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Tracy V. Wilson
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Ed Helms
Hey, it's Ed Helms, host of SNAFU, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snafu Every single episode.
Tracy V. Wilson
32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop. What?
Ed Helms
Yeah, it's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Scheer, Angela and Jenna, Nick Kroll, Jordan Klepper. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Narrator for Sacred Scandal
Sacred Scandal is back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Alayna Sada was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season, she's telling her story.
Alena Sada
When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Marcia Almasel, the leader of the Legionaries, looked me in the eye and told me I had a calling.
Narrator for Sacred Scandal
Surviving meant hiding. Escaping, took courage. Risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the Many Secrets of Martial Maciel on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History, we're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a CR that would spiral out of control.
Holly Fry
And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years. That's probably not long enough. I didn't kill him.
Malcolm Gladwell
From Revisionist History, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Holly Fry
Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartrad. Hello and happy Friday. I'm Holly Fry.
Tracy V. Wilson
And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
Holly Fry
We talked about the possessions at Ludon this week.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yep.
Holly Fry
This is one that's been on my list for a long time and I find it super fascinating. 1. It's, it's one of those things that I find myself getting frustrated at because people that are really into the occult will use these instances of historical mass possessions in religious orders as proof that, you know, it must be a real thing because they're religious, they're fighting against demons, and yet there they are like, oh, we should have a discussion.
Tracy V. Wilson
This is.
Holly Fry
And that's why this is a good example because there were people that came forward and went, no, this whole thing is being used as a tool to get back at people that other people don't like and to try to firmly entrench the Catholic Church as superior to the Protestant church in this community.
Tracy V. Wilson
Right.
Holly Fry
And I love it for that reason.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah. This is the other episode that we are recording in today's session is about a similar place and time and like, this was a chaotic, difficult time to live in.
Holly Fry
Oh yeah.
Tracy V. Wilson
Like got the Reformation and the Counter Reformation, large scale disease epidemics, wars, like so much stuff all happening. And then a group of people in a religious community, fairly isolated from everybody, adding a whole additional layer of like the social and psychological things going on.
Holly Fry
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I think it also evidences. It's a very tricky subject because I don't want to denigrate or insult anyone's religious view. I do think though, anytime you have an organization that puts itself beyond the reach of transparency and any legal repercussions by saying, no, we're inherently, we have to be secret. It's for the greater good. That's just like a hotbed of potential exploitation. And I really think, I mean, it seems so obvious to me, obviously through the lens of the modern eye to be like, oh, they recognize that Urbain Grandier was like, why don't we just throw open the doors, get rid of all of this dogma. We can talk openly about religion and what it means to be religious and not be so, you know, secretive about it. And they were like, that guy's gotta die. Somehow we have to figure out a way. Which is very fascinating. Listen, he also, though, was. Seemed perfectly happy to use his charms for his own wiles because he clearly wanted to get rid of the celibacy rule.
Tracy V. Wilson
Right.
Holly Fry
To make it cool for him to have sexual exploits with a lot of people. Which also, you know, becomes a whole other issue to debate.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah.
Holly Fry
Because there's a power dynamic involved in a religious figure. There's a lot of problems there. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to make him into the hero of the story, although he did appear to be the victim. But this is also the thing. Right. There's so much humans are inherently going to machinate for their own best interest. Yeah. Or desires. And that's a. That's just inherently problematic. I don't know how to fix it. We haven't figured it out clearly in several hundred years.
Tracy V. Wilson
It's been hundreds of years. I'm so tired.
Holly Fry
I'm so worn out. I really did do like reading a lot of the modern assessments of it that are careful and really thoughtful and try to take into account all of the things we do know while acknowledging all the things we don't. And we can't.
Tracy V. Wilson
Right.
Holly Fry
You know that there's also the element of some of the people involved in these claims of demonic possession were probably faking and knew they were faking.
Tracy V. Wilson
Sure.
Holly Fry
Others 100% believed they were possessed.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah.
Holly Fry
And they are all grouped under one heading. So it makes it very hard to parse out and pick apart what was real and what was not.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah.
Holly Fry
Because to them, some things were real that other people would say were not. And that makes it very tricky.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah.
Holly Fry
Well.
Tracy V. Wilson
And it's been a while since I've done an episode on this theme, but I have kind of a fascination with, like, the especially medieval era mystics, some of whom were having experiences that, to today's ear, like, they don't sound like a mentally well person.
Holly Fry
Right.
Tracy V. Wilson
They sound like someone who is having some kind of delusion going on. But I'm, like, really interested in them and their experiences and how many of them, like, sincerely believed the things that they were describing to people and how that simultaneously, like, grew out of the place and time they were living and set them apart from the place and time they were living.
Holly Fry
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I really am super fascinated by Jeanne des Anges figuring out this path where she could say, no, no. I was. In fact, once I was cleared of demons, there was divine spirit that entered me. I don't know what to make of the scars on her arm. It's the 1630s, so there's no photos. And also this kind of masterstroke of being like, I operate in this structure of the church where they are happy to suggest and believe and promote the idea that I was exercised and that, you know, I then became in touch with higher angels. And also, by the way, my angel said what you said was wrong, and now you can't fight me because you already validated him. I, like that is masterfully played that. That part to me is very interesting. It's like she found this weird way through to empower herself. Yeah, it's all very, it's all very fast. I love doing any of the possession stories because. Right. One the beauty of them is that because of all of these psychological aspects we've mentioned, there's no one truth. Right. So you can't say definitively anything and it just becomes a fun examination of.
Tracy V. Wilson
What was going on, especially the ones in long ago history.
Holly Fry
Yes, I do like how much just legal battling there was in this one. I love the idea that Grandier was just like lawsuit, lawsuit, lawsuit. Just throwing them out like shuffling cards. He just suit everybody that irritated him. Which is kind of, kind of fun. Fun probably not for anybody involved with his life, but fun to read about. I hope, I hope, I hope nobody's possessed. I mean I have feelings. I have my own beliefs and thoughts. They may disappoint people.
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Ed Helms
Hey, it's Ed Helms. And welcome back to snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode.
Tracy V. Wilson
32 lost nuclear weapons you're like, wait, stop. What? Yeah.
Holly Fry
Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s.
Ed Helms
Basketball player who still wore knee pads. Yes, it's gonna be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Scheer made me feel good.
Tracy V. Wilson
I'm like, oh, wow.
Ed Helms
Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched you're here.
Tracy V. Wilson
What was that like for you to soft Launch into the show.
Ed Helms
Sorry, Jenna. I'll be asking the questions today.
Tracy V. Wilson
I forgot whose podcast we were doing.
Ed Helms
Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich.
Evan Ratliff
So let's see how it goes.
Ed Helms
Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Narrator for Sacred Scandal
At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Martial Maciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of God Christ.
Alena Sada
My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out.
Narrator for Sacred Scandal
This season on Sacred Scandal, hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determined survivor as Elena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Secret Scandal, the many secrets of Martial Maciel as part of the My Cultura podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse.
Tracy V. Wilson
He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice. To the right. I'm sorry. To the left. I love you.
Malcolm Gladwell
From Revisionist History, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, the Alabama murders, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tracy V. Wilson
We talked about werewolves this week.
Holly Fry
Sure did.
Tracy V. Wilson
Especially specifically a guy named Peter, probably whose name was spelled so many different ways that we had to stop and have multiple clarifying conversations while we were recording.
Holly Fry
Which. Which pronunciation would you like me to use here?
Tracy V. Wilson
I was like, it doesn't matter. I don't actually know that that was really what his name was. But yeah, So I. I was just looking for stuff to talk about in October, and I stumbled across this and realized I was like, oh, we haven't done this. And actually we have not talked that much about werewolves. And I did kind. I wanted to talk about how, like, this. As the big witch trials in early modern Europe and North America were happening, there was also this werewolf focus. I wasn't quite prepared for the level of goriness. Even though the last time we talked about a werewolf, it was Gilles Garnier. And that was gory. I just had kind of forgotten.
Holly Fry
I feel a little bit like a monster.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah.
Holly Fry
Because I was like, I thought this was going to be gory.
Tracy V. Wilson
Well, so the parts of it that really got me. The, like, the parts of me that I was like, okay, I was not expecting that.
Holly Fry
Eating the brain.
Tracy V. Wilson
The. No, it was the, like, attacking pregnant women and tearing the fetus out of their body. Like, oh, yeah. That. It was just. I was not. I was somehow. I was like, oh, that. That was more than I was expecting here. And then, like, eating. Eating the hearts of his victims. I was like, ah, not really liking that. And had no idea when I got into it that there was also going to be, like, an incest element to it.
Holly Fry
Yeah. That's the. The sexual assault and whatnot is probably the part that I find the most unsettling. But I don't. I don't know why I don't perceive it as gory, even though those are all horrific things. I think part of it is because I don't trust that any of this is accurate.
Tracy V. Wilson
Oh, sure, sure.
Holly Fry
So my brain is just like, well, that's what they said. But I don't. It's not to diminish how frightening a possibility that is. But just like, I think because of the nature of, like, these broadsheets and how many that we've discussed throughout the run of the show that are like, well, the kind of made stuff up to sell more copies, that I just perceive none of it as real.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah.
Holly Fry
Which is why I think I'm like, meh.
Tracy V. Wilson
I have a different level of immersion in reading something versus if I'm watching a movie. Like, there have been movies that I have watched that I have that have scared me so much that I have been able to, like, feel the fear in my body.
Holly Fry
Yeah.
Tracy V. Wilson
As a physical experience. And I've read some books that are supposed to be really scary that, like, that just has not been how I engage with, like, the content of a book versus a movie that I'm watching. Right. Or Maybe a TV show. That's really scary. So anyway, I. We had a lot of things to read from. I tried to leave some of the, like, atypical spellings in there.
Holly Fry
Yeah.
Tracy V. Wilson
But I did clean a lot of them up because this particular document had a lot of V's that should have been U's.
Holly Fry
Right.
Tracy V. Wilson
And U's that should have been V's. And a thing that took me a little While to remember, Js that looked like I's. There were a couple of words that I kind of stared at for a minute where I was like, I don't know what in the world this could possibly. Oh, that's a J, not an I. Okay.
Holly Fry
What are you getting at?
Tracy V. Wilson
J. Yeah. We've talked about our love of unusual spellings before, the push to standardize the spelling of everything in English.
Holly Fry
This whole thing just makes me think about what we do in the shadows, so.
Tracy V. Wilson
Oh, yeah.
Holly Fry
That's where my brain was the whole time.
Tracy V. Wilson
It makes sense.
Holly Fry
It's werewolves. It's not swear wolves. Oh, how I miss that show.
Tracy V. Wilson
It's a very good show.
Holly Fry
I will say I am less of a werewolf person if we're in the zone of, you know, classical monsters than some others. And I don't know why, but I do love the fact that a girdle makes you a werewolf. I know it's not the girdle in the modern sense, but it makes me laugh so hard. It makes me want someone to draw a cartoon of like someone in a granny style girdle that turns them into a werewolf.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah. I originally was trying to figure out whether I needed to explain why sometimes it was described as a belt and why sometimes it was described as a girdle. Because at the time, sometimes those words could be used almost interchangeably. They're both like a sort of accessory that makes a cinching part around roughly the middle of your body.
Holly Fry
Yeah.
Tracy V. Wilson
But like, the belt and the girdle can have slightly different, in terms of like the garment and what is being done with them. And then I was like, this is not actually that important to the story.
Holly Fry
I also. Well, I. I mean, that's actually a thing that I find really fascinating because I also wonder about that particular type of garment being the one chosen that is transformative. Because, of course, things that cinch in your body are transformative in some cases.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah.
Holly Fry
Have not always been accepted. Like I. My tight lacing diatribe hasn't come up in a long time. But like we. We in the modern era. I say we in the grand sense of we, not, not me. Cause I read a lot about it. There is a proclivity towards talking about how tight lacing was this weird habit of the past. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, there were always people who were like, that's not good for you. And so this idea of something that transforms your body in a possibly painful way or an uncomfortable way being the thing that makes you into a monster is just a fun avenue to explore.
Tracy V. Wilson
Oh, sure, sure. Like, there are also stories that are clearly fictional stories about werewolves, like werewolf lore, fiction, poems, things like that from around this era and the medieval period that it's also like a belt or a skin. Like, have some similar things to, like, these werewolf stories from contemporary with the witch trials. So it's like, is this sort of just a thing that was drawn from existing ideas or not? But I also liked how sometimes it's an ointment or an unguent, and either the devil gave you the unguent or, like, the devil gave you the recipe so you could go make your own unguent to become a wolf.
Holly Fry
I feel like there is so much money to be made with a skincare line called the Devil's Unguent.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah.
Holly Fry
Whoever among you is a modern apothecary of skincare elixirs, run with this, because I will buy it all. I will buy the whole.
Tracy V. Wilson
Holly has given you the idea.
Holly Fry
Will buy the entire line.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah. I also. It caused me to have various thoughts about the modern world that we're living in now and having moved from print culture into online culture and how easy it is for misinformation to spread and feed on each other into a cycle.
Holly Fry
Yeah.
Tracy V. Wilson
That the thing that is spreading with the misinformation then informs things that happen, and then that feeds back into the misinformation cycle, like, as evidence.
Holly Fry
Yeah. I mean, it also. I feel like we are experiencing the parallels of what has come up in a couple of recent episodes with times of great upheaval also being times when people cling to ideas of mysticism or, you know, magic being a thing. And I feel like we're in a little bit of that right now. So.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I did not choose this episode because of current parallels. I chose it because of werewolves.
Holly Fry
But there we are. There are swear wolves. That's maybe why I don't like werewolves if they don't swear so much.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah.
Holly Fry
I'm here for the rougarou and the rest. See ya.
Tracy V. Wilson
I was telling Patrick what I was working on, and he was like, oh, is it a werewolf or is it a loup garou? And I was like, a loup garou is just a French werewolf. And he was thinking, I don't remember which video game he was specifically referencing. But, like, there is some video game where like, a werewolf is one tier of enemy and a loup garou is like a more difficult version of the werewolf enemy. It's got more hit points, got to.
Holly Fry
Take more damage, and then there's the Cajun Rougarou that will just bring you fabulous food.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah, you went to the Rougarou Festival that time, didn't you?
Holly Fry
I haven't.
Tracy V. Wilson
Okay.
Holly Fry
I keep trying to go and the timing never works out.
Tracy V. Wilson
I thought you did get to go one time. I made up a fiction in my head where you got to do this thing that you have wanted to do.
Holly Fry
One year. It's going to work for me.
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, that's our wandering discourse about werewolves and the Rougarou Festival. Whatever's happening on your weekend, I hope it's great. I hope if there is a strange werewolf running around your town that it's just a person in an outfit having a good time, not harming anybody in any way. We will be back with a Saturday classic tomorrow. We will have something brand new on Monday. Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ed Helms
Hey, it's Ed Helms, host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snafu every single single episode.
Tracy V. Wilson
32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop.
Holly Fry
What?
Ed Helms
Yeah, it's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Scheer, Angela and Jenna, Nick Kroll, Jordan Klepper. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Narrator for Sacred Scandal
Sacred Scandal is back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Alena Sada was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season, she's telling her story.
Alena Sada
When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Marcia Almasel, the leader of the Legionaries, looked me in the eye and told me I had a calling.
Narrator for Sacred Scandal
Surviving meant hiding. Escaping. Took courage. Risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred Scandal. The many Secrets of Martial Maciel on the iHeartra radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control.
Holly Fry
And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years. That's probably not long enough. I didn't kill him.
Malcolm Gladwell
From Revisionist History, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Evan Ratliff
When news broke earlier this year that baby kj, a newborn in Philadelphia, had successfully received the world's first personalized gene editing treatment, it represented a milestone for both researchers and patients. But there's a gripping tale of discovery behind this accomplishment and its creators. I'm Evan Ratliff, and together with biographer Walter Isaacson, we're delving into the story of Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna, the woman who's helped change the trajectory of humanity. Listen to on crispr, the story of Jennifer Doudna with Walter isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tracy V. Wilson
This is an iHeart podcast.
Hosts: Holly Frey and Tracy V. Wilson
Release Date: October 10, 2025
In this "Behind the Scenes Minis" episode, Holly and Tracy reflect on their recent main episodes about the possessions at Loudun and a particularly gruesome werewolf case. Their candid conversation explores historical context, the murky lines between myth and reality, and their personal reactions to research on mass possessions and werewolf lore. The discussion is equal parts insightful and casual, blending scholarly curiosity with humor and empathy.
Timestamps: 02:37–10:02
Complexity of Religious Mass Possessions:
Danger of Secrets and Abuse of Power:
Ambiguity Between Belief and Fakery:
Modern Interpretations:
Jeanne des Anges and the Power of Narrative:
Timestamps: 14:10–24:02
Historical Werewolf Trials:
Brutality and Uncertainty of the Legends:
Gore, Horror, and Reading vs. Watching:
Spelling and Language Challenges:
Werewolf Lore: Girdles and Transformation:
Folklore Motifs: Girdles, Belts, and Ointments:
Fiction vs. “Fact”:
Contemporary Parallels:
The Devil’s Unguent:
Werewolves, Swearwolves, and Rougarou:
“Anytime you have an organization that puts itself beyond the reach of transparency... that's just like a hotbed of potential exploitation.”
— Holly Fry (04:13)
“Some of the people involved in these claims of demonic possession were probably faking and knew they were faking. Others 100% believed they were possessed. And they are all grouped under one heading.”
— Holly Fry (06:35)
“Attacking pregnant women and tearing the fetus out of their body... I was not expecting that.”
— Tracy V. Wilson (15:28)
“I don't trust that any of this is accurate...I just perceive none of it as real.”
— Holly Fry (16:12)
“This idea of something that transforms your body in a possibly painful way or an uncomfortable way being the thing that makes you into a monster is just a fun avenue to explore.”
— Holly Fry (20:00)
“How easy it is for misinformation to spread and feed on each other into a cycle.”
— Tracy V. Wilson (21:47)
“There is so much money to be made with a skincare line called the Devil's Unguent.”
— Holly Fry (21:24)
The podcast is lively, candid, and blends serious historical analysis with irreverent humor. Holly and Tracy riff on research frustrations, appropriately question sources, and self-deprecatingly acknowledge their own biases. They encourage listeners to engage with history critically but with curiosity and fun.
For anyone who missed this episode:
This behind-the-scenes chat is both a thoughtful deconstruction of historical possession and werewolf cases, and an enjoyable glimpse into how two historians research, reflect, and find parallels between the past and present. It’s equal parts history, skepticism, and pop-culture savvy, with plenty of memorable quotes and light-hearted moments to balance the serious themes.