Blood Libel, The Satanic Panic, & Q’Anon

[00:00:00] Don Early: In the Bette Midler, Hocus, Pocus movies, the Sanderson Sisters like to eat children because they are witches and need the souls of children to live long and stay young. It's based on a lot of typical stories about witches luring young children to be tortured and eaten by malevolent crones in league with Satan. 

[00:00:37] Now in the movies, it's not all that violent. The kid has to drink a weird potion, which makes them glow in the dark. And then the witches a suck out their soul a bit like smoking a bong. Yeah. Okay. So that doesn't sound a whole lot better, but what was the point of all those legends that inspire [00:01:00] Hollywood? 

[00:01:01] To scare kids to listen to their parents? Instill stranger danger? And why children? Today, we're going to find out that the origins to these legends have much darker implications. 

[00:01:16] This is The Devil You Don't Know. 

[00:01:38] Emily Quann: So how are all y'all

[00:01:40] Don Early: Holy crap. We're doing

[00:01:42] Jeremy Spray: has been a

[00:01:42] Emily Quann: it now.

[00:01:44] Don Early: Damn.

[00:01:45] Emily Quann: it's been a while. Yeah, a hot minute

[00:01:48] Don Early: yeah. 

[00:01:49] Emily Quann: or a cold minute. Would a hot minute be fast and a cold minute be like, extended?

[00:01:55] Don Early: Hm. 

[00:01:56] Jeremy Spray: Yes.

[00:01:57] Don Early: Yeah.

[00:01:58] Emily Quann: Oh, look at that. I stumped [00:02:00] you both.

[00:02:00] Don Early: Yeah. I still wanna draw a hot minute to hell somehow, but I don't know how I'm not, I don't have it connected yet.

[00:02:08] Emily Quann: Hmm.

[00:02:09] Jeremy Spray: gotta be a phrase there somewhere.

[00:02:11] Don Early: Cause how can you have hotter than hell and colder than hell and it mean the same thing?

[00:02:14] Emily Quann: Well, hell has frozen over for a cold minute.

[00:02:17] Don Early: Oh, look at you. Look at you. This is The Devil You Don't Know Podcast where we take a historical and cultural look at the devil. And so I'm Don your host.

[00:02:34] We have Emily

[00:02:36] Emily Quann: Hello. 

[00:02:37] Don Early: and Jeremy 

[00:02:38] Jeremy Spray: Hey, it's me.

[00:02:40] Don Early: And so guys, remember when we did the Zoroastrian-ism

[00:02:47] ism 

[00:02:48] Jeremy Spray: That was a, that was a while ago. Yes, I remember.

[00:02:51] Don Early: And how we had been kind of leading up to that episode, there had been a lot of things that just led up to, you know, I wanted to [00:03:00] get to that, that episode. Cause it

[00:03:01] Jeremy Spray: Yeah. We, we had to start with, uh, kind of defining evil and then defining how the world saw evil and, and the different changes that were made. And then the Zoroastrianism was where we really started seeing entities. Right, right. Representations of evil and good.

[00:03:17] Don Early: That's right. Yeah. This episode here is what I have been kind of deciding to drive to like the next level. This is, um, this episode is something that I've been building towards in, on the topic of the consequences of belief,

[00:03:40] Jeremy Spray: Hm. 

[00:03:40] Don Early: uh, and the consequences of a shared reality that can be super destructive.

[00:03:48] Emily Quann: Herd mentality.

[00:03:49] Don Early: mm-hmm and this is also episode 20.

[00:03:55] Jeremy Spray: Ooh. Wow.

[00:03:57] Emily Quann: Whoa

[00:03:58] Jeremy Spray: Good for us.

[00:03:59] Emily Quann: Really?[00:04:00] 

[00:04:00] Don Early: And it's also going to be our one year anniversary episode.

[00:04:04] Jeremy Spray: Get outta here. 

[00:04:04] Emily Quann: Oh my 

[00:04:05] Jeremy Spray: Wow. Look at us in all of our accomplishments.

[00:04:08] Emily Quann: Yay.

[00:04:09] Don Early: I, uh, I didn't get you anything but um,

[00:04:11] Emily Quann: I didn't get you anything either.

[00:04:13] Jeremy Spray: Did too! You totally got him something. You have a devil headed pen holder, don't you, Don?

[00:04:19] Don Early: I do, I do. I can't show it, uh, on camera cuz no one, this is an audio podcast, but I do have this and I got it from Emily and Matt Vancil and Jeff Miles and I love it and it is very creepy. It's a, so, uh, it is a baby doll's head

[00:04:39] Emily Quann: It's really creepy

[00:04:40] Don Early: that's red glass with devil horns coming out

[00:04:45] Emily Quann: the three of us were walking around the night market and we stopped at this booth where they had these and we're just like, Don needs this

[00:04:58] Jeremy Spray: And what a fantastic [00:05:00] find 

[00:05:00] for 

[00:05:00] Emily Quann: so we, all pitched in money to get that for him, so I totally forgot about that. 

[00:05:06] Jeremy Spray: It's such a good idea. And, and like, if I was ever going to go to a Night Market, that is the type of things I would expect to find in a place called The Night Market, right? Nowhere else. Like where, where are you gonna find a glass baby doll head that's made outta the devil? Or devils style? Like, well, you're gonna go to The Night Market for that,

[00:05:22] Don Early: Right, right. Obviously,

[00:05:24] Emily Quann: It's fun. It's a,

[00:05:25] Don Early: Yeah. It is a glass cup. Uh, so you can drink, uh, cold or luke warm beverages, but it's specifically in the intruction said no hot beverages. So, 

[00:05:37] Jeremy Spray: FOR YOU WILL CALL UP THE FLAMES OF DEATH!!!

[00:05:40] Don Early: Ah, and BURN THINE HAND. 

[00:05:45] Emily Quann: Well, yay. I'm glad you like

[00:05:46] Don Early: Thank you. No, I absolutely love it. Absolutely love it. And um, it's, uh, it sits on my desk. It has, uh, blush brushes.

[00:05:57] Emily Quann: I was gonna say, do, are those [00:06:00] makeup brushes in

[00:06:01] Don Early: Um, but uh, this is not for my makeup, which I don't have. But it is for dusting my transformers, so thank you very much.

[00:06:09] Emily Quann: Oh my God, 

[00:06:10] Jeremy Spray: Important. 

[00:06:11] Don Early: Is, important. I have a lot of them.

[00:06:13] Jeremy Spray: I, I feel like

[00:06:14] Emily Quann: You do have lots of them.

[00:06:15] Jeremy Spray: The perfect thing to hold his dust brushes and just rolled your eyes at the fact that that's what he's using it for. So it's a little judgmental

[00:06:25] Don Early: Okay.

[00:06:25] Emily Quann: Sorry. No judgment. No,

[00:06:27] no judgment here for me, 

[00:06:28] Don Early: of what I'm supposed to use your gift for. 

[00:06:31] Emily Quann: I mean, I would think that most people would see a cup and, drink out of a cup. Uh, not hold makeup brushes for dusting children's toys, but I mean, Go ahead. Do, do what you would like to

[00:06:49] Don Early: I'm going to, I'm 

[00:06:51] Emily Quann: You have my permission.

[00:06:53] Don Early: Thank you. 

Housekeeping

[00:06:54] Don Early: Some housekeeping to set expectations of what's coming [00:07:00] forward. We did a really, really fun collaborative episode with the podcast, The Dispatchist, which is a podcast about Hell. Um, and they did a really fun, it was their, I think, 50th episode and they decided to have Jeremy and I on, uh, You were, uh, in Burbank at the time. Yeah. Um, so, and they did this really fun tournament of Satans kind of thing.

[00:07:29] So I'm really excited for you cuz we did a, a a, a sort of a gimme with each other saying, Okay, we're gonna do this one episode, and then keep it kind of agnostic for the podcast so that we can both use the episode, as an episode in our own respective podcasts. 

[00:07:49] Emily Quann: Oh, right on 

[00:07:50] Don Early: so that will be next after this. And I'm thinking of a couple of ideas on doing more things like that, like, you know, Satan [00:08:00] in the movies or music or something like that.

[00:08:03] Uh, got a, a couple of thoughts there. And then in November I have a great, awesome interview slash collaboration kind of planned with the Pontifacts, uh, Podcast, which is a podcast about popes! And they do a historical deep dive in Popes and they have a, I've mentioned them on the podcast before. They, they have like a rating system for their popes and uh, they have a lot of fun with it. So we've been talking about who's the most antis Satan Pope, or who's the satanist of Satanistic type pope, or, you know, we'll figure it out, but it'll be fun.

[00:08:43] Emily Quann: Cool.

[00:08:43] Don Early: So that's what I have going on. If you want to get the inside scoop, you can join our Patreon at patreon.com/thedevilpodcast, where you get new ideas, uh, new content, Fuller episodes, episodes [00:09:00] before they get released, and so on and so forth.

[00:09:02] So you can want to join us there, you can be, we'll join our discord, uh, server and, uh, can be sounding board for future ideas as well. So, um, tune in there and, uh, yeah. 

Today's Episode

[00:09:17] Don Early: So today's episode has been a long time coming. Um, this episode is about QAnon, the Satanic Panic and this weird conspiracy theory called the Blood Libel, which.

[00:09:35] A lot of people may be familiar with the Satanic Panic from the eighties and nineties. QAnon is still in the news. Um, every now and again, it's,

[00:09:47] Emily Quann: I have to, I have to tune it out. I, I can't, I can't listen about it, so

[00:09:53] Jeremy Spray: so what, so we're gonna go into to the Blood Libel. This is gonna be building up to, or so I wanna get this, right. This is what we've [00:10:00] been building up to is this episode, or this is gonna be the start of another build up to a new content.

[00:10:06] Don Early: We've been kind of building up to this because the, the, the whole point that I've been. So when we started this podcast, I, I talked about how it was born out of when I was watching an episode of Lucifer. Right. uh, just a topic of lore sort of came up and Cindy was asking me about that. And I was like, ah, I'm not sure.

[00:10:29] And then, um, sort of jumped down the rabbit hole of researching that lore. And I'm like, oh my God, there's a lot. And I wanna know more. And I, I don't think I'm going to get tired of this anytime soon. And one of the things that I recall from my childhood was the Satanic Panic. and it wasn't like super firsthand for me growing up.

[00:10:56] Uh, it was [00:11:00] really more of like my parents' belief or really my mom's belief about certain things that were out there, but I definitely remembered the topics on the news broadcasts, you know, and things that come up and the Geraldo Rivera special and, and which we can we'll talk about a little bit

[00:11:18] Jeremy Spray: my God. I 

[00:11:19] Emily Quann: See, I don't, I don't remember this. I, I mean, I know it existed, but, um, like when did that start? Like early eighties. So 

[00:11:31] Don Early: I'm gonna get into that

[00:11:32] Emily Quann: I'm sure we'll get into that, but I was born in 79 and so like, those were very, very early years. And even when I got older, it wasn't something that really like directly touched into my life. It just was maybe like a side thing. And so, wow. This affects me in no way whatsoever. So didn't really pay attention to it.

[00:11:57] Don Early: And I mean, [00:12:00] consider yourself totally blessed in that regard because it is, um, it is terrible. 

[00:12:07] Emily Quann: Yeah. It sounds like a witch hunt.

[00:12:10] Jeremy Spray: literally, yeah. The actual, honest to God. 

[00:12:14] Emily Quann: Oh, uh, witch hunts against children who are 

[00:12:18] Jeremy Spray: witches, like, like that is it's born in the same thing.

[00:12:22] Emily Quann: yeah.

[00:12:22] Don Early: Yeah. 

Content Warning

[00:12:24] Don Early: So a content warning. I, I imagine we're probably going to need to do this a few times on our show, but this one in particular, I do want to say that we're going to talk about some things that are, uh, graphic and uncomfortable, and, and they involve children. And so if that's not something that you wanna talk, listen to. That's fine.

[00:12:54] Jeremy Spray: I, I do want to, 

[00:12:55] Don Early: Turn off.

[00:12:56] Jeremy Spray: I, I would like to add that the caveat that it's all false, [00:13:00] the information that we're talking about is, is fictional. Uh, uh, violence towards children. And that is, that's kind of where, where it comes from a little bit, but like, just, just wanna point that out there that like, we're gonna talk about the, the real attacks that were people were accused of, but no one was ever actually doing this.

[00:13:21] Don Early: Except the first part that I'm gonna talk about, which is the Blood Libel 

[00:13:26] Jeremy Spray: Okay. 

[00:13:26] Emily Quann: Right. And if you do decide to stop and turn this off, we totally get it because it is hard to stomach even thinking about and imagining what's gonna be described against children. So no judgment.

[00:13:42] Don Early: The real, I guess, sinister part about the whole thing is that THAT'S on purpose

[00:13:50] Jeremy Spray: Hmm. 

[00:13:50] Don Early: Because how universal is the parents' fear for the welfare of their children and to protect [00:14:00] them from really dastardly shit,

[00:14:03] Emily Quann: You would do anything. 

[00:14:06] Don Early: Anything and that universal condition of, of being a parent is what feeds into this. And people specifically target it and they specifically exploit that for their own gain. 

The Blood Libel

[00:14:27] Don Early: The Blood Libel.

[00:14:30] Emily Quann: Here we go.

[00:14:31] Jeremy Spray: Here we go.

[00:14:33] Don Early: What are the claims about the Blood Libel? What is this conspiracy, anyway? The Blood Libel is the idea that the Jews abduct children, Christian children, and ritually kill them specifically to drain their blood and consume it. The Jews, mind you, abduct Christian children to ritually drain their [00:15:00] blood, killing them.

[00:15:01] Oftentimes ritual was reenacting the crucifixion of Christ, and that it is said that the Jews were said to suffer maladies of the blood and that only Christian blood could cure them of it. 

[00:15:17] Jeremy Spray: It's just 

[00:15:20] Emily Quann: It's so absurd. 

[00:15:21] Jeremy Spray: Right, like, are you gonna explain it real quick? Cause like, I'm already, my mind's already reeling and I've, and we've done this. I've like, I've looked into this.

[00:15:29] Don Early: Yeah. Uh, I think let's set the stage for a little bit of how the fuck is it possible for anyone to have believed this? Not just, I mean, cuz let's just get it right out there that it, it, we will get into this in a second, but, uh, this solidified in the 11 hundreds all right. Into something that was widespread.

[00:15:52] Okay, but beliefs about this idea, certainly date much [00:16:00] older. And so let's give a little bit of, uh, context on this. So there is a YouTube video, in the show links, um, called Blood Exhibition. Dr. Uh, Mc, I'm gonna butcher this name and I think he's Scottish, Uh, Mcle House, Mac 

[00:16:18] la. 

[00:16:19] Jeremy Spray: Can you spell that for me? 

[00:16:20] Don Early: Um, I'm not sure. Uh, m a c l e h o s e MacLehose, I'm not sure we'll figure it out, On Early Ideas About Blood and Jewish Ritual.

[00:16:33] So again, there's a, there's a show link there, um, on this and take it as you will. There are, you don't have to take this as fact or whatnot. Um, there are other supporting, you know, things that can build on this, but they brought up some very interesting points. So this goes back to the, um, uh, 400 BCE approximately.

The Four Humors

[00:16:58] Don Early: Okay. And it's the [00:17:00] idea of the Four Humors. You guys are familiar with. Um, at least the, the notion of the four humors or the hu you know, what humors are these, you know, uh,

[00:17:11] Emily Quann: Like ichor

[00:17:12] Don Early: Yeah, substances within the body. Um, and uh, it was an attempt to explain why one is healthy and one is unhealthy. Um, and, uh, it was thought that, that when the four humors are balanced, then we are healthy.

[00:17:32] And when they're in imbalance, we are unhealthy. Um, and this is all like hippocratic stuff, like going way, This is old, old, old Greek, uh, ideas, which did not originate, uh, with Greek, but anyway. So the four humors, what are they? The, the humors are blood, yellow bile, black bile, [00:18:00] and phlegm.

[00:18:03] So that's gross.

[00:18:04] Yeah. The notion develops over time that by the four humors or that the, the four humors can be identified with four personality types or temperaments, depending on which humor is more dominant.

[00:18:19] So, the predominance of blood has a sanguine temperament and is the most healthy. Blood is, of course, thought of as the most powerful, or the strongest. 

[00:18:31] Too much yellow bile are choleric and so they are fiery and angry. 

[00:18:39] Too much phlegm are, you guessed it, phlegmatic. 

[00:18:43] Jeremy Spray: Phlegmatic 

[00:18:45] Don Early: considered lazy, sluggish, and fairly pessimistic.

[00:18:50] Jeremy Spray: Did not ever put together phlegmatic as related to phlegm as one of the humors. That's, uh, that's intense.

[00:18:58] Don Early: That's intense. And [00:19:00] I mean, I don't know, phlegm is just mucus and grossness. I, I would never have thought, uh, of I, Yeah. But, uh, I guess when you're a lot of phlegm, you're sluggish and don't want to do much. I get that.

[00:19:16] Jeremy Spray: It also explains why I have spelled phlegmatic wrong my entire life, cuz I've never thought of it as phlegm being the, the root of that word

[00:19:26] Don Early: Yeah. Puhh-fleh-gum. 

[00:19:29] So, 

[00:19:33] Jeremy Spray: I wanna pronounce it from phonetically from now Puhflegm.

[00:19:38] Don Early: Puhflegm. And then finally we have those associated with black bile, which are considered melancholic. These are also associated with elements of the body that can be manipulated in order to retain balance such as blood letting and diet and so on. [00:20:00] Um, blood is seen as the most powerful and the most important and the most healthy, while black bile is seen as blood's opposite. 

[00:20:09] Black bile is seen as a source of weakness, a source of emotional fragility. Particularly around fear and anxiety. And, uh, black bile is seen as a source of antisocial behavior. In other words, not wanting to belong to society. You can kind of see where this is going. Certain groups then are of course associated with different humors and Jews are associated with black bile,

[00:20:43] Jeremy Spray: Black bile. I get

[00:20:45] Don Early: as such are associated with anxiety, sadness, fear, and antisocial behavior because they shun society. Wonder why

[00:20:55] Emily Quann: Yeah, 

[00:20:56] Don Early: As much shit that they had to gone [00:21:00] through. 

[00:21:02] know? 

[00:21:02] Jeremy Spray: yeah. It's not black bile nearly as much as it's horrible, other people.

[00:21:06] Don Early: Yeah. Maybe oppression might be more, uh, accurate, uh, anyway. This next one still slays me. 

Jewish Male Menstruation Jewish

[00:21:14] Don Early: There is an uncommon idea, but an occasional idea that the Jewish male menstruates.

[00:21:24] Jeremy Spray: What now?

[00:21:25] Emily Quann: What?

[00:21:27] Don Early: Okay. So Jewish males are, are seen to be colder. And so the Jewish male body needs to remove fluid as a woman's body does. Cuz you know, women are cold all the time. Of course they gotta bleed.

[00:21:42] Jeremy Spray: This is all pre-science.

[00:21:44] Emily Quann: Oh.

[00:21:45] Don Early: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. 400. Uh, or, you know, we're, we're probably dealing with 400, uh, on to zero BCE you know, ish. I also kind of wonder if it's just around this [00:22:00] Christian notion because a, again, by the time Christians sort of developed these really bizarre ideas around Jewish males, they are mostly not Jews anymore. Right. The, I mean, it's been gentiled or paganized or, you know, whatever you want to call it. The dominant body of people were no longer converted Jews. 

[00:22:28] Jeremy Spray: Right. Yeah, it was right. We talked about that. It, it was determined that the Jews were not the target market.

[00:22:33] Don Early: Yeah, yeah. So we have these pagan, you know, from pagan backgrounds or gentiles, uh, that are predominantly Christian. That's their, their world is more pagan than, than not. So as a result, they are not going, the men are not gonna be circumcised, right? That that's not really gonna be part of their thing. And so the notion that you would mutilate yourself [00:23:00] and mutilate babies for that matter, um, Uh, ritually.

[00:23:06] And do these wounds fester? Do they continue to bleed or, You know, I don't know. It's just, it's these ID questions that seem foreign to other, again, thoughts of othering. Um, it, it gets weird. So here's the philosophical or the, uh, rationale that they develop.

[00:23:28] The occurrence is seen as a consequence of the crucifixion, a curse upon the Jews who did not accept Jesus. Uh, so the Christians then claimed that the cure for this was supposed to be the blood of Christ itself, the conversion to Christianity, and, and then taking the Eucharist, um, uh, taking communion.

[00:23:51] And then Christian writers argue that the Jews misinterpreted this idea and just claim that the [00:24:00] consumption of any Christian blood would cure them of this condition. Yeah.

[00:24:05] Emily Quann: The condition again being

[00:24:08] Don Early: Jewish male menstruation.

[00:24:12] Emily Quann: so they wanted to not be cold again so that they would stop menstruating so that they would drink Christian 

[00:24:27] blood. 

[00:24:28] Don Early: Blood. 

[00:24:29] Yeah. 

[00:24:29] Jeremy Spray: to cure or balance out the black bile 

[00:24:32] Don Early: Mm-hmm. 

[00:24:34] Jeremy Spray: they, they have primarily in their system. Is that right?

[00:24:36] Don Early: Yeah. So the, I mean, this 

[00:24:37] Emily Quann: So was it the melancholy condition they were trying to fix or it was the menstruating they were trying to fix?

[00:24:43] Don Early: It was an affliction of the blood, however you want to think of it. It, it was 

[00:24:48] Emily Quann: Cause I did not know that I, I could stop my period by just wrapping myself up in a blanket and not being cold anymore. I feel lied [00:25:00] to. All these years because that, that would've saved me years of five to seven days each month, uh,

[00:25:12] Don Early: Just consume the blood of Christian babies 

[00:25:15] Emily Quann: being pissed off and miserable.

[00:25:17] Don Early: So anyway, really, really strange concepts here. Um, but you can see, given the 19 previous episodes of everything that we've learned in the context that we've kind of seen, um, how this, you know, again, this Christian worldview, Christian notion looking at the Jews because the Jews killed Christ. And finding those ways to make them alien.

[00:25:52] Emily Quann: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:53] Don Early: you know?

[00:25:53] Jeremy Spray: Yeah, that extreme othering that's there,

[00:25:57] Don Early: Yeah. Mind you, [00:26:00] that consuming blood of any kind is completely against Jewish worldview and religion and

[00:26:10] Jeremy Spray: that's what they want you to think, Don, they want you to think that they can't consume 

[00:26:14] Emily Quann: Don, stop. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid here. 

[00:26:17] Come on. 

[00:26:18] Jeremy Spray: But you're not wrong. Right? That's part of what the kosher level 

[00:26:23] Emily Quann: Exactly. 

[00:26:23] Jeremy Spray: literally no blood in anything. 

[00:26:25] Don Early: Yeah. Kosher meat is salted, uh, and preserved in such a way to extract as much of blood as possible, and again, this is, uh, in one of the videos I have linked down below that kind of goes into more detail just how bizarre this notion is that you would put this on the Jews when it's very clear that their tradition and their, their laws and whatnot have, uh, are completely antithetical to this.

[00:26:56] Um, it, it goes without saying [00:27:00] that as bananas as it sounds, it it is that. It's complete Cobblers, it's absolute fabrication. You can see the projection from one dominant society onto a people. Uh, you can see the projection. Um, but where this gets tricky, there's an element of this that leads credence to it, and that is in the notion of the Jewish insider. The Jewish person who has come over from the dark side of Judaism to Christianity to tell you the secrets of Judaism, of what they're really doing and, and that this is absolutely true and that sort of thing.

[00:27:52] That is a key element to these conspiracy theories to lend itself credence.

[00:27:59] Emily Quann: [00:28:00] So someone just comes over and says, Oh yeah, I used to be Jewish. Ha ha. Then just makes up all the shit.

[00:28:08] Jeremy Spray: I, I totally involuntarily eye rolled when you were just talking about the insider, Don, because not from the Jewish culture, but I have seen this happen, uh, in my lifetime from the Satanic Temple or the heavy metal life, and I'm sure we'll get into that a second, but I'm like, Oh, I've heard 

[00:28:29] Don Early: Yep. 

[00:28:30] Jeremy Spray: I've heard a lot of this.

William of Norwich

[00:28:31] Don Early: Yeah. All right. So the most, or the, I would say the earliest and, and potentially most famous, or at least second most famous idea of this concept that the Blood Libel, uh, occurs in 1144. In Norwich, England. The, the traditional origin story of the conspiracy occurs on Good Friday in 1144, where the body of a young boy named [00:29:00] William was found dead with stab wounds. He was found in the forest. Okay, so what is most of what is known about this boy named William comes from, um, Thomas of Monmouth, which is, uh, who is a monk from Norwich, uh, from the Norwich, Benedictine, uh, monastery who wrote a multi volume work in Latin called The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich. And, uh, the Wikipedia, uh, article honestly has plenty of information on this. Uh, I'm gonna kind of read from some of it, cuz a lot of my other research have, kind of supported the summary that's on here. So I feel pretty good about it. So bear in mind the writings about what happened came from this monk who had his own agenda.

[00:29:55] Okay. Um, that's clear. And the [00:30:00] historians are clear about that, but it's also the only information that we have around that. There are some evidence that they've been trying to kind of piece together to corroborate and support, but what we have is what we have. So the story goes that, uh, William was born on the 2nd of February, 1132 to a local couple and, uh, was apprentice, uh, to a Skinner tenor of hides who often, uh, dealt with the local, uh, Jews. 

[00:30:35] Shortly before his murder, William's mother was approached by a man who claimed to be a cook working for the Arch Deacon of Norwich. He offered William a job in the Arch Deacon's Kitchens. William's mother was paid three shillings to let her son go. Um, William later visited his aunt in the company of this man. His aunt was apparently suspicious and asked his daughter [00:31:00] to follow them after they left, and they were seen entering the house of a local Jew. And this is the last time William was seen alive, which was on Holy Tuesday. 

[00:31:12] On Holy Saturday. We're going from Tuesday to Saturday. 12 year old Williams body was found in a part of Thorpe Wood outside of Norwich. Now, the, the sources get a little bit dodgy around what happens next.

[00:31:30] Wikipedia is gonna describe that a local nun saw the body, but then did not initially contact anyone. And then a forester named Henry de Sprowston then came across it. He noted injuries which suggested a violent death, and William was wearing a jacket and shoes is notated. It is later determined by other sources, other later sources, I think, um, [00:32:00] that he was wearing only a jacket and shoes.

[00:32:04] After consultation with the parish priest, it was decided to bury the body on Easter Monday. In the meanwhile, local people came by to look at it, and William was recognized. The body was then, um, buried at the murder site. And then the following day, members of his family whom one was the priest, Godwin Stewart, arrived to confirm the identity of the body. They exhumed it and then reburied it with a proper ceremony. There's a lot of weird events happening here. And in other accounts, the initial nun who discovered the body is left out, it was said, it was discovered by the Forester, you know, Henry this, this Henry guy. 

[00:32:52] Emily Quann: Yeah, I can't imagine a nun seeing the body of a child and just, well, still gonna just [00:33:00] go on my way. 

[00:33:01] Whatever 

[00:33:01] Don Early: We don't know. We don't know why that part of the story exists, but it's part of the way it was accounted. Um, you know, I don't know. 

[00:33:12] Jeremy Spray: Usually it, and I could be wrong in this, but when I have seen, based on the things that we've talked about as well as other times, there is context that is created in characters that are being introduced or people that are not being introduced when stories are done. Right. We've, we've, Pagels talked about that a lot, but how the context was created for different topics. might be one of those 

[00:33:35] Don Early: Yeah. Um, William's family and their fellow, uh, English people quickly blamed the lo local Jewish community for the crime and demanded justice from the ecclesiastical court of Bishop William de Turbeville. Turbe-ville. Not Turdville. Turbeville. 

[00:33:56] Jeremy Spray: That's disappointing.

[00:33:57] Don Early: I know. Uh, members of the [00:34:00] Jewish community were asked by the bishop to attend the court and submit to a trial by ordeal.

[00:34:04] But the local Norman Sheriff, John de Chesney, advised them that the, the ecclesiastical court had no jurisdiction over over them as they were not Christians. He then took the Jews into protection, uh, in Norwich Castle. So I think a little bit of context now on the, the background of the Jewish community and the makeup and what that looks like is in order.

[00:34:31] So the Jewish community was thought to be, who have settled in Norwich by 1135, and most lived in the Jewish quarter near the castle. And the Jewish quarter had an unfortunate nickname called the Jewry. 

[00:34:48] Um, .And so the Jews were a French speaking community, just as the Anglo Normans were. And they were seen as under the [00:35:00] protection of the Normans.

[00:35:01] William and his family, on the other hand, were of Anglo Saxon descent, and several of his relatives were married priests, which followed local tradition. Um, long story short, there were tensions particularly high between the French speaking Jews and, um, uh, who were teamed up with the, or thought to have been teamed up, or at least under the protection of the French speaking Normans.

[00:35:27] Um, and they were particularly higher, uh, during the reign of King Stephen when the murder occurred. Thomas of Monmouth alleges that the sheriff was bribed by the Norish or the Norwich, uh, Jewish community to protect them. Uh, after the situation to calm down, they returned to their homes. The issue revived two years later when a member of the Jewish community was murdered in an unrelated incident, and Steven agreed to look into the matter, but decided later not to pursue it.[00:36:00] 

[00:36:00] So more unrest starts to come out. Um, when William's body had been moved to the Monk Cemetery, uh, Bishop De Turbeville and other members of the local community attempted to create a cultus around him as a Christian martyr, but it didn't really plan out. And, um, so it gets, gets real murky as you know. 

[00:36:29] Jeremy Spray: Wanted to make a martyr out of William the boy? 

The Blood Libel of William

[00:36:33] Don Early: Um, and this is kind of the beginning of, of this notion that William was killed by the Jews, but why? And it ends up extrapolating this notion that he was killed for his blood, uh, that he was stabbed, you know, to collect his blood, uh, so that the, the [00:37:00] Jews could consume it. Um, this gets later propagated and validated and, uh, other incidences of a similar nature start spreading around the mainland Europe, within the next, I think, 10 years.

[00:37:17] So it really, in that time, that's, that's a pretty fast paced um, notion. And there's a another, I don't have it off top of my head, uh, and we're not gonna get into it, but there are other very famous murders that are thought to be, again, similar situations, sainted, martyred, uh, but that the Jews, uh, abducted them, killed them, drained them of their blood.

[00:37:47] Uh, there is horrible, horrible artwork out there on what this looks like. 

[00:37:53] Jeremy Spray: And it's always Jews,

[00:37:55] Don Early: it's always Jews. Yeah.

[00:37:58] Jeremy Spray: Wow. 

[00:37:58] Don Early: So obviously [00:38:00] Christians in power benefited from this. And the consequences of this conspiracy spread like wildfire vividly embraced throughout the Nazi regime. Of course, uh, there are some terrible antisemitic, paraphernalia and, cartoons of, of this happening that came out of the Nazi era.

[00:38:23] Um, and even to this day, as recent as 2020, uh, the Italian artist, Giovanni Gasparro paints an uber realistic and graphic portrayal of the Blood Libel conspiracy of the murder of Simon of Trent. Who is the other one I was, um, I couldn't think of the name of. But that's, uh, Simon of Trent is this other very famous Blood Libel conspiracy victim.

[00:38:47] Emily Quann: Was he another child?

[00:38:48] Don Early: Yeah. So the consequences of course have been violent antisemitism and, 

[00:38:56] Emily Quann: Of course, if you believed that this was what they were actually doing,

[00:38:59] Don Early: [00:39:00] Yeah. And this is, 

[00:39:03] Emily Quann: God, how could you believe that?

[00:39:06] Jeremy Spray: Right.

Jeremy on The Wizard's First Rule

[00:39:07] Jeremy Spray: You know what, what it gets me thinking about is, and I was thinking about this earlier, Don, when you were talking about how fast it's spread, like all of Europe and, and the word of mouth, it's, it's not a lot of printed presses out there, people reading news in the 11 hundreds. But, uh, it takes me back to a, a book that I read that really kind of changed my entire adult perspective.

[00:39:31] Like I I read it in my twenties from an author called Terry Goodkin. The book is called Wizard's First Rule, and the Wizard's first rule is that people are stupid. Specifically people are stupid, and they will believe anything that you tell them because A, they want it to be true so badly that they will believe it, or B, they are terrified that it is true,

[00:39:58] Don Early: mm.

[00:39:59] Jeremy Spray: [00:40:00] and so they will choose to believe these ob incredibly absurd. Absolutely outrageous. Like one person sitting there realizing it as we would sit here and go, No, that doesn't make sense. There's nothing like, you can point to it 300 ways. That doesn't make sense. But because I would be so afraid of my child being injured or, or being wounded or being attacked or because I have so much vitriol and hate that I wanted so bad to have revenge on that one, that I could believe these incredible lies to be true.

[00:40:37] Emily Quann: Wow. 

[00:40:38] Jeremy Spray: It's, the wizard's first rule. I, I think that's how it spread. 

[00:40:41] Emily Quann: I haven't heard of that before, but that's, Yeah, I, I can see that fitting many, many, many situations.

[00:40:49] Jeremy Spray: right over and over again, 

[00:40:51] Emily Quann: Mm. 

[00:40:52] Don Early: That makes 

[00:40:52] Jeremy Spray: to current day, 

[00:40:53] Don Early: current. 

[00:40:54] Jeremy Spray: in fact.

[00:40:55] Don Early: Yeah. And again, current day, this conspiracy I just [00:41:00] talked about is still believed by, by many people out there. Yeah. I mean it's, it's in, there's, there's news articles. Again that I, I reference this one from even just 2020 where this person painted this picture. it's one thing, not only has it been debunked and thoroughly, thoroughly shown to be complete lies, falsehoods and a construct, and the reasons for that construct

[00:41:28] Jeremy Spray: Yeah.

[00:41:29] Don Early: It, it's still taken as real, as, as reality. As truth. Because I, I mean, I'm not sure that I like this notion of that people are stupid, but I do think that there's an, uh, I, I like the element of the wizard's first rule that, some people are disposed to believe things because they want it to be true so badly, or that they are so [00:42:00] terrified that it could be true.

[00:42:01] I think those, those two ideas are very reality changing notions, for anyone,

[00:42:10] Jeremy Spray: And to, to keep the philosophy thoughts going, I'm gonna take a quote from Men in Black, 

[00:42:15] Don Early: Right. 

[00:42:16] Jeremy Spray: very important film, right? Yeah. A person is smart and, and can figure things out, but people are dumb, panicky animals right? And, and you know, it says K, right? Like that's, that's the thing, right? It's when you have a mass, when there is a mob mindset, there is no more critical thinking there. There is no more decision making around that.

[00:42:40] Don Early: Yeah. 

[00:42:41] Jeremy Spray: Those who do are the minority, cuz they're not speaking with the mob.

[00:42:44] Don Early: Now the one thing that we're not gonna get into, uh, cause we don't have time, but, uh, cuz we're gonna skip right to the eighties and nineties now. But this does of course, bleed into the Inquisition and the witch trials. It, it's, [00:43:00] it's very, very similar othering and notions of why these people are doing horrible things is they need the blood of Christian children for their nefarious rituals. 

[00:43:19] Jeremy Spray: So it's, it's actually the same conspiracy that that fueled those investigations as well, or, or at least those justifications for those horrific acts.

[00:43:30] Don Early: So, so, um, it, it ends up becoming like, well this was anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic, now we're gonna go after women. And so we have that whole bit. 

[00:43:45] Jeremy Spray: Yeah. 

[00:43:46] Emily Quann: Yay. 

[00:43:47] Jeremy Spray: Right. 

[00:43:48] Don Early: And of course all that have completely obviously been as well debunked and, and disproven. 

The Satanic Panic

[00:43:55] Don Early: But what maybe isn't real clear to a lot of [00:44:00] people is the Satanic Panic and what that was.

[00:44:06] And, um, that the fact that, that it was also false. And what may be difficult to understand about that, is that it was so real at the time it was, the conspiracy was so, so pervasive that it convinced people who weren't even religious. It convinced people that there was a threat, to their communities.

[00:44:37] That was faceless. 

[00:44:39] So, there's a podcast by CBC called Satanic Panic. Highly, highly recommend you take a look at it. The, the summary of this sums up the Satan Panic.

[00:44:51] Throughout the 1980s, Satanic cults were widely believed to be prey on children torturing and terrorizing them as [00:45:00] part of dark rituals across North America. There were hundreds of false ac accusations, uh, and allegations, scores of unjust criminal trials, and countless lives torn apart, but never any real proof.

[00:45:17] By the early 1990s, the panic reached the tiny prairie town of Martinsville, Saskatchewan in Canada. And nearly 30 years later, the people touched by it all are still picking up the pieces. So what happened? And why do so many, so many people still believe this today. And so it's, uh, a podcast called Uncover Satanic Panic Investigates.

[00:45:44] Check that out. It is about the, ,Martinsville, and it's a little confusing because there's another famous, , which we'll talk about in a second famous trial called the McMartins. So I kind of kept getting those two. Yeah. Um, but [00:46:00] the Martinsville happened in the nineties and it was in Canada, uh, whereas the McMartin trial was in Southern California.

[00:46:08] So what are the claims. The claims were that the Satanic cults are hidden in plain sight and they are seeking your children for ritual abuse that, uh, the Satanists wish for anarchy and destruction. And they are overwhelmingly numerous and have infiltrated every level of society.

[00:46:34] Emily Quann: They play D and D

[00:46:36] Don Early: And they play D and D.

[00:46:37] Jeremy Spray: Right? And listen to heavy metal music and, and everything is a ritual. Everything has a meaning. There is, there is hidden language and hidden symbology everywhere because all they're doing. Abusing children and bringing demons into the world.

[00:46:54] Don Early: Yeah.

[00:46:54] Emily Quann: Just, fucking gamers.

[00:46:58] Jeremy Spray: Nice quote. Nice quote. You [00:47:00] sounded just like her. 

[00:47:02] Emily Quann: I wonder why 

[00:47:05] Don Early: The Satanic Panic of the early eighties. I mean, uh, uh, there's a lot a context, behind this of course, but there was a, a phrase that was coined, trying to uncover what was going on, going on here. 

Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA)

[00:47:20] Don Early: And that is the so-called Satanic Ritual Abuse or SRA.. To the point that a manual was written to ferret out and, um, deprogram, and get the truth to interrogate, Satanic Ritual Abuse , either, suspects or victims or, or so on. 

[00:47:47] Jeremy Spray: So like this was a law enforcement style manual that was used to interview victims or interrogate suspects on specifically sexual- what is Satanic Ritual Abuse?

[00:47:59] Don Early: [00:48:00] Yeah. Uh, there is a, um, US Per Department of Justice creates a Investigator's Guide to Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse.

[00:48:08] Jeremy Spray: US Department of Justice?! 

[00:48:10] Don Early: Oh yeah.

[00:48:11] Emily Quann: Wow. 

[00:48:12] Jeremy Spray: DOJ 

[00:48:12] Don Early: Yep. Mm-hmm. 

[00:48:14] Jeremy Spray: Whoa.

[00:48:15] Emily Quann: Do you know what was gonna say? Do you know what year it was written?

[00:48:18] Don Early: Yeah. 1992. Uh, Kenneth Lanning writes it. There's a link of course in the, uh, show notes here. Our friends over at the Black Mass Appeal Podcast did an episode in July of this year, uh, called Drunk Heresy: Ending the Satanic Panic.

[00:48:36] And, uh, they dive into FBI special agent Kenneth Lanning publishing his, Investigator Guide to Allegations to Ritual Child Abuse. Though many sources today Credit Landing with syncing the Satanic panic, few have actually read his conclusions, so they're gonna get a get to the bottom of that. And, uh, it's a, it's a pretty good episode, so you definitely [00:49:00] check that out.

[00:49:01] But yeah, it changed the country. Right? Over a notion that no evidence was found, no cults were found.

[00:49:14] People were arrested and went to jail. Some are still in jail for things that never happened.

[00:49:20] Emily Quann: That's what gets me that they're still in jail when, when everything has been debunked. I mean, literally lives ruined over this and didn't it? Didn't it all start? Sorry, Spoiler alert, but didn't it all start with somebody who just made shit up in a book?

[00:49:36] Don Early: Yeah, we'll get to that. In the sixties and seventies, it, I mean, it, it, it, there's again this sort of pressure cooker that is building and building and, and so there's a number of factors that increase to this mass fear and panic.

[00:49:54] We had in the late sixties and in the seventies, we had the Manson [00:50:00] cult, operation in the late sixties that culminated into a string of murders. Of course, Charles Manson didn't commit a single one of them. He was just the sort of ring leader, of this cult. and, but had that sort of satanic flavor to it, right. 

[00:50:20] Emily Quann: Helter Skelter.

[00:50:22] Don Early: Yeah, Helter Skelter. 

Anton LaVey

[00:50:23] Don Early: In the same year, 1969, Anton LaVey published his philosophical treatise, The Satanic Bible, which, uh, many people say plagiarized several sources and mostly regurgitated earlier philosophies of self-actualization and self-empowerment from writers like H.L. uh Mankin and Ayn Rand.

[00:50:48] Jeremy Spray: Yep. 

[00:50:48] Don Early: Nevertheless, it became the seminal work of modern Satanism and is the key text for the Church of Satan, as we have talked about many times, um, who LaVey founded in [00:51:00] 1966. We've seen before that Anton LaVey was also a pretty public figure. He liked being a celebrity and he dressed the part. Right.

[00:51:11] Jeremy, you talk about that sometimes about wh when he shows up on like talk shows and stuff.

[00:51:17] Jeremy Spray: Yeah. The dude was a ham. They like his, his entire shtick of the deal, even as you just talked about, right? The, the Satanic Bible has items and moments of self actualization in there, but that wasn't really his goal. His goal was to be seen. It was, it was narcissistic at best, and, and so when there was people that were giving him attention, he would do everything he could to maintain that attention.

[00:51:46] Like, Oh, he's scary. Great. I'm gonna dress scary. Oh, he has black and red like a vampire. Great. I'm gonna wear capes like a fricking vampire because that's gonna be satanic and like, and he would just like embody this. And you know what? It [00:52:00] worked 

[00:52:00] Don Early: It did. 

[00:52:01] Jeremy Spray: He really did have that celebrity feature, even showed up in movies.

[00:52:04] Don Early: Yeah. Um, now it is, uh, uh, I've mentioned this before and I'm wrong and I need to correct this, that, it was said that he appeared in Rosemary's Baby as the devil. That, and the devil, , in that movie rapes Rosemary, and impregnates her. It was, uh, actor in a, in a body suit, in a, creature suit. It was not Anton LaVey.

[00:52:29] He was not in that. The Church of, uh, Satan would like you to believe it does, as far as I understand. But, , no, he was not associated with that. He, he would, he would like to have been, but I don't, It sounds like that wasn't a thing. Anyway, that's 1969. Satanic Bible is published and it's out there.

The Exorcist

[00:52:51] Don Early: Now accompanying this rise of Satanism as a recognized practice was the 1971 publication [00:53:00] of the best-selling William Peter Blatty's, uh, novel, The Exorcist, which scared the shit out of generations.

[00:53:10] Jeremy Spray: It Still 

[00:53:11] Don Early: Still does. And its blockbuster in 1973, film adaptation, um, with its claims of being based on a true story, it just profoundly impacts the American consciousness around Satanism. 

[00:53:32] Emily Quann: Freaked the shit out of people.

[00:53:34] Don Early: To the point that it demonized the Ouija Board. The whole idea that the Ouija Board is, uh, a tool for the Devil comes from that movie.

[00:53:48] Jeremy Spray: Whoa.

[00:53:49] Emily Quann: Wow.

[00:53:49] Don Early: Uh, according to this article from Vox that I'm reading from.

[00:53:53] Jeremy Spray: So that's my entire life right there, right? Ouija Boards were always bad, were always scary. My mom was [00:54:00] absolutely terrified of them. 

[00:54:02] Don Early: Yeah, 

[00:54:02] Jeremy Spray: The only thing she was scared more of them Ouija Boards, Tarot cards, 

[00:54:06] Don Early: Uhhuh. 

[00:54:07] Jeremy Spray: She considered to be the same deal. 

[00:54:08] Don Early: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So apparently prior to The Exorcist, it was just a fun, harmless parlor game. And, uh, it became this malevolent device capable of inducing spirit possession and demonic infestation and, and everything else. So. In 1972, uh, came the publication Satan Seller, which was a fabricated memoir, ultimately discredited after 20 years by the self-proclaimed Christian evangelist, Mike Warnke, recounted a childhood and young adult that Warnke claimed that he spent in intense satanic worship, um, and, and was part of ritualistic sex orgies and various other things, which of course, LaVey was a big fan of as well.

[00:54:59] Jeremy Spray: [00:55:00] Was that the book that you were referring to, Emily? 

[00:55:03] Don Early: No, 

[00:55:04] Emily Quann: No, 

[00:55:05] Don Early: We're, we're building to that one. Yeah, we're not there yet. Um,

[00:55:11] Emily Quann: I jumped way ahead, Jeremy

[00:55:13] Don Early: We're still in the seventies right now.

[00:55:15] Emily Quann: Okay.

[00:55:16] Don Early: LaVey published also in the same year in 1972. This, uh, Satanic Rituals, , just reinforcing the idea of dark occult rituals, that have become a part of ordinary American life for some reason.

Serial Killers & Satanic Associations

[00:55:33] Don Early: And then we get, weird shit again, the sort of cult. There's the 1978 Jonestown Massacre. Not really connected with Satanism, but it still sort of, was, you know, cements this idea. Uh, we have, you know, things like the Zodiac Killer and Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy uh, Hillside Strangler, David Berkowitz, ,which of course is on Netflix, is that, The [00:56:00] Sons of Sam, or Son of Sam, documentary out there, David Berkowitz.

[00:56:03] That one very, very heavily suggests that there was a Satanic cult ring. And here's the thing, maybe there were some people who were into some pretty heavy shit, and maybe they believed what they were saying or who knows, but there's never been really any evidence to the, you know, to the other.

[00:56:30] Jeremy Spray: But I mean, you bring up a really solid point. I'm thinking of like the media in the seventies, right? Like television has been around for a full generation at this point. So the, the kids that grew up with learning tv, they now get to see news consistently, and, and they are grownups at this time, so, the word, like we were talking about the Blood Libel being spread around Europe in, in 10 years, what, you know, 800 years ago, now it's the news all the time because that's [00:57:00] where you get your information.

[00:57:01] That's what you see. And, and the news that people tune into are the who killed someone else and, and other things happening. Right. I mean, good God. Think of the amount of true crime shows 

[00:57:12] Don Early: Oh, yeah. 

[00:57:12] Jeremy Spray: out right now in the podcast. 

[00:57:14] Don Early: podcasts. Yeah.

[00:57:15] Jeremy Spray: true crimes real happening.

[00:57:16] Emily Quann: Yeah, everybody loves that, the uh, "holy shit!" type of news,

[00:57:20] Don Early: Yeah. And I mean, and this is the, you're right, the, the media had a huge impact in spreading this notion in these ideas and painting that picture. 

[00:57:32] Jeremy Spray: For sure. Right? Having to tell a story.

[00:57:34] Don Early: And, and feeding the fear. The John Wayne Gacy was also kind of interesting. Um, sort of he hid his evil under like, the guise of friendly clowns.

[00:57:49] You know, and then they somehow discover and find that he's got what, 20 over 20 bodies buried in his crawlspace. [00:58:00] And, and that one didn't really have anything to do with satanism either John Wayne Gacy, but it contributes. It's these serial killers. You know, Ed Gaines and the, these notions of, how could anyone do such a horrible, atrocious thing?

[00:58:17] It must be, the result of satanic forces or, or these sort of like violent cult situations. So this is all,

[00:58:29] Jeremy Spray: Wizard's First Rule again.

[00:58:30] Don Early: This is all building. Yeah. Wizard's First Rule a hundred percent. Um, that's a really good one. 

[00:58:36] Now we get to the eighties and this is where Em's book comes in. And, 

[00:58:40] Emily Quann: Not my book, 

The '80's

[00:58:42] Don Early: The book that you're talking about. To set this up, Oh, we've got the Reagan era. We've got, in the eighties we're, we're seeing the spread of the AIDS misinformation, kidnapped victims appearing on milk cartons all over the place. Mass panic around the [00:59:00] 1982 Tylenol murders.

[00:59:02] Of course, the trick or treat scares, uh, where there is only one candy killer, Ronald Clark O'Bryan, who received a highly publicized execution in 1984. But we all still check for razor blades, don't we? You know, and never accept fruit. By the way, they were giving a lot of packages of sliced fruit in Disneyland. Take that as we will, sliced apples, 

[00:59:29] Jeremy Spray: And grapes,

[00:59:30] Don Early: And grapes. Not a single razor blade mind you. I was disappointed. 

[00:59:34] Jeremy Spray: Not in the happiest place on earth. 

[00:59:36] Don Early: Yeah. The other thing that's happening that I don't think this, um, article goes into too much, is, the dual income family, uh, where the, the Satanic Panic Podcast that I previously uh, mentioned does go into that quite a bit where the, climate of moms and dad are working now.

[00:59:57] Emily Quann: Kids are home alone?

[00:59:58] Don Early: Kids are either [01:00:00] home alone or they are needing to have, daycare. So they're going to daycare. You're leaving your children with seemingly strangers. And so, eighties starts building this stranger danger on an exponential level. And of course it's the daycare centers that these conspiracies begin.

[01:00:25] Jeremy Spray: Yeah, of course.

[01:00:27] Don Early: Christian fundamentalism of the moral majority, Jerry Falwell, on the huge rise. Jack Chick, the Jack Chick comics, of course, uh, Dark Dungeons, which we are very familiar with, uh, in this group. The Fire and Brimstone of Christianity and, uh, and the rise in this understanding that Dungeons and Dragons is a tool of, uh, satanic cults and stuff.

Michelle Remembers

[01:00:54] Don Early: And where the conspiracy starts to [01:01:00] coalesce is in this book, published in 1980, a memoir called Michelle Remembers. And this book is, It's graphic and it's, wild. And, um, just even talking about it is, is really uncomfortable because it, it, you know, it's, it reveals this shocking, occult sex abuse.

[01:01:23] What's even, I, I don't understand how it wasn't immediately discredited in that the co-author was a controversial psychologist, Lawrence Pazder, who was Michelle's psychiatrist or, or, uh, psychologist, whom he married.

[01:01:46] Emily Quann: Yeah, that's a no-no. 

[01:01:47] Jeremy Spray: that's like five conflicts of interest in one sentence. 

[01:01:51] Emily Quann: Yeah. 

[01:01:51] Don Early: He purportedly helped, uh, Michelle uncover memories of the past, uh, abuse at the hands of members of the [01:02:00] Church of Satan, which, uh, he insisted was older than LaVey's group by several centuries. This publication, Michelle Remembers, has been widely debunked, thoroughly, as this, , as Pazder's, methods became incredibly, not only just questionable, but obviously leading.

[01:02:23] But it also became kind of a guidebook on how to uncover these repressed memories in the, the victims. The phrase Satanic Ritual Abuse, SRA, is coined in Michelle Remembers, uh, gets presented as a textbook, for legal professionals and other authorities. And there are other copycat novels that are, are, well, might as well be novels, but other books that get pushed as truth.

[01:02:55] And, uh, you know, and then we've got the talk shows and all of the repercussions, [01:03:00] Geraldo Rivera, and, um, Oprah Winfrey having, you know, satanism and cults on the rise just completely out there, you know, for those who are stay at home moms, uh, at the time , they're watching, , the daytime tv and you just get all of that.

[01:03:20] And so more and more of this stranger danger and panic that anything, everyone's out for your kids, 

[01:03:28] Jeremy Spray: I can't believe, like when you were describing the fact that the SRA was coined in this book, I was really hoping it to come back and go, but they used a different source. Not this was the textbook for the actual department policies and procedures that were written that is now debunked like . That's, that is so intensely stupid.

[01:03:54] Don Early: Yeah. Yeah. So the, the cases, uh, start began in Kern [01:04:00] County in California in 1980. Bakersfield, social workers who had read Michelle Remembers, learned of a clandestine local occult sex ring from two children who had been coerced into fabricating the claims by a relative. And, uh, this would send at least 26 people to jail in interrelated convictions, despite lack of any corroborative, physical evidence of any kind.

[01:04:29] Nearly all of those convictions have been since overturned, including the man who, one man who served 20 years of a 40 year sentence. 

[01:04:37] Emily Quann: God, and you said nearly all of them. So not all of them. 

[01:04:41] Don Early: Yeah. Of those two parents who were sentenced to 240 years in prison after their own sons were coached to accuse them of abuse.

[01:04:50] Jeremy Spray: Oh my God.

McMartin Trial

[01:04:52] Don Early: Yeah. Among them, uh, I mean, this would just spiral out of control. The McMartin trial, which [01:05:00] became and remains the largest, longest and most expensive trial in California history. 1983, one parent accused, uh, one of the staff members at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, of abuse. During the investigation, police allowed an unlicensed psychotherapist named Kee McFarlane to conduct examinations of 400 children who attended the daycare.

[01:05:25] And, uh, McFarlane famously used Ana anatomically correct dolls and coercive interview processes resulting in a staggering 321 counts of child abuse leveled against seven daycare staff members by 41 children. Um, and again, I, I, folks I am reading and, and speaking from this, Vox article, which I have linked, it just summarizes a lot of the research that [01:06:00] I've been putting together.

[01:06:00] So, um, why write it twice? You know, you could read a lot more in detail on that, but the Martin McMartin preschool building was, uh, razed to the ground in 1990. Just decimated, , and, and burned. So, um, it has been thoroughly debunked. 

[01:06:24] Jeremy Spray: So the preschool won the trial, but they still had the place burned down and, and shut down cause it's been debunked that, that

[01:06:33] Don Early: It's not so much that they won, it's just that over so long of a time it was finally overturned. But I, I guess, what do you classify as winning? Everyone's lives have been destroyed by this point. Um, and memories have been implanted, false memories have been been implanted. It's so many people, and around that,[01:07:00] still continues to this day, around some so, and communities ramifications around that.

[01:07:07] You get accused of child abuse in that way, sexual child abuse. And it doesn't matter if you did it or not at that point. It is over. It's over. doesn't matter what's true and what isn't. It's at this point,

[01:07:25] Jeremy Spray: I mean, it matters a little bit. It absolutely matters to, to

[01:07:29] Don Early: mean, in the long run. Yeah. But 

[01:07:31] Jeremy Spray: abused. But I get it. So e 

[01:07:33] Emily Quann: but you have that mark against you people. People will hear your name and automatically associate 

[01:07:40] Don Early: Yeah.

[01:07:41] Emily Quann: with you.

[01:07:42] Don Early: Right. I guess, I guess what I mean is, uh, uh, for those, uh, who didn't do it, which turns out is all of them, but I mean, going back to William of Norwich, right? The [01:08:00] boy in the Blood Libel story, who was murdered. It's thought that the real story of probably what happened is that he was a victim of a pedophile in the local community, and it was just, was used as a coverup. Easy scapegoat. And I think that's kind of where a lot of these stories probably happen is, could possibly be, you know, Um, but, but I think just, it just astounds me that the power of suggestion and coercion can be, um, so potent that it changes your entire world when it is entirely fabricated. [01:09:00] Um, that, I mean, Wizard's First Rule on that one, that frightens the hell outta me.

[01:09:08] Jeremy Spray: For sure. Right.

[01:09:09] Don Early: You know, 

[01:09:11] Jeremy Spray: Being careful what what is said and what is heard and how it's heard.

[01:09:15] Don Early: Yeah, so the article goes on and talks about kind of the history of what, uh, how these trials panned out and, things were overturned and, um, and that sort of thing. But it is the, the sad part of the Satanic Panic situation is that it never really ended. It's like it when underground and people sort of forgot about it for a little while, and now it's, you know, starting to come up and, and there are people to this day in and around those communities, or maybe even just, you know, know of it who are [01:10:00] convinced that it did happen and that the media now, or, you know, figures in the higher up and corporations and politicians are trying to cover it all up and trying to, you know, uh, this, it just continues to build this conspiracy still lives. 

Pizzagate - A Prelude to Q'Anon

[01:10:22] Don Early: Which brings us to Q'Anon.

[01:10:24] Jeremy Spray: This is where I'm gonna jump in. So, you know, I, I was nodding along with you, Don, while I was sitting here on mute because like straight up to the exact conspiracies that you're talking about. Uh, the first thing that that came up for me when I was looking at it was Pizzagate.

[01:10:41] Don Early: Hmm.

[01:10:41] Jeremy Spray: Pizzagate was, uh, a conspiracy that happened when.

[01:10:47] There, Well, it was in 2016. It was a big presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. And Donald Trump and his MAGA followers, uh, pushed a lot [01:11:00] by not only the people on his actual campaign staff, but Donald Trump himself had a bunch of conspiracy theories. And so it was kind of prevalence in his role in this campaign. And right after he lost the election, there was even more vitriol that was tossed around at Hillary Clinton, who she was, and he didn't lose the election, but he was about to. And one of the biggest things that, that they were clamoring on, on Hillary Clinton about was the fact that there was, uh, all these emails that were out there. And so arguably one of the reasons or the greatest reason that Hillary Clinton lost the election, she didn't lose the election, that she lost the electoral votes. Let's be clear on that. She, she won by a lot, uh, was, she had a, uh, a representative who was working with her at, at an assistant named John Podesta.

[01:11:58] And, uh, there was an [01:12:00] investigation regarding classified files that Hillary had. And, and there was, there was, if you guys both recall, there was a whole question about her emails. Where's the emails? That, because they, they felt like all these documents were lost. Well, a laptop was found, a a, an old work laptop that John Podesta had. And inside the laptop there was a bunch of emails. And so the FBI made note of it and, and, uh, they started going through information. And this is 24 hour news on seven different channels right now where everyone's looking for any type of drip of drop of an update. Nothing is important, nothing is interesting, and there's so many other things happening in the world, but this became a big deal. Well, in all of these stupid emails, by which, by the way, they found nothing. It was just dumb emails for work. Like there was, there's no actual conspiracy information in there, but people still wanted there to be, They, they wanted so badly for something to be in there. 

[01:12:59] Emily Quann: Wizard's First [01:13:00] Rule!

[01:13:01] Jeremy Spray: What's that?

[01:13:01] Emily Quann: Wizard's First Rule.

[01:13:02] Jeremy Spray: Wizard's First Rule again? Right? It, it did it again. We want it so bad. And so it was determined by some conspiracy theorists on Four Chan and a couple of other places that, uh, he, he was talking about pizza that he liked and he would go and get cheese pizza from a place called, uh, Comet Ping Pong. And, and, uh, it was great pizza. He talked about going to it with his family, whatnot, and they decided that it was code. And what the code meant. 

[01:13:33] Emily Quann: Because who would go to a pizza joint with their

[01:13:36] Jeremy Spray: Why would you go to Comet Ping Pong and love cheese pizza? Cheese pizza must mean, and this is, this is true. They thought it meant child pornography. And that's what cheese pizza translated to is child pornography and child trafficking. And they believed that this child, this child, human trafficking in child pornography happened in the basement of Comet Ping Pong, in Washington, DC. And so that was this bizarre [01:14:00] lie that was spread around and that was, that was tossed out there and it was forwarded and continued to be pressed and processed and, and shared on Twitter a couple other places. And it upset a lot of people, including a guy named Edgar Welch who live in North Carolina. And Edgar felt like he needed to be the one to do something about it. He, he felt that, uh, someone had to save the children. That was, that was his deal. That was his mindset. So he drove, He one day he, like down in December, uh, 2016, he drove, So this is after Trump has already won the election, but he still needs to go save the kids.

[01:14:41] And so he decided to load up his truck with an AR 15 and a pistol and drove from North Carolina to Washington, DC to how, how did he put it? He's literally said that he was possibly going to, uh, sacrifice few for the freighter, greater good.

[01:14:57] Don Early: Yeah,

[01:14:58] Jeremy Spray: He's gonna go save the kids. [01:15:00] And so he goes into Comet Ping Pong and brandishes his gun. Points at, at employees, actually shoots a lock in a closet because he believed that that was the doorway.

[01:15:11] Well, you guys Comet Ping Pong doesn't even have a basement. There is no basement in this pizza joint. It is, It is a flat level area in Washington, DC. Like, so what he thought was the door when they're like, there's nothing here. He shot the lock out. He actually broke a computer and, uh, pointed the, the gun at another employee.

[01:15:31] Eventually got all of the, they all evacuated and got all out. But like he, he realized later on that according to him, some of his information may not have been a hundred percent legit.

[01:15:44] Don Early: Oh, Jesus.

[01:15:45] Jeremy Spray: And, and that was, that's what he said when he dropped his guns to the ground and, uh, was arrested. Uh, turns out, uh, this is kind of an extra fun fact. Uh, he was convicted, uh, for four years in prison by, [01:16:00] uh, Judge Ketanji Jackson, which, uh, I just thought was super cool that like, Hey, I know that name. That, uh, the US district, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, uh, was, was the one who, uh, indicated that, that, his actions literally left psychological wreckage. 

[01:16:15] Don Early: Oh wow.

[01:16:16] Jeremy Spray: And, uh, and one of the reasons that he was arrested. But here's the deal. Here's how conspiracy theories work, y'all. You can't lose. That's not how it's gonna go. So there had to be some way of spinning it. And back on those forums, back on that Four Chan, uh, the conspiracy started to happen again from all of these followers where they would go into and talk about, it must have been a setup. That guy wasn't actually one of ours. He was one of theirs. So of course he wouldn't find anything because he was planted by the Deep State and the Hollywood Democratic Party because the thing kept growing. While he's in prison, [01:17:00] in his mind, it's done right. He, he was wrong. It was over. But in Four Chan, this person who called themselves Q

[01:17:10] Don Early: Right. 

Q, of Four Chan, Anonymous. Q'Anon

[01:17:11] Jeremy Spray: would leave what he called Q or what they called Q Drops.

[01:17:15] And that person said, I'm an insider within the government. And here's what actually happened. That pizza place is not just human trafficking and child pornography, it's actually where they drain children's blood because they give it to, and I quote here, Hollywood elites and the Deep State, where they, in the Democratic party and the Hollywood people will drink, uh, the children's blood and, and have sexual ritualistic or or satanic ritualistic abuse with them, uh, be to keep themselves young.

[01:17:56] And, and that's, that is part of, of how they keep going and that [01:18:00] was still spread. One thing I would just wanna bring up real quick, I know you have a, a statement Don, this all happened on the internet. This was Four Chan it later on got moved on to Eight Chan. And like, that sounds dumb, but one of the things that we've learned about the internet over the past 20 years is that it stays.

[01:18:17] We, we can trace all of this. 

[01:18:20] We right this, this infamous Q person who says that they were this alleged, uh, insider in the government. Nope. We, we found out who they are. There's actually an entire, uh, team here. There's, there's a linguistics group who, uh, let me find this, this quote here real quick. The Q'Anon group. Yeah. We have, we have exactly the account of the people that shared and the idea of, uh, I don't need to go into all the language, but Q decided that the best way to spread this information would be to have Bakers and Crumbs, and he was using YouTube influencers and, and social makers to help [01:19:00] spread the information around and to get all of it out there and, and to get it going. What we came up with and what was learned was that there were two different teams of forensic linguists that used machine learning and, and AI learning because we have computers to do it now. And they actually analyzed all of these Q drops, these thousands of pieces of information and determined that the Q'Anon that the person here was most likely to work of a South African software engineer named Paul Ferber.

[01:19:28] And, uh, and then

[01:19:30] Don Early: Oh, Paul.

[01:19:31] Jeremy Spray: When, when it was later on, decided that, that, that was Paul, it got switched over to Ron Watkins, who was an ex patriot that lives in the Philippines. And he's been kind of toying with these two social medias anyway, like he went to for Chan and he started Eight Chan. That was his thing.

[01:19:46] Neither of them have actual access to classified information. Uh, they, they both use the language and were very well versed in the particular types of language that was determined inside the thing. But it. It's all fake. [01:20:00] It's all fake still. It's a hundred percent made up. And, uh, when frigging Ed Edward Welch, he's, he's out now, by the way.

[01:20:10] He was, he was in for four years and he's out, like he comes outta prison and people in his hometown are coming to him and was like, Did you know, or did you find out? And his, his mind was blown. He's like, Oh, this is like, he, he's better. He's away from the conspiracy news. And, and he's told him, he is like, This isn't right, this is wrong. And he just kinda wants his life back But,

[01:20:32] Don Early: I was just reading that he was getting a bunch. I don't know if it's the same guy, but, uh, the, I guess the founder of eight chan, or eight chan in general as a company, is getting death threats and, uh, hate and just like, uh, violence and whatnot for going after Q'Anon conspiracy. Conspiracists, Uh,

[01:20:54] Jeremy Spray: Because they're coming over with the facts and they're like, hey, that's not a real thing, 

[01:20:56] Don Early: Yeah, so they're getting, getting challenged [01:21:00] for, uh, for trying to take down Q'Anon. Yeah. The, the thing I was gonna say is, uh, not just drinking the kids' blood and, and whatnot, but they're specifically looking for adrenochrome. That is an element contained, uh, which also I, I think, uh, I didn't look this up.

[01:21:20] Uh, we should do that now. Adrenochrome, sounds like a bad eighties movie, and it might be, it might be, um, uh, is, uh, supposedly an element, that, uh, is, contained in only children's blood, and, is intensified, during these terrible abuses that happen. So, in order to cultivate the, and maximize the, this particular element that will keep them young, um, And, extend their lifespan.

[01:21:55] You know, that's again, so, and then with the Satanic Ritual [01:22:00] Abuse, right? It was, attacking the children for dark nefarious purposes. It was never really sort of brought out what the effect of that was supposed to be, other than it was enough in the eighties that it was just for Satan. You know? Um, it, it could have been for any number of things, but it was clear that they needed the kids' blood and then they needed to kill kids and, and do terrible things to them.

[01:22:29] because it's the whole attacking mom who's going to work. It's punishing mom for going to work. It's, it's intensifying the stranger danger. Do you know where your kids are? You know who your kids are with and, and that sort of thing. Meanwhile, as I'm growing. We just left the house as kids.

[01:22:50] We just got on our bikes and left and went where we wanted. Didn't tell mom, you know, it wasn't [01:23:00] a thing. I couldn't even imagine doing that today. But,

[01:23:04] Emily Quann: Not at all.

[01:23:05] Don Early: You know, it is weird dichotomy of living back then, but, 

[01:23:09] Jeremy Spray: Right. The the weird set of everyone's so afraid of where you are, what you're gonna be, and how to take care of the kids. And at the same time, kids are just taking care of themselves, right? The idea of latchkey kids and having your own keys with you for getting in and outta the house for whenever you needed it,

[01:23:24] Emily Quann: Well that's why there was all the, Do you know where your kids are? Cause they were by themselves. And who the hell knows where they are? 

Don Summarizes

[01:23:31] Don Early: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, these conspiracies. I, I hope that you can see it's the variation of the same story. It's the same weird alienizing this other group, the, the enemy group, whatever it is, and making them not human in some ways or less than human or, [01:24:00] or, or whatnot. And inventing stories that you either want to be true or too terrified could be true.

[01:24:10] And those are gonna be based on the universal fear that every parent has around their children. Um, where you want to protect the, the children. Um, you, you want to have a stable home and anywhere that, you can attack those structures, when society has varied out from that, you know. 

[01:24:40] So one thing that didn't come up is, um, Christianity when they were starting back in the, you know, first century, second century CE where when the world was still pagan, the Pagans accused Christians [01:25:00] of ritually killing children. This is not a new conspiracy. Because the Christians were a weird group of people that

[01:25:14] Jeremy Spray: that rejected Gods

[01:25:16] right, That, that 

[01:25:17] they were heretics 

[01:25:18] Don Early: Um, 

[01:25:19] Emily Quann: So Pagans were othering Christians

[01:25:21] Don Early: That's right. 

[01:25:22] Emily Quann: and uh

[01:25:23] Jeremy Spray: the easiest way to other is to after protecting your kids 

[01:25:29] Don Early: Yeah. 

[01:25:29] Jeremy Spray: That they were going to attack them.

[01:25:32] Don Early: I think the W Wizard's first rule is the best conclusion or a way to wrap this whole topic up, um, and kind of gets really at the source of what my fear slash morbid interest is in these reality-shaping stories. It's not just [01:26:00] reality-shaping, but it is drive. It's, it's enough that it drives people to do extreme things that are based on lies that are perceived to be true even in the face of cold, hard facts.

[01:26:15] Jeremy Spray: Yeah, exactly. 

[01:26:17] Don Early: And, in the Blood Libel, it's, um, you know, this group of people who keep to themselves. They don't want to accept your God. , they wanna, , do their weird things that aren't what we do. And so they must be after our children for some reason, because they're, they seem so afraid all the time, are so worried, and they, they worry about all these different things and uh, so they must be melancholic, right? But this terrible thing happened to a kid. 

[01:26:56] Jeremy Spray: We know it's gonna be them. 

[01:26:57] Don Early: It's gotta, 

[01:26:58] Jeremy Spray: It's the, It's the weird ones.[01:27:00] 

[01:27:00] Don Early: Yeah. Which plays into the classic Satan story or the scapegoat, right? We talked about that on the other one. Uh, podcast. 

[01:27:07] Um, that was, uh, Azazel? Is Azazel the, the scape. No, it wasn't Azazel, it was

[01:27:14] Jeremy Spray: No, it's, uh, it, one of the big names of Semial.

[01:27:18] Don Early: Semial. Uh, I don't remember. Tune in next episode when we actually talk about the scapegoat. we'll remember it then. Hey, you know what? If the research isn't in front of us, it's uh, behind us, right? So. That, that wraps it up for us folks. That is, uh, the Satanic Panic and the Blood Libel and the Q'Anon. To me it seems very clear. It's the same story. I don't know. What do you, what do you guys think?

[01:27:49] Jeremy Spray: No, I'd agree. I I I think it's, it's the same. It's just, it's a repeated version of the same topic over and over again, all the way down to the exact details. It's just... [01:28:00] ridiculous and so easy as a parent to get caught up in. Like you were saying, Don, like I wouldn't let my kids just go anywhere. I did not ever experience stranger danger growing up as a child in the eighties when it was all big everywhere.

[01:28:17] Never met any strangers, never was introduced any white vans, never had a fear, had had any occurrence of that. The fear was there though, and it still permeates around me. It's still palpable out there. It's just the fear is so common that we're gonna hurt our kids or we're gonna lose 'em one way. One way or another.

[01:28:37] So 

[01:28:37] Don Early: Yeah. 

[01:28:38] Jeremy Spray: it's easy to believe things that will feed that fear.

[01:28:43] Emily Quann: Totally, 

[01:28:43] Don Early: And I mean, this guy believed that terrible, horrible things were happened to children in this pizza parlor.

[01:28:53] Jeremy Spray: Yeah. 

[01:28:54] Don Early: So he, he's gonna go in there and try and stop that, [01:29:00] and maybe there's gonna be loss of life, but he's gonna try and save these kids. I mean, 

[01:29:04] Emily Quann: and by traumatizing them in the process, but, sure.

[01:29:08] Don Early: Well, I mean, there's that too.

[01:29:10] I mean, there's that part of it, but, you know, at that point they're prob, you know, in his mind they're already traumatized beyond, it's a, it's, like such a classic story. That is just still, still relevant today. I don't know what kind of moral or thought we can generate out of that, but food for thought. This story's been around for a long time. It has. The, the characters change, the, maybe some of the elements change, but it seems to be the whole go for your kids thing, so, 

[01:29:51] Jeremy Spray: And it's always false.

[01:29:53] Don Early: And it's always false.

[01:29:55] Jeremy Spray: That's the moral that I would take away with this, that yes, the fears are there, [01:30:00] but the reality isn't. Like I said, I grew up with stranger danger, never had an issue with it. Never, never was around strangers. I will add into the fact that I am a cis white male who grew up in a suburban neighborhood.

[01:30:13] I have a privilege on top of privilege. On top of privilege. The fear was still there, but like even my friends who did not have the experience that I did, it wasn't real. It didn't happen.

[01:30:26] Don Early: That said, there are cults, there are violent people doing horrible, horrible things. And those things do happen. To children. Yeah. I mean, it's not like stories like this don't exist, but it, it's not in this story. Uh, it's not in, out of these conspiracies. So anyway, just wanted to say, not to discredit the actual real things that did occur, that have occurred, um, just isn't [01:31:00] necessarily connected to what we're talking about. 

[01:31:04] Jeremy Spray: to the devil or Satan or 

[01:31:06] Don Early: Or some of it is, you know, frankly, some of it there, there can be, uh, but that doesn't mean it's this widespread infiltrated at all levels, society kind of thing, you know? Um, in Martinsville, in Saskatchewan, the, the threat was there was a whole bunch of cultists that were gonna raid this town and burned the town to the ground, uh, at the eve of this night, and the local law enforcement were all up in. They had Mounty's and stuff, like they were ready for an all out assault. Nothing happened ever.

[01:31:47] Jeremy Spray: there. There you go.

[01:31:48] Don Early: Thank you all for listening. Tune in soon. We are going to uh, talk about who is the Sataniest of all the Satans from a [01:32:00] fun bracket of, I believe it is 16 and a half Satans. 

[01:32:05] Emily Quann: And a half.

[01:32:08] Don Early: So tune into that and uh, we will catch you then. Remembering that the devil you don't know is the devil someone else does. 

Outro

[01:32:21] Don Early: This has been The Devil You Don't Know. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 

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[01:32:42] Thank you for an amazing first year. And we are so excited for more to come.