It is the best installment.

And after this, it's going to get real loopy. Oh yeah. And not as exciting. And he gets frozen in carbonite at the end. It's very strange. This novel perfectly encapsulates a cultural moment in America, which is the post 1960s fear that really nursed the evangelical movement in America. I think that higher education meant radicalization away from Christ and directly toward Satan.

Yeah. It's a great historical text. I do think some of the greatest literature is like fake memoirs. Somehow I think that people who lie about things that happen to them are like weirdly revealing of anxieties that are floating around the culture. Oh yeah, of course. Or like what kind of trauma are we now ready to recognize? Yes.

And also like to write a fake memoir or a hoax memoir, whether you are intentionally hoaxing your readers or also hoaxing yourself. Yourself. Is to write a novel with great urgency, which is something that a lot of novelists can't muster. True. Because we're not getting paid very much and they're all anemic. I'm still not convinced that this book isn't something that you wrote to satirize other

Satanic books. I need proof. Can I show you the cover? Let's talk about the cover. Oh yeah. I can't even see like what it is. Is that a cauldron? It is a cauldron and it's a robed figure beside it.

Oh yeah, there it is. Yes. It's like a robed figure with his hands like raising the roof next to a cauldron with flames and sort of like red smoke coming out of it. It's quite boring. Like it's quite bad. Oh, what a feeling to be dancing on the ceiling. Yes.

It looks like an illustration of a clitoris almost. You see that? I'm a gay man. I have no idea what a clitoris is. That also sounds like something you made up. You've looked at anatomy books. No. You know the diagrams.

But like imagine that it's, I don't know, the 80s and you are at the Christian bookstore and you see this book next to all the like focus on the family stuff. It does have like a biblical font. Yeah, this is a Christian font. It's a little weird how there's such a defined Christian aesthetic. Totally. Okay. And then the little description on the bottom says a former Satanist high priest reveals

the demonic forces behind the fastest growing and most deadly occult religion in the world. They kind of back down off it when they didn't say fastest growing religion. They were like, oh, the fastest growing occult religion. How many are there honestly? And also fastest growing is always, always a warning sign. Like from four people to eight people, you just doubled. Like that's very fast growth. Yeah.

You're right. Very hard for Christianity to double at this stage. Yeah. So let's get the story underway. Can you catch us up? What has happened so far in Mike Warren Key's life? Jesus Christ. Some reckless maniac out there wants to just join us now.

Basically, he tells us he grew up as an orphan. His mother died and then his dad married some lady who sucks and then his dad died. So then he leaves Tennessee. He moves out to California. He gives us some like land of contrasts platitudes about the West Coast. And then he falls in with the wrong crowd. He starts doing drugs. He ends up at an orgy.

And then in between chapters, like arrested development next time on, previously on, he tells us he discovers that they're Satanists. And now he's like, I guess in this cult. Yeah. I said that this is a middle management story. So I can only imagine that this section is going to be him going to Satanic business school and doing like Satanic case studies. Honestly, yes.

So chapter four, Mike gets initiated. Oh yeah. They're going to flash some high beams. So the anticipation is obviously killing him. And then the next full moon comes around and it's time for him to go to the next Satanic event. When they arrive, Mike clashes with a guy in a business suit who seems like a big way to him. Okay. I just saw a guy snooping around outside.

I muttered. He's a man about who you call a creep. That's how Dean talks. Dean took my arm and guided me toward the interior of the barn. Dean continues, you don't question those guys. Right now you think our group is top drawer, Daddy O. He didn't say Daddy O, but he said everything else. But doesn't it seem like he should be saying Daddy O?

Again, I'm not convinced that you didn't write this. Right now you think our group is top drawer. You keep thinking that way and have pride in your outfit. But remember this, there could be something even bigger than us. He led me to where the group was scattered in small groups talking in low tones. The brothers took their places on the perimeter of the circle facing in and Dean turned to me. Strip, he hissed. Okay, I'm interested.

How do you picture Mike at the stage? Yeah, we haven't gotten any physical descriptions. Well, he's got long blonde hair and he's like thin because of all the speed. Oh, yeah. So imagining Rutger Hauer from Blade Runner, but like not buff. I've seen Satanists who people wouldn't believe. Tears in rain. Sure, I said, clearing my throat.

I untied my thin purple tie. I unbuttoned and removed my orange shirt with the large blue polka dots, unbuckled my belt and let my pants fall to the floor. So he's wearing an orange shirt and a purple tie? Yeah, because Mike Warnke already can't remember the 60s and thinks that people just dressed like circus clowns. He sounds like the Riddler. He sounds like Pennywise. Yeah.

When I was completely naked, I was told to kneel facing the altar. Take this necklace, Dean Murmured, and hold it in your left hand. It's like when you level up in Girl Scouts. Dean extended both arms out in front of him toward the altar so that the sleeves of his robe hung down from his forearms. He pivoted to face the east and said, Lord Master Satan, the High Priest of this, your coven, have agreed to accept a new brother into this unholy congregation and we pray for your blessing and approval. The other members made a chant and clapped their hands. Let us have a sign that you will accept Mike to be called Judas into the brotherhood of your slaves.

Dean closed his eyes, meditated, and time seemed to crawl. I like that even in this exciting Satanist initiation ritual, he's saying that time seemed to crawl. That's what makes it feel really authentic as a religion. He's bored. He's checking his watch. The kids are playing with the hymnals looking for sexy language. Is the Judas thing because Christians think Judas is bad, so Satanists must think he's good? Is that what they're doing there?

Yeah, because Judas betrayed Christ. Okay. Suddenly, Dean gave a loud piercing moan. A sardonic grin consumed the lower part of his face. Thank you, Lord of Darkness, he said. Almost an ecstasy for your favorable reply. He looked down at me. Rise, Judas Iscariot, and prepare to dedicate your soul to our Lord Satan.

I got to my feet. Dean wafted the hood over the fumes from the burners, then dipped his fingers in a chalice of holy water, which I later learned was water in which the priests had urinated. Nice. Like you said last episode, it's just like a bunch of gross stuff that isn't appealing to anybody. He placed the hood on my head, then turned to the keeper of the seal and nodded, whereupon the counselor handed him the black long-sleeved inner robe. Dean performed a similar gesture and incantation and helped me put this robe on.

He repeated this procedure and helped me on with the black sleeveless outer robe, which was like a floor-length vest. So I think it's fantastic to learn that the Satanists are in fact wearing an inner and an outer robe, and have it for this whole time. That's a great piece of trivia. I was just thinking, you are reading this entire thing because you are interested primarily in the robes. You want to know the robe situation. But I just love how Mike Warnke is like, I'm going to tell you a little bit about how these robes work. Dean says, now dip this quill in the blood and sign your new name.

He handed me the feather pen and shoved the book at me. All the names were written in blood, which had dried and darkened and like black, and the illumination in the barn, except for one name, which reflected a greenish tone. What's with the green bit I whispered as I shakily began to scroll my name? If someone unlocks the book and opens it and sees one of the signatures green, he knows that guy copped out. There aren't too many. It's not healthy to cop out. So if you eventually quit Satanism, your name turns green? Is that what they're saying? Yes.

Okay. Or if you cop out, like if you go to the coppers is what I assume that means. And then the Satanists are like, jeez it, it's the bulls. So he's given a necklace which has a scorpion on it because he's a Scorpio, because astrology is Satanist. Sure. And they hand him a large silver ring which carried the symbol of left hand palm forward with a pentagram and crescent in the hand center.

I think it's like a colleague's ring or whatever. Oh, okay. And left-handedness also Satanic. Yeah, never trust a left-handed person. Swarthy south pause. Are you left-handed, Mike? Yes, gay people are twice as likely to be left-handed as straight people. That's fascinating. It's weird, right? Yeah.

Huh. So that's why I'm left-handed or why I'm gay. So they're both excellent states of being. Also both Satanic. So then, okay, so they put the ring on his finger. He's like, oh my God, I'm a real life Satanist. It's like when you take an online quiz and find your no identity that way. Okay, so he's now in.

He's in. He's like officially a Satanist now. And interesting, what I love also is that he says he gets hired back to his job that he got fired from at a hamburger stand. So he works at a hamburger stand for four hours a day. I think at the time when like that was enough to like go to college. I know. Well, I guess he's getting away from the Satanist now too, which helps.

Oh, okay. So Mike is feeling kind of cocky right now and he sets his sights on one of the members of the Coven, a 35-year-old trim redhead named Teresa. Oh, we have a love interest. And so she agrees to do a potion demonstration for him. Potions? Yes, like Snape. Again, this is like such a landfill of ideology.

We've got like Satan and witches and full moons and horoscopes. Like it's just a grab bag. So he describes her making a potion. She gets out of mortar and pestle and she has to mix together at certain minutes of the night. And this part I love, he writes, she ground the solids together, then added the liquids, which is exactly my mom's recipe for brownies. Yeah.

And she's charging the reality show, The Great Satanic Bake Off. This is the technical. They're only given brief instructions. Maybe if I sprinkled a little pot on the spoon, I suggested it would magnify the effects. It could also be disastrous, she replied in a low tone. Why do you think I keep glancing at the clock? There are only certain minutes when he can vaporize it properly. See the scar?

She pointed to a bluish, stitch-like line just in front of her ear. An enraged demon clawed me there. They don't like to have to obey you. And if you give them the smallest excuse, they'll turn on you. She lapsed into quiet, then intoned something in Latin. Okay, this part I really don't like. Suddenly she inhaled sharply. Now she grabbed up the spoon and held it over the burner, a thin greenish vapor uncurled.

She recited something else in Hebrew. Oh. Then shouted, now make your request known. Just throw it right in there. Yep, the Satanists speak Hebrew. Yeah, we had to get the light anti-Semitism out of the way. Oh, I think this is classic, heavy as a star anti-Semitism. In my music, I had not gotten around to deciding upon a wish.

So I was startled into an instant decision and thought, I wish Teresa would fall at my feet and beg me to make love to her. Okay. I strained to keep from chuckling at the whole thing and also at the spontaneous wish, which had caught even me by surprise. The next second I was staring in fascination as Teresa roughly dropped the spoon, gazed up at me, her shoulders hunched slightly forward. She shook her head as though trying to throw off an unwelcome compulsion.

She stepped back slowly from me, saying, no, no, knocking into the table which contained the apparatus. I was scared to death. Dear pet house, I never thought it would happen to me. Yes, exactly. But when the Satanist came to my campus, I thought I would go to a meeting. One thing led to another.

Then she sighed deeply and sharply and started muttering, I know what you wish. Why did you do it? I told you this isn't a game anymore. She gave up resisting and dropped to her feet and kissed my ankles. Kiss my ankles, okay. And basically he releases her from the compulsion. Okay.

And he says, at that moment, seeing Teresa compose herself and revert back to the serious and business-like servant of Satan, I believed in Satan's powers fully and I wanted to control them. What do you think of that scene? I mean, they're just piling on extra rules of this universe. There's potions and there's mind control and there's literal demons who sort of act like attack dogs. And I feel it.

I love how one of the ways it tries to warn you away from it is being like, do you want to be attacked by demons? Because that's a real risk. Right. It's like working at SeaWorld. What does it say to you? Well, I mean, to me, like one of the key things here is that he's implying that he used to be this cool Satanist because he was really debauched

and he had sex with a lot of chicks. Yes. And also was saying like, you know, one of the cool things about Satanism and one of the things that would naturally attract you is that you have the power to sexually dominate women. Yeah. And it's interesting that he understands that to be a selling point for religion. And then that's like the first place that his mind goes.

Yeah. Then he comes home and Dean turns up. He says, you're holding back on Satan, Mike, coasting. And he's saying he needs to be out recruiting more kids for Satan. Okay. Like door-to-door selling magazine subscriptions. Mike is like, it's hard to kids at the college almost every day. Of course, I feel like I have to be careful what I say and size them up and all that.

He waved his hand, but there are ways and there are ways, Mike. It has to be done on an organized, systematic, planned basis. Take right now. You could be out on the strip getting acquainted with guys at the bars, doing a little hardcore recruiting. Haven't you ever heard of Melanie? She'll work with you. I don't understand, I said.

You haven't heard of her then? Well, after you screen a guy, you take him up to her apartment. Then act as her foil, let her do the work. It boils down to getting them gradually involved, leading up to the drug and witchcraft bit by easy stages. So he goes to a bar and he looks for young guys. He says, I spotted a guy I knew from the college. Claude was writing a term paper on sexual fantasies. During talks with him on the campus, I had learned he was having a rough time

because he just could not push himself forward enough with the girls. We had a few drinks and we discussed the subject. Actually, I said, I know a nympho who's real flipped on the subject herself and is willing to be a living laboratory. In fact, I was going to see her just after two on my way home. She said I could bring a friend if I wanted to. Okay, so that's the honeypot. How he's going to lure dudes into Satanism is by having Melanie have sex with them.

Yeah, but I get the feeling that the matter and the hierarchy and women are kind of like cattle. It's funny that he can't imagine anything other than a patriarchal institution. It's very revealing, isn't it? Yeah, and it's also like there's this whole thing where Satanism is supposed to be the opposite of everything. Yeah, exactly. You think that women would be empowered by Satanic church. That's too far. But no, they're still, yeah.

So he brings the guy over to Melanie's and this part kills me. Melanie had prepared a nice little supper for us and took it out of the refrigerator after letting us in. Like really, she has to make supper for you, you can't just get some chicken on the way there. You're coming over to her house. She's slaving over like a hot stove in her evening gown. Yeah, her little Satanist teddy, frying chicken, burning her legs. Claude was really impressed. Melanie sat next to him on the sofa and before long, she had him very interested.

Oh my God. She asked him to try a new dance step as an excuse to get him real close, a real slow number. And before I knew it, they were in the bedroom while I stretched out on the sofa to get what I wanted most. A few minutes of good plain sleep. It's like the plot of a porno movie. It's just like so vague and like none of the character's motivations make any sense. Yeah, and it's brilliant because it's like soft core that you got to read for the glorification of Christ. Yeah, exactly.

You have to learn it because you have to learn about the occult threat to America and the youth. All this prurient stuff is fine because like you're saying that it's bad. Yes. So he describes how they recruit and he says, and that was the way it was done. That method was duplicated hundreds of times during the following months by myself and my cohorts using a number of different chicks. Okay, so this is like a, this is like networked human trafficking. Well, it's like the human trafficking is just like they have these women who, we have no confirmation that they're paying. We just have to have sex with anyone who might become a Satanist at any hour of the day.

So all this is going well. Mike is very dedicated to this practice, which is worrying. And then he comes home one day and Dean appears in his apartment and he says, how do you get in? The door was bolted. Never mind that. He answered in a thin voice. So get this. I'm being moved up way up.

You got to take my place. Sure. I said weekly. It's better. I don't come out and name it. He said, but they, the big guys like my style and want me up on their level. I've gotten assignment in Mississippi, Mississippi. Were we ponds on a giant chessboard?

I wondered playing this game. At no point has he asked any questions about the broader hierarchy of this movement. Do you have a boss, Dean? He's never shown any curiosity. Well, he's busy exploiting Melanie. Dean says, first off, I spend a week or two at a training conference up north. Love it. Meanwhile, you dig in and study the ritual backward and forward.

You get initiated tomorrow night. Then after that, you have a week before you actually take over a meeting. Remember from here out, whatever you want is yours. Rent. Forget it. Food. Just give the keeper of the seal a weekly shopping list and list the places you want to dine out on given nights.

Transportation. No sweat. You know where you can charge the gas. You've got a free ticket. I can't believe we skipped over the fact that there's like a training conference. Yeah. Like there's a Marriott somewhere in Wichita that hosted the like Northwest Regional Training for the Satanists.

It makes me so happy to think about and then like the Satanists, they're like looking through their photo album and they're like, oh, yeah, that was at the regional training in 73. That was such a great year. I had Pesto for the first time. Do you have plaid pantry in Seattle? Oh, yeah. So it's like it's an Northwest thing. I would call it like a grittier 7-eleven.

Yeah. I had multiple friends in high school and college who worked at plaid pantry. And the way plaid pantry seemed to work from my anecdotal experience was that if you were like a relatively together like cashier, even if you were like 19 years old, they would very quickly try and promote you to be the franchise manager. And then you would have to work all hours of the night and day because people would be crashing cars into your franchise or whatever. And you wouldn't be on an hourly wage anymore because you'd be salaried.

Yeah. What I'm saying is that this reminds me of like the temptation of getting promoted at plaid pantry where you join this organization and you do an adequate job and extremely quickly. They're like, we'd like to give you a ton of responsibility and are trying to appeal to your youthful sense of like, oh my gosh, really? You want me to be in charge of this whole plaid pantry? Right.

And you're like 21 and you have no idea what you're doing and you're in charge of like procurement for like this entire organization. Yeah. And it's going to destroy your life. But so this is the world. This is the middle management tier that Mike is entering now. Yeah. He's like, oh my goodness.

Like I have to learn how to take Dean's place because he has to go to the training conference. Yeah. So after five, we begin with another ceremony and he's getting promoted. Judas is your new counselor, master of rituals, Dean and Toned. And the well-being of all of you depends upon his well-being. Treat him with reverence and respect and come to him with any problems that you may have regarding ritual. I'm imagining everyone crammed in the break room.

It's like one guy retiring and he's like introducing the new boss. Yeah. And he's like, you know, Jeff's going to be taking over. You know, he's been heading up our Omaha division. Yeah. And Jeff walks in and he's wearing a polo shirt. And he's like, you guys, I'm so excited to be your new master of rituals. I love working for this organization.

And I was able to double ritual efficiency in Omaha during my three years there. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty excited to see what we can do here in Dubuque. Yeah. And there's like a grocery store cake on the break room table. Yeah. And it's like a very Midwestern feeling Satanism book. It is. Yes.

And afterward, we were all invited to this chicks place up in the hills, another one of those exclusive homes with the large glass in areas. And this is when he meets Charlotte. Okay. She says, you're a smart boy, Mike. You'll catch on fast. She turned away and I thought, not you, baby. I like tigers, but I'm not sure I'm ready for a devil cat.

What? When she was out of earshot and he whispered, that's one from the fourth step. Fourth step. People think it's the Illuminati, but you'd better not breathe that word to anyone. This is the only realistic thing about an organization that we've heard so far, that there's like the inner circle within it and like everyone's trying to get there. And people are condescending about it. Yeah.

By the time Dean and I left for our apartments, I felt lightheaded. The fact that the ceremony had gone so smoothly and I was the new master counselor gave me great satisfaction. Now that all of our emails have transferred over and we've introduced ourselves to the clients. We decided to have lunch at Benagon's, you know, he drops him off at the apartment. As I walked upstairs, I noticed a light showing through my window and I had not remembered leaving the lights on.

I opened the door cautiously, looked in and thought I was in the wrong place where there had been flimsy curtains at the windows. Now there were gorgeous drapes, a long, low oxblood leather couch replaced the sagging old brown horsehair one. There were two sets of bookshelves full of books beneath the window sill where there had been a rickety scarred table. The biggest surprise was on the floor, two chicks sitting on a white rug. What?

Who knew the type of furniture I like? In my casual conversations, I probably had mentioned being attracted to certain types of furnishings, colors, etc. But I could not help thinking of Satan's power. The girls just grinned and came over and sat on each side of me. We hope you like it, Mike, because we come with the apartment. Oh my God. Also, this is basically like a home flipping show on Bravo.

Like he leaves and then he comes back and there's like this different interior decoration. And he's like, how did you know I would like that sofa? Yeah. Joanna Gaines is like, oh, we have our ways. He's like, I love old travel posters on the wall. And again, like these women are desperate to make him food all the time. She's like, can I make you anything? And he says, if I'm going to get through the rest of this night, I'll need plenty of chow.

While she was fixing my snack, I browsed through the books that had been furnished. And they're all about how to be a better Satanist. Where are these books? This implies Satanic publishers. It's an artisanal press. And then basically the apartment becomes his base of operations. And he says, part of one corner had to be turned into an office. And there were a lot of people coming and going on coven business.

The chicks did a good job of keeping the place neat and tidy. I love that he can imagine that demons don't like doing all these tasks assigned to them, but not women. Women want to have sex with random guys, like make sandwiches all day. Yes. No reason they would complain. Oh my God. Yeah, I want to see the conference notes for the year when like a woman stepped forward and said, the Satanic Church of San Bernardino has a long and terrible history with subjugation of its female members.

Yes. And it is high time that we allow to be Satanic priests and not just sandwich makers. Can I be promoted past waiting on a white carpet for a dude? For every dollar that a male Satanist makes, a female Satanist makes 76 cents. And also a sandwich. The day before the first meeting at which I would preside, I still felt touchy about how to call on those demonic spirits. I had already read one case where two jokers had been fooling around and had stood in the wrong part of the circle with their toes on the pentagram and the demons had crushed them to death. I did not want my first meeting to end that way.

I went around practicing the words I was supposed to use to get the demon back where it belongs. I also had to make sure the pentagram was freshly painted on the altar stone every week. So there would be no break and the lines forming it. If there was a break, a demon could get out. This is one of my favorite paragraphs in this whole book, though, that he has to keep the pentagram freshly painted. I know. Okay, and then we learn about demons. Demons can talk or can cry with a loud voice using the tongues and lips of humans.

They can tell lies and make people believe lies. They can even preach. They can stand, walk, and seek rest when embodied in a human being. They can make people strip off their clothes, cause suicides, render a person insane, or cause a body to be bowed in affliction. They can cause jealousy, pride, or lust. Demons seek to inhabit human bodies that they might work out their indescribable lusts and evil longings. They will not willingly leave a human they inhabit. If cast out, they will seek to re-enter the same body, inviting other demons to join them.

It is known that as many as 2,000 demons inhabited one man. This is now a maintenance phase episode. Yeah. It's very clear that they've been using demons as a cure-all for anything that is wrong with somebody. So they can cause back pain, or chronic illness, or mental illness. They can be cast out and come back. There can be one of them, or 2,000 of them. It's like, okay, so they're literally everything.

So the Church for hundreds of years has just been saying demons as the answer to everything, and just changing the definition and the capabilities of demons willy-nilly, according to whatever that person is going through. Yeah. This is a tactic that is now being perfected by Gwyneth Paltrow. Yeah, cause it's natural for people to assume that there's a demon inside of them, or their body has gone wrong in some crucial way, but also in a way that can be fixed very easily by the casting out of the bad thing.

It's just like, it's a very human drive to think like there is something wrong with me, and it's also a very human drive to invent things like religion that can explain that. And to want things to be wrong with you that make you special, because if you're afflicted by a demon that's kind of a cool holy war to be a part of, but also that can be easily fixed. I mean, as I recall, I haven't listened to it in a while, but I think the takeaway from our Exorcism episode was that Exorcism is kind of effective, because it's a great placebo.

You feel like something major has happened, and it can be a really cathartic process psychologically for people. And also, if you fail to exercise someone's demons, you can blame the person. Oh yeah, definitely, yeah. Because they drank the wrong holy water, or they didn't sleep on a plank for 40 days, or whatever rule you've made up. Or they didn't want it enough. Yeah.

My two girls were waiting for me with a hot meal, and the message that a guy had stopped by to inquire if he could see me tomorrow. After they had finished describing him, I guess it was an old school bunny of mine from Cressline. And so he gets together with this guy, and the guy's like, what kind of work are you doing, Mike? Because he notices the chicks. And Mike's like, waste management.

He says, I told him just enough to impress him, but not enough to give anything away, or put the finger on the group, or implicate me in anything. Which is like a hard thing to balance, which I guess is why we're not being shown him doing that, because it seems impossible. Can you be specific, Mike? So Carl says, I find all of this hard to believe.

If you're really in witchcraft, put a hex on that building over there, so it'll burn. So he does. And it does burn. So he says he told this guy nothing substantial, but then he also proves to him that he has magic powers. Yeah, look, this book has some flaws. He's like, look, I was super slick.

I didn't tell him anything that would incriminate me. Anyway, here's my fire-starting power. All I did was set a bar on fire with my mind. So that was the last time I bothered with anyone outside the witchcraft group, unless I felt they were definitely going to be a potential brother. We had discovered Christians were a complete waste of time, and we had already learned to leave them alone. And then he lays some theology on us.

Although Satanists believe there is a God, to believe in Satan, you have to believe in God. They have become alienated from believing that God's representation of good is the only way to fly. They believe God is good, but they don't believe that good itself is good. They do not want to wait until they die to get the rewards that heaven offers, and maybe if they are really pious and all goes well. No, they're impatient and impetuously want a little bit of heaven right here and now.

While they are alive to enjoy it, heaven in the form of kicks, chicks, and chicks, along with the agonizing ecstasy of drugs. This is like such a Christian worldview. It's basically saying that Satanists are actually Christians, but they just want the rewards now. But they just want to have sex. So it's basically Christians with no impulse control. So like Pollack Hole is a Satanist.

That song from Dawson's Creek is very Satanic. And then they have another meeting. He's feeling very authoritative. And then a grey-haired man stepped forth and said, we have a problem. A certain professor at Valley College is going around the campus saying, witchcraft is a bunch of baloney. And that we are crazy and liars.

I would strongly suggest that you take appropriate measures to correct this gentleman. Wait, what? We want to prove that witchcraft exists? I don't, I, I, I don't get it. We're in a secret cult, but somebody's saying that we don't exist. We have to correct the record. What? But instead of going through him, well, he has two daughters in grade school.

It might be effective to let him know of our presence through them. Oh God. This is the moment for Mike to be like, this is kind of extreme. Like, I don't know about hurting kids, but I'm getting all these chicks and chicks. And the professor's kids are afflicted by welts because of the demonic attacks. And then Dean reappears again, like Gandalf. On the dawn of the fifth day. And Dean says, I think you're right on.

Just keep up the bad work and don't telegraph your punches. Well, I've got to get going. He gave me the brotherhood signal, the one with the little and index finger extended instead of accepting my offered handshake. Oh, is that the fucking demon horns thing from like Ozzy Osbourne concerts? Yeah. He's saying they actually do that to each other? Yeah, that's what the Satanists do.

Not very subtle. Again, like this ostentatious hand symbol that anybody watching you can see is like your secret communication to each other. Right. You should like tickle Dean's palm with your middle finger. Yes. Wait a moment. I said, turning to get the notepad I kept by the telephone.

How about giving me your address in Mississippi? But when I turned around, he was gone. Sure. Mystical Dean. The next day I leaned against the Eucalyptus tree on the campus of San Bernardino Valley College, where he still continues to hilariously spend most of his daytime hours. Yeah. I saw Charlotte swinging past.

Hey, Char. I called. Hold it, will you? I just wondered if you have the time to talk with me about some ideas I have. Sure, Mike. If you haven't got anything on tonight, I could drop by your place and we could talk. This also suggests it's fun to be a Satanist because any girl you like, you can be like, I was wondering if you wanted to talk about Satanism.

You should be like, yes. Yeah. This is Harvey Weinstein. This is like how men with power do this. Oh, I love this line. For the rest of the day, I could not think about anything else but Charlotte. When she finally arrived, she looked exactly as I expected, only more so. Oh, my God.

As she accepted a highball and sat on my ox-blood couch while I draped myself over the chair, she said, I think you could very well get rid of some of that archaic stuff. Put a more mod appeal into the rituals. Use some acid rock music to set the mood. Get a little hand clapping into the meetings. She's basically like, you know, you're in charge of the rituals. It's time to streamline and to get rid of some of this old-timey Satanic stuff. Instead, use some of the 60s cultural tools that are already recruiting kids anyway, apparently.

She gives him a bunch of ideas for how to do his job better. She's basically doing unpaid labor. One of his big innovations is that he gets a good blood supply for their communion. He makes you, if you're attending the ceremony, you have to donate your own blood. He says the higher-ups really like that. Charlotte came to one of our parties and stayed long enough to advise me that a bunch of people in the Victorville area would like me to come and tell them about our experiences. Oh, my God.

He's doing like regional meetings. This is what I used to do for a living. A night or two later, around midnight, I was sitting on the couch with a fat book on formulas and incantations when, flash, this chick materialized in the middle of my living room. Oh, my God. I have a message for you. Charlotte says it's on for Saturday afternoon. Then, zap, she was gone just like that.

Oh, my God. I love the idea of someone astral projecting into your living room to be like, Charlotte wants you to come over at seven. Yeah, it's an email. It's a text. So they go to Victorville. This is very exciting because he's selling Satan on the road. He writes, where level land fanned out in a broad valley dotted with scanty shrub,

we found them, the flower children, blank eyes peering out through veils of hair. Oh, this is more hippie bashing. Yes, they've gone to like a big kind of hippie encampment out in the area and he's going to minister to the hippies. He's such a dick. Yeah, what do you find dickish about him? I think he really is quite a dick. Well, the whole book is just like implying that all of these flower children, college

student war protester people of the 1960s were like secretly Satanists and drug users and like totally amoral. Or at least like a step away from Satanists, like they're either evil or they're like too dumb to notice that they're practically Satanists. Yeah, exactly. And so Mike meets a kid named Sonny and says, I have never seen such dead eyes. And then he meets a chick and the chick says, myself, I think Lucifer is beautiful, like Sonny.

They are free, but they don't know what they're free from. They don't know how to focus flower power. They think they're tuned in, but they're not really. Don't know how to get rid of their hassles. They say they're doing their own thing, but they don't know what their thing is. That's the point. Their thing is nothing. No thing.

They're empty vessels and they're ready to be filled. You can fill them, Mike. They're empty. They have no real ideas. They're installing critical race theory in all the schools. Like it's the same rhetoric that we get about societal others throughout history. Yeah. I mean, do you feel like what was going on at the time was fundamentally the same as

what's happening now? Because I feel like we're, you know, I mean, a lot has changed, a lot is different, but I feel like one of the essential fears is like it's dangerous when a critical mass of young people start to notice that society is unjust and that changing it is like something that you should try occasionally. It's a different context because the college students at the time weren't associated with ethnic minorities. We've now injected race into this in a way that is very noticeable and I think has turned

up the volume on all of this demonization, but it's basically a version of the same thing that these like social justice warriors, right, like protesting against the Vietnam War, what if they go too far? There was huge anxiety among the sort of the greatest generation and the silent generation about like the following generation, like what was up with young people and that manifested itself as a lot of this kind of shit, this like totally unfair language about like their hippies. They don't even have an ideology.

They're empty vessels. Waiting for Mike. Yeah. And it's like, it's just a reason not to actually listen to them. Right. And also like discrediting reasonable ideas by aligning them with Satan himself. Yes. With no evidence.

This book is the evidence. I don't know how you could disagree with this. Yeah, it's true. It's a book in which everyone wants to make food for and have sex with Mike Warnke. So the score is very high on my believe a billomometer. You know. So he goes to Victorville. This hippie chick is like, they're ready.

They're empty vessels. And he, he describes his sermon basically or his pitch. Taking my cue from the words Lydia, that's the check had used in describing to me earlier the needs of these people. I definitely manipulated the word love and described in glowing terms how beautiful Satan was and how faithfully he looked after his worshipers. I had no idea how I came over with that bunch. When I analyzed it later, I guess it was a okay.

The flower kids picked up on certain words and did not really try to structure anything logical out of it. Mostly they were tuning in on my general expression of sympathy with their cause, whatever it was and my appearing to share something good with them. This is, I can't believe people have read this book and actually fell for it. It's just like these kids were so dumb. I just use some key words and they bought it. I mean, it's funny too, because it's like he's describing the sales pitch for Satan

is the sales pitch for Jesus. Like Jesus will take care of you. Jesus loves you, et cetera. I was also just going to say that like he describes his own recruitment to Satanism as it's like months long process. He loses his job. He's addicted to drugs. People are having sex in front of him.

And then it slowly throughout the course of the book morphs into like he gives a boring speech to like a bunch of hippies outside their tents. And they're like, yeah. It's like, well, which is it? Can you just recruit people with like a dumb, like six minute Glen Gary Glen Ross monologue? Yeah, you're right. Cause before it's like you have to get them to have sex with Melanie before you even brood Satanism.

Yeah. Yeah. He's playing kind of fast and loose. And it's also funny because there's nothing whatsoever to recommend Satanism other than like the sex and the drugs and like the fun stuff to do. Like what is he pitching them? You get to dip your fingers in some pee. Maybe some of them want to get stomped on.

And then the tall man who he clashed with at his official initiation is there and congratulates him and says, you're a real traveling salesman for Satan, Mike. And we want you to go to Salem and get more hip with some really serious organization. I love that even in the text of the book, it's pointing out like kind of how ridiculous this is. Like he's a traveling salesman for Satan. I mean, that's how they sell Bibles. So why not?

He's like having the time of his life when he gets to the Salem conference. He says, I was credited with doubling the size of our group in San Bernardino from 500 to 1000. And the short time I had been master counselor. Oh my God. He's sitting there. He's like finally hearing, you know, all this inside stuff, which obviously he's not going to quote directly from because that would be too hard.

And he writes, another rocket went off in my head. They did it through a satanic knowledge of all the centers of self, self-love, indulgence, superiority, pride, righteousness. And they gently nudge the most ambitious and promising toward the final motivational hook, power. For power was the ultimate lust. The thing that even an elitist would sell his soul for. And what better prize than power, the universal corruptor.

For the more corrupt a man, the easier he is to control. Yeah, it's capitalism, Mike. This is how every company works. It's also organized religion. Yes. He's so close to getting it. And he's thinking, you know, the kind of thought that people often have about the idea of organized Satanism, which is like, how on earth is it possible to have this much foresight and to

organize something this large without anyone detecting it and to launder all these robes and all of it? Like, how is it possible? And he writes, blam, I saw it. There was somebody who could mastermind the whole thing. And he had all the help he needed. Of course. He ran the whole operation.

He worked out the details in the planning councils of hell and sent his emissaries like military couriers on endless relays to the surface. Satan. Well, yeah. I mean, he's in a satanic cult. Of course, Satan is the CEO. Was that was that supposed to be a twist, Mike? Actually, to me, it's kind of a twist because it's the first time I've seen someone being

like, yeah, Satan, we don't just worship Satan. Like, he's the, the COO. He's the founder and also a client. I had heard one or two of the Brotherhood jokingly refer to poor old Hitler. What? And the archdemon who ran him and Stalin and Miro and the Borges, puppets, not monsters, just puppets. So that was how it was done.

The global conspiracy buffs were right after all. Oh my God. What? Oh my God. I had no idea that the usual suspects was quoting C.S. Lewis this whole time. I know. So his, he's positing that like all of the conspiracy theories are true. Illuminati, Rothschilds, moon landing.

Hitler, which also makes him kind of, well, sort of a Holocaust denier. Well, no, I guess he's saying the Holocaust still happened, but it just wasn't Hitler's fault. So that's, I don't feel good about that. I fucking hate this worldview of like, there's some mystical force behind everything. It's like, no dude, it's human beings. Like these are human impulses. Right. I also love that he's trying to think of legendarily evil people and like his fourth example is

the Borges, which is not very timely. I mean, maybe this is where I don't understand this area of Christianity because, because later on he's like, Astrology is evil because it tells you that there's no free will and you need to believe in free will in order to glorify God. But then it's like, Hitler didn't do anything wrong. This was controlled by a demon and it's like, well, which is it? It's always funny trying to impose coherence on these beliefs because it's like from one chapter to the other, he's just completely changing like his underlying premises.

Like he hasn't thought this through at all. He remembers the hot canapes. I don't think he could have made that up. Yeah. And then he's sitting here like having his mind blown during this meeting. He's probably got a little like cracker in front of him. And then he has a final revelation, which is what motivates Satan and what is it? It's hatred, pure, unalloyed hatred of God for denying him infinite power of Christ for

usurping what he considered his rightful position and of all mankind for being God's favorite creation. He hated us every last one of us for all eternity. He hated me. You have to be so pickled in fundamentalist Christianity to find any of this remotely convincing. And it makes Satan like Joan Collins in dynasty. What do you mean?

Alexis and dynasty, her motivation was that she was the ex-wife of the main guy. And so her whole thing was that she had a big rivalry with the current wife of the main guy. So it's like mankind is God's current wife in the scenario. And Satan is just really bitter and can't let it go. It's just like, okay, like I guess that's an understandable motive. Yeah. If I were writing a comic book, like I feel like I would, my editors would tell me that

I need to go bigger. But this is like Saturday morning cartoon villain explanations, like mwah-ha-ha hatred. Yes. Like this is dumb. It is dumb. Yeah. And it's funny too, because like I feel like the scariest villains are the ones who are like condescending and pass as normal and who are convinced that they are doing what

they're doing to you for your own good. Yeah. Yeah. As usual, it's just totally uninterested in the ways that the world works. And it's funny too, because I feel like the sort of extremely hierarchical satanic church that they've described, like you can see how it, it would be corrupt just on based on the ways that hierarchies sort of motivate people to grow as fast as possible, like acquire as many satanists as you can without thinking about infrastructure, use women the way that

this organization does. And like these are all things that feel not anathema to the Christian church. Right. But the idea is like, it was really bad what we were doing because we were evil and we were aware that we were evil and we were waking up every day and deciding to do evil things as opposed to the concept that I think in America it would be good for all of us to spend more time thinking about that like the, you are capable of the greatest damage when you believe that righteousness is on your side in one way or another.

Yeah. And African tribes just really need to learn about Jesus and we're going to go visit them all. Yes. And nothing bad happened as a result. And bring our communicable illnesses. Yeah. Once again, you know, the more he rises, the more he feels like a little fish surrounded

by big fish. He keeps having to get bigger and he's like, well, I've done some great streamlining of the rituals. I've gotten all these near recruits. I've doubled membership in the San Bernardino area, but I have to do something really big, something really exciting. And he gets an idea when he notices that there are some guys at this conference who have missing fingers.

Oh, what? We're back to this? We're back to missing fingers. This was something from Michelle remembers that she said the Satanists were cutting off their middle fingers, right? So this is the great finale of the Mike Rises Through the Ranks sequence. He goes to a ritual, he's really got his act together and he's going to take it to a new level.

He says, I had power now and I was going to use it. You have contributed your own blood to the chalice. Now we have a new request. We want your flesh. I told them, any of you guys not chicken, come forward and let us see what you're willing to give to Satan. It really kind of deflates the ritual to like use the word chicken. Yeah.

A guy comes forward and I will just read you this little cutting off finger and eating it scene and this will be the end. Oh, they eat it? Yeah, there's some flesh eating in here. He says, I lifted the axe and brought it down with force. Womp his little finger down to the second knuckle remained on the board when he withdrew his hand. Ew.

I left it to Andy to apply a simple tourniquet and after giving him an opportunity to taste a bit of his own flesh, another guy drove the brother to the dock who was on our retainer plus list, end of chapter. So next time, Mike is going to take it too far and end up losing his membership in the satanic church and have to find his way in the world and we're going to talk about how in hell this book exists and what Mike Warnke was really up to during these years. So he's running the franchise, he's rising through the ranks, he's getting more profile within the organization, he's dealing with some middle management stuff.

He's bulk ordering peanut butter cups. Yeah. Yeah, he's checking along and he's revealing what makes an organization appealing to lost youths, I think, which is to be important, to be listened to and to get to have women do whatever you want. Sandwiches. Everybody just wants sandwiches. I think that's it.

Everybody just wants a sandwich with a little bit of finger on it. So that's where we're going to leave Mike at the altar nibbling on somebody else's finger. I also love that this is such a dramatic moment and we end with a description of infrastructure. Perfect metaphor. Somehow Mike finds the boring part of something interesting. That's one thing that you have in common.