the conjuring Archives - Black Mass Appeal

Episode 204: Mazes & Monsters

Black Mass Appeal — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 01:00:32 +0000

It’s a far-out game, AND the only Satanic Panic anti-D&D scare movie starring the East Bay’s own Tom Hanks. It has to be, right?

SHOW LINKS

From Genius Missing at MSU, Gregory Skwira, Detroit Free Press, 1979: Police continue to search the area Thursday for a missing 16 year old computer science student last seen August 15th in his Michigan State University dormitory. “At this point we do not suspect Foul Play,” said Sergeant Larry Lyon of the MSU campus police. “But we haven’t ruled it out either.” James Dallas Egbert III, a sophomore, was attending a summer session and was last seen in a dormitory cafeteria. He was reported missing by a friend on Tuesday, days later. He had very few friends, Lyon said. “He was a loner and he was obviously a genius.” Egbert had been studying computer science at MSU since last fall. “Many nights when it came time for me to lock up the school I would have to run him out of the computer room where he would still be working,” the school’s principal told reporters. Police weren’t surprised that Egbert had missed four days of class before he was reported missing. “He evidently had a habit of not going to class all that often,” Lyon said. “He really didn’t have to. He had an exceptional grade point average.” A university spokesman said, “We don’t have a bed check. Kids are pretty free to come and go as they want.” Egbert’s parents refused to talk with a reporter. When police searched the youth’s room Lyon said there was no indication that clothes had been removed and anticipation of a trip. “That concerns us a great deal,” he said.”Egbert’s dormitory neighbors were knowledgeable that Egbert hadn’t been around for several days before the youth was reported missing. But that’s not unusual in a dormitory situation, he said. Students sometimes go off for 2 or 3 days to get themselves together. Police have located two friends of Egbert’s and neither say he seemed troubled. Final exams for the summer session begin next week. Egbert once left MSU for 2 weeks during the past school year, but he told someone he was leaving. “We have no other record of him doing that here,” said Lyons.

From Student’s Disappearance a Puzzle, United Press International, The Daily Breeze, 1979: A thumbtack-studded bulletin board that could be a map or part of a bizarre game could be a clue in the mysterious disappearance of a teenage Michigan State University computer wiz. One theory is James Dallas Egbert III, 16, “is playing a game with us” said Sergeant Bill Wardwell of the MSU campus police. “He was quite a game person.” Police have called in computer and logic specialists plus those familiar with an elaborate game popular among college students in an effort to decode the board left behind by the young genius. The precocious sophomore computer student left behind a note asking his body be cremated if it is found. The police said they are not convinced the message was intended as a suicide note. Egbert, a science fiction devotee, was seen on campus August 15th at a dormitory cafeteria. He had a history of walking off for days at a time. Although certain that Egbert left campus voluntarily and was not abducted, police are not really out of the possibility he ultimately was the victim of Foul Play. The puzzling bulletin board had been removed from the wall and placed conspicuously in the middle of Egbert’s dorm room. Thumbtacks were stuck in the board in a pattern resembling a square with one corner indented. Please have compared the pattern to the shape of several campus buildings but have not reached a final conclusion. Others suggest the board might have been up for a round of Dungeons and Dragons, a highly complex game involving fantasy and roleplaying. Wardwell said police are trying to locate students who played the game with Egbert who might be able to interpret the bizarre diagram and unlock the secret of his disappearance. “I hate to say it’s a secretive game, but you only get into it by invitation,” Wardwell said. “Those people just haven’t come forward.” Wardwell said Wisconsin authorities were contacted because a Dungeons & Dragons conference was scheduled in that state, but nothing came of the inquiry. Wardwell admitted the police are grasping at straws a little bit but added. “That’s all we’ve got right now.”

From The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III (Part I), Shaun Hatley, Places To Go People To Be, 1999: Dallas was a D&D player. That is not in dispute. It is also not in dispute that students at MSU played live-action games in tunnels under the University buildings. There are other facts to be considered, however, which got nowhere near as much coverage: Dallas was either gay or bisexual. He was also a drug user who used his knowledge of chemistry to manufacture his own supply. Dallas also suffered from severe depression caused or exacerbated by, in the opinion of an MSU psychologist, “parental pressure, criticism, academic pressure, and the failure of all persons to realise that, although Dallas Egbert was a genius, he was socially [helpless].” When William Dear was called in, he learned all of this. He also found a board in Dallas room which had a strange arrangement of drawing pins placed into it. The design was a map. Dallas had attempted to mark all the rooms in the tunnels underneath the University, as close to scale as he could manage. The only one he had not marked was the room he intended to hide in. Dear considered a number of possibilities: That Dallas had committed suicide. That Dallas had gone into the steam tunnels and been injured or killed. That Dallas disappeared for the sole purpose of making people look for him. That Dallas had overdosed on drugs. That Dallas was being held by a gay man or a group of gay men. That Dallas had been kidnapped by some sort of intelligence group to make use of his special talents and intelligence. That Dallas had come to identify so much with his D&D character that he believed he was his character. That Dallas had been sent on some sort of a mission by a D&D Dungeon Master in order to prove that he was worthy to play in an advanced game. Dear wanted to keep the drug and sex theories out of the papers for several reasons: The first one was that he didn’t want any people holding Dallas to panic and kill him, because they thought the law was closing in. He also wanted to protect Dallas, and Dr and Mrs Egbert as much as possible. For these reasons, he pushed the Dungeons & Dragons theory. Dallas had been planning to disappear for a long time. His reasons differed at different times. He planned suicide over a nine month period, and at other times decided merely to run away. He took sleeping tablets in the tunnels with the deliberate intent of ending his life. He awoke the following night and went to a friend’s house. This was a gay man in his early twenties, and Dallas stayed there about a week. When the story of Dallas’ disappearance broke, this man felt himself to be in danger from the police and did not come forward. Dallas took a train from Chicago to New Orleans and lived on the streets for several days before meeting a man from New York. They became friends, and this man helped him to get a job as a roustabout in the oil fields near Morgan City. It was this man eventually who persuaded Dallas to contact William Dear.

From The Dungeon Master, Publisher’s Preview, 1984: William Dear wears cowboy boots, sports enough gold nugget jewelry to make a cattle baron envious, and would have you believe he’s a good old boy. Don’t believe a word of it. The super sleuth extraordinaire obviously has his suits tailored, his custom boots made from sharkskin, and is suave enough to have tea with the royal family. The London Times once said, “If there is a real James Bond, he’s in Dallas and his name is Bill Dear.” Unorthodox his methods may be, with spies spying upon spies and mysterious planes landing in the dark. “Any deviations I have made were necessary to save lives. If they want to take my license because I helped save the human life then let them try,” he says. Dear is well known for his investigations and solutions on many difficult cases. His lifestyle is also legendary. Dear’s million dollar home on Cockrell Hill Road draws sightseers from far and near. Security is tight at the residence of Bill Dear/James Bond because it is necessary. “In this business you get threats all the time.” One room is filled with the most advanced spy gadgetry available. His bedroom is a replica of James Bond’s in “Diamonds Are Forever.” For hasty getaways his limousine is equipped with a remote control starter. Deer is unmistakably Texan in his three-piece Bond suit and the rings he sports on each finger. When James Dallas Egbert III disappeared for the Michigan State University campus in 1979 the family called in Dear, the real life James Bond. Dear’s search for the boy reads like a sensational novel although in fact every detail and adventure is true. The Adventures of Bill Dear read and sound like a Hollywood script. Perhaps it is why so many Hollywood producers have acquainted themselves with them over the years.

From The Dungeon Master, William Dear, 1984: They suggested we search out near Party Hollow, the clearing in the woods that campus groups use for a variety of purposes. The Tolkien Society meet at Party Hollow once a year for a ritual to celebrate the birth of Gandalf the Magician. It was perhaps thirty yards in diameter, a clearing in the middle of the forest. In the center, arranged in circular fashion, were signs that big bonfires had been built here: ashes, charred rocks and wood, the remains of seared newspapers. I could imagine a bonfire out in this remote spot. Had it risen eerily to the tops of the trees while strange rites were being performed, or had it been a pleasant campfire, with songs filling the air, hot dogs and marshmallows roasting, sweethearts cuddling in the crisp, cool night? I imagined that Dallas had come out here to think. I wondered if he had come out here to die. But if Dallas had died out here, he would have been found by now. Party Hollow was obviously a place that had frequent visitors. The note had indicated that a meeting was planned. It was almost surely something completely harmless, a college get together under the stars. Yet it might be more. Lambert and I had seen pentagrams painted on trees surrounding the clearing. Between the two circles were magic symbols which, I was later told, were associated with druidic witchcraft, and were used as protection by a sorcerer against demons. Pentagrams had also been drawn into the ground, where a sorcerer could stand on them and be safe .I retreated back into the woods, and soon there were four students, two boys and two girls. There seemed to be nothing out-of-the-way or bizarre about their dress—no pointed wizard’s hats or strange polka-dotted costumes. From what I could tell, which was hardly a great deal despite the light from the fire, they were dressed as thousands of other college students might be. They formed a diamond shape around the blaze, hunched much as I was, and if a single word could capture the atmosphere, that word would be serious. No one had lugged a case of beer out to Party Hollow. The four crouched around the fire. One of the girls, wearing a necklace, rose and tilted her head skyward, and I heard her voice cry out, “Great Gurdjieff, guide us to the goodness of God’s goals!” These were the only words I understood the entire evening. The students remained 45 minutes, then extinguished the fire and trekked back through the woods. I was interested in how many such cults existed on campus? One of them might have the answers I sought.

From The Exploitation of James Dallas Egbert, Grady Hendrix, Reactor Magazine, 2014: If you’ve played D&D you know that a game “goes wrong” when someone throws a hissy over a roll or one player keeps screwing around on his phone and ignoring what’s being said. And if you’ve never played D&D you assume that when a game “goes wrong” Satan is summoned and sucks out everyone’s soul.By the time Dallas Egbert was found, two books about the more colorful version were already on their way to market. The first was from Rona Jaffe, extremely famous author behind the scandalicious bestselling proto-Sex and the City novel, The Best of Everything. Mazes and Monsters is a book written by an author who knows nothing, and cares less, about roleplaying games. Each of the kids turned to RPGs because something was broken inside of them (Kate’s parents are divorced; Daniel’s parents push him too hard; Jay Jay is neglected by his divorced parents; and Robbie’s brother ran away from home). Mazes & Monsters is probably best remembered today for its TV movie version, which aired in 1982 and featured Tom Hanks in his first leading role as Pardieu the Holy Man, freaking out on the streets of New York, then trying to jump off the World Trade Center. (“I have spells,” he says. “I’m going to fly.”) It’s an unwritten rule that if you’re going to try to make a quick buck off a young person’s attempted suicide you should at least be entertaining. Jaffe broke that rule, but the next book would not repeat her mistake.

John Coyne was a slick journeyman writer, turning out relatively forgettable mass market horror paperbacks in the wake of Stephen King’s massive success. His cash-in attempt, Hobgoblin (1981), isn’t a thinly veiled account of Egbert’s story and the result is a book that is less offensive. Meet Scott Gardiner, exactly the kind of kid Jaffe warned us was vulnerable to the lurid lure of RPGs: brilliant, creative, socially awkward, and WITH A DEAD FATHER OMG NO THIS KID IS DOOMED. Scott is obsessed with a truly terrible RPG called Hobgoblin that may be less boring than Mazes and Monsters but only just barely. One part RPG, one part Magic: The Gathering, it’s based on Celtic mythology so it’s full of unfortunate character names like “Boobach” and questionable spells like “fairy vision.” Players speak in fraught, reverent tones (“The dice? Oh, God, Gardiner, no! It’s too risky.”) and, in a deeply unrealistic touch, Scott is wildly popular after introducing this role-playing monstrosity to his fancy boarding school. Scott is a whiny jerk with a hair trigger temper. When Valerie, the resident hot girl at school, falls for him because he memorizes his locker combination so quickly, he tries to make her play Hobgoblin, gets angry when she doesn’t take it seriously enough, then erupts into a rage when she calls him a “turkey” (“Kids say it to each other all the time,” she explains. “Not at Spencertown. I never heard it at Spencertown.” he mutters). After a ambling along like a relatively slow-moving character study for 18 chapters, chapter 19 is a gibbering, blood-drenched scene from a slasher movie set during the school’s Halloween dance, For all that Dear, Jaffe, and Coyne posit that RPGs are a way for disturbed individuals to escape from reality, it turns out that they themselves were the ones running from the truth, fabricating a fear of games based on false information about a missing persons case. https://reactormag.com/summer-of-sleaze-the-exploitation-of-james-dallas-egbert-iii/

From Mazes & Monsters, Rona Jaffe, 1981: In the spring of 1980 a bright, gifted student at Grant University in Pequod, Pennsylvania, mysteriously disappeared. Vanishing students were not unheard of, particularly during the stressful period before final exam time, but when the police were finally called in, it was revealed that the missing student was one of a group at Grant who were involved in a fantasy roleplaying game called Mazes and Monsters. Played with nothing more than a vivid imagination, dice, pencils, graph paper, and an instruction manual, Mazes and Monsters is a war game with a medieval background, in which each player creates a character who may be a fearless Fighter, a treasurehunting Sprite, a magic-using Holy Man, or a wily Charlatan. The point of the game is to amass a fortune and keep from getting killed. The characters are plunged into an adventure in a series of mazes, tunnels, and secret rooms filled with frightful and violent dangers— monsters who can kill, maim, paralyze, and enchant the players. But if the players can kill, maim, trick, or stop their assailants they can take home fabulous treasure. What made the student’s disappearance so ominous was that the police discovered this particular group of players had begun to act out their fantasies in a real environment, taking the game to the underground caverns near the university campus.

Last year the four of them had been perfect. Daniel had been the Maze Controller because he was a computer genius with a wild imagination. Also Daniel was calm, and he was never arbitrary. If he said the King of the Gray Rats had bitten off your arm, he was indisputably right. Kate, Michael, and Jay Jay had been the players. Kate was the bravest, Jay Jay the cleverest, and Michael— well, forget him, he was scooping ice cream at Baskin-Robbins now. At the end of last year they had decided that this year they would all get single rooms, but Michael would room with Daniel and they would use the extra room just to play the game. It would be sacred. Every room had a lock on its door. They would have their own fantasy world just for themselves and no one would know. But the dummy had been so involved in the game that he stopped going to classes, stopped studying, and blew it. Kate was small and tough and fearless and independent. It was typical that when they chose which characters they would be, Kate had made herself Glacia the Fighter. Jay Jay had been Freelik the Frenetic of Glossamir, a Sprite, with his flighty but wily ways, the scamp, the trickster. But secretly Jay Jay knew that he and Kate were just the same. For under that armor she wore for the world, he had seen what no one else had been able to see: seen it and loved it and loved her for it— her frightened, vulnerable, wildly beating heart.

“A half day’s walk from a small town there is a wasteland of gnarled hills, covered with withered trees and dried grass. Beneath these hills is the entrance to the forbidden caves of the Jinnorak. As long as anyone can remember, no one has entered these caves, and it is rumored that within them lives a mutated people, once human, now changed from generations in the foul depths to creatures unrecognizable and vicious. But perhaps that is just a rumor. But it is also known that there are wondrous things within, for those brave and clever enough to take them. Shall you enter?” Kate felt herself entering the landscape of the game now, and her heart began to pound. It was dangerous to light her lantern in case there was a monster in the room who would then be able to see them and attack them. But darkness frightened her more. Darkness was one of the most terrible things she knew, with the sound of breathing; the thing that had happened that night . . . but she wouldn’t think about it now. Now there was only the game, where she would take revenge and kill, and conquer. There was writing on the doors; Daniel rolled an 8. “Pardieu will be able to decipher the language, but the message will be garbled.” Kate said, “If it’s running water behind one of these doors it might be magic water and we don’t want to let it out. “She threw the dice; a 12. “You can open one of them,” Daniel said.

They were only dimly aware of how much the game had taken over their lives already. All they knew was that nothing else, not even this special party with its atmosphere of affection and luxury and celebration, was as real to them as the game. And each of them felt, in some secret, guilty way, that they wanted to get the party over with so they could go into Daniel’s room and enter their world. “You have found the talking sword of Lothia,” Daniel said. He held the dice in his hand and looked at the three eager faces of Glacia, Freelik, and Pardieu. The dice he held were both chance and power. As he surveyed the underground perils he had laid out so carefully, he wondered whether all of these adventurers would still be alive at the end of this night. He didn’t want them to die. He was as excited as they were as they fought their way deeper and deeper into the maze, winning battles with strength and wits, amassing plunder. He knew he had to be objective in order to be an effective M.C., but he wanted them to find the treasure. It didn’t belong to him–it belonged to the evil king of the Jinnorak. “You have found tht walking sword of Lothia,” Daniel declared. Glacia grasped the talking sword and gazed into its polished surface. The light of her lantern glanced off it, gold and silver, and her heart turned over with fear. But this was her sword, no one else’s, and it would obey her commands. It would kill her enemies and it would speak to her of secrets none of them yet knew. “What lies beyond that door?” she demanded. “Wait,” Pardieu said. “Talking swords have been known to tell lies. How do we know this is a truthful sword? We must test it.”

Long before she was Kate’s mother, Meg Porter had grown up as a perfect child of the Fifties. She fervently believed every movie she’d ever seen, and when life did not turn out like the movies she never questioned the movies; she thought something was wrong with life. She was a cheerleader in college, leaping around with pom-poms, and she was also an honors student. She was a mischief-maker who never did anything really bad, so she didn’t get in trouble. People thought she was cute. When she was at college her friends used to say: “I have to get married before all the good ones are taken.” Surrounded by the “good ones,” popular and secure, Meg waited for her own special Mr. Right. She knew when he came along she’d know it immediately, just like in the movies.Mr. Right was Alan Finch. She found his name romantic and English. He was a veteran, a former lieutenant. They were always lieutenants in the movies. He even looked like an actor; the nice one who got the girl at the end. He was four years older than she was and seemed experienced and sophisticated. She met him on a blind date in Senior year, and they were married right after she graduated. She pictured the two of them growing old together. by the time he told her they had already grown old together she was shocked. What did he want her to be? He said he was bored, sad, disappointed. She had never been bored. How could he be disappointed when they had everything they’d dreamed about? He tossed her and the children away as if they were biodegradable.

On the commuter train to New York from a suburb not far from where Robbie and his family lived, a man named James Herman looked at Robbie’s picture in the newspaper and his jaw tightened in anger. He felt a little fear too, and a great sense of irony. His shoulder still hurt from where he had been stabbed, and even though the stitches were out there was an ugly fresh red scar. He was lucky he hadn’t been killed. It was hard to tell from a newspaper photo, and it had been a while, but he was positive this “nice” Robbie Wheeling was the hustler who’d tried to kill him the night he’d been cruising. No wonder the kid wouldn’t talk about where he’d been and what he’d been doing. Wouldn’t that be a shock for the parents! James Herman sighed and tried to relax. Life was shit, and there wasn’t much left you could believe in. He had two kids of his own, teenagers, and he hoped he was bringing them up well. He had a responsible, well-paying job in a big company, a bright wife, a comfortable home complete with swimming pool. There was also a dark side to his nature— the compulsion to seek out young men in degrading places for sex–but no one knew. No one ever would. He didn’t know what had turned him into the kind of man he was: a respectable, well-meaning citizen with one fatal flaw. He didn’t know what had turned that privileged college student into a knife-wielding junkie. He worried about his own children. He worried about the whole damn world.

The post Episode 204: Mazes & Monsters appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.

Episode 100 – Satan Bowl (and Black Mass!)

Black Mass Appeal — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 10:17:20 +0000

The devil has many names and many faces, but which one truly inspires our lack of faith? We’re pitting standout Satans head-to-head and horn-to-horn in our playoff-style Satan Bowl to crown the most enlightened Prince of Darkness. Plus, to celebrate our sin-tennial, we open the show with a complete Black Mass!

SHOW LINKS

GET IN TOUCH WITH BLACK MASS APPEAL

SATANIC BAY AREA

Website
Facebook
Twitter (as @SatanicSF)
Instagram
Sign up for Satanic Bay Area’s newsletter
On TikTok as DailyBaphirmations
Coffee Hour is the third Thursday of every month from 6 – 8 pm at Wicked Grounds in San Francisco!

The post Episode 100 – Satan Bowl (and Black Mass!) appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.

Episode 99 – Satanists With Disabilities

Black Mass Appeal — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 07:01:27 +0000

When religion intersects with disability, most religions fall short, so we’re examining how Modern Satanists can make our religious spaces more welcoming for everyone.

SHOW LINKS

GET IN TOUCH WITH BLACK MASS APPEAL

SATANIC BAY AREA

Website
Facebook
Twitter (as @SatanicSF)
Instagram
Sign up for Satanic Bay Area’s newsletter
On TikTok as DailyBaphirmations
Coffee Hour is the third Thursday of every month from 6 – 8 pm at Wicked Grounds in San Francisco!

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Simone 0:04
Welcome to Black Mass Appeal, a podcast that brings modern Satanism to the masses. Today on Black Mass Appeal: when religion intersects with disability, most religions fall short, so we’re examining how modern Satanists can make our religious spaces more welcoming for everyone. Also, Satanic Bay Area is ‘Conjuring’ our latest field trip. And in the news, hoaxsters are “Kerry-ing” on with some suspicious photos. Joining me today, I’ve got Daniel.

Daniel 0:36
Hey, my name is Daniel. I’m an organizer for Satanic Bay Area and I’m a member of the Satanic Temple, and tonight’s show is going to be so PC, it could actually be fatal to members of the alt-right. It’ll be like the ending of Mars Attacks; it’s actually going to be a wild out there.

Simone 0:50
Heads exploding since we’re actually loving and including everybody. Love to see it. Also joining me is Tabitha.

Tabitha 0:59
Hey, this is Tabitha. I’m an administrator for Satanic Bay Area, and I am really looking forward to this episode and kind of deep diving into it. I think it’s gonna be really important.

Simone 1:09
And joining us later on in the show is going to be Lily, TST and SBA member. And until then, you’ve got me. My name is Simone. I’m an administrator for Satanic Bay Area, and I too have been looking forward to this one. This one has been too long in coming, so I’m glad we’re, we’re doing it now. All right, well, Black Mass Appeal is a product of Satanic Bay Area, and it is not associated with any other Satanic groups. This is a podcast for Satanists to discuss modern Satanism, its history, left-leaning political activism, and how Satanism relates to current events and pop culture. Or, for people who want to learn more about modern Satanism, whether you’re a newbie or already involved in Satanic groups. And speaking of Satanic groups, what has Satanic Bay Area been up to?

Daniel 1:59
Uh, quick show of hands, anybody out there seen The Conjuring?

Simone 2:03
I saw the first one, yes.

Daniel 2:04
I- Oh! You didn’t catch The Conjuring 2, so you’re going to be deprived of critical plot points.

Simone 2:10
I know!

Daniel 2:11
We-

Tabitha 2:11
Woof. *chuckles*

Simone 2:11
I’m just I’m gonna have to read the Wikipedia. Well, I mean- let’s tell the people what we’re doing before we get into how I’m behind in my movie series.

Daniel 2:19
Well, you know, of course, movie theaters have actually been open in the Bay Area for some time now, but, for obvious reasons, not a lot of people have been going to the movies. One way that they have been trying to entice folks back and also create slightly more COVID-safe environments is by offering new private screenings at a fairly competitive rate, actually. And so, with the news in mind that there is yet another Conjuring movie coming out with a, perhaps unfortunate Satanic Panic theme running through this one, we have set up a private- I- it’s not a Satanists-only screening, because I know a couple of the people who are coming along or not Satanists, but it is a Satanist-centric private screening that we have arranged.

Simone 3:01
Well, I mean. It’s SBA and friends.

Daniel 3:04
Yes, exactly. Satan and friends. In just a couple of days now, down at- we’re actually seeing this at a theater in San Bruno, simply because only so many theaters offered private screenings of this movie and that was the closest one. San Bruno is- what would you call that? Is that a suburb of San Francisco? Or is that?

Simone 3:22
Yeah, it’s a, you know, city on the peninsula. Halfway between-

Tabitha 3:26
I think it’s a- I think it’s a suburb of San Mateo. *chuckles*

Daniel 3:32
Quite possibly.

Simone 3:33
Yeah.

Daniel 3:33
In any case, so we have got a limited number of seats. I think they’re all full at this point. We are going to troupe down there. We’re going to enjoy the movie, and since it is just us in the theater, we’re going to tell the movie exactly what we think of it. And, having seen the trailer- actually Tabitha and I saw the trailer over on Count Jackula’s stream for the very first time when we were chatting with him. This-

Tabitha 3:55
May I say- wait. May I say? Oof. *laughter*

Daniel 3:57
Yeah, this one looks like a doozy, folks, so- I haven’t seen it yet. I actually know one or two of our guests here have seen it already, so maybe they’re taking a hit for the team by showing up for a second go-round. But, I don’t know, how’s everybody else? Everybody else seems like this is- looking forward to the outing.

Simone 4:14
Yeah, you know, I was not interested in seeing this movie. This is, this is a James Wan joint, right?

Daniel 4:22
I know he produces all of these movies. I don’t know if he directed this one himself.

Simone 4:26
Okay. Well, I actually- I don’t care for any of his films. Sorry. I mean, the first Saw was fine; Sinister was okay. But typically, I don’t really like them all that much. And I was totally going to pass this one up until Daniel had this idea of doing it as a group, and then I’m like, ‘Oh, this is going to be so much fun because we are going to totally MST3k/Rifftrax the shit out of this and just go full-‘ I can’t imagine what the projection and the theater ushers are going to imagine when a group of 20 people looking how we pretty much look, screaming ‘Hail Satan’ back at the movie screen. I’m sure there’s gonna be some Facebook posts of like, ‘you’ll never believe what happened tonight!,’ coming from those people.

Daniel 5:17
Do they do- do we have in-human projectionists these days? I would assume that’s an automated process, but I don’t know. I haven’t worked in a theater since I- seen the inner workings of a theater since high school.

Simone 5:28
I kind of assume someone’s got to be there to push start, but then they probably wander off to another, you know, window to start another movie, but if I’m hearing ‘Hail Satan,’ trickling up from the window into a movie theater, I might poke my head in to see what’s going on.

Tabitha 5:45
Well, I’m extremely excited about this, by the way. I’m also wondering, can we do, like, a quickie pre-movie ritual? Like, do you think that- like, can I get up front and, like, say a few words and lift up the Sigil and shit? Like, can we? Can we? Can we? Can we? Can we?

Simone 6:04
No one’s-

Daniel 6:04
I was thinking about that-

Simone 6:06
I was gonna say no one’s stopping ya. *Daniel chuckles while Tabitha squees* Least of all us, so.

Tabitha 6:10
Ughhhh, I’m so excited. That’s gonna be so cool.

Daniel 6:13
For the record. I liked the first Conjuring movie, although I thought it was weaker than some of the other James Wan-produced haunted house movies that have come out in the previous years. Simone, you probably don’t have to see Conjuring 2, because it’s the same story as Ghostwatch, which I know very well you’ve seen.

Simone 6:26
*sing-song voice* I love Ghostwatch! I showed it to my boyfriend for the first time just, like, a month ago and it’s, it’s so much fun, and, of course, the story around it is even better. Still pretty hard to find; we had to have somebody acquire it for us.

Daniel 6:42
What did he think? Was- so, so is it still- I know, that movie, that’s a TV special, technically, is what it is, has a reputation as one that, kind of did a number on a lot of people, especially kids, when they saw that first aired on what? The BBC, I think, in the ’90s? I’ve- I’ve seen it, but it’s been some years. Is it actually- is that- does it live up to its reputation in terms of the atmosphere?

Simone 7:04
Well, for folks who don’t know, it’s a sort of a mockumentary BBC production, that is supposed to be a news crew going to the house of someone who is possessed and creepy things happen. And there’s a very strong’ War of the Worlds’ radio play influence to it, and that also was, sort of, the reaction, if you know what I’m referencing. So, you know, if this was coming out brand new, and you were seeing it in a movie theater, I think it would probably lose a lot of the atmosphere, I think, because it’s meant to be watched on TV. It used real BBC presenters, It was like, not- they didn’t give the game away ahead of time that it was not real, so, I think, maybe standing on its own outside of that whole backstory, it’s, it’s, you know, pretty- it’s fine, but knowing the effect it had, and the kind of place in horror history that it has, I think you can really see that value.

Daniel 8:08
Tabitha, you ever see Ghostwatch? I don’t think we’ve ever watched it.

Tabitha 8:11
I don’t think so? By the description, it doesn’t sound, like, familiar enough to be like, ‘oh, yes, I’ve seen it,’ so I must not have.

Daniel 8:19
Well, in any case, I don’t think this new Conjuring movie is going to quite rise to those levels no matter what, but I still strongly suspect we will have a good time, one way or the other.

Simone 8:29
Real quick. I want to correct something I said a minute ago, because I attributed Sinister to James Wan, and I think it’s actually Insidious that I was thinking of, which I *hated,* unfortunately. Sinister I liked fine.

Daniel 8:43
Sinister, I thought, was good. I think that is another Wan-produced movie, but Scott Derrickson did Sinister. Same-

Simone 8:51
Yeah.

Daniel 8:52
Same director who did The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a movie that will come up during the main topic, perhaps unexpectedly.

Simone 8:57
Indeed.

Daniel 8:58
In any case, like I said, Satanist-centric screening, couple days, going to be a good time. Hopefully, it’s a hit and we get to do this again, but we will see.

Simone 9:06
Yayy! I love talking about movies!

Tabitha 9:08
I just like- I’m really excited to just have, like, Satanists, and their friends, in a theater, like, and that just be it. Like, ahahah- can we buy a movie theater and do this all the time?! *laughs*

Simone 9:21
Actually, I don’t see why not.

Tabitha 9:23
Yess! *laughter*

Daniel 9:24
I also think us not being able to have- us only very recently having been able to gather once again for any kind of group festivities, this seems like a good cathartic experience. Feels like a good experience to get a few things off our chest. I also know a few people will be joining us for the first time; this seems like an easy introduction to the Satan-ing, if you have never partaken before, so that’ll be nice to see some new faces as well.

Simone 9:25
Yeah, and something I like to, you know, sort of stress when people are asking about what kind of events can I have with my Satanic group, my local Satanic community? I really advocate for having a variety of events. Not everything has to be a ritual; not everything has to be serious. Have a casual get-together. You know, something sort of in between a coffee hour and something like a field trip or other, sort of, get-together. Make them low barrier to entry, make them, you know, not too much of a time or money commitment. Just, you know- a movie is, is perfect. So if you’re looking for ideas for stuff to do, make sure that you’re having a variety of things, from casual to more formal, you know, fun or serious. Just have a little bit of something for everyone.

Daniel 10:38
Speaking of variety, I will say, I sometimes feel a little bit for those Satanists who don’t like horror movies because there are those people, but this is something that’s just sort of, like, part of Satanist culture, it seems like, which makes sense because most movies that deal with these themes are horror films, for obvious reasons. I’ve said ‘for obvious reasons,’ I think three times so far in the last 20 minutes that we’ve been recording. I’m going to run through my whole quota before the show is over. Nevertheless, I do know that there are some folks that that’s not quite their forte, and so, we’re gonna have to try to brainstorm a wider variety of films for some future events, I think.

Simone 11:15
Alright, well, after we watch the movie, we can come back and give you a review. Until then, we have a different kind of review; our listener reviews. So, we’ve got a couple new reviews to read. And this one comes from Kingston who says, “Am I a Satanist? This podcast is a mix of everything I love about discovering new things. Bingeable, educational, and funny as hell. I feel like if I knew Daniel, Tabitha, and Simone in real life, I would do everything I could to weasel my way into being their IRL friends. I can’t count how many times I needed people like them in my life, not only because they’re like me, but because they’re great at being themselves and that makes for a kick-ass podcast. Thank you guys for all that you do and all that you’ll continue to do, as always, Ave Satanas.” *Tabitha d’awwws* Thank you, Kingston! And I have to say, we are just as fucking dorky as we appear on this show. *Tabitha laughs* There’s no persona to put on.

Tabitha 12:12
*laughing* Nope!

Simone 12:14
I- maybe I should try and be, like, cooler? And more. I don’t know, Satan-ier than thou?’ But, I just- I don’t have the energy to do any kind of artifice, so this is, this is what you got.

Tabitha 12:31
Yeah.

Daniel 12:31
Also, it’s probably a little late. 99 episodes is *laughter* not the time to suddenly adopt a cool persona.

Simone 12:38
What if I did an accent? Except I’m really bad at those.

Tabitha 12:43
Yeah, why, why don’t we not do that? *laughs*

Simone 12:45
Okay. Alright, alright…

Tabitha 12:47
Yeah, I feel like I’m too much of a goofball to be anyone but myself. Like, I could try, but I’d probably- like, you’d see right through it. *laughs* Oh! I want- because I keep forgetting because I’m a silly, silly woman. I want to shout out to GoatKitty, who came out to San Francisco, and we met up with her in Japantown, Daniel and I did, and we had a very, very good time. This was, like, last month, I think? Daniel?

Daniel 13:13
I think ti was about three weeks ago now, yeah.

Tabitha 13:15
Yeah, and I kept meaning to mention it on the show, ‘cuz we had such a good time, and she’s so cool, so- Hi, GoatKitty! It was good to see you.!

Daniel 13:23
Yeah, it turns out, I had met GoatKitty when she was in town once before a couple of years ago, but this is the first time Tabitha got to say hello to her, and, I guess we should be careful about saying this sort of thing, because ooooh, scary parasocial relationships. But, anytime fans are in town, and we have had the opportunity to say hello and hang out, they’ve been really great interactions, so- of course, I cannot promise that if you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, that we will be able to drop by and see you, but always feel free to drop us a line because like I said, we’ve made a lot of great friends that way and we would like to continue that, that grand Satanic tradition in the future, if possible. If possible.

Simone 14:00
All right. And our second review comes from Patron Heretic, who says, “Hail from the Lone Pentagram State! Black Mass Appeal is simply what the demon doctor ordered. They have an amazing group of knowledgeable individuals who make learning about Satan fun and easy. They help to keep the Hellfires light, big and bright-” *clapping* doot, doot, doot, deep in the heart of Texas. I know that that’s a song, but we’re Californians that I’m really sorry that I-

Tabitha 14:29
Ooh, I know it! I know it!

Simone 14:30
Oh, Tab! Tab can do it!

Tabitha 14:31
Okay. They keep the Hellfires light, big and bright-

Simone 14:36
*also actually clapping* Clap, clap, clap, clap!

Tabitha 14:37
Deep in the heart of Texas! Yes!

Simone 14:40
Yay! “666 out of five upside-down stars. P.S., I have two drawings I made on Procreate. One is a logo for Satan Club because I didn’t know if y’all had one yet.” We don’t, actually!

Tabitha 14:52
We don’t! Oh my gosh, send it.

Simone 14:54
It’s kind of a big oversight. “-And the other is another logo I made for your consideration. I just wanted to share the love and artistic inspiration y’all give me every show. Sincerely, Brett.” So yes, Satan club, our little cover band. We do have an Instagram account; it is @SatanClubBand. And you might notice that our little, little avatar is completely blank because I just have not had the bandwidth to do anything with it, so-

Daniel 15:21
Excuse me. I’m sorry, *band*-width.

Simone 15:22
*groans* Walked right into that one.

Tabitha 15:25
*groaning* How could you? *chuckles*

Daniel 15:26
How could I not? So for those keeping score at home- by the way, what’s going on in your life? So these were long, lost Apple Podcast reviews, meaning that these came in from- one of these came in from overseas and the other one, our Lone Star Satanist here, was just someone who was unable to leave a review on Apple Podcast because apples made that as difficult as possible, so these ones were rescued from the dustbin by some extra effort on the part of these unfaithful listeners, which we appreciate. There have been some new Apple Podcast reviews coming in, because again, they have not yet made it technically impossible to do that, so we will be continuing to keep track of those. If you are somebody who was able to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, please feel free. If you are not, I think we’re pointing people over to Simone. What’s the other site?

Simone 16:16
It’s Pod Chaser. So go to podchaser.com. You can create an account; it’s free. They bill themselves as the IMDb of podcasts, which is an interesting concept, so you can follow shows, you can follow creators, you could follow guests, and you could leave reviews. So go to podchaser.com, type in Black Mass Appeal, and you’ll find us.

Daniel 16:36
And, as I said, if you’re looking for a place to drop a review and Apple Podcasts is not playing nice with you, that is your go-to. We’ll, we’ll be citing those as well.

Simone 16:44
Alright, well, as far as we know, Patreon plays nice with everyone, and so we have some new Patreon contributors this episode. Now Patreon, of course, is the financial means by which we support the show and some of the works by Satanic Bay Area. So we have some new people to thank. First, we have Louise and Chance, so thank you both super much. And then we’ve got for our Mark of the Beast Club, which are the folks who are contributing $6.66 per month, Dread1457, or one, four, five, seven? Not sure how you’d like to break that down. 1,457. Either way, thank you all for supporting the show!

Tabitha 17:25
Is that Chance that we know or is it a different Chance?

Daniel 17:27
I think that’s another chance.

Tabitha 17:29
Oh. Well, thank you to both of those chances. *laughs* And all of our Patreon supporters! Yay!

Daniel 17:36
You, uh, you like your chances?

Tabitha 17:38
Get out of here. *Daniel cackles* Leave. Leave! Start a new podcast! *laughter*

Daniel 17:41
I, as usual, want to thank all of our Patreon backers, and especially the fact that, you know, we are now getting to the point where, at least in California, we’re coming out of the pandemic and learning to be hopeful about the future again, and it has been particularly heartening during the hard times to know that so many of our backers have stuck with us even through this long and difficult period and also to know from the comments that a lot of people have left that this show has been, in at least a small way, something that has helped people as well, so that is a nice, feel-good sentiment to carry into the coming season and hopefully a much better and brighter year than the one we’re putting behind us. I guess a year and a half at this point, yeesh.

Daniel 17:51
Yeah, we’re coming up on that. And also, though, you know, we know that times have been crazy hard for a lot of people all over the place, and so, you know, if you’re one of our listeners and contributors who had to drop off, that’s- we completely understand. we want you to take care of you first. And so if you’re able to contribute, that’s awesome, and if you’re not, we’re just happy that you listen.

Daniel 18:52
And I did notice the other day, I was just looking at the Patreon and I noticed a longtime listener, who had backed in the past, who is backing us again. That’s always very heartening to see; if you’re one of those people who had to stop for whatever reason, feel free to pop back in any time because we are always happy to see you again. Or if you can’t, that’s fine too. You got to look out for yourself. Thanks very much for supporting the show in all the other ways you do. Speaking of which, of course, you just get our thanks when you back the show, you also get some special benefits. For example, we can- not yet but soon, we will have another Patreon backer poll where our unfaithful listeners themselves get to decide what some future Black Mass Appeal episodes are going to be about. In fact, some of our favorite episodes in the past have been those ones that listeners selected for themselves, including most recently the, the, far and away, the most popular option on the most recent show was back Episode 92, the Highgate Cemetery Vampire, which everybody seemed to have a really good time with that one, so the listeners have good taste apparently. Also, when you’re a Patreon backer, you get access to our special bonus show, Conspiracy Weary, where I continue to introduce listeners to some of the strangest corners of the internet and the, let’s call them, very colorful things that they believe, and I always want to preview upcoming ones here, but the problem is, I changed my mind so frequently about what I’m going to talk about, that it never really pans out. But I think this one, I think this one I can nail down. Say Tabitha, have you ever wondered if there’s any conspiracy theory that I actually take seriously myself?

Tabitha 20:22
Mmm, no. Should I?

Daniel 20:28
Well, we were-

Tabitha 20:29
Oh, now I am!

Daniel 20:30
*laughing* Well, we were just talking about one five days ago, so I assumed-

Tabitha 20:34
You would, you expect me to remember five days ago? Who are you? *laughter*

Simone 20:38
In this economy?! *Tabitha cackles*

Daniel 20:41
You’re actually quite generous to put up with and pay attention to even half of the things I say, so that’s fair. Nevertheless, if anybody is curious, I will tell you, it’s none of the ones you’re thinking of and it is a really weird one, but I do have a good reason- Or at least I think it’s a good reason. So if you are not yet a backer, and you’ve been looking for an opportunity to be one, consider heading on over to Patreon and checking out upcoming Conspiracy Weary for that very, very personal reveal.

Simone 21:11
Now, Daniel, I’ve been wondering, where do you get these? Just these, these conspiracy theories? Like, I lurk on some weird parts of the internet, but you go deeper.

Daniel 21:22
Well, you know what it is, as we talked about on the conspiracy shows that we did- it’s been a while since we did one of those, which is one of the reasons why I thought Conspiracy Weary was a cute idea for the backers, but it’s- a lot of the time, I would listen to this because I sincerely find a lot of these channels and these people entertaining. Now, unfortunately, conspiracy YouTube is less funny than it used to be because, it’s taken- grim times have come to, *laughs* have come to Cloud Kookooland, unfortunately, for various political timings[?]. Not that these people weren’t always, didn’t always have horrifying personal politics, but they would often manifest in ways that were just stranger and livelier, for lack of a better word. Now, unfortunately, ever since QAnon, kind of, sucked all the oxygen out of every other conspiracy sphere, that’s pretty much all it’s going on there, and that one is just not entertaining. That one is just scary in very distracting ways. So, mostly for material for this show, I have been going back to ‘greatest hits of conspiracy YouTube past’ and looking up just the weirdest shit that came up. Sometimes, it’s topical, for example, which just did a UFO-themed one because that’s in the legitimate news because of the Congressional report that I think just came out a couple of days ago, and I guess couldn’t have had anything terribly interesting in it because I did not pick up the news and see blaring headlines about aliens, as I would imagine one would.

Simone 22:48
You know, that’s, that’s part of our service to you. Daniel goes into these weird rabbit holes on the internet, so you don’t have to.

Tabitha 22:56
You’re welcome. *Simone chuckles*

Simone 22:58
All right, well, we’re about to go down another weird rabbit hole with the news, so let’s go ahead we’ll take a break and we’ll be back with that news.

Black Mass Appeal 23:21
*interlude music*

NEWS

Tabitha 23:21
*old-timey breaking news doots*

Simone 23:23
And those doots mean- wait, what do they mean?

Tabitha 23:29
Is it, is it the news?

Simone 23:30
It’s, it’s the news! It’s the news. Okay!

Tabitha 23:32
Oh! Okay!

Simone 23:31
Okay. All right. Good.

Tabitha 23:32
Whoo!

Simone 23:33
Whoo! I almost forgot.

Tabitha 23:35
*fake sighs* You scared me.

Simone 23:36
It’s been a, it’s been a long day. *Tabitha chuckles* Alright, so today we are reading from Reuters Fact Check. “Fact Check- Old altered photo showing John Kerry with Church of Satan founder Resurfaces.” Hmm, can you tell already whether or not this is going to be real? Let’s get into it. “A newspaper clipping with a photograph of US special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry and Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey has been fabricated. No such article was published by the San Francisco Chronicle and the photograph has been altered to show the pair together. The caption beneath the photo of the pair reads: PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF: Anton LaVey, high priest of the Church of Satan, meets with the noted attorney John Kerry.” *sighs* They always got to go to that Rolling Stones reference, man. “Comments on the posts include ‘Doesn’t surprise me…birds of a feather all batting for the same team…team Satan. Thanks for sharing!!'” That’s a lot of mixed metaphors there. Anyway. “‘Not surprised,’ and, ‘He should be tried for treason and appropriately sentenced.'” I wasn’t, I wasn’t aware that Anton LaVey was an envoy from a foreign country, but there you are. *Tabitha chuckles* “The newspaper article shown in the post appears to be from the San Francisco Chronicle and published on ‘Sunday, July 17.’ Although the year is obscured, a closer look reveals that it was in the ’80s. Kerry is referred to as a ‘congressman’ in the article. No such article about Kerry and LaVey exists in the San Francisco Chronicle’s archives…The photograph in the claim is a [flipped] version of the original, which shows Anton LaVey with *snarky tone* Marilyn Manson, visible in a Rolling Stone article.” No matter how you feel about John Kerry, Manson fucking sucks.

Tabitha 25:23
Yup.

Simone 25:23
“A fact check done by Snopes in 2003 determined that the image of Kerry was taken from a photo of him meeting with clown Rami Salami in 1998. The photo was also shared by Salami on his Facebook page in 2011.” *Tabitha giggles*

Tabitha 25:35
*giggles* Say that name again for me.

Simone 25:44
Rami Salami. *Tabitha still giggling*

Tabitha 25:48
Wouldn’t it be great if his name was actually, like, Ramie Salamie. *giggles*

Simone 25:52
You know, there is a, a television producer- I believe he’s the producer- on The West Wing and his name is, I am not kidding, Thomas Schlamme [pronounced ‘Shlammie’]. He goes by Tommy.

Tabitha 26:05
No, he doesn’t. *giggling*

Simone 26:06
His name is Tommy [Shlammie]. *Tabitha is about to pee herself giggling* That’s a real person, as apparently is Rami Salami, so…

Daniel 26:13
What, what I want to know is, does this mean there’s a mirror universe version of this fake photo that is Rami Salami meeting Marilyn Manson? Because if anybody is sitting on that, please fire it our way.

Simone 26:26
Way more appropriate; they’re both fucking clowns. So.

Daniel 26:29
I teed that one out just for you.

Simone 26:31
*in a fake sweet voice* Thank you. *quietly* He sucks. *louder* Anyway. You know, it just it, I would love to- and I’ve actually kind of kicked this idea around- I know other people are doing this work, but I feel like maybe more people need to be doing the work of trying to teach media literacy to people to- how to read the internet. Especially, maybe, some of our Boomer ‘relations.’ How to look at things critically; how to do a Google reverse image search; how to, you know, just question where something is coming from. Check the date. Check who wrote it. Check who posted it. Just- I see all this crazy stuff on the internet and the comments below is just people just swallowing it wholesale, and I’m not gonna go, you know, so far the other direction that I question every single thing and don’t believe it when reputable sources have provable facts and, you know, start going in the total other direction, like, you know, some of the people that Daniel covers on Conspiracy Weary. There’s, kind of, kind of, got to be a healthy balance thereof, like, recognizing reputable sources and then recognizing a ridiculously photoshopped image that’s being passed around on Facebook.

Daniel 27:49
I was gonna say, you don’t have to be *that* media savvy to figure out that this photo was not legit. Just, just look at it. It’s, it’s, it might as well have like a big red Photoshop stamp right in the middle of it.

Tabitha 28:05
Yeah, yeah. I can tell by the pixels. *chuckling*

Daniel 28:07
Yeah. Like, like, they’re, they’re not looking in the same direction is probably a big giveaway. Like, as people often do when they pose for photos, they’re usually both looking at the camera, so this is set up as if it’s, one of them looks as if he’s in a candid photo, and the other one looks as if he’s posing. Now, of course, we know Anton LaVey was posing for most of his life, but nevertheless-

Tabitha 28:30
Heyyyyy!

Simone 28:31
Whomp, whomp! *Tabitha chuckles*

Daniel 28:29
I had trouble, like, yeah. There’s, there’s no excuse, no excuse for you to be taken in by this.

Tabitha 28:32
I think- yeah, especially since if you really look at the picture- Kerry is kind of blurry?

Simone 28:44
Yeah.

Tabitha 28:45
And it, like, even if, it- but it’s not in-motion blur. Like, there’s no way to account for the fact that he is *obviously* in another photo of him moving slightly.

Simone 28:56
And then, of course, the text below it. You can see a tiny piece of the article that talks about, ‘oh, Kerry’s meeting with LaVey,’ or whatever. I mean, that’s- *signs* It looks- like, the text looks pretty good, I have to say, but, I mean, just, just an ounce of credulity, people! The paper- the photograph of this supposed newspaper, the full- the corner of the top right, the edge of the paper has been very neatly folded down into, kind of, a little dog ear triangle that very *conveniently* obscures the year on this supposed article, and I just- at least, you know, Facebook sucks, but if you click on to this post, it actually obscures the photo with kind of a dark cast over it with a button in the middle that says, “this photo has been altered.” So, *sighs* they’re trying, I guess.

Daniel 30:00
I also have, I have so many other questions about this. For example, if you’re faking a photo from Rolling Stone, why don’t you make it look like a fake Rolling Stone photo? Now, [unitelligible] think Rolling Stone would not be writing about John Kerry, which, first of all, is not true. Second of all, Rolling Stone also just covered LaVey at various times in his life, including a great Lawrence Wright profile from 1991 that LaVey himself hated, and was complaining about in other magazines years later. So, that would have been a perfectly plausible image to appear in Rolling Stone, if it had ever happened, depending on what the context of the story is. Also, I find the selection of Kerry kind of odd. I guess, maybe if it was somebody more ‘red meat-y,’ like Pelosi or- Pelosi would make sense because she is from San Francisc- or Joe Biden or something, maybe they would’ve felt that was too obvious, but look at the audience you’re playing to. Nothing is too obvious. *chuckles*

Tabitha 30:53
Yeah.

Daniel 30:53
Kerry, on the other hand, while prominent in US politics for a long time, is not anybody who’s quite as centrally located anymore. I mean, what’s the title that, that they gave for him here? What’s his- special ambassador on climate change?

Simone 31:08
Yyyes.

Daniel 31:08
How many, how many people in the world, including John Kerry, could have told you that was John Kerry’s job right now? *laughter* Very, very strange, creative choices in this hoax. I, I, I want to talk to the manager. *laughs*

Simone 31:19
Yeah, it just reminds me of one of the QAnon photos that was passed around with- Oh, gosh, I think it was Hillary Clinton and Huma, her, her former assistant adviser, and several other folks, and then they’re supposedly in front of a body that they are about to eat, with another body hanging behind them. Now, I took one look at the picture, and I’m like, ‘oh, the body hanging behind them is from Silence of the Lambs.’ That’s the body of the guard that Hannibal Lecter kills while he’s escaping, and then, I did have to look up who the body in the front was and that’s a still from The Cook, the Thief, [His] Wife & [Her] Lover with Helen Mirren, which I have now added to my list. Thank you, conspiracy theories.

Simone 31:20
Also, I think what’s really funny is I’m, kind of, deep-diving into this image. There’s this weird shadow behind Kerry and the reason why it’s there is because Marilyn Manson has black hair that is streaming over that side, so- and instead of just pushing him closer in so we could just not get that weird shadow, they just kind of went with this terrible shadow. Like, come on y’all!

Daniel 32:26
Well, on the topic of incredulity[?], old Anton LaVey did write in his Satanic Bible, that ‘doubt will set you free,’ so maybe we should have that, sort of, media training episode of Black Mass Appeal down the line. Teach people a little bit about how you too can have fun debunking crazy right-wing propaganda from the safety of your own home.

Simone 32:48
You know, that’s actually not a bad idea. Through my work, I’ve gone through a couple of rounds of training about how to critically look at news articles and these more advanced research techniques to figure them out, including, like, looking up addresses on Google Maps and checking to see if, you know, the, the vehicle in the driveway of this house matches the vehicle that’s being mentioned. It’s, it was just super cool, so I’m actually down for that.

Daniel 33:16
Maybe we can build on the Patreon poll, see what people think.

Simone 33:18
Here we go. All right, well. *laughs* That was a long discussion of a very, very, very obviously fake, edited[?] photo. So, let’s go ahead. We’ll take a break, and we’re going to come back with a discussion about our fellow Satanists who are living with disabilities.

Black Mass Appeal 33:42
*interlude music*

MAIN TOPIC

Simone 34:13
Modern Satanism is for all people who want to affirm our worth, even in the face of arbitrary and uncaring prejudices, or at least that’s how it should be. In practice, even the well-intentioned may overlook the needs of our fellow Satanists when they’re a little bit different from our own. Today, we’re joined by our friend, Lily Cassiopeia, for a discussion on how to ‘exorcise’ ableism from our religious spaces and practices. Lily, thanks for joining us on Black Mass Appeal.

Lily 34:42
Thank you so much for having me here.

Simone 34:44
So, Lily, you are a member of TST, you’re a member of SBA, and a disabled veteran, so we are super excited to have you here and to hear more about your lived experience. So could you, for our listeners, Introduce yourself and help us get to know you.

Lily 35:02
Hi, my name’s Lily. My pronouns are they/them, and as you mentioned, I’m a disabled veteran, with both mental health and mobility disabilities. I am in the Sacramento area, and I like to travel around for all of my Satan-ing.

Simone 35:21
And we love to see you when you do Satan-ing thing with us.

Lily 35:24
Thank you.

Simone 35:25
So how did you actually come to Satanism?

Lily 35:29
It actually started as a journey when I was 18 years old and found myself unhoused after my conservative Christian family decided they didn’t want someone like me living in their home, and Satanism, for me, became a way to reclaim my own power. Then when I joined the military, I got sucked into the- go to church, or you’re stuck doing all this other stuff, and get in on all the propaganda and the brainwashing. So atheism led me to Satanism, the second time around, and that was the Satanic Temple. It was someone put in writing all the things that I was already living my life like.

Daniel 36:22
So by the way, as long as we’re introducing Lily, there’s a couple of things that I would like to add. One, folks who have seen the movie Hail Satan- Lily, I don’t think you have any dialogue in that, but you do- there is a shot of you on the beach that I think get, get- I really enjoy because you’re having such a sincere and happy and wonderful moment there and it’s very nice to see that in the film when we watch it. And the other thing I want to mention, I think I’ve told this anecdote on the show before, but listeners might not realize it was you we’re talking about. I met Lily at a Satanist event in San Jose about three and a half years ago now, and we met because you recognized my voice from the podcast, which, at the time, we’d only been doing for a couple of months, so that was my first experience of meeting somebody who listened to the show and that was a big treat for me, and so, I still really value and appreciate that interaction. That meant a lot to me at the time, and still does.

Lily 37:14
Aww, thank you.

Daniel 37:16
I also thought it was very endearing that, I think, the very first thing you asked me about the show was, so you and Tabitha a couple? I thought that was- *laughter* It was, evidently, a very pressing issue.

Tabitha 37:28
*laughing* Are we that obvious?

Lily 37:30
Yes. Yes. *Daniel and Lily laugh*

Daniel 37:34
So there we have it.

Lily 37:35
And I’m silly, so I’m like, wait a minute. Am I picking up on- or is it my brain?

Simone 37:41
No, you’re picking up what they’re putting down.

Lily 37:44
And I think I actually was in my wheelchair the first time we met, Daniel, or was I using my cane that time?

Daniel 37:52
I think you were using the cane, and I remember that because of a different anecdote that we’ll probably get to in a little bit. *chuckling* But there was a specific reason why I know.

Lily 38:00
Oh, goodness.

Daniel 38:01
Not to make you nervous.

Simone 38:04
Well, let’s just talk a minute about why we are doing this show. You know, we talk about how Satanism is inclusive, and is, is, kind of, counter to all these other mainstream religions that, you know, make a habit of excluding people, especially excluding people for things that they’re born with, or that are outside of their control, and when we talk about making Satanism available for everyone, we do need to truly mean everyone, and so we want to, you know, learn more about people’s lived experiences as they’re living with disability, and learn more about how we can be better allies and more inclusive, and things, like, you know, having, having our Satanic rituals, for example.

Lily 38:48
And on a personal note, SBA was really great when I did reach out, that I could not go to rituals due to access issues, and making necessary accommodations that may have not been thought about before, but really jumping to make those accommodations to make sure that everyone could be present, and participate in the way that they choose.

Simone 39:17
Yeah.

Daniel 39:17
Well, that brings me to what I was referencing a second ago is, I remember, right after we met, I invited you- we were having Anti-christ-mass in Oakland that year, and I- it was just, like, the following week, and so I invited you over there, but what we came to realize, at almost the last minute, was that you wouldn’t be able to attend because [it’s] in an apartment on the second floor and there was no elevator, and, in hindsight, I think to myself, ‘jeez, that was really inconsiderate of me. Why did I not realize that they wouldn’t be able to make it up those steps? And it was because, at the time, you had not, I had not seen you using the wheelchair. I had seen using the cane, but I just did not realize that it, you would have that much trouble with an obstacle like that, and I didn’t think to ask, which was actually extremely inconsiderate of me as well, and so, that was a very important lesson and I apologized at the time, and you were really, really nice and considerate about it, too, and since then, we have always tried to be more careful to at least take these things into consideration, so that was a really, really important lesson, and, again, one I appreciate and I am sorry,

Lily 39:18
Well, and that’s the thing, that it’s not just you, it’s not just this organization. It’s not just this one time. Being a disabled person, it’s living in a world that’s not built for you. I mean, we’ve heard that from other oppressed groups as well, but this is an able-bodied world and it’s not made for the vast number of disabilities that there are, not just mobility disabilities.

Simone 40:55
Absolutely. All right, well, Daniel’s put together some really amazing research here, so let’s get into it. First up, we have facts about disability from the World Health Organization. Tab, you want to take this one?

Tabitha 41:07
I sure will. “Disability is a human rights issue; people are disabled by society, not just by their bodies. These barriers can be overcome if governments, nongovernmental organizations, professionals and people with disabilities and their families work together. Over 1 billion people live with some form of disability, about 15% of the world’s population. Between 110 and 190 million adults have significant difficulties functioning. Rates of disability are increasing due to population aging, and a global increase in chronic health conditions. Half of disabled people cannot afford health care, compared to a third of non-disabled people. Disabled people are more than four times more likely to be treated badly and three times more likely to be denied care. In Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, the employment rate for people with disabilities was slightly over half that for people without disabilities. Disabling barriers can be overcome. Governments can promote access to mainstream services, invest in programs for people with disabilities, adopt a national strategy and plan for action, improve staff education and training, provide adequate funding, increase public awareness, strengthen research and data collection, and ensure the involvement of people with disabilities in policies and programs.”

Simone 42:36
And so, what struck me here in this passage is the numbers. There are so many people who live with disabilities, and they are folks who, perhaps they are visible, perhaps they are invisible, but there may be people that you know, who are living with a disability, and you may not know it, and so that’s one of the reasons why it’s so important to think inclusively because you never know, you never know what, being exclusive, who that might effect, you know, and it could be somebody that you care about.

Tabitha 43:10
Well, it doesn’t even have to just be people that you care about. Like-

Simone 43:14
Oh, for sure.

Tabitha 43:15
Yeah, I’m just, you know-

Simone 43:16
But my point is, is that, you know, it effects so many people and you may not realize the ramifications of your actions, which is why we have to, kind of, retrain our brains to think in this inclusive way.

Tabitha 43:29
Right, agreed.

Daniel 43:31
Another point that seems really important, especially at the nonce, and Lily, I think I have heard you bring this up before in the past, please correct me if I’m wrong, is the fact that disability is a potentially floating variable. People who are able-bodied right now may not be for their entire lives. In fact, the older we all get, the more likely it is that we are going to join this particular population, and so if we take a blase attitude or are dismissive of these issues now because we feel like they are not relevant to us personally, we’re going to find out that we’re wrong sooner or later. Very likely, I think, so that is something- Not that, that what effects us is the only thing that we should be worrying about, but nevertheless, it does seem like it is, at least, pressing to consider that fact, that these are not fixed and eternal values.

Lily 44:19
Absolutely. And then, another thing that really hit me is that half of disabled people cannot afford health care, and this really strikes me with my privilege as a 100% disabled veteran, all of my medical care is taken care of by the VA. I’m, you know, years ago, when I got out and first got enrolled in the VA, I may have had to yell and scream at them to first get into their system, and now that I’m there, I get good care, and that is my privilege as a disabled person, with the veteran mystique that we have in this country and the way we view disabled veterans versus otherwise disabled folks.

Daniel 45:04
There was also, I think, and again, you can certainly correct me if I’m wrong, because this is your lived experience. You’re right, of course, to point out that being a veteran affords you certain privileges. There are also other contexts in which being a veteran is something that is exploited or dismissed or overlooked, and so, there are a lot of nuances when we use words like that. Sometimes, privilege- the same thing that makes you privileged in one set of circumstances can itself be a disqualifier in others and, you know, am I right about that?

Lily 45:35
I agree, yes.

Simone 45:38
Okay, so our next piece that we want to get to here is the meaning of ableism from Forbes. Lily, would you like to take this one?

Lily 45:46
In The Meaning of Ableism by Andrew Pullrang: “Ableism is any statement or behavior directed at a disabled person that denigrates or assumes of lesser status for the person because of their disability, or social habits, practices, regulations, laws, and institutions that operate under the assumption that disabled people are inherently less capable overall, less valuable in society, and/or should have less personal autonomy than is ordinarily granted to people of the same age. Personal ableism manifests in hundreds of ways, and can include: being nervous, clumsy and awkward around people in wheelchairs; being disgusted by people whose bodies appear different or ‘deformed;’ avoiding talking to disabled people in order to avoid some kind of feared embarrassment; placing different disabilities in a hierarchy of ‘severity’ or relative value. A prime example of this is the widely held belief, even among disabled people, that physical disability isn’t so bad, because at least there’s ‘nothing wrong with your mind;’ resenting disabled people for advantages or privileges you think they have as a group. This is one of the main flip sides of condescension and sentimentality towards disabled people.

Simone 47:20
And so, absolutely. A lot of this is really ingrained into our society and that we’ve personally internalized and whether or not we, we realize it, and so, that’s why it’s so important to really pick at this, so that we can start to unlearn this ableism that’s within ourselves, and then, hopefully, expand out and help other people, kind of, get out of that mindset.

Tabitha 47:45
Yeah, it’s really something you have to fight, and it shouldn’t be like that. I mean, it’s something that society has trained into us, but, like, it is something that you really have to think about and just, like, *often* to really try and relearn how to navigate a society that actually makes sense? If that makes- if I’m making sense with my, my sense. *laughter*

Simone 48:11
Yeah, so I feel like a lot of people who are without disability, you know, everyone is kind of inherently self-centered, and you think that your lived experience is, it’s got to be the default, right? It’s got to be the default for everybody. If you don’t have to think about something, it’s not something that needs to be thought of. And that is just not true, as we’ve learned, you know, doing this show and talking to folks.

Lily 48:39
And I would say, even for myself, coming from having been very fit and very active when, even before I was in the military, to joining the military, to then having a body that is mobility-impaired now, I struggle with my own relationship with my body due to my own internalized ableism. I *should* be able to walk and not get my wheelchair out. I *should* be able to do these things, and I’m really just harming myself with all of these constraints, to try to be something that my body is not anymore, or as when I care for my body and the needs that my disabilities have, not just body but mind as well, when I care for those things, I can do and participate so much more.

Simone 49:34
And, what is- something that you said, Lily, really, kind of, caught my attention in terms of relating this topic to Satanism. The idea of *should* be able to or, you know, have to be able to, or having these expectations. You know, as Satanists, we are people who defy the expectations all the time. We need to, sort of, free ourselves from these expectations, these, these shoulds, and realize, you know, what, what is. What’s true to ourselves.

Lily 50:07
And that’s where radical acceptance, by being, like, a therapy thing, it feels like a Satanic act. Like it really does feel like a Satanic act.

Simone 50:18
Okay, and so we have one more passage from this Forbes piece. But, you know, real quick, I kind of want to put out a bit of a content warning, since the train’s already left the station, but in some of these passages, there’s going to be discussion of disabled people that’s not in a positive light; that may be derogatory. And it’s to be, you know, for the most part, to be descriptions of the ablest mindset, so, you know, this can be quite hurtful, but I hope that our discussion around it can, sort of, help us push through to, to realize how harmful this, this mindset can be. So, you know, just a, just a bit of warning. So going back to this Meaning of Ableism piece from Forbes. “It’s interesting to note that there seem to be two main schools of ablest belief. One is that disabled people are unfortunate but innocent victims of circumstance who should be loved, cared for, and shielded from harm. The other is that disabled people are naturally inferior, disagreeable, and at the same time beneficiaries of unfair and unjustified generosity and social protection. Neither belief is true. And both beliefs are limiting and poisoned relationships between disabled and non-disabled people, and sometimes between disabled people themselves. Not that many decades ago, physically separating disabled people from society, including from their families, was not seen as a sad side effect, but as an agreed upon social goal to protect disabled people from society, and protect society from disabled people. Much of this traces back to the popularity of eugenics, the idea that humanity as a whole, or a nation specifically, can and should be improved or ‘purified’ by controlling who was allowed to reproduce. The very fact that ableism is so pervasive in society means that it’s hardly surprising that many if not most of us probably harbor ableist beliefs and act in ablest ways now and then. The word ‘ableism’ itself may sound artificial to some, but what it represents is as old as human civilization, and as immediate as every awkward encounter disabled people face every day.”

Tabitha 52:37
This is just- uh, man. That, that is really hard to hear. Just- I like treating people like they’re humans, and it’s, I don’t know-

Simone 52:50
Yeah.

Tabitha 52:50
And I get that, like, they’re, they’re projecting, like, what, how people feel, and I get, I understand, but like, oww! I hate it!

Simone 53:00
And, you know, the word eugenics has reared its very, very ugly head here, and it’s something that not only, I mean- eugenics and these, these supremacies really do poison everything, as this author alluded to. Eugenics has its ties to white supremacy, and to, you know, all these other awful things, and, well. Daniel, you may want to jump in on this, but some of this sounds a little like a certain old Anton’s beliefs?

Tabitha 53:40
Hmm.

Daniel 53:43
You know, I don’t think I can think of any particularly, specifically ablest content, except for that weird ass essay where he talks about how he envies the guy in the wheelchair for not having to walk around. That incident, in hindsight-

Simone 53:55
Oh yeah, that part.

Daniel 53:56
-much more horrifying than even we made it out to be when we did that episode. Although, I think at the time, we were still pretty horrified. Other than that, I can’t think of anything, but I am willing to be surprised and horrified by new sources that have not yet come across our radar.

Simone 54:12
Okay. Well, okay. Backing up and to be fair, I guess I could say that I had more of a read on that then, actually, you know, obvious in the text, and also from interacting with people who, kind of, go in that direction, who have a lot of language about, you know, you know, ‘only the strong will survive,’ and Social Darwinism, and, you know, trying to cast away the weak, and that’s, that’s something that bothered me even upon my first reading of the Satanic Bible. So, yeah, apologies to old Anton for maybe putting words in his mouth, but that was definitely a vibe I was getting from, from his works.

Tabitha 54:59
Don’t Apologize to Stinky Tony, he stinks.

Simone 55:01
Yeah. *laughs*

Daniel 55:03
I have two things to say after reading this essay for the first time. First is that it occurs to me, one way that ableism creeps into society that we may not notice it, and into our language and our assumptions, is this idea that when we talk about meeting the needs of disabled people, we often frame it as this idea as if they need ‘extra’ or ‘special’ assistance or that it’s something extra or special that needs to be done, but if you think about it, these people- everybody’s needs are essentially the same. To say, I would like to be able to enter this building relatively unhindered, that is a need *all* of us have, and it is not ‘special’ for 100% of people to say and expect that. Executing that is different in some people’s cases, but fundamentally, it is the same demand, so I feel like a- perhaps, a useful exercise is to try to start reframing our assumptions about people’s needs to begin with. The other thing, I think that maybe possibly complicates this, and again, I’m not speaking from my own experience here so anybody, Lily, in particular, can tell me if I’m off base, but I think it’s that we very often work off the presumption that disabilities are the same things as disadvantages or problems, and that may be the case, but take a hypothetical- and this is not my hypothetical, this is something that I read when I was very young and stayed with me for a long time. If you were to go to every person in the world who cannot see, every blind person and ask them, would you like to be able to see? You would guess, probably, most people would say yes. Maybe almost all of them, but I don’t think we can assume that all of them would say yes. You may get some surprising answers. Until we ask the questions, we cannot presume that we know the answers, and you can take that one step further and say, you could ask all of those people, would you like it if you had always been able to see? Even more of them might surprise you by saying no because perhaps they feel that that experience has taught them something; maybe there is some experience that they would not have had if this had not been a part of their life; maybe they’ve got reasons that are none of your business, quite frankly. We will not know unless we do that exercise, and so, I think it is a good idea to interrogate those assumptions about how other people live, and how they perceive their own lives, and their own bodies, and the world, and maybe if we practice that, that can also teach the rest of us something. But, I’m finished.

Tabitha 57:35
Don’t interrogate disabled people, though. Please. Please don’t.

Daniel 57:39
Yes. Interrogate your assumptions! *laughter* Don’t literally interrogate others.

Tabitha 57:43
Please don’t. That- no. Never. *Simone chuckles*

Lily 57:47
Although that is very, very normal in this society. Where people come up to you and go, ‘Oh, you’re too young to be disabled! You’re-you, you don’t look like you should be disabled!’ *laughs* Like?

Tabitha 58:01
‘Yeah, what happened? What-‘

Lily 58:02
It’s fucking wild. ‘Oh my goodness-‘

Tabitha 58:03
‘Are you sick?’ Ughhh! *chuckles*

Lily 58:05
‘Oh, I hope you get better!’

Simone 58:06
You look like you should ‘blank’ is such a- mmm. I mean, what do you think a disabled person looks like? *chuckles*

Tabitha 58:14
Have you tried yoga? *lip flapping sound*

Lily 58:17
Screams internally?

Tabitha 58:19
Yeah, sorry. *laughter* That was-

Lily 58:21
Especially with a lot of this, too, with the idea that disabled people need to be fixed as well, and where people will approach them, like, ‘I’ll pray for you to be able to walk again.’ And it’s like, no, I don’t know your prayers.

Simone 58:37
Ooh, no.

Lily 58:38
I need you to walk over there, please. *Simone laughs*

Daniel 58:41
One more thing- I know, I said I was done with that, but no sooner do I finish talking that it occurs to me- I realize it can also sound very presumptuous for me to assume, you know, what somebody else’s potentially surprising answer to a question like that might be, but my point is not- I don’t know if a person would say yes or no. I’m saying we should not assume that we will know what that answer is automatically. That’s all that I’m saying. Again, I don’t know. I don’t know how other people feel about their own experiences. None of us do until we ask. That’s all I’m getting at.

Lily 59:11
And bringing it back to just this Forbes article for just one moment. There is that infantilizing or ‘subhuman,’ and that’s something that is very recurrent, even the more I’ve personally dug into this. In the history of disabled folks, is that either we infantilize them and they just have to be sheltered and the ‘poor, sweet thing,’ or they are less than human.

Simone 59:42
Yeah, something in the Forbes article that I noticed was when the author is trying to, like, show that sort of dichotomy, between, ‘oh, you know, they’re innocent victims of circumstance’ or they are ‘naturally inferior.’ Their first sentence was that they’re innocent victims of circumstance who should be loved, cared for, and shielded from harm, and I’m like, ‘mmm, doesn’t everybody need to be loved?’ Now, as Lily was just saying, not in, in an infantilizing way, so I was just- they’re people too with emotions, and relationships, and connections, and so, yeah, I just thought that was a, kind of, *groans* an awkward way to put it.

Tabitha 1:00:29
Yeah, give them, like, a ‘you tried, sticker. Here you go. *laughter* Well done.

Simone 1:00:34
Well, now, we reached out to a bunch of satanic leaders around the world to try and find out how they are ensuring that their activities as a Satanic community are accessible to everybody, so we’ve got a bunch of testimonials here from all different groups, all around, so Daniel, do you want to get started with the first one?

Daniel 1:00:56
Yeah, sure, we’ll kick this off with- this is what Penemue had to say. Penemue, as a lot of people are listening to, know is the head of the Satanic Temples Ministry Program, and, also, great name, by the way, but he talked about that one back on the satanic pseudonyms, Episode 57, I think. Go back to review that one, really good one. Anyway, excuse me. *clears throat* He said: “One thing that has helped me as an organizer has been to use the Satanic framing of ritual as ‘meaning-making.’ From my perspective, what creates power in a ritual or religious event isn’t saying or doing things in some objective ‘proper’ order, but rather create an experience that builds meaning for me.” I agree with that, by the way. “That means, for example, if I’ve created a ritual in which not everyone can participate- or, in which not everyone can participate in a way that is meaningful for them- then I’ve failed. It’s great to create rituals that engage the body, recognize the carnal nature of the human mind by including movement and body position; however, I have to recognize that not everybody’s body is the same- not everyone’s body moves or functions the same- so if my ritual doesn’t allow for that then I have planned a ritual that excludes a whole swath of people from the experience I was trying to evoke.” And yeah, that is something to consider. Again, you can take an awful lot of things for granted when you’re planning these things and not realize that you’re doing that until you get the additional perspective of somebody with an even slightly different point of view than yours. I’m reminded of a couple of years ago, we did a field trip over to the Thelemic Temple for their Gnostic Mass, which was a nice experience, but they’d- calls for- when they give you the instructions for this, they even point out, they say, it’s, like, ‘not everybody can do these. That’s okay. Do your best.’ But they call for really radically different, difficult poses that even many abled people are going to have pause with. I know I did when we did that, and so, on the one hand-

Simone 1:02:46
Yeah.

Daniel 1:02:46
-I liked the atmosphere that that created, but my second thought, but my immediate reaction was, let’s never do something like this for any number of reasons. *laughter*

Simone 1:02:54
Yeah, I remember that. They asked us to kneel on the floor with our hands, like, our palms pressed together, above our heads, I think it was. Or something similar. And I was, you know, trying to keep up and I’m like, I, I don’t think I can make it. So, I really love the point that when we think about accessibility, we’re thinking, you know, some, the initial thoughts might be, like, literally is the building ADA compliant? Are, you know, the, the facilities accessible? But also, just the actual ritual! No matter where you are, is the ritual itself accessible? You know, what do you have to do to participate? What if someone cannot do the things to participate? Is there an alternate version? Is there a way to modify it so that everyone is still doing the same thing, but it’s something that everyone is capable of? So again, just not just literally, is there, say, a ramp for wheelchair access, but what are you physically doing in the ritual? I think that’s a really great point.

Tabitha 1:04:02
I think there’s also something to be said about making rituals access, accessible to, like mental disabilities, in the sense of some people might not be able to kind of, you know, if we’re all being loud or boisterous, or if there’s something you need to learn that might be difficult, you know, that, there, there are so many facets to this, that I think, realistically, when you’re writing these things, you really need to actually take your audience, not audience, your, your congregation or whatever, whatever you’d like to call it, into account and ask them: What, what will help? What will make things work?

Lily 1:04:40
And this is where it’s really important to have the variety of voices, specifically including a variety of disabled voices, in that planning, so those thoughts and those things come up and they’re brought to the table as ways to, maybe, have that, that quick exit a, you know, quiet space as a decompression away from all the loud areas, just different options out there.

Simone 1:05:10
Alright, Lily, do you want to take this next one from Cain Abaddon?

Lily 1:05:15
Sure. So, “in our orders, we have plenty of neurodivergent and physically impaired folks, so we try our best to accommodate their sensory and access needs and everything, whether that’s gaining access to events (or leaving them quickly if required).” All the snaps. *Lily snaps her fingers* “Or making sure our online meetings are well lit with closer cameras than normal so that hearing-impaired members are able to lip read successfully. We get to consult those members who need additional support so that we can plan with them as we work through our thought processes for new events and collaboration. So things that are always on our checklist are readability, legibility, accessibility, general safety, space for people who might need to pause due to sensory overload. Our communications 101: WHAT do we want to communicate? WHO do we want to reach? WHEN should we communicate it? WHERE (what media/channels) should we communicate it? And HOW should we communicate it?”

Simone 1:06:25
And of course, Cain from the Global Order of Satan in the UK. So, more great points here, you know, more great points. Safety, safety is something to certainly consider; making that quick exit, if necessary, making sure that pathways are clear that, you know, you’re not overcrowding a space, and then also, of course, the point about, you know, sensory overload that some people might be experiencing. You know, a satanic ritual can be pretty intense, and sometimes it can be too much, and you have to, kind of, account for that to do aftercare so that people can, kind of, come down and decompress after holding a ritual. Alright, for our next testimonial, we reached out to our friend, Kate Cobus, from Satanic Norfolk, which I am positive, I’m saying wrong, but Kate referred us over to Nell from Chicago, who is a disability activist, and so she had some really great things to say. “Access is not just physical access, though, that’s a hugely important issue. It’s really important to work with disabled people whenever possible, because you might be setting something up and thinking you have everything accessible, and then you discover a doorstep that a wheelchair can’t get over. Access needs to include all forms of access- auditory, visual, smells, overstimulation, etc- cultural access, digital access (making sure your digital materials are screen-reader friendly and having high contrast for all texts, etc.), contradictory access needs. In general, accessibility requires two points: flexibility and transparency. Outlining all access in any promotional items is critical so that disabled people and people with access needs can easily know what to expect and determine if they are able to participate and if they feel safe enough to reach out or identify barriers that might still prevent their participation. There’s a ton more, but that’s a good starting point.” And that’s, that’s a really, really excellent point: is to make transparent and make obvious, you know, accessibility issues. Now, Lily, thinking back to the story that Daniel told about participating in a ritual and realizing that it wasn’t accessible. If you, like, knew ahead of time if it was just perfectly laid out for you, the access that was available at an event or a venue, would that make you feel more welcomed?

Lily 1:09:04
Absolutely. And this is very, very important in what Nell said here on if they feel safe enough to reach out or identify barriers because you may identify what accessibility issues that you’ve addressed, but there may be more that you have not addressed. And if you ignore accessibility completely, folks- or they don’t have a relationship with you, they may choose not to come forward and just not participate and say, ‘okay, this isn’t for me.’

Tabitha 1:09:43
Also, the ability to make a plan in the sense of, like, okay, here’s what the space looks like, here are your exits and all that kind of stuff. I like that a lot. I need a plan for everything.

Simone 1:09:55
*chuckles* Yeah.

Tabitha 1:09:55
And-

Simone 1:09:56
That’s a good idea in general.

Tabitha 1:09:57
But yeah, you know, I want to know where the exits are and I want to know if there’s all these things, too.

Lily 1:10:03
Same, and that’s a mental health thing on my end, so-

Simone 1:10:06
Totally. Yeah.

Tabitha 1:10:08
I think it might be for me too, but I have no diagnosis and I’m not going to try and pretend like I know what I’m talking about, so. *chuckles*

Simone 1:10:15
Now, I feel like it’s super unfortunate to have to ask, sort of, emotional labor from disabled people in identifying accessibility issues, but you know, as Nell points out, someone who’s able-bodied may be putting together an event, and may be, you know, trying to be inclusive and trying to make sure that it’s accessible, but without having that lived experience, just not knowing what they don’t know, and so, kind of echoing what Lily said, that it’s really important to have the kind of relationships with people in your community where people feel safe saying something. You know, they don’t want to feel like they’re a bother; they don’t want to feel like they’re gonna get shut down. They, we really need to facilitate that kind of open dialogue where it’s like, ‘you know what? You’re right. I’m sorry, I completely blanked on that. Thank you so much.’

Daniel 1:11:14
[Unintelligible] me back to Nell here, I want to point out that Lily is being very considerate, in that we are putting them on the spot with a lot of these questions. We don’t actually expect one person to answer for all disabled people in the world. That is one reason why we tried to get a diversity of perspectives from different organizers, in different places, with different experiences, and, for the record, we don’t actually know whether most of these people are able-bodied or not. That’s sort of the point. Nevertheless, Nell continues. “As for whether religious traditions exacerbate ableism: Good Lord, yes. The moral model of disability in a lot of religious spaces essentially states that disability is the cause of sin or moral failure.” I think, by that, she meant sin or moral failure is the cause of disability, but this is how it was written. “Which leads to a ton of exclusion and shame from religious communities, or isolation and sheer judgment through ‘I’ll pray for you’ types. I’ve had people walk up to me in the middle of the street and asked to pray for ‘god to heal you like he healed me’ and bullshit like that, because I was in a wheelchair, or people responding to my honest answers of ‘how are you’ with ‘I’m in pain,’ by saying, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ which is frankly, patronizing. I was once in the church with a disabled person who was the church leader who shared, thinking I would appreciate it, that he cannot wait to go to heaven so that he can have his ‘healed and perfect body’ and I think about that a lot and it breaks my heart honestly. The belief that an afterlife includes bodies without disability leads to a whole lifetime of wanting to be ‘fixed.’ At least Satanists are asking and not assuming.”That last one is a reference there to our specific query here, and I liked this perspective because I honestly hadn’t thought about that. Again, I think for a lot of people, this idea that, ‘oh, in heaven, everything will be perfect, including you.’ That sounds like a nice sentiment at face value, even if you don’t necessarily believe it, but that then imposes a judgment on the imperfection of your person and your body right now, and of course, the idea that people are marred and incomplete and inadequate is sort of baked into the theology of a lot of these mainstream religions in a way that is, perhaps, deceptively toxic until we stop to think about it. The phrase, ‘a world without disabled people’ is actually incredibly sinister, possibly even terrifying, once we take it out of the assumptions of this church, and put it out into the wider world like that. I’d never given that any thought, but until hearing Nell spell it out for this, like this, I realize, ‘oh, yes, that’s actually quite scary.’

Simone 1:13:33
Yeah, some of my perception of, you know, mainstream religion, Christianity, is, you know, you have this cold, impersonal god who is expecting perfection from you, and if you don’t do it, if you don’t follow these rules, if you don’t act this way, or be this way, then you are going to the burn-y place. Whereas, we’ve talked about this so much before on the show, where Satan is a figure who we used to represent accepting ‘flaws.’ Accepting that we are not perfect. Accepting that we are diverse, that there’s no one way to be, and so, you know, that’s something that was, you know, in the back of my mind as we read this passage.

Daniel 1:14:20
On that note, it does occur to me that it is not necessarily uncommon for Satan himself to be depicted as disabled in some way in art, Which again, unfortunately, is, especially in classic art, sort of an ableist assumption; it’s supposed to be something that’s supposed to rile up our negative feelings about him, but I wonder if any of our listeners actually identify with Satan as a disabled figure or a disabled character. I would be very curious to hear those perspectives, but I don’t think we got any feedback like that before the show.

Simone 1:14:48
All right, that brings us to- Tab would take the next one?

Tabitha 1:14:52
This is Damien Maze from Reno Satanic. “In Satanism, everyone should be included if they feel that Satanism is right for them. We can’t really recall if any of our in-person get togethers, we, we’ve had issues with having to deal with anyone’s disabilities. We always choose to find spots where everyone can be inclusive whether that be a restaurant, or an outdoor event, like at a park, but as for me, I have ADHD, patience has to be one of the biggest things that I have to work on. No one’s perfect. We all have to take the time to work with one another if we truly want to step forward on this journey and with the organizer team, we have tried to be as accommodating as we can.”

Lily 1:15:38
I just want to jump in here and say that the language of ‘having to deal’ with anyone’s disability, it’s ableist language, and it would make me, as a disabled person, less likely to come forward about my access needs because I would feel like a burden to that organization.

Simone 1:16:01
Yeah, it’s funny, because it’s not one of the obvious ableist terms, but we do have to really consider how the whole of our language is constructed to be accepting, not accepting, to be inclusive or not. So, you know, just, it always is a good thing to take an extra second and really think about the meaning of the words that you’re using, and is there a better one that could be used? I wanted to draw attention to another thing that Damien mentioned is that, you know, he has ADHD, and has, has that as a consideration in his life, and, you know, we’ve talked about physical disability, but neurodivergency, mental illness is also something that needs to be considered. And I mean, for myself, I was diagnosed with major depression in 2008; I am on medication for it. If I’m not on medication for it, if I stop taking my meds, you know, things get bad. We have suicidal ideations, self-harm, apathy, lethargy, you know, and I don’t feel like myself anymore. So, with my medication, I feel like myself; I am able to live my life the way I want to live it, and, you know, but it’s something that I have ever-present in my life, and, you know, my partner [has] recognized if I’ve stopped taking my meds, because it can happen so easily- you forget one day and that makes it easier to forget the next day, until so on and so on, and you’ve been off of it for four weeks, and you’ve started having your symptoms reemerge, so, you know, if it is- a couple of things to consider here that we have to consider, you know, neurodivergency, mental illness, as you know, those ‘invisible’ disabilities. And then also, when you know someone well, you can be a help to them just, you know, by asking, ‘hey, are you okay?’ That can make a lot of difference.

Daniel 1:18:17
I would assume that if Damien were here, or if he hears this show that, you know, hearing it pointed out that he slipped into some ableist language here, would- I think our reaction when we do that is often to back into denial to say, ‘no, no, no, that’s not what I meant,’ but unfortunately, part of having this conversation is accepting the fact that all of us harbor these prejudices because we can’t not do it. Lily has many times during this conversation pointed out, I am a, I am a disabled person, but I have latent ableism myself; you, you’ve said that several times. All of us, unfortunately, tragically, have to always keep ourselves in line with these things, and we always have to eventually confront the fact that this is, unfortunately, the social baggage that we have all inherited, and so, and, you know, words are very difficult, words are important, but they’re also very tricky. They can get away from us very easily, so, unfortunately, that kind of error is going to happen, and so, like I said, it’s, we want to imagine that we can rid ourselves of these prejudices simply by wanting to or by recognizing that it’s important, but unfortunately, life is not that easy.

Simone 1:19:29
It does take putting it into practice. It does take living it, you know?

Tabitha 1:19:35
It also takes someone telling you. Yeah, and you not, and you actually, like, accepting it and not immediately getting angry about it. *chuckles*

Simone 1:19:45
Yeah, just say, ‘you know what? You’re right.’

Tabitha 1:19:47
Yeah, I did that.

Simone 1:19:48
Those are- That’s *laughs* Hang on. *slowly* You. Know. What. You’re. Right. Those are very powerful five words. You know what? You’re right. *Tabitha mm-hmm’s*

Lily 1:19:58
On the continuing unlearning, I don’t want to belabor a point, but it’s absolutely a lifetime practice. Like, it’s still [show ups] consistently, just like all the other -isms that we have to decolonize from our own minds.

Simone 1:20:15
Yep, yep. All right, and our last testimonial is from Catie Chaotic, who comes from BaphoNet. They say, “as a general rule, folks should always be willing to learn from their mistakes. Ableism is so ingrained in society that often only those it’s about notice it. So LISTEN to folks with disabilities. As a community with 1000s of individuals, we find it important to be a safe and inclusive space for all and one. Our terms and conditions for our spaces state that we do not tolerate discriminatory harassment; in the inevitable situation that a bad actor slips in, moderators act quickly to remove the offending content or member. We also use our social media platforms to highlight and boost differently-abled persons’ content and issues in an effort to promote inclusivity and acceptance.” Another great point there is not only do we have to consider being inclusive and accessible in our physical spaces, in our, you know, spaces where we’re performing ritual or whatever, but our online spaces as well.

Tabitha 1:21:18
I think it’s especially important with online spaces just because so much of the internet is already extremely negative, and it’s really hard to find a place where you, where anyone can feel comfortable. So when you propagate a space online, where you know that people are comfortable and can express themselves without fear of just *chuckles* being online, it’s really an important place, and it’s, [it] always feels good.

Lily 1:21:50
And as a disabled person, it’s important to keep in mind that online spaces may be the only community that some disabled folks have access to. They may not have the ability to be present for in-person things, so this online community can be extremely important to disabled folks.

Simone 1:22:13
Yeah, the, the pandemic has really shown us that we can work from home, we can, you know, have virtual gatherings, and it was something that just wasn’t a consideration for a lot of people before and since everybody, everybody had to move to virtual this and virtual that and everyone had to stay at home, it’s really opened a lot of doors, I feel, to people who- they didn’t even consider it as a possibility before. Like, they were just sort of locked into the idea that you had to be there physically i- person, you had to do this or that in order to participate, but since you know, it’s unfortunate that it took this event to wake people up to that, but now that it’s happened and now that we have that experience, keep it going. Keep it going. Make sure that even if you do resume physical meetings or rituals, see if you can have a virtual element to it. See if you can also, you know, do- yeah, you have a meeting in person plus you have a meeting that’s, you know, virtual. There- we don’t have to give up this new kind of accessibility just because, you know, we don’t have to wear masks anymore.

Lily 1:23:26
I just wanted to follow it with Hail Satan.

Tabitha 1:23:29
Hail Satan!

Daniel 1:23:30
We got next here is an excerpt from a paper called ‘The Rhetoric of Ableism,’ by James L Cherney, who teaches at Wayne State University. Kinda have to drop another content warning on you because with these last couple of sources, it gets…oof.

Simone 1:23:43
It’s rough. It’s rough.

Daniel 1:23:47
Um, yeah. You know, it’s a good thing I don’t believe in curses or I would say I cursed the show because I made a mention, like, three or four shows ago that, ‘oh, hey, we do the shows- we’ve done the show for so long and we don’t have to give out a lot of content warnings; that’s nice.’ And since then, I think we’ve had, like, three of these in four episodes, so I shouldn’t have said anything. *chuckles* And nevertheless, James says, “arguments relying on the logic that ‘normal is natural’ appear throughout history, and one field that relied extensively on this ablest assumption is the science of ‘teratology,’ also known as the study of ‘monsters.'” Which, here by the way, if you’re now curious, in its original context was a word that meant “children born with severe disability or deformity.” To find out more- that is where the word comes from, by the way. I was very surprised to learn that. Check out the PBS YouTube channel; they have a series there called Storied and another one called Monstrum with Emily Zarka, who, by the way, I would love to have her on the show someday, if we could ever swing that, who talked a little bit about the etymology of monster there. Anyway, Cherney continues. “Like many of his contemporaries, Aristotle viewed the world of animals as a hierarchy with the human male as the standard of physical perfection ‘in comparison with which-‘”

Tabitha 1:24:49
Oof. *Daniel chuckles*

Daniel 1:24:49
“‘-in comparison with which-‘”

Simone 1:24:50
Yeah! Whatever, dude!

Tabitha 1:24:53
Oof. Oof!

Daniel 1:24:54
*still chuckling* “‘-all, all other animal life is at best deviant at worst, monstrous.'” I’m, I’m having trouble keeping a straight face there because speaking as a human male myself, I just looking at my body and thinking ‘oh, oh sweet, summer child. You have no idea.’ *chuckles* You have no idea what-

Tabitha 1:25:09
*chuckling* Peak perfection!

Daniel 1:25:09
*chuckling* -what terrible forces are at work here. Anyway, James Cherney continues. “Because the monster violates the rules that Aristotle argues governed reproduction, it must be explained.” But, funny that. Umm. “By defining those exceptions to the rules he establishes his aberrations contrary to nature, the exception then makes the rule. Monsters were considered ‘subhuman,’ imperfect beings not deserving of the rights of other citizens. When interpreted later through the Christian worldview that dominated Europe in the Middle Ages, the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries were marked by a widespread belief and well-published theory that linked abnormal birth with conception during a woman’s menstrual period. Because such intercourse was deemed sinful and unclean, such births were deemed punishment for irresponsible sexual activity. Infants and people described as monstrous were treated as Satan’s offspring, and it was standard practice for midwives to terminate ‘monstrosities’ at birth. This practice makes very clear the ablest implications of the retech, rhetorical warrant ‘normal is natural.'” Quick tangent here, by the way. As odd as this sounds, I would love someday to do an entire episode just about the subject of menstruation because you would be amazed the bizarre things that people have believed about this physical process over the centuries and the very strange stigmas and witchcraft and Satanism-related taboos that got attached to it. Just, just wild shit. So if anybody out there wants to hear that very particular episode, *chuckles* let us know one of these days. *Simone chuckles*

Lily 1:25:56
And I was gonna say, accompanying ableism, we have white supremacy and patriarchy rearing their ugly heads again.

Simone 1:26:44
Man, they always seem to come in a pack. Misery loves company and shit-headedness loves other shitheads. *laughter*

Tabitha 1:26:57
*laughing* Nice! Well done.

Simone 1:27:00
The, the point is, like, you know, if you’re, if someone is, is exhibiting a kind of prejudice, it’s already told you what kind of person this is, and it should not be shocking that someone who is racist is also sexist. Someone who is transphobic is also an ableist, like, those, those go hand in hand. Well, anyway, I just, I just wanted to come back around to this connecting to disability, with being ‘Satan’s offspring.’ Again, the idea of if you’re not perfect, if you’re not the way you’re ‘supposed to be,’ that you are wrong, and that’s one of the things I like about the Satanic community: is that there is no being ‘wrong.’ There is no one way to be. We understand that, you know, if we’re going to be accepted ourselves, we need to be accepting of other people, and that means all people.

Tabitha 1:28:03
Hail Satan.

Daniel 1:28:04
One thing I’ll add here that reading this source and then going back and looking at- fuck Aristotle, by the way. Going back and looking at Aristotle, I was surprised and disconcerted to learn, I had heard that term monster applied in this context before. Usually, that term, at least that I’d previously seen, was referred to stillbirths, to people who had a variety of- birth defects seems like such a shitty term, but I don’t know of an alternative one, I think that is still the medical terminology. I had not realized that they also applied that to people who had to live, to live births, that were disabled in, in other ways, and that really gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach, getting that terminology recontextualized that way, because, again, you start to realize the horrifying implications of it, that you previously may have not appreciate it. Which does mean that ‘monster,’ which is a pretty commonplace term, is also at its root an ableist word, and so, I think that is a word that has drifted far enough away from that original context that we maybe don’t have to worry about using it. In fact, there’s an awful lot of art and media that uses the word and image monster to be very affirming, in a way, that I am always very happy to see, but I don’t know. It is, perhaps, useful to at least know that. There are other words that are very common that are unfortunately troublesome. Like the word stupid, for example, actually has a really horrible history. That one is very, very difficult to excise from my vocabulary. I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to do it, but at least knowing is I guess, the first step.

Daniel 1:28:49
Yeah, you know, interestingly, a lot of the words that we use to insult or degrade people have, like, actually, like certain medical definitions for what they thought were disabled people back in the day. So you know, if you’ll excuse my language, but the term idiot, the term moron used to be *medical* terms to describe people! It’s, it’s- blows my mind.

Lily 1:30:06
I just have to say, with this article, I am heartbroken at how they would, they would kill these children. These babies! Like- *groans* I have no other words.

Simone 1:30:22
Yeah, just the, the inhumanity is incredible, unfortunately.

Tabitha 1:30:29
From ‘Disability In Art History,’ Keri Watson, University of Central Florida: ‘the rise of Christianity lead to more depictions of people with disabilities, because Jesus is frequently credited with miracles to cure the disabled. The church’s interest in disability was based on Jesus’ role as a miraculous healer and as a spiritual ‘physician.’ Monks and nuns followed the seven ‘spiritual works,’ which involved feeding, clothing, and housing the poor, visiting them when in prison or sick, and providing counsel and burial services. Christianity could be used to elicit empathy and support the humane treatment of people with disabilities, but it could also be used to support the belief that people with disabilities were cursed by Satan, and that their disability was the result of sin. As such, people with disabilities were often considered unclean and forced to live in exile. When traveling through a town, people with leprosy were required to ring a bell, alerting others to their presence. At the time of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation and 1517, persons with developmental disabilities were treated as subhuman. Martin Luther denounced children and adults with cognitive [disorders] as ‘filled with Satan, and advised they be drowned because they lacked souls. Similarly John Calvin argued that people with disabilities were not among those predestined for salvation.”

Daniel 1:31:18
Oof!

Simone 1:32:07
Great! Super loving god, yeah.

Lily 1:32:11
*groans*

Tabitha 1:32:11
I like that it starts of, like, yeah, they were housing people, and feeding them, and all this stuff. Also, they thought that they were not people, so hmm.

Simone 1:32:22
I mean, this passage runs the gamut from this kind of condescending, you know, Jesus is healing the disabled, he’s making them whole, like, they weren’t people before. All the way to Martin Luther thinking that they’re filled with Satan and should be drowned. Like, yikes. Huge yikes.

Daniel 1:32:44
I just want to add, weirdly enough, Martin Luther believed that Satan made him constipated for his entire life *laughter* and I would like to think that that is true.

Simone 1:32:53
*laughing* Oh. Oh, thanks Satan.

Lily 1:32:57
Hail Satan.

Black Mass Appeal 1:32:58
*everyone laughing* Hail Satan!

Daniel 1:33:02
But no, I actually do think this is a great resource because we start off with the seemingly benign assumption, ‘oh, stories about Jesus healing people. Isn’t that a good thing?’ It’s like, ‘well, you might think, but let’s just follow that train of thought a couple stations down the line and see where it ends up.’

Simone 1:33:19
All right. Now we’ve come to the part of the show where we’re going to wind Daniel up and let him go. We’re talking about exorcisms, so we’re gonna be reading from The Problem With Exorcism, from Lady Geek Girl in 2016. “Exorcisms are a favorite trope of Hollywood horror films and TV shows, especially during the month of October. While many denominations believe in possession and exorcisms, for Catholics demonic possession comes from the belief that the devil is constantly waging war against humanity and god. Annaliese Michel-” Who- she’s German, so I’m probably saying that wrong. “Annaliese Michel it- was a young woman in Germany who had epilepsy and depression; Annaliese claimed to hear voices and disliked religious objects. Despite being on medication, her symptoms never got better. Her family was convinced she was possessed and in 1975, asked two priests to perform an exorcism. Annaliese died during the exorcism, exorcism in 1976 in the care of her parents and the priests; both were charged with negligent homicide and sentenced to three years probation, because Annaliese’s legitimate medical condition was left untreated in favor of exorcism, which left her malnourished and dehydrated. This is not the only incident where disability was taken to be evidence of demonic possession and lead to disastrous consequences. In fact, there are theologians and doctors today who look at possession in the bible and say that almost all could be explained as some sort of disability. The fact that there is anyone in the world who was so shocked and stunned feared by those with mental or physical disabilities that they would treat them as demonic is upsettingly ableist.” Whoo. That is, that is a lot. But, it kind of calls to mind the idea that if we’re replacing medical treatment with religion, you know, that, that is something that also denies people who are disabled the care that they need. If you need a certain kind of medical care, and you are being denied it, I mean, that’s, that’s just abuse in my book. You know, for religion, for, like, a religious ‘miracle cure’ is just, um, another reason why I dislike that and dislike those folks quite a lot, so…

Lily 1:35:48
I wanted to comment on the fact that they only got three years probation.

Simone 1:35:54
I know. That’s incredible, right?

Tabitha 1:35:56
Yeah, what the fuck?! Like, in that- that’ll show you, though, just how I’m going to assume just ableist this whole, that whole thing is. It’s like, ‘oh, well, you know, who cares?’

Daniel 1:36:06
Well, it’s not just ableism. Let’s not, let’s not underestimate the value of religious privilege in that particular verdict, as well.

Simone 1:36:13
Could you imagine a group of Satanists performing a ritual in which somebody died and everyone just got three years probation?

Tabitha 1:36:20
*chuckling* Yeah, no biggie.

Simone 1:36:22
Jeez.

Tabitha 1:36:23
Oopsies.

Simone 1:36:26
Alright, going back to the problem with exorcism. “In the movie, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Father Richard Moore is taken to court for negligent homicide because of the death of Emily, a young girl Moore believed to be possessed by the Devil. The prosecution, however, believes that Emily was sick and Moore allowed the girl to die. However, the movie shows you in no uncertain terms that the Devil was actually possessing Emily. Moore does have a doctor present with him who claims that Emily was not sick, but he is killed by the Devil before he can testify on the priest’s behalf.”

Tabitha 1:36:59
Mm, convenient.

Simone 1:37:00
“While the court case is set to figure out if Moore was negligent, the movie leaves us with no doubt that Emily was possessed. This becomes much more upsetting when you realize that this movie was based on Annaliese Michel. Creating a movie based on this story and then claiming ‘no, it was actually the Devil’ is insulting. While priests are supposed to make sure someone is not ill before attempting an exorcism, that still doesn’t always happen. In fact, when the Catholic Church changed the rite of exorcism in 1999, priests like Father Amorth were not pleased. As he said, ‘they say we cannot perform an exorcism unless we know for certain that the Evil One is present. That is ridiculous. It is only through exorcism that the demons reveal themselves and unnecessary exorcism never hurt anybody.'”

Tabitha 1:37:49
*fake coughing* Bullshit.

Simone 1:37:51
*laughing* Yeah, I know, right?

Tabitha 1:37:54
Ummm, I mean, yeah. Excuse me?! *laughs*

Simone 1:37:57
I mean, *sighs* if you just look at your news feeds on Google or social media, and you see articles from local news stations from across the country of people who believe that their children were possessed by the Devil, and in so, you know, ended up murdering them, it’s disturbingly common., I mean, not totally common, but not that it’s happening every single day, but I can think of more than one, and even one is more than I want to be happening.

Daniel 1:38:37
I…have some opinions.

Tabitha 1:38:40
*fake gasp* Noo?! You?

Daniel 1:38:42
Longtime listeners of this show know that this is actually something of a pet issue with me- I’m actually in the middle of an exor, a book about exorcism right now, as it, as it coincidentally turns out. And, if you go back to, we did a whole episode about this, Episode 56 with Professor Joseph Laycock, and there, I was actually, I like to think, fairly sedate. Mainly because I was trying to maintain my composure for the sake of, perhaps, not weirding out the guests, and then also trying to, you know, create, create something of a coherent listening experience. If you get me going on this topic off mic, I have *very* strong opinions about this. *chuckles* That, again, I think, longtime listeners are already familiar with. To those I have add, I have to add: One, I hate this movie for this *exact* reason that this writer cited right here. This exact reason. I was actually very curious to listen to the director, Scott Derrickson. When- I looked up some interviews that he gave around the time The Exorcism of Emily Rose was coming out and I come to find that he thought he was making a very even-handed movie that did not suggest one way or another whether this was a supernatural or a naturalistic event that ended this person’s life, and having seen the movie, more than once, I can say ,he did not succeed. But also I can say, that’s actually a very inappropriate approach in the first place. Don’t both sides this one, Scott. And you know, I like Scott Davidson’s other movies, he did movies like Sinister and Dr. Strange and, you know, those are-

Daniel 1:39:02
I was just about to say, I will say in, a positive thing about the movie is that Jennifer Carpenter’s performance is really good.

Daniel 1:40:18
Yeah, I agree. You’re not, you’re definitely not wrong there. But I think the, the whole idea of the whole exorcise is just very misbegotten and exploitative and just, just, just feels dirty. Not in a good way. The other thi-

Tabitha 1:40:32
Exercise?

Daniel 1:40:32
Yes. The other thing that I will add that this blog brings up several times, and the movie brings up several times, is that these priests, at least the Catholics, the Catholics have a very specific method about this, then you get those, kind of, Protestant roadshow, Bob Larson style excorcists that are there, whole other, whole other issue. They’re supposed to follow this very strict procedure that involves sending the patient to a doctor to make sure ‘they are not ill,’ and I always wonder, how can you tell that? How many doctor’s visits does it take for you to say there’s nothing medically wrong with this person, it must be the Devil? How many checkups does it take to diagnose somebody with the Devil? What doctor do you think they’re sending them to? Do you think they’re sending this person to an atheist doctor, for example? No, of course not. You’re sending them to a Catholic doctor who’s going to agree with you that it’s the Devil because that’s the whole point. You’re an exorcist; that’s why you’re here. I find the whole thing a farcical, and I find the naive acceptance of this, kind of, presumed medical oversight just, just, just, frankly, insulting. It’s insulting that we just say, it’s like, ‘oh, well, the priest said a doctor said that it was okay. A doctor said it was the Devil, therefore, the exorcism-‘ridiculous. Ridiculous. Why are we even entertaining this conversation? And so, I could go on at length, *chuckles* but I’ll stop because we have other things to talk about on this show. Anyone else, anyone have anything to add? *laughter*

Simone 1:41:54
Well, while this particular rant has ended, we do have some more sources and it’s Daniel’s turn to take them on.

Daniel 1:42:03
*chuckling* Oh, okay. Whoops. See, as I mentioned on the show before, I feel like the reason why people tolerate this exorcism nonsense is because the potential victims of it are mostly people with disabilities, or people with mental health challenges. That seems to make it acceptable in a way that it would not be for other people, and that provokes me, as you can tell from my tone, but it also plays into this next selection, which is from an essay called Ableism In the Church, from the Queen’s School of Religion blog published last year: “Kathy Black, a professor of Christian Homiletics, adds that inhospitable attitudes- such as the objectification of people with disabilities- can result from readings of healings and exorcisms during Jesus’ ministry. According to Black, literal interpretations of these passages have an emphasis on people with disabilities as a tool for elevating Jesus and the healing powers of god. In these cases, healing is equivalent to cure, redemption from sin, and a return to ‘wholeness.’ Practices of exorcism and healing have always been a prominent part of Pentecostal and Charismatic practice. The association of mental health conditions with demon possession has added a societal privilege against these conditions. In the event that the ceremonies do not elicit the desired results, the person with the illness may be even further stigmatized by the community. Those the, theologies may not result in the outright exclusion of people with disabilities from a faith community, an emphasis on them can result in an attitudinal barrier. Jesus is the main character in the gospels and so people with disabilities will never be the main characters in those stories. The danger comes when people with disabilities are seen as permanently having supporting roles in non-literary settings as well.” So it is possible that the social prejudices that we see playing out in this ‘exorcism drama,’ as we mentioned in the last source, are things that actually have roots much deeper in certain religious practices and also in certain social assumptions that we inherit from those religions even if we ourselves are not a part of those traditions.

Simone 1:44:00
I was struck by the last line here. You know, I don’t know a whole lot about it but I’ve heard the term main character syndrome, where someone thinks that they’re just the main character of this movie of their life and everyone else is a supporting character, and, you know, we see so many movies, TV shows where they’re trying to be inclusive, they’re trying to have diversity, and so they’ll have you know, perhaps a disabled person but they’re a supporting character. I am trying to think of a, you know, regular currently on-air television show where a person with disabilities is the main character and I’m not pulling one, and that is, you know, just another form of ableism where, that, that we see in our entertainment but that also kind of filters down to our actual lives where can the disabled person be the main character? And it can sometimes be hard to, you know, truly empathize, sympathize, put yourself in someone else’s shoes and realize that they are the main character of the movie of their life and they have thoughts and feelings and, and are also experiencing a life with a disability, and so just, you know, keeping in mind, keeping that in mind that they’re not *side characters,* you know? They are, they are- everyone is their own main character, including folks with disabilities.

Lily 1:45:25
A quick thing here. There actually is a show, that I know of, that’s on Netflix called Special-

Simone 1:45:33
Ooh!

Lily 1:45:33
-in which the main character is gay and also living with disabilities and-

Simone 1:45:41
Oh, that’s awesome.

Lily 1:45:41
-they just came out with season two, so check that out. And then, on this article, the, we come back to this idea of wholeness, as if disabled people are not whole, in and of ourselves, as we are, and that’s just a toxic thing.

Daniel 1:46:03
It’s actually very funny we’re having this conversation now because just a couple of days ago, they had a virtual temple service over at the Satanic Temple website and I dropped in to listen to that, and it was a conversation about the uses of the word ‘holy’ and ‘unholy’ and whether they have significant meanings for us and whether we as Satanists should be trying to reclaim words like ‘holiness,’ or whether we should just opt for other words or our own words. And, I did not initially have strong feelings about this, but somebody in the course of that conversation mentioned that the etymology of the word ‘holy’ goes back to the word ‘whole,’ or ‘complete,’ and related words like that, and that actually made me feel *very* strongly that that is not a word that I actually need in my life. I am perfectly fine with feeling like I am incomplete, and not whole, and imperfect, and I actually think that part of my religious experiences as a Satanist has been learning that those words are good, and apt, and suitable descriptors for me. Perhaps ironically, those words are enough, and so I am perfectly fine being unholy, incomplete, not whole, not perfect, and I think that any time we can embrace the values of those words, for however we interpret them, that hopefully that can be an empowering and affirming thing for a lot of different people from a lot of different perspectives.

Simone 1:47:24
Here’s to being unholy.

Tabitha 1:47:25
Unholy, but wholesome! *Simone laughs*

Lily 1:47:30
Yeah, my only thing is that I’m unholy yet I am whole because church told me that I was un- you know, that I, I needed to be filled with the lord, and I don’t. I just need myself, and my community, and those loved ones around me.

Tabitha 1:47:52
Yeah. You’re already whole, and you were whole the whole time. Ooh! *laughter*

Simone 1:47:59
Well, I can’t think of a better sentiment to end on than that. So, thank you, Lily, so much for joining us, and for talking about this issue with us, and sharing your experiences. It was super valuable, and we’re honored to have had you and I hope that our listeners are able to take something away that they can use to change their lives to better their communities. if folks want to get in touch with us, they can always email us at blacakmassappealpod@gmail.com. Our website is blacakmassappeal.com, and you can find us as Black Mass Appeal on lots of social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Daniel 1:48:38
To find out more about Satanic Bay Area, check us out at satanicbayarea.com. You can find us on Facebook and on Instagram as Satanic Bay Area. Follow us on Twitter; the handle there is @satanicSF. You can also look us up on Tik Tok; the handle there is @dailybaphirmations. Ordinarily, you come down to Wicked Grounds Coffee Shop on the third Thursday of every month for Satanic coffee hour. They are actually just announced their reopening date this week, and so, hopefully, we’ll be able to return there soon. In the meantime, keep an eye on our social media and on our Google calendar to find out when we are next meeting virtually, and Tabitha when we do what, are we having?

Tabitha 1:49:14
I think this time we’ll be sort of mysterious and maybe have some blue cheese dressing.

Simone 1:49:18
See, I don’t care what-

Daniel 1:49:20
Ahh, now what in the world could that mean?

Simone 1:49:21
-*anybody* says-

Daniel 1:49:22
If only there were-

Daniel 1:49:23
-literally anybody. I like blue cheese dressing.

Daniel 1:49:27
Do you want a Hail Satan to go out on?

Simone 1:49:30
Yeah!

Tabitha 1:49:31
*fake annoyed voice* Yeahh.

Daniel 1:49:31
Someone else should probably count us down this time.

Tabitha 1:49:33
*chuckles* Oh, right.

Simone 1:49:35
Oh, that’s right. Listeners do not know this, but we’ve had some technical difficulties, so- Daniel might be on a bit of a delay, so you know what? Lily, do you want to give us a countdown of three, two, one, Hail Satan?

Lily 1:49:47
Sure. Three, two, one…

Black Mass Appeal 1:49:48
Hail Satan!

Black Mass Appeal 1:49:48
*Aretha Franklin’s Think plays*

The post Episode 99 – Satanists With Disabilities appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.