
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Celestia reports back from her hurried day at CSI con, and Ben recounts a news story about a graveyard dowser. Then we look at Halloween subjects: what are the real roots of this holiday, and what exactly is satanic about it? Ben traces the development of "trick or treating" and we find out it's a bit of religious extortion that used to involve turnip torture. Celestia probes the more recent phenomenon of "Hell Houses" put on by conservative evangelicals as a much, much worse alternative to a haunted house. And then Ben debunks a few typical Halloween societal panics.
By Ben Radford, Celestia Ward and Pascual Romero4.8
9191 ratings
Celestia reports back from her hurried day at CSI con, and Ben recounts a news story about a graveyard dowser. Then we look at Halloween subjects: what are the real roots of this holiday, and what exactly is satanic about it? Ben traces the development of "trick or treating" and we find out it's a bit of religious extortion that used to involve turnip torture. Celestia probes the more recent phenomenon of "Hell Houses" put on by conservative evangelicals as a much, much worse alternative to a haunted house. And then Ben debunks a few typical Halloween societal panics.

4,043 Listeners

2,666 Listeners

113 Listeners

3,210 Listeners

435 Listeners

1,433 Listeners

2,861 Listeners

2,597 Listeners

1,990 Listeners

2,662 Listeners

13 Listeners

238 Listeners

1,191 Listeners

269 Listeners

790 Listeners