Podcasts/Sacred Tension-Hellfire Side Chat 8kdkl
Hellfire_Side_Chat_8kdkl SUMMARY KEYWORDS religion, satanic, people, podcast, mass appeal, daniel, satanists, satanism, satan, feel, find, point, fucking, question, great, thought, conspiracy, cereal, community, black SPEAKERS Will, Simone, Daniel, Stephen Bradford Long, Tabitha
Will 00:00 You're listening to a rock candy podcast. Hey, I'm Will and they call me the doctor. And I'm Joe, the maestro, we host a podcast called common creatives, where we break apart the art we love to see what makes it tick. Basically, we give you the definitive take on whatever or whoever we're discussing, you don't need to go anywhere else. So check out common creatives wherever you listen to podcasts.
Stephen Bradford Long 00:47 This is sacred tension, the podcast about the discipline of asking questions. My name is Steven Bradford long and we are here on the rock candy Podcast Network. For more shows like this one go to rock candy recordings.com And this show is brought to you by my patrons and I need to thank my latest patrons they are my personal Lord and Savior's I really can't do any of the work that I'm doing without them. And they are ensuring the long life of my work, not just the blog and podcast but all the other creative projects that I'm involved in. So you know if you saw some of our live events last year, if you'd like the other shows that I'm involved in bubble and squeak, Bible bash, eleventy life common creatives, all the other stuff I'm doing with rock candy recordings, then, please support my Patreon and that is the best way to ensure the long life of my work. So this week, I need to thank a Ron Barry Rowan Shiva, Nathaniel, Nick, Phil, Kelly Kisa, Christopher, Lady Lillith, Jen Mau, Lisa Willer clowns and Kitty are. Thank you all so much. You are so amazing, and I really can't do this without you. All right, well, we are back to the quarantine series, the Coronavirus series of sacred tension where I am just so exhausted and so out of it that I am unable to put in the normal amount of work for these shows. But I still want to bring these conversations to you. A lot of us are stressed out a lot of us are lonely. A lot of us are feeling isolated. So it's important to kind of have these digital spaces to have these conversations and I wanted to still provide provide I still want it to provide that to you but I just can't edit them I can't put in the in the normal amount of work. So with that said, I am delighted to welcome my friends black mass appeal to the show. So Simone, Tabitha and Daniel the hosts of Black Mass Appeal they are here for some casual Satan chat. So welcome, my friends. How are all of you?
Simone 03:20 Hi there good. Considering the circumstances,
Stephen Bradford Long 03:24 yes, considering the circumstances and I I just have to like confess from the very top. I feel like like fucking garbage today. Like I've had a terrible headache. I'm exhausted. All I've wanted to do is just like, lie in bed and play Animal Crossing all day long. So, Mario Kart Oh, I love Mario Kart. Which version? Are you? Are you on the switch?
Tabitha 03:52 No, this is the iPhone version.
Stephen Bradford Long 03:54 Oh, okay. Very nice. Well, the one on the switch is really fucking badass. And we should all we should all have switches so that we can all just compete with each other and have like a little Satan match.
Tabitha 04:07 I bought one and it took me ages because I wouldn't spend more than like the market value for them because people were selling them for like 500 $600 Oh, I know. It's nuts. So I had to get a switch light, which is not ideal, but I did it. That's what I have really wanted to play Animal Crossing.
Stephen Bradford Long 04:28 Yes, that's I have the switch light and I really really love it. I prefer
Daniel 04:34 not to interrupt but point of order. Is there any way we could refer to these as hellfire-side chats?
Stephen Bradford Long 04:39 Hell fireside chats? Yes. Absolutely. Okay, so I'm not I'm so fucking terrible with puns. All right. So before we get any further, please introduce yourselves and tell people who you are and what you do.
Simone 04:57 Well, we three are hosts and producers of The Black Mass Appeal podcast, which is a podcast exclusively about modern Satanism. We're all administrators for satanic Bay area. So that's how we know each other. And that's kind of where we're operating out of. And our show comes out every two weeks on Tuesdays, and we use it to discuss modern Satanism, its history history, left leaning political activism, and how Satanism relates to current events and pop culture. At least that's the Schpeel that I say at the top of every show.
Stephen Bradford Long 05:32 Beautiful, beautifully done. And so yeah, all of you are administrators for the satanic Bay Area, which really important to clarify, has nothing has nothing to do with the Satanic Temple. Right. So you are a site organization?
Tabitha 05:50 Exactly.
Simone 05:50 We are. Yeah, we're an independent grassroots organization. A lot of our members also happen to be members of tst. Certainly not a requirement, but we are independent.
Stephen Bradford Long 06:01 right and talk some about your specific community, satanic Bay Area, like, it's a bit more broad is the impression that I get so you have like some theists in there, you have some non theists in there, talk some about your community and what you do, like what what, what is the life of your community?
Daniel 06:24 To be honest, I don't think we're necessarily that much more diverse ideologically than a lot of groups, I think most of the people who are who hang out with us are either members of TSP, or they're at least very sympathetic towards them. We do have folks in there that have a variety of their own beliefs. And we always say, We're not here to police anybody's beliefs on their own terms, as long as you get along pretty well, with everybody here and you share our goals. That's really all that matters to us. So we opened the door to a lot of kinds of folks how we compare to the makeup of other other similar groups in other metro regions and states. I couldn't tell you, but I suspect that it's probably not as much variation, as you might think, based on that question. But since you mentioned it, yeah, like we do have some people who have some interesting cosmological beliefs that, you know, for example, don't really appeal very much to a person like me, but at the same time, it's like, well, you know, that's not necessarily the most important thing.
Stephen Bradford Long 07:25 Yeah, you know, my personal attitude is very much in line with that, you know, like, when people asked me about that, like, how, how do you? How do you respond to say, theists, or to New Agers, or, or, you know, witches who have more of a supernatural belief? My reaction is, I don't care what people believe I'm all about how they treat one another. So like, yeah, just don't be an asshole. Like, I don't have the energy to care about what people believe. I just don't. And so, you know, and I know that in TST, there's kind of this constant debate going on about well, who is allowed, who isn't allowed and, and I'm like, I just don't give a fuck, I just don't care. Like as long as people know, what TST specifically stands for. That's good enough for me. And, and personally, like, I only care if you believe in what elves if those elves tell you to not vaccinate your kids. That's the only time otherwise if if the Wood Elves that you believe in, tell you to love your neighbor and take care of poor people and you know, embrace all the LGBT people and people of color in your community then I am so fucking down with the Wood Elves. I really just care about what else? Yes, I am pro Wood Elf, assuming that the Wood Elves do not tell you to believe in stupid bullshit. So I remember hearing you kind of describe all that on black mass appeal and thinking that sounds like a really cool community. How has it been during COVID-19? Like how are how are you doing? Like how are you all doing during this crisis? Just individually and as a community?
Tabitha 09:32 Well, I am still working. I work in manufacturer food manufacturing. So everything's been very slow, but I don't really you know, we don't press the flesh at all or some people around so we've still been working so I at least have that outlet that some other people don't. Yeah, but that doesn't really help my mood that much because work is still working. It sucks. Absolutely. But I'll So Animal Crossing, which has been, oh girl you saving saying thank you Nintendo.
Stephen Bradford Long 10:05 So I have this conspiracy actually, if I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but if I were this would be my favorite conspiracy theory. I have a conspiracy theory that that the Coronavirus, the novel Coronavirus, was actually manufactured in a lab in Japan by Nintendo. And it was released to coincide with the release of Daniel Croft. And just to boost the sales of Animals Animal Crossing, because they
Tabitha 10:40 kill a lot of people is because you want more people playing Animal Crossing super good plan?
Stephen Bradford Long 10:45 Absolutely. I think it's brilliant.
Daniel 10:48 I will say one more insight into how I'm doing personally check our daily affirmation hashtag on Facebook, Instagram and on Twitter. Because while we do try to calculate those to always say something helpful for people, oftentimes, the specific wording varies depending on my mood, the day that I write that one. So you may be able to Crystal Ball gaze a little bit about where my head is at, based on what we said today on those channels. I will say that observing everybody else, there are various ways that we're trying to help each other when when, you know, people have when our barriers Satanists have a need that we can reach out to each other. And usually somebody finds a way to help we try to be there for each other, you know, emotionally as best we can. We are still trying to be active as a group, we have, you know, online events, and then social distancing friendly programs that we are keeping up as best as we can, I will say the most stressful thing for me personally has actually not even been the isolation or the uncertainty of the larger national story. It's been the fact that these are the times when a group like this should be doing the most for our members. This is what we're here for right to be community. Yeah. But of course, the nature of this crisis makes that as hard as possible. And that feels kind of like cheating. Somehow it feels like life just is screwing with us in a way that is like, it's like, if there were if there were a contract, I would have included a clause against this specifically, like cause problems. Sure. But please don't handicap me this way. It will pardon the expression.
12:31 There is something really cruel about Corona about the COVID 19 pandemic, because it when there is a crisis, you know, millions and millions of years of evolution have trained us have conditioned us to come together. And but we can't do that. And so it's like there's the we're, it's almost like we're having to fight against our evolutionary wiring our evolutionary programming for like, when, when we're under assault, or when there's a crisis, this is what we need to do. We all need to come together and and, you know, love each other and support one another. And we physically are unable to do that. And I think that that is causing like this really deep crisis for a lot of people. It's kind of painful.
Simone 13:22 Yeah, I think that we've all we've all seen a post apocalyptic movies, we've all seen the Mad Max's and the zombie movies. And I think we all in our minds had an idea of what the apocalypse would look like. Not that necessarily it that the world is literally ending right now. But it's, you know, a global disaster, essentially. And it doesn't look like what we thought it would look like. Like, we thought that there would be, you know, marauding gangs of armed bikers or, you know, zombies munching on people's brains, and we'd have to like fight and we'd have to come together. Yes, instead, we have to stay at home and so pretty cloth, facemasks and learn to cook and make bread and play Animal Crossing. So it's just not what we were expecting. And I think it's really thrown some people
14:22 keep keep the existential dread at bay and it's like, I've found myself in this perpetually weird place where so I'm, I'm working fewer hours. I'm an essential worker, I manage a grocery store I did a conversation several weeks back specifically about being an essential worker and how like, fucking traumatizing that's been for me. So, but I'm working fewer hours. And by like, I mean drastically fewer hours. Everyone in the country. And he is. So suddenly I have more free time than I've ever had in like six years. And on the one hand, it's really nice. It's really leisurely, I'm able to spend a lot of time with my partner, I'm able to spend time with my cats. I'm doing lots of reading, doing lots of yoga, and it's like, I'm able to settle into this suit into almost like this superficial comfort. But just beneath the surface, there's like this constant existential horror. So it's like, Oh, what a lovely day. But just beneath that, it's like, oh, the world's falling apart. It's so bizarre. It's so weird.
Stephen Bradford Long 15:42 It is weird.
Tabitha 15:44 The idea of like, our Apocalypse being like the comfort pocalypse because you think and like these Apocalypse things, I think Mad Max, Oh, it's this hard life. We have to come together because everything's really tough. And we're out of everything. We're now we're just so like, I'm so cozy and it's hard.
Simone 16:04 Yeah, Americans just want to be like the Cowboys in every situation. And this is like, not conducive to that.
16:12 Yeah, it's true. And I mean, it's really important for us to not forget. You know, the, a lot of people are less privileged don't have. Yeah. Yeah. Don't are not as financially secure. And so a lot of people this is much less comfy for us as the comfy apocalypse. But for a lot of people it is...
Simone 16:33 You're right, that is a very privileged thing that I just said.
Stephen Bradford Long 16:36 Oh, I mean, we're, we all have our we all have our privilege. But um, yeah, I mean, there are so many people who are just absolutely struggling right now.
Simone 16:46 Yeah, I was reading an article. Gosh, I can't remember where it came from right now might have been Washington Post. But they were breaking down the different demographics in the response to the Coronavirus. And they were saying something like 73% of Democrats wear masks when going out compared to 59% of Republicans. And one of the things I thought was most interesting was that, you know, the people who are protesting for reopening, they're not the demographic that you would think like you would think that the demographic who's protesting for reopening would be the people who have the jobs that they need to get back to in order to earn money and survive, which would make sense. But that's not who's protesting, who's protesting as a class above that. And the reason that the people who you know, you would think would protest aren't, is because number one, if you're lower income, and you're working one of the jobs that would put you on the frontlines, you understand that you might not have the health care to help you, if you get sick. If you are a part of this, you know, group, then you might be a person of color. And the communities of color have been, you know, much more impacted by this. If you're part of this group, you might personally know somebody who has gotten the virus. And so for all those reasons, they're not the ones out protesting, even though their jobs are much more precarious. Their financial situations are much more precarious, which I think really opens up the conversation about class that needs to be had in the response to this thing.
Stephen Bradford Long 18:33 Yeah, I totally agree with that. And, you know, I kind of feel like working a grocery store, I see a really wide swath of the local community, because everyone has to eat, you know, that's, that's kind of the uniting force of humanity is that it doesn't matter what class or demographic you're from, you still have to eat. And so especially for a kind of discount, small family owned grocery store, like I'm part of, I see a lot of different demographics, you know, homeless drug addicts, all the way up to you know, the, the, you know, boomers from Florida who come flocking up every every summer to, to vacation here. And I think I think I agree with that assessment. I will say that one of the things that has really been frustrating and I told this story several years or several years, several weeks ago feels like several years. Jesus, it's, yeah. Oh, my God. Totally fair. Like I was, yeah. I mean, like, I was journaling the other day, and I'm like, it feels like, it feels like we've been in this weird alternate dimension for so long now. And it's, it's, I don't know, it's weird. But several weeks ago, I told The story about how they're, it's almost like there's so many people and, and a lot of them are older in my community, who just don't seem to think that they can be hurt by this or that they can die. And maybe it's just the older Republican community and my, you know, in my town, but this older woman, she got way up in my, in my bubble in my space at work. And her. And as she did, so she said, Oh, you don't have anything to worry about. I'm healthy. Okay. Like, sweetheart, that's not how that works. You should be worried about me, I could be an asymptomatic carrier. Anyway,
Daniel 20:46 so does anybody else remember like the douchey straight dudes during the AIDS crisis? Who thought that they did not need protection?
Stephen Bradford Long 20:54 So I was born in 1988. So I don't remember much of the beginnings of the AIDS crisis. Were you around?
Daniel 21:05 I guess I don't remember much of it myself, either. But I know these people anecdotally as what am I say?
Stephen Bradford Long 21:10 Oh, okay. Well, tell me tell me more. What do you mean? Oh, just that like
Daniel 21:13 it was it was when they started promoting safer sex programs, it was very, very difficult to get through to particularly young straight men, because they resented you know, this perceived infringement on their sex lives. And because it was very difficult to convince them that there was that there was any kind of danger. You know, they would be in denial, they would say, I can't get sick, I can tell if somebody is sick. I'm not gay. So I don't have anything to worry about. And these are sort of that saying about how history rhymes? This is the wrong? Yeah, it's a different group of people sometimes, but they have pretty much the same attitude.
Stephen Bradford Long 21:51 Yes, exactly. You know, like, I see so many people at the store, who are basically like, oh, you know, we are just, you know, I have a really healthy immune system. So I'm fine. And these people are not wearing masks. They aren't, you know, they aren't taking any precautions. And they're just assuming that because they are really healthy, that their immune systems can can beat it. And that is not how this works. I mean, this, this virus is completely unknown to humanity, like our immune systems have never encountered this thing before. I'm wondering if you have seen an uptick in conspiracy theories. I feel like as Satanists, we have a particular interest in conspiracy theories. At least I do. Because I'm a Satanist. I'm wondering if you have seen an uptick in conspiracy theories? And if so, which ones?
Daniel 22:51 Well, I'm the conspiracy person. Yeah.
22:53 Daniel, will that one?
Daniel 22:54 I would say actually, no, I haven't seen an uptick mainly because social media being what it is, there was kind of a saturation point, I will say there's more attention being paid to them, both in terms of like, media scrutiny, and attempts to debunk, and then probably, unfortunately, people who would not otherwise have wandered into that sphere, do seem to be catching a little bit of it, which, unfortunately, is how that starts, like, you know, it's a very particular very small thing to radicalize somebody these days. But in my opinion, no, this is just sort of, if it wasn't this, it would be something else. And and all the time, it still is something else, you know, like the big one, I guess, is the 5g conspiracy, that but that did not start with this. People were railing about 5g conspiracies, you know, a year ago, they adapted it to this new series of events, because that's how conspiracies work. They are the anti science in that they can conform to any evidence as opposed to you know, as opposed to evidence of forming your conclusions or conclusions will just sort of cleave and glom on parasitically to whatever is happening objectively.
Tabitha 24:01 I have a question Did 4g get this kind of treatment to?
Daniel 24:06 I did I don't remember that. But I've had people tell me, it's like, yeah, every new generation of teleology gets this treatment.
Simone 24:15 I mean, like, why, right? People People like freaked out about Wi Fi people freaked out about microwaves like
Stephen Bradford Long 24:24 every new thing. And I will admit, for someone who is science illiterate um, that's probably I could probably phrase that in a more charitable way. People who are people who are still learning science, and kind of a scientific worldview, I get how it can be kind of creepy, you know, it's it's invisible. it because it's invisible. It might feel invasive. I get how like, if you don't have a good understood The ending of science, it could feel intuitively creepy, you know,
Daniel 25:05 you know, the the subject of conspiracism and charitable around terrible attitudes towards those people. Going back a couple of minutes ago when we were talking about, you know, people's beliefs, and how if at all, do you respond react to them when people believe things that you do not. And, and, of course, the policy and SBA and on the show is what we said, it's like, well, that is not ultimately the most important thing. And we're certainly not going to tell you what you have to believe if you're going to associate with us. But, and people who listen to the show have heard me talking about this before, I just purely personally struggle with that a lot. Because on the one hand, I'm very influenced by people like Carl Sagan and Douglas Adams, both of whom had very, very eloquent essays that made a big effect on me when I was younger, talking about how, if you let somebody believe something that is wrong, or irrational, but seems harmless, they are more likely to believe something that is going to harm them or somebody else down the line, or there's somebody like I think it was Kant was the philosopher who said that it is morally wrong to believe something that is incorrect, because your beliefs inform your actions. So invariably, you will do the wrong thing, if you believe the wrong things, you know, no matter how good your intentions are, and those arguments hold a lot of water for me. But on the other hand, I also struggle with the seeming contradiction of I'm surrounded every day by people who have beliefs that I would call irrational, but their actions don't appear to be irrational, you know, the bus driver stays on the road, you know, the surgeon, you know, excuse me, you know, surgeons patients all make it through, you know, they're making most of the same decisions that I would and when they don't, you know, there are often other reasons. This is not to say that people don't do quote unquote, crazy things for religious reasons. Of course, we know they do. And when they do, they usually make the news because that is unusual. So on paper, if you told me like, you know, here's a list of here's a list of tin cookies, even things that somebody might believe, do you trust this person to make good decisions in their life around you? I would say no, no, absolutely not. No. But then you go out into the world, and happens and everything is again, not fine, but certainly not as bad as I would have projected on that. So I don't really know how to deal with that, that that creates a lot of if there's tension in my mind, between what I would expect emotionally and what I know was actually happening. And I don't know how to make sense out of that.
Stephen Bradford Long 27:27 That's actually really, really interesting. Because I agree with you, you know, I struggle with that tension myself. And I keep when I think about that, I keep recalling this conversation with I forget his name, but he is the one of the leading scholars on the Heaven's Gate cult, and I had him on the show, of course, Heaven's Gate, the kind of suicide death cult that committed mass suicide and 96 or 97, or whenever it was, but one of the things that he just said about the broader kind of religious culture, not specific to Heaven's Gate, but just culturally, religion in general in America is he says that there are a lot more and more. And I don't know how true this is like the this is just me. Reflecting on his words, he said that there are more and more people who are compartmentalizing their religion in a Stephen Jay Gould, non overlapping magisteria sense meaning, science and religion are non overlapping magisteria they don't touch the one that I disagree with that 100% I do not think that that is a coherent worldview personally. But they have compartmentalised it in such a way that they can believe things that I think are irrational, but do not necessarily interact with the world in a very negative sense, you know, and, and so I guess it all just comes down to how one compartmentalizes their beliefs if that, I guess, if that makes sense, you know, how, how much does, how much does one's belief in the supernatural or, or some other unverified claim, how much does that infiltrate or infect other parts of their worldview? And, and I really see that as as being as differing between different believers, you know, as between different individuals. And that just adds like, this whole extra level of complexity to that question, you know?
Simone 29:53 Yeah, I just think that, you know, we can't assume that other human beings are perfectly logical and that they recognize or acknowledge that there are these contradictions within their own belief systems. I mean, that's why we're humans. We're not Vulcans here.
Stephen Bradford Long 30:12 And that applies to us too. I mean, like us, like me, I'm, oh, for sure. You know, like years later, I, I will look back on something and be like, Oh, my God, that those things that I believe those were in total contradiction with each other. And I'm probably completely unaware of them right now. You know?
Simone 30:29 Yeah. I mean, someone could have compartmentalize their religious beliefs with any beliefs that they might have in science. And if they don't come in direct conflict, they just, maybe just don't think about it too hard. And I think for some folks, when they do come into conflict, then maybe one will outweigh the other. But that contradiction still exists within them.
Stephen Bradford Long 30:54 Yes, exactly. Yeah, I 100% agree. And I do really worry. In the context of COVID-19 and conspiracy theory, I do really worry, that conspiracy thinking that previously just seemed kind of cute, or fringe or whatever, but but harmless. To a lot of people, now that we are actually in a crisis, I'm worried that that those patterns of thought exactly what Daniel was just saying that those patterns of thought will turn very dangerous. Like, when there's a when there's a vaccine out for the novel Coronavirus. I really, really worry about how people who are suspicious of vaccines, or suspicious of medical establishment, etc, I really worry about how they're going to respond to that vaccine. And so, you know, a mama who was previously just, you know, kind of resented having to go to the doctor and taking her kids to the doctor and kind of distrusted the medical establishment. But it was kind of, I don't know, under the radar or wasn't very intense, she kind of almost unconsciously preferred home remedies to taking her kids to the doctor, for whatever reason, I fear that she
Simone 32:29 was just casual anti Vaxxer instead of a traditional anti Vaxxer
Stephen Bradford Long 32:33 or a or a casual alternative medicine person, you know. And my fear is that the situation is just going to ramp up that conspiracy thinking. And when there is a when there when there is a vaccine, I really worry about how they will respond to it. You know, that? That's what's keeping me up right now.
Simone 32:57 Yeah, I think that that's understandable. I do think that I mean, polls have shown that for the most part, Americans are on board with the instructions and guidelines to keep them from contracting or spreading COVID-19 Most people, whether they, they don't maybe don't like them, but most people are pretty understanding and accepting of shelter in place. It's just that the fringe is louder and more visible. You know, so so people who listen to Black Mass Appeal know, I'm not the conspiracy person here. partially why we have Daniel, the resident expert, exactly. Now, my thing is that I just find them boring. I kind of don't care what random Joe Schmo with tinfoil on his head thinks. I also don't like I don't like giving these people oxygen. I get concerned when people try and go wider with like debunking these theories. Well, unfortunately, then you end up spreading the theory. However, you know, I do think that this is a time when we've seen more conspiracy hit the mainstream. I mean, we had it a little bit when stuff like pizza gate made the news and Obama's birth certificate. But this is really like, we have people showing up kind of in mass at these protests. We have the president retweeting queue, people Yeah, Daniel the queue people
Stephen Bradford Long 34:40 queuing on queue and on The Cube. I prefer the queue people.
Tabitha 34:45 Just don't tarnish Q's name from Star Trek The Next Generation. Okay.
Daniel 34:51 The Q people sounds like a BBC Radio Sci Fi series from 1979 I love it. Yeah,
Simone 34:56 I would watch radio show idea
Stephen Bradford Long 34:59 response People responded to a
Daniel 35:01 couple of things that Simone just said. And she's right in that. First of all, yes, actually, conspiracies are quite boring and dull and disinteresting if you get into the meat of them, but what substance there is, they can be made to sound entertaining. For example, if I told you right now that I am searching for a YouTube video that I saw over two years ago now that seems to have is now so obscure that I'm having trouble finding it, which proposed this conspiracy theory that in 2016, right before the presidential election, John Kerry went to Antarctica to speak with the fallen angels who have been trapped in dice for 1000s of years. They would intervene and change the outcome of the election and they refused, and then they caused an earthquake in New Zealand as a warning to him not to question their authority again. That sounds awesome, right? I mean, it sounds Oh,
Stephen Bradford Long 35:50 man, that sounds like a bad idea. But it would be a great Marvel movie. Yeah,
Simone 35:56 so I was gonna say like a James Cameron movie or John Carpenter, but yes, yeah.
Stephen Bradford Long 36:00 100%
Daniel 36:01 Ridley Scott is probably turning this to another alien sequel as we speak. Another Prometheus sequel. So like hearing me say that that sounds entertaining hearing somebody talk about it for 35 minutes is fucking death warmed over. So yeah, this material can be made to be entertaining if it's adapted through somebody who is frankly more competent. That question of do you help them by trying to debunk them? Do you end up amplifying them that is really dangerous. I tend to lean towards if anybody is a fan of Natalie wind who does the YouTube series counter I counterpoints.
Stephen Bradford Long 36:34 Fucking love Natalie, when she did that she did a girl right here.
Daniel 36:40 She did a very long video recently, where she talked about one of the things she talked about was how one of the things that made leftist content more popular on YouTube was when people stopped trying to respond in an emotional way or a logical way stop trying to debunk right wing conspiracy mindsets, on YouTube, and just started responding to them with ridicule started
Stephen Bradford Long 37:02 saying already cringing at them. Yeah,
Daniel 37:04 these people are. They're ridiculous. That she feels is a very powerful way to undermine them. And I happen to agree, actually. And I think maybe that's a reason. Maybe that's something we spend all the time talking about now to invoke he who must not be named, but we spent all the time saying Trump is wrong and Trump is morally offensive. Maybe we should spend more time pointing up Trump is ridiculous. Trump is absurd. Trump is like, like a commedia dell'arte character from 16th century Italy, like you couldn't make up somebody this ridiculous. If you if you if you, if you want to do it, nobody would believe it. And yet it is real. So those are the kinds of things that I tend to think about, I think that giving people should be in ways that deflates their egos and makes it harder to take them seriously. Is is important, because otherwise you can risk falling into that trap. That's my
Stephen Bradford Long 37:52 I. I think that's I think that's true. And I think that we, I, you know, I think that there are too many kind of Op Ed pieces. Just very seriously saying, Here are all the ways that so and so is wrong, here are all the ways that Q anon is wrong. Here's all the ways that Trump is wrong, and, and just in a very measured way trying to debunk it and, and I'm not sure if that works anymore. You know, we live in this degenerate hellscape called the Internet, where sometimes you just have to ruthlessly mock something like you have to ruthlessly ridicule it.
Simone 38:31 I mean, these people already believe that there's like cannibal pedophile trafficking ring. Like if you if you already believe that. I don't think logics gonna shake that off. Uh, yeah,
Stephen Bradford Long 38:45 exactly. Exactly. And but mockery does mockery will, you know, and I also, I was talking to a guy named VOSH on on the show several months ago, and he said that, and he's kind of a controversial figure, you know, he's, he says some stuff that I personally probably wouldn't say. But what he does is he de radicalizes Nazis on the internet, and he's really fucking good at it. And so he he's, he just sits on a stream all day long and fights with Nazis, and I would fucking die. I would hate to do that I would be so bad at it, and but he is so great at it. And when I asked him about his methods of how he does it, he said an another thing that he said was, all I can do is show them where they are inconsistent in their own beliefs. And so he was like, you know, these, these white guys. Really, really value, the image of rationality. They really value the image of kind of being the big brained, rational dude Who can't just philosophize his way into bigotry. And he says my job, if I remember him correctly, my job is to point out how ridiculous their thinking is, and to reveal the lie of their own rationality. And I thought that was very clever, I guess, but I don't know. I think mockery definitely has a place in that. And yeah, go on.
Simone 40:29 I was just gonna say, you know, one thing I think is interesting is that sometimes folks think that there are these people who really pride, their rationality, their logic, their intelligence, but they become so arrogant about it, that it makes them really easy targets to derail them. You know, you think you're, I work in a field that has some work with frauds and scams. And folks all the time think that, Oh, I'm never gonna get scammed. I'm too smart. I could totally spot one. And that's for other people. And then they get scammed, and they lose like $72,000. So it's sort of in the same way you think that I'm not going to fall for conspiracy theory. I'm too smart. I'm not going to, you know, end up in a cult. I'm too smart. That just kind of opens you up to putting on these blinders that that allow you to get duped.
Stephen Bradford Long 41:29 Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious. pose a question. Yes, please. Because this guy, by the way, by the way, before we do that, I just want to make sure did we all get introduced at the beginning of the show?
Tabitha 41:42 I don't think any of us got Oh, shoot, we do it.
Stephen Bradford Long 41:45 We just jumped right in. Okay, can we just go on in here? I'm so sorry, people. Okay, David. I know who you are. But
Daniel 41:58 I mean, you said our names at the beginning of the show. Okay, good. by process of elimination, people will have figured out who each of these voices are.
Stephen Bradford Long 42:06 Or not whenever knows, Daniel, just don't go for
Tabitha 42:09 it. Do your thing.
Daniel 42:11 Oh, this conversation is budding up something I just wrote to introduce
Tabitha 42:14 yourself. Oh,
Stephen Bradford Long 42:16 we already know who we are. Just which one who is? Who is Tabitha? Say hello to me. Hello. Hello, Simone. Say hello.
Simone 42:25 Hi, this is Simone. I think my voice is slightly lower than Tabitha says that. I'm the one that does the Doot doot Doot
Stephen Bradford Long 42:34 doot on black mass appeal. And then Daniel, deep manly voice he's the conspiracy guy. Okay. Daniel, do continue.
Daniel 42:41 Oh, conversations butting up something against something I just wrote about on the SBA blog, which is I personally at least and maybe we all share this experience, feel some tension and some weirdness. When on the one hand, we like to say things like like, yes, Satan, the radical, the revolutionary, be an independent, free thinker don't trust you know, trust your own decision making over these road guidelines. That is what society needs. That's how you can get ahead. That's how we can heal these problems in ourselves and in the world around us. But then, on the other hand, to be in the position of saying, actually, in this case, do listen to the CDC, do listen to the county health officer, don't be a worthless drama sponge, who was just out there causing trouble in this time actually do do what you're told. Now, that's not actually a contradictory position at all. Because if anybody's telling you, like, break, don't follow the rules, even when they're actually good for you. Well, you know, that's, that's a ridiculous position that nobody would be in. But my point is, it doesn't feel it's not nearly as gratifying, personally, to be in the position of saying, actually, this time, you know, go go, actually this time play ball, you know, and maybe that's why it's something that's driving these these protesters is again, it's it's, it's much more satisfying for them to be in this position that even though it's ridiculous and wrong, but it's just more fun. It's just a better outlet for them. It's more catharsis. That's my guess, I don't know, I know other people deal with these kinds of things.
Stephen Bradford Long 44:06 Well, that's true. Yeah, go on.
Simone 44:10 So Daniel's a satanic Bay Area blog post was excellent. By the way. You know, people will like you people who are skeptics of like, science and medicine and vaccines and whatnot. They'll always say stuff like, do your own research, find out for yourself. Don't listen to these people, these medical professionals. And I'm like, Okay, so were in my condo, am I setting up my contagious diseases lab? Because I think I'm gonna go with the scientists on this one because it's literally their job and their educational background and their practice.
Tabitha 44:52 So think research in the first place that you're gonna go look at.
Simone 44:57 Yeah, looking at YouTube is not research. So,
Tabitha 45:03 unless your research is funny cat videos
Simone 45:07 I research cute cats all day. But I would still defer to Jackson Galaxy.
Stephen Bradford Long 45:13 I am at the point in my by the way, full disclosure moment of vulnerability here. I am at the point in this pandemic where I am just like endlessly scrolling pictures of cats and weeping for no goddamn reason. So that's been my headspace lately, just like two hours at a time just scrolling cat picture after picture after picture of cats and and just like shedding tears for no goddamn reason. So that's my mental state. By the way.
Simone 45:48 I haven't totally been there. Cats are good and pure and love and softness and cuddles. And it just makes me feel better to see that people around the world like I've seen Russian cat videos. And as long as the cat's fucking cute, it doesn't matter what language the humans are speaking in the background, Japanese cat videos. The world is brought together by cute cats.
Stephen Bradford Long 46:13 The most you the most uniting thing in the human race right now? are cute cat videos. I 100% agree,
Tabitha 46:21 actually. So I my guilty thing is I've been watching those like where they take animals off the street and clean them up and give them home videos. Openly weeping. I've been like watching tons of them on my phone in the middle of the night being like, there's Oh,
Stephen Bradford Long 46:41 I can't watch those. They. They were upsetting me so much.
Tabitha 46:47 Like I just got bigger cats are upsetting you so I don't think you can get there.
Stephen Bradford Long 46:51 I can't Yes, I can't deal with well, just animals hurting. I can't I just can't. I can't. And I just watched her. I only watch horror movies so I can watch a person get disemboweled in a movie and, and scream bloody murder and be impregnated by an alien or whatever. And I'm fine. But I cannot watch any kind of like animal suffering. It just kills me.
Simone 47:30 Oh, yeah, I'm watching like, you know, my favorite TV show is Hannibal and I'm watching Hannibal cut up bodies and serve them. And I'm just like, eaten eaten popcorn on the couch like, Oh, this is great. I saw the movie, The autopsy of Jane Doe, in the theaters. And about a third of the way through something very bad happens to a cat. And I burst into tears in the theater so hard that the person I was with, like thought that there was something wrong with me. And then I cried for about probably another 20 minutes before I calm myself down. So
Stephen Bradford Long 48:04 yeah, girl, I totally get that. We are on the same page. And you were saying something very thoughtful before I totally derailed it. With
Tabitha 48:15 my phone. Sorry. I'm tired of talking about cats.
Simone 48:20 I was responding to something like Daniel said, I don't know we've kind of lost that train. Let's forge ahead. Sure. So
Daniel 48:27 I just want to add, essentially what Simone just said, when you're watching the cat video and you don't care what language people are speaking. That's good. That's actually getting into the cat headspace. The cat also doesn't care what language anybody's speaking or really what its own are saying at all most of the time. And like cat videos, I think are particularly appealing to us because they're sort of a way to become more like a cat. When you watch the cat video. You don't care about the humans. You don't care about what they want, what their priorities are. You care about what the cat is doing right that second in that way. You are just like the cat. That's very true. So
Stephen Bradford Long 48:59 speaking of cats, by the way, so my partner John, he recent, you know, the scary nun from The Conjuring movies. The VALIC, I think is her name like that. Really scary. Yeah. From The Conjuring universe. So he got a Volek doll. And the thing is fucking terrifying. Several days ago, it was delivered because we have our living rooms like horror themed and then my office is like a Colt and Satan themes. So I have like my altar in here and all my weird scary occult stuff. And then the bedroom is like Alien and paranormal and cryptid themed and then the kitchen and dining room are like witch themed. So it's fun. We live in a very witchy house, but we also live in, like, redneck country. So whenever like a plumber comes by we're like, Okay, quick, put everything away. But all that aside, so we get this VALIC doll. And the moment John pulls it out Eli, who is one of our forecasts, and he's the he's a big boy. He's a fat boy. He is just looking up at it, adoringly. Oh, he has some weird affinity for this evil nun. And oh, and then he's in now he sleeps with it. sleeps on its lap. He, he grooms it. He has like, she is his best friend now and like they're, they're constantly sleeping together. They're constantly like, he's like constantly cuddling her and grooming her. And it is the weirdest fucking thing.
Tabitha 50:54 I need pictures of this, please.
Stephen Bradford Long 50:55 I have so good. They are so good. I have pictures. I'll send them to you in an email after we're done. Yeah. Yes. So I can talk about cats all day long. Um, when when can I miss something? Yes, please,
Daniel 51:14 can I go on a tangent there, I apologize.
Stephen Bradford Long 51:16 I would love for you to go on a tangent.
Daniel 51:18 We're actually I don't know, if we were getting ready to. We let the Patreon backers vote recently on what the themes of upcoming shows would be something that we do a couple of times a year. And one of the options that is proving pretty popular is a show about about go wedding demons. About say that, say that one more time about go with like demons go to demons. Yeah, from the gifts from lesser Key of Solomon and false hierarchy. Yes. And those lines Balak actually is the name of a demon from both of those books. But it doesn't really have anything to do with the demon of the movie, they just picked a name that they thought sounded good, which you know, is fine. But I like to point out Volakas, also the demon in a Hellboy story by Mike Mignola. Box of evil, which is one of my favorites. And in there, I noticed that there was attention to detail, for example, like if you look at the box, it's got the exact right seal on there. And then there's a scene in there where balik tells the character where to find buried treasure in the castle, which is one of those things Volakas supposed to do for you to help you find treasure. So my point is, you don't have to pay attention to details because like, what percentage of the audience is even going to know or care, but I do feel like it kind of improves I respect a writer more when they bother to shit when they when they show you that. Yes, I did bother to not only do a small amount of research, but also like, make certain things in the story correspond to that. Like, you know, we didn't just just like picking a name is E is fine, but I'm impressed. I'm impressed when somebody goes an extra step. So that's just me.
Stephen Bradford Long 52:48 I agree. And that's one thing that I really liked about. Oh, what was that movie hereditary with? I was gonna bring that up. King Hyman? Yes. I thought hereditary was brilliant. And it was so great. And I loved the the occult underpinnings in it. I thought that was so well done. So I have some questions here from listeners. Fortunately, they're all very stupid questions. So we don't have to think very hard about it. I think, actually for us. Yes. So lately, what I've been doing is, whenever I get a guest on, I just send out a tweet like, Hey, I'm interviewing so and so. Do you have any questions? Just to get we're just to see if there's anything interesting that comes up. So Peterson Toscano asks, What did they have for breakfast?
Simone 53:49 Oh, I had Honey Bunches of Oats. And I was taking the Honey Bunches of Oats out of the Costco to pack box because we went to Costco to stock up. And I have a Tupperware container that I put the cereal in to maintain freshness. But this was a new kind of box and I severely misjudge the amount of cereal in the box did not make it all into the tupperware. So then there was just a bowl like a big mixing bowl full of extra cereal on the counter for most of the morning that my boyfriend and I picked off throughout the rest of the morning.
Stephen Bradford Long 54:28 Very good. That is an excellent story. Would anyone else like to share?
Tabitha 54:36 Yeah, this week, I am working extremely early in the morning to try and get some stuff out the door. So I got up at 530 in the morning. And I have some like Nature Valley protein bars or some shit that I eat in the morning but I also took a Ziploc bag of cereal to work which I then proceeded to pour. We have. We have oat milk for like one of the products we do. So I poured oat milk into the bag
Simone 55:09 with the cereal, cereal out of a
Tabitha 55:13 Ziploc bag for my 10 minute break,
Simone 55:16 saving a bowl that is saving a bowl. That's also
Daniel 55:19 very authentic Apocalypse behavior. So there's that Yeah, exactly.
Stephen Bradford Long 55:24 They're exactly.
Daniel 55:26 I had a bowl of frankenberry for breakfast, and horse of the horse you did those in the audience who are familiar with the General Mills, monster cereals will be confused by that because of course, they are only available in stores two months out of the year. So what I do is I stock up and I try to make the supply last as long as possible. And here's a tip for you. Since stores have to stop stocking them after Halloween. You can they usually put them on sale. And so I still remember it was 2014 That day I was like in Safeway getting ready to go over to a friend's house and I saw that they had like extra surplus boxes up Count Chocula like three for $5. I'm like that is a deal right there. So I was like going up to the checkout stand with like a stack of six boxes. And what was really funny is I was going over to a friend's house to I was tired of running a game of Vampire the Masquerade of the RPG. And so I show up in one hand, I've got my bag with gaming supplies. On the other hand, I've got a bag full of Count Chocula and all my players are like where's he going with this
Stephen Bradford Long 56:25 guy is that I love how just totally unadulterated and on ironic that is. And it makes me so very happy for anyone
Daniel 56:36 who's curious. I was not able to find a way to work the cereal into the game. But like if I ever run a vampire campaign again, that's probably going to happen at some point.
Stephen Bradford Long 56:48 So Jack Ma Turco from the naked diner podcast and Yak or Hey, Jack. Hey, Jack. We love you. Also for infernal use only on patios, and whoa, what's his newest show on tst? TV? I can't remember.
Simone 57:08 See do devils dispatches at him?
Stephen Bradford Long 57:10 He does devils devils dispatch. But he also does another one. He does like an interview show.
Daniel 57:15 Ongoing unnecessary pursuit. Is that him?
Stephen Bradford Long 57:17 That's him? Yes. Ongoing, ongoing, unnecessary pursuit on tst. TV. So Jackman Turco, he does a lot of shit. He asks, How do we acquire these for ritual purposes, and then links an article about Black Diamond apples. And I don't know anything about this. And I was wondering if this was some kind of inside joke between all of you know, I'll send you the link and in the chat.
Tabitha 57:52 Whoa, I mean, they're beautiful. Holy mackerel, gorgeous.
Stephen Bradford Long 57:54 Yeah, here's, here's the link I really think that they should be should be used for satanic ritual purposes, because these apples are fucking amazing.
Simone 58:04 So I find gemstones fascinating. Just like the science of you know, the difference between the stones and how stones are cut and you know, graded on color and clarity and carat and all that. What can I say? I just like looking at sparkly things. And I think I read somewhere that a lot of black diamond just because of the color that to get that color there has to be like certain chemicals present. And I just read somewhere that black diamonds, a bunch of them come from space, essentially, you know, landing in meteorites and all that.
Stephen Bradford Long 58:45 That's some craft shit right there. Like like
Simone 58:49 the black diamond jewelry to have like space, you know, black hole diamonds on me.
Daniel 58:56 But to be clear, we're not talking about black diamonds. Diamond apples there.
Simone 59:00 But what is it? Oh, I'm not looking at a link there. What are we talking about? Like actual edible apple? Yeah, I thought we were it is a blow apple. I know you're talking about diamonds that were like, you know, faceted into an apple shape. I mean, because
Tabitha 59:19 I got it. I got it. He wants us to change our name to Black Mass apple.
Stephen Bradford Long 59:26 Very good. Very good.
Simone 59:28 Just so you don't sound completely crazy. I watch a youtube channel about chemistry and they talk about gemstones a lot. And this, the host went to a diamond cutting factory in Russia. And they had diamonds that had naturally kind of fallen into skull shapes. Oh, and they were the coolest fucking things I ever saw in my life. And I want one robot.
Stephen Bradford Long 59:53 Yeah, I do too. Yes, go on Daniel. I
Daniel 59:56 don't know where we would get BlackDiamond apples but I seem to remember that there. was a point in the process in the Disney movie Snow White, where the apple turned black while the Evil Queen was putting a spell on it. And that was not the final product. Because of course, like Snow White, I think we'll agree is not necessarily the sharpest tool in the shed. But even she probably would have looked a little bit of scans at the black Apple there. But I'm guessing we could just reproduce the process up to that point and then stop, we would get an apple that is black and at least less poisonous than the one she ended up with both of which I would consider net improvements. This is
Simone 1:00:31 a candy apple with some black dye in the white chocolate or whatever you're dipping it in. Yeah, delicious.
Tabitha 1:00:38 Yeah, let's just make candy apples. Let's call the whole thing off.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:00:43 We So Jack, we have your answer, we will make candy apples and they will be served in the next black mass or something. The classical ideas podcast asks, what inspired them to spend time on a podcast instead of another avenue of creativity. So what got you into podcasting to begin with?
Simone 1:01:09 Well, so I come from a media background, I've worked in film and television and radio, I was kind of an early adopter in terms of listening to podcasts, like starting in the very early 2000s ease or whatever you however people say mid or
Tabitha 1:01:27 early 2000 change.
Simone 1:01:31 And so and I have some friends and acquaintances who are in the professional podcasting business, and I had always wanted to try it out, I figured it was a very attainable medium in terms of equipment, and you know, just the financial investment in it. You know, you don't have to have lighting, you don't have to have the visual on the camera. And I personally just love podcasts because I like to, you know, put my earbuds in and then go do the dishes or go about my day, like listen in on a conversation, where if it's, you know, hosted by a good host, or it's on a good topic, it feels like I'm just having a kind of conversation with my friends. It's very personal. It's very comforting emotionally, even when I'm listening to like podcasts about terrible, terrible murder. I'm like, oh, yeah, just me talking with my friends about serial killers. So, Daniel, and I, you know, we were talking about different initiatives to kind of, you know, raise the profile of satanic Bay Area, you know, raised the profile of Satanism in general, and dispel myths and talk about, you know, the issues that concerned us. And so it all just kind of clicked together, that podcasts are great for long form discussion, so you can get into detail, you're not just clipping sound bites, you establish a rapport between audience and host so that, you know, they get to know you, they get to trust you, they become more open to having these conversations. And also, you know, just it's always a concern to protect one's identity if you're openly identifying as a Satanist. You know, we're very lucky in that we really haven't had any problems, but you know, better to be on the safe side.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:03:33 Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And I think that I think that one of the reasons why podcasts are doing so well. Is because I think a lot of people are feeling lonely. Just in general. I do think that more people are struggling with feeling isolated. Just in general. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, go on.
Simone 1:03:59 Well, so it's kind of a I kind of try and keep an eye on podcast industry news. And there's been a little back and forth about how much people are actually listening to podcast right now. More and more podcasts are being made because people are stuck at home and are looking for a project. But, you know, to some studies, the the number of listening of listeners and minutes listened has gone down. And it's because people's schedules are so disrupted, that you usually have routine of like, okay, I'm gonna get in my car and drive to work and listen to my podcast or I'm gonna go to the gym and listen to my podcast. And people don't have those routines anymore. So they're missing out on that listening time. And even myself who you know, I love listening to the shows. I don't have a commute anymore. I'm not that I went to the gym in the first place but and you know, I'm stuck at home with with my partner all the time, and it feels, I don't know, almost rude to have my headphones in all the time. So I know that my listening minutes have gone down.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:05:13 Yeah, same actually, and I don't know, I lately, I have been finding myself listening to fewer podcasts, just I don't know, I'm finding that what I'm really needing right now is kind of long form immersive media that I can just get lost in. So I'm finding myself drawn more to audiobooks right now that I can just put on for hours and hours and hours and hours at at work. So you know, like, I can put on an audio book when I'm in the office or when I'm stocking shelves, and just forget about existence for a while. And I think that there's something that I need, there's something about that that I need right now. It's kind of a form of self care. Like I just, I just want to lose myself in a different world right now. It that that can just take so much of my time and so much of my day. And so I find myself gravitating more towards audiobooks and podcasts right now. Because of that, I think I am yeah,
Simone 1:06:23 I'm, I'm watching more. I'm rewatching comfort comedy shows. So I'm rewatching shits Creek, I'm rewatching the good place. Things where there are tons of jokes, and the people are genuinely trying to be better people or to be nice to each other. And it's just like a bomb on my soul that's ripped open daily by the news. Yep. Yeah, I
Daniel 1:06:46 would add two things to answer the original question. One being that back in 2017, Simone and I, there was a student over at the University of San Francisco, which is a Jesuit school, by the way. So you know, the conspiracist Can, can
Stephen Bradford Long 1:07:02 I partner is a Jesuit, or was a Jesuit.
Daniel 1:07:06 Oh, well. Yeah. I mean, that's the the evidence is piling up. Oh, no, no, he was doing an audit. He did an audio project as a final in Simone. I don't remember what the class was to you.
Simone 1:07:18 It was some audio production class. I think I recall him saying that. He had had an interest in Satanism and just decided to kind of use this project as an excuse to explore it, which is not the first time we've heard that.
Daniel 1:07:31 I think at the time it was the first time actually. Well, the last time we heard it.
Simone 1:07:37 Yeah. I mean, we've definitely gotten the the student who's like I'm in such and such a class, I have to do a project. I want to do it about Satanism. And we're like, sure.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:07:48 Yeah, I get that too. Now. Yep.
Daniel 1:07:50 So so that was at the, at the time rare opportunity to talk about this with a third party. And it was right after that, Simone. And I finished that we left the campus, we walked a couple blocks down to Eighth Street and went into a bar and got a drink and started talking about things we could do for SBA. And that way, if the podcast composition had come up previously, I don't remember, but we did start seriously talking about it then. So that was definitely one factor. That least helped spurred along. I would also add that we do a lot of other forms of creative expression. Tabitha is an excellent artist and cartoonist and you know, folks can our satanic kick tracks are still available over at the BMA shop, those are really good sellers.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:08:28 They're great, by the way, cuz yelling, Daniel, yes. Describe, describe what those are, by the way, because they are so fucking hilarious. And so amazingly, well done, like, just tell people for a second what those things are.
Daniel 1:08:43 Definitely, you wanna take this one?
Tabitha 1:08:44 Sure. So the satanic trick check tracks our little three by five comic books that may seem sort of familiar to people who might have seen something similar on bus stops are handed to you by very strange looking people on Halloween. And see the original things to check tracks are little religious pamphlets that are poorly drawn by a sad, sad old man who's dead now. And they're all about God and how no matter pretty much no matter what you do, unless you listen to him, things are gonna go real, real bad for you. So we took, we took that idea and kind of put it on its head. Daniel wrote the first one, and our friend Bridget wrote the second one, and actually we are currently working on number three, which Daniel wrote again. And I drew all of them. The first one is called constitutional rights. Ra te SM is about a certain senator that some people might be familiar with. And his 10 commandments statue. Oh, yeah. And then the second one is about abortion rights, which takes place in San Francisco. I spent a long time Drawing the backgrounds on that one. So it's very important that you know that it takes place in San Francisco.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:10:06 And that one's called abort, abort. Yes. I think that's so fucking hilarious.
Tabitha 1:10:11 I love that third one is going to be about Halloween.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:10:15 Very nice,
Daniel 1:10:16 because of course, Jack Chick, the late original cartoonist who created the actual chick track. So you learn more about in episode 68, of black mass appeal, hated Halloween and wrote strange and hilarious anti Halloween tracks that are some of his most ironically popular output even today. So it was kind of obvious for us to do a pro Halloween tract at some point. On the topic of that title. By the way, bridgid wrote, just when she turned in the rental draft of the script, at the top of the page, it just said abort. And I assumed that that was a title. Turns out, it was just like a placeholder, just like something she wrote up there. And I took the liberty of just multiplying by two because I thought that was funnier. And it wasn't until it was printed and done that she pointed out, that was not really supposed to be a final title. But okay, so we have other projects, as well. We've mentioned the blog already here. We, we got a YouTube channel that we're working on expanding, we're putting new content on there experimentally, especially in the last couple of months. We have an audio drama that's in production, actually, any unfaithful listeners who are wondering because we brought that up before where that is, all the lines are recorded. I just need time to put them all together. Anybody would think I would have time right now. But there's always something so that is coming soon. And, you know, we've got, I guess technically, we even kind of did some live theater with Halloween last year. So there's lots there's always a lot going on.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:11:41 You also always have your your rituals that you do your community rituals, your black masses and whatnot. That sound really cool. When I've heard about them on Black Mass Appeal,
Simone 1:11:57 they are super fun. We've got such a great group of folks that the energy is really great. It's everyone's so accepting and understanding. And when we come together for ritual, folks are in a jubilant mood. And so we get some real hearty hail Satan's thrown out during the ritual, it's great. Yeah. But yeah, satanic barrier we have, I really am proud that we're so multifaceted and that we have the, you know, religious, quote, unquote, spiritual or emotional components with, you know, community and bonding and ritual, we have, you know, a space for philosophy and discussion, because we have our satanic salons, which are structured, you know, group discussions, we have, you know, community actions, we have, you know, art projects, we have, just like, basically, something to offer for everybody. And that does include our, you know, media content. Some folks, some folks like the podcast, some folks like the blog, some folks, you know, are big fans of the YouTube channel. And, of course, you've got people who like them all, and we're very happy. So I think maybe just the podcast is a little bit better known right now. But we certainly have a ton to offer for our members locally. And also, for people who we know through the magic of the internet,
Daniel 1:13:42 I would just say in general, in terms of the best things we do, I would say, top three in no particular order is the podcast, the CIC tracks, and that time we burned Donald Trump in effigy. Those are definitely our best products.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:13:56 Your finest moments. That's great. And you, I see, you, I see all of you offering everything that a religion offers, you know, there is and I see the same thing and TST Yeah, but you guys at a very local level and very deliberately, are providing community providing fellowship, as they say, in the Christian world, providing but but also events and ritual, and art, the iconography of Satan, the symbolism, the, you know, getting together to have cathartic experiences. And so I really see you as kind of just being on the ground in your own local community, doing what healthy religion does, and in all of its different facets, which is making art and bringing people together and taking care of the least of these taking care of, you know, people who need love and so on and so forth. And I know that there's kind of this constant dispute from non Satanists of well, is this really a religion? Is is this really a religious organization? are you how are you not all just, you know, progressive humanist atheists taking on drama queens? Yes. You're a drama queen. Yeah, exactly. It's like your drama queens, and you are radical anti theist using religion as a cover as a ploy. But when I look at what I think that what you guys are doing in the Bay Area, it's just such an obvious refutation of that, like, when you do your rituals, there aren't any Christians present to get triggered by it, you're doing it for you, right, you're doing, you're doing it for your own community. It isn't to troll anyone. It isn't to make a political statement to to other Christians. or to you know, people who might be offended by it. It is for your own catharsis. And that, to me is just such an obvious clue that it is a religious community, you know,
Daniel 1:16:24 hey, Steven, can we bother you to write some press releases for us in the future? Just gotta put that out there.
Tabitha 1:16:28 Yeah, I want it's like three times I wanted to be like, Oh, go on.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:16:33 Absolutely. Just, just tell me when and I will just sit on a mic and just gush about you guys. I would be happy to. I really was like, when I when I appeared on your show last time. I don't get nervous before interviews. I really don't. But I was really fucking nervous.
Simone 1:16:54 Oh, why? You know, you listen to the show. You know, we're huge dorks?
Stephen Bradford Long 1:16:58 Yes, I know. But for whatever I but for whatever reason, I was really nervous because I am such a huge fan of black mass appeal. So, yes, go on.
Simone 1:17:10 Oh, um, so I was just gonna say, you know, going back to what you were talking about, about satanic Bay Area offering fellowship and community and you know, how that kind of is viewed by folks who aren't Satanists. So satanic Bay Area, you know, we're not a religion in and of ourselves. We're not a temple. We're not a church. Yes. The best analogy that I've heard is something that Daniel is that is that, you know, we're more of like, if you want to put it that way, like a Bible study group.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:17:44 I love that. Yeah. I get that. Yeah,
Simone 1:17:47 yeah, cuz because we all like come from ever, like slightly different belief sets, we don't have one. Overarching dogma, we don't all believe the same thing. That's fine. This is a space where we're here to discuss those differences, and, you know, explore those things for ourselves, and together with other people. And a lot of it, you know, some of our members did come to us, out of a rejection of the religion that they were brought up in Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, whatever. But when you're in this space with satanic Bay Area, that doesn't really matter, the other religions don't really matter, it What matters is is what we are doing. So while we acknowledge that, you know, this wasn't completely created in a vacuum, in reference to other religions, that's not the point.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:18:51 Absolutely. And here's the thing. No, religion is created in a vacuum, you know, all religion emerges from other religion. I mean, Buddhism emerged from Hinduism. Protestantism emerged from Catholicism, Christianity emerged from, from Judaism, and, and so on, and so forth. I mean, that's, that's the way it's always been. And so to me, it really is not remarkable at all, that now we have this subset of, of people, many of whom are former Christians, many of whom are former Muslim Muslims and, and Jews and whatnot, taking aspects of their former religion and making something new with it. They're like that it's just so intuitive to me that that would happen, because that's how it's always happened. You know, we, we take something from from that old world or from our former life, and we recreate it and we we turn it into something new. And so the fact that people leave Leave and join Satanism out of reaction to Christianity, which is, which I personally didn't, but it's totally okay and valid that a ton of other people do. And but that doesn't make it any less of a religion, you know, and that doesn't mean that it's any less valid. You know,
Simone 1:20:20 I think folks who aren't familiar with Satanism will see something like an inverted cross or see something that that's a black mass or whatever. And they'll just go, Oh, they're just mocking us. Right? But, but it's not that it's using it as a jumping off point. And using, you know, evolving it to fit our needs. Yes. So it would be quite a boring and shallow religion if all we did was mock Christians. Yeah, we were more than that.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:20:52 Yeah, I don't have the time, I don't have the energy for that. I would say go on, Daniel, please.
Daniel 1:20:57 Three things. One, earlier, when we talked about like the the eclectic makeup of SBA, one thing I neglected to point out is, we also get a lot of people who don't identify with any particular group or philosophy, or even necessarily have a very sound idea of their satanic identity when they meet us. They just have an interest or a calling or an emotional reaction. And then sometimes that that will, you know, develop through their interactions and through whatever is happening in their own lives. So sometimes there are there's a lot of people for whom there isn't even really particularly a word for it. Outside of you know, the S word. Point number two is I always make the argument that the your just trolls allegation is kind of a very, it's a very self centered, self serving,
Simone 1:21:45 accusation self centered. Yeah, it's
Daniel 1:21:47 a way for them to pretend I agree, it's a way for them to pretend that what we're doing is all about them, and therefore secretly all about Jesus, and therefore secretly, they're actually right. And so for, you know, in this weird, roundabout way, we're actually helping them. You know, it's the it's much harder for them to accept this idea that we might that other people just have starkly different beliefs that they are expressing for themselves for their own purposes. That almost
Simone 1:22:14 like offends them more that like that. It's not about them,
Daniel 1:22:18 I think I think it would have been the more they figured it out. Yeah. The other thing that I would bring up is if you read Joe Lee Cox books Speak of the devil, which Steven I know you've read.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:22:27 Yes, I've reviewed it several I've I've done several articles about it. And it is fantastic.
Daniel 1:22:32 And folks who were interested in hearing more from Joe Bicocca, check out episode 56 of black mass appeal, where he talked about exorcism, great conversation.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:22:39 Like you how do you do the numbers? How do you just know the numbers off the top of your head?
Daniel 1:22:45 The secret is only I still have no idea secret is only some episodes get brought up a lot. So those ones I can? Okay, a lot of them I remember us doing but I couldn't tell you what the number is because, you know, they, for whatever reasons, maybe they're not as popular maybe I don't refer back to those topics as often.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:22:59 So that's how if I were to do like, if I were to do like a pop quiz and just name a number, would you be able to tell me which episode it is probably
Daniel 1:23:06 not. Okay, I was one of the girls is one of the really good ones that I bring up before. But in that book, he made an interesting point that I never thought about before. Nobody has this conversation about other religions. Nobody. We we have arguments about religion all the time and about their validity and about their place in society. But like people who hate Islam, don't say Islam is not a religion. People who hate Scientologists or suspicious of Scientologists don't say Scientology is not a religion. Even other Satanists like nobody said the Church of Satan is not a religion back, you know, 50s they were making headlines, people kind of took it for granted. It's really only the Satanic Temple. And then in the wake of that independent groups like ours, that that question comes up. And you might say, Well, it's because of the atheism but no, there are other atheistic religions, it's much more unusual in the United States, but they exist. And this guy, these kinds of arguments never happened. And I find that fascinating. Lake ox argument is because no other religion has challenged, you know, kind of the the the assumptions that we make about the practice and freedom of religion in America in the way that modern Satanism has, just in the last, you know, five or six years, which, I don't know if that's true, but I don't have a counter hypothesis, and it does sound good. So let's go. Yeah,
Stephen Bradford Long 1:24:20 it sounds really good. And I do think that he is onto something there because, I mean, he's right. You know, one of the things that I always bring up all the time is, you know, every so often someone will kind of approach me or confront me about the validity of TST or Satanism as a whole being a religion and, and I kind of probe. Where are they coming from? Like, what is it about this that that makes you feel like it isn't real? And one thing that comes up all the time is, oh, well, you're just political activist. And I, my response to that is, okay, well wait, think about the Quakers though, you know, the Quakers have been on the front lines of religion of, of, of political movements for decades forever. I mean, they've been on the front lines of anti war movements and, and all kinds of great stuff. But you would never look at a Quaker and say, You're just using Quakerism as a ploy for your political agenda, you know, and it is equally absurd to do so for Satanists. And it really is unique to Satan, or it really is unique to modern day Satanists. You know, even non theistic pagans who I think we have a lot of kinship with, I think that that maybe non theistic pagans are, are the group that we might have the most kinship with, honestly, we it's very similar. They are not accused of be of not being a religion. Buddhists are not accused of not being a religion. of you know, liberal Episcopalians are not accused of not being of religion. So why is it Satanists? And I think Joe Laycock is absolutely right. It is about how we are kind of deliberately challenging the the structures of, of bias in this country. I think that's absolutely true.
Simone 1:26:36 Yeah, I think it's a confluence of a bunch of different factors. There's the recency, you know, TSDS only been it's not even 10 years old, yet. There's the atheism. There's the, you know, some of the earlier actions of TST were a little bit more on the trollee side, but they've since you know, kind of rethought their approach. Yes. You know, and I think that like if all those same things were applied to say, a Christian group, like if we wanted to start like a new Christian group today, and wanted to use it for our political agendas, I still think that people wouldn't question it that much. It's just you combine Satan with atheism with this is still really brand new, even though even though Satanism has been around a while, I think. Yeah, yeah. I think to the public. If they knew anything about Satanism at all, they might have known something about Anton LaVey. But honestly, I don't think if you pulled someone off the street, they would be able to peg Church of Satan as being an atheistic group.
Daniel 1:27:52 Absolutely. So I can I can prove that nobody knows that just look at the famous church of Satan Twitter account, but 50% of the time, is just explaining that fact to people in recently exasperated tones, which makes me wonder what they have been doing for the last 53 years. 55 years, however long it's been now if nobody basically 0% of the public knows literally the first thing about them. But that's a that's another question that's been requested for another time.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:28:19 I am going to refrain from saying anything snarky about CEOs. This is me being a good boy. And not starting a flame war.
Tabitha 1:28:33 Feel bad when we get messages from people who are like, oh, yeah, I really want to go visit the Black House and blah, blah. And I'm like, it's a freeway. Right. I think it's condos for a long time. Sorry.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:28:45 it like it was demolished in the 90s Wasn't it? Like? Yeah, 2000
Daniel 1:28:51 That was something I learned from reading Lake Cox book that I'd never knew before is at one point, they repainted it because they were sick of all the attention. They painted the Black House beige, which Oh, that's like, I don't know, sell out. But wow. Let's just sell out the sudden. Yes. On the on the subject of atheistic religion. One of my one thing I was fascinated to learn a couple of years ago, when pew forums did a did a new series of numbers about American religion, I love views, religious surveys for the record, that's just fascinating data. And they talked to they're talking about how many Americans identify as atheist or agnostic or, you know, non believing, and then what that means, because that often does not mean what we think it means. And one of the stats that I found fascinating there was they said that 2% of American Christians said they do not believe in God. But yeah, still responded to that survey as Christians. So yes, on one hand, 2% is you know, not very many relative to the other 98% But think about how many people that must be in practice. That's that's a yes community of folks who are here. Probably isolated, but if they all got together and formed an atheistic Christian Church, that would not be that difficult or even necessarily that weird, but it definitely would, it would definitely challenge a few things,
Tabitha 1:30:11 I will say would be considered a religion.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:30:14 Yes, you know, Lucien when I had him just recently on the show, he said, you know, non theistic religion probably won't gain validity in the United States until some Christian group does it. And I, and I think he's probably right about that. But also, that is what I was trying to do. Before I just decided to leave, you know, I still, you know, there's still people in the satanic community who refer to me as a satanic Christian or a Christian Satanist. Which I don't, I don't refer to myself in that way. But I, I get where they're coming from, because I still work for a church actually. And I That, to me, is not a conflict. It's a super progressive Episcopalian Church, I teach yoga for them. And I'm still connected to the progressive Christian world, because I find common cause with them in their social justice goals. And it's, and you know, I have quite a bit of respect for some of the Christian traditions that nurtured me. I have less respect for many of the other traditions, but some of the traditions I, I have a lot of respect for. I don't call myself a Christian, I don't consider myself a Christian, I consider myself post Christian. However, all that said, before I, before I made that move to being post Christian, and just being like, I'm sick of this, I'm tired of the fight. So I'm just going to leave. Before I did that, I was trying to carve out a place for myself as a non theist. And it was horrible. It was an absolutely horrible experience, even in the progressive world, even in the progressive Christian world, because there's actually, you know, this is kind of anecdotal. But I think that within like, even the Episcopal Church, there is a resurgence of theologically conservative, socially progressive Christianity. So what that means is theologically much more creedal and Orthodox, where as socially, very progressive, pro gay marriage, usually just straight up socialist, pro women, pro trans people, so on and so forth. And but they responded to me very poorly. And I was just like, you know, after how many years of just fighting for my inclusion in the church as a gay person, and then coming up against this wall. As a non theist, I was just like, just fuck this, I'm done. I'm done fighting. I'm just, I'm just going to go be with Satan. I'm just going to go be a Satanist. So I, I do agree, I think that I think that non theism is the future of religion, or a, it will have a big part in the future of religion. And I think that that's also true of Christianity. But I think for Christianity, it is going to be a really big fight, because they are, they are doing a lot to suppress non theism it is it's kind of ugly. So those are my those are my long winded thoughts on that.
Daniel 1:33:38 Once or twice, sorry to interrupt you. Yeah, no, go on. What's your choice? I think we've referenced on the show, I believe it's called the clergy project, which is a nonprofit that is aimed at helping people who are ministers or clergy, members of various titles and denominations who want to leave the church, because in most cases, they no longer believe, but at the same time, what are they supposed to do? Not only is their whole life wrapped up in this, but like, I don't know if you know this, but like, if you've been a Baptist minister for 20 years, you don't have a lot of other job skills that you can part. It's all they can do. Exactly. So they end up in this horrible, horrible bind of really living a lie, and having to continue to provide this service to this community that really has no idea what they're going through. And I admit, I've never thought about that problem until I heard about that. But as soon as I did, oh, the dark places My mind went,
Tabitha 1:34:25 they could probably sell cars
Stephen Bradford Long 1:34:32 don't know very good. So one last question before before we start wrapping things up here because we are already we were already over an hour and a half. Now Missy morbid. The Satanic housewife asks, Who is their dream guest? Who would be if you could get anyone on the Podcast who would be your dream guest for black mass appeal?
Simone 1:35:03 We got a bunch of a bunch of dream guests. Well, since I can't find any justifiable reason to get Trent Reznor on the show, I will go with Tobias Ford.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:35:16 I was just about to say Tobias Ford. Yeah.
Simone 1:35:20 You know, he's the band ghost, quite popular amongst the satanic set, including myself, and he is self identified as a Satanist. And is making great art and music. And I think he would just be really fun.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:35:36 I I agree. I think that would be fantastic. Also, I don't think I've ever told you guys this. But I have I discovered ghost because of you. And and that might be the biggest contribution to my life. I have now such a huge rabid ghost fan. And it is all thanks to black mass appeal.
Simone 1:36:06 Yay, hooray. They need to pay us royalties by being on the show.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:36:11 Absolutely. Yeah. So Tobias,
Tabitha 1:36:14 like I would freak out if he was on the show.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:36:21 All right. Well, sometimes I
Tabitha 1:36:23 do that when people might if they listen to our show might realize that sometimes when we do interviews, I get really quiet because I was nervous. And I'm afraid I'm just gonna be like,
Stephen Bradford Long 1:36:35 I get that as, as an interviewer I get that. Because there are times when I've had people on the show, where I'm like, why am I talking to you? Like, you are so smart. And, and you were just making me feel like such an idiot just by being in my presence? Like, why why did you agree to this interview? So no, I totally get that. Quite often actually. I, I There are several people I've interviewed where I'm just like, you, this is not a good use of your time right now. But anyway. So before we wrap up, oh, yes, go on. So
Daniel 1:37:21 I was gonna say I, I guess for me, dream guest is not the term I'd be like, if he gave me a magic lamp, I would probably pick somebody more famous just so we get more attention. But in terms of a guest who I really, really coveted, whom he recently came very close to actually potentially getting on the show is I was just getting contact with Kenneth Lanning, who if that name sounds familiar, he is the FBI agent who wrote in 1990. In the early 90s, what was the exact title hanging I'm going to look at, it's a investigators guide to allegations of ritual child abuse in 19. Oh, which was the study, it's called a monograph is as the technical term, correct me on this, which is why I now am careful about that. That did probably the most to debunk the SRA scare was not like one thing, but more than anything that's probably contributed to it. And I heard him on a couple of other podcasts recently. And I was first of all, kind of surprised to find he was still alive, just because I had not heard anything of them in a long time. He has, he has, of course, been working. I've since caught up on everything that he's done, even published a book actually, just two years ago. So I knew emailed him and I said, Hey, you know, I've read that monograph you did in the 90s. I'd like to do a close read it up on the show, I've always wondered who would be a good guest for that. Do you feel love for this? And he actually did send us some some very lengthy and polite emails back to us talking asking about, well, who are you? What's the show? What would you want to do? And eventually, he declined only because there's some things going on in his personal life right now that he probably would not want me talking about, but it was very was like, Okay, I understand, you know, so little disappointing there, but I would love to have that conversation with him. Especially with, you know, almost 30 years of hindsight now. So, maybe someday, who knows? And in this case, I think I'm gonna guess who probably you would and this is a person we made overtures to in the past also.
Tabitha 1:39:09 Go ahead and guess
Daniel 1:39:11 it's gonna be Caitlyn, right?
Stephen Bradford Long 1:39:13 Yeah, it's Kate and Jodi Oh. I have been wanting to get her on. Well, I've been wanting to get her on the show forever. Same. She would be great. Yeah, it's so so Daniel. I have to say that is some peak satanic Geekdom for right there. It also Caitlin Doughty would be, she is a queen. And if you if you get her on Black Mass Appeal, let me know and maybe put in a word for her for secret tension.
Daniel 1:39:51 If anybody out there has got an enrollment on that we've I feel like we tried almost everything at this point. But Jalen, you would have a really great time I'm telling you.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:39:59 You Have a great time. You You have I know you talk about death all day long. But have you done it with a bunch of Satanists? Yeah.
Daniel 1:40:10 All right video about that. About the paper she wrote in, in her in her Christian school. They're about there was supposed to do one character from the Bible. So she did Satan about, you know, for her final paper.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:40:23 Oh, I didn't know that. Nice. Yeah, I love her. She is a queen. So, it has been such a pleasure hanging out with all of you tonight. And I hope that this has been fun for my listeners as well. And for people who want to find your stuff. Where can they do that?
Simone 1:40:47 Well, you can find the podcast black mass appeal on pretty much every podcast service. Our website is black mass appeal.com. You can find us as black mass appeal on most social media networks. And if you really want to send us a message with a personal touch, you could send us an old fashioned email at Black Mass Appeal pod@gmail.com.
Daniel 1:41:14 If you want to find out more about satanic Bay area, check us out at satanic Bay area.com. We are on Facebook and on Instagram at satanic Bay Area. And you can follow us on Twitter. The handle there is at satanic SF email for us a satanic Bay Area at Gmail. And oh, by the way, if you're interested in more of Devon's art that we referenced earlier, you can also find more of that in our Teespring shop.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:41:32 Yes, everyone go by Tabitha is art at the Teespring shop.
Tabitha 1:41:37 I just panicked a little bit thinking I was gonna have to come up with a menu item.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:41:45 Oh, right, because
Tabitha 1:41:48 Oh, I gotta figure something out. By the way, it's cereal in a Ziploc bag.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:41:54 cereal in a Ziploc bag. Yeah. For people who have no clue what we're talking about. They Tabitha always gives a, a menu item from their local coffee shop where they have satanic meetings. Anyway,
Daniel 1:42:09 at the end of every show when we do that,
Stephen Bradford Long 1:42:11 at the end of every show, all right, well, thank you so much for joining me it has been so much fun. And that is it for this show. As always, the music is by the bands, the jelly rocks and eleventy seven you can find their music on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to music. The artwork is by Rama Krishna Das. And this show is written produced and edited by me Steven Bradford long and as a production of rock candy media and shall we go out on a hail satan? Yea yea yea. Three to one. Hail
Simone 1:42:51 Satan.
Tabitha 1:42:54 And thanks for having us.
Stephen Bradford Long 1:42:56 It was it was so much fun.