You are now listening to Cryptid Cocktail Party.
to Cryptid Cocktail Party, a show where we share
a few drinks, have a few laughs, and take a dive
into the unknown. My name is Sarge. Dave is not
here. He is currently packing up many shirts
to be mailed out to our wonderful listeners who
decided to donate to a community organization
that helps folks defend themselves against ice.
Not the frozen water kind, the terrible... nazi
police kind anyway uh joining me today is gonna
be amanda hi long time helper of the show amanda
how are you i'm doing good how are you doing
i'm great i cut you off you said hi and i just
i steamrolled right through like a dickhead so
i apologize oh that's okay i i was really just
saying hi so we got the message immediately So,
I'm very excited about this episode. When I was
talking to Dave about it, I said that I had basically
been researching this since I was 16 years old,
and that is correct, because today we're going
to be talking about a specific little part of
the Satanic Panic. Are you familiar with the
Satanic Panic? I am familiar, because I'm your
friend, so I have heard of it. Yeah, and I have
a problem with obsessions about things that I
can't stop talking about them. So I'm sure that
I have forced you to listen many times to The
Satanic Panic. It's always been very interesting.
I always learn something new. So I'm excited
to hear what's new today. Okay, good. Well, for
those of you who don't know, The Satanic Panic
was a period of time between the 1980s and 1990s
where... Morons pretended to be experts in satanic
cults, and other morons, who were also Shilodons,
became experts in recovering repressed memories.
And that is a widely discredited psychiatric
tool. that is no longer used by anyone because
of how completely unreliable it is. There's a
bunch of different ways that this kind of therapy
works. But basically, every single avenue that
they use winds up implanting false memories in
people. And unfortunately, those false memories
then went on to trigger people to come up with
outlandishly crazy sexual abuse that they...
believed happened to them because they were told
that these are repressed memories. So you essentially
had someone kind of yes -ending you through a
horrible, horrible series of made -up events
and then telling you that you needed to continue
to pay for therapy to fix it. Meanwhile, also
going to the authorities and having innocent
people thrown in jail for things that couldn't
have possibly happened at any point. Now, I want
to be clear. The satanic ritual abuse that I'm
talking about is entirely different from actual
essay that people go through. That's like a real
thing. Nobody's denying the realness of that.
But satanic ritual abuse has been widely debunked.
So today, we're going to talk about probably,
if not the cause of the satanic panic, a large...
part of what caused the satanic panic. Amanda,
have you ever heard of the book Michelle Remembers?
No. It's awful, so you're lucky. It's no longer
in print, nearly impossible to find. You have
to get it on eBay for like 50 bucks. Have you
read it? I have not read it because I don't know
that I want to pay for a book I know is bad and
not true. Okay. Valid? Go ahead. Oh, I'm just
saying valid. That's very valid. Yeah, I've read
excerpts from it. And they are terrible. And
I'll probably bring up some quotes a little bit
later on. But the purpose of this episode is
to first talk about Michelle Remembers and then
talk about why it might not actually be true.
So let's get into it. But first we need to talk
about some people that are a part of the book.
So there's a woman named Michelle... uh smith
her original name was michelle prote uh probie
excuse me um but then she met a man named doug
smith and they got married and um sadly michelle
had a miscarriage after her miscarriage she had
this horrible dream where um she had a an itchy
spot on her hand and when she scratched it Blood
and spiders came out. Ooh, like a repressed memory
somewhere. In her mind, yes. That's what she
thought it was. And so she reached out to Dr.
Pazder. And man, oh man, did he jump at the chance
to force her back into therapy with him. Dr.
Pazder has a degree in tropical medicine, which
is interesting. And he spent a good amount of
time. I want to say it was like two years. in
Nigeria learning about different cults and rituals
and things and secret societies that men belong
to in Nigeria before he came back to the United
States to practice psychiatry. Because as some
people may or may not know, a psychiatrist actually
does have to have a medical degree along with
their psychology degree, whereas a psychologist
just needs a psychology degree because psychiatrists
also prescribe medicine. Okay, so Lawrence Pazder
jumped at the chance to meet with Michelle. And
through 14 months of intensive psychotherapy
that amounted to, I think they said about 600
total hours of recordings anyway, using... what's
kind of alluded to as hypnosis but it's never
actually fully called out in the book what do
they call it it's so um let me see if i can find
the quote he describes it as um basically he
describes it as like letting michelle go into
her depths whatever the fuck that's supposed
to mean um but i i'm inclined to believe that
it's some kind of hypnosis um because it seems
like it kind of seems like that's exactly what
happened because when when um she goes into her
depths which to me and i'm i'm really trying
to be a mature adult here but going into your
depths just sounds like self -pleasure well i'm
i I have to agree with you, and I hate that I
have to agree with you. I think we should move
on. Okay. Anyway. So Michelle and Dr. Pazder
are spending a lot of time with each other, and
all of these repressed memories are coming out,
but they're being told by the five -year -old
version of Michelle. Okay. So it's a lot. there's
a lot of things that come out. I'll just, I'll
go down, I'll give you a brief list of things
that happened. As a child, Michelle suffered
abuse at the hands of Satanists. Apparently,
Michelle's mother, whose name is Virginia, Virginia
takes Michelle to a bunch of orgies where terrible
things sexually are supposedly happening to Michelle.
And her mother, on the other hand, is also participating
in the orgy, and I guess it's probably less terrible
for her because it's consensual. At one point,
Michelle spots a woman underneath her mother's
dress, pleasuring her, and Michelle takes a bottle
and hits the woman in the head with it. Now,
apparently... Satanists are like chimps. So when
one person commits an act of violence, all the
others jump in to do violence as well. They wind
up beating this woman to death. Okay. And then
taking her dead body and putting Michelle and
the dead body in the car and try to stage a car
accident. But Michelle survives. She makes it
through. They're going to kill her for witnessing
a murder? They don't really make that clear why
they would do that. That's because five -year
-old Michelle is just remembering that this happened,
you see. The name of the book. Right. So Dr.
Pazder kind of surmises that because Michelle
has experienced this really traumatic event,
this orgy, if you will, that her mind has locked
down. all these memories and so he is going to
need to do intensive therapy to pull all these
memories out so uh here's a few other things
that have happened uh at one point michelle is
buried alive with a lot of white kittens like
a lot more white kittens than you would think
i wouldn't at one point a whole room of people
each one of them with a white kitten dismembers
their white kittens their their personal pan
pizza kittens with their teeth With their teeth?
Multiple babies. Yeah, with their teeth. Just
chewing them out. Heavens to Betsy. I think that's
brave because cats are pretty strong. Even kittens
are sharp, you know? Yeah. At one point, she's
taken to Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria. Oh, by
the way, all of this takes place in Canada, in
Alberta. Of course. So at one point, Michelle
lives in this quiet little town. She's taken
to a cemetery and buried alive in an old grave.
What else? Did the kittens dig her out? Dead
babies. So many dead babies. At one point, a
baby is cut up, and Michelle is required to put
the baby back together like a jigsaw puzzle.
Another time, she befriends a child. They introduce
a child for her to be friends with. And then
after they do that, they kill the child right
in front of her. Another time a dead baby is
burned up and the ashes put in her face. She's
also put inside of kind of an Iron Maiden -like
statue. It's a statue of Baphomet. Okay. And
she is put inside of the statue of Baphomet.
And then she's just got to stay in there for
a little while. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah.
There's also an 81 -day ritual that they never
fully explain, but part of this ritual is for
a surgeon to sew devil horns in a tail on Michelle.
The tail is fused to her spine, so it becomes
a working tail. I'm going to say something real
quick, which is, while I don't, none of this
sounds even remotely, plausible or believable
but that part is the most unbelievable to me
because what little five -year -old girl knows
that there's an 87 day ritual 81 day 81 day ritual
like she's keeping track uh so if you find that
unbelievable just wait because it gets so much
dumber in the end of this ritual uh satan appears
Oh, cool. Yeah. And a fun fact about Satan that
I didn't know until I heard about this and Michelle
remembers, he can only fucking rhyme. And it's
the stupidest rhymes ever. I knew he'd be annoying.
I've got a pull quote from one of my sources.
It's called The Nocturnal Revelries. It's kind
of a very harsh review of the book. But she has
a great quote here. This is just one of Satan's
wonderful Shakespearean lines, really. My name
is Satan. My kingdom is hell. I will hurt your
arm, oh little Michelle. Swear allegiance to
me and poop on this book. What? Or if you say
no, your ass I shall F -U -C -K. I don't want
to say it because it's like a kid that's gross.
My name is Satan, and I'm here to say we're following
this book in a ritual way. Now, what they do,
according to Michelle, is they put a bunch of
water up her butt in a sort of, what's the word,
enema? Mm -hmm. And then, much like when you
put a Mentos in a Diet Coke bottle. She just
shits all over this Bible. Well, he told her
to. Right. He did. He did say that that needed
to happen. Seems a little weird, though. Like
what? Like that's what you wanted? You think
that seems a little weird? I think everything
you've told me is the worst thing I've ever heard.
And I cannot believe you've invited me here to
hear these things. Thank you. It gets actually
somehow more fucking stupid. Okay. Let's hear
it. This is the pièce de résistance, the end
of the book, and man, oh, man. So the Virgin
Mary appears, speaking entirely in French, a
language that surprisingly Michelle does not
know. Okay. And tells her that she is going to
heal all of her wounds. She showed up a little
late. At this point, she has been subjected to
81 days of trauma that God apparently knew about.
And was just like, let's let it play out. See
what happens. Mary's like, I'm sorry I was making
croissants. Sorry for being late. We can't jump
in until Satan spits out a few more bars. So
the Virgin Mary comes, defeats Satan. The Archangel
Michael apparently gets involved, and I think
he's the one who defeats Satan. And then the
Virgin Mary appears, speaking French, and basically
heals all of the many scars and wounds that this
child would have endured over the course of the
81 -day torture. And, of course, the two years
worth of torture that she suffered. Okay. That
was so chill. And then told Michelle, you're
going to forget all about this. And the memories
will come back to you when the time is right.
And conveniently, the time was right starting
in 1976. How old was she when she, you might
have said? She was substantially younger than
Dr. Pazder. I don't know if it says when she
was born, though. I wonder if she was young enough
to be impressionable still. But what gets me
is, how did she have all that in her head? So,
here's the thing. Many sources have come out
to debunk this smoldering piece of shit book.
For instance, what isn't covered in the book
is that Michelle's mother is still alive, as
is her father, at the time that the book was
published, as were her two sisters. And when
asked about this, all of them were like, no,
no, none of this happened at all. And I know
what you might be thinking. Well, her family,
they're all involved in the satanic ritual abuse
situation. So, of course, they would throw cover
for the mom. But there's independent corroboration
as well because the car accident. Here's a great
example. You know the car accident that happened?
Yeah. So this is a small town in Alberta. And
the newspaper at the time reported every single
car accident that happened. And there's no mention
of it in the newspaper. Now, the reason you might
be saying, well, okay, maybe the newspaper was
in on it, too. What we have to remember is that
this accident was staged to hide the dead body.
So you would want that in the paper, right? You
would want people to see, oh, this lady wasn't
beaten to death with a bottle while going down
on Michelle's mom. She was in a car accident.
So there'd be no reason for the newspaper not
to report the story, yet there's no report of
an accident on that road at that time. Also,
no one that knew Michelle from back then reported
her having any injuries on her body at all. And
there was, you know, everybody, it's a small
town. Everybody knows each other. So they would
have known that Michelle had these injuries.
Were there any missing kittens from the town?
Not only were there no missing kittens, but white
kittens are incredibly hard to find. Because
you can't find them in the snow. It's snowing.
In Canada, famous for its snow. The most well
-hidden white kittens on earth. It's all coming
together. Also, no babies were reported missing.
That's what I should ask. One of the interesting
things, I've watched a couple of documentaries
to get up to speed, bring myself back. One of
my favorites, by the way, I recommend it to everyone.
It's called Satan Wants You. I'll include a link
to the IMDb page in the show notes. It's such
a good movie. There's a woman named Sarah Marshall
who I have a lot of respect for. She's a podcaster.
She started doing a podcast called You're Wrong
About, and I think she did like a five -part
series on Michelle Remembers and how bad it is.
She's one of the sources, but they also have
one of Michelle's sisters involved, one of Michelle's
best friends, and Dr. Pazder's ex -wife and his
children. We'll get to it. Here's a couple of
other things that well, here's like the big thing
for me that tells me this is all bullshit. Besides
the fact that, like, why would Satan only be
able to rhyme or why would the Virgin Mary give
a shit about some five year old kid in Alberta,
Canada? We talked about Michelle's wounds all
being healed. But I also said, you know, nobody
in the town happened to notice that she had these
wounds. And you might be thinking, well, yeah,
but she was part of an 81 day ritual. So she
was probably locked in a cage somewhere. Weirdly
enough. Her school records, no long -term attendance
issues. So just debunked all the way around.
All the way around, yeah. And another reason
you might be suspicious is that her mother, father,
and her sisters had no idea this book was coming
out. So when they tell her, hey, this didn't
happen, and here's the myriad reasons why it
didn't happen. Does she go, oh, okay, well, I
guess maybe it didn't happen? Or does she still
think it did? So she still stood by it, still
fully believed it. And when Dr. Pazder was pressed
on it, he was like, well, she believed it happened.
It's not my job to determine whether it's real
or not. And it's like, motherfucker, you're the
psychiatrist. It is 100 % your job. It's my job
to profit off of it. Right. That's all. Right.
Did he do this with anyone else? No, he did not.
It seems like there might have been something
a little crazy going on here. And I'm just going
to bring this up. There was a movie in 1976.
It was a television movie called Sybil. Okay.
It was like one of Sally Field's first movies.
Yeah. I didn't see it, but I've heard of it.
And I believe it's about a woman who suffered
a ton of abuse when she was younger. And I think
I think it was like one of the first like really
widely reported cases of or I shouldn't say that.
It was one of the first popularized cases of
multiple personality disorder. Later changed
to disassociative identity disorder. OK. Sybil's
psychiatrist or. or psychologist, I can't remember
which, wrote the book, became wildly famous.
And Marilyn, who is Dr. Pazder's wife at the
time, said, he watched that and said, I want
to do this. I don't just want to be a psychiatrist.
Shortly thereafter, Michelle contacts him about
her dream. And I swear to God, this dude saw
fucking dollar signs. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Thousand
percent. Now, Marilyn insists that Dr. Pazder
believed Michelle. But I'm inclined to believe
that Dr. Pazder is probably not the most truthful
guy in the world because he was also fucking
Michelle. Uh -oh. Yeah. Dr. Pazder and Michelle
both divorced their spouses around the same time
and then got married. They got married. Yes,
they married each other. And interestingly enough,
they're both devout Catholics. And at the time
you couldn't get divorced, but they did it. You
know, she's already met up with like the Virgin
Mary and Jesus. Like she's probably got a pass.
Yeah. One time pass. God's like, you know what?
You remember that rule? It's fine. It's this
time. We didn't let Henry VIII off, but we're
going to let you off, Michelle. You're fine.
She's been through enough, honestly. Yeah, so
we find out when the book is published that Dr.
Pazder started the therapy sessions with Michelle
on the couch and him sitting in a chair and recording,
blah, blah, blah, the whole nine yards. But eventually,
through the process, they began doing the therapy
sessions with Michelle shirtless, wearing her
bra, but shirtless. lying on a rubber mat with
Dr. Pazder next to her. And more fucked up, in
the book, there's a picture of them like this
while they were still married to other people.
Something like, how do you even posit that? I
have an idea. Today, I think you should not wear
a shirt. Like, what's the reason? I don't know.
Give me a reason. Michelle's sisters describe
her as very. I don't want to say something mean
because I do think to some degree, Michelle's
a bit of a victim here. There's a lot of people
who think she's lying. Honestly, I think she's
more of a victim. Like a lot of the victims in
the satanic panic. I think that they were forced
to believe that they had these repressed memories.
Yeah. These memories were implanted in them.
And so I think to some degree she did believe
that, but I think she also developed a very unhealthy
affection for Dr. Pazder, which is a thing that
happens with psychiatrists and their patients.
Because there's a level of intimacy and trust
that builds up, right? Like when you're talking
to somebody all the time about very intimate
details of your life, like you, it's not. Exactly.
It's not. Hard to imagine that a relationship
could. Yeah, it's not hard to imagine. But an
ethical therapist would not then say, here's
a rubber mat. Take off your shirt. Yeah, that
I feel like that should have been a clue. Yeah,
it's a problem. It's problematic, problematic
behavior all around. So then Dr. Pazder and his
wife, Michelle Pazder, started traveling the
country doing a press tour for this stupid fucking
book. There was a show in the 1980s where you
would go on stage and there'd be two other people
with you. And you would and you would try to
convince a panel. That somebody there was the
person that they were describing. Yes. I think
it's like, what is it called? Like, this is your
life, maybe something like that. Anyway, long
story short, that's how that's one of the things
Michelle did. OK, so imagine going through this
super traumatic. satanic ritual abuse situation
if you believed it was real and then being on
tv where like d -list celebrities are like i
don't know i think it might be this one you know
what i mean like horrible fucking horrible what
kind of sociopath would subject a patient a vulnerable
messed up patient to something like this let
alone your wife yeah so i i started to say this
but i was cutting you off Michelle's sisters
describe her as very like frumpy, sort of reserved,
never swore, didn't drink, didn't smoke, was
very like church lady. And Dr. Pazder was the
exact opposite. Like he made friends everywhere
he went. He was very gregarious and loved to
be in the spotlight. And so they would start
going to all of these conventions for law enforcement
officers, and Pazder would present himself as
an expert. And what was funny about that situation
is there was an FBI agent who was put in charge
of the satanic ritual abuse task force for the
FBI, and he attended one of these events. He's
listening to Dr. Pazder talk, and all these police
officers are asking questions. But the thing
is, they're asking questions of Michelle. But
Dr. Pazder is answering for her. And so finally,
the FBI agent doing his job is like, hey, let
me ask you, why isn't she answering these questions?
And Dr. Pazder's response was basically, well,
after we recovered all of her memories, she just
plum forgot them all again. And so I'm the only
one who remembers. I'm sorry. What? Right? That's
so weird. That is so weird. Can I say something?
I don't like this guy. I don't like him either.
In my mind, he's a terrible piece of shit. Yeah.
He had a wife. He had a couple of kids. And his
kids describe him as a great dad until Michelle
started showing up. Because what happened is
they started psychotherapy. And Michelle was
the only client who had his home phone number,
which I guess is very weird. I assume it's weird.
It makes sense to me. But I guess even for the
time, it was very weird. And so Marilyn would
describe him coming home and she would start
a timer. And within about three minutes of him
walking in the door, Michelle would call. His
daughter said that once he got into the relationship
with Michelle. he became very closed off from
them, and they would actually have to force him
to talk to them every Sunday on the phone. Wow.
Yeah. What a super cool guy. Yeah. All around.
He's the coolest. And another interesting thing
about Dr. Piece of Shit over here is that he
actually told the FBI agent, I don't really believe
most of the stories of satanic ritual abuse.
So you... But I believe this one. The one that
I told, that one's true. But all the others,
bullshit. How much... Because I know at the time
from talking to you that a lot of people had
the same types of stories coming up in their
repressed memories. How similar were her stories
to the other stories that were going around?
Do you know? I'm sure you do. It's really interesting.
I don't know the exact figure, but... The same
FBI. No, no, I'm sorry. It was a police officer.
It was a police officer interviewed in the book
in the movie Satan Wants You. And he was saying
that he would hear one story and he's like, oh,
man, this is crazy. I'll probably never hear
another story like this again. And then two weeks
later, he heard a story so similar that he thought
it was the original story. Yeah, but it was a
completely different one. And. As somebody who
has done, like, a lot of research on how this
affected the United States, very similar. A lot
of these stories are very similar. There's a
lot of, like, killing animals, a lot of rabbits
and kittens, lots of poop. Poop's a big thing.
Butthole stuff is a big thing. Like, these poor
children are being told, you know, or being forced
to remember, but they didn't actually remember.
People doing, like, really gross stuff with their
genitals. Horrible stuff. So at the time that
this is happening, they're in the midst of the
satanic panic, right? It makes sense that she
might have heard these stories. Oh, no. Sorry.
Let me correct that. This is believed to have
started the satanic panic. They started it. Yeah,
and my belief is that it may not have specifically
started it, but if the satanic panic were like
a brush fire, this is the Santa Ana winds that
just blew it across the forest and turned it
into a raging inferno. Like, might have been
influenced then by... Yes, very much so. If not
completely influenced by Michelle Remembers,
influenced by all of the news stories that Michelle
Remembers triggered. All the interviews. Imagine
having those types of things in your head as
a person who goes to church and probably does
more scary movies. How is that in there? You
know? I think there's got to be something in
our brains, especially if you're like, you know,
a child or a very religious person where you're
kind of innocent, you know. And this memory recovery
bullshit triggers kind of the very opposite of
what of what you think is good and right. You
know what I mean? So my thought is. it's very
like when you think about like all the evil it's
very childish evil like pooping on a bible are
you that's the most evil thing or killing a baby
or killing kittens well like yes horribly evil
shit yeah but when you think about it like that's
that's what satan's doing right this is supposed
to be the king of sin and he's like let's poop
on a book again You know what I mean? Yeah. Just
bullshit. Also, they found that a lot of stories
within her book were kind of influenced by The
Exorcist. So at one point, people's heads spun
around. Okay, yeah. Like, come on. Oh, and I
forgot one of my favorite debunks of this. So
this... They track this back to like the 1950s.
So I'm guessing Michelle was like probably late
20s, early 30s with Dr. Pastor. They trace this
back to about 1954 when she was five years old.
And she said that it was the Church of Satan
that these Satanists belonged to. Was that around
in the 50s? It was not. It wasn't invented until
1965 by Anton LaVey. And he, God love him, sued
Dr. Pazder. Good. And so they had to remove like
90 % of the references to the Church of Satan
from subsequent pressings of the book. And I'm
thinking, if I stand by this belief, I really
believe this happened. I'm going to go to court
with Anton LaVey because I got proof. Right.
He's like, oh, I'll just take that part out.
Yeah, I'll just pull it out. Also, the movie
that they were going to make was quashed because
of another lawsuit. I don't remember exactly
who was going to sue about it, but someone was
going to sue. And, of course, through discovery,
they would find out that none of this happened,
and Lawrence Pazder is a shitbag. Now, there's
so much more, and I don't want to go too crazy,
but I got to talk about this part because this
blows my mind. Another story is that there are
like 100 people. And a lot of them had to cut
off their middle finger as part of a ritual.
And wouldn't you know it, they couldn't find
one person who was missing a middle finger in
the whole town. Also, we're talking 100 people
in a small town. Nobody noticed any of them come
in. And they were all meant to be from that town,
not... Not necessarily, but wouldn't... Like,
if you were living in a tiny town, wouldn't you
notice, like, 100 new people you've never seen
before come into town? Yeah, I mean, you would
think. Yeah. It's crazy. Okay, so why did he
do this? Well, Dr. Pazder was a devout Christian,
devout Catholic Christian. He was one of those
like there's no church but the Catholic church
kind of guys. He also studied secret cults and
rituals in Nigeria for two years, and he was
fascinated by them. And I guess a lot of the
secret cult stuff that's in the book had very
suspicious. to the secret cult in Nigeria. So
kind of fucked up there too. But then we also
find out, if you watch the movie Satan Wants
You, that the whole thing was so disturbing that
he reached out to a local priest who's not named.
I couldn't find a name of him anywhere. But the
local priest came and did an exorcism. Or not
an exorcism. Maybe he blessed it. Hold on. Oh,
no, he did perform a formal exorcism on Michelle
after she remembered her possession. Well, so
they're like as if she's still possessed. Yeah,
I don't know how that works. She was possessed
at five years old. The Virgin Mary came and cleaned
her up. But the priest needed to come back in
the in her late 20s just to make sure. The devil's
tricky. He might be hiding in her finger that
they didn't cut off. We don't know. That's wild.
That would piss me off. It gets more fucked up.
The bishop, Bishop Remy Daru, he's a bishop of
Victoria. He gets involved and donates like 10
grand to this book because he believes that this
book is going to bring people back to the church.
Okay. See, for me, that's just me. If I know
that God is watching an 81 day ritual abuse of
a child and then steps in at the very last, I
think when it's over to fix it. Does he really
step in though? Or did he send in the B squad?
He didn't come down himself. He sent the fucking
Virgin Mary and. The Archangel Michael. That
doesn't make me want to go to church. That makes
me want to stay away from church. Yeah, what
the fuck? God, where were you on this one? Right.
Apparently, watching and waiting until it was
over. To just be like, okay, I'm just going to
clean you up now. I'm going to heal all your
wounds and there goes your tail and your devil
horns that no one else noticed that you had.
I know that you are not going to believe this,
but it actually somehow gets even more fucked
up. Okay. Because Michelle and Dr. Pazder got
invited to the fucking Vatican by the goddamn
Pope. Okay, that doesn't surprise me. They gave...
Dr. Pazder said a million and a half word document.
So 1 .5 million words to the Catholic Church
at the Vatican for them to do further research.
And that was all organized by Bishop Remy DeRue
and Cardinal Sergio Pignadoli, a high -ranking
Vatican official. Good to see they're focusing
on the right thing. Yeah, yeah. Let's not feed
the poor and hungry. Let's talk to this five
-year -old girl who, I mean, this adult woman
who is now perfectly fine because the Virgin
Mary healed her. But we, you know, we got to
figure. They didn't make her a saint, though,
because I feel like that would be kind of a miracle
that she was taken care of. Right. Yeah, weird.
So the Vatican and. you know, the Catholic Church
was basically just like in the background allowing
this book to be out there, never formally accepting
it, but in the background pushing the book and
making it popular. And by extension, ruining
countless lives across the world. Because the
satanic ritual abuse shit didn't just affect
the United States, it affected Canada and I believe
Great Britain as well. What a mess. Yeah. And
it wasn't until the McMartin preschool trial
that a lot of this satanic panic stuff was kind
of squashed because it went to trial. There was
a really good lawyer who got involved and he
just made all of the so -called experts that
got like a fucking certificate because they sat
through a 40 hour class. He just debunked them,
made them look like idiots. He showed the unreliability
of the therapy. He showed the children's memories
and how it was hard for the kids to recall all
the details. We won't get into all that because
that's like a whole other thing. McMartin Preschool
Trial, they made a great movie about that actually
in the 1980s with James Woods before he went
crazy. I forget what it's called, but it's a
very good movie. If you get a chance to watch
it, you really should. I will. But yeah. So all
of this is bullshit. But because of this bullshit,
we endured some of the craziest crap the 1980s
had to offer. I mean, we're talking the West
Memphis Three, the McMartin trial, attacks on
Dungeons and Dragons, rock music. All of this
shit can be traced back, at least in part, to
Michelle Remembers. Thanks, Michelle. And I have
to wonder, a lot of people read this book. At
the time, they made like, I think, $1 .2 million.
Success. Which in today's money is fucking crazy.
Right. I have to imagine that at least somebody
had to read this book and they didn't get to
the end of it and be like, wait, why is Satan
rhyming? Why is the Virgin Mary getting involved?
Like no one, no one questioned it. We're not
going to question any of this. I mean, if you
consider how unbelievable the Bible is, and I'm
not making a statement on that, but I'm saying
you are conditioned to believe stories that don't
come from the reality that we know and take it
in faith. So hearing something. like that your
brain's already going to be primed to take it
in and go okay yeah yeah but i actually like
your point that you made earlier that a five
-year -old is going to remember that it was 81
days exactly that's actually that's a really
good point that i didn't think about because
like my kids they don't remember shit how are
they going to remember 81 days specifically like
they're not going to remember that yeah absolutely
not to them like a week In real time for them,
it's like a month. You know what I mean? Yes,
exactly. Time works very differently for kids.
Yeah, so absolutely crazy, crazy story. And it
does have a happy ending because in 2004, Dr.
Pazder died. Yay! And so he can't shed on any
more Bibles, figuratively or literally. He died
of a massive heart attack. I do feel bad for
his daughters because they were saying near the
end he started to pull away from Michelle because
I think he also realized it was fucking horseshit.
Wait, he's pulling away from her? Yeah, he pulled
away from Michelle. So the feeling that I have
about Michelle and Dr. Pazder and Larry, I guess
I'm going to call him. He didn't deserve the
doctor title. It was a very symbiotic relationship.
He needed to be adored and worshipped and taken
care of emotionally. I think he was a severe
narcissist, and I think having Michelle be so
dependent on him, but I'm guessing she probably
also was very trad wife with him and treated
him like the king of the house, and then he just
got tired of her. would be my guess but like
now he's intrinsically tied to this woman right
because he wrote this book and he built this
whole thing on his catholic values and how good
a man he is even though he cheated on his wife
with this with this like broken woman that he
broke you know there is a little bit more about
michelle too so i guess her father was a pretty
rough alcoholic and uh her sister was saying
that on the holidays he would get really fucked
up and start like trashing the house. And so
the police would have to come and take them and
bring them to a hotel. Oh my God. Yeah. Really,
really sad. So she did have a traumatic childhood,
just not the fucking one that they wrote about
in the book. And the, and the sisters are even
more mad because I guess their mom, Virginia
was actually really great. Like she was, she
was all about her kids. She didn't really have
any friends because her husband was kind of a
mess. But even the husband, I guess, near the
end, he kind of came out of it. He came out of
his alcoholism. And he was like, Virginia didn't
do that. Virginia wasn't like, she would never
have done anything like, she's not that kind
of person. She's a good woman. She took care
of our kids. The daughters adored her. I think
they had to defend themselves against such ridiculous
claims. Yeah. But that actually happened a lot
in the satanic panic. A lot of parents, a lot
of male parents usually, were accused by their
own children of satanic ritual abuse because
of these charlatans who did the recovered memory
therapy. And the police officers who bought it
hook, line, and sinker. It was a big thing in
the 1980s and 90s. It was a big movement called
Believe the Children. It was like bumper stickers,
T -shirts, the whole nine yards. Let me ask you,
what does that kind of sound like? That maybe
came about in like 2016. You're talking about
Me Too? No, I'm talking about something involving
pizza. Pizzagate? Yeah. There's a guy who the
police chief I told you about who said he heard
the first story and then he kept hearing more
and more stories and they were all the same story
basically coming from different people. Yeah.
He was he was in the movie Satan Wants You. He
said, oh, no, it's happening again. We're doing
it again. We're doing the same shit. We didn't
even get a full break. Wasn't even 20 years.
The satanic panic basically ended in 2000. And
then in 2016, it all popped up again with the
Pizzagate nonsense to the point. Where they're
actually going back to the McMartin School and
claiming that there are tunnels underneath it
that they found. Spoiler alert, they didn't find
any fucking tunnels. It didn't happen. But that
was part of the conspiracy theory. So now instead
of preschool teachers and your parents and Boy
Scout troop leaders, you know, some of them legitimately
monsters, but that was like a big thing. Now
it's Hillary Clinton. Now it's John Podesta and
all these other elites. And then some of it turned
out to be true because of Jeffrey Epstein. Anyway.
Yeah. We're doing it again. It's back. Could
we have a break, I wonder? I wonder if we could
have a break. Well, interestingly enough, so
Pizzagate and the Satanic Panic, they all have
ties to our favorite boogeyman. The Jews. Really?
Because back in the day, all of this eating babies,
it started from the Protocols of the Elders of
Zion. Okay. Which is a widely discredited book
that has been printed in several languages. Henry
Ford, big fan of it, by the way. Yikes. Super
bad guy. And you don't have to take my word for
it. You can look all of this up. All of this
information is freely available by reputable
sources. I'm not getting stuff from InfoWars.
I'm getting stuff from academic papers. But it
all comes back to Blood Libel, which was essentially
like they believed that the Jews had to kill
a Christian child and drink its blood in order
to gain some magical, mystical power. It's never
going to go away because it's so old. It's just
been there forever. And so as long as there are
Jewish people and Christian people, there's going
to be this bullshit fucking satanic panic nonsense.
Yep. It's already in the collective consciousness.
Yeah. Sadly. A lot of the terms used to describe
the people who are supposedly the naughty bad
guys in Pizzagate, they're described as globalists.
And globalists has just become like a code word
for Jewish people. They need to knock it off.
Yeah, they really need to stop. Can we find a
new conspiracy? Can we stop killing white kittens
and bunnies? Maybe we should kill stuff that
nobody likes, like wild boars that are running
rampant in the South. Use those for your rituals,
guys. Yeah, at least that would be delicious.
You could have barbecue. Right. I'm down with
that. So one final footnote before I end this
extremely long episode. Sarah Marshall, the woman
that I mentioned who was a big contributor to
Satan Loves You, I'm sorry, Satan Wants You,
and a big contributor to the You're Wrong About
podcast, which is, I can't recommend it enough.
She and her host, her co -host, his name's Michael,
but I can't remember his last name. They actually
did an episode on like the missing children thing
because you hear like millions of children go
missing every year. Yeah. But when you do the
math, it actually works out to be if what they
were saying is true, essentially 25 percent of
the population of children go missing every year.
And that's just not possible. And so what's actually
happening is you're having multiple children
that run away multiple times in the course of
a year. And so every time they run away, it's
a new thing. And we're talking they run away
for like a couple hours and the parents call
the police and then the kid comes home. And then
you also have parents who like maybe their kid
decided to go to a friend's house instead of
coming home after school. That's reported as
a missing child, even though the child has recovered.
See, I always feel so much better after talking
to you about things that sound scary because
you will do the research and bring the research
to me. And that's so great. I don't have to do
it. And sometimes my mental illness is a superpower
because I can't, I can't deal with wrong. Like
I can't, like when I, when I hear something,
I need to know if it's true. Yep. And I will
go to the ends of the earth to find out it's
true much to the detriment of my mental health
and my sleep schedule. God bless. But I need
to know. Um, so yeah. Don't take my word for
it. Look up the You're Wrong About podcast. Watch
Satan Wants You. Go to the Nocturnal Revelries.
That was a great source. Again, the woman was
very snarky and pretty rough all the way around.
Had some very choice descriptions for what she
thought Michelle looked like. Michelle wasn't
doing herself any favors with her long skirts
and high -collared shirts. I'll tell you that
much. But yeah, so that's it. That's it. Roundly
debunked bullshit all the way across. Maybe next
we can do like a deeper dive into the satanic
panic itself and some of the crazier claims that
came out. And really nobody was safe because
there were stories here in Massachusetts. There
were stories in rural Canada. They're all over
the place. A different story, by the way, in
rural Canada that I listened to a great podcast
on. Satanic Panic is really fascinating. If you
live in Massachusetts or you're coming to Massachusetts,
go to Salem and visit the Satanic Temple in Salem.
That's their headquarters. They have a Satanic
Panic room with a ton of awesome literature on
the dangers of what the Satanic Panic brought
to America and Canada and the rest of the world.
Cool. Very cool. Very fascinating subject. I
think so. I love it. I hate it, but I love it.
I love to learn about it. Because I truly believe
those who fail to learn history are doomed to
repeat it. And that's exactly what's happening
right now. Amanda, do you have any final thoughts?
No. I think we covered quite a lot, to be honest.
Yeah, yeah. As I said, there was no script. I
wrote some stuff down, but for the most part,
this is just shit I remember. Yeah. Christian
remembers. Actually, it's probably a bad name
for it, given the subject matter. Sarge remembers.
I prefer that. That's better. Okay, well, you
guys can find, if you want to follow us, you
can follow us in the show notes. Go to our Instagram,
Cryptid Cocktail Party, at Cryptid Cocktail.
There's links so you can get to my socials. You
can follow the page. You can follow us on TikTok,
YouTube. We're all over the place. Thank you
for listening. And normally I say goodbye and
I love you to the audience. But Amanda, because
you're the guest, you get to do it. So would
you like to say the ending lines? Goodbye and
I love you.