Pod Only Knows

With Joey (2 Fast 2 Forever) having finally watched both to-date installments of Mike Flanagan's "Haunting of..." anthology, he, John (Hard to Believe), and Nico (X is for Podcast) got together to discuss the shows' themes as well as how they stack up against each other. Differing opinions are expressed! Analogies are drawn to varying success! How did they turn Michael Huisman into a person of average attractiveness?! Ghosts!

Enjoy this unexpected addition to your weekend podcast queue!

John is on Twitter @ProbablyRealJB

Joey on Twitter @soulpopped

Nico on Twitter @NicoAction

This season, we will feature a special series - with episodes published every few weeks - called DISINFORMATION. John and guests will discuss the history and evolution of Russian disinformation campaigns and explain the impact they have had on American political beliefs and international discourse, as well as how Russia perfected the art of fueling conspiracy theories in order to drive division.

In this inaugural episode, Mike Manzi and Jess Collins join John to talk about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious anti-Semitic fabrication that nonetheless cast an enormous and horrific shadow. Learn how the Protocols gave birth to the modern Conspiracy Industrial Complex, and how it would provide the blueprint for a century of Russian psyops.

John is on Twitter @ProbablyRealJB

Mike on Twitter @the_mikestir

Jess on Twitter @jayarekay

Filmmaker Daniel J. Clark's 2018 documentary Behind the Curve explores the Flat Earth conspiracy theory. Featuring interviews with true believers as well as exasperated scientists, it's a thoroughly engaging and sometimes moving look at why people come to believe objectively untrue things.

Three years later, false beliefs loom even larger in our culture, so John invited him to talk about the making of Behind the Curve and how it might shed more light on the current conspiracy landscape.

Daniel in on Twitter @DJCfilm

Watch Behind the Curve on Netflix

John is on Twitter @ProbablyRealJB

One year ago, for the show's first episode, John talked with Joey Lewandowski about how the character of Dana Scully in The X-Files captured the nature of belief - religious and otherwise - especially in the 1990s. That discussion would directly and indirectly shape much of that first season. A year later, the world has changed - a lot - so we decided to do it again, this time with recurring guest Jess Collins and Mike Manzi. John asked them all to weigh in what stories they think capture the moment we find ourselves in and help us better understand the existential dread and uncertainty the last 12 months have brought.

Joey on Twitter @soulpopped

Mike on Twitter @the_mikestir

Jess on Twitter @jayarekay_

John on Twitter @ProbablyRealJB

It's our final episode of season one. We began the season looking at the lasting legacy of the X-Files and how the landscape of conspiracy theories in the 1990s contrasted with those of today. So closing the season right before Christmas, it only seemed right that to examine history’s most successful actual conspiracy – that of hundreds of millions of parents the world over, duping their children by willing into existence a magical elf-man who flies on a sleigh delivering presents for free to all good children.

And who better to ask the greatest living Christmas historian, whose books on the subject include Christmas in the Crosshairs, The World's Greatest Christmas Stories, The World Encyclopedia of Christmas, and Santa Claus: A Biography. He lives in Canada, in some corner of the country where it's always Christmas.

Check out his Amazon author page here.

When people say they wish for peace, what are they actually talking about? Is it even possible, and, if so, what does it look like? 2020 has been plagued with uncertainty and volatility at a level foreign to many of us, and so John invited Gil Bar-Sela to discuss his work in creating and nurturing peace and empathy in others.

Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Gil has been both a witness to and a participant in the conflict and strife that continues seemingly unabated in Israel, and he carried the resulting trauma from those experiences with him for years. Now he works as a coach, trainer, speaker, and facilitator in the areas of personal development, human connection, authentic leadership, and conflict resolution.

Find out more about Gil at his website: gilbarsela.com

Western history is marked by two curious truths - one is that people continue to insist the end of the world is imminent for whatever reason, and two that they are invariably wrong. Whether it's Y2K or the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse, whether it's The Walking Dead or Left Behind, we can't seem to shake our obsession with the end of the world. Why? And how have both the specifics and the stakes of the end times narrative shifted in a world driven by science, technology, and reason?

Dr. Lisa Vox is the author of Existential Threats: American Apocalyptic Beliefs in the Technological Era. She joins John to share her expertise on the subject. Vox teaches both History and Environmental History with a focus on race-related issues, and she presents online lectures for Lesley University, the University of Massachusetts–Boston, Spelman College, Morehouse College, and at the University of Boston–Lowell. She also acts as an adjunct instructor of History for Young Harris College.

Dr. Vox is on Twitter @Lisa_Vox

Joseph Laycock teaches religious studies at Texas State University. He has written extensively about the occult and new religious movements, including Speak of the Devil: How the Satanic Temple is Changing the Way We Talk about Religion. Since it's Halloween season, John invited him to talk about the two sides of American Satanism - the one that existed only in the minds of panicked parents and religious zealots in the 1980s and 1990s, and the one that exists in reality today, a nontheistic counter-cultural religious movement promoting social justice and freedom of thought, and spearheaded by the enigmatic and fascinating Lucien Greaves.

Links:

Joseph Laycock on Twitter

Joseph P. Laycock official website

Lucien Greaves on Twitter

The Satanic Temple's official website

In his town hall appearance on NBC, Donald Trump insisted "I know nothing about QAnon" - a network of conspiracy theorists whose Twitter accounts he has retweeted hundreds of times and who have appeared multiple times in his intelligence briefings - before offering something he knew about QAnon ("I do know they are very much against pedophilia").

QAnon is bad. It's dangerous and scary and alarming. It's also complicated and hard to explain.

And so John invited three of his smartest friends and former guests – Mike Manzi, Teddy Smith, and Jess Collins – to find out what they knew about QAnon and to tell them what he think everyone needs to know.

HASHTAG TRUST THE PLAN!!

Check out Teddy's band Bugs in the Corner (who wrote the theme song to this podcast), Jess's website, and Mike's CageClub page!

For further reading, John recommends the following, all of which was used as part of the research for this show:

Mother Jones: Why Are Right-Wing Conspiracies so Obsessed With Pedophilia? by Ali Breland

The Atlantic: The Prophecies of Q by Adrienne LaFrance

The Conversation: Why the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ is still pushed by anti-Semites more than a century after hoax first circulated by Stephen Whitfield

Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base by Annie Jacobsen

Arizona Republic: Why is Wayfair accused of trafficking children? 7 things to know about the conspiracy theory by KiMi Robinson

Reuters: Missing children in U.S. nearly always make it home alive by Barbara Goldberg

The so-called "wickedest man in the world" would have turned 145 this week, and to mark his birthday, John reached out to his most trusted biographer, Richard Kaczynski, author of Perdurabo - The Life of Aleister Crowley. Kaczynski holds a PhD in social psychology and is himself a student of Thelema, the new religious movement built around Crowley's philosophy. John asked him to set the record straight on one of the 20th century's most controversial and fascinating figures.

To find out more about and from Richard, check out his personal website.