In the 1980s and 90s, Satan and his followers were accused of brainwashing children, sacrificing babies, and infiltrating North American society on a massive scale — yet these thousands of alleged Satanists were nowhere to be found. Even so, the narrative became embedded in our cultural memory, warping everything it touched — including the lives of innocent people.. And it never quite died out.In a new 8-part series, Sarah Marshall (You’re Wrong About) explores the tangled web of the Satanic Panic, in a journey that will take you everywhere from Victoria, B.C. to rural Kentucky to San Antonio, Texas. This i...
Latest episodes
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37 min
The Devil You Know Introduces | The Expert Witness
It’s here. AI has arrived in the criminal justice system and it’s in the role of witness. The Expert Witness, hosted by Sam Mullins asks: what happens when AI enters the courtroom?…
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39 min
Introducing: The Cult Queen of Canada from Uncover
In The Cult Queen of Canada from CBC’s Uncover, a tiny Saskatchewan town faces a surreal crisis when a cult leader calling herself “The Queen of Canada” occupies an abandoned schoo…
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1 h 15
Introducing | Robert Pickton: The Final Chapter, from Canadian True Crime
Today we bring you the first episode of the new miniseries - Robert Pickton: The Final Chapter, from Canadian True Crime.Everyone knows about the Canadian pig farmer who confessed…
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42 min
One more helping, for good measure: Satan (Taylor’s Version)
In this bonus episode, Sarah talks to Yvonne Eadon, a professor at the University of Kentucky who specializes in conspiracy theory and online misinformation, about GAYLOR — the onl…
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23 min
Yet another helping from Satan: The Devil’s storytellers
In this bonus episode, Sarah talks to Professor Bill Ellis who specializes in folklore and urban legends, and they chat about the innate human behaviours that lead us to create pan…
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38 min
A second helping from Satan: Elizabeth Knapp’s Possession
We travel back in time to 1670s Massachusetts to review the famous case of the so-called Satanic possession of 16-year-old Elizabeth Knapp — which took place twenty years before th…
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58 min
Episode 8: Where Are We Now?
Now that we know where we’ve been, where are we going? As the Satanic Panic receded from view, we almost forgot it had happened at all – until it came back. How do today’s moral pa…
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37 min
A second helping from Satan: Satanic Injustice
How did the U.S. legal system allow the Satanic Panic to proliferate as rapidly as it did? In this bonus episode, Sarah chats with journalist Josie Duffy Rice (Justice In America,…
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52 min
Episode 7: Four Lesbians and a Baby
Though it sounded like a wholesome sitcom premise — four lesbian housemates raise a baby in San Antonio — reality proved anything but. Instead, Liz, Anna, Cassie, and Kristy found…
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33 min
A second helping from Satan: SATANISM 101
Dr. Justin Sledge (who you heard from in Episode 6) is a professor of philosophy and religion. in this bonus episode, we learn how his own experience as a teenager implicated in an…
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47 min
Episode 6: I’m Just a Teenage Cultist, Baby
How does a victim of a school shooting become accused of masterminding the whole thing in the name of Satan? When Justin Sledge was 17, a friend of his opened fire at their high sc…
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53 min
Episode 5: The Devil in Delaney
As women increasingly spoke out about the abuse they suffered under the patriarchy, many still struggled to be heard. And the new field of recovered memory therapy became a vehicle…
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37 min
A second helping from Satan: Arab Spring, Satanic Summer
In this bonus episode, we look at some impacts of satanic hysteria outside of North America. We hear from Cherine Amr, the founder of the Egyptian metal band Massive Scar Era, who…
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48 min
Episode 4: Bad Times, Good TV
How did the Satanic Panic take hold? Whitney Phillips, a professor of journalism at the University of Oregon, guides us through the labyrinth of media and motifs that laid the grou…
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45 min
Episode 3: Moral (Panic) Entrepreneurship
Mary de Young had always been interested in deviants and deviance. As a social-psychologist, she studied “behavior that broke the rules,” and whether the worst parts of a person’s…
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47 min
A second helping from Satan: A closer look at Michelle Remembers
Canadian director Sean Horlor’s film, Satan Wants You (2023), is a deep dive into the book "Michelle Remembers.” In this bonus episode, he talks to Sarah about the process of makin…
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44 min
Episode 2: Marylyn Remembers
Michelle Remembers is the 1980 “biographical” book that brought the idea of Satanic cults into the mainstream. In it, Michelle Smith documents years of alleged Satanic ritual abuse…
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39 min
Episode 1: Did Swayze Start the Fire?
In 1988, a young arts educator drove into a small town in Kentucky with a camera and a directive to teach photography to school kids. But she never got a chance. Instead, a full bl…
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3 min
Introducing The Devil You Know with Sarah Marshall
In this new 8-part series, host Sarah Marshall (You’re Wrong About) takes a closer look at the people who experienced the Satanic Panic in real-time—the believers, the skeptics, th…