Very few things seem as antithetical to basic humanity than being in league with the Devil. We’re so used to the idea of a benevolent monotheistic God in our conception of modern religion (How many times have you heard the expression, God is Love?) that the idea of wanting to glorify His opponent seems insane. We’d like to think that we’re capable of understanding people’s motivations and their processes. Why would someone ever knowingly do something evil? Not just selfish or misguided or dumb, put purely evil? Like a Satanist. It doesn’t make sense that people would worship the Devil, does it?

Links on Satanism

Official Church of Satan website  – Yes, evil has its own .COM!

The Western Front,  “Debunking the Myths of Satanism”

Revolver,  “Famous Members of the Church of Satan”

Welcome to see you on the other Mike, where the world of

the mysterious collides with the world of entertainment.

A discussion of art, music, movies, spirituality, the

weird, and self discovery. And now,

your hosts, musicians and entertainers who have their

own weakness for the weird, Mike and Wendy from

the band, Sunspot. Hello. Hello. How are you doing

today, Mike? Oh, I'm really excited about this

evening. Friday night, we've got a release party in Madison.

New music that people are gonna hear for the first time on this

podcast today. It's a big big day for us. It is a Release

party days are always so fun. And it was just it was just my birthday,

and it's the birthday party tonight. And that always gets me excited. Happy birthday,

Mike. Thank you very much. You know what would be the best birthday present of

all, Wendy? What would that be, Mike? That would be rating the

podcast on iTunes. So saying something nice about see you on the

other side on iTunes would probably be the nicest thing

that someone could do for me for my birthday this year. Oh Mike gosh.

That would be really thoughtful, wouldn't it? I think so.

Alright. Well, we'll keep an eye out for that. And remember, if you do

like the show, please leave us a review on iTunes, and that'll

make Mike's birthday extra, extra special. It's the only thing

that could make me wanna live again is to have a positive review

on iTunes. Please do it for me.

Wow. And if you don't have iTunes, you can also do that on Stitcher or

you can just send us an email. So that makes us happy too.

Yeah. Definitely makes a Alright. So what are we talking

about today, Mike? Today, we're talking about one of

my favorite things, and that's satanism.

I had no idea that was one of your favorite things, and I thought I

knew you pretty well. No. Well, it's one of my favorite

topics of paranormal conversation because I

think that you know? So we grew up in

the 19 eighties during what's called the satanic panic.

Woah. So if you remember Sally Jesse if you

remember Sally Jesse Raphael Oh. I do. Oh, you remember Geraldo

Rivera? They used to talk about

Satan worshipers being around us Mike

and this really had to do with a lot of the conservative

sensibilities at the time, especially in the South, and these

Christian ministries, especially the televangelists, would talk

about satanism as

a fearful thing in our society and people were worshiping the devil and they

were killing babies and doing horrible things. So make Mike sure

you send money to our cause. Make sure you send money to our ministry

so we can fight these Satanists. Oh, okay. Sounds a

ploy. We'd see all this stuff on TV, and I remember seeing all this stuff

in TV as a kid. And I'd be like, oh my god. Satan worshipers. They're

out there. They're coming for you. Geraldo Rivera told me about

this. Okay. And he's a

reputable reporter now. He's right. Geraldo Rivera, he's

a real reputable guy. Just ask, whoever was in charge

of Al Capone's vaults. That's right. How reputable.

I watched that live on TV. I'm Mike, man, I'm gonna I'm gonna see

what's going on with Al Capone's Vault, and then we find out what happened. With

it. It's cool stuff. And it's nothing. He gets in there, and it's like, I

found a bunch of dust and some paper. Thank you,

Geraldo, for what you've done.

That's really how it was. And okay. So Satan

sad trombone. Satanism in the 19 eighties. You real you grew

up, you know, you grew up thinking that there were devil worshipers out there

who were going to get you. And it was in movies. So Rosemary's

Baby from the late 19 sixties. Is Satanism

infecting, you know, devil worshipers were in they

were doctors. They were PTA members. They were people in

your society. Satan worshipers were all around

you. Okay. Well,

let's fast forward to a more sober

decade, the 19 nineties, and let's talk

about the fact that we find out that all this satanic ritual

abuse, and we'll talk about this in an episode, because the satanic panic

has a lot to do with art and heavy metal

and all this stuff that happened in the 19 eighties.

And, heavy metal bands used

satanism as marketing to be rebellious to a

lot of these kids during this this panicky Mike, during the 19 eighties.

And we will talk about the way that art used satanism as

imagery. But, we find out that devil were

there weren't really any devil worshipers. That was all just

made up BS. Okay.

Propaganda. Yeah. And and so the fact is though,

even though there might not have been any devil

worshipers around, the church of Satan is still a

thing. The church of Wait. Okay. So

there aren't Satan worshipers, but there is a church of Satan.

Yes. There is. And and that's what we're gonna talk about today. That's why the

name of the episode, Satanism sinister or just

selfish. I thought we were gonna name it satanic panic. No.

Satanic panic gets its own episode. That they because that's that's what

they talked about, the stuff in the eighties, and that that will go into Dungeons

and Dragons. Yes. Okay. And all the kinda

crazy stuff that people you know, the the propaganda that was used

for political machinations back in the 19 eighties and and also for

fundraising. So, but the

church of Satan is actually a lot

less sinister and dangerous,

than it sounds. Cause when you think Church of Satan, Wendy, what what comes

into your head? I picture, like, a bunch of people

dancing around a fire and, like, sacrificing something and

pentagrams and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah. Like, people in robes. Mike, yeah. It's the sacrificing thing

too. So, like, a ritual action. Blood. Yeah. You've picture blood.

You picture a dagger. Something out of a movie. You ever see Wendy of Days?

That movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger versus the devil at the end of the world?

No. I haven't seen that yet. Okay. You I'll add it to my Netflix

queue. You're not missing Mhmm. Was from

the soundtrack of that

movie. Wow. I was

from the soundtrack of that movie. Wow. And it actually

was a really good Guns and Roses song. I still have it in my workout

mix. It's It's called Oh Mike God. And it's a good G and R song.

So that's besides the Guns N' Roses song, that's about the

best thing about that movie. But that they do the

whole the devil is coming. There's devil worshipers.

There's ritualistic daggers

and sacrifices and all that kinda crap that we

associate with, devil worshipers. Okay.

But the church of Satan is not that. No. The church of

Satan I I know that we sound like apologists for the I'm just like, hey,

guys. I know what you think about the devil, but let's talk about the like,

it's no. I'm just genuinely curious because when you hear Church of Satan I

mean, in a church, what do you do? You worship something or someone or a

deity. And Wendy you say the church of Satan, then

And and Satan and modern Satanists are really just

atheists. So they're, you know, the so they're just

they're just atheists who are using the trappings

of Satan to

ritualize things that aren't that are the exact opposite

of Christianity. So that would be the first thing.

That, Wendy you talk about Satanists, it's not the

fact that they actually worship the devil. It's the fact that

they're the opposite Mhmm. Of

Christianity. And so we to get that, we really have to go

back to the 19 sixties and the

founding of the of the modern church of Satan. So, I mean, there

was a lot of mystical stuff going on in the

19 sixties, especially in San Francisco. So when you

when you think about cultural epicenters

of the hippie movement, the anti war

movement, the underground

against the American mainstream that was happening with the baby

boomers. That that was all centered

around San Francisco. You know, whether it's gonna be,

you know, the music, the Grateful Dead, you know, that that's the the Bay Area,

the great you know, the Grateful Dead and the film or

the biggest, the biggest

kind of art and culture that was

against the mainstream, against the war, against every it all came

out of San Francisco in the 19 sixties. You know that song. You

know, are you going to Sam make sure to put a flower

in your hair. Hair. Mike. It's awesome. Yeah. It

was on the Forrest Gump soundtrack. It is. Right. In Forrest Gump, they make a

stop in the Bay Area, obviously, because that that's really the center of the

movement, the counterculture against the mainstream.

So, you know, if you have the the quasi religious

hippie movement, you know, Jesus is just alright with me,

man. And Oh, yeah. And, you know,

Jesus never dropped a bomb. Flowers, flower power,

people against the war, and and there's a there certainly was an

excellent religious case against the Vietnam

War. Right?

You think that, you know, somebody who didn't

buy into the entire religious movement

might also want the opposite of the mainstream,

but maybe not be as

entranced by the hippies. Oh, okay.

And and that was a guy by the name of Anton

LaVey. So Anton LaVey,

was you know, he's born in Chicago, but then raised in

California. And he was born in, you know,

1930. So he was

right there, you know, during the 19 sixties,

during the during the great, you know, that that was the great

movement against, you know, the the

mainstream that was brought to us by the 2nd World War of

clean-cut. And Yeah. You gotta listen to the government.

And you gotta do whatever they say. And and the draft is okay. We're

gonna send you off to war. And, you know, World War 2, you might have

been killing Nazis who were doing horrible things.

In Vietnam, you were killing the Vietcong, and we weren't

sure exactly why we were going over. We

thought we thought that communism might eventually, take

over Japan and we'd lose Japan as a trading partner, the domino theory. Lose the

entire east, the far east and the orient.

We don't use the word orient anymore. But, you know, we would lose that

area as a trading partner. And then, the entire American way

of life was threatened. But people, you know, that that kind of explanation as

to why they were being sent into a rice patty and being killed wasn't good

enough for most Americans at the time.

And, and that's why, I mean, this entire movement

just around the very opposite of what the

mainstream was. And that was, what guys like

Anton LaVey were talking about.

Anton LaVey shaved his head

and grew a goatee just so he'd look more evil.

The goat. Yeah. Like any right. And he confound the

church of Satan, which was a system about

human nature and doing

things for yourself and selfishness.

That was the exact that was the exact the exact opposite of Christianity.

The exact opposite of being a hippie. So hippies were all

well, it's it it depends. And

and so I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with,

Ayn Rand. Yes. And the fountainhead

and, I mean, she wrote, I mean,

she wrote a work called the virtue of selfishness.

You know, it it was all about your own it it

was all about you over others. Everyone

for himself? Yeah. And and also,

I mean, remember I mean, we kind of have in the in

the 2000 tens and over the last 20 years, now that

there's no iron curtain, now that there are no socialist countries,

we kind of have a we look back

at socialism and communism with

rose colored glasses in that, you

know, these things that were when they tried these experiments of socialism

and communism in in these countries, we try to think, well, yeah. It was pretty

bad and it didn't work out very well, But, you know, they had their hearts

in the right place. Well, at the time,

you know, if you go back to the, you know, 19 fifties sixties

so this past couple of weeks, they've celebrated the 25th

anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Right? That's insane.

Right. I know. That makes you feel old. That's 25 years since

the Berlin Wall fell. But people

were murdered trying to cross the Berlin Wall to see their

relatives. Yeah. That's hard to believe. You know,

these these these grand experiments that we think of, you

know, that that we don't think of as so harshly now,

resulted in the murder of a lot of people. And Chairman Mao

and Joseph Stalin killed, you know, way more people than even a, you know, a

monster like Hitler did. And so the thing is,

collectivism in the middle of the 20th

century was considered dangerous, scary. I mean, you had

the, obviously, you had Joseph McCarthy, our proud Wisconsin

senator that was about as against, communism

as you can get and and went over the line with it. Mhmm. But

what I mean to say is even though we think that selfishness sounds like such

a horrible thing and all these

writers, like Ayn Rand, which when she was talking about it

They were looking at it from a different angle, obviously, than what we have today.

Perspective. I mean, they were seeing these collectivist countries murder

people. And and, you know, and she and she escaped Soviet Russia, which

was, obviously I mean, they I mean, anti

Semitic and and then what Stalin did to, anybody

with any kind of education. You know, the the camps they put people into,

all that kind of stuff. Anyway, I'm just trying to say that even

though selfishness from a 21st century

perspective looks like, it's a very thoughtless

way of being at the time they were thinking about things.

And guys like Anton LaVey, when they were, you know,

the ideas of the Church of Satan were just about the self over

the group, which is the difference between that and Christianity.

Christianity is about altruism. Christianity is about sacrificing yourself for

other people. Selflessness. Selflessness. That's

no. You're exactly right, Gwen. Selflessness. And, you

know, it's like when I talk about, you know, when I talk about the church

to my mother And, you know, my mother's a very

faithful Catholic and goes to, you know, goes to church every single week and and

she hasn't missed a week. When she misses a week,

she's guilty about it. And she hasn't missed a week since, like, 1945.

Wow. That's incredible. Right. And so I, you know, I ask her, you know, I'm

like, well, even without all the rules because I ask you you ask about Mike,

what about all the rules of the church and all these things? She's like, well,

that stuff isn't as important as the idea that

we do things for other people. So we

perform sacrifices for other people to make their life better, and

that's the reward we get out of the church. The church

of Satan is the exact opposite. It's that we do things

for ourselves. Do what you want, and that's what

counts. It's the real difference between Satanists

and any other kind of religion. So it's almost

Mike if you replace the word Satan with something else

and try to think of it that way as opposed to, like, you know

Exactly right. Dancing around, the

devil guy that's Mike what was that movie? Hellboy or something?

I don't know. But, so when you think of it that

way, then it's it's really more of a a movement,

a philosophy than it is,

something That's right. And there's scary and magic and there's

famous I mean, would they use magic let's go I mean, first of all, the

church of Satan can't be that dangerous because they have an FAQ.

Any counter cultural movement that has an FAQ on

the Internet and graphics made, obviously, the Church of Satan has

a has a social media person.

Right? And how dangerous can you be if

you've got somebody on the payroll who's dedicated to Facebook? Like, oh, I

gotta handle no. I gotta handle the church. Dangerous. I gotta handle the Church of

Satan Facebook page. I was looking, and our likes are down for this

week. Well, hey. Social media has been

used for a lot of bad things. You know? So No. Absolutely.

Social saying it's not bad because they use social media is is

not really That's true. And saying the Internet can't be used for

evil purposes. And what I mean is Right. How scary can something be

if the scariest thing you have is the church of Satan?

I mean, they've they've their website has great graphics too, church of

satan.com. They've got I mean, it looks like a really good well

done page. Did they hire you to promote them?

Absolutely not. You sound like a you

sound very like a commercial kind of right now. I

am definitely not paid for from the

church of Satan. They are not a sponsor of the show,

but I do think they are unfairly maligned by a lot of

people in in this society. And that's that's what I mean. It's that the Satanists

are just about themselves. They're not actually about doing harm to

other people. So that's what I'm, you know, was was talking

about here. Okay. And their Well And their website looks great.

I can't you can't deny that that that Satanists hire excellent graphic

designers. Good for the good on them. Well, that's that's excellent

to know. Well I mean, we aside from designing good websites,

what do they do? Like Well what what kinds of things?

So Satan to them represents something. It's the opposite of Christianity. And

and here's let's talk about their FAQ. When they talk

about satanic rituals and the black mass and satanic

magic, quote unquote. K. So

this is directly from their website. What is a satanic ritual?

Greater magic, which is our name for ritual practice, is basically

meant as self transformational psychodrama.

It serves as a means to purge oneself of unwanted emotional

baggage that might be hindering a daily pursuit of joy in life.

We do not require anyone except it for more than what

it is. It's pageantry. It's ritual. It doesn't

mean anything. So when they do a mass and they dress up in

robes and they act silly and stuff like that, it's not

meant to actually be real, like in in Catholic church,

when they give you communion and you drink that wine, that

wine has been literally transformed

to the blood of Jesus Christ. You are drinking the blood of Jesus Christ

literally in the church.

Literally, yeah. And and and so when Wendy

you and that's what they say. It's it's called transubstantiation.

Wine into blood and then the bread into his body.

And, and so the the satanic

church uses that same kind of you know, they they use they don't

claim that it's real though, like the Catholic church does. They don't

claim that you're actually drinking the blood of Satan or whatever. I don't know what

you drink. I've never been to a satanic mass, and I I don't really plan

on it. But You drink

that, that furious hell? Right. The

Surly Surly Hell. That's right. Surly. Sorry. Surly. Yes. Minnesota

one of Minnesota's finest beers. The Surly Hell, if you ask

me. But okay. Back to the topic. So they don't drink. They don't do the

wine and and bread thing, but they have other types of things. They do it

as as, so what is the point? You you were saying that

for the Catholic church, these things represent things? They're Yes.

They represent traditions. In the Catholic church, it's represent, like, so

you become one with God. You are drinking God's literally, you

are drinking God's blood, And that's the point.

So when you have communion, it's communion with that thing that's greater

than you. And so the church of Satan is the same kind of thing with

their rituals, their magic, but they just like they said, it's a

self transformational psychodrama. It's just meant for your

head. It's just meant for you. You know, like, Mike we have a graduation

ceremony. You know, Wendy, when you graduated high school, was it a big

deal? Oh, yeah. It was a huge deal. Right. They make it

a big deal. They sit there. They they go you through the ceremony.

They give you the piece of paper. They play pomp and circumstance. They do the

whole thing because it gives you that feeling of I have become an adult. It's

the bar mitzvah. It's the it's this is my rite of

passage. Yeah. Sure. It's it's putting the little the gold

star stamp on, like, okay. You're ready for the next step in life.

Right. When you got that diploma, did you become any smarter?

Mm-mm. No. Well Maybe. Right. Right. Maybe a

little bit. But, I mean, the point is is

that we do these rituals because it makes us feel better about things or because

it gets us excited, it gets us in the right head space, it moves

us into the place we need to be. And so, that's,

I mean, so these guys when they do their crazy stuff and everybody gets together

and has some kind of sex magic or, you know, they do these

rituals. All it means is that they are putting

themselves in kind of a transformational self. It's

it's it's it's like a graduation ceremony

versus a real religious ceremony where you feel that you

are communing with God. To them, it's just representative that

they're doing something for themselves. Okay.

So but they do it in the form of magic. So it sounds like fun.

It's like, oh, we're gonna do magic. Like, what's gonna happen? You know? Is is

somebody gonna show up and and and do some card tricks? So it then nobody

does card tricks to the satanic that I know of. So it's kind of

Mike the same type of thing as The Secret or something where you

you're trying to use your thoughts to manifest something, but it's

not necessarily literal, but it sounds like it's literal the way they

pitch it to you. Yeah. You know, I would say the secret

is actually a lot like Satanism

because you are, you know, you're trying to make something

appear. You know, you're you're you're doing things for yourself. You know, the

secret you're you fake it till you make it or Right. It's all about,

like, what do you want out of your life?

Yeah. The manifestation visualization of something. And right. You

you're not really doing the secret for somebody else. You're not saying Mike, oh, I'm

gonna fake it till they make it. It's a personal self

help kinda thing. Yeah. And and that's a lot what Satanism is. It's

selfishness as a virtue. It's it's it it is

that. And we have some famous Satanists too. Okay. I

was wondering how this was gonna tie into the the entertainment world because

I mean, ant first of all, an Anton LaVey was a musician.

He had I mean, he he was a local

celebrity through his paranormal research, and he performed as an organist.

You know, he guests into his,

he had guys like the, Forrest J Ackerman, who was the editor

of the Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine, which is a big

geek magazine and through a lot of the second half of the of the

Wendy century, where people that used to come to his

parties where he'd play songs Wendy, I mean, he was a

fun guy. People thought of Anton LaVey even with the bald head and the and

the the goatee and everything and the occult rituals.

Mike, a fun guy and the church is saying.

And so there have been a there was a lot of celebrities who who dabbled

in it. Number 1, we've got Jayne Mansfield.

So Jayne Mansfield, 19 fifties,

ingenue, very Marilyn Monroe type, busty sex.

She'd find her way into different,

you know, different kind of so she was like the

Kim Kardashian in, like, Mike 19 fifties. Really.

And so, and and Sophia Loren, the

famous Italian actress, just came out with a book this past couple weeks.

And there's this famous picture of Sophia Loren.

There's a party for Sophia Loren. Jane Mansfield shows up, and

she's got a nip slip. Oh, no.

And they take this picture as Sofia Loren just looks down and is

Oh, I saw that. I saw that. And it's Jane Mansfield's nip slip.

And she's talking about how she'll never you know, she's she's 80 some years

old and she's Mike and she still looks great. Yeah. But she

never signs the picture or whatever because she's like, well, this is a party for

me, and Jayne Mansfield showed up and upstaged it. Okay. Thanks. Now I don't have

to click on that link that said you'll never believe what she said. Yeah. She

just happening in this picture. Right. That she's just not interested in

James Vance. I mean and Sophia Loren was no I mean, this girl, she was

no shrinking violet. Right. No she wasn't

afraid to get nude or whatever she needed to do for a brawl. She just

Italians, you know, they're down with it. You know, euros.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But I mean

so but I mean, Jay Mansfield will talk about because she has a house

that's haunted and cursed.

Okay. So that's a that's a future topic that we can explore. We'll be talking

about the curse of Jayne Mansfield's Hollywood home, in a in

a future episode. But Jayne Mansfield was somebody who,

had hung out with Anton LaVey. Okay. Had these kinds of

in the fold. The the virtuous selfishness, interested in

satanism, interested in these different kinds of things. It wasn't scary to these

people because they realized they weren't really nobody was gonna sacrifice a

baby to the devil. That wasn't real. They were gonna do things for themselves. And

it like you were saying before, it sounds scary to us because we were

kids at the time when it was being, you know.

Yeah. That you thought that Advertised as sacrificed to the

devil. What? Right. Okay. So who

else do we have here aside from Jayne Mansfield? Milwaukee's

finest, Liberace. Woah.

Seriously? Yeah. He also well, I mean, he was a fellow piano

player like Anton LaVey. Okay. Of course. Yeah. It's

And Liberace also. Did you see that behind the candelabra

movie with Michael Douglas playing Liberace? No. I wanted to,

though. It's great. It's got it's got it's got Scott Bakula in it.

What? Yeah. No. Scott Bakula is in it. So it's good? Yeah. It's a

great movie. It's well Okay. It depends how you feel about Michael Douglas and

gay sex scenes. Sure. Well, that's fine. I mean I'm

down. So I it was a good it's a really good movie, and it's

really interesting that the interplay of Liberace

and his young lovers and how he felt so

Mike any kind of aging person. They lose their youth, they lose

their vigor, all those kind of things that makes them who they

are. And, Liberace was somebody

who associated with the church of Satan too. He was no stranger to,

pleasures of the flesh. I mean,

that's the kind I mean, that's the thing Mike you think like Liberace, like who's

safer? Who's more fun? Who's more well, who's hanging out with the Church of

Satan? Then you get to somebody

associated like Sammy Davis junior.

Woah. Right. And when you I had had no idea.

Well, Sammy Davis was a famous convert to Judaism.

But he also I mean, he was just somebody who was interested in

these rituals and and these things, baby.

And, and so he had hung out

with Anton LaVey in the early seventies on a bunch of occasions.

And he was, you know,

declared a member of the church of Satan, and I believe Sammy Davis junior

even played he played the devil in a movie.

So or a TV show. Hold on. Let me look it up real quick. But,

yes, Sammy Davis played

the devil in, like, a TV show, and that was right

around the same Mike. Wendy talk about,

okay, famous people with creepy Sammy Davis

and the devil. Yeah. He

started he was in a pilot called Poor Devil. That was with

Batman Adam West and,

Christopher Lee as Lucifer. And so

it didn't it didn't make it as a TV show, but

Anton LaVey made Sammy Davis junior a full fledged

card carrying warlock of the church Wow. Saying,

yes. Who would have thought? I mean, when you see him dancing and singing and

drinking his cocktails on stage, that that's really not something that I would think.

Well, he he released an album. He's associated with it. He released an album

called Satan Swings, baby. Okay. I guess

I the blatant obvious clue there went right

past me. You think Sammy Davis is into satanism? No, baby.

Featured ditties like sympathy for the devil and devil in

disguise as well as a duet with Anton

LaVey himself.

So he broke off and he eventually talked about breaking off to

it and wasn't into it later. But he

certainly was involved in the seventies. I mean, Sammy Davis, one of the

most famous people of the late 20th century. I mean, I'd say he's the

most famous person to associate with the Church of Satan.

And and as we go on, there's guys like King Diamond.

King Diamond's a heavy metal artist who was associated with a band called Merciful

Fate. He's Okay. Scandinavian, which means he's

a little bit crazy anyway. Yeah. Whereas

crazy metal Okay. Heavy metal, that that that sounds

like something that you'd be like, okay. That's not, like, shocking. I don't know. No.

It's not. But the fact is that most people who are involved in heavy

metal, you know, like Ozzy, you know, like, oh, Ozzy and the prince of

darkness. But Ozzy is a Christian. He's got a cross around his neck. He

grew up Christian. Like, Ozzy might use the

trappings of that as a as a character, but he

doesn't believe in Satanism or anything like that. The guys in Mike the

guys in motley crew used upside down, you know, star the the pentagrams. They

used pentagrams and upside down crosses on the Shout of the Devil

album. I just saw them last week, and I was curious why

there were pentagrams all over the place. Like Yeah. Because that was the Shout of

the Devil album. Used pentagrams and used all that kind of stuff.

And their whole stage. It's like the lighting thing is a giant

pentagram. I it really it's it's overwhelming.

So they used that kind of stuff back in the early eighties to shock

parents, to make kids you know, to make Motley Crue seem more

dangerous than they were. You know? Sure. Yeah. And but those guys

don't give a give a darn about Satan.

You know, I mean, the they they certainly are plenty selfish. I mean, Vince

Neil killed a guy in a drunk driving accident. Yeah.

Nikki 6 done enough heroin to kill probably this

entire floor of my apartment building. Yeah. But,

but as far as actual people dealing with Satan, no. The

pentagrams are a joke. King Diamond,

however, actually was a real satanist, real anti God,

anti religion kind of guy. And he brings up

the next one, which is Marilyn Manson.

Nice. So Marilyn Manson is the same guy, used that kind of trap. I

mean, first of all, I mean, what his whole band

originally was was taking a serial killer's

last name or a famous killer's last name along with a

supermodel's first name. Right. So Marilyn

Monroe Charles Manson. Marilyn Manson. But is

but is I mean, was he, like, a real legitimate

satanist or was that just part of the show? Because obviously, you know, you've

seen his videos and you hear the songs, and it's like, okay, this is definitely

I mean, it it doesn't seem like he's the most I I would

not I could I could see him, like, just, you know, having breakfast at Panera

or Mike Oh, yeah. No. I think that Mats. I think that Marilyn

Mats. And it's funny with, like, his ex wives and stuff like that always call

him Brian because his name is Brian Warner or whatever. His ex

wives are always like, yeah. Well, Brian likes to do this or Brian

likes to do that. That's how, Courtney Love calls him too as kind of a

they belittle him by saying, well, yeah, Brian is

crazy. Love that. Right. Stop calling me Brian. I'm Marilyn Manson,

man. But the so he actually

followed that church? Well, he was he definitely he flirted

with the church of Satan and being a saint. So he's Okay. It's not just

a shtick. He's anti Christian. Oh. So when he

uses the shtick of upside on crosses or pentagrams, it's

definitely anti church. Uh-huh. So Marilyn Manson is against the

church and against I mean, probably I

mean, there's a numerous amount of reasons to be against the church in

any particular way, shape, or form. I mean, religion,

I mean has killed a lot of people over the course of century you

know, millennia. And religion also,

I mean, has people believing in things that sometimes they do crazy

stuff, and they they also oppress other people in the name

of it. So Marilyn Manson was more

about, being anti church than maybe the virtue

of selfishness. So but he definitely was

someone he he'd met with Anton LaVey, and, and

so So he practiced what he preached. He wasn't just doing it for, album sales

to get dangerous things out there that kids would buy.

Correct. He was he wasn't mild liquorice. So when he went on and he

did the whole thing remember he was at MTV Music Awards

and he pretended to be Mike at a pulpit, and he delivers

this anti Christian screed, and then he turns around. He's got his

butt cheeks out. You remember it? Come on. Maribel, man,

his butt caps. Who can forget those cheeks? The just

the palest of whites. Oh, god. And you don't have that

cheeks. I mean, that's ballsy. I mean, you have to have a decent looking butt.

I wouldn't have I wouldn't have done it. I would have worked out a little

bit or something or shaped it up or made sure I put some clearasil on

or something before I did that on MTV. Hey. Hey. I'm not showing

my butt on MTV. Marilyn Manson is. Somebody execute him.

Alright. Alright. Alright. So where were we now, and who's Mike else

we we haven't covered yet? Those those are the big

ones. I mean, modern satanism, they do a lot of things that

just try to upset Christian churches. What they're trying to

do is also, in the South, they mix up

you know, so they put 10 Commandments statues,

in certain capitol buildings. Yeah.

And so like in Oklahoma, what the Satanists try to do was

create a statue of Mike one of their

satanic idols with kids around him.

Oh nice. And do it at the same place as they were doing the 10

Commandments statue. Alright.

So they were trying to do that. Mike, so the the Oklahoma satanist

had done that because what they're saying is if you're gonna put a Ten Commandments

statue in this government building, we should be able to

put our religious statue Yeah. Freedom of religion. Of course,

according to the first amendment. This was a big so I think about this

because I lived in when I lived in La Crosse, Wisconsin, there was

a 10 Commandment statue on public land,

And this had gone to the supreme court about Yeah.

Whether or not you could have a a statue that glorifies

one religion over another on public land. So eventually what

happened was the the the city had to sell a piece of that

land to, to private

property, you know, to to a private individual so that they could have

that. Yeah. So it's not paid for by the government and

Correct. You know, sponsoring a specific religion. So when they

had this statue of the Ten Commandments in the

Oklahoma capital, the Oklahoma satanist said, nope. We

gotta have one of our of our satanic demon,

Baphomet, sitting beneath an inverted pentagram and

flanked by 2 children gazing upward in loyalty.

When it was finished, it will be cast in bronze and the satanist hope

eventually displayed in Oklahoma and its response to the Ten

Commandments monument outside the capitol. So they're still building it

or planning it? It's not actually there yet? No. It's not

it's not I mean, they have they have, you know,

built a a model of the statue, but I think what's really

gonna happen is eventually they're gonna get rid of that 10 Commandments statue.

Gotcha. Yeah. That's a that's a much easier solution to you. The church is Satan

and the but that's the whole thing. And and then everybody you know, then

pretty soon, the place is just gonna be full of statues for every different religion.

Or Right. And and that's the thing. And and that's what a lot of the

mon modern satanists do because they're closer to atheists

than they are closer to people who worship the devil. What they're interested in

is Mike sure that the Christianity,

that Christianity stays out of government, stays out of public life, things like that.

So that's what a lot of modern Satanists do. So the church is Satan.

I think when we say the final thing, is it sinister

or is it selfish? Well,

I would just say it's just selfish. Nothing to worry about. There might

be devil worshippers in the world. You heard the verdict here,

folks. But there Mike be devil worshippers in the world, but they

are certainly not trying to put up a statue of

Baphomet in the Oklahoma State Capitol. Well,

that's pretty interesting stuff. I had no idea. I guess I was still in

the mindset of the the eighties kid that saw Sally, Jesse, Raphael,

having a shout out with some some dudes that look like metal rockers.

And now you guys know more about Mike's fate one of Mike's favorite

topics, apparently. I just figured that it's pretty interesting to

talk about satanism because it really does have to, you

know, it it really does not have

to do with all the things that we thought it had to do as kids.

So there are people out there who can have real discussions, and they

can discuss things as atheists or as people that believe in rituals

that aren't necessarily dangerous to humanity, no matter what

the movies tell you or Sally Jesse. Very

interesting. Well, we do have a song to share with you today that is related

to the topic. But, before we do that, you can find the show

notes for today's episode, including lyrics to that song at

othersidepodcast.com/9. And, Mike, what's

today's song about? The song that we're gonna release tonight. Well, today

is perfect for our discussion because this song is called the

Sun King, And there was no one more

selfish in the way of he

represented the entire state of France. Then Louis the

14th, the sun king himself, the man that

said, I am the state. Here's the

track.

I am a state in our glory,

and I'm the essence of this life.

I am

your lover. I am everything

you

Thank you for listening to today's episode. You can find us

online at othersidepodcast.com. Until next

Mike. See you on the other side.