April 7, 2025

Salem, Satanic Panic, and Slayer

Salem, Satanic Panic, and Slayer

From Salem to the Satanic panic of the 1980’s and the band Slayer

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From Salem to the Satanic panic of the 1980’s and the band Slayer

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Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is

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the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good afternoon everyone.

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It is Monday, April the seventh, twenty twenty five. It

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is currently twelve thirteen pm Central time, and I'm coming

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to you live from the Theology Central studio located right

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here in Abilene, Texas. Now, right here next to me,

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to my right is all of my stereo equipment. Right

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I have my Yamaha receiver, I have a streaming device,

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I have headphones. All of my stereo equipment is right

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there to my right. It's there, and I spend a

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lot of time with that stereo equipment and with a

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pair of headphones, on listening to a lot of music,

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and in listening to music. Recently, well, I started thinking

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about tomorrow. Now, what is tomorrow? Tomorrow is April the eighth,

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and I've been thinking specifically as I've been listening to

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music about April the eighth, nineteen eighty five. April the eighth,

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nineteen eighty five. For some of you, that day means

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absolutely nothing, But for me, it's a very significant day

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because I was a teenager in nineteen eighty five and

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I was in love with music. I'm still in love

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with music. I was obviously necked deep in the chaos

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of youth and the chaos of my crazy life that

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I went through, in all the horrible things that happened

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to me, And I was also living in a time

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when people were convinced that the devil had moved into

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the record store. It was the height of the Satanic panic.

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Preachers were warning parents were terrified. And what were they

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warning about? What were parents terrified about? Well, they were

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worried and terrified and warning about this thing called heavy metal.

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To many Christians, it wasn't music anymore. It was warfare.

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And on that day, April eighth, nineteen eighty five, the

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band's Slayer released the album Hell Awaits. I bought the

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album the day it came out. I remember peeling off

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the plastic, looking at the cover art and thinking this

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is going to tick off a lot of people. And

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it did. It became one of the most condemned albums

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of the era. It was blamed for everything from spiritual

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corruption to demonic possession. But I also remember something else,

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something more personal. Didn't necessarily feel evil to me. I

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definitely didn't feel possessed. I felt alive. I felt like

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someone was telling stories that were very dark, very wild,

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and extremely terrifying, but also they were real in a

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way that the fear mongering never was. There was something

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real to me about the stories. There was something dark,

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There was something maybe that captured the pain and suffering

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that I was going through in my life. At that time.

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It felt more dare I say, it felt more real

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than all of the fear and paranoia and screaming I

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was hearing all around me in the middle of the

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Satanic panic and what parents were saying and pastors were saying.

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Looking back now from twenty twenty five, I see clearly

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what I couldn't name then that very moment. It was

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more than a cultural class It was more than a

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culture war. It was a storm of fear. It was

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a storm of fiction and misunderstanding, not unlike something that

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happened before in American history. So today, nearly forty years later,

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I'm going to invite you to take a journey. We're

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going to take a journey that begins in a Puritan village.

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We're going to wind through a national panic, and then

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it's going to explode through the speakers of a Slayer

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album and I'm going to ask some questions like what

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happens when fear replaces truth and the church forgets how

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to think? This is going to be the story of Salem,

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the Satanic Panic and the band Slayer. Does that sound

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okay to you? Are you interested? Do you want to

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take the journey? Well, here we go. Let's go back

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way back in sixteen ninety two. It was young girls

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in Salem, Massachusetts. They were trembling, crying, and they begin

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to name names. They accused neighbors, they accused servants, They

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even accused family. Not a theft, not of murder, but

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of consorting with the devil, of signing the Book of Satan,

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of summoning dark spirits. And in a town that feared

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damnation more than death, that was enough. Over the course

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of a year, nearly two hundred people would be accused

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of witchcraft. Nineteen were hanged, one man was crushed under stones,

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others rotted in prison. Their only real crime was being

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the object of suspicion in a world shaped by fear.

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Their only real crime was being the object of suspicion

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and a world shaped by fear. Centuries later, April eighth,

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nineteen eighty five, a new name enters the conversation. Slayer,

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a thrash metal band from California. They're loud, they are aggressive,

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they're fast, and they're terrifying. Their second album, Hell Awaits,

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arrives like a sonic inferno, filled with screaming guitars, chaotic solos,

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and lyrics about hell, demons, death and destruction. To a

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generation of metal fans, it's considered a masterpiece to many Christians.

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It's proof that the devil is here and he has

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a record deal. And just like that, that old fear,

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that old fear that was in Salem arrived, Well for me,

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it arrived in Buffalo Gap, Texas. That's where it arrives

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with me and all around us. So you would begin

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to hear people say things like this, preacher saying things

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like this, This is not just music, it's satanic and doctrination.

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Kids are being brainwashed by heavy metal. I heard it

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myself over and over again. I heard people say backward messages.

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They say kill your parents, they say worship Satan. Just

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play the record backwards. These are modern day witches and

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they're after your children. Oh. I heard this stuff over

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and over and over again. It was everywhere the old fear,

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the old panic had arrived. It was no longer in Salem,

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it was all across the United States. You see, in

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the seventeenth century it was the devil in the woods,

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and the twentieth it was the devil on stage. And

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in both cases the reaction was the same panic, accusation,

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and the belief that we must protect the truth, even

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if it means bending it a little bit, even if

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it means maybe not really being I don't know, in

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line with the truth. This is the story of two

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moments in history, separated by centuries, yet bound by the

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exact same fear. A fear that forgets truth, that replaces

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discernment with paranoia, a fear that teaches Christians to condemn

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without understanding and to fight darkness with maybe something dark,

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then the very darkness you're trying to fight. You see,

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this is the story of Salem. This is the rise

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of the Satanic Panic, and this is the album called

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hell Owaits. The town of Salem was small, the kind

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of place where everyone knew everyone else, and they also

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knew their sins, or at least they thought they did.

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Puritanism ran deep. The Bible wasn't just scripture. It was

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the law, it was the news, it was the entire worldview.

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Sin wasn't just a private concern, it was a public threat.

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So when a group of girls began to convulse, scream,

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and claim invisible forces were attacking them, the town listened.

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At first it seemed like a mystery. Then a few

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names were whispered, then shouted. Accusations flew like sparks, and

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soon a fire consumed the town. No physical evidence, no proof,

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just fear, hysteria, and the terrifying sense the devil was real,

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near and infecting the community. The accused had few defenses.

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Deny it, and you must be lying. The devil teaches

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his followers to deceive, confess. You may be spared execution

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if you name someone else and the church. It didn't

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bring clarity, it added fuel to the fire. Ministers thundered

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from the pulpits about Satan's presence. Testimonies of spectral visions

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were accepted as proof. Logic was replaced with certainty. They

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knew they were right because they were afraid. But the

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trials came to an end. Eventually, the judges stopped listening.

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The girls were no longer believed. The fear collapsed under

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the weight of its own lies, and Salem was left

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with blood on its hands and a stain on the

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conscience of the American Church that would never fully fade.

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Why begin here, Why go back to sixteen ninety two,

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because they shows us a pattern, the very same pattern

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that would rise again during my teenage life, the very

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same pattern that happens in Salem. That's why when people

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sometimes they're curious why I love Salem so much, Because

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when I go there and I learn and to just

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try to feel everything that could have possibly have been

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happening there in sixteen ninety two, in some ways, I'm like, well,

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it wasn't sixteen ninety two. It was the nineteen eighties.

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It was Buffalo Gap, Texas. Ho But it felt very very,

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very very very similar, because the same pattern would rise

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again in the nineteen eighties, where Christians fearing evil would

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forget truth, music, fiction, and storytelling would be mistaken for doctrine,

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where bearing false witness became a part of spiritual warfare.

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Hey make this accusation, make this claim, get this information wrong,

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this and it became conspiracy, paranoia, fear, insanity, and it

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was everywhere, and you couldn't escape it, especially if you

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were a teenager in the nineteen eighties, especially if you

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were a teenager anywhere where there was a church on

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every street corner like here in West Texas, you couldn't

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get around it. You couldn't everywhere you went and where.

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Just like Salem, it would all eventually fall apart. But first,

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before the flames die down, we need to see how

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the Satanic panic began. Satanic panic didn't happen overnight. It

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wasn't born out of a single moment. It crept in slowly,

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feeding on suspicion, rumor, and a growing fear that America's

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youth were slipping away into something dark. By the late

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nineteen seventies. In the early nineteen eighties, the United States

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was changing. The sexual Revolution had left scars, The drug

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crisis was visible in every corner. Violent crime was rising,

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divorce rates were climbing, and beneath the surface, there was

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a spiritual unease, a growing sense that something evil was

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behind it all. And Christians they were looking for a name,

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they were looking for a face, they were looking for

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a cause. Say that the first spark came in nineteen eighty.

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I think we could probably go back to maybe nineteen

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I believe seventy seven. We'll talk about what happened in

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nineteen seventy seven. We'll save that for a little later,

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but a lot of people will go that it was

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nineteen eighty where the first spark was lit for the

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Satanic panic. And once again, it's a book that's interesting.

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Remember the story of Salem and a particular book that

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ended up in the pastor's study. Remember, okay, all right,

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So once again it's a book. The first spark. The

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first spark came in nineteen eighty with a book called

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Michelle Remembers. Does anybody remember Michelle Remembers? It was written

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by a psychiatrist and his patient, later his wife. It

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told the story of recovered memories, ritual abuse, a Satanic cult,

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animal sacrifices, black robes, demons, and the devil himself. There

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was no evidence, there was no coroboration, but it did

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not matter. The book sold millions. It became a cultural phenomenon,

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especially in Christian circles. Churches, radio shows, and seminaries took

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it seriously, and it was used as proof that Satanic

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cults were everywhere, hiding in neighborhoods, daycares, and high schools.

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Once again a book. I just find it interesting that

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Salem and we talked about Cotton Mather and we talked

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about it, We talked about so much and how this

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all played out in Salem. Again, just even telling the story,

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I feel like it's am I telling the story of Salem,

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or I'm telling the story of the nineteen eighties. Well, Salem.

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I have to rely on history, right, I have to

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rely on document in the eighties. I can rely a

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lot on my own memory because I was right there

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in the midst of all of this. You may hear

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a preacher in the nineteen eighties say they're out there,

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the occultists, the devil worshipers, even in your child's school.

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Don't be fooled. The enemy is not hiding in the shadows.

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He's already in your home. The parents were like, how

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how did he get here? How do I get rid

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of him? See, that's when the panix begins to spread.

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Talk shows air testimonies of ritual abuse, survivors, pastors, warns

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of symbols inside of cartoons. Detectives gave lectures about cult crimes,

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most of which had no actual evidence. And then the

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daycare trials happened. The most famous case began in California

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that mc martin. Pre school children were interviewed with suggestive questions.

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They were told that bad things had happened. Eventually they

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began to tell stories. Hmmm, so we're back to children.

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How does Salem begin? Children? This is crazy the way

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this goes well, A book, a book children, children see.

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If you don't know history, you repeat history even if

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you know it. It goes in cycles in some ways.

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So but in this case, we're not in Salem. We're

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in California. It's a preschool. Children are interviewed with suggestive questions.

223
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They were told that bad things had happened, and eventually

224
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they begin to tell stories about tunnels under the school,

225
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animal sacrifices, and even being flown on broomsticks. There was

226
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no physical evidence. There was no tunnels, there was no photos,

227
00:19:00.640 --> 00:19:06.920
no signs of abuse. But it didn't matter. The accusations

228
00:19:06.920 --> 00:19:11.039
were enough. Parents were terrified. Pastors preached about hidden cults.

229
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TV specials ran dramatic reenactments of Satanic rituals, complete with

230
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robe figures and candles. It was sixteen ninety two all

231
00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:23.880
over again, but this time the witches were daycare workers

232
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and the Puritans were Christian broadcasters. You would hear things

233
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like this. Dozens of children claimed to have been satan,

234
00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:41.559
Dozens of children claimed to have seen Satanic sacrifices. Some

235
00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:45.200
say the occult has infiltrated American culture at every level.

236
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Heavy metal music, Ouiji boards, even Halloween. Are our kids

237
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being brainwashed? Oh? And I remember Halloween. I don't remember

238
00:19:53.799 --> 00:19:57.000
the exact year it was, but here in West Texas

239
00:19:57.240 --> 00:20:00.400
a curfew was issued and you could not be out

240
00:20:00.559 --> 00:20:06.759
at night on Halloween because teams of Satanic you know,

241
00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:11.880
evil Satanic priests were roaming about. Teams of them. Are

242
00:20:12.200 --> 00:20:14.640
teams of Satanic cults. I don't know the exact words

243
00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:16.920
they use. And they were going to kidnap your children

244
00:20:17.039 --> 00:20:25.039
and sacrifice them, so you could We couldn't go out

245
00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:26.480
and go trick or treating because we were going to

246
00:20:26.559 --> 00:20:31.720
be kidnapped and murdered by Satanist. Oh, but we could

247
00:20:31.759 --> 00:20:34.119
go to church for I guess a fall festival. We

248
00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:43.480
could do that. Now. It did not take long before music,

249
00:20:44.839 --> 00:20:51.799
especially heavy metal music, became the next battleground. Now trying

250
00:20:51.799 --> 00:20:55.319
to figure how it all. I think music was always

251
00:20:55.680 --> 00:20:58.319
and from my perspective, music was always a part of

252
00:20:58.319 --> 00:21:01.400
the battleground. It was always there. It was always was

253
00:21:01.400 --> 00:21:03.559
there a turning point. It's hard to say a lot

254
00:21:03.599 --> 00:21:06.599
of this all kind of blurs together. Obviously, the book

255
00:21:06.599 --> 00:21:11.839
in nineteen eighty really sparked the daycare case. Was everywhere

256
00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:14.720
you heard about the daycare case. All the way into

257
00:21:14.799 --> 00:21:17.839
the nineties, you heard different stories about daycare cases and

258
00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:21.359
teams of Satanists and all this. These things were they

259
00:21:21.359 --> 00:21:24.720
were just everywhere. You just couldn't get away from it.

260
00:21:24.759 --> 00:21:27.039
And of course you didn't have the ability to go

261
00:21:27.079 --> 00:21:30.000
look anything up, check anything. You just had to rely

262
00:21:30.119 --> 00:21:33.400
on whatever you were hearing. And there was this I

263
00:21:33.440 --> 00:21:35.680
don't know if you can really understand, there was this

264
00:21:35.759 --> 00:21:39.559
great sense of fear. Like on one hand, if you

265
00:21:39.720 --> 00:21:43.319
say you were a teenager, I mean, all the kids

266
00:21:43.319 --> 00:21:46.119
would start telling stories. We were out, you know here

267
00:21:46.279 --> 00:21:49.119
in West Texas that were like, look, it was Friday night.

268
00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:52.039
We were at Lake Fort Fannam, that's the lake here

269
00:21:52.079 --> 00:21:55.240
in Abilene, Texas, and we were out there and all

270
00:21:55.279 --> 00:21:57.799
of a sudden we saw this circle of people in

271
00:21:57.920 --> 00:22:01.400
black robes and they were offering a sacrifice. You didn't

272
00:22:01.400 --> 00:22:03.319
know if the stories the kids were telling were true

273
00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:05.960
or false. All of a sudden it was, and then

274
00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:08.319
you were really worried, like, oh, I wonder if there's

275
00:22:08.359 --> 00:22:12.799
really these like, you know, teams of Satanic serial killers

276
00:22:12.799 --> 00:22:15.359
who will try to kill me. And then you were like, well,

277
00:22:15.400 --> 00:22:18.279
I wonder if. I wonder if if I'm gonna get possessed,

278
00:22:18.279 --> 00:22:20.200
and I would like there was a little bit of

279
00:22:20.279 --> 00:22:23.000
concern trying to figure out Like a one hand, you're like,

280
00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:25.119
this is ridiculous, but then there would be times, maybe

281
00:22:25.160 --> 00:22:28.359
late at night, You're like, maybe I should check the

282
00:22:28.359 --> 00:22:31.119
door again, is it locked? You know, like you were

283
00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:35.079
really you were kind of conflicted, like in some ways

284
00:22:35.079 --> 00:22:37.640
you were like, man, this is ridiculous. On the other hand,

285
00:22:37.640 --> 00:22:39.680
you're like, well, I wonder, I wonder if I should

286
00:22:39.720 --> 00:22:44.960
be scared. But then music becomes the target. Bands like

287
00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.279
Black Sabbath, ACDC, Judas Priest, and of course Iron Maiden

288
00:22:50.319 --> 00:22:58.359
were suddenly recast not as musicians but missionaries of Satan.

289
00:22:59.559 --> 00:23:05.880
The lyrics were dissected, album covers were scrutinized, turntables were

290
00:23:05.920 --> 00:23:14.759
reversed looking for secret messages. And I meant to say

291
00:23:14.759 --> 00:23:19.960
the lyrics were dissected. Album covers were scrutinized, turntables were reversed.

292
00:23:20.279 --> 00:23:27.200
Looking for a secret message. A movement of Christian watchdogs

293
00:23:27.359 --> 00:23:33.119
began holding rock seminars. Oh the rock seminars? What am

294
00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:36.200
I familiar with them? If it was a Friday night

295
00:23:36.279 --> 00:23:38.720
and I was like, man, there's not much going on. Oh,

296
00:23:38.839 --> 00:23:41.680
look there's a church in town doing a rock seminar.

297
00:23:42.079 --> 00:23:45.799
Let me get there, and I would get ready, get dressed, boom,

298
00:23:45.839 --> 00:23:47.720
I would go to the rocksmen. Oh. I would always

299
00:23:47.720 --> 00:23:50.359
put on my iron Maiden shirt or a Judas priest

300
00:23:50.519 --> 00:23:52.680
or a black Sabbath shirt. I would always make sure

301
00:23:52.680 --> 00:23:54.880
I did that. Yeah, I was being a little bit rebellioused,

302
00:23:54.880 --> 00:23:56.799
but I went like, oh, I get to go here.

303
00:23:57.039 --> 00:23:59.400
How bad all of this music is, and how I'm

304
00:23:59.400 --> 00:24:02.079
going to be by Satan? Let me go? And I

305
00:24:02.079 --> 00:24:04.160
would go and I would hear them like oh. They

306
00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:07.519
would try to play things backwards. Listen, listen, it says Satan.

307
00:24:08.200 --> 00:24:12.759
Oh play this song backwards. Ooh, it says smoke marijuana. Oh,

308
00:24:12.839 --> 00:24:16.279
listen to this. Oh it's everywhere. Satan's gonna get us.

309
00:24:16.359 --> 00:24:18.799
Satan's gonna get us. And in many cases then they

310
00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:21.240
would talk about the lyrics, not even understanding what they're

311
00:24:21.279 --> 00:24:27.559
talking about. Lies misrepresentation, giving fraudulent stories about what the

312
00:24:27.599 --> 00:24:32.160
bands were doing, literally fraudulent stories, and I would just

313
00:24:32.200 --> 00:24:35.400
sit there and mock it and mockt now I would

314
00:24:35.440 --> 00:24:37.880
I was always respectful in the sense of I wouldn't

315
00:24:37.880 --> 00:24:39.720
say anything out loud, but I would just be sitting

316
00:24:39.799 --> 00:24:42.200
there shaking my head. And then of course after that,

317
00:24:42.440 --> 00:24:44.359
all the parents in there were all scared to death.

318
00:24:44.559 --> 00:24:46.720
Oh no, I gotta go, and so then they would

319
00:24:46.759 --> 00:24:49.160
run home and Friday night find all the I can't

320
00:24:49.160 --> 00:24:52.119
believe you have this demonic thing in our house. It's

321
00:24:52.160 --> 00:24:54.559
not going to stay here. And then on Saturdays they

322
00:24:54.599 --> 00:24:59.519
would get in the parking lot and burn all the albums. Okay, yeah,

323
00:24:59.319 --> 00:25:02.759
I oh, I watched it all play out over and over.

324
00:25:02.839 --> 00:25:07.480
So now the rock seminars begin where youth pastors would

325
00:25:07.480 --> 00:25:10.759
play distorted clips of songs backwards and claim, Hey, did

326
00:25:10.759 --> 00:25:13.480
you hear that it says kill your parents? Did you

327
00:25:13.519 --> 00:25:16.079
hear it says kill your parents? Now you're playing it backwards,

328
00:25:16.079 --> 00:25:19.160
but that's what it's meant to be there. Oh oh,

329
00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:22.640
it says hell satan. And then the parents were getting

330
00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:24.519
all nervous and like oh, and they were looking over

331
00:25:24.559 --> 00:25:26.359
at their kids and the kids are like, what is

332
00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:28.880
happening to me? What? What? How did I end up

333
00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:32.640
in this mess? And then the preachers would say something

334
00:25:32.759 --> 00:25:39.480
like this isn't just music, it's indoctrination and it's working.

335
00:25:40.039 --> 00:25:43.799
The devil has found a way to reach your children

336
00:25:44.240 --> 00:25:53.480
through their headphones. Now what follows is both surreal and tragic.

337
00:25:54.640 --> 00:26:04.000
Christian youth groups began hosting album burning ceremonies. Vinyl records

338
00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:08.119
were smashed with hammers, Cassette tapes were thrown into bonfires.

339
00:26:08.480 --> 00:26:12.400
Teens were encouraged to renounce their satanic music and dedicate

340
00:26:12.480 --> 00:26:18.319
themselves to Christ. Now, some of it, I am not

341
00:26:18.440 --> 00:26:20.640
going to listen. I'm going to try to be fair.

342
00:26:20.880 --> 00:26:23.400
Some of this I believe was sincere to some level.

343
00:26:23.480 --> 00:26:29.680
What Some of this had good intentions. Some of it

344
00:26:29.960 --> 00:26:35.759
I think was performative, I really do. But all of

345
00:26:35.799 --> 00:26:40.359
it was rooted and the same thing that once consumed Salem,

346
00:26:41.119 --> 00:26:48.759
absolute out of control fear and paranoia, and it's into

347
00:26:48.920 --> 00:26:53.279
that cultural firestorm. All of this is going on. The

348
00:26:53.319 --> 00:27:00.920
book Michelle remembers all of these satanic cults, sacrifices, all

349
00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:04.240
of this stuff going on, the evils of rock and roll.

350
00:27:04.359 --> 00:27:07.359
All of this is happening. I'm in the middle of

351
00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:09.680
all of this storm, and I just want to go

352
00:27:09.720 --> 00:27:11.920
to the record store. It's all I want to do.

353
00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:20.400
And there it is Hell Awaits Slayer, And as soon

354
00:27:20.440 --> 00:27:24.839
as I see it, I'm like, Oh, I gotta buy this.

355
00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:28.039
I have to buy this. I gotta buy this. I

356
00:27:28.039 --> 00:27:30.319
gotta buy this before it gets burnt, right, Okay, I

357
00:27:30.359 --> 00:27:36.559
gotta buy this. Hell Awaits was released on April eighth,

358
00:27:36.720 --> 00:27:40.000
nineteen eighty five. There is some dispute over Some say

359
00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:42.480
it's released in a different day, but I believe April

360
00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:45.000
the eighth, nineteen eighty five. That's the day I purchased it,

361
00:27:45.039 --> 00:27:47.279
and I believe that's the day it was released. Okay,

362
00:27:47.319 --> 00:27:49.680
So if someone wants to get into a major musical

363
00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:52.799
historical argument, I understand there's some dispute, but I think

364
00:27:52.839 --> 00:27:54.599
for many that's the day you found it in the

365
00:27:54.640 --> 00:27:58.640
record store. I just remember April the eighth because I

366
00:27:58.680 --> 00:28:05.839
remember bringing that album home, all right. I remember listening

367
00:28:05.880 --> 00:28:09.079
to it and I was like, what is this? What

368
00:28:09.400 --> 00:28:15.039
is going on? There were lyrics about hell, about demons,

369
00:28:16.559 --> 00:28:22.359
about murder, about damnation, and with the cover art that

370
00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:25.799
looked like the Gates of Hell had been torn open.

371
00:28:26.759 --> 00:28:32.079
The riffs, the guitar riffs sounded like pure chaos. Hell

372
00:28:32.079 --> 00:28:36.519
Aways wasn't just another album, especially to the church, it was.

373
00:28:36.839 --> 00:28:40.440
They felt it was a summoning, and for those already

374
00:28:40.440 --> 00:28:43.680
convinced the devil was moving through the music industry, Slayer

375
00:28:43.920 --> 00:28:49.000
became the perfect villain. Just as in Salem. No one

376
00:28:49.160 --> 00:28:53.319
asked if the accusations were true, only whether they were

377
00:28:53.400 --> 00:28:59.319
frightening enough. And I'm right there in the middle of it.

378
00:28:59.400 --> 00:29:05.000
I'm listening to the album going wow, whoa, whoa, no way,

379
00:29:05.359 --> 00:29:07.839
what is happening now? At the time, did I have

380
00:29:08.200 --> 00:29:12.240
a good sense of exactly how to interpret it? Not not,

381
00:29:12.319 --> 00:29:14.880
as I grew in my understanding and how to analyze

382
00:29:15.119 --> 00:29:19.759
art and how to understand storytelling. But I still knew

383
00:29:19.799 --> 00:29:23.200
that it was gonna be misconstrued and misunderstood, and I

384
00:29:23.279 --> 00:29:25.680
definitely knew it was going to be attacked. I almost

385
00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:28.640
felt like, Okay, is anybody looking through the window? Is

386
00:29:28.680 --> 00:29:31.240
anybody going to see me? Because if I get caught

387
00:29:31.279 --> 00:29:36.079
with this, I'm going down. Okay, I'm going down because

388
00:29:36.400 --> 00:29:41.839
this this is definitely not allowed. So April eighth, nineteen

389
00:29:41.880 --> 00:29:45.640
eighty five, Slayer releases what was their second full length

390
00:29:45.880 --> 00:29:49.359
studio album, Hell Awaits. You can go to any streaming

391
00:29:49.359 --> 00:29:50.759
service right now and look at it. You can go

392
00:29:50.759 --> 00:29:52.519
to and look at the album cover. You're gonna look

393
00:29:52.519 --> 00:29:54.960
at it now and think this is ridiculous. It's gonna

394
00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.799
look kind of maybe cheesy, over the top, ridiculous, right.

395
00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:03.920
But in nineteen eighty five it was ooh, it's scary, Okay,

396
00:30:04.279 --> 00:30:09.680
it was completely different world now the album only has

397
00:30:09.720 --> 00:30:13.319
seven tracks. It's just a little over thirty what thirty

398
00:30:13.359 --> 00:30:16.400
seven minutes, I think it's about it's about thirty seven minutes,

399
00:30:17.759 --> 00:30:20.240
and there's not a single moment of safety to be

400
00:30:20.319 --> 00:30:24.279
found anywhere. And those thirty seven minutes, there's no safety

401
00:30:24.319 --> 00:30:28.640
to be found. There's nowhere to hide, there's nowhere to run,

402
00:30:29.240 --> 00:30:37.200
there's nowhere. It opens with I guess the only way

403
00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:42.599
some people would describe it as reversed demonic whispers. It's

404
00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:48.200
being played in reverse and they're saying, join us, join us,

405
00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:59.440
join us, and then all at once it explodes. Drums

406
00:30:59.599 --> 00:31:06.799
fire like machine guns, guitars slash, vocals roar. It doesn't

407
00:31:06.799 --> 00:31:09.640
feel like music. It feels like you're being assaulted. That's

408
00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:11.920
the only way to describe it. That's what it felt like,

409
00:31:12.119 --> 00:31:14.920
especially if you had headphones on or some good speakers.

410
00:31:15.039 --> 00:31:17.799
All of a sudden, it's like, ooh, this reverse ooh,

411
00:31:17.960 --> 00:31:22.640
there's there's this reverse stuff going on, backward masking. No no, no, no,

412
00:31:22.640 --> 00:31:24.680
no no, Well, I wonder what they're saying. What are

413
00:31:24.680 --> 00:31:26.440
they saying? Why are they saying satan? But they were

414
00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:29.720
saying join us. Then all of a sudden, it explodes

415
00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:33.839
the drums, just the guitars. I mean I could sit

416
00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:35.440
there and try to I could. I could walk you

417
00:31:35.480 --> 00:31:40.920
through every part of it. The vocals are like, yeah, okay, okay,

418
00:31:40.960 --> 00:31:42.680
is that a good Is that a good way? Okay?

419
00:31:42.839 --> 00:31:45.319
Maybe not the best. You get the idea. And again,

420
00:31:45.359 --> 00:31:47.119
it doesn't even feel like music. It feels like you're

421
00:31:47.160 --> 00:31:49.880
being assaulted. It's like when you first hear it, especially

422
00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:52.599
at that point, you're like, man, it's like goosebumps come

423
00:31:52.640 --> 00:31:55.119
up all across your buddy, a chill goes down your spine,

424
00:31:55.160 --> 00:31:57.440
and you're like okay, and and and of course in

425
00:31:57.519 --> 00:32:00.200
that point in time, you feel like you it's just

426
00:32:00.279 --> 00:32:02.799
something you've discovered. It's not like you, you know, you

427
00:32:02.839 --> 00:32:04.799
open up a streaming service and you feel like, well,

428
00:32:04.839 --> 00:32:07.559
everyone has this. You feel like that you've found it,

429
00:32:07.720 --> 00:32:10.319
that you stumbled upon this, that maybe nobody else is

430
00:32:10.359 --> 00:32:13.720
even hearing this. You feel like it's something like what

431
00:32:14.119 --> 00:32:20.680
is going on here? In some ways, it's felt like

432
00:32:20.759 --> 00:32:22.880
a new kind of heavy. Now we could get into

433
00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:25.160
a musical argument. Was it a new kind of heavy?

434
00:32:25.559 --> 00:32:29.000
Was it really that different? But it felt different? Okay,

435
00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:31.640
I'm not going to get into a massive musical argument

436
00:32:31.720 --> 00:32:35.240
over how different it was. But it felt like we're

437
00:32:35.240 --> 00:32:44.279
not in Kansas anymore. And some ways, Slayer wasn't just

438
00:32:44.319 --> 00:32:49.559
playing faster or louder. They were pushing thrash metal into

439
00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:54.400
something darker, more chaotic, longer songs because some of the

440
00:32:54.440 --> 00:32:58.680
songs have a longer running time, a more sinister atmosphere

441
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:03.680
in some cases no choruses, no hooks, just a torrent

442
00:33:03.799 --> 00:33:06.880
of sound and dark darkness, I think is a good

443
00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:12.200
way to say it. In some ways, Hell Awaits wasn't

444
00:33:12.200 --> 00:33:16.119
made to be catchy. It was made to terrify you

445
00:33:16.440 --> 00:33:19.400
and scare you to death. The best time to listen,

446
00:33:19.720 --> 00:33:22.640
and my estimation the best time to listen, and the

447
00:33:22.680 --> 00:33:25.440
first time I listened to the album was at night.

448
00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:28.720
I don't remember exactly what time I remember buying the

449
00:33:28.759 --> 00:33:31.880
album earlier that day, and I think I had some

450
00:33:31.920 --> 00:33:34.240
conversation with people like what album did you buy? Oh

451
00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:39.039
you got you got that? Don't tell any basically, like, hey,

452
00:33:39.079 --> 00:33:41.160
you better put that in a brown paper bag, don't

453
00:33:41.200 --> 00:33:43.440
let anybody see it, or the local church is gonna

454
00:33:43.440 --> 00:33:45.079
come get it and smash it with a hammer and

455
00:33:45.119 --> 00:33:47.440
burn it in the fire and try to cast demons

456
00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:49.480
out of you. What are you doing? You're playing with

457
00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:52.839
the devil man. Okay, run and I'm like, I'm gonna

458
00:33:52.880 --> 00:33:55.240
run right home and put on some headphones. I waited

459
00:33:55.319 --> 00:33:57.440
till night. I don't remember what time I wanted, like

460
00:33:57.839 --> 00:34:00.319
the perfect telling of the story, it was mid night,

461
00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:02.319
but I just know it was night. And when I

462
00:34:02.359 --> 00:34:06.039
put on the music, I was like, like I was

463
00:34:06.079 --> 00:34:09.000
watching a horror movie at midnight. That's what it felt like.

464
00:34:15.119 --> 00:34:19.639
At the time. Metal was already branching off into extremes. Okay,

465
00:34:19.960 --> 00:34:23.679
I think Metallica had already released Ride the Lightning. I

466
00:34:23.679 --> 00:34:28.159
think it was the year before Exodus. Mega Death Possessed

467
00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:32.239
were pushing speed and technicality that that was already happening.

468
00:34:33.320 --> 00:34:36.000
But I and this is the way I feel, I

469
00:34:36.039 --> 00:34:41.119
cannot be like musically completely make a dogmatic assertion here,

470
00:34:41.119 --> 00:34:43.360
but it felt like to me that Slayer, while other

471
00:34:43.400 --> 00:34:47.320
people were maybe branching off into extremes and speed and

472
00:34:47.320 --> 00:34:51.719
and different the way that we're doing things technically, I

473
00:34:51.760 --> 00:34:57.639
felt like Slayer brought hell into the music. Is that

474
00:34:57.679 --> 00:35:03.360
an accurate description for the music historians out there? The

475
00:35:03.400 --> 00:35:08.079
title track is nearly seven minutes of rising torment and

476
00:35:08.119 --> 00:35:14.559
a descent into damnation. Praise of Death blends nihilism with

477
00:35:15.280 --> 00:35:22.599
galloping rifts. At Dawn They Sleep explores vampirism. And then

478
00:35:23.559 --> 00:35:31.239
one of the most infamous tracks. Oh okay, now this

479
00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:34.559
one is where you may not want your children around. Okay.

480
00:35:35.199 --> 00:35:39.800
The next song is the one. This is the one

481
00:35:39.840 --> 00:35:51.440
that caused all the chaos. Necrophiliac, Necrophiliac. This sparked so

482
00:35:51.719 --> 00:35:59.559
much controversy. This created widespread panic, This created this created,

483
00:36:00.119 --> 00:36:06.559
This created chaos. Necrophiliac is one of the most infamous tracks.

484
00:36:07.159 --> 00:36:10.719
It is told from the point of view of a

485
00:36:10.800 --> 00:36:17.679
man possessed by a grotesque desire, and it doesn't end

486
00:36:17.719 --> 00:36:23.639
in glory. It ends in judgment. Quoting from the lyric

487
00:36:24.239 --> 00:36:29.079
from the album from the song Necrophiliac, Cursed Birth of

488
00:36:29.199 --> 00:36:36.639
the Depraved Scent to Live in Hell. Even at its

489
00:36:36.639 --> 00:36:41.239
most disturbing, the album doesn't celebrate evil. It portrays it

490
00:36:41.719 --> 00:36:44.960
and it then shows it being condemned. And that's what

491
00:36:45.039 --> 00:36:49.360
people did not get. It's disturbing, no way to get around.

492
00:36:49.440 --> 00:36:52.679
The album is disturbing, but it's not celebrating the evil.

493
00:36:52.800 --> 00:36:56.679
It's really just portraying it. It's painting the picture and

494
00:36:56.760 --> 00:37:00.840
then in some ways it shows it being condemned. Awaits,

495
00:37:00.920 --> 00:37:08.760
Get the hell Awaits. You see the album Hell Awaits.

496
00:37:08.920 --> 00:37:13.920
It was not a satanic manifesto. It was more of

497
00:37:13.960 --> 00:37:19.280
a horror anthology. It was a musical version of maybe

498
00:37:19.320 --> 00:37:25.000
ec Comics or Lovecraft or Dante's Inferno. That's what I

499
00:37:25.199 --> 00:37:28.159
likened it to as a teenager is Dante's Inferno because

500
00:37:28.159 --> 00:37:31.639
as a teenager, oh, Dante's Inferno was really awesome and cool,

501
00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:34.039
and you know everybody, you wanted a copy of Dante's

502
00:37:34.039 --> 00:37:37.000
Inferno to be, you know, really the cool kid, right, Okay,

503
00:37:37.039 --> 00:37:39.800
well maybe maybe to be the cool kid and the

504
00:37:39.880 --> 00:37:42.920
real cool not the cool kid that everyone thought was cool,

505
00:37:42.960 --> 00:37:45.800
but the really cool kid, because you were so you know,

506
00:37:46.519 --> 00:37:51.960
against what everybody else was doing. You see, the the

507
00:37:52.159 --> 00:37:55.320
lyrics are told through the lens of a band that

508
00:37:55.360 --> 00:38:03.360
wanted to push every single limit. The guitarist, one of

509
00:38:03.400 --> 00:38:06.280
the guitarist uses Too, who wrote most of the lyrics,

510
00:38:06.320 --> 00:38:11.159
said we were never Satanist. We liked the imagery, the darkness.

511
00:38:12.519 --> 00:38:17.920
It fit the music. The band singer, a Catholic, repeatedly

512
00:38:17.920 --> 00:38:21.800
insisted the lyrics were storytelling. They're not belief. It's an

513
00:38:21.840 --> 00:38:25.159
all theater, he said, It's like reading a horror story.

514
00:38:25.440 --> 00:38:29.159
That's what we do. So why didn't anyone listen to

515
00:38:29.239 --> 00:38:33.800
the explanation, Why didn't anyone listen? Because Hella Waits didn't

516
00:38:33.880 --> 00:38:36.280
just land in the record store. It landed in the

517
00:38:36.280 --> 00:38:39.119
middle of a war over culture, a war in which

518
00:38:39.239 --> 00:38:49.119
fiction and fear were already indistinguishable. To many Christians in

519
00:38:49.199 --> 00:38:53.880
nineteen eighty five, Slayer wasn't telling stories. They were summoning demons.

520
00:38:54.800 --> 00:38:58.840
Churches hosted seminars warning about the album. It was cited

521
00:38:58.840 --> 00:39:02.519
in pamphlets about c Tanic recruitment. Some even claimed it

522
00:39:02.599 --> 00:39:06.880
was responsible for teen suicides or animal sacrifice, and youth

523
00:39:06.920 --> 00:39:10.400
groups across the country Hell Awaits was burned in parking

524
00:39:10.440 --> 00:39:14.920
lot bonfires. Its name alone was enough to justify condemnation.

525
00:39:15.199 --> 00:39:17.880
You couldn't let anyone know you had a Slayer album,

526
00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:21.119
especially the hell Awaits album. And even if you were

527
00:39:21.119 --> 00:39:23.800
trying to like whoa whoa, wha, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, No, no, no,

528
00:39:23.840 --> 00:39:28.639
you're misunderstanding. Burn the album you Satanists, and it's like whoa,

529
00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:33.280
could everyone come? Could everyone take a step back? This

530
00:39:33.320 --> 00:39:41.880
is Salem all over again. Few Christians actually listen to

531
00:39:41.920 --> 00:39:46.840
the lyrics, even fewer considered the music's complexity, and almost

532
00:39:46.840 --> 00:39:49.320
no one to stop to ask what is the album

533
00:39:49.360 --> 00:39:55.119
actually saying? What is the album actually doing? And Salem

534
00:39:55.159 --> 00:39:59.320
they asked is this woman a witch? In nineteen eighty

535
00:39:59.400 --> 00:40:05.960
five they asked is this band satanic? And in both questions,

536
00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:11.119
in both cases the question was framed to produce only

537
00:40:11.199 --> 00:40:15.000
one answer. So in Salem they asked is this woman

538
00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:17.159
a witch? And in nineteen eighty five they asked is

539
00:40:17.199 --> 00:40:20.199
this band satanic? And in both cases the questions that

540
00:40:20.280 --> 00:40:25.840
were framed to produce only one answer guilty Satanist, which

541
00:40:26.480 --> 00:40:34.840
die Burn. The panic around Hella Waits wasn't based on theology.

542
00:40:35.079 --> 00:40:39.199
It wasn't rooted in careful analysis of lyrics or themes.

543
00:40:40.199 --> 00:40:43.880
It was based on assumption, it was based on fear.

544
00:40:44.159 --> 00:40:47.679
It was based on a reflective, a reflexive kind of being.

545
00:40:48.519 --> 00:40:50.480
You're just being reactive. Let me state it that way.

546
00:40:50.559 --> 00:40:53.280
You're being It was on a reactive response that said,

547
00:40:53.440 --> 00:40:55.840
if it sounds evil, it must be evil. If it

548
00:40:55.880 --> 00:40:59.599
looks scary, it must be satanic. This response did not

549
00:40:59.639 --> 00:41:04.920
require discern It only discussed. It didn't produce understanding, It

550
00:41:04.960 --> 00:41:11.679
only produced isolation. And then rejecting Slayer so forcefully the church.

551
00:41:12.639 --> 00:41:17.400
The church missed the opportunity to do something better, to

552
00:41:17.519 --> 00:41:24.199
ask questions, to examine, to reach people to let me

553
00:41:24.239 --> 00:41:27.280
say it this way, and rejecting Slayer so forcefully, the

554
00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:31.199
church missed the opportunity to do something better, to ask questions,

555
00:41:32.199 --> 00:41:35.519
to examine. Here's the big one, to teach people how

556
00:41:35.559 --> 00:41:45.119
to analyze then simply react. Now, what if Christians had

557
00:41:45.159 --> 00:41:49.519
treated hell awaits not as a gateway to hell, but

558
00:41:49.559 --> 00:41:54.679
as a mirror reflecting back the world's fascination with darkness

559
00:41:54.719 --> 00:41:56.840
and judgment. What if Christians would have done that I

560
00:41:56.840 --> 00:41:58.719
have treated to Hey, this is not a gateway to hell,

561
00:41:58.800 --> 00:42:02.000
but it's a mirror. Maybe it's reflecting back how many

562
00:42:02.000 --> 00:42:05.719
times people are fascinated with darkness? And judgment. What instead

563
00:42:05.719 --> 00:42:09.800
of burning albums, there had been conversations. What if we

564
00:42:09.880 --> 00:42:12.840
taught young people to see through art, not just to

565
00:42:12.960 --> 00:42:20.639
fear it. We need to explore that. But but first

566
00:42:20.679 --> 00:42:23.199
we may need to actually do this. We may to

567
00:42:23.480 --> 00:42:25.639
we need we may need to ask what was actually

568
00:42:25.719 --> 00:42:29.239
happening in the music? What did hell Await say and

569
00:42:29.320 --> 00:42:32.119
what did it not say? And what would it look

570
00:42:32.199 --> 00:42:37.159
like to actually analyze the lyrics honestly without panic, fear

571
00:42:37.480 --> 00:42:44.599
and screaming. When people condemn hell a Weights, they usually

572
00:42:44.639 --> 00:42:47.519
hadn't actually heard it. If they had, they if they

573
00:42:47.519 --> 00:42:51.760
would have. If they had, they obviously hadn't listened closely.

574
00:42:52.159 --> 00:42:59.199
Because the lyrics weren't incantations. They weren't religious sermons. They

575
00:42:59.199 --> 00:43:03.960
were stories. Yes they were dark, Yes they were disturbing,

576
00:43:04.280 --> 00:43:08.960
Yes they were often very grotesque, but they were stories. Nonetheless,

577
00:43:10.559 --> 00:43:15.119
like horror fiction or classic mythology. Slayer used shocking imagery

578
00:43:15.320 --> 00:43:18.519
to evoke emotion, and yet the church read it as

579
00:43:18.559 --> 00:43:27.000
a confession of belief. They mistook a narrator for a missionary. Today,

580
00:43:27.119 --> 00:43:31.400
you know, just a little well a day before, less

581
00:43:31.400 --> 00:43:35.800
than twenty four hours away from the album's anniversary, I

582
00:43:35.840 --> 00:43:38.440
want to try to set the record straight, I'm going

583
00:43:38.480 --> 00:43:41.239
to walk through the album track by track quickly, and

584
00:43:41.280 --> 00:43:44.079
I'm going to ask what is each song actually saying?

585
00:43:44.400 --> 00:43:47.719
What kind of story is actually being told? And does

586
00:43:47.760 --> 00:43:50.760
it invite us to evil or does it betray evil

587
00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:54.000
and all its horror? So let's begin with the opening track,

588
00:43:54.119 --> 00:43:57.280
hell Aways. Now I can't play anything for copyright reasons.

589
00:43:57.360 --> 00:43:59.199
I wish I could, because I would play each part

590
00:43:59.360 --> 00:44:01.440
and break it down. Now, as soon as the album started,

591
00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:03.960
most of you be like, what is this? Is evil?

592
00:44:04.079 --> 00:44:07.199
Oh no, it's bad, it's loud? What is this? I

593
00:44:07.239 --> 00:44:10.239
can't stand it? No, no, And I understand because not

594
00:44:10.320 --> 00:44:12.760
everyone likes metal. I understand. I know in the and

595
00:44:13.079 --> 00:44:16.800
I know in Christianity. If it has a beat, it's

596
00:44:16.840 --> 00:44:22.079
em all okay. But all right it does have a beat,

597
00:44:22.119 --> 00:44:24.559
Well it's more like okay, but all right, you get

598
00:44:24.559 --> 00:44:27.679
the idea. It's more like it's not just singing. It's

599
00:44:27.679 --> 00:44:31.880
more like okay, and I understand that's everybody's like evil, evil,

600
00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:36.760
evil evil evil, garlic a wooden steak, silver bullets. Okay, okay,

601
00:44:36.800 --> 00:44:39.440
we got oh no, okay, I just everyone calmed down.

602
00:44:39.559 --> 00:44:42.559
All right, Well, I'm not going to play Anything. Track

603
00:44:42.599 --> 00:44:47.280
one is Hell Awaits the Trot. Title track opens with

604
00:44:47.480 --> 00:44:53.599
back masked whispers repeating, join us, join us, Join us.

605
00:44:54.400 --> 00:44:56.320
I don't remember exactly how many times it says it,

606
00:44:56.360 --> 00:45:02.519
but it's there. This is fuel for youth pastors and

607
00:45:02.559 --> 00:45:08.360
cassette burning crusaders. But what follows isn't a celebration of Satan.

608
00:45:08.679 --> 00:45:12.199
It's a nightmare vision. It's a journey into hell, filled

609
00:45:12.199 --> 00:45:15.039
with torment and loss of identity. You have lines like

610
00:45:15.159 --> 00:45:17.960
the final judgment is passed on you, the gates of

611
00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:22.039
hell lie waiting as you see your fate. It's not

612
00:45:22.079 --> 00:45:27.119
a recruitment song. It's a condemnation narrative. It describes judgment,

613
00:45:27.440 --> 00:45:32.280
not salvation, and it describes it in hellish terms. This

614
00:45:32.360 --> 00:45:37.599
is Dante by distortion pedal. This is Dante's Inferno, but

615
00:45:37.639 --> 00:45:40.679
it's just done with a distortion pedal, double bass pedal,

616
00:45:41.679 --> 00:45:48.159
two guitars, and a growling type of vocal delivery. It

617
00:45:48.199 --> 00:45:51.480
evokes the terror of damnation, not the thrill of it.

618
00:45:51.519 --> 00:45:53.880
And again for me, I was like, when everyone's screaming

619
00:45:53.920 --> 00:45:57.039
about the album, I'm like Dante's Inferno for crying out loud.

620
00:45:57.960 --> 00:46:04.760
This is Dante's Inferno, just it's cooler. This is better

621
00:46:04.840 --> 00:46:09.159
than just reading Dante's Inferno. But of course nobody in

622
00:46:09.159 --> 00:46:12.079
the church wants to hear that. So there's track number one,

623
00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:18.639
Hell Awaits, and it kind of gives hey, what awaits? Hell? Judgment, condemnation, damnation.

624
00:46:19.239 --> 00:46:21.599
That's how the track, that's how the album begins. That

625
00:46:21.719 --> 00:46:24.880
really begins to tell the story because immediately in a

626
00:46:24.920 --> 00:46:28.679
wait you could ask awaits for whom? Well, the very

627
00:46:28.719 --> 00:46:31.840
next track is going to tell you because kill again.

628
00:46:33.920 --> 00:46:37.360
Here we meet a serial killer. The song is written

629
00:46:37.360 --> 00:46:40.119
in the first person, a twisted inner monologue of someone

630
00:46:40.119 --> 00:46:43.400
who lives to kill, lines like my need to kill

631
00:46:43.559 --> 00:46:46.880
grow stronger, I love to watch you die. Well, clearly

632
00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:50.559
this is now who does hell await? Well, you get

633
00:46:50.559 --> 00:46:55.280
the idea. This isn't glorification. It's a psychological whrror. It's

634
00:46:55.320 --> 00:46:58.800
a slayer version of American psycho. It's a descent into

635
00:46:58.840 --> 00:47:02.920
a murderous mind, and crucially, it ends with no redemption,

636
00:47:03.800 --> 00:47:10.440
no celebration, just obsession and madness. It's a warning, not

637
00:47:10.559 --> 00:47:16.960
a manual. Then we have at Dawn Day Sleep, the

638
00:47:17.039 --> 00:47:21.679
track shifts into the supernatural vampires that describes the undead

639
00:47:21.920 --> 00:47:25.840
stalking their prey, feeding on blood, sleeping by day. This,

640
00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:29.320
I mean, this is stuff. There's nothing new here. It's Dracula,

641
00:47:29.559 --> 00:47:34.079
It's vampires. It's like, but for Christians, this, oh, this

642
00:47:34.239 --> 00:47:37.599
is evil. They should have been burning I guess Dracula

643
00:47:37.639 --> 00:47:40.519
in the public library. Never mind, Christians are always burning something,

644
00:47:40.559 --> 00:47:48.320
aren't they existing on the blood of men they make

645
00:47:48.360 --> 00:47:51.760
their sacrifice again, That's one of the lines goes something

646
00:47:51.840 --> 00:47:54.559
like that on the album. Again, it's horror. It's not religion.

647
00:47:54.760 --> 00:48:00.239
It's classic Gothic storytelling, echoing Dracula, it filtered through Sleigh's

648
00:48:00.280 --> 00:48:06.039
sonic brutality. It's basically Dracula again. Double bass, pedal, screaming guitars,

649
00:48:07.639 --> 00:48:11.559
vocals delivered that way. And well, that's that's all it was.

650
00:48:12.360 --> 00:48:15.440
There's no ideology here, there's no belief system. It's just

651
00:48:15.480 --> 00:48:22.960
a dark tale told with musical violence. And I'm believing.

652
00:48:23.039 --> 00:48:26.280
And let me check here. I gotta look here. I'm

653
00:48:26.280 --> 00:48:29.519
trying to go some of this. I'm going with a memory.

654
00:48:29.559 --> 00:48:31.599
Hang on, let me let me get here, let me

655
00:48:31.639 --> 00:48:37.199
go here, Slayer, here's the Hell of Waight albums. Yeah, okay,

656
00:48:37.440 --> 00:48:39.360
I'm making sure I got all the songs in the

657
00:48:39.440 --> 00:48:42.239
right order. I was. I was verifying, making sure because

658
00:48:42.239 --> 00:48:49.719
I want to be accurate as possible. Okay, okay, hang on,

659
00:48:49.800 --> 00:48:51.639
let me get back to where I have all my

660
00:48:51.760 --> 00:49:01.400
notes here as we walk through each track, because the

661
00:49:01.440 --> 00:49:12.960
next track is the next track is praise of death. Now,

662
00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:17.440
this song explores nilism or nihilism, the belief that life

663
00:49:17.519 --> 00:49:22.400
is meaningless and death is inevitable. Life becomes a war,

664
00:49:23.079 --> 00:49:30.079
killing time until death. It's bleak, it's fast, it's furious.

665
00:49:30.360 --> 00:49:34.679
It's a reflection of Cold war dread and existential despair. Also,

666
00:49:34.800 --> 00:49:37.199
remember in nineteen eighties, I know it's a long time

667
00:49:37.239 --> 00:49:38.880
to remember, we all thought we were going to be

668
00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:41.960
nuked by the Russians and all be dead. So this

669
00:49:42.199 --> 00:49:46.000
idea of this nihilistic, nihilistic approach that we're just all

670
00:49:46.039 --> 00:49:48.440
going to die. There's no hope, there's no reason to

671
00:49:48.480 --> 00:49:51.199
go on. Life simply becomes a war. We're in this

672
00:49:51.239 --> 00:49:55.239
cold war, killing time until death. We're all going to die.

673
00:49:55.360 --> 00:50:02.039
It captures that feeling in that essence. But it's a perspective.

674
00:50:02.079 --> 00:50:04.039
It's not a command. It's not saying this is the

675
00:50:04.079 --> 00:50:07.800
way you should feel. It's just giving the perspective. It's

676
00:50:07.920 --> 00:50:15.639
voicing the feeling of hopelessness. It's not advocating for it. Basically,

677
00:50:15.800 --> 00:50:20.159
it's much like the Book of Ecclesiastes. It asks, if

678
00:50:20.199 --> 00:50:23.559
death is certain and life is corrupt, then what's left?

679
00:50:24.360 --> 00:50:27.840
Oh no, no, no, no, no, it's bad. It's horrible. It's horrible.

680
00:50:28.280 --> 00:50:33.800
Run burn it. Now we come to track five, and

681
00:50:34.239 --> 00:50:37.679
this is where I've always said, if Christians really wanted

682
00:50:37.719 --> 00:50:40.840
to criticize this album, this is where they should have gone.

683
00:50:41.039 --> 00:50:43.840
This is what they should have discussed instead of Satanist

684
00:50:43.960 --> 00:50:46.519
and all of this other stuff. Because the song is

685
00:50:46.599 --> 00:50:49.440
again necrophiliac. I've already mentioned it and told you that

686
00:50:49.519 --> 00:50:52.480
this is an uncomfortable subject. But this is on the

687
00:50:52.519 --> 00:50:54.599
album and we're about to celebrate the anniversary, and it

688
00:50:54.679 --> 00:50:57.719
fits right in to everything that happened in the Satanic panic.

689
00:50:57.800 --> 00:51:00.760
You can't you can't talk about the same panic and

690
00:51:00.840 --> 00:51:07.920
simply forget this. Now, this is Slayer at their most disturbing.

691
00:51:08.039 --> 00:51:11.400
I think everyone will acknowledge this, Okay. This is a

692
00:51:11.440 --> 00:51:13.719
song written from the point of view of a man

693
00:51:13.920 --> 00:51:20.960
consumed by a grotesque obsession with the dead. I'll state

694
00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:22.360
it that way, all right. I don't have to go

695
00:51:22.400 --> 00:51:27.400
into any greater detail. Now, Christians understandably reacted with horror,

696
00:51:28.519 --> 00:51:32.480
But what they missed is how the song actually condemns

697
00:51:33.079 --> 00:51:37.719
the narrator with lines like cursed birth of the depraved,

698
00:51:38.920 --> 00:51:43.360
scent to live in hell. The narrator here, this person,

699
00:51:43.440 --> 00:51:48.519
this necrophiliac, who's consumed with this grotesque obsession with the dead.

700
00:51:48.880 --> 00:51:51.400
He's not the hero in the song. He is a

701
00:51:51.559 --> 00:51:56.119
damned soul. The song is a descent and perversion that

702
00:51:56.320 --> 00:52:02.880
ends an eternal judgment. Is it grotesque yes? Is it

703
00:52:03.039 --> 00:52:10.360
endorsed absolutely not. Is the evil presented punished absolutely yes.

704
00:52:12.320 --> 00:52:15.679
So even then, if nobody truly took time to actually

705
00:52:15.840 --> 00:52:18.920
understand what the song was saying, is it disturbing, yes,

706
00:52:19.159 --> 00:52:22.880
it's there's no one can can say it's anything great.

707
00:52:23.199 --> 00:52:26.639
But everyone was running around screaming. And what ticked so

708
00:52:26.719 --> 00:52:30.159
many of us off as young people is the Christians

709
00:52:30.199 --> 00:52:33.679
who did mention the song. They didn't fairly represent it.

710
00:52:33.920 --> 00:52:36.519
They didn't tell the story of the song. They lied

711
00:52:36.840 --> 00:52:40.400
and they misrepresented it. They bore false witness because all

712
00:52:40.440 --> 00:52:42.719
they could ever steak and do is lie and not

713
00:52:42.800 --> 00:52:45.480
tell the truth because they were more consumed with fear

714
00:52:45.480 --> 00:52:49.000
and paranoia. And if you're gonna win your satanic warfare

715
00:52:49.239 --> 00:52:52.880
by bearing false witness and lying in misrepresentation. Then I'm

716
00:52:52.920 --> 00:52:56.360
sorry you've already lost the spiritual war because you're condemning

717
00:52:56.360 --> 00:53:02.039
people with your lies and the church always that always

718
00:53:02.079 --> 00:53:07.880
run to these craziness and have truths and just insanity.

719
00:53:08.840 --> 00:53:13.519
Well you could just present it hmm. Hey, Christian young people,

720
00:53:13.639 --> 00:53:16.239
you could just say this way Christian young people. Hey, well,

721
00:53:16.280 --> 00:53:18.559
welcome to youth group tonight. I know this album is

722
00:53:18.559 --> 00:53:20.960
everywhere everyone's talking about. It's called hell Awaits by Slayer.

723
00:53:21.119 --> 00:53:23.760
We're gonna walk through the lyrics and we're gonna discuss them,

724
00:53:24.400 --> 00:53:26.880
and then we can ask what do you think this

725
00:53:26.920 --> 00:53:28.920
will help your Christian life or hurt your Christian life?

726
00:53:28.920 --> 00:53:32.679
How do you think it will impact you? But the

727
00:53:32.719 --> 00:53:34.920
main thing is whether it impact you or hurt you.

728
00:53:34.920 --> 00:53:37.039
You need to know how to analyze it, and you

729
00:53:37.079 --> 00:53:39.679
needn't know how to interpret what this message is saying.

730
00:53:39.719 --> 00:53:42.440
And what we need to do is Christians is not

731
00:53:42.559 --> 00:53:45.800
bare false witness and not spread lives, and not spread

732
00:53:45.920 --> 00:53:49.599
spread paranoia, and not spread spread fear. Because see, teenagers

733
00:53:49.679 --> 00:53:52.239
were not like the adults sitting in the sanctuary. Do

734
00:53:52.320 --> 00:53:55.840
there ever living minds? But then you would probably get

735
00:53:55.840 --> 00:54:01.639
fired as a youth director. Then you have crips of eternity.

736
00:54:01.920 --> 00:54:06.000
Here Slayer draws from basically Lovecraft and his type of horror,

737
00:54:06.639 --> 00:54:11.440
buried buried evil, ancient crips, and the awakening of something

738
00:54:11.519 --> 00:54:15.679
long forgotten. Lyrics like caverns of pain on which you

739
00:54:15.760 --> 00:54:20.800
feed you are now immortal. It's myth, it's fantasy, it's

740
00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:24.079
horror fiction, and the tradition of the Mummy, the evil dead,

741
00:54:25.639 --> 00:54:28.519
something along those lines. The Church read this as an

742
00:54:28.559 --> 00:54:32.280
occult theology, but it's actually Slayer doing what horror authors

743
00:54:32.280 --> 00:54:36.239
have done for generations, inventing terrifying worlds to explore the

744
00:54:36.320 --> 00:54:39.039
nature of fear. It's all it was doing. But of

745
00:54:39.079 --> 00:54:42.840
course this is a cult theology. This is a seminary

746
00:54:42.960 --> 00:54:48.119
of theology of the occult. And it's like just stop.

747
00:54:49.960 --> 00:54:52.559
In some ways, it's either like you're just laughing and

748
00:54:52.559 --> 00:54:55.159
you're in the car driving away from the latest rock conference,

749
00:54:55.199 --> 00:54:58.079
going these Christians are out of their ever living minds,

750
00:54:58.199 --> 00:55:01.840
or you're just like, is do you guys ever? Stop?

751
00:55:01.960 --> 00:55:05.639
Do you what is wrong with all of you? And

752
00:55:05.760 --> 00:55:09.039
then you have hardening of the arteries. The final track

753
00:55:09.119 --> 00:55:12.760
is a gram commentary on moral decay. The arteries of

754
00:55:12.800 --> 00:55:17.599
the world are hardening, hardening nations falling under sins of man.

755
00:55:17.880 --> 00:55:20.599
That's literally on the The album ends with a commentary

756
00:55:20.599 --> 00:55:23.639
on moral decay. The arteries of the world are hardening,

757
00:55:23.920 --> 00:55:28.039
nations falling under sins of man. This sounds more prophetic

758
00:55:28.079 --> 00:55:32.239
than satanic. It's an apocalyptic vision of a world crumbling

759
00:55:32.320 --> 00:55:35.480
under its own weight. And maybe it's the most philological

760
00:55:35.519 --> 00:55:39.880
moment on the album. Though unintentional, it's straight in a

761
00:55:39.960 --> 00:55:44.519
strange way. It echoes Romans Chapter one, humanity spiraling into

762
00:55:44.519 --> 00:55:48.280
depravity and suffering the consequences. Again, it's not a celebration

763
00:55:48.400 --> 00:55:53.679
of sin, but a confrontation with it. But of course

764
00:55:53.800 --> 00:55:57.840
nobody could interpret that because Christians can't interpret, They can

765
00:55:57.920 --> 00:56:02.880
only condemn. They can understand it, can't analyze because they

766
00:56:02.960 --> 00:56:05.880
run around screaming and wanting to hang people and burn

767
00:56:05.960 --> 00:56:08.280
people at the stake. No one at Salem was burned

768
00:56:08.280 --> 00:56:09.960
at the stake. I understand that, but we can go

769
00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:18.960
to the European witch trials. So what the album is

770
00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:23.000
and what it isn't when you look closely, Hell Awaits

771
00:56:23.039 --> 00:56:26.159
the album by Slayer April eighth, nineteen eighty five is

772
00:56:26.199 --> 00:56:29.079
a horror anthology. It's a work of musical extremity. It's

773
00:56:29.079 --> 00:56:33.039
a it's an extremity. Yeah, it's extreme, That's what I'm

774
00:56:33.079 --> 00:56:36.079
trying to say, and a showcase of depravity, judgment, fear,

775
00:56:36.079 --> 00:56:38.760
and chaos. Here's what it's not. It was not, it

776
00:56:38.800 --> 00:56:42.000
isn't now, and it never was a philological text. It

777
00:56:42.039 --> 00:56:44.679
was not a Satanic recruitment tool, and it was not

778
00:56:44.760 --> 00:56:47.320
a guide for living. I didn't listen to the Slayer

779
00:56:47.320 --> 00:56:49.639
album as a teenager going this is how I'm going

780
00:56:49.679 --> 00:56:56.280
to live my life. It was art that reflected darkness,

781
00:56:56.599 --> 00:56:59.559
wasn't a sermon that preached it. You know what the

782
00:56:59.559 --> 00:57:07.039
greatest irony was, even at its most graphic, Slayer often

783
00:57:07.760 --> 00:57:12.280
did what Christian art claims to do. It showed the

784
00:57:12.360 --> 00:57:16.760
ugliness of evil and then it revealed its consequences. But

785
00:57:16.800 --> 00:57:21.719
the Church never saw it because it was never taught

786
00:57:22.360 --> 00:57:29.480
to look. Fear doesn't analyze, it reacts, And when Christians

787
00:57:29.519 --> 00:57:33.039
respond to Hell awaits with bonfires instead of engagement, they

788
00:57:33.039 --> 00:57:35.639
missed the message, They missed the moment, and they missed

789
00:57:35.639 --> 00:57:39.239
the chance to teach a generation how to think instead

790
00:57:39.280 --> 00:57:44.239
of how to just actually fear and well run into

791
00:57:45.119 --> 00:57:54.159
crazy conspiracy theories and church parking lots across America. The

792
00:57:54.159 --> 00:57:58.400
flames danced, records hissed and popped as they burned, vinyl

793
00:57:58.519 --> 00:58:02.719
warping in the heat, album covers curling into ash. Teens

794
00:58:02.719 --> 00:58:07.119
stood by, some cheering, some unsure, some just wanting to belong.

795
00:58:07.599 --> 00:58:10.559
Some of us were like, what is going on? Thinking

796
00:58:10.880 --> 00:58:15.360
have we returned back to Nazi Germany. The soundtrack to

797
00:58:15.400 --> 00:58:20.239
these burnings wasn't Slayer or Metallica. It was testimonies, sermons,

798
00:58:20.280 --> 00:58:25.320
and preachers declaring victory over Satan. This was the visible

799
00:58:25.360 --> 00:58:28.440
warfare of the church in the nineteen eighties. It was emotional,

800
00:58:28.639 --> 00:58:31.800
it was dramatic, and for many it was a spiritual high.

801
00:58:32.239 --> 00:58:36.840
But what if it was all a tragic mistake. What

802
00:58:36.880 --> 00:58:40.719
if instead of burning hellawaights, someone had opened the lyric sheet.

803
00:58:41.039 --> 00:58:43.920
What if, instead of preaching that Slayer was summoning demons,

804
00:58:44.840 --> 00:58:47.719
a youth pastor had said, let's examine what this music

805
00:58:47.800 --> 00:58:50.719
is actually doing and why it speaks to so many people.

806
00:58:51.039 --> 00:58:53.679
What if instead of declaring war and culture, the church

807
00:58:53.679 --> 00:58:57.920
had decided to engage it honestly. Imagine a Bible study

808
00:58:57.960 --> 00:59:01.119
where teens analyze the lyrics of necro FilmLA, not for

809
00:59:01.239 --> 00:59:04.639
demonic influence, but what it says about human depravity and

810
00:59:04.679 --> 00:59:08.760
the need for grace. Imagine a theology class comparing Hella

811
00:59:08.840 --> 00:59:13.360
Weights to Dante's Inferno, recognizing that both describe judgment not

812
00:59:13.480 --> 00:59:17.920
to glorify it, but to terrify you into awareness. Imagine

813
00:59:18.000 --> 00:59:21.159
Christians who didn't bear false witness against artists, but who

814
00:59:21.199 --> 00:59:25.239
asked good questions and offered better answers. That kind of

815
00:59:25.280 --> 00:59:29.039
engagement could have produced thinkers, not just defenders. It could

816
00:59:29.039 --> 00:59:32.000
have taught discernment rather than fear. It could have modeled

817
00:59:32.000 --> 00:59:35.159
truth instead of panic. But the Church did not take

818
00:59:35.239 --> 00:59:39.239
that path. Instead, it defaulted to our reaction it has

819
00:59:39.360 --> 00:59:45.360
used many times before, condemn, burn, isolate, and blame, not

820
00:59:45.440 --> 00:59:48.559
because it understood what it was fighting, but because it didn't.

821
00:59:50.639 --> 00:59:53.639
In the end, church was not equipped to deal with

822
00:59:53.719 --> 00:59:57.119
Slayer or anything like it because it had stopped teaching

823
00:59:57.159 --> 01:00:02.280
people how to analyze. Everything became spiritual warfare. Everything was

824
01:00:02.360 --> 01:00:05.519
filtered through emotional fear and moral panic. There was little

825
01:00:05.599 --> 01:00:09.519
room for nuance and even less for honest exploration. That's

826
01:00:09.559 --> 01:00:12.360
how you end up with pastors claiming demons are entering

827
01:00:12.400 --> 01:00:15.679
teens through guitar solos, And I even remember sitting in

828
01:00:15.719 --> 01:00:17.880
a rock conference where there was a story of this

829
01:00:17.960 --> 01:00:20.239
kid was listening to Highway to Hell by ac DC,

830
01:00:20.519 --> 01:00:23.679
and demons literally started crawling out of their speakers, and

831
01:00:23.719 --> 01:00:26.000
everybody in the church was like, as if the story

832
01:00:26.159 --> 01:00:29.440
was true, and I'm like, this is insanity. You people

833
01:00:29.480 --> 01:00:39.119
are all nuts. An entire movement convinced that storytelling is satanic.

834
01:00:39.480 --> 01:00:42.199
It wasn't just an overreaction. It was a failure of

835
01:00:42.280 --> 01:00:48.000
discipleship and the damage. It wasn't just cultural, it was spiritual.

836
01:00:48.119 --> 01:00:50.880
When young people discovered that the Church had lied, that

837
01:00:51.000 --> 01:00:55.519
Slayer wasn't recruiting for Satan, that lyrics had been misquoted, misrepresented,

838
01:00:55.639 --> 01:00:57.920
they didn't just lose their trust in the message, they

839
01:00:57.960 --> 01:01:02.039
lost their trust in the messengers. The panic produced more rebellion,

840
01:01:02.280 --> 01:01:06.760
not less, and it taught the world that Christians don't listen,

841
01:01:06.960 --> 01:01:11.079
they simply react, that Christians don't think they're incapable of it.

842
01:01:12.079 --> 01:01:15.519
The real tragedy is the Church wasn't fighting Slayer. It

843
01:01:15.599 --> 01:01:18.880
was fighting a mirror, a reflection of the very darkness

844
01:01:18.880 --> 01:01:25.000
it claimed to understand but couldn't look at clearly. But

845
01:01:25.079 --> 01:01:27.280
it didn't have to be that way, and it doesn't

846
01:01:27.320 --> 01:01:29.639
have to be that way. We can teach Christians how

847
01:01:29.639 --> 01:01:32.679
to read lyrics with discernment, how to recognize the difference

848
01:01:32.679 --> 01:01:36.320
between fantasy and theology, how to engage art without fear,

849
01:01:36.519 --> 01:01:40.599
and call out lies without becoming liars ourselves. We can

850
01:01:40.639 --> 01:01:43.760
teach young people not just to not just what to reject,

851
01:01:43.920 --> 01:01:46.760
but how to think. Because the world is full of darkness,

852
01:01:46.800 --> 01:01:48.639
we don't need to invent it, we don't need to

853
01:01:48.719 --> 01:01:51.000
exaggerate it. We just need to tell the truth and

854
01:01:51.039 --> 01:01:56.400
do it well. The church that burned the record player

855
01:01:56.679 --> 01:01:59.079
thought it was winning, but in truth, it was silencing

856
01:01:59.079 --> 01:02:01.679
one of the greatest tools of spiritual formation. It had

857
01:02:01.840 --> 01:02:05.480
the chance to walk someone, to walk someone through the

858
01:02:05.599 --> 01:02:12.599
darkness and towards the light. For nearly a decade, the

859
01:02:12.639 --> 01:02:16.800
Satanic panic dominated the American imagination. It didn't just shape

860
01:02:16.800 --> 01:02:21.559
pop culture, it shaped the church, books, seminars, conferences, Christian

861
01:02:21.559 --> 01:02:25.480
comedians turned experts. Everyone had a story about Satan, and

862
01:02:25.519 --> 01:02:28.920
they all knew someone who had barely escaped his grasp.

863
01:02:29.199 --> 01:02:33.559
But the stories were almost always false. The daycare case

864
01:02:33.760 --> 01:02:37.360
began to unravel at the McMartin preschool. The longest and

865
01:02:37.400 --> 01:02:41.400
most expensive trial in American history ended with no convictions,

866
01:02:41.440 --> 01:02:45.679
not one. Years of investigations, dozens of charges, all based

867
01:02:45.719 --> 01:02:50.079
on coach testimony, false memories, and no physical evidence. In fact,

868
01:02:50.519 --> 01:02:54.360
one of the original prosecutors admitted publicly, we were swept

869
01:02:54.440 --> 01:02:58.719
up in a hysteria. Similar cases in Massachusetts, North Carolina,

870
01:02:58.960 --> 01:03:02.039
Texas and other states fell apart the same way. Innocent

871
01:03:02.039 --> 01:03:05.519
people had spent years in prison based on lies, fear,

872
01:03:05.679 --> 01:03:10.800
and spiritual paranoia. Does it sound like Salem yet? And

873
01:03:10.840 --> 01:03:14.280
in the music world, bands like Slayer, Judas Priest and

874
01:03:14.280 --> 01:03:17.719
Ozzy Osbourne they just kept making albums and the lawsuits

875
01:03:17.760 --> 01:03:21.760
claiming backmasking caused suicide were thrown out. There was never

876
01:03:21.840 --> 01:03:26.280
proof of Satanic intent, only performance, imagery and fictional storytelling.

877
01:03:26.480 --> 01:03:30.719
The panic collapsed under the weight of its own exaggerations.

878
01:03:30.920 --> 01:03:35.000
It wasn't Satan that had infiltrated the culture. It was fear,

879
01:03:35.199 --> 01:03:38.039
and fear had corrupted the truth. And one of the

880
01:03:38.039 --> 01:03:41.880
most powerful, one of the most influential stories of them all,

881
01:03:42.239 --> 01:03:48.760
was told by a man named Mike Warnkey, the Satan Sellar,

882
01:03:50.079 --> 01:03:56.400
The lie that sold fear to the Church was nineteen

883
01:03:56.480 --> 01:03:59.840
seventy two, The Satan Seller hit Christian bookstores like a bomb.

884
01:03:59.840 --> 01:04:03.239
Sh It told the shocking testimony of Mike Warke, a

885
01:04:03.320 --> 01:04:07.480
former high priest of Satan turned born again Christian. Now

886
01:04:07.519 --> 01:04:10.039
I did not discover Mike Warkey into the nineteen eighties.

887
01:04:10.119 --> 01:04:12.400
I was driving in my car listening to focus on

888
01:04:12.440 --> 01:04:15.480
the family as a teenager, and they had Mike Warnkey

889
01:04:15.559 --> 01:04:18.440
tell his story, and I was like, Oh, I got

890
01:04:18.440 --> 01:04:21.000
to get a copy of this book. He claimed he

891
01:04:21.079 --> 01:04:23.360
ran a cult of one thy five hundred people. He

892
01:04:23.400 --> 01:04:27.119
claimed he participated in human sacrifices and orgies. He claimed

893
01:04:27.119 --> 01:04:29.800
he used black magic to manipulate people and events, and

894
01:04:29.840 --> 01:04:33.239
he escaped only by the grace of Jesus Christ. Had

895
01:04:33.400 --> 01:04:38.119
everything a sensational conversion story. It had everything a sensational

896
01:04:38.159 --> 01:04:42.840
conversion story needed, darkness, salvation, drama, repentance, and best of all,

897
01:04:43.039 --> 01:04:46.400
for pastors and parents, it confirmed all their worst fears.

898
01:04:46.639 --> 01:04:49.679
If you wanted proof that Satan was recruiting teenagers, Mike

899
01:04:49.719 --> 01:04:52.320
Warkey had lived it, and he had and he lived

900
01:04:52.440 --> 01:04:56.679
to warn the church. Warkey didn't just write a book.

901
01:04:56.719 --> 01:04:59.000
He built a career. He toured the country, became a

902
01:04:59.000 --> 01:05:02.639
best selling author. He was funny, charismatic, and terrifying all

903
01:05:02.719 --> 01:05:05.440
at once. He can make you laugh about demons and

904
01:05:05.480 --> 01:05:09.079
then cry about the blood rituals he supposedly witnessed. Churches

905
01:05:09.119 --> 01:05:13.599
embraced him, Christian media promoted him. His testimony was used

906
01:05:13.599 --> 01:05:17.960
in youth rallies, cassette tapes, sermon illustrations, even in Christian

907
01:05:18.159 --> 01:05:22.159
educational material about the occult. Warki became the face of

908
01:05:22.239 --> 01:05:27.440
the Satanic panic before it even had a name. But then,

909
01:05:28.480 --> 01:05:33.920
I'll never forget what happened in the nineteen nineties Cornerstone Magazine.

910
01:05:33.960 --> 01:05:39.079
I'll never forget this. Oh, I'll never forget this because

911
01:05:39.119 --> 01:05:43.000
I was all into Mike Warkas, saw him perform multiple times,

912
01:05:43.199 --> 01:05:47.719
probably fifteen times, listen to his albums. I'd read The

913
01:05:47.719 --> 01:05:51.960
Satan Cellar fifteen times because I was like, oh, maybe

914
01:05:52.000 --> 01:05:54.199
there's something. I mean, Mike Quarky's told me the story

915
01:05:54.320 --> 01:05:57.079
this is God to be true. I bought into it.

916
01:05:58.719 --> 01:06:01.960
But in nineteen ninety one, Cornerstone Magazine, a Christian publication

917
01:06:02.280 --> 01:06:06.320
with ties to the Jesus People, published a multi part expose.

918
01:06:07.719 --> 01:06:10.920
They interviewed over one hundred people from Warki's past, pulled

919
01:06:10.920 --> 01:06:14.960
school records, checked timelines. What did they find It was devastating,

920
01:06:15.119 --> 01:06:17.480
and it was irrefutable. Mike Warky was never in a

921
01:06:17.480 --> 01:06:21.000
Satanic cult. His claims didn't match any known facts. During

922
01:06:21.039 --> 01:06:23.840
the time he said he was performing rituals and commending followers.

923
01:06:24.000 --> 01:06:27.039
He was a clean cut, slightly nerdy Bible college student.

924
01:06:27.320 --> 01:06:33.119
The story had been fabricated from beginning to end, and

925
01:06:33.320 --> 01:06:36.360
suddenly the man who had helped launch the Satanic Panic

926
01:06:36.639 --> 01:06:40.840
was exposed as a fraud. The book that shaped an

927
01:06:40.960 --> 01:06:45.480
entire movement was a lie. The conferences built on fiction,

928
01:06:45.880 --> 01:06:53.320
The fear was manufactured. You think that would end that,

929
01:06:53.400 --> 01:06:55.360
You think that would be the end of the panic,

930
01:06:55.559 --> 01:06:58.400
And in some ways it was. By the mid nineteen nineties,

931
01:06:58.440 --> 01:07:02.119
the public had grown skeptical. The false daycare cases had unraveled,

932
01:07:02.239 --> 01:07:05.119
lawsuits against metal bands were dismissed, and now one of

933
01:07:05.119 --> 01:07:08.679
the Christian world's most trusted experts had been caught red handed.

934
01:07:08.960 --> 01:07:14.039
But here's the most tragic part. Most churches didn't apologize,

935
01:07:14.079 --> 01:07:16.920
Most pastors didn't bother to correct the record, and most

936
01:07:16.960 --> 01:07:20.320
youth ministries didn't revisit what they'd taught. They just moved on,

937
01:07:21.039 --> 01:07:25.000
just like in Salem in sixteen ninety three. No repentance,

938
01:07:26.000 --> 01:07:30.920
just silence. Now, maybe you were a teenager when all

939
01:07:30.920 --> 01:07:33.639
this was happening. Maybe you loved music the way it

940
01:07:33.679 --> 01:07:36.199
made you feel, the way it helped you survive, And

941
01:07:36.239 --> 01:07:38.440
maybe you were told that your music was evil, that

942
01:07:38.519 --> 01:07:41.159
your favorite band was satanic, and that your headphones was

943
01:07:41.199 --> 01:07:44.000
going to drag you straight to hell. You didn't feel

944
01:07:44.000 --> 01:07:48.320
like a Satanist, you felt misunderstood, And now decades later,

945
01:07:48.519 --> 01:07:50.880
you see it clearly. The people who claim to speak

946
01:07:50.920 --> 01:07:53.800
truth were spreading fear. The people who warned you about

947
01:07:53.880 --> 01:07:58.960
deception were deceived themselves. Because fear is powerful, and when

948
01:07:59.039 --> 01:08:02.440
Christians stopped thinking, they start panicking and place their trust

949
01:08:02.519 --> 01:08:06.400
in dramatic stories instead of verified truth. They don't guard

950
01:08:06.480 --> 01:08:09.719
people from evil, they become the ones who bear false witness.

951
01:08:13.519 --> 01:08:16.760
The irony is sharp. If Satan had a strategy during

952
01:08:16.800 --> 01:08:19.680
the nineteen eighties and nineties, it wasn't Slayer, it wasn't

953
01:08:19.760 --> 01:08:23.079
Dungeon and Dragons, it wasn't back mass lyrics. It was this,

954
01:08:23.399 --> 01:08:26.560
Let Christians panic, let them lie in his name, let

955
01:08:26.560 --> 01:08:29.560
them burn records and imprison the innocent. Let them sell

956
01:08:29.640 --> 01:08:33.319
best sellers full of fiction and call it testimony. Because

957
01:08:33.319 --> 01:08:38.000
nothing discredits truth like religious people who lie for God.

958
01:08:39.800 --> 01:08:43.399
Here's the part that still haunts us. When the trials ended,

959
01:08:43.720 --> 01:08:47.079
when the false accusations were exposed, when it became clear

960
01:08:47.159 --> 01:08:52.039
that no underground Satanic cult was ever found, most churches

961
01:08:52.119 --> 01:08:55.800
never apologize. There was no public confessions, no sermons on

962
01:08:55.880 --> 01:08:59.039
bearing false witness, no youth group sessions about the importance

963
01:08:59.039 --> 01:09:02.319
of discernment over his systeria. The panic simply faded, and

964
01:09:02.359 --> 01:09:05.840
the people who had banned the flames moved on to

965
01:09:05.920 --> 01:09:12.439
the next culture war. But the damage it stayed. The

966
01:09:12.560 --> 01:09:15.439
church lost credibility and the eyes of a generation that

967
01:09:16.000 --> 01:09:19.319
saw it panic, lie, and exaggerate. The church lost trust

968
01:09:19.359 --> 01:09:21.680
from young people who were told Slayer would turn them

969
01:09:21.680 --> 01:09:24.479
into Satanists, only to discover the lyrics for horror fiction.

970
01:09:24.920 --> 01:09:28.159
It lost influence because in choosing fear over truth, the

971
01:09:28.279 --> 01:09:31.920
church made itself irrelevant to real conversations about art, culture

972
01:09:31.960 --> 01:09:36.159
and evil. And worst of all, it became just like Salem.

973
01:09:37.720 --> 01:09:40.800
In both cases, the panic ended with quiet shame, not

974
01:09:40.920 --> 01:09:46.159
public repentance, just silence. The flames burned hot, then left

975
01:09:46.199 --> 01:09:54.199
a cold empty space. What Salem and the Satanic Panic

976
01:09:54.479 --> 01:09:58.199
reveal is this, when fear becomes the engine of religion,

977
01:09:59.119 --> 01:10:02.920
When panic became the language of truth. When bearing false

978
01:10:02.960 --> 01:10:06.520
witness is justified in the name of spiritual warfare, the

979
01:10:06.640 --> 01:10:13.319
result is always the same. Innocence suffer, truth is distorted,

980
01:10:13.720 --> 01:10:20.840
and the Gospel is overshadowed by fire and noise. The

981
01:10:20.880 --> 01:10:27.000
panic never really ends because we always have a new

982
01:10:27.039 --> 01:10:31.319
panic and a new fear. Whether it's this, whether it's

983
01:10:31.359 --> 01:10:38.560
the Illuminati, whether it's this, whether it's this, there's always something. See.

984
01:10:38.840 --> 01:10:41.479
The Satanic panic didn't just harm the accused. That harmed

985
01:10:41.479 --> 01:10:44.960
the Church's ability to speak into culture. It showed the

986
01:10:45.000 --> 01:10:47.880
world that Christians often fear what they don't understand, and

987
01:10:47.960 --> 01:11:03.319
instead of learning, they just burn and Salem the devil

988
01:11:03.359 --> 01:11:06.399
was invisible, but people believed they saw him anyway. In

989
01:11:06.479 --> 01:11:09.600
nineteen eighty five, he wore denim, played guitar, and screamed

990
01:11:09.600 --> 01:11:12.279
from a vinyl record, and people burned him in church

991
01:11:12.319 --> 01:11:16.680
parking lots. Two different centuries, two very different fears, but

992
01:11:16.800 --> 01:11:20.760
one unmistakable pattern. Christians, fearing the devil become willing to

993
01:11:20.800 --> 01:11:23.319
lie in the name of God, and in doing so

994
01:11:23.439 --> 01:11:27.760
they lost something far more dangerous than a soul to

995
01:11:27.840 --> 01:11:33.199
heavy metal. They lost credibility, truthfulness, and discernment. The Salem

996
01:11:33.279 --> 01:11:35.720
Witch Trials and the Satanic Panic are not just similar

997
01:11:35.840 --> 01:11:39.880
their mirrors. Both began with real concerns spiritual corruption, the

998
01:11:39.920 --> 01:11:43.359
welfare children, and the desire to God to guard morality.

999
01:11:43.760 --> 01:11:46.199
But in both cases the response was shaped not by

1000
01:11:46.199 --> 01:11:51.279
scripture but by fear and Salem's spectral evidence, superstition, false confession,

1001
01:11:51.479 --> 01:11:55.560
and the eighties backmasking, urban legends and media fueled hysteria,

1002
01:11:55.880 --> 01:11:58.600
and both were powered by the same false assumption that

1003
01:11:58.680 --> 01:12:03.760
panic is a form of dis government. Hell Awaits was

1004
01:12:03.840 --> 01:12:07.439
never a theological threat. It was horror fiction told that

1005
01:12:07.560 --> 01:12:10.359
a high volume and a genre designed to provoke people.

1006
01:12:11.000 --> 01:12:14.840
Salem Slayer never claimed to be Satanists, their lyrics never

1007
01:12:14.880 --> 01:12:18.319
invited worship. They depicted torment, judgment in hell as horror.

1008
01:12:18.520 --> 01:12:21.600
The most grotesque character on the album he ends up

1009
01:12:21.640 --> 01:12:25.960
in Hell condemned. But the Church never asked and never analyzed.

1010
01:12:26.000 --> 01:12:28.880
It assumed and attacked, and in so doing it only

1011
01:12:28.920 --> 01:12:33.000
misunderstood the music, misunder and not only misunderstood the music,

1012
01:12:33.039 --> 01:12:37.560
it misunderstood its mission when the Satanic Panic revealed. What

1013
01:12:37.600 --> 01:12:41.119
the sat Satanic Panic revealed was this, the Church had

1014
01:12:41.159 --> 01:12:44.039
taught people what to fear, but not how to think.

1015
01:12:44.560 --> 01:12:47.239
It trained its youth to identify the devil and guitars,

1016
01:12:47.520 --> 01:12:49.960
drum beats, and album art, and never taught them to

1017
01:12:49.960 --> 01:12:55.880
discern between story and ideology, between depiction and endorsement, between

1018
01:12:56.039 --> 01:13:00.359
artistic darkness and actual evil. Instead of building a generation

1019
01:13:00.520 --> 01:13:05.079
of thinkers, the church built a generation of reactors. And

1020
01:13:05.119 --> 01:13:08.720
when the panic passed, so did their trust. Because when

1021
01:13:08.760 --> 01:13:13.199
the lies were exposed, the damage was done not to

1022
01:13:13.239 --> 01:13:21.319
the devil but to the Gospel's credibility and a skeptical world.

1023
01:13:21.479 --> 01:13:25.840
What if the Church, instead of condemning Slayer from a pulpit,

1024
01:13:25.880 --> 01:13:28.319
had said, let's open the lyrics. Let's talk about what

1025
01:13:28.399 --> 01:13:32.920
hell means in scripture and in culture. Let's talk about depravity, horror, judgment,

1026
01:13:32.960 --> 01:13:36.079
and the reality of spiritual darkness. Let's use this album

1027
01:13:36.119 --> 01:13:38.359
not as a threat but as a tool for reflection.

1028
01:13:38.760 --> 01:13:41.520
Would the Church of lost fewer young people. Would we

1029
01:13:41.560 --> 01:13:44.399
have engaged culture instead of reacting from it. Would we

1030
01:13:44.479 --> 01:13:48.479
have modeled truth instead of fueling fear. We can't change

1031
01:13:48.560 --> 01:13:51.720
nineteen eighty five, but we can change how we engage

1032
01:13:51.720 --> 01:13:59.039
the world now and Salem, the devil didn't need to

1033
01:13:59.079 --> 01:14:02.039
actually appear. The panic did the work for him, and

1034
01:14:02.079 --> 01:14:04.720
they Satanic panic. The devil didn't have to invade the church.

1035
01:14:05.159 --> 01:14:08.720
Christians burn the truth themselves, and hell awaits. It was

1036
01:14:08.800 --> 01:14:14.000
just a record, just a story, just a mirror, and

1037
01:14:14.039 --> 01:14:17.880
we shattered it because we were afraid to see ourselves.

1038
01:14:19.520 --> 01:14:27.000
From Salem to Slayer, from accusation to hysteria, from bonfires

1039
01:14:27.119 --> 01:14:34.079
to silence. The lesson remains, truth matters, Fear deceives, and

1040
01:14:34.119 --> 01:14:37.159
if we don't learn to think, we will keep repeating

1041
01:14:37.199 --> 01:14:49.399
the panic again and again and again. That's the story

1042
01:14:49.439 --> 01:14:57.039
of Salem, They Satanic panic, and Hell awaits. An album

1043
01:14:58.000 --> 01:15:04.840
by Slayer Tomorrow is the fortieth year anniversary that really

1044
01:15:05.399 --> 01:15:10.479
captures in a moment, the Satanic panic of the nineteen eighties.

1045
01:15:11.920 --> 01:15:14.199
Thanks for listening, God bless