October 9, 2015 • 59 mins
Why have rumors of dark arts so often dogged musicians? Have any of the rock stars of yesteryear ever actually believed they contacted the underworld? Join Ben, Noel and Matt as they explore the murky relationship between music and the occult.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. And
ladies and gentlemen, you know what that music means. Welcome
to the show. I'm Ben and I'm Nol the necro
(00:24):
goat slaughterer Brown. Oh, that is good. We should do
some We should do some black metal nicknames. You know,
I feel like I'm haugging the nickname giving duties. So
often do you have a black metal nickname for me?
Neal Man, that was everything I could do to come
up with that one. It was kind of redundant. It's
a necro goat slaughterer. So is it is it itself?
Does it only slaughter necro goats or is it a
(00:47):
necro goat that slaughter's right? Yeah, not clear, But you
know what, a little ambiguity in uh in black metal
is probably just fine. Ben. I'm gonna call you. I'm
gonna take a cue from the Swedish black metal band
hell Hammer, and I'm gonna call you Ben satanic slaughter Bolan.
(01:07):
You know, I'll deal with I like the nested alliteration
hell Hammer was it was a member of a band, right,
a member of a band, but also a a Swedish
black metal band. Uh maybe active now they're active in
the early eighties. Um, And we'll get to that part
of the story very soon as a way of seguang
into what today's topic is, which is music and the occult.
(01:33):
That's right, and ladies and gentlemen, we're here. Most importantly,
you're here. It's what we call the most wonderful time
of the year over at Conspiracy Stuff, that is the
countdown to Halloween. We're in the month of October and uh,
we stay tuned for the end because we have a
little bit of administrative business to cover. But first we're
(01:54):
going to delve into something that a lot of people
have asked us about. No, this was this was an
idea that you came to us with, right, Yeah, and
I just think it's there's a lot of there to
unpack and there's a lot of opportunity, you know, to
dig into some pretty interesting stuff when it comes to
music and the occult. Um, not only with things like
black metal and satanism, but just numerology and illuminati symbology
(02:20):
embedded in different works and um um, you know, popular
culture references throughout the history of rock music, you know, yes,
and he goes past rock music, which is something we're
going to discover. So here, let's let's just paint the
background a little bit, right. Uh. First things first, the
music industry is uh surprise, huge business. Gargantelin Global recorded
(02:45):
music sales totaled fifteen billion dollars in ten and that's
even with you know, the the fall of paid media,
more people just finding songs you'd rather listen to for
free on a streaming service. Right, either way you cut it,
it's a leviathan business wise. And that's because music is
(03:05):
one of the few things that unites all human beings,
regardless of backgrounds. One of my favorite writers, Vladimir uh
Novolkov or Navolkov, is one of the only people I
ever heard of who just categorically didn't like music. He
had synesthesia and he didn't get music. He said, it
(03:26):
was just this collection of noises to him. So, other
than one author who passed away a long time ago,
pretty much everybody dig some sort of music. It occupies
a unique niche and the human experience, and it appears,
fun fact to predate the written word, making the practice
of music literally older than recorded history. So today we're
(03:49):
gonna talk about music. But you know what sort of
show this is, folks, And you know our favorite holiday
is coming up, So we're not just going to talk
about the music industry or a few instances is of conspiracy. No,
when we explore the entire concept of the relationship between
music and the cult, there's one place we always have
(04:10):
to start right absolutely, and that is with the Devil
Satan Lucifer old scratch like that, yeah, old scratch? How
about the Devil went down to Georgia? Do you remember
that song? Of course, ye, devil went down to Georgia.
He was looking for soul to steel. Yeah. Now he
played a golden fiddle and he gets into a fiddle
(04:32):
off with Johnny? Is it Johnny Georgia and the Yeah,
and if you if you win, you get this shiny
fiddle made a goal, but if you lose, the definitely
a call back to one of the early rock myths
(04:55):
with with Satan is the Robert Johnson story. You want
to talk about that? Yeah, yeah, let's like a let's
like a little bit about this. This is something that
you and I were talking about off air because you
found a fantastic source for some of this, right did.
It's a book called Season of the which How the
Occult Saved rock and Roll by a guy named Peter
(05:17):
Barba Gal like that. Um, And it basically just is
like kind of an oral history of as far back
um as like the Blues and Elvis and things like that,
about how just the connections between um, this idea of
like selling your soul to the devil at the crossroads,
you know, in order to the ability to write amazing
(05:39):
songs and perform amazing music and back to the whole
devil went down to Georgia theme. That is definitely where
this comes from, which is the story of Robert Johnson,
who was a very very well regarded blues singer and
guitarist largely credited um for inventing many of these sounds
and um, you know, constructs that went on to be
(06:01):
very important for much of popular music, especially you know,
things like rock music, right yeah, and and had relatively
few recorded songs. But he did also have a song
about going to the crossroads. He actually has a song
about it. But this is also tropes or themes or
versions of another story. You know that one would go
(06:27):
to the crossroads or through certain arcane preparations, strike a
deal with dark powers. It's like that Faust story, the
Faust exactly, you know, as as they say, you know,
you're basically exchanging your humanity for some boon that the devil,
you know, which ultimately serves as a stand in for
(06:48):
any any number of other malevolent dark forces them from
whether it's voodoo culture or paganism or anything like that. Um,
it's it's certainly a part of a trope in all
of those um, you know, mythologies, I guess you could
call them, right, Yeah, Yeah, We've talked about this on
the show before. The idea of religious syncretism, that one
(07:09):
religion or another will attempt to meld together to win
over the people. So the idea that you mentioned there
is brilliant and old. The Satan, that Abramaic satan is
a stand in often for older gods or spirits in
these stories. Trafficking with supernatural creatures for material gain is
(07:32):
is a very it's a very old idea, and you
know we often see that. We talked about that in
our other video Five Things you Didn't Know About Satan Listeners.
Of course, if you're checking out this show right now,
then you already know that the trident and the goat
legs are examples of this kind of religious syncretism trying
(07:53):
to vilify pre existing gods. But here's an interesting thing.
In Abramic edition, Lucifer was known as the angel of
music before he fell from God's grace, or that's what
you'll hear a lot of people say. And so this devil,
this Promethean figure has been associated with music and musicians
(08:16):
in a number of ways. There's there's another there's another
case of someone who was alleged to sell their soul
to the devil, and that was Niccolo Paganini. Uh. This
this guy violinist right by all accounts, just the best
there ever was at the time, you know, just incredibly fast,
incredibly proficient, just insane technique. Actually grew up playing violin,
(08:41):
so was aware of him and kind of the shadow
that he cast on the on the history of performing
so um, it's it makes sense that that he would
have gotten cast as one of these figures that made
some sort of Faustian bargain in order to get those
mad violent skills. So yet he sold his soul, he
made a pact with the devil, And for those of
(09:04):
you who are interested, I will say, uh, I guess
I wouldn't recommend trying some kind of nefarious magic, but
if you're looking for a way to do it, you
can find things like the Lesser Key of Solomon that's
a that's a grim wall, or the Malice Malefic Harum,
(09:29):
which talks about some anecdotal ideas of pacts with Satan.
So it gets pretty complex pretty quickly, because you know,
calling the big one up is not necessarily recommended. You
get there are other lesser people you could work with,
you know, so apparently there is a specific month or
day of the weaker Hour to call these other demons
(09:50):
and invoke some sort of pact. So inspires market. If
you want to sell your soul, I'm sure you are
just several fascinating Google searches away from getting on the trail.
But because of I think, because of this pre linguistic
mystical nature of music and the human experience, that it
(10:15):
makes sense for us to see it associated with this
idea of a magical thing. Well, I mean it actually
brought to mind something that you've said to me yesterday
we were hanging out off air Um a friend of yours,
you said, who was into practicing magic. Um had a
really interesting way of describing what magic was. I think
he used the phrase weaponized psychology. Is that yeah, And
(10:39):
I feel like music has some of that to it
as well, because it's it's this whole package that combines
something like a melody which can invoke uh, certain responses
emotionally just by nature of what the melody sounds like,
with a lyrical content which can invoke many different things,
whether it be nostalgia, whether it be the sort of
(11:01):
longing or or some kind of you know, um emotional response.
And to me, that is a form of, you know,
if you look at it this way, weaponized psychology, where
you are eliciting a certain response from someone by combining
these elements, and it is the sort of ritualistic thing,
whether it's putting on a record or going to a concert.
You know, you are participating in this invocation. Let's say, yeah,
(11:26):
there's there's a there is a certain strange thing to it, right,
like why do minor chords make people feel sad? Yes?
And with that in mind, we're going to go to
the next part of our show, Ladies and gentlemen, We're
going to discuss some conspiracies, both theories and facts surrounding
(11:48):
music and the occult. In other words, here's where it
gets crazy. One of the first connections here we'd like
to discuss is the connection in between metal like heavy
metal and satan uh as far back as as you
know Black Sabbath, for example, you know, just the name
(12:08):
Black Sabbath carries this weight of demonic. You know, worship
of some kind is the idea of taking a holy
day and making it, you know, shrouding in darkness of
some kind. Which is weird because I didn't Black Sabbath
begin as a blues band. I'm not sure it would
make sense. They definitely have some blues qualities in their
(12:31):
music as far as the riffs and and again, you know,
a lot of metal is based in this idea of
of guitar riffs and playing the little motives that kind
of repeat. And obviously you can get into different genres
that that take that in various different directions, but um,
at its heart, metal is a guitar driven um you
(12:54):
know genre of music. Um. So, one of the most
infamous genres of metal UH that has come out of
that scene is something called black metal, which you have
black metal UM and I remember first hearing about black
metal when I was much younger. There was I had
a subscription to Spin magazine and there was an issue
(13:15):
that had all of these different figures from Norwegian black
metal um in this uh this profile or whatever. And
I can't remember their names, but they were all fantastic.
I'll give you just some example. The names like Emperor
exactly that the names of the bands sure like Emperor,
but the individuals, individuals who were in the bands, um,
I'll have this is what this is from a band
we were talking about earlier, the band hell Hammer, which
(13:37):
again not the same hell Hammer as one of the
characters were about to discuss in this story. But names
like Uh Satanic Slaughter, which is the nickname I gave
Ben Slade Necros. These are members of the band Satanic
Slaughter was the guitarist and lead vocalist, Uh Slade Necros
bass and packing vocals, Denial Fiend on drums, Uh Savage
(14:00):
Damage on bass and vocals, Evoked Damn Nature on bass,
Grim Decapitator on bass and these are all previous members
and Del Infernali on guitar. Do you think any of
them are listening to the show hoped on. You don't
you don't want them to, M'd be I'd be scarred,
really yeah. And my point is though, when I saw
this profile and spin, I remember there was one guy
(14:20):
who talked about carrying around a decapitated Raven's head in
a satchel sniffs, you know, like before he went on
stage to get the sense of death in his nostrils
and you know, anyway, so I'm getting ahead of myself,
but that was my first exposure to this black metal
and I think there's there's definitely different camps, but the
main ones that we think about are the ones from
(14:41):
Norway and the ones from Sweden. Right. So the the
interesting thing here is that so much of entertainment is
is just shoh yeah, showmanship exactly. So we're all familiar
perhaps with uh with different organizations that will put on
a spectacle but then go home, have a nice cup
(15:04):
of earl gray and then uh, I don't know, asked
the kids about their day before going to sleep at sharp.
So there's a there's an important distinction to make between
what what is smoke and mirror and what is actually happening.
I despise we're going to talk about this in a
(15:24):
little more detail in second. But I despise the uh,
I guess, the the laziness or the lack of critical
thinking when people paint with such a broad brush and say, oh,
all black metal, all people involved in black metal, or
these lunatic cannibal necro goat slaughterers right to use your
(15:48):
nickname because it's is simply not true. But there is
something we can talk about which was seen as an
occult link by many opponents, and that is the prevalent
of church burnings in the Norwegian black metal scene alone.
There were over fifty arsons of Christian churches from two
(16:09):
to nineties six. So what this shows us is that
it was at least in vogue for people who believed
that members of the black metal scene in Norway were
practicing Satanists or something. This was considered the smoking gun
or not to be crasped, but the smoking church. And
(16:32):
the problem with that is that people who are doing that,
or people who we're not opposed to it, would say,
this is not about Satanism, this is about the opposition
of Christian religion. Still you're burning buildings. Yeah, this sort
of comes back to this idea that we were beginning
to touch on appearance versus actions. So for example, like
(16:54):
Ozzy Osborne, yesh, he may have snorted a line of
ants in the heyday of his drug hayes, but it's
certainly wasn't uh an tribute to the dark Lord, you know,
And I mean maybe they're they dabbled, you know, Black
Sabbath dabbled in some ideas of occult teachings, but they
certainly are not thought to have been a Satanic band,
so to speak. Whereas or like another example is like
(17:16):
Alice Cooper, you know, a lot of a lot of costumes,
a lot of set pieces, you know, a lot of
kind of horror Grand Guignon kind of showmanship. And you
could say the same about even kiss for instance, kiss yeah,
to a much lesser degree. I mean, kissed to me
has always just been absurd and there's not really anything
scary about what they're doing. Um, But like Alice Cooper
(17:38):
or even a Marilyn Manson, you know, and I mean
Manson Manson did it profess to be a follower of
Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan and things like that.
But I think a lot of that was just sort
of like a way to rebel against some of what
we're talking about, like these Gudeo Christian kind of beliefs
or an Anton LaVey or the philosophy of the Church
(18:00):
of Satan is not necessarily the deistic Satanism that people
might think of if they are it's a symbol or
less a rebellion, and of what does it do with
thou wiltst you know, kind of like just basically don't
follow anyone's rules with your own. It's it's a very
kind of hedonistic um ultimately kind of a selfish way
(18:21):
of life, which they would say is not really problematic.
I would say it's ironic though, if if you're reading,
like any religion that says do what you want whenever
you do what you want, and here are the rules
for how you do what you want, because is that
what you want to do. There's just a cognitive distance.
(18:41):
But anyhow, I'm not knocking the Church of Satan. I
am pointing out that a lot of people probably misinterpret
its philosophy. But while we're here with Maryland Manson, let's
let's follow this. Let's go a little bit down the
rabbit hole. Because the group, which I guess began as
(19:02):
Merrin Manson and the Spooky Kids had the idea of
taking the name of a famous beauty queen or actress, right,
some sort of Hollywood icon, right, and combining it with
the surname of a serial killer. So we have things
like what we have Marrin Manson, Twiggy Ramirez, Twiggy Ramire.
(19:26):
There was Gidget Gain, which was ed Gain the surname,
and Gidget Um, as far as I can tell, is
the reference to a film from from Gumbia Pictures starring
Sandra d Cliff Robertson and James Darren, sort of like
a you know, it looks like a very quintessentially Hollywood
type film from the time, right. And then there's uh,
(19:47):
there's Daisy Berkowitz. These these names. You see the pattern.
But let's focus on Marilyn Manson's name in specific, because
that's Marilyn Monroe and Charles Mann's and so Charles Manson
is himself. Manson Manson family are at the crux of
(20:10):
several other interconnecting theories. Right. And he was in the
musical underground of California for a while too. I think
he was way underground, Yeah, I think, yeah, he had
he seemed to he was a very charismatic dude and
was able to kind of curry favor and like kind
of become friends and get into the inside circle with
(20:30):
some relatively famous musicians, like, for example, like he kind
of knew forget which beach boy he spent time with,
but there was definitely one of them, um, and he
was trying to kind of, you know, cheat his way
into the music industry. More or less. He was not
a particularly talented songwriter. I actually, at one point years ago,
I had a copy of just a compilation of all
(20:52):
of the songs, and they're they're very bad. It's not
it's it's not there's something particularly engaging or commercial. There's
nothing particularly the sellable about any of this music. And
it's it's borderline unlistenable unless you are able to just
do it kind of as an artifact of here's what
Charles Manson sounds like plan acoustic guitar as like a
historical lobbity. But so okay, this, You know, it's interesting
(21:16):
that you say that, because let's let's explore some of
the other aspects of Manson's rise and fall. While he
was incarcerated, as he was for most of his life.
I think the technically now, the majority of his life
he has been locked away one place or another. He
was exposed to some of the principles and techniques of
(21:40):
something called dianetics, which would become later scientology as a
precursor for that. He also had his own brand of
cult creation, and we studied him fairly extensively. When we
were looking at the we did a video, man I
(22:00):
did a video about how cults work and how, you know,
how one erases the ego, removes the ability to think
critically or proactively, you know, and turns people really into
limbs of a larger body rather than their own, their
own person. And one thing that's that's strange about this
(22:24):
is that this ties into what are often considered a
cult techniques. And the word occult just to be just
to be clear, is often treated with a magical context
here in the States in our modern day, but um
it also the base of it really means hidden, you know.
(22:47):
So I would say that the techniques Manson was thought
of using, right or people who believe that he was
exercising something like mesmerism or hypnosis, which he was, that
would be seen as a hidden skill and accult approach
and it worked. Yet people brainwashed had a mountain the desert,
(23:10):
convinced that there was gonna be a race war that
would take over the entire world. They were going to
live in a secret cave ultra skelter, Yes, sir, helter skelter, Uh,
culminating of course in some murders. Yeah, and this, you know,
I know, we're kind of jumping all over the place
with this, but this is just it's it's fascinating and
it's easy to there's a lot of rabbit holes to
go down, and so you'll have to forgive us if
(23:30):
we go a little bit out of order on some
of this stuff. Um. But yeah, So there was a
series of murders that the Manson family perpetrated. And then
there's there's another connection with some of these back to
some of the other things we're talking about. Um. The
first set was the Sharon Tate House. That was Roman Polanski,
the director who did Rosemary's Baby. Um, he did Chinatowns,
one of my favorites, and more recently, um, he did
(23:53):
Like the Pianist in the Ninth Gate with Johnny Depp,
and he continues to work. Very controversial figure in his
own right, but that's for another day. So the Manson
and his followers, who I believe we're mostly women. Um,
they broke into this house and they murdered Tate and
her entourage. I guess she had I she was having
a party or had some friends over at the time.
(24:14):
Polanski was not there, he was out of town. Um.
It's actually a really excellent sort of a side topic
UM a book by an author named Jersey Kazynski. I'm
called Blind Date Um, and Jersey Kazynski wrote the book
Being There, which is a fan was made into a
fantastic film starring Peter Sellers. But in Blind Date Um,
he actually was friends with Roman Polanski and was supposed
(24:35):
to be at this house when these murders happened, and
he writes sort of a fictionalized account of how he
um managed to not be there and when it happening,
and sort of the aftermath of it. But he doesn't
really write it like as a first person, like from
his own perspective. It's very interesting if you want to
learn more about it, that's a good place to start.
So the next night, Um Manson felt like the they
(24:57):
had not done the best job at the the Tate
house so they wanted to give it another go, I guess,
so they went to the home of a supermarket executive
named Leno La Bianca, where he and his wife, Rosemary,
who owned a dress shop, lives. It was in the
Los Fellies neighborhood of Los Angeles, and it was during
this uh kind of killing spree that Manson and his
(25:20):
followers would cover the walls in different phrases that later
became iconic, like Helter Skelter and death to the Pigs
and um this idea of him trying to start a
race war rise Helder Skelpter is obviously a reference to
the Beatles song Helter Skelter off the White album, right,
and there's another connection. Two interesting side notes before we
(25:43):
go on. There are more suspected murders on part of
Manson and the Manson family out there in the desert,
and people aren't sure who else got caught who was
killed in Los Angeles and just not associated with it.
Helter Skelter there could have been much worse. In fact,
(26:04):
one of the reasons it wasn't. It's because a guy
of a guy who doesn't get enough credit in the story,
a fellow named Paul Crockett, retired prospector who had also
studied oddly enough scientology and apparently began to d program
some of the people Paul's some of the people in
(26:25):
the Manson family. Paul Crockett's story is mysterious to me.
I invite you listeners to look it up and let
me know what you think. We covered it briefly in
one of our earlier videos, but there's there's a lot
more to that story that remains untold, and uh, you know,
I feel like we're we might be getting closer to
(26:45):
falling into a Charles Manson podcast. You know, it's really
interesting stuff there, for sure. UM. One a little side
note and kind of bringing it back to the music thing,
we definitely went down at a little bit of rabbit hole. Um.
The La Bianca Mansion, actually the Tape mansion was was demolished.
I'm not quite sure how long ago, but it's been
some years. The La Bianca Mansion still stands and has
(27:08):
had some renovations done. But UM, Trent Resner from nine
Inch Nails actually rented that mansion in order to make
their iconic record, The Downward Spiral. UM, and he was
fascinated by you know, the Manson mythology and all of
that as well. Um, and so I mean it just
kind of comes back to this connection with music and
(27:28):
the occults and you know, true believers versus you know, showman,
and um, you know, I think there is some shock
value and being sort of like a fringe like sort
of a dark musician, a dark artist, kind of like
like nin inch Nails kind of has like a sort
(27:49):
of a sinister, kind of a creepy vibe to it,
and like saying, we made our record in the house
where the Manson murders happened. And you know, what this
reminds me of is a story that inspired part of
this podcast, which you had told me originally off air,
and I had no idea about this. Yeah, I mean,
I think one of the reasons that I wanted to
(28:11):
explore this Manson connection. What this made me think of
as the story about one of my favorite artists musicians
of all times, David Bowie. And in the mid seventies,
Bowie was deep in his thin white duke phase. And
anyone who knows about Bowie would recognize the look of
(28:32):
David Bowie during this period easily super thin, very pale,
and a lot of that had to do with the
fact that he was just off the rails on cocaine
at the time. But during this period he actually lived
in a mansion that was just down the road from
the La Bianca House, which is where that second set,
(28:55):
arguably the more grizzly set of of Manson murders took place.
And during this period, and a lot of this is
this is from the book that I mentioned earlier, which
is called UM, How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll
definitely worth checking out. You can get as an e
book on Amazon. UM. During this period he had just
completely lost himself to this cocaine addiction. And I mean,
(29:17):
you're David Bowie. He was just obscenely famous at this point.
You know, he should go wherever he wanted. He had
this mansion, he was probably not leaving very often, just
getting piles of cocaine delivered to him, and he started
worrying about things like the like Nazi conspiracies, the Manson murders. Um,
(29:37):
you know, his own bodily essences and bodily fluids and
what that meant, you know, like sort of like that
character in UM Dr Strange Love who's always talking about
precious precious bodily fluids. Definitely a lot of paranoia going
on there, um, and he became convinced that because of
the proximity to the La Bianca house, there were malevolent
(30:00):
spirits that were invading his world, whether it was his
his home, his psyche, you know, all over the place.
So he decided, um to seek the help of what
we would refer to as a white witch, a follower
of the Right hand Path exactly. So the house that
(30:21):
Bowie was renting belonged to a guy named Glenn Hughes,
who was the basis for the band Deep Purple Smoke
on the Water and things like that. And this is
a quote from a guy named Mark Spitz who wrote
a Bowie biography. Um. I don't know if it was
particularly sanctioned, but it definitely exists. Was or he was
around during these days, and the author of Season of
(30:43):
the Witch did use him as a as a source
several occasions. So here's a quote from him describing, um,
what Hughes thought about David's David Bowie situation. Line quote,
he felt inclined to go on very bizarre tangents about
Alistair Crowley or the Nazis or numerals a lot. He
was completely wired, maniacally wired. I could not keep up
with him. He was on the edge all the time
(31:05):
of paranoia and also going on about things I had
no freaking idea of what he was talking about. He'd
go into a rap on it and I wouldn't know
what he was talking about. And then, as Bowie himself
remembered in this up in this from this book, my
other fascination was with the Nazis and their search for
the Holy Grail. I paid with the worst manic depression
of my life. My psyche went through the roof. It
(31:25):
just fractured into pieces. I was hallucinating twenty four hours
a day. I felt like I'd fallen into the bowels
of the earth. So it was during this period for
David Bowie that he reached out to someone named Cherry Vanilla,
who was one of a former employee of Bowie's management
company who had been around and witnessed much of his
(31:47):
debauchery and paranoia, and she was the one who put
him in touch with this white witch named Wally elm Lark.
And the idea was that elm Lark would come into
the mansion in LUs LEAs and exercise the place. Um,
whether it was you know, saging it and just kind
(32:07):
of like performing some rituals to clear it of evil
spirits and sage. And it would be when you burn
sage around different areas of a place, right exactly. So, Nol,
I have to ask something that's probably on the mind
at least a few listeners here. Do you think there
were evil spirits on the premises? Well, uh, to quote
(32:29):
Dave Chappelle doing Rick James, Cocaine's a hell of a drug,
That's yeah, that's what I I to quote Rick James
doing Rick James Cocaine's a hell of a drug. Apparently, yeah,
And I mean it does sound like Bowie was just
out of his mind with paranoia, and um, you know
when you get that way and you feel like you
(32:50):
can't trust anybody, you see devils at every turn, you know. Um,
you know there is an account just to wrap this
this little story up, which I think is is fun, um,
just I don't know, not fun. I mean, definitely the
guy was in in a very very dark place. He
was in a very dark place, and for someone to
be able to offer him some sort of help, whether
it was BS or not. I can't really fault him
(33:11):
too much. He's okay, No, he's definitely okay. Shockingly okay,
look at the guy. He looks like he's twenty years old.
It's bizarre. Um, So you know, this Wally elm Lark
character did end up coming into the house and she, uh,
you know, apparently, according to those present, successfully exercised the
(33:31):
swimming pool. That was the first thing she wanted to do.
That he was exercise of the swimming pool. And um,
this is a quote from uh Backstage passes Life on
the wild Side with David Bowie, which is a memoir
by Angie Bowie, who was David's wife during this period.
And she says, quote, at a certain point in the ritual,
the pool began to bubble. It bubbled vigorously, perhaps thrashed
(33:54):
as a better term, in a manner inconsistent with any
explanation involving filters and the and then Mark spits from
earlier from this unauthorized Bowie uh memoir, I guess um
wrote quote Elmlark wrote a series of spells and incantations
out for Bowie in case the demons returned for a dip,
and remained on call for Bowie as he continued to
(34:16):
wrestle with the forces of darkness. Wow, I'm gonna say cocaine.
If I had to, I had to choose one. Not
to be too skeptical about it. But we see, okay,
so we see this. We see this edge of madness
intersecting with some of the the appearance of madness which
(34:40):
is good for marketing, right, versus just this strange the
strange situations you get into when you catapult to this
unprecedented level of fame and success. But but madness aside,
Let's take a closer look at the people who, regardless
(35:02):
of drug use or anything like that, sincerely believe that
they are part of an occult movement or part of
a magical working. We know, the allegations of some sort
of demonic worship are pretty old, you know, the predate Bowie.
(35:23):
Of course, the in popular music and rock music, especially
for instance, the Rolling Stones have been accused of this.
And even like led Zeppelin, the idea backwards masking and
um messages hidden that were like embedded in the inner
ring of an help he um for example, things like that,
right exactly, and this, you know, this goes into something
(35:47):
interesting that we can explore. The idea of the moral panic, right,
the satanic panic. But before we do that, uh, there
there are a couple other things we should talk about. There.
There is evidence, as we've said, of real occult conspiracies
in music, one of the biggest ones, of course, being
(36:09):
that members of the black metal scene in some Scandinavian
countries did conspire to burn churches. Now, as for the
motivation of that, it probably isn't the same motivation behind
every single church burning because they're different groups doing it, right,
And we mentioned this earlier, the idea that it was
in large part um at active rebellion against you know,
(36:32):
the the idea of sort of what they might perceive
as an oppressive puritanical um you know, not government exactly,
but just sort of like our hierarchy, I guess, the
dogma exactly. So there's certainly that um aspect of it.
But uh, there's also this idea of being like it's
(36:53):
almost like a gang mentality where you have to do
these initiations in order to show that you're completely behind
what the gang is about. Is very similar with some
of these black metal groups, where they're you know, burning
the churches to show their commitment, to demonstrate their commitment
to these ideals, Um, and why don't you talk a
little bit about what some of those ideals might be
and what some of these other initiations might have been. Okay,
(37:16):
these other ideals, these other initiations. In this I think
initiation is a perfect word. One thing would be the
assumption of a different name. In magical orders, it's common
for someone who is initiated to take upon a new name, right,
(37:36):
a name that is used within the order, and that
also becomes a new identity for other rituals that one
would one would take to show allegiance to a dark force.
Of course, there are things that are you know, there
are agreements, actual written down agreements, for instance. And this
(37:57):
goes back we mentioned Faust. Faustus is based on real person,
a guy named Dr Johan George Fauss, and in the
Tail Dr Faust, which is of course um inspired by
the actual Faust. Uh. Dr Faustus sells his soul via
a document for seven years of earthly pleasures I believe
(38:22):
at the end of which he's his soul is forfeit.
And during the witch hunts in Europe, there were quite
a few people who were accused of signing packs with
the devils sometimes no even with papers provided and like
the signature of the devil, which not to you know,
(38:43):
far be it from me to cast a shadow on
their methodology and the inquisition. But that sounds a little convenient.
But when we talk about rituals and initiations brings us
to something that is probably a story for a different time. Murders, suicides.
There there are several very strange cases in the world
(39:06):
of metal. But maybe metal deserves its own episode. Yeah,
I think it really does. There's a whole lot going
on there. But we mentioned the band, or maybe we didn't,
but Mayhem Um was a very popular Norwegian black metal band,
UM that ultimately it's members ended up sort of being
on different ideological sides more or less, and two of
them Um got into a serious altercation that involved two
(39:31):
of the members, Uronymous and a guy by the name
of barg viknus Verkness who also has YouTube chand also
if you want to if you're interested. He went to
prison for a long time, but I believe he is
out now. Um murdered, uh, this guy Uronymous, who would
kind of taken him under his wing in what some
(39:51):
would argue was simply Uh, you know, an altercation between
two um folks that that maybe didn't see eye to
eye on some things. But this is an alter occasion
that ultimately ended in uh Eronymous receiving twenty three stab wounds,
two to the head, five to the neck, and sixteen
to the back. So I mean, as far as ritualistic
(40:13):
murders go, you know, if it was just a beef
between two dudes, probably could have just stopped with the one,
you know what I mean, certainly, um, But this also
goes back to my by my previous point about this
having kind of like a gang mentality or like a cult,
which brings us to uh in a lot of ways.
(40:34):
Are the next point on our list? Yes, ain't that fresh?
And everyone wants to get down like that? Our next
our next topic here is hip hop and the Illuminati. Yes,
ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening to this show, then
the odds are that you may well be one of
(40:56):
the people over the years who have requested that we
talk out the illuminati and tip hop, that we explore it.
So what's the gist of this snol? So, this idea
that successful hip hop stars are ultimately tools of the
illuminati which is a shadowy group controlling the world through
various financial, political, military, and cultural means, allegedly. Right, we
(41:18):
have a we have a three part YouTube series on it.
We've talked at length about Adam Bioshops and the founders,
the various contradictory stories about what may or may not
be the Illuminati, the different groups who consider themselves the
Illuminati instead of other groups, and so you know, back
(41:39):
to alleged things. Um. The alleged evidence of this connection,
uh is well, you know, you don't have to look far.
You can just get on YouTube, for example, and and
find just tons of these examples that show various musicians
using symbols like the all seeing I which covering. You'll
see clips of one person covering one eye, and then
(42:01):
whomever upload the video will say proof Illuminati, which life
is probably a little bit of a strong term, strong term.
It's interesting. There's definitely a collection this stuff, some more ideas. UM.
For a lot of folks, this belief, uh proves that
the shadowy connections, rather than luck or talent, beside the
success of an entertainer. Yeah, but there's a fair counterpoint here.
(42:22):
Nor if this stuff is supposed to be so secret.
Then why would somebody show these symbols, these arcane you know,
secret handshakes, sug gestures on globally broadcasted videos. And it
goes back to a lot of the stuff we were
talking about earlier with the history of rock and using
(42:43):
some of these symbols and backwards masking, and you know,
the belief versus the showmanship of it. You know, I
think there's a lot to be said of planting intriguing
arcane images and symbols and your work. It's just it's
it's neat, it's fun, it's fascinating eating. You know, people
are intrigued by all kinds of things without necessarily having
(43:03):
to be fully on board with every ideological you know,
um idea, right with the philosophy behind something. Yeah, it's
it's absolutely true. Jay Z in some interviews it makes
me chuckled because I'm a fan of jay Z. He's
regularly said he's not part of the illuminati, and he
feels like has to say references and verses and stuff.
(43:27):
And I don't know, maybe we have some listeners who
believe that they're legitimately is something to this. I don't
deny that there is a power behind the curtain, behind
the throne, behind the scenes of the music industry in
probably by genre, in country and and and it's probably
like some unseen mob boss type figure in Mariatch music,
(43:51):
you know, so hip hop is no different. So my
my question then is is it more likely that these
entertainers are to Knowel's point, seeking the capital is on
beliefs to stay edging in the public eye, or is
there something there is there some nefarious group of ultimately
devil worshippers behind the scenes, because in the eighties and
(44:13):
the nineties America thought so well. I mean, you know,
they say the love of money, you know, is the
root of all evil. And to me and a lot
of these entertainment scenarios, money is the is the devil
you don't see, you know that like is driving all
of these things. And I mean that's that's where the
tastemakers come from. The folks that that hold all the
all the chips are the ones that choose who you
(44:34):
know gets the hits ultimately. And I mean there's certainly
something to be said of a public opinion and people
going viral and things like that, but at the end
of the day, uh, largely it's a numbers game. You know,
it's like who's getting the resources, Who's who's getting all
of the pr and who's who's like actually, you know,
commanding that kind of power. And I'd like to I'd
(44:54):
like to take a look at this this thing, the
Satanic panic that's swept the US. Some of you may
be a little too young, but some of you may
be old enough to remember this. Uh. The the Satanic
panic is something that came about. It's considered a moral panic,
(45:19):
comparable to witch hunts, for instance in Europe, or the
Red Scare with McCarthy m and the idea was that
there was a vast, overarching conspiracy on the part of
everyone from rock musicians to heavy metal musicians, to blues
(45:39):
and musicians to racy singers, to poison the minds and
souls of children, taking them into the abyssal plane of
hell for other time. They are that they are kind
of a low hanging fruit. Honestly, they are very suggestible,
not kidding. It started in right, it's h it's the
(46:00):
um it's people who have mental issues brought on by
their advanced age. So it's pretty much preschools and nursing homes.
It's where he is where he really tried to sell
that heavy metal right totally. But anyhow, this so this
starts in the nineteen seventies. Uh, and it's this idea
that there's this vast underground network of Satanists controlling everything. Uh.
(46:22):
It rose and peaked in the eighties and nineties, but
it's pretty much gone today. The first part of it
that really launched this was a book called The Satan
Seller by a guy named Mike Warnkey in nineteen seventy two.
He was referenced as an authority on Satanism for a
long or. In nineteen seventy two published it, and he
(46:43):
was reference as an authority until nineteen ninety two when
he was exposed as a fraud. So he uh, and
then other people came in. A guy named john's Hodd
said that he started speaking in churches saying that which
is druids in the Illuminati where control world politics, media
and even gasp, most churches, churches churches. Uh. This lad
(47:08):
to worries about backward masking, like Nol mentioned earlier, worries
that Dungeons and Dragons was a portal to this parallel
occult world. The idea that there was satanic ritual abuse
occurring in um in in the like in the studios
(47:29):
of musicians, and we will see that there. You know,
there is proof that there were abusive situations and ritualized
There is not proof that we could find that in
the case of musicians. Notice I say in the case
of musicians, not Hollywood overall. In the case of musicians,
we don't find evidence of a vast network of abusive behavior.
(47:54):
In the case of musicians, we don't. So the the
thing happens with this is that you you start to
see politicians pick this up because it's it's it's essentially
free votes, right, it's red meat, and uh, it goes
the in Tipper Gore and some other people, some other
(48:16):
associated this whole a right, Yeah, the Parents Music Resource Center. Uh,
they wanted to they wanted to force the government to
label records that were threatening to the heart's minds, morals
or souls of American youth. So they had um uh
succession of offensive materials, stuff like We're not gonna take
(48:40):
it but twist his sister, Yeah, sort of bad attitude. Yeah,
it's it's very strange. And then Geraldo Rivera did uh
a documentary or a rivera piece I guess called devil Worship,
exposing Satan's underground And then of course Judas Priest went
to trial for making a backwards message, which, um, let's see,
(49:06):
there was a line in the song better by You
better than Me, when played backwards, reportedly commanded the listener
to do it, which is such a rorshack ink blot,
you know, an audio version of it. Not only that,
if you've ever messed around with flipping things backwards, I
mean that, you know the way words sound and reverse
(49:29):
are always a little bit off. And I just I
could picture that that was not even intentional almost you know,
I'm I'm I'm sure because what you know, here's the thing,
long story short, what did they find in these investigations?
Ultimately they didn't find a damn thing. Uh. We can
talk a little bit about mental health versus music, for okay.
(49:50):
For instance, there's the question when someone perpetrates an act
of violence, right, and and people attempt to blame it
on a video game that person played, or a song
that they heard, right, or you know, just a book
they read, then it's always seemed very shortsighted to me, right,
(50:14):
even if that was the trigger the likelihood is that
it was no more than a proverbial straw on the
camel's back. You know, that could have been replaced by
any number of things. It could have been any number
body looks at them funny at the grocery store. I mean,
you know, honestly, I just think it's more than opportunistic.
(50:34):
It's more than convenient two blame a single thing on
something like that. I think it's offensive. It's offensive to
the people who survived those kind of tragedies. It's efensive
to the families of the victims. And not to mention,
the Porschemucks just put out an album, you know. So
(50:55):
we do know that there are you know, this has
been a long episode, but we do know that there
are some true and proven corruption and cover ups in music.
There's the concept of paola, which which you can probably
speak to pretty well. I'm not actually intimately familiar with it.
I mean, I know it has to do with um.
It's like the idea of the equivalent of like a lobbyist,
(51:18):
you know, giving h gifts or taking a you know,
a lawmaker out for fancy dinners and exchange or not
necessarily exchange, but in the hopes that they will support
their piece of legislation that benefits the lobbying group, the
group they represent. It's it's an example of something like
that where executives I believe, pay DJs UM and rent
(51:39):
and radio station UM managers to play their songs, right,
and and it's illegal. Right, it's legal, and the FCC, uh,
the FCC specifically bands it. However, it is it's pretty common. Right.
The heart where it becomes legal is when the radio
(52:00):
go station plays a specific song but doesn't disclose that
they're playing it for money. You're supposed to be transparent
about it. Is. That's something that really occurs, and it
is kind of a cover up then, you know, the
exploitation of gosh, especially the exploitation of up and coming
talent in the music industry and something for itself. I
(52:23):
want to close out though, when we're talking about behind
the scenes things in music to the cult. Okay, there
is an article in the Atlantic which can read online
for free, called hit Charade or sharade or fancy Listeners.
And here's the thing, guys. The vast majority of pop
songs that are in the top of the charts right
(52:44):
now are written by about six people and guess where
they're from. They're from Scandinavia. There in Norwegian, there from Stockholm.
There is one lady who was from Oklahoma, but she
uh now she works with these other guys. Uh. They
(53:05):
have names like esther Dean, Mick Alarics and tore Hermanson
Stargate Dr Luke. Uh. These these folks have written songs
like bad Blood, Hey Mama Worth, it Can't Feel My Face,
the Night is Still Young, and so on. The main guy, though,
you know the main guys, this guy Max Martin. I mean,
it's not just him because I'm sorry if I'm if
(53:27):
I'm stealing this from you. But this the way. There's
a great episode of On Point with Tom Ashbrook and
NPR from a few days ago where they talk about
the process of this whole thing, and I was not
aware of this. They basically do this stuff by committee,
where like they have like the guy that does the hooks,
they have the guy that does you know, the beat,
they have the I mean, but but more so than
just like collaborative thing, it's literally like they pass it
(53:49):
down the line and the idea is to stuff it
with so many hooks that capitalize on that. I think
fifteen seconds that something that listens to the said where
they changed the station. Anyway, probably not necessarily conspiracy. They're
pretty open about it, but it's certainly some of the
record industry kind of tried to keep under wraps. I
think for a long time it was literally stuff they
(54:10):
don't want you to know. And no, not necessarily any
occult occult issues going on there, but it's it's pretty
fascinating stuff for sure. Wait, I hear that sound cute?
Do you hear that? I know what that means. I
know what it means. It means that it's time for
me apologize to Pope Francis for real, you guys. We
(54:33):
recorded last week's episode a few days before the story
drop of that it can Finally, UM issued a statement
regarding Pope francis Is supposedly secret one on one meeting
with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk UM who was denying
UM marriage licenses to gay couples and UM. You know,
(54:56):
there was a lot to being made of the fact
that the Pope had the sea meeting, and I expressed
my personal disappointments because I just was so fascinated by
this pope and his more progressive ways of doing things
in a very even handed way of speaking about speaking
about issues that popes don't typically handle. And as it
turns out, this was entirely spun by Kim Davis's people. Um,
(55:21):
what was really going on was the Pope was meeting
with a group of people for very quick little handshake
and a kind of a meet and Greek kind of
situation at this this Vatican embassy essentially in d C.
And um the the only people that he actually was
aware we're going to be there. And I don't remember
(55:41):
their name, but it was a student of his from
I believe he taught at a Catholic institution in Argentina,
isn't that where he's from? And this was a same
sex couple um that he knew were going to be there,
and he specifically expressed to his old friend or his
student that he was excited to see him and wanted
(56:04):
to give him a hug. And that was literally the
only person that the Pope was there that he was
aware was going to be there. So Kim Davis was
one of about fifteen or twenty or more folks that
were just kind of there waiting for the Pope to
pass through and hopefully have a little handshake and a
you know, a personal blessing. So I apologize your holiness.
(56:27):
You're a man of principle. It sounds like you're a
little bit bothered. I bothered that I was so quick
to jump on the bandwagon. I felt really bad about
it after the fact. I even considered adding an addendum
to the episode, but I just I figured this would
be the better way to do it, you know, come clean. Well,
as you know, the Pope, being a big fan of
(56:50):
the show, was pretty upset. Yeah, and remember I mentioned
the snapchats that we sent. Yeah, and he, uh, he
sent some pretty um some some pretty sad emoticons. So yeah,
so you know, that's how it is. Uh, Sometimes you
just get caught up in in the heat of the moment,
(57:13):
the fear of the internet, right, the pitchforks come out.
And that's uh, that's interesting because that's similar to what
happened in the Satanic Panic. You guys, we've got to go.
But there's so much other stuff I wanted to get
to here. There's so many other specific stories. I'm going
to ask for your help. Specifically, let me know what
(57:36):
links you see between the world of music and the
world of the occult. Uh, tell me if you think
it's absolute bunk, it's just bologna made up. But also
tell me if you think there is clear consistent proof
of you know, some sort of hip hop and Illuminati thing.
I'd love to see, just because at this point, at
(57:57):
this point, what I can say probably happens is that
there are groups running different things behind the scenes, right
we We've said this in our Illuminati episode. There are
a lot of people that want to control the world,
but there there's no one at this point who controls
the whole thing, not even international bankers. Uh. And they
would be one of the draft picks. Right. So hopefully
(58:20):
tune in next week we'll have an update from Matt
Frederick who is with us in spirit. Uh. Stay tuned
this weekend, and if you're hearing this, with the day
it goes live, we're gonna do our live show with
our our friend Steve the Intern. And if you'd like
to check out some of the stories that don't make
it to the air, find us on Facebook and Twitter
(58:42):
where we are conspiracy stuff. If you have an idea
for show, a reaction, just want to say hello, but
don't like the social media rigamarole. We of all people
get it. You can email us directly our addresses conspiracy
at how stuff Works dot mm hmmmmmmm. For more on
(59:05):
this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash
conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter
at the handle at conspiracy stuff.
From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. And
ladies and gentlemen, you know what that music means. Welcome
to the show. I'm Ben and I'm Nol the necro
(00:24):
goat slaughterer Brown. Oh, that is good. We should do
some We should do some black metal nicknames. You know,
I feel like I'm haugging the nickname giving duties. So
often do you have a black metal nickname for me?
Neal Man, that was everything I could do to come
up with that one. It was kind of redundant. It's
a necro goat slaughterer. So is it is it itself?
Does it only slaughter necro goats or is it a
(00:47):
necro goat that slaughter's right? Yeah, not clear, But you
know what, a little ambiguity in uh in black metal
is probably just fine. Ben. I'm gonna call you. I'm
gonna take a cue from the Swedish black metal band
hell Hammer, and I'm gonna call you Ben satanic slaughter Bolan.
(01:07):
You know, I'll deal with I like the nested alliteration
hell Hammer was it was a member of a band, right,
a member of a band, but also a a Swedish
black metal band. Uh maybe active now they're active in
the early eighties. Um, And we'll get to that part
of the story very soon as a way of seguang
into what today's topic is, which is music and the occult.
(01:33):
That's right, and ladies and gentlemen, we're here. Most importantly,
you're here. It's what we call the most wonderful time
of the year over at Conspiracy Stuff, that is the
countdown to Halloween. We're in the month of October and uh,
we stay tuned for the end because we have a
little bit of administrative business to cover. But first we're
(01:54):
going to delve into something that a lot of people
have asked us about. No, this was this was an
idea that you came to us with, right, Yeah, and
I just think it's there's a lot of there to
unpack and there's a lot of opportunity, you know, to
dig into some pretty interesting stuff when it comes to
music and the occult. Um, not only with things like
black metal and satanism, but just numerology and illuminati symbology
(02:20):
embedded in different works and um um, you know, popular
culture references throughout the history of rock music, you know, yes,
and he goes past rock music, which is something we're
going to discover. So here, let's let's just paint the
background a little bit, right. Uh. First things first, the
music industry is uh surprise, huge business. Gargantelin Global recorded
(02:45):
music sales totaled fifteen billion dollars in ten and that's
even with you know, the the fall of paid media,
more people just finding songs you'd rather listen to for
free on a streaming service. Right, either way you cut it,
it's a leviathan business wise. And that's because music is
(03:05):
one of the few things that unites all human beings,
regardless of backgrounds. One of my favorite writers, Vladimir uh
Novolkov or Navolkov, is one of the only people I
ever heard of who just categorically didn't like music. He
had synesthesia and he didn't get music. He said, it
(03:26):
was just this collection of noises to him. So, other
than one author who passed away a long time ago,
pretty much everybody dig some sort of music. It occupies
a unique niche and the human experience, and it appears,
fun fact to predate the written word, making the practice
of music literally older than recorded history. So today we're
(03:49):
gonna talk about music. But you know what sort of
show this is, folks, And you know our favorite holiday
is coming up, So we're not just going to talk
about the music industry or a few instances is of conspiracy. No,
when we explore the entire concept of the relationship between
music and the cult, there's one place we always have
(04:10):
to start right absolutely, and that is with the Devil
Satan Lucifer old scratch like that, yeah, old scratch? How
about the Devil went down to Georgia? Do you remember
that song? Of course, ye, devil went down to Georgia.
He was looking for soul to steel. Yeah. Now he
played a golden fiddle and he gets into a fiddle
(04:32):
off with Johnny? Is it Johnny Georgia and the Yeah,
and if you if you win, you get this shiny
fiddle made a goal, but if you lose, the definitely
a call back to one of the early rock myths
(04:55):
with with Satan is the Robert Johnson story. You want
to talk about that? Yeah, yeah, let's like a let's
like a little bit about this. This is something that
you and I were talking about off air because you
found a fantastic source for some of this, right did.
It's a book called Season of the which How the
Occult Saved rock and Roll by a guy named Peter
(05:17):
Barba Gal like that. Um, And it basically just is
like kind of an oral history of as far back
um as like the Blues and Elvis and things like that,
about how just the connections between um, this idea of
like selling your soul to the devil at the crossroads,
you know, in order to the ability to write amazing
(05:39):
songs and perform amazing music and back to the whole
devil went down to Georgia theme. That is definitely where
this comes from, which is the story of Robert Johnson,
who was a very very well regarded blues singer and
guitarist largely credited um for inventing many of these sounds
and um, you know, constructs that went on to be
(06:01):
very important for much of popular music, especially you know,
things like rock music, right yeah, and and had relatively
few recorded songs. But he did also have a song
about going to the crossroads. He actually has a song
about it. But this is also tropes or themes or
versions of another story. You know that one would go
(06:27):
to the crossroads or through certain arcane preparations, strike a
deal with dark powers. It's like that Faust story, the
Faust exactly, you know, as as they say, you know,
you're basically exchanging your humanity for some boon that the devil,
you know, which ultimately serves as a stand in for
(06:48):
any any number of other malevolent dark forces them from
whether it's voodoo culture or paganism or anything like that. Um,
it's it's certainly a part of a trope in all
of those um, you know, mythologies, I guess you could
call them, right, Yeah, Yeah, We've talked about this on
the show before. The idea of religious syncretism, that one
(07:09):
religion or another will attempt to meld together to win
over the people. So the idea that you mentioned there
is brilliant and old. The Satan, that Abramaic satan is
a stand in often for older gods or spirits in
these stories. Trafficking with supernatural creatures for material gain is
(07:32):
is a very it's a very old idea, and you
know we often see that. We talked about that in
our other video Five Things you Didn't Know About Satan Listeners.
Of course, if you're checking out this show right now,
then you already know that the trident and the goat
legs are examples of this kind of religious syncretism trying
(07:53):
to vilify pre existing gods. But here's an interesting thing.
In Abramic edition, Lucifer was known as the angel of
music before he fell from God's grace, or that's what
you'll hear a lot of people say. And so this devil,
this Promethean figure has been associated with music and musicians
(08:16):
in a number of ways. There's there's another there's another
case of someone who was alleged to sell their soul
to the devil, and that was Niccolo Paganini. Uh. This
this guy violinist right by all accounts, just the best
there ever was at the time, you know, just incredibly fast,
incredibly proficient, just insane technique. Actually grew up playing violin,
(08:41):
so was aware of him and kind of the shadow
that he cast on the on the history of performing
so um, it's it makes sense that that he would
have gotten cast as one of these figures that made
some sort of Faustian bargain in order to get those
mad violent skills. So yet he sold his soul, he
made a pact with the devil, And for those of
(09:04):
you who are interested, I will say, uh, I guess
I wouldn't recommend trying some kind of nefarious magic, but
if you're looking for a way to do it, you
can find things like the Lesser Key of Solomon that's
a that's a grim wall, or the Malice Malefic Harum,
(09:29):
which talks about some anecdotal ideas of pacts with Satan.
So it gets pretty complex pretty quickly, because you know,
calling the big one up is not necessarily recommended. You
get there are other lesser people you could work with,
you know, so apparently there is a specific month or
day of the weaker Hour to call these other demons
(09:50):
and invoke some sort of pact. So inspires market. If
you want to sell your soul, I'm sure you are
just several fascinating Google searches away from getting on the trail.
But because of I think, because of this pre linguistic
mystical nature of music and the human experience, that it
(10:15):
makes sense for us to see it associated with this
idea of a magical thing. Well, I mean it actually
brought to mind something that you've said to me yesterday
we were hanging out off air Um a friend of yours,
you said, who was into practicing magic. Um had a
really interesting way of describing what magic was. I think
he used the phrase weaponized psychology. Is that yeah, And
(10:39):
I feel like music has some of that to it
as well, because it's it's this whole package that combines
something like a melody which can invoke uh, certain responses
emotionally just by nature of what the melody sounds like,
with a lyrical content which can invoke many different things,
whether it be nostalgia, whether it be the sort of
(11:01):
longing or or some kind of you know, um emotional response.
And to me, that is a form of, you know,
if you look at it this way, weaponized psychology, where
you are eliciting a certain response from someone by combining
these elements, and it is the sort of ritualistic thing,
whether it's putting on a record or going to a concert.
You know, you are participating in this invocation. Let's say, yeah,
(11:26):
there's there's a there is a certain strange thing to it, right,
like why do minor chords make people feel sad? Yes?
And with that in mind, we're going to go to
the next part of our show, Ladies and gentlemen, We're
going to discuss some conspiracies, both theories and facts surrounding
(11:48):
music and the occult. In other words, here's where it
gets crazy. One of the first connections here we'd like
to discuss is the connection in between metal like heavy
metal and satan uh as far back as as you
know Black Sabbath, for example, you know, just the name
(12:08):
Black Sabbath carries this weight of demonic. You know, worship
of some kind is the idea of taking a holy
day and making it, you know, shrouding in darkness of
some kind. Which is weird because I didn't Black Sabbath
begin as a blues band. I'm not sure it would
make sense. They definitely have some blues qualities in their
(12:31):
music as far as the riffs and and again, you know,
a lot of metal is based in this idea of
of guitar riffs and playing the little motives that kind
of repeat. And obviously you can get into different genres
that that take that in various different directions, but um,
at its heart, metal is a guitar driven um you
(12:54):
know genre of music. Um. So, one of the most
infamous genres of metal UH that has come out of
that scene is something called black metal, which you have
black metal UM and I remember first hearing about black
metal when I was much younger. There was I had
a subscription to Spin magazine and there was an issue
(13:15):
that had all of these different figures from Norwegian black
metal um in this uh this profile or whatever. And
I can't remember their names, but they were all fantastic.
I'll give you just some example. The names like Emperor
exactly that the names of the bands sure like Emperor,
but the individuals, individuals who were in the bands, um,
I'll have this is what this is from a band
we were talking about earlier, the band hell Hammer, which
(13:37):
again not the same hell Hammer as one of the
characters were about to discuss in this story. But names
like Uh Satanic Slaughter, which is the nickname I gave
Ben Slade Necros. These are members of the band Satanic
Slaughter was the guitarist and lead vocalist, Uh Slade Necros
bass and packing vocals, Denial Fiend on drums, Uh Savage
(14:00):
Damage on bass and vocals, Evoked Damn Nature on bass,
Grim Decapitator on bass and these are all previous members
and Del Infernali on guitar. Do you think any of
them are listening to the show hoped on. You don't
you don't want them to, M'd be I'd be scarred,
really yeah. And my point is though, when I saw
this profile and spin, I remember there was one guy
(14:20):
who talked about carrying around a decapitated Raven's head in
a satchel sniffs, you know, like before he went on
stage to get the sense of death in his nostrils
and you know, anyway, so I'm getting ahead of myself,
but that was my first exposure to this black metal
and I think there's there's definitely different camps, but the
main ones that we think about are the ones from
(14:41):
Norway and the ones from Sweden. Right. So the the
interesting thing here is that so much of entertainment is
is just shoh yeah, showmanship exactly. So we're all familiar
perhaps with uh with different organizations that will put on
a spectacle but then go home, have a nice cup
(15:04):
of earl gray and then uh, I don't know, asked
the kids about their day before going to sleep at sharp.
So there's a there's an important distinction to make between
what what is smoke and mirror and what is actually happening.
I despise we're going to talk about this in a
(15:24):
little more detail in second. But I despise the uh,
I guess, the the laziness or the lack of critical
thinking when people paint with such a broad brush and say, oh,
all black metal, all people involved in black metal, or
these lunatic cannibal necro goat slaughterers right to use your
(15:48):
nickname because it's is simply not true. But there is
something we can talk about which was seen as an
occult link by many opponents, and that is the prevalent
of church burnings in the Norwegian black metal scene alone.
There were over fifty arsons of Christian churches from two
(16:09):
to nineties six. So what this shows us is that
it was at least in vogue for people who believed
that members of the black metal scene in Norway were
practicing Satanists or something. This was considered the smoking gun
or not to be crasped, but the smoking church. And
(16:32):
the problem with that is that people who are doing that,
or people who we're not opposed to it, would say,
this is not about Satanism, this is about the opposition
of Christian religion. Still you're burning buildings. Yeah, this sort
of comes back to this idea that we were beginning
to touch on appearance versus actions. So for example, like
(16:54):
Ozzy Osborne, yesh, he may have snorted a line of
ants in the heyday of his drug hayes, but it's
certainly wasn't uh an tribute to the dark Lord, you know,
And I mean maybe they're they dabbled, you know, Black
Sabbath dabbled in some ideas of occult teachings, but they
certainly are not thought to have been a Satanic band,
so to speak. Whereas or like another example is like
(17:16):
Alice Cooper, you know, a lot of a lot of costumes,
a lot of set pieces, you know, a lot of
kind of horror Grand Guignon kind of showmanship. And you
could say the same about even kiss for instance, kiss yeah,
to a much lesser degree. I mean, kissed to me
has always just been absurd and there's not really anything
scary about what they're doing. Um, But like Alice Cooper
(17:38):
or even a Marilyn Manson, you know, and I mean
Manson Manson did it profess to be a follower of
Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan and things like that.
But I think a lot of that was just sort
of like a way to rebel against some of what
we're talking about, like these Gudeo Christian kind of beliefs
or an Anton LaVey or the philosophy of the Church
(18:00):
of Satan is not necessarily the deistic Satanism that people
might think of if they are it's a symbol or
less a rebellion, and of what does it do with
thou wiltst you know, kind of like just basically don't
follow anyone's rules with your own. It's it's a very
kind of hedonistic um ultimately kind of a selfish way
(18:21):
of life, which they would say is not really problematic.
I would say it's ironic though, if if you're reading,
like any religion that says do what you want whenever
you do what you want, and here are the rules
for how you do what you want, because is that
what you want to do. There's just a cognitive distance.
(18:41):
But anyhow, I'm not knocking the Church of Satan. I
am pointing out that a lot of people probably misinterpret
its philosophy. But while we're here with Maryland Manson, let's
let's follow this. Let's go a little bit down the
rabbit hole. Because the group, which I guess began as
(19:02):
Merrin Manson and the Spooky Kids had the idea of
taking the name of a famous beauty queen or actress, right,
some sort of Hollywood icon, right, and combining it with
the surname of a serial killer. So we have things
like what we have Marrin Manson, Twiggy Ramirez, Twiggy Ramire.
(19:26):
There was Gidget Gain, which was ed Gain the surname,
and Gidget Um, as far as I can tell, is
the reference to a film from from Gumbia Pictures starring
Sandra d Cliff Robertson and James Darren, sort of like
a you know, it looks like a very quintessentially Hollywood
type film from the time, right. And then there's uh,
(19:47):
there's Daisy Berkowitz. These these names. You see the pattern.
But let's focus on Marilyn Manson's name in specific, because
that's Marilyn Monroe and Charles Mann's and so Charles Manson
is himself. Manson Manson family are at the crux of
(20:10):
several other interconnecting theories. Right. And he was in the
musical underground of California for a while too. I think
he was way underground, Yeah, I think, yeah, he had
he seemed to he was a very charismatic dude and
was able to kind of curry favor and like kind
of become friends and get into the inside circle with
(20:30):
some relatively famous musicians, like, for example, like he kind
of knew forget which beach boy he spent time with,
but there was definitely one of them, um, and he
was trying to kind of, you know, cheat his way
into the music industry. More or less. He was not
a particularly talented songwriter. I actually, at one point years ago,
I had a copy of just a compilation of all
(20:52):
of the songs, and they're they're very bad. It's not
it's it's not there's something particularly engaging or commercial. There's
nothing particularly the sellable about any of this music. And
it's it's borderline unlistenable unless you are able to just
do it kind of as an artifact of here's what
Charles Manson sounds like plan acoustic guitar as like a
historical lobbity. But so okay, this, You know, it's interesting
(21:16):
that you say that, because let's let's explore some of
the other aspects of Manson's rise and fall. While he
was incarcerated, as he was for most of his life.
I think the technically now, the majority of his life
he has been locked away one place or another. He
was exposed to some of the principles and techniques of
(21:40):
something called dianetics, which would become later scientology as a
precursor for that. He also had his own brand of
cult creation, and we studied him fairly extensively. When we
were looking at the we did a video, man I
(22:00):
did a video about how cults work and how, you know,
how one erases the ego, removes the ability to think
critically or proactively, you know, and turns people really into
limbs of a larger body rather than their own, their
own person. And one thing that's that's strange about this
(22:24):
is that this ties into what are often considered a
cult techniques. And the word occult just to be just
to be clear, is often treated with a magical context
here in the States in our modern day, but um
it also the base of it really means hidden, you know.
(22:47):
So I would say that the techniques Manson was thought
of using, right or people who believe that he was
exercising something like mesmerism or hypnosis, which he was, that
would be seen as a hidden skill and accult approach
and it worked. Yet people brainwashed had a mountain the desert,
(23:10):
convinced that there was gonna be a race war that
would take over the entire world. They were going to
live in a secret cave ultra skelter, Yes, sir, helter skelter, Uh,
culminating of course in some murders. Yeah, and this, you know,
I know, we're kind of jumping all over the place
with this, but this is just it's it's fascinating and
it's easy to there's a lot of rabbit holes to
go down, and so you'll have to forgive us if
(23:30):
we go a little bit out of order on some
of this stuff. Um. But yeah, So there was a
series of murders that the Manson family perpetrated. And then
there's there's another connection with some of these back to
some of the other things we're talking about. Um. The
first set was the Sharon Tate House. That was Roman Polanski,
the director who did Rosemary's Baby. Um, he did Chinatowns,
one of my favorites, and more recently, um, he did
(23:53):
Like the Pianist in the Ninth Gate with Johnny Depp,
and he continues to work. Very controversial figure in his
own right, but that's for another day. So the Manson
and his followers, who I believe we're mostly women. Um,
they broke into this house and they murdered Tate and
her entourage. I guess she had I she was having
a party or had some friends over at the time.
(24:14):
Polanski was not there, he was out of town. Um.
It's actually a really excellent sort of a side topic
UM a book by an author named Jersey Kazynski. I'm
called Blind Date Um, and Jersey Kazynski wrote the book
Being There, which is a fan was made into a
fantastic film starring Peter Sellers. But in Blind Date Um,
he actually was friends with Roman Polanski and was supposed
(24:35):
to be at this house when these murders happened, and
he writes sort of a fictionalized account of how he
um managed to not be there and when it happening,
and sort of the aftermath of it. But he doesn't
really write it like as a first person, like from
his own perspective. It's very interesting if you want to
learn more about it, that's a good place to start.
So the next night, Um Manson felt like the they
(24:57):
had not done the best job at the the Tate
house so they wanted to give it another go, I guess,
so they went to the home of a supermarket executive
named Leno La Bianca, where he and his wife, Rosemary,
who owned a dress shop, lives. It was in the
Los Fellies neighborhood of Los Angeles, and it was during
this uh kind of killing spree that Manson and his
(25:20):
followers would cover the walls in different phrases that later
became iconic, like Helter Skelter and death to the Pigs
and um this idea of him trying to start a
race war rise Helder Skelpter is obviously a reference to
the Beatles song Helter Skelter off the White album, right,
and there's another connection. Two interesting side notes before we
(25:43):
go on. There are more suspected murders on part of
Manson and the Manson family out there in the desert,
and people aren't sure who else got caught who was
killed in Los Angeles and just not associated with it.
Helter Skelter there could have been much worse. In fact,
(26:04):
one of the reasons it wasn't. It's because a guy
of a guy who doesn't get enough credit in the story,
a fellow named Paul Crockett, retired prospector who had also
studied oddly enough scientology and apparently began to d program
some of the people Paul's some of the people in
(26:25):
the Manson family. Paul Crockett's story is mysterious to me.
I invite you listeners to look it up and let
me know what you think. We covered it briefly in
one of our earlier videos, but there's there's a lot
more to that story that remains untold, and uh, you know,
I feel like we're we might be getting closer to
(26:45):
falling into a Charles Manson podcast. You know, it's really
interesting stuff there, for sure. UM. One a little side
note and kind of bringing it back to the music thing,
we definitely went down at a little bit of rabbit hole. Um.
The La Bianca Mansion, actually the Tape mansion was was demolished.
I'm not quite sure how long ago, but it's been
some years. The La Bianca Mansion still stands and has
(27:08):
had some renovations done. But UM, Trent Resner from nine
Inch Nails actually rented that mansion in order to make
their iconic record, The Downward Spiral. UM, and he was
fascinated by you know, the Manson mythology and all of
that as well. Um, and so I mean it just
kind of comes back to this connection with music and
(27:28):
the occults and you know, true believers versus you know, showman,
and um, you know, I think there is some shock
value and being sort of like a fringe like sort
of a dark musician, a dark artist, kind of like
like nin inch Nails kind of has like a sort
(27:49):
of a sinister, kind of a creepy vibe to it,
and like saying, we made our record in the house
where the Manson murders happened. And you know, what this
reminds me of is a story that inspired part of
this podcast, which you had told me originally off air,
and I had no idea about this. Yeah, I mean,
I think one of the reasons that I wanted to
(28:11):
explore this Manson connection. What this made me think of
as the story about one of my favorite artists musicians
of all times, David Bowie. And in the mid seventies,
Bowie was deep in his thin white duke phase. And
anyone who knows about Bowie would recognize the look of
(28:32):
David Bowie during this period easily super thin, very pale,
and a lot of that had to do with the
fact that he was just off the rails on cocaine
at the time. But during this period he actually lived
in a mansion that was just down the road from
the La Bianca House, which is where that second set,
(28:55):
arguably the more grizzly set of of Manson murders took place.
And during this period, and a lot of this is
this is from the book that I mentioned earlier, which
is called UM, How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll
definitely worth checking out. You can get as an e
book on Amazon. UM. During this period he had just
completely lost himself to this cocaine addiction. And I mean,
(29:17):
you're David Bowie. He was just obscenely famous at this point.
You know, he should go wherever he wanted. He had
this mansion, he was probably not leaving very often, just
getting piles of cocaine delivered to him, and he started
worrying about things like the like Nazi conspiracies, the Manson murders. Um,
(29:37):
you know, his own bodily essences and bodily fluids and
what that meant, you know, like sort of like that
character in UM Dr Strange Love who's always talking about
precious precious bodily fluids. Definitely a lot of paranoia going
on there, um, and he became convinced that because of
the proximity to the La Bianca house, there were malevolent
(30:00):
spirits that were invading his world, whether it was his
his home, his psyche, you know, all over the place.
So he decided, um to seek the help of what
we would refer to as a white witch, a follower
of the Right hand Path exactly. So the house that
(30:21):
Bowie was renting belonged to a guy named Glenn Hughes,
who was the basis for the band Deep Purple Smoke
on the Water and things like that. And this is
a quote from a guy named Mark Spitz who wrote
a Bowie biography. Um. I don't know if it was
particularly sanctioned, but it definitely exists. Was or he was
around during these days, and the author of Season of
(30:43):
the Witch did use him as a as a source
several occasions. So here's a quote from him describing, um,
what Hughes thought about David's David Bowie situation. Line quote,
he felt inclined to go on very bizarre tangents about
Alistair Crowley or the Nazis or numerals a lot. He
was completely wired, maniacally wired. I could not keep up
with him. He was on the edge all the time
(31:05):
of paranoia and also going on about things I had
no freaking idea of what he was talking about. He'd
go into a rap on it and I wouldn't know
what he was talking about. And then, as Bowie himself
remembered in this up in this from this book, my
other fascination was with the Nazis and their search for
the Holy Grail. I paid with the worst manic depression
of my life. My psyche went through the roof. It
(31:25):
just fractured into pieces. I was hallucinating twenty four hours
a day. I felt like I'd fallen into the bowels
of the earth. So it was during this period for
David Bowie that he reached out to someone named Cherry Vanilla,
who was one of a former employee of Bowie's management
company who had been around and witnessed much of his
(31:47):
debauchery and paranoia, and she was the one who put
him in touch with this white witch named Wally elm Lark.
And the idea was that elm Lark would come into
the mansion in LUs LEAs and exercise the place. Um,
whether it was you know, saging it and just kind
(32:07):
of like performing some rituals to clear it of evil
spirits and sage. And it would be when you burn
sage around different areas of a place, right exactly. So, Nol,
I have to ask something that's probably on the mind
at least a few listeners here. Do you think there
were evil spirits on the premises? Well, uh, to quote
(32:29):
Dave Chappelle doing Rick James, Cocaine's a hell of a drug,
That's yeah, that's what I I to quote Rick James
doing Rick James Cocaine's a hell of a drug. Apparently, yeah,
And I mean it does sound like Bowie was just
out of his mind with paranoia, and um, you know
when you get that way and you feel like you
(32:50):
can't trust anybody, you see devils at every turn, you know. Um,
you know there is an account just to wrap this
this little story up, which I think is is fun, um,
just I don't know, not fun. I mean, definitely the
guy was in in a very very dark place. He
was in a very dark place, and for someone to
be able to offer him some sort of help, whether
it was BS or not. I can't really fault him
(33:11):
too much. He's okay, No, he's definitely okay. Shockingly okay,
look at the guy. He looks like he's twenty years old.
It's bizarre. Um, So you know, this Wally elm Lark
character did end up coming into the house and she, uh,
you know, apparently, according to those present, successfully exercised the
(33:31):
swimming pool. That was the first thing she wanted to do.
That he was exercise of the swimming pool. And um,
this is a quote from uh Backstage passes Life on
the wild Side with David Bowie, which is a memoir
by Angie Bowie, who was David's wife during this period.
And she says, quote, at a certain point in the ritual,
the pool began to bubble. It bubbled vigorously, perhaps thrashed
(33:54):
as a better term, in a manner inconsistent with any
explanation involving filters and the and then Mark spits from
earlier from this unauthorized Bowie uh memoir, I guess um
wrote quote Elmlark wrote a series of spells and incantations
out for Bowie in case the demons returned for a dip,
and remained on call for Bowie as he continued to
(34:16):
wrestle with the forces of darkness. Wow, I'm gonna say cocaine.
If I had to, I had to choose one. Not
to be too skeptical about it. But we see, okay,
so we see this. We see this edge of madness
intersecting with some of the the appearance of madness which
(34:40):
is good for marketing, right, versus just this strange the
strange situations you get into when you catapult to this
unprecedented level of fame and success. But but madness aside,
Let's take a closer look at the people who, regardless
(35:02):
of drug use or anything like that, sincerely believe that
they are part of an occult movement or part of
a magical working. We know, the allegations of some sort
of demonic worship are pretty old, you know, the predate Bowie.
(35:23):
Of course, the in popular music and rock music, especially
for instance, the Rolling Stones have been accused of this.
And even like led Zeppelin, the idea backwards masking and
um messages hidden that were like embedded in the inner
ring of an help he um for example, things like that,
right exactly, and this, you know, this goes into something
(35:47):
interesting that we can explore. The idea of the moral panic, right,
the satanic panic. But before we do that, uh, there
there are a couple other things we should talk about. There.
There is evidence, as we've said, of real occult conspiracies
in music, one of the biggest ones, of course, being
(36:09):
that members of the black metal scene in some Scandinavian
countries did conspire to burn churches. Now, as for the
motivation of that, it probably isn't the same motivation behind
every single church burning because they're different groups doing it, right,
And we mentioned this earlier, the idea that it was
in large part um at active rebellion against you know,
(36:32):
the the idea of sort of what they might perceive
as an oppressive puritanical um you know, not government exactly,
but just sort of like our hierarchy, I guess, the
dogma exactly. So there's certainly that um aspect of it.
But uh, there's also this idea of being like it's
(36:53):
almost like a gang mentality where you have to do
these initiations in order to show that you're completely behind
what the gang is about. Is very similar with some
of these black metal groups, where they're you know, burning
the churches to show their commitment, to demonstrate their commitment
to these ideals, Um, and why don't you talk a
little bit about what some of those ideals might be
and what some of these other initiations might have been. Okay,
(37:16):
these other ideals, these other initiations. In this I think
initiation is a perfect word. One thing would be the
assumption of a different name. In magical orders, it's common
for someone who is initiated to take upon a new name, right,
(37:36):
a name that is used within the order, and that
also becomes a new identity for other rituals that one
would one would take to show allegiance to a dark force.
Of course, there are things that are you know, there
are agreements, actual written down agreements, for instance. And this
(37:57):
goes back we mentioned Faust. Faustus is based on real person,
a guy named Dr Johan George Fauss, and in the
Tail Dr Faust, which is of course um inspired by
the actual Faust. Uh. Dr Faustus sells his soul via
a document for seven years of earthly pleasures I believe
(38:22):
at the end of which he's his soul is forfeit.
And during the witch hunts in Europe, there were quite
a few people who were accused of signing packs with
the devils sometimes no even with papers provided and like
the signature of the devil, which not to you know,
(38:43):
far be it from me to cast a shadow on
their methodology and the inquisition. But that sounds a little convenient.
But when we talk about rituals and initiations brings us
to something that is probably a story for a different time. Murders, suicides.
There there are several very strange cases in the world
(39:06):
of metal. But maybe metal deserves its own episode. Yeah,
I think it really does. There's a whole lot going
on there. But we mentioned the band, or maybe we didn't,
but Mayhem Um was a very popular Norwegian black metal band,
UM that ultimately it's members ended up sort of being
on different ideological sides more or less, and two of
them Um got into a serious altercation that involved two
(39:31):
of the members, Uronymous and a guy by the name
of barg viknus Verkness who also has YouTube chand also
if you want to if you're interested. He went to
prison for a long time, but I believe he is
out now. Um murdered, uh, this guy Uronymous, who would
kind of taken him under his wing in what some
(39:51):
would argue was simply Uh, you know, an altercation between
two um folks that that maybe didn't see eye to
eye on some things. But this is an alter occasion
that ultimately ended in uh Eronymous receiving twenty three stab wounds,
two to the head, five to the neck, and sixteen
to the back. So I mean, as far as ritualistic
(40:13):
murders go, you know, if it was just a beef
between two dudes, probably could have just stopped with the one,
you know what I mean, certainly, um, But this also
goes back to my by my previous point about this
having kind of like a gang mentality or like a cult,
which brings us to uh in a lot of ways.
(40:34):
Are the next point on our list? Yes, ain't that fresh?
And everyone wants to get down like that? Our next
our next topic here is hip hop and the Illuminati. Yes,
ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening to this show, then
the odds are that you may well be one of
(40:56):
the people over the years who have requested that we
talk out the illuminati and tip hop, that we explore it.
So what's the gist of this snol? So, this idea
that successful hip hop stars are ultimately tools of the
illuminati which is a shadowy group controlling the world through
various financial, political, military, and cultural means, allegedly. Right, we
(41:18):
have a we have a three part YouTube series on it.
We've talked at length about Adam Bioshops and the founders,
the various contradictory stories about what may or may not
be the Illuminati, the different groups who consider themselves the
Illuminati instead of other groups, and so you know, back
(41:39):
to alleged things. Um. The alleged evidence of this connection,
uh is well, you know, you don't have to look far.
You can just get on YouTube, for example, and and
find just tons of these examples that show various musicians
using symbols like the all seeing I which covering. You'll
see clips of one person covering one eye, and then
(42:01):
whomever upload the video will say proof Illuminati, which life
is probably a little bit of a strong term, strong term.
It's interesting. There's definitely a collection this stuff, some more ideas. UM.
For a lot of folks, this belief, uh proves that
the shadowy connections, rather than luck or talent, beside the
success of an entertainer. Yeah, but there's a fair counterpoint here.
(42:22):
Nor if this stuff is supposed to be so secret.
Then why would somebody show these symbols, these arcane you know,
secret handshakes, sug gestures on globally broadcasted videos. And it
goes back to a lot of the stuff we were
talking about earlier with the history of rock and using
(42:43):
some of these symbols and backwards masking, and you know,
the belief versus the showmanship of it. You know, I
think there's a lot to be said of planting intriguing
arcane images and symbols and your work. It's just it's
it's neat, it's fun, it's fascinating eating. You know, people
are intrigued by all kinds of things without necessarily having
(43:03):
to be fully on board with every ideological you know,
um idea, right with the philosophy behind something. Yeah, it's
it's absolutely true. Jay Z in some interviews it makes
me chuckled because I'm a fan of jay Z. He's
regularly said he's not part of the illuminati, and he
feels like has to say references and verses and stuff.
(43:27):
And I don't know, maybe we have some listeners who
believe that they're legitimately is something to this. I don't
deny that there is a power behind the curtain, behind
the throne, behind the scenes of the music industry in
probably by genre, in country and and and it's probably
like some unseen mob boss type figure in Mariatch music,
(43:51):
you know, so hip hop is no different. So my
my question then is is it more likely that these
entertainers are to Knowel's point, seeking the capital is on
beliefs to stay edging in the public eye, or is
there something there is there some nefarious group of ultimately
devil worshippers behind the scenes, because in the eighties and
(44:13):
the nineties America thought so well. I mean, you know,
they say the love of money, you know, is the
root of all evil. And to me and a lot
of these entertainment scenarios, money is the is the devil
you don't see, you know that like is driving all
of these things. And I mean that's that's where the
tastemakers come from. The folks that that hold all the
all the chips are the ones that choose who you
(44:34):
know gets the hits ultimately. And I mean there's certainly
something to be said of a public opinion and people
going viral and things like that, but at the end
of the day, uh, largely it's a numbers game. You know,
it's like who's getting the resources, Who's who's getting all
of the pr and who's who's like actually, you know,
commanding that kind of power. And I'd like to I'd
(44:54):
like to take a look at this this thing, the
Satanic panic that's swept the US. Some of you may
be a little too young, but some of you may
be old enough to remember this. Uh. The the Satanic
panic is something that came about. It's considered a moral panic,
(45:19):
comparable to witch hunts, for instance in Europe, or the
Red Scare with McCarthy m and the idea was that
there was a vast, overarching conspiracy on the part of
everyone from rock musicians to heavy metal musicians, to blues
(45:39):
and musicians to racy singers, to poison the minds and
souls of children, taking them into the abyssal plane of
hell for other time. They are that they are kind
of a low hanging fruit. Honestly, they are very suggestible,
not kidding. It started in right, it's h it's the
(46:00):
um it's people who have mental issues brought on by
their advanced age. So it's pretty much preschools and nursing homes.
It's where he is where he really tried to sell
that heavy metal right totally. But anyhow, this so this
starts in the nineteen seventies. Uh, and it's this idea
that there's this vast underground network of Satanists controlling everything. Uh.
(46:22):
It rose and peaked in the eighties and nineties, but
it's pretty much gone today. The first part of it
that really launched this was a book called The Satan
Seller by a guy named Mike Warnkey in nineteen seventy two.
He was referenced as an authority on Satanism for a
long or. In nineteen seventy two published it, and he
(46:43):
was reference as an authority until nineteen ninety two when
he was exposed as a fraud. So he uh, and
then other people came in. A guy named john's Hodd
said that he started speaking in churches saying that which
is druids in the Illuminati where control world politics, media
and even gasp, most churches, churches churches. Uh. This lad
(47:08):
to worries about backward masking, like Nol mentioned earlier, worries
that Dungeons and Dragons was a portal to this parallel
occult world. The idea that there was satanic ritual abuse
occurring in um in in the like in the studios
(47:29):
of musicians, and we will see that there. You know,
there is proof that there were abusive situations and ritualized
There is not proof that we could find that in
the case of musicians. Notice I say in the case
of musicians, not Hollywood overall. In the case of musicians,
we don't find evidence of a vast network of abusive behavior.
(47:54):
In the case of musicians, we don't. So the the
thing happens with this is that you you start to
see politicians pick this up because it's it's it's essentially
free votes, right, it's red meat, and uh, it goes
the in Tipper Gore and some other people, some other
(48:16):
associated this whole a right, Yeah, the Parents Music Resource Center. Uh,
they wanted to they wanted to force the government to
label records that were threatening to the heart's minds, morals
or souls of American youth. So they had um uh
succession of offensive materials, stuff like We're not gonna take
(48:40):
it but twist his sister, Yeah, sort of bad attitude. Yeah,
it's it's very strange. And then Geraldo Rivera did uh
a documentary or a rivera piece I guess called devil Worship,
exposing Satan's underground And then of course Judas Priest went
to trial for making a backwards message, which, um, let's see,
(49:06):
there was a line in the song better by You
better than Me, when played backwards, reportedly commanded the listener
to do it, which is such a rorshack ink blot,
you know, an audio version of it. Not only that,
if you've ever messed around with flipping things backwards, I
mean that, you know the way words sound and reverse
(49:29):
are always a little bit off. And I just I
could picture that that was not even intentional almost you know,
I'm I'm I'm sure because what you know, here's the thing,
long story short, what did they find in these investigations?
Ultimately they didn't find a damn thing. Uh. We can
talk a little bit about mental health versus music, for okay.
(49:50):
For instance, there's the question when someone perpetrates an act
of violence, right, and and people attempt to blame it
on a video game that person played, or a song
that they heard, right, or you know, just a book
they read, then it's always seemed very shortsighted to me, right,
(50:14):
even if that was the trigger the likelihood is that
it was no more than a proverbial straw on the
camel's back. You know, that could have been replaced by
any number of things. It could have been any number
body looks at them funny at the grocery store. I mean,
you know, honestly, I just think it's more than opportunistic.
(50:34):
It's more than convenient two blame a single thing on
something like that. I think it's offensive. It's offensive to
the people who survived those kind of tragedies. It's efensive
to the families of the victims. And not to mention,
the Porschemucks just put out an album, you know. So
(50:55):
we do know that there are you know, this has
been a long episode, but we do know that there
are some true and proven corruption and cover ups in music.
There's the concept of paola, which which you can probably
speak to pretty well. I'm not actually intimately familiar with it.
I mean, I know it has to do with um.
It's like the idea of the equivalent of like a lobbyist,
(51:18):
you know, giving h gifts or taking a you know,
a lawmaker out for fancy dinners and exchange or not
necessarily exchange, but in the hopes that they will support
their piece of legislation that benefits the lobbying group, the
group they represent. It's it's an example of something like
that where executives I believe, pay DJs UM and rent
(51:39):
and radio station UM managers to play their songs, right,
and and it's illegal. Right, it's legal, and the FCC, uh,
the FCC specifically bands it. However, it is it's pretty common. Right.
The heart where it becomes legal is when the radio
(52:00):
go station plays a specific song but doesn't disclose that
they're playing it for money. You're supposed to be transparent
about it. Is. That's something that really occurs, and it
is kind of a cover up then, you know, the
exploitation of gosh, especially the exploitation of up and coming
talent in the music industry and something for itself. I
(52:23):
want to close out though, when we're talking about behind
the scenes things in music to the cult. Okay, there
is an article in the Atlantic which can read online
for free, called hit Charade or sharade or fancy Listeners.
And here's the thing, guys. The vast majority of pop
songs that are in the top of the charts right
(52:44):
now are written by about six people and guess where
they're from. They're from Scandinavia. There in Norwegian, there from Stockholm.
There is one lady who was from Oklahoma, but she
uh now she works with these other guys. Uh. They
(53:05):
have names like esther Dean, Mick Alarics and tore Hermanson
Stargate Dr Luke. Uh. These these folks have written songs
like bad Blood, Hey Mama Worth, it Can't Feel My Face,
the Night is Still Young, and so on. The main guy, though,
you know the main guys, this guy Max Martin. I mean,
it's not just him because I'm sorry if I'm if
(53:27):
I'm stealing this from you. But this the way. There's
a great episode of On Point with Tom Ashbrook and
NPR from a few days ago where they talk about
the process of this whole thing, and I was not
aware of this. They basically do this stuff by committee,
where like they have like the guy that does the hooks,
they have the guy that does you know, the beat,
they have the I mean, but but more so than
just like collaborative thing, it's literally like they pass it
(53:49):
down the line and the idea is to stuff it
with so many hooks that capitalize on that. I think
fifteen seconds that something that listens to the said where
they changed the station. Anyway, probably not necessarily conspiracy. They're
pretty open about it, but it's certainly some of the
record industry kind of tried to keep under wraps. I
think for a long time it was literally stuff they
(54:10):
don't want you to know. And no, not necessarily any
occult occult issues going on there, but it's it's pretty
fascinating stuff for sure. Wait, I hear that sound cute?
Do you hear that? I know what that means. I
know what it means. It means that it's time for
me apologize to Pope Francis for real, you guys. We
(54:33):
recorded last week's episode a few days before the story
drop of that it can Finally, UM issued a statement
regarding Pope francis Is supposedly secret one on one meeting
with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk UM who was denying
UM marriage licenses to gay couples and UM. You know,
(54:56):
there was a lot to being made of the fact
that the Pope had the sea meeting, and I expressed
my personal disappointments because I just was so fascinated by
this pope and his more progressive ways of doing things
in a very even handed way of speaking about speaking
about issues that popes don't typically handle. And as it
turns out, this was entirely spun by Kim Davis's people. Um,
(55:21):
what was really going on was the Pope was meeting
with a group of people for very quick little handshake
and a kind of a meet and Greek kind of
situation at this this Vatican embassy essentially in d C.
And um the the only people that he actually was
aware we're going to be there. And I don't remember
(55:41):
their name, but it was a student of his from
I believe he taught at a Catholic institution in Argentina,
isn't that where he's from? And this was a same
sex couple um that he knew were going to be there,
and he specifically expressed to his old friend or his
student that he was excited to see him and wanted
(56:04):
to give him a hug. And that was literally the
only person that the Pope was there that he was
aware was going to be there. So Kim Davis was
one of about fifteen or twenty or more folks that
were just kind of there waiting for the Pope to
pass through and hopefully have a little handshake and a
you know, a personal blessing. So I apologize your holiness.
(56:27):
You're a man of principle. It sounds like you're a
little bit bothered. I bothered that I was so quick
to jump on the bandwagon. I felt really bad about
it after the fact. I even considered adding an addendum
to the episode, but I just I figured this would
be the better way to do it, you know, come clean. Well,
as you know, the Pope, being a big fan of
(56:50):
the show, was pretty upset. Yeah, and remember I mentioned
the snapchats that we sent. Yeah, and he, uh, he
sent some pretty um some some pretty sad emoticons. So yeah,
so you know, that's how it is. Uh, Sometimes you
just get caught up in in the heat of the moment,
(57:13):
the fear of the internet, right, the pitchforks come out.
And that's uh, that's interesting because that's similar to what
happened in the Satanic Panic. You guys, we've got to go.
But there's so much other stuff I wanted to get
to here. There's so many other specific stories. I'm going
to ask for your help. Specifically, let me know what
(57:36):
links you see between the world of music and the
world of the occult. Uh, tell me if you think
it's absolute bunk, it's just bologna made up. But also
tell me if you think there is clear consistent proof
of you know, some sort of hip hop and Illuminati thing.
I'd love to see, just because at this point, at
(57:57):
this point, what I can say probably happens is that
there are groups running different things behind the scenes, right
we We've said this in our Illuminati episode. There are
a lot of people that want to control the world,
but there there's no one at this point who controls
the whole thing, not even international bankers. Uh. And they
would be one of the draft picks. Right. So hopefully
(58:20):
tune in next week we'll have an update from Matt
Frederick who is with us in spirit. Uh. Stay tuned
this weekend, and if you're hearing this, with the day
it goes live, we're gonna do our live show with
our our friend Steve the Intern. And if you'd like
to check out some of the stories that don't make
it to the air, find us on Facebook and Twitter
(58:42):
where we are conspiracy stuff. If you have an idea
for show, a reaction, just want to say hello, but
don't like the social media rigamarole. We of all people
get it. You can email us directly our addresses conspiracy
at how stuff Works dot mm hmmmmmmm. For more on
(59:05):
this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash
conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter
at the handle at conspiracy stuff.
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