Speaker 1: Ahway, it's that guy who asked to pet your dog
Speaker 1: but doesn't realize how much you want to talk to
Speaker 1: him about your dog's likes and dislikes and hopes and dreams.
Speaker 1: Alley Ward back with another spooky episode of ologies. So
Speaker 1: I've been justshed up a whole month of darkish, pumpkiny topics.
Speaker 1: And if you've missed out this October, y'all, there are
Speaker 1: episodes on skeletons, we talk about body farms, we got
Speaker 1: one on spiderwebs, one on pumpkins that'll warm your whole heart,
Speaker 1: and now this one is just right on the nose. Demons,
Speaker 1: evil spirits, creepy mean beings. Let's get into it, but
Speaker 1: before we do, a few business items up top. Number one.
Speaker 1: If you're in LA and you're hearing this before Friday,
Speaker 1: October twenty fifth, come you hang out in a park
Speaker 1: and learn about squids with me and Sarah McNaulty, who
Speaker 1: is our squid expert touthologist, Silverlike Meadow, six point thirty pm, Friday,
Speaker 1: October twenty fifth, Free. We're just gonna be hang out
Speaker 1: in a park talking about science. There's an event bright
Speaker 1: link in the show notes with more info. Also pay
Speaker 1: birthday to Fancy Nancy aka my mom, who taught you
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Speaker 1: Also thank you to everyone supporting the podcast on patreon
Speaker 1: dot com, slash ologies and submitting your questions. Thank you
Speaker 1: to everyone wearing Ologies merch and tagging your photos with
Speaker 1: oligi'es merch. Thanks to everyone making sure that you're subscribed
Speaker 1: and reading the podcast and telling friends, and of course
Speaker 1: the folks leaving reviews. You know that I read them
Speaker 1: so that I can pick afresheet every week, such as
Speaker 1: for example, Eggs ten eighty nine, who says crushed Nana's
Speaker 1: dinner Convo, says, today I wowed my fam with so
Speaker 1: much Spiderweb knowledge and pitched the podcast so hard. I
Speaker 1: told them they can all expect Ologies Merch for Christmas.
Speaker 1: Thank you for inspiring me to slow my life down
Speaker 1: and take genuine interest in things I never thought I would.
Speaker 1: This podcast is pure gold. Eggs ten eighty nine, Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you Nana for me. Okay, let's descend into the
Speaker 1: bowels of human culture and consciousness, around the darkest corners
Speaker 1: of fear and trickery, and delve into demons which come
Speaker 1: by the way from a root meaning a lesser spirit,
Speaker 1: which comes from an earlier route meaning to divide. And yes,
Speaker 1: demonology is a thing. So this ologist and I agreed
Speaker 1: to meet remotely at an ungodly hour of seven am.
Speaker 1: We hopped on the phone. We each recorded our audio.
Speaker 1: So the sound might be just a wee bit different
Speaker 1: than usual, just attributed to a demon. It's fine. So
Speaker 1: this all. Just got a bachelor's in religious studies, a
Speaker 1: master's in theology and religion, and a PhD in religion
Speaker 1: with a thesis about the neo pagan Internet community, and
Speaker 1: is now an assistant professor in religious studies at West
Speaker 1: Virginia University. She teaches courses on the history of witches
Speaker 1: and demon hunts and fear and historical heresy. So we
Speaker 1: hopped on the phone. We gap about ghosts and gargoyles
Speaker 1: and possessions and myths and horror films and psychology and
Speaker 1: Halloween costumes and cross cultural spookiness and dear old demons
Speaker 1: and devils. So light a candle and watcherback for the
Speaker 1: historical wisdom of religious studies. Professor and demonologist, doctor Alissa Biel,
Speaker 1: So you are a demonologist, Yes, I.
Speaker 2: Guess sort of, I study people who study demons. Haws
Speaker 2: that I don't study the demons themselves.
Speaker 1: I think it explains why it's hard to find an
Speaker 1: actual demonologist who is perhaps incredible in their field, right,
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: Like a practicing demonologist might be difficult. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like one out there in her Twitter account
Speaker 1: was suspended for unknown reasons, and I was like, oh, dear,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of them. But how long have you
Speaker 1: studied people who study demons?
Speaker 2: About twenty years now. I guess it started when I
Speaker 2: was in grad school. I got very interested in just
Speaker 2: concept of magic and witchcraft historically a lot of Inquisition
Speaker 2: era stuff, and it sort of went from there. I
Speaker 2: started teaching a class on magic and witchcraft, which people
Speaker 2: also thought was sort of a practicum. They thought they
Speaker 2: were going to learn spells. They were very disappointed when
Speaker 2: they found out they weren't. So yeah, about twenty years
Speaker 2: back at Syracuse, I started studying it.
Speaker 1: What got you into it before it became academic? Like,
Speaker 1: what kind of a kid were you?
Speaker 2: Oh? Crazy? Absolutely? I tell a story all the time.
Speaker 2: One of my friends remembers this. I got in trouble
Speaker 2: on the playground because I told some of the other
Speaker 2: kids in grade school that I was talking to Athena
Speaker 2: and I wasn't. It wasn't, let's make that clear, but
Speaker 2: I was pretending that I was, and they got a
Speaker 2: little nervous about that.
Speaker 1: So Alyssa's parents were avid traveler and she developed an
Speaker 1: appetite for world history and religion pretty early. So, well,
Speaker 1: your thing is a kid may have been like micro
Speaker 1: machines are hopping a skippet in the driveway. Doctor Beale's
Speaker 1: thing was ancient Greece, and apparently her school administrators did
Speaker 1: not appreciate her tall tales about talking to ancient deities.
Speaker 1: So what happened when you got called them to the
Speaker 1: principal's office for this?
Speaker 2: I think at first they were just trying to make
Speaker 2: sure that I didn't need medical advice. Yeah, but they
Speaker 2: just basically told me to stop scaring the other kids
Speaker 2: and stop telling them that I was having conversations with
Speaker 2: ancient gods. So I did mine.
Speaker 1: What did your parents think of it? Were they like,
Speaker 1: she's our kid?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, They weren't terribly upset about it. They
Speaker 2: thought it was pretty funny actually at the time. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: I was the kid who started playing D and D
Speaker 2: when she was like ten or so. So that gives
Speaker 2: you some idea of my personality as a child, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when it came to getting on an academic path,
Speaker 1: did you realize that you could do this as a
Speaker 1: job or what was your first intro into it academically?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I would say I had no idea of
Speaker 2: what I was going to do. I actually started out
Speaker 2: in polysci and journalism. That was what I was going
Speaker 2: to college for, and I ended up taking a really
Speaker 2: horrible anthropology class on magic, and I just sort of
Speaker 2: fell in love with the topic and it was just
Speaker 2: one of those things where you find something out of
Speaker 2: the blue that you really really enjoy and it sort
Speaker 2: of brings together all of the different things that you love.
Speaker 2: So I YEA had no clue I would end up here.
Speaker 1: What exactly is a demon versus like a goblin versus
Speaker 1: bad ju ju?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Do youon even define?
Speaker 2: If you go all the way back, like into ancient Greece?
Speaker 2: They are not necessarily evil. You might just think of
Speaker 2: them more like they're not spirits because they have form,
Speaker 2: but they're not necessarily evil creatures. So have you ever
Speaker 2: read The Golden compass. No, oh, okay, it's this great fiction,
Speaker 2: great book. It's sort of a kid's book, but it's
Speaker 2: a little bit higher end than that.
Speaker 1: But it's about demons.
Speaker 2: It's about demons, yes, and they're good for their people.
Speaker 2: They're sort of attached to people and they're very very
Speaker 2: good creatures as long as the people are good. And
Speaker 2: demons are originally kind of like that. But when you
Speaker 2: get into monotheism, all of those kinds of creatures get
Speaker 2: turned into bad things.
Speaker 1: So how far back do you think the notion of
Speaker 1: a spirit who was like mischievous, who had form? How
Speaker 1: far back does that go? What are the first instances
Speaker 1: of that in writing or in drawing?
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a big question. Yeah, sorry, Yeah, no, I'm
Speaker 2: sort of flipping three things in my head. Definitely ancient
Speaker 2: Greece and I would think in some forms ancient Egypt
Speaker 2: as well. So that's about as far back as we
Speaker 2: can really get in some ways textually, at least.
Speaker 1: So even before written history, demon idols were in effect, y'all.
Speaker 1: Like they found an eleven thousand year old mouth, a
Speaker 1: gape human face carved in a plank of wood. A
Speaker 1: few gold prospectors discovered it in a Siberian peak bog.
Speaker 1: They thought it was a lot younger than it was,
Speaker 1: didn't really realize what a big deal it was, and
Speaker 1: that it was worth more than its weight in the
Speaker 1: gold they were looking for. Oops, that's just a demon
Speaker 1: screwing with your values. So what kind of demons are
Speaker 1: we talking about? In ancient myths, you may have heard
Speaker 1: of Hades, for example. Now, how cute is it that
Speaker 1: the underworld was just called Hades after the guy whose
Speaker 1: house it was like Maybe once he had a cute
Speaker 1: neon bar sign that said MS, but the top half
Speaker 1: shorted out and no whatever bothered to fix it, so
Speaker 1: they just called it Hades. Hades places. Hades wasn't a
Speaker 1: purely evil figure though, just kind of a dickish step
Speaker 1: dead that no one liked. But Alyssa explains that those
Speaker 1: kind of demons are in gods, and they're not sequestered
Speaker 1: in hell. Mythological demons were whole separate bag, and they
Speaker 1: were considered to be up here among us, just kicking
Speaker 1: it anywhere. And as a person whose shoe fell behind
Speaker 1: the X ray machine at TSA this morning, so she
Speaker 1: just left it and ran in socks to her gate
Speaker 1: through lax as her plane was boarding hot Damn, I'm
Speaker 1: starting to believe in demons.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I think it's more of an idea
Speaker 2: of beings in the normal world that are not quite
Speaker 2: gods and goddesses. So some kind of I have air
Speaker 2: quotes going on here, spiritual beings just sort of creatures
Speaker 2: in the normal world.
Speaker 1: But they're not a person either, right, and they have
Speaker 1: some kinds of powers. Why do you think that, as
Speaker 1: human beings we need to come up with stories to
Speaker 1: explain good and evil? Do you think that demons are
Speaker 1: essentially just a product of trying to understand that we're
Speaker 1: shitty people or understand but Freudian super ego or an ego?
Speaker 2: I think they vary depending on sort of where you're at,
Speaker 2: and obviously the time period as well. So demons today, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're probably oh gosh, manifestations of our issues and that
Speaker 2: kind of thing. So we try to create these figures
Speaker 2: that embody the things that we're scared of, dang alone.
Speaker 2: But since they're not always evil historically, you know, that
Speaker 2: question is sort of up in the air. It's it's
Speaker 2: really I guess they could be manifestations of what people
Speaker 2: were afraid of or what people wanted or desired, but
Speaker 2: it's hard to tell because people in the past don't
Speaker 2: really talk about things like that. So it's our best
Speaker 2: guess in many ways, why a lot of society seem
Speaker 2: to create these these things and still today not all
Speaker 2: of them are bad. So if you go over to
Speaker 2: for example, Thailand, they have these absolutely gorgeous what we
Speaker 2: would think of as demons. They have scary faces and
Speaker 2: they're very mean looking, but they're actually creatures that protect temples.
Speaker 1: Okay, side note, I look this up and I believe
Speaker 1: she's talking about yaksha, which are nature spirits with demon faces.
Speaker 1: They kind of look like if a professional wrestler and
Speaker 1: a dragon had a love baby who dressed up as
Speaker 1: a circus clown for Halloween, like fierce, snarling, just exploding
Speaker 1: with bright colors and makeup, but also bearing kind of
Speaker 1: surprise expressions like holy shit, what are you doing here?
Speaker 1: That's kind of what their faces look like. So yaksha
Speaker 1: can be beautiful though, and they can guard or they
Speaker 1: can haunt places, so they might protect you or they
Speaker 1: might devour you. So I guess be nice to them,
Speaker 1: and I want them to know that the wrestler clown
Speaker 1: baby thing was like very much a compliment.
Speaker 2: They're not bad, but they look like it.
Speaker 1: And can you walk me through. I know this is
Speaker 1: essentially distealing all of your work into like five or
Speaker 1: ten minutes, but just a tiptoe through the tulips of demons, Like,
Speaker 1: what are some of your favorites in history? When did
Speaker 1: they rise and fall in popularity?
Speaker 2: Because my period is so sort of medieval, I guess
Speaker 2: those are kind of my favorite. And medieval demons are
Speaker 2: so classically what we would think of as demons, right,
Speaker 2: They've got big horns, and they're all muscly, and a
Speaker 2: lot of times they've got like six penises and that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. So they're just so classically demonic that
Speaker 2: you really have to love them. Yeah six. But I
Speaker 2: also do I have a kind of affinity for the
Speaker 2: ones that I was just talking about in Thailand, because again,
Speaker 2: they're so over the top and they are really really beautiful.
Speaker 2: So I'm sort of equally drawn to the super super
Speaker 2: scary ones in medieval fieldlogy and they really really pretty
Speaker 2: ones in sort of Thai religion as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, so quick aside, demons like people and lamps and
Speaker 1: probably butt plugs come in all shapes and sizes. Now,
Speaker 1: they might not be called demons though us human persons.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of names for them, like pre
Speaker 1: Babylonians call them shadow and in Islamic folklore they're called
Speaker 1: gins or ephrits or sheatin, and the Japanese have these ogrioni.
Speaker 1: Jewish mythologies got sheddim Christianity has demons, fallen angels called nephelim,
Speaker 1: Russian has shorts, and in Algonquin there's this tall, antlered,
Speaker 1: blood hungry spirit called a wind to go. So you
Speaker 1: got a culture, you got demons. Now what about demons
Speaker 1: with the AE Demons can be nice or they can
Speaker 1: be the name of a computer program. That's just a
Speaker 1: little Techi factoid for you. Now, what about Damien? Does
Speaker 1: that name mean that you're evil? No, the name damien
Speaker 1: means to tame or to subdue. Also, for a little context,
Speaker 1: what was the inquisition you inquire? Well, there were a
Speaker 1: few inquisition periods, one in the mid twelve hundreds, and
Speaker 1: they used to torture people to try to find out who
Speaker 1: was talking about the pope or later in the fifteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: everyone was poking everyone else to see who was a
Speaker 1: demon or a witch to combat the rise of Protestantism.
Speaker 1: So a lot of side eye and suspicion in those days.
Speaker 1: And now historically, was the Inquisition period, was that like
Speaker 1: the hot time for demons? Did demons have a kind
Speaker 1: of a boom?
Speaker 2: Then in the end period of it, it doesn't start
Speaker 2: out that way. That's what's sort of interesting to sort
Speaker 2: of summarize it briefly, it seems more like, at first
Speaker 2: you're not supposed to believe in them as a practicing
Speaker 2: Christian at the time, it sort of goes against the
Speaker 2: power of God to believe that demons have power. And
Speaker 2: the same thing with witches. You're really not supposed to
Speaker 2: believe that witches are real. In the beginning of the Inquisition,
Speaker 2: and then as it develops, it seems like they're almost
Speaker 2: trying to prove that God is real. It's this sort
Speaker 2: of period of skepticism that everybody starts getting very nervous
Speaker 2: about proving whether or not God exists. Yeah, and to
Speaker 2: do that they have to sort of prove the supernatural,
Speaker 2: So they end up trying to prove that demons exist.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so if demons exist, then God exists and
Speaker 2: everything's okay, We're all good here.
Speaker 1: So that is not what I expected at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating to see it really is how it develops,
Speaker 2: because when the inquisition period starts, they're not going after witches.
Speaker 2: They're really going after what they would call heretics, people
Speaker 2: who believe differently from them, and it evolves into this
Speaker 2: whole actual witch hunt, but it doesn't start out that way.
Speaker 2: So demons come in relatively sort of light on the scene,
Speaker 2: so to speak.
Speaker 1: And when, in terms of a timeline, when did Monotheism
Speaker 1: really take root? When did we as a culture, When
Speaker 1: did certain cultures tea on this idea that demons were
Speaker 1: the enemy of the One True God?
Speaker 2: Probably around the time that Christianity really gains a hold
Speaker 2: in Rome, so you know, around the three hundreds.
Speaker 1: Okay, quick virtual field trip. Alyssa told me that underneath
Speaker 1: the Vatican there's a huge necropolis where they used to
Speaker 1: store a whole army of dead people, and there's a
Speaker 1: stucco painting of Lucifer down there under the Vatican. Lucifer,
Speaker 1: of course, draws his name from a bringer of light
Speaker 1: or the sun of morning, named after a star falling
Speaker 1: from heaven because Satan's origin story was that of an
Speaker 1: angel who rebelled and turned into that friend who's always
Speaker 1: trying to get you to have another drink or order
Speaker 1: the chili cheese fries, or just delighting in the misery
Speaker 1: of others.
Speaker 2: So it really is around. It starts developing, I would
Speaker 2: guess early on like one hundred two hundred, when they're
Speaker 2: trying to sort of beat you know, they're trying to
Speaker 2: sort of win the battle of whose religion is going
Speaker 2: to take over this particular area, and so they really
Speaker 2: turn against the representations of those earlier gods and goddesses.
Speaker 1: And so in order to prove their faith to one
Speaker 1: god in the sky. It's like all these other jabbronis,
Speaker 1: we don't believe in them anymore. That's yesterday's news.
Speaker 2: Or they have to be bad, so instead of them
Speaker 2: being powerful and possibly good, they can sort of be powerful,
Speaker 2: but they have to be less powerful than God. So
Speaker 2: then you get this whole demonic world.
Speaker 1: And what properties does a demon usually have? What kind
Speaker 1: of mischief are we talking do they? Like do they
Speaker 1: give you cancer or do they just drop something in
Speaker 1: your food that sucks?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like, how bad are we talking.
Speaker 2: I guess it could be that though. Yeah, they could
Speaker 2: cause illness, that's for sure. Okay, there's one story that
Speaker 2: I read in one text that was something as simple
Speaker 2: as this priest blamed a demon for tripping him as
Speaker 2: he fell down the stairs, and that was his proof
Speaker 2: that he had tripped and fallen down the stairs, and
Speaker 2: that was proof of demonic activity. So it can be
Speaker 2: anything from really really horrible like killing babies, did you know,
Speaker 2: making them into stews that's really popular during the medieval period,
Speaker 2: Or it can be something something as simple as tripping
Speaker 2: and falling down the stairs. So they can have a
Speaker 2: lot of power, but they also can do really really
Speaker 2: stupid stuff.
Speaker 1: So a few things a demon might do to you
Speaker 1: sign your name on an insulting letter to someone you respect,
Speaker 1: perhaps deposit their own giant bowel movement in your cat litterbox,
Speaker 1: causing you to take your pet to the veterinarian. Maybe
Speaker 1: a fix a fuck Cops sticker to your cars bumper.
Speaker 1: Just kidding, that's not the work of a demon. All
Speaker 1: three of those are just things that notorious prankster and
Speaker 1: low key comedic maniac George Clooney has done to his friends.
Speaker 2: They weren't necessarily accusing the people of being demonic. They
Speaker 2: were accusing them of having interactions with demons. And that's
Speaker 2: where witches were supposed to get their power from.
Speaker 1: I'm doing one now that I can't tell you about,
Speaker 1: but in a year you're going to hear that I've
Speaker 1: been arrested.
Speaker 2: So witches were not powerful in and of themselves. They
Speaker 2: were powerful through the help of a demon. They often
Speaker 2: can't even be seen the demons, so the priests are
Speaker 2: trying to prove that they exist through the witches.
Speaker 1: You know what they say, behind every great witch is
Speaker 1: a supportive, inspiring demon. And do you think that there
Speaker 1: was You know, back then there were a lot of
Speaker 1: kind of fables and demons that were made up to
Speaker 1: explain science that they just didn't get.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like even things like crops failing the harvest doesn't
Speaker 2: come in right, so you have to blame something. I
Speaker 2: think that's definitely an aspect of it. Sure, or again,
Speaker 2: like I just said, with the whole connection to babies, Obviously,
Speaker 2: there were a lot of really early infant deaths during
Speaker 2: the medieval period, and so people wanted to blame something
Speaker 2: for that happening. It's better than not knowing what's going on,
Speaker 2: or it's better than thinking that you did something wrong. Right,
Speaker 2: So I do think in a lot of ways it
Speaker 2: was manifestations of people's fears. You can take them and
Speaker 2: use it yourself to blame those bad creatures for the
Speaker 2: bad stuff that's going on.
Speaker 1: Do you think that still happens today?
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, yes, Yes, it seems that we create these
Speaker 2: sorts of things, sure, even if it's in pop culture,
Speaker 2: which is a lot of what I also study. I'm
Speaker 2: really into horror movies, even though I'm terrified of horror
Speaker 2: movies too. It takes me forever to get up the
Speaker 2: nerve to watch one, but I love them. So I
Speaker 2: think we still create these sorts of things in order
Speaker 2: to express those fears. Even today in the US, we
Speaker 2: sort of turn towards certain types of creatures when we're
Speaker 2: afraid of certain things, so we sort of get you know,
Speaker 2: vampires are popular for like five years, and then zombies
Speaker 2: are popular for five years, and then we switch over
Speaker 2: to witches for a while, and they all are expressions
Speaker 2: of different things that we're scared of.
Speaker 1: I think, are they all a type of demon? Like
Speaker 1: when it comes to defining a demon, are there parameters
Speaker 1: in terms of what's a demon and what's not.
Speaker 2: I mean, we would think of them today very differently.
Speaker 2: So I assume that if somebody was going to define
Speaker 2: demonic activity, especially if you're within the church, it would
Speaker 2: have to have something to do with the figure of Satan,
Speaker 2: I would think. So it's not anymore just some kind
Speaker 2: of evil creature. With the influx of Christianity, we really
Speaker 2: do have to have that kind of opposition to the
Speaker 2: One True God. If you think about things like exorcism movies,
Speaker 2: they definitely have to be able today to take control
Speaker 2: of a person. There's that whole possession aspect to it,
Speaker 2: and I would think that today that would be one
Speaker 2: of the main sort of markers of what is demonic
Speaker 2: and what's not possession the lawyers. So we've got things
Speaker 2: like ghosts and witches and that sort of stuff still
Speaker 2: in popular culture, but the demonic is something that can
Speaker 2: like literally take over your body and not give it back.
Speaker 2: I think that's what people are so scared of. Excellent.
Speaker 1: Did you ever watch The Exorcist oh as a child?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yes?
Speaker 1: And is that the scariest movie?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Why is that in the omen? Like why are those
Speaker 1: so terrifying.
Speaker 2: Oh god, the omens scared me even more. Actually, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it still does. It's still the Exorcist isn't so scary
Speaker 2: when I show it to students now, though I showed
Speaker 2: them Exorcism of Emily Rose the other day and a
Speaker 2: lot of them were really freaked out by that one.
Speaker 1: And I.
Speaker 2: The devil. I do think that even if people aren't
Speaker 2: scared by other stuff, possession in particular still scares people
Speaker 2: a lot. So I can talk through with my students,
Speaker 2: and we do. We talk about all of these things
Speaker 2: that people have feared in the past, because at some
Speaker 2: point vampires were considered to be absolutely real and people
Speaker 2: were really really scared of them.
Speaker 1: Side note also scary. The plague, just infectious flea bites
Speaker 1: and wet coughs killed up to two hundred million people
Speaker 1: in the mid thirteen hundreds. And what happens when everyone
Speaker 1: is dying and barfing blood and has bleeding mouth sorece
Speaker 1: Folks start thinking, well, shit, vampires are real. What is
Speaker 1: a bacteria? Never heard of it? But vampires? That's just science.
Speaker 2: But now that sounds silly to most people. Whereas you
Speaker 2: show them the Exorcist and they're really freaked out. So
Speaker 2: I think it's that idea of loss of control of
Speaker 2: the body, loss of control of your mental facilities. All
Speaker 2: of that stuff is terrifying to people.
Speaker 1: How do you feel when you see like news items
Speaker 1: about current day exorcisms. How do you process that in
Speaker 1: terms of your your skeptical brain and your science brain
Speaker 1: and your historical brain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess for me, anytime I'm studying, really, I
Speaker 2: do sort of go into this dual mode. Right, So
Speaker 2: I'm very much a skeptic, and I'm very much into science.
Speaker 2: I mean, my brothers in aeronautics and aerospace, and you
Speaker 2: know it's my family is really scientific and not religious
Speaker 2: at all. But I'm really interested in why these things
Speaker 2: come up in religions too. So you know, whereas my
Speaker 2: scientific brain is saying that can't possibly happen, my other
Speaker 2: side of my brain is saying, well, let's see what
Speaker 2: it looks like. So I'm really interested when I hear
Speaker 2: those types of things, and obviously all over the world,
Speaker 2: whether it's a monotheistic culture or not, you get these
Speaker 2: concepts of possession. Sometimes they're good, Like in voodoo, possession
Speaker 2: is often a really positive thing. It's because it's the
Speaker 2: way of communicating with the spirit world. So I'm interested
Speaker 2: in how that gets carried out in a culture. So
Speaker 2: why being possessed might be good for somebody, but in
Speaker 2: our culture it's seen as the absolute worst thing that
Speaker 2: could possibly happen, at least in a Christian context.
Speaker 1: I wonder too, how Christianity regards getting possessed by a
Speaker 1: good spirit. Like Christianity seems a okay with getting knocked
Speaker 1: up by God, right exactly, But at the same time,
Speaker 1: like demon get how dare you make me dance around
Speaker 1: and speak in gibberish?
Speaker 2: Except when people speak in tongues, that's okay. So the
Speaker 2: whole descent of the Holy Spirit and Pentecostal Christian traditions,
Speaker 2: it is the influx of the Holy Spirit, and it
Speaker 2: can make you do things that you don't usually do.
Speaker 2: So in some cases, in some denominations of Christianity, it's
Speaker 2: a positive thing to speak in tongues, speaking in tongues
Speaker 2: what Greek can't. But then it's of the flip side
Speaker 2: of demonic possession that can make you speak languages that
Speaker 2: you're that you don't know. Then I think that's still
Speaker 2: one of the proofs of possession is that you speak
Speaker 2: in a language that you have never learned. So it
Speaker 2: can go either way. Even in Christianity.
Speaker 1: I looked into this, and it's true some folks put
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on themselves to speak in tongues.
Speaker 1: There was one ministry's website I read. I found an
Speaker 1: article that said, quote, I felt like it was my fault,
Speaker 1: that I was doing something wrong, that something in me
Speaker 1: was broken. Finally, I just shut myself in my room
Speaker 1: and said, I'm not leaving this room until I speak
Speaker 1: in tongues. I'm not letting one word of English leave
Speaker 1: my mouth. And I think that was my breakthrough. So
Speaker 1: Rosetta Stone can help you here. Friends, have you ever
Speaker 1: looked into those studies and tried to figure out, okay,
Speaker 1: were these people just speaking gibberish or did they all
Speaker 1: of a sudden were they fluent in Portuguese? If anyone
Speaker 1: can explain it.
Speaker 2: Do you get the stories that yeah, it's fluency and
Speaker 2: stuff like Latin or ancient Greek or something like that
Speaker 2: most people never are even exposed to. But you know, again,
Speaker 2: the skeptical side of me says, well, who's telling a story?
Speaker 2: You know, what do they have to gain? By having
Speaker 2: this out there two sides of the coin, right, does
Speaker 2: it actually happen or is there a compelling reason for
Speaker 2: somebody to be sharing this sort of story? And I
Speaker 2: don't know if I've ever seen scientifically convincing evidence of
Speaker 2: somebody talking a language that they have not learned.
Speaker 1: Why do you think we need to be scared? Especially
Speaker 1: like we're coming up on Halloween here? Why do we
Speaker 1: descend into like a month of like let's be terrified,
Speaker 1: like goblins, ghosts, spooks, spiders, Like why do we need that?
Speaker 2: It's really an outlet, isn't it. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: the same reason I watch horror movies, even though I
Speaker 2: get totally scared and I hate the feeling. And I'm
Speaker 2: one of those people that actually watches it from behind
Speaker 2: my fingers half the time. Oh got me? Yeah, So
Speaker 2: I don't know when I'm done watching a horror movie,
Speaker 2: have I had some sort of emotional release or something. Maybe?
Speaker 2: Then again, often I can't go to sleep the night
Speaker 2: that I watch a horror movie either, So that's kind
Speaker 2: of silly, But I think it is. It's some kind
Speaker 2: of emotional feeling that we get out of it that
Speaker 2: we really want. So we want to be terrified because
Speaker 2: in some ways it actually feels good, I guess, and
Speaker 2: it actually I think it also engages a part of
Speaker 2: our brain that we might turn off a lot. So
Speaker 2: as I've been saying this whole thing about me being
Speaker 2: skeptical and I don't believe in ghosts, But at the
Speaker 2: same time, then why do I get absolutely terrified when
Speaker 2: I watch something like Hanning of hill House? I, you know,
Speaker 2: I do. I get really really scared. But if I
Speaker 2: don't believe the ghosts, why am I getting that scared
Speaker 2: when I want? It doesn't actually make sense, So I
Speaker 2: think it just it gives us some kind of emotional
Speaker 2: release that we might be looking for.
Speaker 1: There's more on this in the Ferology episode, but most
Speaker 1: experts echo that scary entertainment and horror hijacks or fight
Speaker 1: or flight response and pokes at our screaming almond of
Speaker 1: terror the amygdala, which is deep in the brain. So
Speaker 1: the rush of adrenaline that we would be using to
Speaker 1: run away from a bloodthirsty moose or a demon in
Speaker 1: a nightgown instead gives some people an opioid like rush,
Speaker 1: And then everything that goes bump in the night is
Speaker 1: kind of a little bump of brain chemicals when you're working,
Speaker 1: are you pouring over old manuscripts? Like what kinds of
Speaker 1: writing are you looking at? And do you ever get
Speaker 1: freaked out while you're studying.
Speaker 2: I do actually get a little bit freaked out by that.
Speaker 2: I just was writing on Haunting of Hillhouse and I
Speaker 2: had to watch the whole series again on Netflix, and
Speaker 2: I had to do it like during the day while
Speaker 2: my husband was home with all the lights on. So
Speaker 2: that stuff still does freak me out. The ancient texts
Speaker 2: and the wood cuttings, they're really interesting and they're really elaborate,
Speaker 2: especially when you get into depictions of demons and things
Speaker 2: like that. So it's fascinating to see what the medieval
Speaker 2: brain was coming up with.
Speaker 1: What was our thing with goats? Why goats and demons?
Speaker 1: Why is there such a crossover? Stylistically?
Speaker 2: I think it's the horns. I think it goes back
Speaker 2: again to pan in ancient Greece, the sort of depiction
Speaker 2: of the half human half goat, or at least the
Speaker 2: horned beings. I do think that comes in from a
Speaker 2: lot of the ancient Greco Roman stuff. Again, there was
Speaker 2: just an exhibit that we saw we were in study
Speaker 2: abroad with students last summer and we took them to
Speaker 2: It was in the Israel Museum and they were doing
Speaker 2: an exhibit on Peter Pan, which sounds strange maybe, but
Speaker 2: they were actually tracing it all the way back to
Speaker 2: the ancient Greco Roman god Pan and then how that
Speaker 2: came forward. So all of these fairy tales and all
Speaker 2: of these depictions have their roots in that mythology still,
Speaker 2: so we're constantly re using the Greeks as everybody has
Speaker 2: for thousands of years. So now we're using them for
Speaker 2: these depictions of demons, still using their gods and goddesses.
Speaker 1: So for more on this, see the Mythology episode with
Speaker 1: John Bousche. It's just chock full of gossip about gods
Speaker 1: and what about how demonology is used in a way
Speaker 1: to alienate different groups of people, different religions. How has
Speaker 1: that been in the past and how does that continue now?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, you mean like accusing people of literal I
Speaker 2: mean sometimes it's actually accusing people of having sex with them.
Speaker 2: That's one of the major things that the inquisitors do is.
Speaker 1: That really Oh yeah, they're Wyman was six dicks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not supposed to be fun, right, the inquisitors,
Speaker 2: the stuff that they write, it's very, very detailed, which
Speaker 2: is one of the interesting things.
Speaker 1: And it's porn. It's demon porn.
Speaker 2: It is actually and they talk a lot about demon penises.
Speaker 2: It's a fascination with the inquisitors. So you know, it's
Speaker 2: supposed to be often, as I said, lots of lots
Speaker 2: of dicks, but also like spiked. Yeah, so not like
Speaker 2: barbed with yeah yeah oouch.
Speaker 1: Demons not only horned but also horned. I asked Alyssa
Speaker 1: about horns and the intersection of religious fear and anti Semitism.
Speaker 1: Moses is famously depicted by Michaelangelo as having horns. So
Speaker 1: what in the fiery depths of shee Hades hell is
Speaker 1: that all about?
Speaker 2: And the whole Moses thing, Moses being depicted with horns
Speaker 2: particularly all of that. It's so weird how this happens.
Speaker 2: That in particular is a mistranslation of words. So I
Speaker 2: think it's when what does it say about Moses. It's
Speaker 2: that he's got rays of light coming out of his
Speaker 2: head in one particular biblical verse, and somewhere it might
Speaker 2: be King James version. I'm not sure when it gets
Speaker 2: translated that gets translated into horns coming out of his head. Yeah,
Speaker 2: oh boy. So you do get a lot of those overlaps,
Speaker 2: but usually it's down to some horribly mistranslated something or
Speaker 2: another that people then run with. Oh god, yeah, that
Speaker 2: is awful.
Speaker 1: It is one job, right, No one was proofing.
Speaker 2: That, No, I know, right, it happens over and over again.
Speaker 2: Oh man.
Speaker 1: So anyone who's who has like a religious based political leanings,
Speaker 1: who knows you might be working from like a smeared manuscript?
Speaker 2: Oh exactly, yes, yeah, yeah, that's terrifying. It is. Well,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about how boring it must have been to
Speaker 2: be like recopying all of these texts. So the people
Speaker 2: who had to do that, sometimes I wonder if they
Speaker 2: really just decided to screw around with stuff because they.
Speaker 1: Were bored, bored horny monks. Exactly who's the demon now, bitches?
Speaker 1: And you see this mistranslated something exactly well, persist for eons.
Speaker 2: And they make all these little drawings in the margins
Speaker 2: that are really crazy. So I think a lot of
Speaker 2: it maybe came in from just bored medieval lunks.
Speaker 1: Also, I wondered if some of those celibate religious folks
Speaker 1: ever wish they could just make out with someone, and
Speaker 1: if that ever came out in their work, because they
Speaker 1: get real detailed.
Speaker 2: That One of the big proofs they're looking for with
Speaker 2: both male and female witches is that they're having sex
Speaker 2: with demons, not just that they're you know, talking to them,
Speaker 2: they're actually having some sort of physical interaction with them.
Speaker 2: And it's essentially the most physical you can get with something, right. Yeah, So,
Speaker 2: especially if you're talking about multiple penetrations, that's pretty intimate
Speaker 2: with the demon.
Speaker 1: How do they explain that there aren't a bunch of
Speaker 1: demon babies around?
Speaker 2: Oh? There are sort of Okay, So this is how
Speaker 2: it works. Are there's male demons and there's female demons,
Speaker 2: at least in the Inquisition period, and the way that
Speaker 2: they breed is that essentially the female demons, this is
Speaker 2: one of the ways that it works. The female demons
Speaker 2: have sex with men. Usually the female demons are on top,
Speaker 2: that's how it works, and they take the sperm into
Speaker 2: their bodies and then they transmit it to the male demons,
Speaker 2: and the male demons can impregnate women. But it's actually
Speaker 2: with human sperm and not demonic sperm.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just science Emma, right, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of gets passed around like a baton
Speaker 1: in a race.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, yes, racing sperm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then and then a human female has it,
Speaker 1: and then she has a demon baby because it's human
Speaker 1: sperm that's passed through to at least two demons.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, so it's not really physically a demon baby,
Speaker 2: but it was caused by a.
Speaker 1: Demon cursed and haunted zygotes guaranteed to pass through at
Speaker 1: least two organic demons before implantation. Did you ever see
Speaker 1: Rosemary's baby?
Speaker 2: And yes?
Speaker 1: Is that how medieval demon babies were described or was
Speaker 1: it different?
Speaker 2: In the end once she has it, it's actually like scary,
Speaker 2: demonic looking, right, I think?
Speaker 1: So yeaheah, what have you done to its eyes?
Speaker 2: He has his father's eyes. Are you talking about guys
Speaker 2: as are normal? What have you done your many satan
Speaker 2: missus father?
Speaker 1: That guy he came up from hell and beget a
Speaker 1: son a mortal woman, Pale Satan Alyssa says, medieval demon
Speaker 1: babies we're just more run of the mill looking.
Speaker 2: These end up just looking like normal babies. And that's
Speaker 2: also part of the fear, is that you never really know,
Speaker 2: because it just looks like a normal human anyone could
Speaker 2: have been the product of this kind of bizarre multiple union.
Speaker 2: You can't tell the offspring of this kind of union
Speaker 2: just by looking at him. So jerks, demons, demon babies. Oh,
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, all babies.
Speaker 1: Did you cry and they shit on you?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah?
Speaker 1: If they bite your boobs?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I don't think any more than than normal babies.
Speaker 1: Colic demon baby doesn't sleep to the night babbling in tongues.
Speaker 1: What it's the biggest demon flim flam that you want
Speaker 1: to debunk? What's some real bullshit horsepuckey that you're like,
Speaker 1: this is? That's not what demonology is about.
Speaker 2: I think it's probably the idea that and this might
Speaker 2: just go for religious studies in general, since that's my field. A.
Speaker 2: We're not all sitting around like practicing whatever we're teaching, right,
Speaker 2: you have no idea. How many times, especially with students
Speaker 2: who take our classes, people think that they're going to
Speaker 2: be indoctrinated into something. And it's said because in some
Speaker 2: ways it really stops people from taking those sorts of courses.
Speaker 2: And I think they're really useful just for understanding different cultures.
Speaker 2: So I guess that would be my major thing.
Speaker 1: Is that you're not going to walk out of here
Speaker 1: with demonic powers or.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm not. I'm not going to teach you spells, right,
Speaker 2: We're not going to have the goat sacrifice practicum at
Speaker 2: the end of the class. Yeah, that would be my
Speaker 2: major thing.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you questions from listeners? There's so many
Speaker 1: of course. Yeah, okay, so before we ask questions from patreons,
Speaker 1: and there are so many a quick break to tell
Speaker 1: you about the sponsors of the show, who make it
Speaker 1: possible for us to donate to a charity of the ologists,
Speaker 1: choosing each week, and this week, Alyssa wanted her donation
Speaker 1: to be split between Doctors Without Borders, that facilitates global
Speaker 1: first responders to emergencies, epidemics, and natural disasters and provides
Speaker 1: medical relief in conflict zones, and the other donation went
Speaker 1: to Planned Pairenthood, which is a nonprofit organization that provides
Speaker 1: sexual healthcare in the United States and globally. So links
Speaker 1: to both of those and to these sponsors will be
Speaker 1: in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Okay, well that's get two questions.
Speaker 1: Okay, we can just do this like a lightning round.
Speaker 1: We'll get through as many as we can, all right,
Speaker 1: so many good questions. Mary Roseby says. Pumped for this,
Speaker 1: she says, what famous demon cases do you think are true?
Speaker 2: If any ooh like actual possession. That's that's that split
Speaker 2: brain thing again. Yeah, yeah, I mean I want to
Speaker 2: take people at their word when they say that they're possessed.
Speaker 2: I believe, And then my scientific brain is back here
Speaker 2: going no, no, I don't believe you. So I'm not
Speaker 2: sure about that one. Actually, I don't know how I
Speaker 2: would answer that. I think extorm of Emily Rose is
Speaker 2: supposed to be based on a true story, and I
Speaker 2: would love to sort of dive more into that actual story.
Speaker 2: But then again, based on true story, we never know
Speaker 2: what that means in movies, right exactly? Yea.
Speaker 1: Ps. I was unfamiliar with this tale and the Exorcism
Speaker 1: of Emily Rose was based on the story of Annalise Michelle,
Speaker 1: who was a woman who had epilepsy and psychiatric illnesses
Speaker 1: that just didn't respond to treatment, and so she and
Speaker 1: her family became convinced it was a possession. So she
Speaker 1: endured a year of exorcism rights in the mid nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies and in the process, she stopped eating and she
Speaker 1: died of starvation, and she had shattered kneecaps from kneeling
Speaker 1: so much. There's just nothing not awful about what she
Speaker 1: and her family went through. And her parents and a
Speaker 1: priest were found guilty of negligent homicide because of what
Speaker 1: she went through. And I just want to say big
Speaker 1: thanks to anyone studying how the brain works. That would
Speaker 1: have saved a lot of people a lot of demonic suspicions.
Speaker 1: The more we know about how our brain meets work,
Speaker 1: the better off we all are. So this next question
Speaker 1: was also asked, by the way, by Kathleen Sachs Chris
Speaker 1: Paul's wants to know how many names does Satan Lucifer
Speaker 1: Metastopheles have throughout history.
Speaker 2: So much branding there is, but a lot of it
Speaker 2: is also mistranslation. So yeah, there are a lot of
Speaker 2: different names that come from these various sources. So Lucifer
Speaker 2: back to that idea of light right in the Greco
Speaker 2: Roman pantheon, So there are a lot of different names
Speaker 2: that come out of different authors. Lucifer doesn't get popular,
Speaker 2: I think until like Milton or Dante, one or the other.
Speaker 2: I can never remember.
Speaker 1: Which ps Milton is the poet John Milton who penned
Speaker 1: an epically long poem called Paradise Lost, and it was
Speaker 1: about Adam and Eve and the fallen angel Satan. It
Speaker 1: was published in sixteen sixty seven. Haah, so close, so close,
Speaker 1: you know his publicist must have been so bist, like
Speaker 1: one year earlier. Man, what I mean, good marketing. But yes,
Speaker 1: some folks wrap up all the names for Satan into
Speaker 1: one guy, kind of like how I call my dog
Speaker 1: Gramlin or Grammy Land or Graham's or Grammy or monkey
Speaker 1: Butt or monkey face or meat beast or Pouci or Rumpel, Snuggles,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Satan I feel like, probably loves nicknames. Now.
Speaker 1: Some authors think, though, that there are seven distinct princes
Speaker 1: of Hell, like in the late fifteen hundreds, Peter Binsfield
Speaker 1: thought each prince of Hell represented their own sin. Lucifer
Speaker 1: was pride, Mammon was greed, as Mudeos lust, Leviathan envy,
Speaker 1: Diezo Bub was gluttony, Satan was wrath, and Belle fegor
Speaker 1: good old bell Fegre was sloth. So you have in
Speaker 1: a real lazy day Belle fi Gore made you do
Speaker 1: it now? Who asked about the show Supernatural, Quite a
Speaker 1: few of you have been watching it, including Samantha J. Gunther,
Speaker 1: Lauren Harder, Caitlyn Fitzgerald, and Gianna Ruwick. Okay, a lot
Speaker 1: of people, including Lauren Harder, Samantha Riley mcinness asked about
Speaker 1: the Supernatural show, and Lauren says, I watch more seasons
Speaker 1: of Supernatural than I want to admit, and I'd love
Speaker 1: to know how they did it with all the various
Speaker 1: and sundry demons and monsters from different cultures. So how
Speaker 1: where are they getting all of the demons for Supernatural?
Speaker 2: Okay, I have a confession to make, which is that
Speaker 2: I have not watched Supernatural. I know everybody asks me this.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I never got into it. I
Speaker 2: watched like the first episode and just said, eh, okay,
Speaker 2: I know, I know. I feel really bad about that.
Speaker 2: So I'm sorry to all of the readers who wanted
Speaker 2: to listeners who wanted to know that. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: I stopped with Buffy and then they just me so yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: Some people asked about Buffy.
Speaker 2: Actually, oh that's good, Yay Buffy.
Speaker 1: Laura Durgovich says, everything I know about demons. I learned
Speaker 1: from Buffy Angel which demons in the Wheden verse are
Speaker 1: recognizably drawn from known sources and which ones are totally original.
Speaker 2: Oh. I think he's really good at doing his research. Actually, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: So I would say that most of the demons in
Speaker 2: Buffy the Vampire s Layer have some source historically. I
Speaker 2: mean he gets creative with them, right, He certainly you know,
Speaker 2: turned them into lounge singers and things like that. First
Speaker 2: I was afraid. I was petrified. But I think he's
Speaker 2: done his research. I really do. And I think when
Speaker 2: it comes down to the shows like Buffy and Angel,
Speaker 2: he's done his research. So I would say most of
Speaker 2: them are historical.
Speaker 1: Oh nice, I mean it's I feel like it's in
Speaker 1: some ways, it gives you more cred if they're historical,
Speaker 1: and also you probably have to do less work, so bonus.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Also I had to stop and ask myself, is Joss
Speaker 1: Whedon a demon? I have bad feelings about him? And yes,
Speaker 1: I googled it and in an open letter in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: his former wife laid bare quite a bit of deceit
Speaker 1: and infidelity on his part. So what's his excuse? Was
Speaker 1: he possessed. We're just a successful dude in Hollywood being
Speaker 1: gross thinking it's the latter. Now, speaking of possession, the
Speaker 1: following folks wanted to know more about it, including first
Speaker 1: time question asker Rachel Hartley, Evan Monroe, Lacy net Ducks, Float,
Speaker 1: Ryan and Jasmine. First time question asker Megan Borossa, Jennifer Downey,
Speaker 1: Amanda Lango, Lexi Bonafate, Michael Sherman, Celes Lewis, Alexander Remarkinova,
Speaker 1: Joe Portifido, Emily Deck and Sarah so Erica wants to
Speaker 1: know what the heck is actually going on in reported
Speaker 1: instances of demon possession.
Speaker 2: Okay, scientific brain first, something ugh, something psychologically unresolved. Maybe
Speaker 2: my religious studies brain wants to say, whatever demon or
Speaker 2: God they think is possessing them, I don't want to
Speaker 2: necessarily write it off as being fake, at least from
Speaker 2: the perspective of how that person is interacting with their
Speaker 2: own world. You know, again, the religious studies side of
Speaker 2: me says, whatever that person tells you is going on
Speaker 2: is what is actually going on. You know that we
Speaker 2: have to take them seriously about it. And then yeah,
Speaker 2: scientific bran in the back is saying they're not really possessed, but.
Speaker 1: I don't know, okay. Side note, there are scientific papers
Speaker 1: of plenty describing medical conditions like Tourette syndrome, epilepsy, encephalitis
Speaker 1: or brain inflammation, dissociative identity disorder, schizophrenia, and psychosis that
Speaker 1: would to some look like demonic possession. And a twenty
Speaker 1: fourteen article that ran in Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry titled
Speaker 1: quote a Village Possessed by Witches a mixed method, case
Speaker 1: controlled study of possession and common mental disorders in rural Nepal.
Speaker 1: Researchers in this found that quote possessed women reported higher
Speaker 1: rates of traumatic events and higher levels of symptoms of
Speaker 1: mental disorder compared to non possessed women, so more anxiety, depression,
Speaker 1: and PTSD. So some researchers think that the process of
Speaker 1: letting a spirit or a demon act out through you
Speaker 1: gives an outlet for distress, so a way to express
Speaker 1: the pain of mental illness or socio political violence, or
Speaker 1: past trauma or oppression. So not unlike our sloth being
Speaker 1: blamed on belth the gore, a demon can throw things
Speaker 1: and express anger and pain in a way that the
Speaker 1: possessed aren't usually allowed to in their regular life, So
Speaker 1: of course we're still learning how the brain works and
Speaker 1: who the actual hell knows what the future will unfold
Speaker 1: about like vaping or staring at cell phones. Who knows
Speaker 1: what our brains are going through. Several people asked, what's
Speaker 1: up with pentagrams? That has something to do with demons?
Speaker 2: Right, it does. Pentagram It has a lot of different
Speaker 2: symbolic uses again throughout history, so you can see them
Speaker 2: all over in Greco Roman art, and they're not evil,
Speaker 2: they're not associated with anything Satanic. Well, because you know
Speaker 2: Greco Romans don't believe in the idea of Satan. Greco
Speaker 2: Romans is that that's a group Greeks and Romans didn't
Speaker 2: believe in that sort of concept. You start to see
Speaker 2: it as a kind of reversed symbol. So sort of
Speaker 2: like when you flip a cross upside down, it becomes
Speaker 2: a symbol of evil, right, the same thing sort of
Speaker 2: happens with the idea of the pentagram. It's usually with
Speaker 2: point down if you see it in like films about
Speaker 2: Satanic cults and things like that. Traditionally, the right side
Speaker 2: up pentagram wouldn't have been a negative symbol it's only
Speaker 2: when it's reversed that it becomes satanic. It's usually good luck,
Speaker 2: sort of the right side up one. And modern day
Speaker 2: Wicca obviously uses the pentagram as a symbol as well,
Speaker 2: and certainly not satanic and certainly not evil. So maybe
Speaker 2: that's one of the misconceptions that I should be clearing
Speaker 2: up right now, is that witches don't worship Satan. Wickens
Speaker 2: aren't into that at all. Do you see the same
Speaker 2: thing with the swastika. The swastika in ancient India is
Speaker 2: an extraordinarily positive symbol, good luck symbol, and what you
Speaker 2: see in Nazi Germany is the reversal of that symbol
Speaker 2: into the swastika, and it obviously takes on completely different connotations.
Speaker 1: And do you think that also plays into this psychological
Speaker 1: binary that we used to cope with what is good
Speaker 1: and what is evil? Like, do we need to take
Speaker 1: something and flip it completely on its head, take some
Speaker 1: idea of a loving god and then switch it into
Speaker 1: some guy who lives in the steps of hell that
Speaker 1: wants to boil our balls and stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, yes, yes. And if you have an
Speaker 2: all powerful god, that gets super scary too, because if
Speaker 2: you have an all powerful God, and this is kind
Speaker 2: of a classic theological question. Why are bad things still
Speaker 2: happening to us? So we have to come up with
Speaker 2: some sort of powerful evil to explain that. Otherwise it
Speaker 2: all has to be God. And nobody is really good
Speaker 2: with that, Like, nobody wants to think that God is
Speaker 2: doing all of this bad stuff. So we have to
Speaker 2: come up with some kind of reversal of powers there,
Speaker 2: and then you reverse the symbols.
Speaker 1: Right, It's like God wouldn't let me trip, but obviously
Speaker 1: I've been done by a trickster.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, A lot of people Laura Stacey, Nikki Finger, and
Speaker 1: Nadav Leventov asked about sixty six to six being the
Speaker 1: number of the beast and why I.
Speaker 2: Should know that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, right, No, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I should know that, and I do not know that.
Speaker 1: We'll look it up. Yeah, And let me just think
Speaker 1: of how many properties are undervalued because they have six
Speaker 1: six six in the address? You know, likely as long
Speaker 1: as we're just tossing numbers around, how about Revelation thirteen
Speaker 1: fifteen through eighteen, which reads, here is wisdom. Let him
Speaker 1: that hath understand and count the number of the Beast,
Speaker 1: for it is the number of a man, and his
Speaker 1: number is six hundred three score and six. Other scholars
Speaker 1: are like, hmmm, I think that translation is off. Maybe
Speaker 1: your math is wrong and it is supposed to be
Speaker 1: six one six. Oops, everyone in Grand Rapids, you just
Speaker 1: skirted maybe having the area coat of the beast. But
Speaker 1: no one scared of six one six like they are
Speaker 1: of six six six. No one with six one six
Speaker 1: addresses is scrambling with the county to change their mailbox numbers,
Speaker 1: like one couple in spring Lake Park, Minnesota, who recently
Speaker 1: had to fork over about one hundred dollars in fees
Speaker 1: to change their address, saying they weren't superstitious, but it
Speaker 1: was just hard to get plumbers and electricians out. And
Speaker 1: the perhaps accursed six sixty six Fifth Avenue in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: which was purchased in what ended up being a terrible
Speaker 1: decision by Trump and law Jared Kushner, is about to
Speaker 1: get a makeover that includes new windows and an address change,
Speaker 1: while still remaining neatly wedged at fifty second and fifty
Speaker 1: third between a church and a victorious secret. Oh, perhaps
Speaker 1: that might inspire someone to write a sequel to Rosemary's Baby.
Speaker 1: Joshua Harton wants to know where does this Where does
Speaker 1: the legend that you should sell your soul to a
Speaker 1: demon at a crossroads come from?
Speaker 2: Oh, crossroads again if you sink back into Greco Roman mythology.
Speaker 2: I know, I keep bringing that up.
Speaker 1: No, it has a huge place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely the site of power, crossroads of all kinds,
Speaker 2: the site of power. So I assume again it's one
Speaker 2: of those a fear of particular sites of power and
Speaker 2: not they're not necessarily evil, but it's sort of like
Speaker 2: the liminal space between worlds, almost at the crossroads.
Speaker 1: What you're afraid of you might encounter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's not necessarily evil power. It's power period. Right.
Speaker 2: If people see something like a crossroads or that type
Speaker 2: of space as being just innately power powerful, it could
Speaker 2: end up being something scary. So we're going to develop
Speaker 2: stories out of that being the place in the world
Speaker 2: where to put it. Sort of strangely, the veil is thin,
Speaker 2: so to speak, sort of like on Halloween, right, the
Speaker 2: veil between worlds is thin.
Speaker 1: And do you feel like in your work Halloween is
Speaker 1: kind of a busier time for you because we're all
Speaker 1: in that spirit if you will.
Speaker 2: Oh. Yeah, it's always fun, especially in the religion classes
Speaker 2: when Halloween rolls around, and I always want to dress
Speaker 2: up and go into class and I never do so
Speaker 2: I really should. It's definitely a fun time of the year.
Speaker 2: It's probably my favorite holiday. Still.
Speaker 1: Do you give extra credit for people who dress as
Speaker 1: historical demons?
Speaker 2: I should. I want to tell my students that you suggested.
Speaker 1: That if you had to dress as a demon in history,
Speaker 1: did you go?
Speaker 2: And then I dress us? Uh, the only the only
Speaker 2: one I've ever dressed as, and it's not really demonic.
Speaker 2: I did the classic devil with the blue dress one Halloween.
Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a really easy costume though. I was
Speaker 2: just being super lazy.
Speaker 1: So many people asked about demons across various cultures, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to say your name's with my mouth so fast.
Speaker 1: Matt and Crane, Dalton, Becky Woodruff, Hadley, Sarah Jeane Horwitz,
Speaker 1: Rosie Crockett, Casey Flint, Hennah and Tay Allen, Andy Schuster,
Speaker 1: Anna Thompson, Julia Sculligan, Liz Johansson, jeffre Kat, Sidney Brown,
Speaker 1: Donald McLeod rot, Lanny Bauer, Leonna Schuster, Megan Jessica Tuba Sing,
Speaker 1: Jesse Cole, Meghan Emmanuel Shanchez, Maya Ramon, Josie Gombas, David M. Williams,
Speaker 1: Clark Bennett, Maria Delcatto, Gomaz, Shay good Ard, Kathleen Sachs,
Speaker 1: Katie Nole, Enrique Sarmiento, Ryan Clark, Leon Schuster, Katherine Finney,
Speaker 1: Alex Ellison, Marissa Nole, Who and Canon Perdy who asked
Speaker 1: what are some differences between demons across cultures? As in
Speaker 1: Japanese demons and devils versus Christian demons versus pagan Right,
Speaker 1: So how do we see those across a lot of
Speaker 1: different cultures?
Speaker 2: Some of them are positive, And I think that's the
Speaker 2: main distinction, that some of them are really positive creatures,
Speaker 2: even though they might still get called demons. We have
Speaker 2: such a negative association with that word in the English language,
Speaker 2: much like we do with the term possession. But in
Speaker 2: other cultures, again, their spirit beings, and they can be scary.
Speaker 2: I mean, they can be scary as all hell, but
Speaker 2: they're only scary towards evil people. So they're much more
Speaker 2: protective than they are attacking good people. So I think
Speaker 2: that's the major distinction still across cultures is that demons
Speaker 2: aren't always bad. Like Thailand you get and in Japan
Speaker 2: you get these protective figures that we would really perceive
Speaker 2: as being demons because of how they look, and they
Speaker 2: almost would look like our classic idea of what a
Speaker 2: demonic presence would be, but they are protective.
Speaker 1: So it's like a cool goat bitch having your back. Also,
Speaker 1: a few of you had sleep paralysis questions, and we
Speaker 1: do talk about this in a Smnology episode with doctor
Speaker 1: Chris Winter, but for this one, E Kristin Anderson, Bruce r. Cordell,
Speaker 1: Rachel Weiss, Katie Nole, and Skull again all asked asked
Speaker 1: about sleep paralysis and about how that was considered to
Speaker 1: be a demon sitting on your chest. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: we know a little bit better now. Are there other
Speaker 1: ways in which demons have been implicated in ancient or
Speaker 1: medieval medicine?
Speaker 2: Folks want to know, Yes, So crib death for sure. Again,
Speaker 2: going back to babies, it was often if you had
Speaker 2: somebody dying unexpectedly, and particularly if children died unexpectedly, that
Speaker 2: would get attributed to demons in some cases what we
Speaker 2: would think of today as sexually transmitted diseases. You could
Speaker 2: link those to demons as well. Infertility for sure, and
Speaker 2: male impotency. Yeah, always blame male impotency on demons. Right,
Speaker 2: It's not my fault. It's that demon over there that
Speaker 2: did it to me.
Speaker 1: The old demon makes alcoholic dick trickery. I e. Probably
Speaker 1: just drank too much meat.
Speaker 2: So yeah, a lot of medical stuff got sort of
Speaker 2: put on the shoulders of demons so that people didn't
Speaker 2: have to deal with it themselves. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have to say, viagra does sound like a Greek goddess.
Speaker 2: Does, doesn't it. Yeah, you wonder why the inquisitors were
Speaker 2: so interested in writing about this stuff too. I guess
Speaker 2: we don't have to wonder that much, but yeah, they
Speaker 2: were very concerned with sexuality.
Speaker 1: So well, I understand that that Fifty Shades of Grace
Speaker 1: started out as Twilight. I know it's all related. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's see. Jillian's mom sixteen asked is there a certain
Speaker 1: kind of person or emotional state that demons prey on?
Speaker 2: If demons are real, then I would feel like they
Speaker 2: would pray on Oh my gosh, I guess people who
Speaker 2: are having a really difficult time in their lives that
Speaker 2: would make sense. I would think that would open them
Speaker 2: up to some kind of demonic presence. If people are
Speaker 2: looking for some kind of power in their.
Speaker 1: Lives, maybe something like depression is almost a thinning of
Speaker 1: the veil keen darkness and light. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe demons are like, he's bummed out, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go fuck with him exactly. Yes, interesting, what an asshole.
Speaker 1: A few people, including Raymond J. Deutsche, asked where did
Speaker 1: God Bless You actually originate? What is the flim flam
Speaker 1: about the devil and sneezing?
Speaker 2: It would be there was a fear in a lot
Speaker 2: of cltures that sneezing sort of opened yours, allowed your
Speaker 2: soul to get out of your body, so that all
Speaker 2: of the different sort of God Bless You and kazoom
Speaker 2: Tite and all of that sort of thing was supposed
Speaker 2: to be almost a countermeasure to.
Speaker 1: That protection, like keep it in there exactly. It's not
Speaker 1: off of minute. A few people had questions about famous
Speaker 1: demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, including one Pager Martinez and
Speaker 1: Aaron Elizabeth Becker wants to know how you feel about
Speaker 1: Ed and Lorraine Warren, who were kind of famed demonologists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. It's sort of like watching ancient aliens, right,
Speaker 2: It's fun for a while, But I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't really have much of an opinion on professional demonologists.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I want to study them, I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, I mean you study the people who study demons,
Speaker 1: which makes sense exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Greg Wallach has a great question our personal demons the
Speaker 1: scariest of all.
Speaker 2: Of course, right, Yeah, And I think it has a
Speaker 2: lot to do with how we depict these sorts of
Speaker 2: things cross culturally. It really does come down to we're
Speaker 2: trying to make our fears things that we can deal
Speaker 2: with a lot of the time, and even putting that
Speaker 2: into a super scary form, you know, with horns and big,
Speaker 2: rest red, musty bodies and all of that, it allows
Speaker 2: us to sort of confront it in a way that
Speaker 2: we can't when we just keep it internal. So it's
Speaker 2: like demons therapy maybe, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. Yeah. Danielle Vaughn says, I've read that
Speaker 1: the Vatican has an exorcism division and that the legit
Speaker 1: have trouble with people willing to do this job. Is
Speaker 1: that a real thing?
Speaker 2: I believe it came back in about a decade ago. Yes,
Speaker 2: so for a while I think the church had sort
Speaker 2: of debunked the whole idea of exorcism and possession. But
Speaker 2: I think it's actually there is now a division, but
Speaker 2: it's relatively recent that it's come back into vogue, so
Speaker 2: to speak.
Speaker 1: I guess now that the Pope is on Twitter, you
Speaker 1: could always just ask him about it. Jessica Lee wants
Speaker 1: to know what is the worst demon horror movie you
Speaker 1: have ever seen?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I was just thinking of this the other day.
Speaker 2: The Prince of Darkness. Okay, it's really old, well, not
Speaker 2: really old. It's like the eighties, late eighties horror movie.
Speaker 2: It's wonderful and horrible at the same time. It's all
Speaker 2: around this concept of a corrupt priesthood surprise surprise calling
Speaker 2: the Brotherhood of Sleep, and they're they're keeping Satan in
Speaker 2: this sort of tupperware jar kind of thing anyway, and
Speaker 2: it obviously finally breaks free.
Speaker 1: I look this up and it's a lot of gooey
Speaker 1: special effects makeup and people vomiting garden hoses of water
Speaker 1: on each other. Oh oh.
Speaker 2: In the cameos, famously, Alice Cooper has a role in it.
Speaker 2: Oh God, wonderful. So yeah, Prince of Darkness. If you
Speaker 2: haven't seen that one, watch that one.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: A few people had questions about D and D. This
Speaker 1: dungeony dragony question was also asked by Baron and Dion Damlo.
Speaker 1: James Hales wants to know how accurate are the D
Speaker 1: and D Monster Manuals in regard to demons.
Speaker 2: I still have one sitting behind me right now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I do. They're great, No, they really are. There's another
Speaker 2: sort of people who did their research really well. A
Speaker 2: lot of them are based on either demigods or all
Speaker 2: sorts of things from other mythologies. So Monster Manual is
Speaker 2: a good way to go, especially if you are trying
Speaker 2: to write a story or write a film. And I
Speaker 2: love I mean, just the different powers that they all get.
Speaker 2: It's so great. The minds that created those things are wonderful.
Speaker 1: On the topic of books, Mandy Smith has a question,
Speaker 1: are there any good books where I can learn about
Speaker 1: different demon, witchy, etc. Symbols? Mandy says, I've been watching
Speaker 1: a lot of supernatural just don't really want to learn
Speaker 1: about them. But other than taking your course, I mean,
Speaker 1: people could always just go to school.
Speaker 2: Yes, there are a lot. I mean it depends on
Speaker 2: the period that you're interested in. Obviously, I love the
Speaker 2: medieval period for this stuff. There is a fantastic book
Speaker 2: if you're really interested in how it went down. It's
Speaker 2: is sort of like, you know how you have like
Speaker 2: academic crushes sometimes on particular authors. All of this started
Speaker 2: when I read one particular book called Demon Lovers, a
Speaker 2: guy named Walter Stevens. It's just a brilliant book and
Speaker 2: it's really detailed, and his research is fantastic, but he
Speaker 2: writes so well, so that would be one of my suggestions.
Speaker 2: It's not like overly academic. I mean, it's very academic,
Speaker 2: but it's so well written that you don't really notice it.
Speaker 2: So Demon Lovers excellent.
Speaker 1: Vince Alasha and a few others wanted to know what
Speaker 1: your opinion is on ghost and demon hunting reality shows.
Speaker 1: I love Can You Trust Them?
Speaker 2: I love them? Yeah, I love watching them, and my
Speaker 2: husband mocks me for it because again I don't believe
Speaker 2: in ghosts. But then I sit there watching ghost Hunters, right,
Speaker 2: makes no sense. I've never seen them show anything that
Speaker 2: proves it to me. I, for some reason, obviously still
Speaker 2: enjoy the shows.
Speaker 1: I mean it's because they structure it to where you
Speaker 1: have to watch after the commercial break. That's how they
Speaker 1: get you you of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's going on.
Speaker 1: What is your least favorite thing about studying demonology? What sucks?
Speaker 1: Is it? Grading papers? Is it? Is it a manuscript?
Speaker 1: Mike graffiche what's something that just sucks about the field
Speaker 1: or about demons?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, nobody likes grading papers. I've never met a
Speaker 2: professor who enjoys grading papers, that's for sure. I think
Speaker 2: probably some of the miss understandings, Like I said, about
Speaker 2: the field, that's a problem. I've had students end up
Speaker 2: on prayer circles because they were taking my classes. I've
Speaker 2: had students get threatening emails because they were taking my classes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so there's a lot of misunderstanding out there about that.
Speaker 2: So probably one grading papers too. You are never going
Speaker 2: to make money being in religious studies ever, But the
Speaker 2: misunderstandings probably the big thing.
Speaker 1: And what is your favorite thing about your study of demons?
Speaker 1: What do you love the most?
Speaker 2: It's how it can tie into so much other stuff.
Speaker 2: So I love traveling, Like I have a real problem
Speaker 2: with travel. I want to constantly be traveling and this
Speaker 2: ties into it perfectly because, like I said, you look
Speaker 2: at the Taie demons and they're so completely different from
Speaker 2: the Japanese stuff, from the ancient Greco Roman things. So
Speaker 2: every culture you go into you can find something about this.
Speaker 2: And so that's really what's fun for me is that
Speaker 2: I can tie all of this together and have a
Speaker 2: good time doing it.
Speaker 1: When you're traveling, do you ever have to worry about
Speaker 1: demons trying to hide your passport even diarrhea?
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm such a freak about my passport. I always
Speaker 2: know exactly where it is, and it's usually in my
Speaker 2: purse just in case I need to sort of make
Speaker 2: a break for it. Yeah, constant joke that every time
Speaker 2: we drive past an airport, I'm sort of nudging my
Speaker 2: husband like let's just go, we don't have to go
Speaker 2: to Thanksgiving dinner, let's just go do something else.
Speaker 1: So I love it you just like you're ready to
Speaker 1: jam in it totally.
Speaker 2: Yes. In fact, I usually keep a little backpack of
Speaker 2: a change of clothes and stuff in the car just
Speaker 2: in case I get to take off somewhere.
Speaker 1: The travel demon.
Speaker 2: I know that's it has it has.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for doing this I'm less afraid
Speaker 1: of demons. Actually, not that I was really scared, but
Speaker 1: now I just feel like they're just they just want
Speaker 1: to watch me trip and fall, and they do also
Speaker 1: in my own head.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and you can just you know, go get
Speaker 2: a little statue of one of the cute Thai rainbow
Speaker 2: demons and keep that and it'll protect you.
Speaker 1: I love them. Yeah, thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 1: Have a safe Halloween.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Elie, you too.
Speaker 1: This has been awesome. So ask smart scholars stupid spooky
Speaker 1: questions because they are just treasure troves of lore. Now.
Speaker 1: There are tons of links in the show notes and
Speaker 1: up at aliward dot com, slash ologies, slash Demonology, and
Speaker 1: to follow doctor Elisabeel. She's at Alysa dot beale on Instagram.
Speaker 1: We are Ologies on Twitter and Instagram. I'm Ali Ward
Speaker 1: with one L on both, so do follow along there.
Speaker 1: Ologies Merch is available at ologiesmerch dot com. Thank you
Speaker 1: Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch of the podcast You are
Speaker 1: That for managing that, and thank you Eron Talbert and
Speaker 1: Hannah Lippo for admitting the Facebook Ologies podcast group. Thank
Speaker 1: you to Emily White and all of the Ologies transcribers
Speaker 1: who are making transcripts available. You can go to aliward
Speaker 1: dot com slash ologies, dash extras for those I'll pop
Speaker 1: that link in the show notes, and you can join
Speaker 1: that Facebook group of transcribers if you want to help
Speaker 1: make transcripts available. You can also search the transcripts on
Speaker 1: the site if you're looking for particular passages you want
Speaker 1: to remember. Thank you also to devilishly handsome assistant editor
Speaker 1: Jared Sleeper for helping me with some spooky research and
Speaker 1: driving like fifteen of the sixteen hours on this weekend's
Speaker 1: road trip to see my family. You're the best. Thank
Speaker 1: you to the always wonderful Stephen Ray Morris for pulling
Speaker 1: all the pieces together each week, and to Nick Thorburn
Speaker 1: who wrote and performed the theme music. And if you
Speaker 1: listen all the way to the end, you know I
Speaker 1: tell you a secret each week, and this week is
Speaker 1: that I've never seen The Omen or The Exorcist, and
Speaker 1: they were both so terrifying, But honestly, it's the barfing
Speaker 1: in the Exorcist that I'm like most afraid of that
Speaker 1: seems like it would just really stick with you, man.
Speaker 1: I feel like I saw just a millisecond of a clip,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well that's enough. That's enough of that. Also,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna be very honest, I'm hella happy to
Speaker 1: be finishing this episode because after working on it late
Speaker 1: last night, getting asked deep and demon trivia, I had
Speaker 1: nothing but a horror show of LA traffic. Getting to
Speaker 1: the airport this morning at like five in the morning,
Speaker 1: there was tons of traffic. My lift driver got lost.
Speaker 1: I had to run through TSA my shoes alarmed. I
Speaker 1: had to throw my shoe on the belt. It fell
Speaker 1: behind the x Roym machine and all the TSA people
Speaker 1: were like, sucks to be you man. So then I
Speaker 1: had to run through LAX with no shoes. I just
Speaker 1: ditched that shoe like a very haggard, bleary eyed, sad Cinderella.
Speaker 1: I just left a shoe. I didn't have any other
Speaker 1: shoes in my luggage, so then I just ran in
Speaker 1: socks all the way through the American terminal. I finally
Speaker 1: got to my gate and they're like, we can't let
Speaker 1: you on a plane without shoes, you freak. And I
Speaker 1: was like, whatever, I'll buy shoes and I get to Boston.
Speaker 1: So then my producer luckily had tossed an extra pair
Speaker 1: of shoes in her bag. I put on her shoes.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Stephanie, thank you Carly. You're both the best.
Speaker 1: I made it on the flight, but I'm still hoarse
Speaker 1: from panting, and I'm just saying I'm over this demon shit.
Speaker 1: You guys. I'm sorry, demons. I hope we're all good now.
Speaker 1: I'm going to burn a cinnamon stick or something. And
Speaker 1: I really just hope that George Clooney doesn't try to
Speaker 1: pull any shit on me either, for that mat or two. Okay, buddy,
Speaker 1: all right. Pacaderman College Mambiology or doo Zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, bonology, anthology, zereology, elinology.
Speaker 1: Demons demons, Demons drink them mountain dew.