Sects Ed

Content Warning: Satanic Ritual Abuse, Child Abuse

In this very special Halloween episode, we discuss the Satanic Panic, including "Michelle Remembers" and the McMartin Preschool Trial containing some disturbing elements. We then bring our story into the present with the Satanic Temple.

In this episode, we discuss the origins of modern Satanism with a look at the life and work of Anton LaVey, author of the Satanic Bible and founder of the Church of Satan.

The music used in this episode is "Carnival Freaks" by Myuu and is registered under a Creative Commons License.

In this episode, we consult our pineal glands and attempt to explain some of the beliefs and history of a group of people that are occasionally inclined to describe themselves as the Discordians.

Following the Mahdi's death, Abdullahi al-Khalifa became the undisputed ruler of the Mahdist State. In this second part of our look at the Mahdist Revolution, we discuss the Khalifa's administration of the Sudan, religious conflicts both internal and international, and war with the British Empire during its Scramble for Africa.

On June 29, 1881, Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah declared that he was the Mahdi, a messianic figure aiming to expel the British and Ottoman Empires from the Sudan and create a theocratic Islamic state. Join us as we discuss the Mahdi's rise and revolt in this first part of our series on the Mahdist Revolution.

Correction: The Funj Sultanate was founded in the early sixteenth century, not the nineteenth century as we accidentally say.

In this episode, we discuss the rise and fall of one of the greatest heretical leaders of Renaissance Italy, Girolamo Savonarola.

Content Warning: Disease, Rape, Torture

This episode of Sects Ed takes us to the South Pacific. On the island of Tanna, many Indigenous people worship a divine American serviceman named John Frum. Join us as we explore the origins of this "cargo cult" that emerged in the 1940s as a response to European colonialism, but remains a recognized regional religion to this day.

In part two of our series on the God Worshiping Society, Hong and his followers spark one of the largest wars in human history as their new religious movement evolves into a full blown revolutionary movement.

Welcome to the first episode of Sectstra Credit, a Sects Ed side project profiling individual religious figures and facets of faiths. In this inaugural episode, we sit down with Cory James Young of the Activist History Review to discuss young Earth creationism and intelligent design. We also have a written piece designed to compliment this episode. To find it and other great work by activists and scholars showing how the past is relevant to the present, visit activisthistory.com

In the aftermath of the First Opium War, the self-proclaimed younger brother of Jesus began his quest to convert China to his own unique version of Christianity. In part one of our two part series on the Taiping Rebellion, we discuss the early life of Hong Xiuquan and the events that led to the creation of the God Worshiping Society and the Taiping Rebellion.