Welcome to Nice Ashes, I'm Nate. And I'm Mike. What are we smoking today, Nate? We are smoking an Arturo Fuente Curlyhead NT. And I don't know what the NT stands for. I don't think it's like NFT. No, it is. Because it definitely exists. It's in my hands. Yes. I didn't look it up. I should look these things up. I know that you're going to ask. One of us should know. One of us should just know. And it shouldn't be me. No, I'm just kidding. You're right. It's a long one. It's long and narrow.
Natural. Are you there, Nate? Yes, natural. Oh, there we go. Natural. I was giving you time to look it up. Oh, there we go. It is exceptionally long, but a narrow gauge. It's like a Corona level gauge, maybe a 48, but it's also, you know, seven inches long, something like that. Yes. I like the flavor of the cap. It's distinct. Kind of sweet, slightly sweet. I don't know how you would call it.
I am pairing mine with a Firestone Mindhaze Brain Melter, Hazy Imperial IPA from Firestone Walker Brewing Company in California. And it's an 8.5% ABV. So I hope our topic is not too delicate. I'm pairing mine with tea, iced tea, because it is the season for iced tea and I wanted to try them. And yeah. So far, this cigar, just starting off, there's a very nice, pleasant flavor that's very light. Yes, it's incredibly light. Not that that's bad. By no means. By no means.
It is pleasant and light if that's what you're after. So we'll see how much flavor change we have. This tastes like it's going to have flavor change for sure. Yeah. Is this the first Arturo Fuente we've had? I believe so. And are they, they're their own company, right? They're not like by Drew Estates or by someone else? No, they're their own company. That's what I thought. Just wanted to double check and make sure.
Yes. Yes. So Mike, I bought one of these little metal cigar stands, the kind that's two pieces of metal and you fit them together to make kind of like an X. Oh, sure. If you've seen those. I have. It was super cheap and I really like it. We went camping this past weekend and I brought my travel ashtray, which has a slot for one cigar. It has two slots, but I used this metal one in addition and was able to position the cigar just over the ash bowl part of my ashtray and it worked out great.
And it's nice because it doesn't take up hardly any room. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but I do. Nice. That's good to know. Is that made by Zikar or one of those type of companies? This one is, I put it so their logo's on the inside. Keen Sun. I think it was like $6, maybe $7 after tax from Amazon, but I have an inkling in my brain to make some nice ashes branded ones that we might be able to give out or have in our online shop at some point when we have an online shop.
But speaking about online things, Mike, I have very exciting news for you. Okay. We hit 69 Instagram followers. Six nine. That's not too bad. It's nice is what it is. It's nice. That's very nice. Oh man. We're going to lose some today after our topic for sure. Are we going to attract some? I'm still waiting for that slew of bronies, you know, the bronies to find out about us in the episode we did that won that Pulitzer. I just know we're going to have a whole new fandom. Maybe so. Maybe so.
I know that the memories of stuffed ponies will never leave my memory. Yeah. Or your search history. That is correct. Yes. Oh my. What are we talking about? So today's topic, and this is a little bet. So listeners, you know, bet whatever money you think is appropriate. But I bet that Nate knows about this topic and probably knows more about it than I did before I started researching it. Oh no. And this is going to turn people off. No, it might.
It all depends on the angle you want to look at it from. I didn't mean sexually. I meant like off of our show. Ah, yes. So what I'm going to talk about is the satanic panic. Okay. Okay. Which for those who do not know and have never heard of this, I loosely remember it as a child, but it was very tertiary to my childhood.
It was a moral panic in the 80s and 90s, and it was basically a widespread fear with multiple being like 12,000 allegations of ritualistic satanic abuse, often linked to organized satanic cults engaging in child sex abuse and other criminal activities. Now when you were growing up, you were in a more religious household than I was. Yeah. So was the satanic panic part of your childhood because we were in that age where we would remember, you know?
Yeah. I don't know that it was directly, and so it all has to do with crime stuff or- We're going to go into it. Oh, okay. I don't remember it by that name. Of course, that's not something a Christian Lutheran religious household would call it. They wouldn't be like, okay, we got to watch out for the satanic panic. The other thing to keep in mind is I graduated in a high school class of 89 people. So I don't know that we'd heard any music other than country until maybe 2008.
Right. I mean, I'm joking about that, but you know. Right. Like the rock music is satanic is part of the satanic panic, just like D&D is satanic. I remember that from being a kid. Yeah. People, it was jokey. It wasn't- Okay. It was a memory of a serious time. Nobody took it seriously. I was raised in a cafeteria Catholic. We were not taking Satan as a serious character. Yeah. We, let's see, trying to remember, I know that they were pretty strict.
Until I got to high school, they were pretty strict. Well even in high school, they were pretty strict rules on what movies I could watch and what music I could listen to, which gradually eased up. I'm not sure if the reasoning behind that was the satanic panic, religion, or just because I'm the oldest, the first born and they were still figuring out what was going on and how protective they wanted to be. I'm not a hundred percent sure.
I know that my, I think my grandma might've been a little bit more into that. I know my aunt and that was Bia, my dad's side. I know my mom's side, grandma, I can tell a story or two about that if I hadn't already on the show, but it might be relevant later because I feel like my mom's mom would have 100% subscribed to the satanic panic. Yes. So we're going to do a large overview here and then we're going to get into the nitty gritty.
The key features of the satanic panic, which went on for 15 years or something like that, maybe more, were accusations that children were being subjected to ritualistic abuse, often involving satanic ceremonies and sex. And the way that they substantiated these allegations was through suggestive questioning, leading interviews and certain psychological practices that have since been denounced as not effective. Right?
So this is being led into by the medical community because the medical procedures that psychologists were using ended up becoming pop psychology and it blew up in popularity. So there were 12,000 reported cases and many, many trials and there was not a single conviction nor was there a single confirmed case of any of the 12,000 reported. So ultimately it was a hysteria caused by a blending of factors. And we're going to get into those specific factors.
So it was like a true and through witch hunt or wild goose chase. In terms of convicting people. Yes. Oh yeah. Proving it was happening. Right. So the origin story comes from a book called Michelle Remembers. It was published in 1980. And this was published by a doctor named Dr. Lawrence Padzer. And it was about a woman named Michelle Smith, which is an alias. It's a Jane Doe name. And this book purports that it's a true account of ritualistic satanic abuse.
It's portrayed as a memoir of the person and it was backed up by a psychologist. The one who authored it or? The one who authored it. Yeah. The one who authored it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they were like, I collected this in session or she wanted to get this out there. And I'm publishing it under my name because it's true and wanted to lend credibility to it. Right. So this is basically, this came about because of the therapy sessions.
Dr. Padzer was using a therapeutic technique that used hypnosis and guided memory exploration. Right? OK. So this method was being pioneered at that time. And it was the next best thing in medicine. And it probably should have been kept in the psychologist office. Right? And it hit mainstream that everybody wanted to do it. And the problem is, is that now it's been denounced by the American Psychiatric Association because you can guide people in hypnosis to say whatever you want them to say.
Yeah. Right. So it's all nonsense. It's whatever the psychiatrist wants. They can lead you into saying whatever. Right? Yeah. And I remember not in medical or psychological practices, but I remember a lot of late 80s and early 90s media had hypnosis as part of the gig or something. Right? It was part of the plot or the storyline. So I definitely do remember that. Oh, yeah. And that all plays a part. Yeah. Yeah. Because, well, there we go. All right.
So over time, this novel, well, memoir, faced a lot of criticism. And it got researched by other psychologists. And it revealed some serious inconsistencies and major issues with the methodology used to recover the memories. OK. Almost every claim in the book was discredited. And it is now cited as an example of how suggestive therapeutic techniques can lead to false memories and hysteria.
So do you think, and maybe you'll get into this, Mike, but do you think there actually was a Michelle Smith person or was it all fabricated? I don't think it was fabricated. I think that it was like happens in our society. A psychologist thought they were doing something new and innovative and right.
And instead of going through the process and having this analyzed and keeping this private between the doctor and the patient, they went public and they sensationalized it because they can make profit. And so it got out of hand very quickly. And instead of doing the process that should have been done, hint, hint, experimental medicine, you know, right? Yeah. Well, the whole point is it has to be peer reviewed or replicated by somebody else. Right. So it was published. And then proven. Right.
Yeah. And it was published the day before any peer review had happened of any of the claims or the methodology used or anything else. Yeah. It's similar to Dr. Fauci. Ah, you know, I'm just saying that there's some similarities between certain culture phenomenons that are occurring now and the ones that have occurred in the past. Well, I think I think maybe the message is there are some people who know how to leverage the media better than others. For sure.
Whether or not what they're saying is true is completely, completely different. Right. So this novel was backed up by several extreme high profile court cases. OK. And they were highly televised at the time and they all involved accusations from children who were subjected to this memory technique by a psychologist. And then that being used as the basis for an accusation and a criminal trial. OK.
So. So they're saying they were abused in the name of Satan or that Satan literally appeared before them and abused them. We're going to go over a couple of examples. OK. OK. Yeah. So the McMartin preschool case went on for eight, seven years. And it's one of the most well known cases. You can look it up. And the allegation was of widespread sexual abuse and satanic rituals at a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California.
Now there was extensive investigation and an extremely lengthy trial and they had no convictions and basically every charge was completely discredited as false. Yeah. Right. Well, I don't know how you'd even I think even with something terrible happening, getting a conviction on an abuser is not a walk in the park. It's not an easy thing to do even without introducing hypnosis. So a key factor, and I probably didn't explain it, this wasn't against an individual. This was against a preschool.
The claim was that the preschool itself was a satanic organization that was ritualistically sexually assaulting students, children and doing satanic rituals. So everybody at the McMartin preschool was involved in a satanic cult who were systematically abusing the children that they were taking care of.
Yeah. So this is trying to say that even with a single abuser that's been named or alleged abuser, it's not easy to get a conviction in some circumstances even today, even without introducing like a Ouija board or hypnosis or other things. Right? Like, isn't it, if somebody's actually been abused, it's still fairly difficult to get a conviction. Like it takes time and money and effort.
So it's not surprising if you're doing a blanket statement against an organization where you're not specifically damning anybody other than like everybody here is involved in it, because then you'd have to prove that every single person was involved in it. And even if you won, every single person could say they weren't involved in it and do a counter suit and then it would take even longer and you'd still probably end up in the same spot they ended up ending up in in the first place.
Right. So if I'm thinking about it correctly, I don't know. Right. We're going to go over another case. It's called the West Memphis Three. This is 93. Three teenagers, their names don't matter. I do have them if you want to know. We're convicted of murdering three young boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. OK. Now the case had heavy allegations of satanic rituals and it was affected by the satanic panic and they were convicted.
And it was extremely controversial because there's no evidence that they were involved in Satanism, but the murders had some like satanic stuff in there. Yeah. Later, DNA evidence showed that they were not not guilty of doing anything and they were just teenage boys that were railroaded because they played like Dungeons and Dragons. Right. OK, sure. Well, and Doom was made by a devout Catholic, wasn't it? I don't know.
I believe I believe the designer of Doom, he was very religious and that's why the game is you're in hell killing demons. Right. Even though a lot of people will say, well, that's a satanic game because it's look at all the gore and blood and whatever. But anyway, not to derail it. Yeah. Read the Bible, people. Anyway. Yeah. It's more reliable than like stuff I've read in Game of Thrones. So I'm just going to for sure just going to put that out there. So this is a series of cases.
But in Kern County, California, there were numerous children who all claimed that they were being abused in satanic rituals. And this was gotten by, again, this therapeutic memory hypnosis, like guided memory thing. OK. So it's the same individual psychologist doing it. And basically, every court case that had a conviction got overturned.
And most of them never got a conviction because there was no evidence for any of the claims that was being made because it was all put into the children's head by the psychologist leading them on. Right. Yeah. It's almost as if children have a difficult time distinguishing between reality and dreams. If you put it in their head that the dreams are real. Right. Yeah. Or alternate reality is real. Almost like you shouldn't allow children to make decisions for themselves largely.
Depending on the decision, right? I think a life altering decision. We've talked about this in a previous episode. Yeah. We did. There's a reason to not get into a very sticky area in the current societal consciousness. But there's a reason why children can't legally get a tattoo until they're 18. There's a reason. I don't know what it is. I'm just kidding. Children may be very open to suggestion. Yes. Maybe. Children are impressionable.
And some adults are impressionable as well, but they should have learned better by then. But that's not the point of this episode. Right. Well, and Mike, would you say, I don't know that much about hypnosis. I used to work as a DJ and the lady I worked for was also a hypnotist and she would hypnotize people. But there's a kind of a screening process that she would do. And it was one of those, the crowd, anyone here want to be hypnotized and she'd do stuff to see which one was open to suggestion.
So in order to even be hypnotized, you have to be open to suggestion. I imagine. In my understanding of it. To an event like that and I was not a candidate. Yeah. I can see that, Mike. I don't think I would be a candidate either. I think, but I think that's the point is, is in order to be hypnotized, because not everybody can be hypnotized.
It's not like Looney Tunes made it out to be where anybody can watch a swinging watch and then be hypnotized and act like a chicken or commit war crimes or what have you. So it takes a certain personality type in the first place to be hypnotized. Would you say being hypnotized or being in a state of hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness? Can you repeat that question? Yes. Would you consider being hypnotized or in a hypnotic state to be an altered state of consciousness? Absolutely.
Okay. So it would be similar to, let's say being drunk or under the influence of some other drug perhaps. You're not truly fully aware of every decision that's being made. I know that she explained to me, because I asked her some questions. You can't really make somebody do something they don't want to do, but you can suggest things to them and as long as they're open to doing that, then they'll pretend to be a chicken or ride around on the ground like a dune sandworm or something. Right. Right.
And telling fanciful stories is something that children do, right? For fun. To pass the time. Yeah. For enjoyment. Yeah. So. Some politicians make good money that way too. Oh, that's not getting into the presidential race that now has two VPs and two P's. Two P's going on. Bunch of fucking winners there, huh? Man, nothing ever will be better than what the internet did to the Trump Pence logo, the very first logo they released like in 2019 or whenever it was.
It must've been before then, whenever it was. I don't know. I can't count. But they did the T going into the P and so the internet animated it. Yes, I remember. And then they quickly changed the logo. But anyway, that's also at the point of this episode. No, no, no. So I have two more court cases. Okay. One is the Operation Phoenix case that was 84, 85. And basically there was accusations of organized satanic ritual abuse in San Diego and everything was discredited.
And again, it came down to a psychologist using a hypnotize or hypnosis and memory guiding and put the suggestion into these children. So this is rolling, right, because these are all public court cases and they're affecting everybody else. So the momentum is gaining and gaining and gaining and gaining. So it's becoming more and more common to have these incidents.
And so the D&D case was James Dallas Egbert III, who in 1979 was playing D&D and or he played D&D and he disappeared and he was found dead. And the media sensationalized this case and they somehow linked him disappearing and dying to the fact that he played D&D. They were not at all related, right? But that was the beginning of this. Even if they somehow were related, I don't know what Satan has to do with it.
Well, it was a new game at the time and the televangelists were saying... I understand that. I'm saying if he was using a loaded die so he could always roll Nat 20s. Some other player might be upset with them, but Satan wouldn't have anything to do with it. Right. Did they have loaded Nat 20 or loaded 20 dies back in 1979? That's what I want to know. Man, I think they had loaded dies like in the 1800s. Well, dice are one of the oldest gaming systems around, I think.
So well, they had loaded dice, but then they have loaded 20s. Like when did the 20 become ubiquitous? Like I have 20s, obviously. Yeah. We're going to defer a future episode of Nice Ashes, the history of dice. Yeah. I even have loaded Nat 20s. I actually have 20 dice too. So anyway, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. So there was social factors going on behind the scenes. Yeah. Speaking about behind the scenes, Mike.
Yes. I feel like we should do a little cigar check-in because I think I'm a little past the one third, but I'm not at the halfway mark yet. So I'm not at halfway, but I am definitely past a third. Yep. Same. I think it's getting a little stronger. I think it's getting stronger. The flavor is getting a little more intense. It's getting stronger. Not super intense. Not super intense. It's still very mild. I do get a little acetone right now. I'm getting a little acetone, but that might just be me.
I think I'm getting a little spice, but I'll have to pay a little bit closer attention. And I like it so far. It's lighter than I would normally smoke, but I don't think there's anything wrong with it at all. It's better than mediocre in my opinion so far. Oh, I agree. Of course, a lot can change, but- This is something that I would not suggest smoking with a cup of coffee because I think the coffee would drown it out. Oh, I think so. My tea might be perfect for this.
Yes. Speaking of tea, give us some more tea. Oh my. So the 70s and the 80s had a huge crime rate and there was a lot of single mothers for the first time in the country and there's a lot of social upheaval. And this of course contributed to paranoia over Satanism, especially amongst the conservative Christians. And that kind of led to it. Now, there was a guy, and this is how this got started because this guy died. His name is Bennett Braun.
And he was a psychiatrist and he was very heavily influential during this period. He contributed to theories about widespread satanic ritual abuse. He was one of the founders of the idea of multiple personality disorder, AKA dissociative identity disorder. And he was- Which actually is a real thing, right? Yes, that is a real thing. So he had like real chops. Yeah. And he also did the fucking hypnosis memory hole technique. And he had a ton- So he did a chop too far.
Yes. He had a ton of patients, a ton, that were involved with court cases, a lot. Almost single-handedly could have had the satanic panic just because of him. And of course it was made worse because he was a legitimate psychiatrist who did work on real disorders. And this was going to be his next best thing. You know what I mean? He's a profiteer and he wants to make the new discovery. But of course he didn't want his new discovery to be tested and verified.
He wanted success now without having anybody verify his results. So he promoted this practice without having any data to back up its legitimacy. Okay. Right? And that was one of those things where he rose legitimately and needed to find something else. Right. He's the Teal Holtzman. Teal Holtzman. That's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah. Of our timeline, right?
Yes. Yes. So, and then he actually kind of lived the rest of his life in shame and he moved to Butte, Montana and he practiced psychiatry there basically until he died, which was a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it was a couple of months now. It's hard to say. Oh, he just recently died then. Yeah. Yeah. This is what brought it on is that he died. Oh, okay. And I watched a blurb on him and they're like, oh, this guy's an asshole, you know?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I've never heard of Bennett Braun. Who is this Bennett Braun? Yeah. It's like, oh, he's like a guy who did some good stuff and he just could never reach it again. And so it ended up being pretty bad. But not necessarily for him. Was he ever prosecuted? No. Well, yeah, he did lose his, he lost his license, his medical license in California. Yeah. Yeah. That's why he moved to Montana because Montana didn't pull his medical license.
It was like the last place on earth that he could practice in. They were like, you know what? We need doctors, psychiatrists, so whatever. Come on. If I was the judge, I would have not only pulled his medical license, but I would have banned him from ever buying or owning a Ouija board. Oh my. So and that's so that Braun got brought up because he was a big supporter of suggestive therapy. And that's just terrible.
And then the question, of course, is, is there a new wave of suggestive therapy going on that might be causing certain social trends that are presently occurring in our society? Right. I mean, no, they're not. Not pointing any fingers.
But when certain medicalized conditions have increased from 0.3% to 5% in a matter of years, and it's based entirely on generational groups and who is and is not going to see psychologists, maybe there's some suggestive therapy going on and we're just not in a position to be able to say, hey, that's wrong. Right. Well, if you say that, aren't you scolded? We're talking about the weight loss drugs, right, Mike? Yeah, totally. Totally.
So now, of course, the likes of Benet Braun were backed up by evangelical TV preachers. Right. So let's go through the list. The most trustworthy of the bunch. Yeah, the most trustworthy of the bunch. And of course, these preachers, they make all sorts of claims, you know. And they are all. I thought you were going to say they make all sorts of money because they also do that. Oh, geez crease, fella.
The Lord wants them to have that $60 million jumbo jet so they can fly around on their own and not be subject to demons on the polar airplane. So the rest of us could suck liquid out of a soggy paper straw so they can fly to be closer to the Lord so he can hear their prayers above the riffraff. That's right. The hoi polloi, as it were. Yes. The Lord and, you know, the televangelist needs to be in direct contact so they just fly around in the sky until they get a message.
I shall not fear for the Lord is my jumbo jet and yea, though I fly through the skies, no poor person will ever touch me. Oh, yes. So we all know who Pat Robertson is, monkey man, and he had the 700 Club before he, you know, passed on to the here and he had multiple, multiple guests on claiming satanic abuse, all of which were lies. Of course, we have Jerry Falwell. Mr. He fucked his mother in an outhouse when he was a teenager, Jerry Falwell himself.
OK. I don't know if you have heard that joke or not. Is it a joke or did it really happen? No, that was a that was a cartoon in the Hustler magazine. OK, Jesus. I wouldn't put it past him. I wouldn't put it past him. Yeah, that's the famous court case. It's like a Freudian slip when you say one thing and mean your mother. I mean another. So Falwell is, of course, a televangelist and he was the founder of the Moral Majority, which was one of the groups that backed Ronald Reagan back in the day.
And he was a major and open supporter of the satanic panic. And he validated the people who made satanic claims and he spread the fears of widespread satanism, which, of course, were all nonsense. You know, most likely. We have another one. I never heard of this one. Jimmy Swaggart. Jimmy Swaggart made it a routine part of his television program to talk about satanic influence. And apparently that was kind of his gig and it kind of ruined his career as a result.
And then there are some authors called Mike Warnke and Gary North. And they apparently made a living selling books, claiming that they had real narratives of satanic abuse from people. Right. And who knows if that's real or not. But they had a thriving Christian book industry for basically selling the idea that people were involved in satanic rituals in a widespread way in the United States.
Yeah. When we're talking about satanic rituals, are they talking about rituals from like the Church of Satan, the satanic temple, or just Satan as an entity of evil doing? I think they're talking about like put the goat head on and spray the blood and do the pentagram and do like sex magic. You know what I mean? More like Wiccan type stuff or I don't know. I don't want all these Wiccans to be coming after me. But I don't think the Wiccans are doing devil worship.
But like some sort of, I don't know what you would even call it because the Satanists certainly don't do that. I pulled up the seven tenets of the satanic temple, but maybe devil worshipers? I don't know. If you read the Bible, which most Christians haven't, I don't think Satan kills a single person in the entire book. And God, it just goes on spree after spree after spree, but he's a loving and merciful God. So I don't know.
Not that this is strictly about religion, but I don't know who these people are that... Well, Satan is my understanding and I'm not some sort of expert. So take that for what it's worth. Wait, you're not a Satan expert, Mike? Yeah, not a Satan expert. That's my understanding. You play Satan's favorite game, bowling. That's true. Well, nine pin bowling is Satan's favorite game. They added the extra pin and now Satan's not involved anymore. Now it's holy and pure. Now it's holy and pure.
No gambling, no Satan. Right? That's the extra pin that makes the difference. That's what those bad men who came to to bang the angels said too, after Lot offered his daughters. He said, they said, no, no, we want the extra pin. We want those man angels over there. Yeah, I love that story. The good guy is, yeah, rape my daughters, not these weird stranger people that I don't know. These angels that by all accounts in the Bible should look like completely terrifying entities.
Hey, were they the OG bronies? I think that Sodom and Gomorrah, like the Gomorrahites, they were the OG bronies. Nice. Nice. So the Sodomites, obviously not. That's a totally different thing. But the Gomorrahites, they were the bronastic. Oh boy, I'm so glad we don't have an address published where people can send us hate mail.
For reference, if anybody wants to, I watched an interview with somebody who claimed to be a Satanist and it was like watching the Satanic Temple guy and he was being interviewed by like a Jenny Jones or some version of that type of talk show back in the day. And it was a total troll job. I mean, he had the makeup on and he was doing the like, you know, he was doing the like, the word salad, you know what I mean? And you could tell that he was having a hell of a good time.
And I don't know if anybody's ever watched the Satanic Temple announcement when they are fighting some religious group. But the guy that runs the Satanic Temple is like an atheist. Like if he's not being interviewed for his position as head of the Satanic Temple, he's like, we're an atheist organization. We were banned from having an atheist organization for tax reasons. So we became a Satanist organization because Satanism is protected. Let me just read the first.
Well, I pulled up the seven tenets for the Satanic Temple. Do we have time for me to read them quick? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We have half of the scenario left damn near. I know. So the first tenet of the Satanic Temple, one should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason. So that doesn't scream staking goat heads on spikes to me.
No. Number two, the struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions. Three one's body is inviolable subject to one's own will alone. So I'm surprised there's not more feminists that are Satanists. Four the freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend to willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forego one's own.
Five beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs. Six people are valuable. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused. And seven, every tenant is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility and action and thought the spirit of compassion, wisdom and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
That sounds like devil worship to me. How can I vote this guy into office? Devil worship is what it is for sure. Well, I'm just drawing a pentagram right now, Mike. I watch foreign news occasionally, you know, and they'll cover like there was a terrorist attack in Iowa where some wacko went and destroyed the Satanic Temple statue of Baphomet in the Iowa, the capital. So Iowa allows religious groups to do like statuary, I guess.
So the Satanic Temple, of course, put one in because they wanted a band. That's the whole point. We as Americans and you and I as like people who are into this topic understand the whole idea behind the Satanic Temple is that they want no religious symbols in public spaces, right? Yeah. So it's like the same as the Pastafarians making fun of religious people being able to wear religious headgear in a state slash federal photo ID where you're supposed to be able to see the person's face.
So they wear pasta strainers, colanders on their heads. I wonder if I could get away with that. You could because they made it an official religion, just like the Satanic Temple is an official religion. So you are under your first amendment right. If you claim to be a Pastafarian anywhere in America, you can go in and wear a pasta strainer on your head for your driver's license photo.
Nice. But the point was they wanted to not be allowed to wear a pasta strainer and also people to not be able to wear religious headgear in official government photos. Sure. But I guess that's the beauty of America is now you can wear a pasta strainer in official government photos and nobody can see anything about it. Neckerchief in one of my photos and I don't think it's pretty loud. It gets covering part of my face. That's hilarious. Anyway, so back to the topic at hand.
By the mid 90s, investigative journalists and psychologists basically started to debunk the myths of widespread satanic abuse and they started to do in studies these actual psychologists and basically it showed that claims were entirely false or severely exaggerated. And the legal system basically stopped taking satanic panic cases because of the lack of evidence. So the satanic panic has had a long lasting effect on our justice system and the public perception of child abuse.
We might have had a little moral panic about child abuse a little while ago. People remember certain Italian based businesses that may or may not have been subject to some crazy attacks because of some conspiracy theories. I've heard that the term that we used for it is banned, so I'm not going to say it out loud, but I heard the rumor that it's a search term we're not allowed to use. You're not allowed to say the term is banned because it's conspiratorial or whatever. What does it rhyme with?
I think I know the one you're talking about. Well, it would be like if Little Caesars owned a gate. Yes, okay. I'm with you. There was another one that Facebook has been banning, another search term that seems completely benign to me, but for some reason people are getting messages saying that child pornography and stuff is not allowed.
I can't remember what term that one was, but there are some terms that people might use normally or seem innocent and for some reason they're now banned or frowned upon saying. Yes, well also, and this is related in a way, Facebook recently added the Z term that is the support for the Israeli government to its list of naughty words that you are only allowed to use in certain contexts and it is now a protected word slash class that you're not allowed to attack or criticize, which is crazy.
There's nothing better for freedom than to not let people say things. I think that the experience that our brothers and sisters in the UK are having right now shows what happens when you start limiting people's ability to express themselves. Well, and not just limiting, but actually prosecuting that expression. Yes. Not that I know next to nothing about that situation, but again, for my foreign news sources, right?
The foreign news sources that like, oh, that's- I only know about it from the only last bastion of true free unbiased press, which is memes. Which is, it sounds fucking funny, but to some extent it is mind boggling how accurate some of these memes actually are when you look up what they're making fun of. It is because comedy is still protected, right? They can't, it's very difficult to censor. Yeah, for now.
So you can make some epic memes about the incompetency of certain groups where you probably would not be allowed to say it out loud. Yes. So it's so funny. Anyway, so the satanic panic had long lasting effects, blah, blah, blah.
And it also highlights, and this is the important part, it highlights the importance of evidence-based investigations and peer reviewing and not sensationalizing medical procedures that are on the cutting edge because the problem is a lot of them are going to be discredited in the long term, right? Or it works in a limited number. I think it works a limited amount of time. And then there's a whole bunch of collateral damage, you know, because it doesn't affect everybody.
And then it becomes a rolling ball and then everybody wants to get you on this bandwagon. And it also tells us a lot about unchecked fear and hysteria when there's a lack of real information about what's going on, right? Not that any of us who lived in the last couple of years would know anything about the damage of unchecked fear and hysteria. We would know nothing about that. Mike, I've got two thoughts. One is that somewhere, I don't remember where, if it was in China.
So take this with a grain of salt, I guess. But maybe not. I don't know. I mean, everybody says we should hate China, but I don't know. I don't know anymore. Anyway, I think it was in China, but somewhere they cured type two diabetes in a person. They cured it. It's gone. It's done. He's living a normal life, but you don't see a whole bunch of pills or whatever, whatever. I think they did something with stem cells from his own stem cells.
So they're not harvesting babies, which is the craziest thing I ever heard argument against stem cell research. They're harvesting unborn fetuses. They're encouraging abortions. Everybody has stem cells in their body. You can take your own anyway, but you're not seeing a huge rush of that. I think because they've cured it in one person. That's not, that's not an adequate sample size. You know what I mean?
Like the scientific method is you have to get the results you're hoping for, and then you have to replicate it a certain number of times to make it statistically relevant. Right. And you have to have a control group. Yeah. So if you muddy the water. And then other people have to, yeah. And other people have to, other people have to be able to replicate it too. That's how it works. So the thing is multiple teams, multiple people have to be able to replicate things.
If they follow your process, then it's considered peer reviewed or validated, let's say. And then it has to go through the, well, here in America, it has to go through the FDA process, whatever that is and however many bribes that takes. But there's a, there's a procedure for a reason. A lot of times that reason is to make other people that do nothing, a lot of money, the FDA, but you know, there, I mean, all snarkiness aside, there's a reason. There's a scientific method.
There's a reason there's a procedure for these things. You can't other, otherwise you'd have those snake oil salesmen, you know, that we've all heard of. And it's like, here, just take this opium tincture and you'll feel better. Well, fuck yeah, I will not for a long time, but you know, for long enough, I guess for you to get out of town. I wasn't going to use that exact example. I had a better one, but I'm not going to say it now. Oh, okay. Well, say it now.
Well, it's kind of like taking, it's like taking a vaccine, but it doesn't actually prevent you from getting the disease. It's a therapeutic and you have to take nine of them over, you know, a series of time. And then you still get the disease that it's supposed to prevent, but it's also supposed to limit how bad it is. But simultaneously, naturally, the virus is becoming less and less aggressive. So there's no real way to verify that the thing you're taking is actually working or not.
Yes. It's like that. You got the disease, but you're vaccinated, so it's less than it would have been. Supposedly. We can't prove that. But it's less than it would have been. Believe me, believe you, me. Believe the multi-trillion dollar corporation that is making hundreds of billions of dollars from this particular investment. Well, the beauty of it is nobody paid for it directly out of their own pocket, but they all paid for it in their taxes. Right.
So we're at how we can socialize medicine when it benefits corporate profit. Yes. Socialism is bad unless corporations can profit from it. Well, yeah. Right. Long live the corporation. Yeah, huzzah. Speaking about that, and this is a little side tangent, I am so angry right now, Mike, about United States Customs and Border Patrol. Very angry. I was led to believe that if you travel overseas, you can bring back cigars from overseas. And overseas, you can get Cubans. You don't have to go to Cuba.
But and you could, you could bring back Cubans because Obama loosened the restrictions so that you could bring back Cubans and then in 2020, suddenly you couldn't bring back any Cuban cigars at all. You could bring back other cigars, but I don't know what those cigars would be because if it's not a Cuban, as we learned from gravy, it's going to be a new world cigar, which you get here and you can get it here cheaper than you could get it anywhere else than here.
So there'd be no reason to bring cigars back from anywhere. And so under Trump, he tightened them up again. So now you can't bring back Cuban cigars through customs. If you travel, you can bring 100 cigars back for personal use, but they can't be Cubans. It makes me angry, Mike. Well, it's real weird that, you know, they quote unquote pro freedom people would restrict your basic freedom to buy a product that's internationally known as being the best.
Yeah. Or at least has a reputation of being the best. But how would anyone here know? Right. And that was an on purpose. They could have done nothing and then it would have been fine. Right. They could have gotten out of their way to limit freedom for Americans. Yes. Similar to like the bump stock issue that happened, which was a total fucking joke anyway. Yeah. Not to get into super specific details. No, but we can be angry about certain things. I am not angry about a bump stock.
The bump stock is a dumb thing anyway. No, I don't get too fucked about a bump stock. Even dumber to ban it, because if you look at how they're made, they're pretty easy to self design. You know what I mean? Yeah, especially with the proliferation of 3D printers and at home CNC machines and other things. Like you want a bunch of people that had no interest in doing that thing to do that thing, ban it and then see how many people that just fucking hate the government do that thing anyway.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Like the local farm and fleet store sells springs. Right. So I don't know what else to say. So ban springs and also plastic and then everything will be fine. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's so stupid. And by the way, like bump stock, I don't know if you ever looked at how the mechanism works. No. Totally idiotic. You cannot properly hold a firearm and have the bump stock actually activate because it works on a spring.
You have to hold it loose so the spring pushes it forward, but you have to hold it loose enough for the spring to actually push the firearm forward. So who the fuck would do that? Like I would not do that. I don't know man. It's nonsense. I wouldn't do it. Yeah. Then that's why I haven't looked into it because I'm not interested in that. I don't care. I don't like I only looked into it because they banned it. Well yeah. See?
So you're the person, you're the guy that's going to go out and buy the springs. I own no extra springs. Show us your receipts, Mike. I own no extra springs of any kind. Yeah. Check all of Mike's pens. He takes the springs out of the pens to make bump stocks. That's right. I weld them together. Very strong, very welded springs. Yes. Yes. Yes. So yeah, that was it for my topic, by the way. I'm sure you noticed, but yeah, I mean, you know, the synthetic pain ended.
It may have parallels with certain things. Yeah. I was going to talk, that was going to be my other thing, Mike, is so in the fifties, we had McCarthyism and the Red Scare or, you know, communist threat, right? And then in the eighties and nineties, it was a satanic panic. And then it seems like nowadays, which would be another, you know, 30 years beyond the eighties, nineties, 30, 40 years beyond again, same kind of cycle.
We've got whatever we have right now that does not rhyme with coronavirus. Oh, fuck. I just said the thing or, you know, whatever else. So is, is that kind of the societal trend is every 30 years, we have to have something that we blame or something that we try to band together against to severely limit freedoms and choices and things. Well, we can go farther back because in the twenties, they had prohibition. Yep. Right.
In the nineties, there was a depression, so there was like the Gilded Age Depression in the 1890s. And then before that, in the 60s, it was civil war. Right. And then in the thirties, they had a constitutional crisis then around slavery. So there has been seemingly a cycle of like crisis every once every generation and a half. Yeah. It doesn't affect. 30 years, give or take. Yeah. It doesn't affect the people who were children or adults during the last crisis.
It's the people who were too young to remember that time at all. Like I remember the tail end of the satanic panic and how goofy people were. Like it was a joke where I was at, you know, amongst like the adults in my social sphere. Right. Like they were joking. Like we were, my brothers are older than me and they were allowed to play Dungeons and Dragons. Right. Yeah. And they were gathering and shit like that, like they were not banned for doing that.
But I do remember like the Tales from the Crypt and things like that that played into that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I know my parents were not keen on a lot of the music that my brothers and I wanted to listen to when we got to high school. And I don't know that they necessarily called it devil music. I don't know how much of let's say the satanic panic or religion played a part in it other than maybe it was just music they didn't appreciate or whatever.
I remember one time growing up, my dad was a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. Like when he was a kid, right, he was huge Bruce Springsteen fan and he'd always listened to Bruce. And I remember one time he was listening to some music that my brothers and I liked. And of course they say fuck. And he's like, oh, I just don't like how they swear in these. So then what I did, because it was the age of the internet, I found a couple of songs for Bruce Springsteen says fuck.
And then I sent him those songs and he was less than thrilled about that. But I did want to talk about my grandma on my mom's side real quick, because she was very religious and I think she bought the satanic panic hook line and sinker. So she, when I was in high school, you know, they have letter jackets, right? And so somehow she, I never really saw her much. I saw her maybe like three times in my life, but she somehow bought the letter jackets for us, right?
Like the kids, like that was her thing, I guess. And we were the pirates. And so on the back of the letter jacket was the skull and crossbones, right? Pirate symbol. And she came to visit once and I was like, oh, hey, thanks for the letter jacket. Here it is. And she's like, oh, it looks great, except for the devil symbol on the back. So I feel like she's definitely one of those, but she was very religious.
And my other question is, so we've got the satanic panic where Dungeons and Dragons and let's say still on crossbones and other things are all like Satanist, but what about the churches and the religions that do the faith healing? Like that's not a show. That is so, did I tell the story about going to a Pentecostal church when I was in college? I don't think you did on the show.
Okay. So I had a girlfriend from South Dakota and I was a freshman in college and I went to visit, you know, the folks for some sort of break, right? And they're Pentecostals and she warned me and I brought her to a Catholic church and she was like, that was wild and crazy, right? She'd never been to a Catholic mass before and got a good workout. Didn't have to work out later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, she didn't work out later because she already spent enough time on her knees.
But so I'm sorry, whoever makes girlfriend was that wasn't meant at your expense. I was trying to make a Catholic joke. So I go to this Pentecostal church and people are waving their hands in the air and they're crying and there's this guy that's like crying and kissing his baby and like holding his hands in the air and the child is like in one of his hands, like a baby, like a one-handed baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. She was like, that guy's like a felon who just got out of jail like three years ago. Sure. And like they had like the band and her dad was in the band, you know? Okay. Was your dad the drummer? He was the bass player. And it was like the thing that you see on TV and I was like super uncomfortable. Oh my God. Did you go up to get healed? Did you go up to get healed? No, people were falling over and there was a lady who was babbling and talking in tongues. Speaking in tongues, yeah.
And I'm like, this is fucking like Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Man, I would love to go to one of those. I don't know, did I ever tell you, Mike, that I went to a full blown, like full blown, easily over two hours Catholic service? No. I went to a full Catholic service in Annapolis at the Naval Academy and it was all in Latin. Oh, they're naughty boys. I don't think they're really supposed to do that anymore. Yeah, I don't know. This was probably, hmm, early 2000s.
Sure. We went for the national Boy Scout Jamboree and I actually, we went and I got to go up on the upper outer dome balcony in the United States Capitol. We got to see the sniper hole where the snipers lay when the president's doing a speech in the Rotunda area there. We got to go up open air on the balcony on the top of the Capitol building. And I went back a couple of years later. Of course, this was, this was, must have been 2000 or it might have been very early 2001.
And we went back a couple of years later and the intern that was kind of giving us our Capitol tour, I was like, Hey, have you been up on the, on the dome? And she's like, no, no, no, I've not been up there. Nobody, nobody who works here anymore has been up there. So, but that was that era, you know, it was pre 9 11. So they were doing the full Latin before they decided Latin was the language of Satan or terrorists or something. Yeah, yeah.
They made a rule that you're supposed to do the mass in the language that your parishioners speak. So, okay. Nobody natively speaks Latin. So they're not, I mean, it was fascinating. I really enjoyed it. I didn't understand it. You know what I mean? But it was very interesting to me. I really liked that. Oh, I mean, if, if, if the listeners haven't gone to a full mass, you know, go like Easter Christmas or something, it's pretty interesting.
A lot of standing, a lot of turning around, a lot of handshaking, a lot of kneeling, a lot of standing, a lot of we, uh, Sarah's cousin is Catholic. Well, I don't know that they're super Catholic, but they're, the family is super Catholic. And so their wedding was a two plus hour Catholic wedding, which is fine, except it was summer in St. Louis and the church for whatever reason didn't have air conditioning.
So if you're going to go to a Catholic service, make sure the weather is moderate or they have AC. The church I went to as a kid didn't have AC and they had a fundraising drive and it took them like 10 years to pay for the AC unit for the church. Wouldn't God want them to have AC? You would think that, and this is like, you know, everybody has their like losing the faith story.
And one of the things that really got me was that when the, when the church, like when I found out that the churches were all locking their doors and I was like, there's a few rural churches that don't, but even the churches in like moderate sized towns lock their doors. And I'm like, what did you think that God could like protect the Lord's house? You know, I think Mike, because Sarah and I went to New York city last year, two years ago or something, maybe it was three years ago now.
I don't know. Time fucking flies when you get older, dude. I don't know what to tell you, but we went to New York city and we went to one of the, one of the big churches, one of the big Catholic churches that's famous for their stained glass windows and stuff. And we went there. It wasn't a church night. It wasn't like a, what are the church nights? Like Wednesday and maybe Saturday night or Sunday. It was just a regular old day. And we went in. The doors were open. Nobody was in there.
There was like one person praying and you know, the, the, uh, I'm so bad at Catholic stuff. The thing, the table of candles in like the red votives or whatever. You know what I mean? Sure. Yeah. The prayer candles or something. Yeah. Cause you can go in and you can light one for a family member or something. Right. I think, uh, yeah, you have to donate a dollar typically. Okay. And then, uh, so I should not have lit all those is what you're saying. I'm just, I'm, I'm teasing. I didn't do that.
But as an atheist, right? Like here I am talking about enjoying a two plus hour Latin Catholic service and enjoying going to a very old Catholic church in New York city, but that door was open in New York city. So I don't know the day and they undoubtedly have staff in there watching. They're just, they're not visible and they might, you know, it was, it was an evening time when we went there. So it wasn't full on day. The sun was setting. Uh, I don't, maybe they lock it later.
I don't know, but I get, I get your point where if you're locking your door, like the church is supposed to be a place, at least if you watch older movies, you can go and claim sanctuary and this and that, and even not for legal reasons, but it should be a place where anyone can come in regardless of their faith. And that's what that's one of the main things, but, uh, that turned me off Mormonism outside of them learning that they found a magic hat in the middle of the desert or something.
But beside that, we went to go visit the Mormon headquarter, uh, where they had the Tabernacle, Tabernacle choir and their main building. I can't remember what it was called right now, but you walk around the grounds and they have all these things talking about how the early Mormons were fleeing religious persecution and they had to carry and carve these stone blocks to build this church and blah, blah, blah. And so we walked up the steps. We did a family trip back when it was in high school.
We walk up the steps to like go in and check it out because every church should be open and we're from a really small town. So no, no church in our town is ever locked as far as I know. I don't think any business is ever locked either.
So if you want to make a bunch of money, uh, talk to me after the show, we'll split it, but the doors were locked and there was, there were attendance at every single door and they're like, Oh, you want to go and see this really cool church that we just told you was all built and everything. Well, you have to sign up and become a member and your membership has to go through and then you can come back and go in and look. And it's like, that's stupid dude. Like there's churches all over the place.
I went to Westminster Abbey in London for fuck's sake and was able to go all the way up and take a tour. Of course I had to make a donation. Your cost money, but, but you could go into the, into Westminster Abbey for free in the main areas, right? But if you want to take the tour up to the dome and everything, you had to, you had to pay for the tour, but you're free to worship in there at any time, any hour of the day.
So it's confusing to me coming from a small town and having the experiences in other churches from other faiths to where if you have a building that is historically significant, at least to your faith, have it locked until you become a member. Well, it's like one of, you know, that goes into the bite model, right? Like, yeah, for sure. The reason why you can walk into every Anglican church and just attend to service is because they're not a fucking cult and you can come and go as you please.
And there's no penalty for being there or not being there or whatever. It's your choice. They're not forcing you to do anything. I certainly have my own problems with religion, but I believe by and large, most of the local religious entities with church buildings and things are actually trying to do what they think is good, right? Maybe not the actual pope and all of his minions in Vatican City or the head of whatever synod or whatever your church belongs to or that.
But I think the local churches honestly try to do what they think is best. Right. I mean, here's a great example. I got two brothers, both got married in churches. One was in a Methodist church. One was in a Lutheran church. They did not card my goddamn Catholic grandmother or in some way tried to prevent her from coming to the church ceremony because she's a member of the Catholic church.
They didn't even make my brothers join the Methodist or the Lutheran church because they're already members of the Catholic church. The Catholics would not allow them to get married in the Catholic church because their wives weren't Catholic. But they could have become Catholic if they wanted to and got married. They're not banned from going to Catholic church. They're just not allowed to get married in there because they're not both confirmed members of the church or whatever.
And by the way, I've been to many Catholic weddings. You're allowed to not be a Catholic and come into the church and go to whatever you want to do. Yeah. And even the Catholics and the Lutherans and the other church services that I've been to, if they do the communion, the wafer and grape juice or wine, depending on the religion, it's open to anybody that wants to come and take it. They say if you normally take it, come up.
But if you don't normally take it or if you're not a member of the faith, you don't go and take it. I mean, that's just kind of like the, not like code of conduct, but it's, you know, whatever that is. It's the honor system. It's the honor system. Yeah, it's the honor system. If you want to go take communion, go take communion. If you never take communion, go take it. Nobody's going to check.
It's not like you get up there and the minister or priest whispers in your ear like, give me the secret password for the communion wafer, the worst wafer you're ever going to taste in your life. They're not chicken IDs. You have to be, yeah. Come take this terrible tasting wafer and this rubbish wine. Yep. Yeah. It's that's because they're not cults. You're allowed to come and go as you please. You can come and go as you please.
The priest for me, like giving cap, the priest is not coming to my house and harassing me because I haven't gone to church in 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you were there for your uncle's funeral. Why aren't you here now? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've seen it in all town, like a hallmark channel movies where it's like the priest is like, Oh Mike, I haven't seen you since the day, the day you were christened. How come you haven't been here?
Like no, these pastors and priests, they have so many people that they interact with. They're not going to remember one person, no matter how small the town usually. You know what I mean? They might say something like that. They might, but it's not going to be like a potentially, but it's not really like a guilt trip. You know, I'll say, I haven't seen you on a long time. It's like, well, father, you know, I don't know how to tell you this, but I don't believe in Jesus.
Yes. Yes. I really needed him when I was doing my 10 pin bowling and he failed me father. I don't know how to tell you this. He failed me. He split it. I got to split. I don't, what, what am I supposed to do with that? Jesus, tell me. I'm just kidding. What I heard that we had to add the 10th pin because of gambling laws and religious oversight. I just couldn't, I couldn't live with myself. I couldn't cope. I couldn't cope. So not to poke too much fun at religion.
I mean, obviously it's, you know, I mean, if you belong to a religion that fulfills you, yeah, that's wonderful. And if you belong to a religion that is a little more exclusionary than the ones that Nate and I grew up in, maybe you should analyze that. Yes, I will tell you why that is.
If you go to one of these new modern mega churches, somehow they know if you go in there, and I think I might've told this on the, on the podcast before, but I went, uh, one of my friends was getting baptized as an adult and it was a mega church and he knew I was an atheist, but he also knew that I am a photographer and he wanted me to take pictures of him getting baptized and I said, sure, I would love to like, that's awesome.
And so I went in with my camera and I went and sat in the front row, which of course, not only did I get the main pastor, but his assistant pastor and like the third assistant pastor and the thing hadn't even started yet. I hadn't even like the seat wasn't even warm yet for me sitting down and I had three people upon me and my wife and like, Oh, you're new here. We haven't seen you before. Tell us what brings you in today.
And I'm like, Oh, I'm an atheist and my friend is getting baptized today and you want me to take pictures. And uh, and the assistant pastor like straight off so fucking fast. And the main pastor who is older, he was like, well, I think that's great. That's great that you come here and you show support for your friend.
So you know, even there in a mega church where they're all about filling seats and the big production, I mean the stage, the stage was mechanical and it moved, moved apart and revealed this giant fucking pool under the stage and they had like a full five piece band playing all the hymns and like even there, like the main pastor who was a little older, wasn't trying to like guilt me into anything. He was just like, Hey, that's great. Great to show support for your friend.
I hope you enjoy, I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoy the day, whatever, you know, where the younger assistant pastor was kind of like, Oh, I can't didn't know what to do with that information. So well, yeah, it's kind of like the young priest versus the old priest, right? Like the priest could have a lot more piss and vinegar than the old guy probably doesn't care a whole lot. Yeah. So I think at a certain point you're not converting anybody. You know what I mean?
No. Have you ever seen the movie, uh, the quiet man, John Wayne? Yep. John Wayne. Yep. Yeah. I always, uh, the relationship that the Catholic priest and the Anglican, uh, pastor have. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's like, ah, growing up I was friends with the son of the Anglican, uh, pastor, preacher, whatever you want to call them, priest. And they very much, then the church, the Anglican church was right next to the, the Catholic church. And they very much had that sort of situation.
Yeah. So, and that's a lot of the old mainline religions in the United States. Like all these, yeah. Like if you're a Methodist or a Lutheran or an Anglican or a, uh, a Catholic, you know, you're probably not that different. Yeah. No, there's more similarities and differences for sure. Right. I do want to say Mike that I had to relight my cigar once and I didn't really set it down for overly long.
And then my cigar went out again and I've got, there's like an inch left, but I'm not going to relight it. Okay. I have about an inch left. Mine did not go out. Okay. But I'm totally fine with being done. It's starting to get a little, now that I'm in the last inch, it's like, eh. I was getting a little bit of that sourness. I think the middle bit, the middle bit was the best part because it did kind of fill out a little bit. It got a little more flavorful, not overly so.
Uh, the beginning part was very light, which is fine, which is fine. I'm trying to figure out how I feel about this one, Mike. Well, I'll give my thoughts here. It started off very light and it did gradually get stronger and it's not typically the kind of cigar that you and I would smoke. And that's, you know, kind of the issue, I guess. It's not so much of an issue as it is a style preference. So I'm going to give it a three. I saw a three. I was thinking three.
I think, I don't know, the first two thirds, I enjoyed it even though it's not really in my flavor profile wheelhouse. Right. But the last third was less than desirable. Like it didn't, the last third didn't build on the second third and it didn't do anything different or it didn't even maintain it. Kind of the last third kind of gradually got worse and worse as relative, worse in terms of this cigar. So I think a three is probably a fair assessment for this one. I'm not overly thrilled with it.
I think the first two thirds were fine. I got excited when it started building and then it just didn't do anything with it. So right. I mean, if you're a fan of Connecticut cigars or this is a natural, a lighter cigar, it's good. You know, I could definitely smoke this with a sweet tea or something in the middle day or middle morning. Yeah, I think this is probably a good summer stick. Oh yeah. Yep. Nice and light.
I would, you know what, I would like to have this one with a Natterday, that lemonade natural, natural ice. Yeah, that would be good. That or like a half and half. Like a lemon shandy or something. Yeah. I think, I think if you had like a little bit sweeter, not overly sweet, but a little bit sweeter beverage to go with this. Like your iced tea was probably a very good choice, Mike. It paired very well. It did. Mine was unsweetened, but it was, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But yeah, do we have more of the Arturo Fuentes, the smoke coming up? I don't know. I haven't made a list of everything. I should, but. We're moderately prepared, but not overly prepared. So you could spend all your life being prepared, but you also have to fly by the seat of your pants every once in a while. Right. I got a lot of stuff going on outside of the show. I'm not sure that everybody else listening, the only thing going on in your life is listening to this podcast, you know?
Yeah. So, but no, I like it. I mean, I would recommend it if somebody really likes the lighter cigars, because it was pleasant. Yeah, it's pleasant cigars. My normal wheelhouse for sure. Yeah. And I think I would have, I would have rated a little higher if the last third would have been a little bit better for sure. So it's one of those ones. We've smoked these types before where, you know, the first two thirds or the first half are pretty solid.
And then towards the end, it's just, you know, not, not doing it anymore. So I agree. Anyway, we have an Instagram, we have a Patreon, we have a website. We also had to convert our Google podcast to a YouTube. So we have a YouTube podcast channel now, and that is also where we'll be putting out some videos eventually when Nate has time, that fucker, to do some video stuff. Because we have video shot for at least two of our episodes, one all the way back from season one, if you can believe that.
And those will eventually find their way to our YouTube channel. I believe they'll be there. I don't know that I'll put them behind the Patreon paywall, at least at this point. But if we get some bigger guests, those ones might go on the Patreon. We'll see. We've got lots of things cooking. Again, the Instagram generally, usually has more than the episode picture that you get on your wherever you listen to us. So you can get a couple more pictures of the cigar on our Instagram.
We're looking for more followers. As we mentioned, we've got 69, which is very nice. But if we can hit triple digits, that would be even nicer and quadruple and beyond. So give us a like a listen, a follow. If you have the time, write us a review on wherever you're listening to us. Whether that's Spotify or Apple or wherever, we'd greatly appreciate it. And thanks for listening. Be safe. Drive safe.