Episode 8: Where Are We Now?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Devil You Know with Sarah Marshall
Episode 8: Where Are We Now?
Date: December 8, 2025
Host: Sarah Marshall (CBC)

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Episode Overview

In the series finale, Sarah Marshall explores the enduring legacy of the Satanic Panic, examining why such moral panics persist and what they tell us about society’s deeper fears. She reframes the narrative through the story of Jonestown, drawing parallels between cultish control, societal scapegoating, and the mechanisms by which societies routinely deflect and externalize anxieties. The episode closes by considering what lessons—if any—we might draw from history to help break cycles of fear, scapegoating, and abuse.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Return of Moral Panics

• Sarah opens by connecting contemporary climate—marked by resurgent conspiracy theories such as QAnon and divisive social anxieties ("trans panic, queer panic, immigration panic")—to the cycles of fear typified by the Satanic Panic.
  • "The satanic panic, which did not die, simply took a nice refreshing nap and has reemerged in the form of QAnon, of trans panic, queer panic, immigration panic, any kind of panic you want." (02:12, Sarah Marshall)
• She ponders why societies seem condemned to repeat these patterns, even when aware of their futility.

2. Jonestown: The Real Horror Behind the Myths

• Marshall tells the story of the People’s Temple and Jonestown, contrasting the exaggerated evils of imagined Satanist cults with the documented horrors orchestrated by Jim Jones.
• The cult’s appeal: “When you came into an open meeting in the temple, you saw every color in the rainbow, dressed in every color in the rainbow, hooping and hollering to gospel and soul…very attractive.” (07:18, Stephen Jones via Chris Howden)
• The insidious reality: “[Jonestown was] different from slavery only in name…people were starving, abused, sleep deprived, and constantly watched by Jones.” (09:38, Sarah Marshall)
• The final tragedy: “The answer is that the citizens of Jonestown didn’t choose death at all. It was chosen for them by the man who had taken away their ability to choose anything for themselves.” (25:54, Sarah Marshall)

3. Examining the Real Roots of Panic

• Contrasts between “evil” as a cultural scapegoat and evil as a human phenomenon.
• The phrase “drinking the Kool Aid” is unpacked—its dark origins covered over with humor, masking a lack of reckoning with real atrocities.
  • "The people trapped at Jonestown didn't drink Kool Aid that night. It was Flavor Aid because that was cheaper. And Jim Jones was hoarding hundreds of thousands of dollars while his people starved." (22:28, Sarah Marshall)
• The conversation shifts to cultural mechanisms for avoiding uncomfortable truths, such as systemic abuse, by inventing more palatable villains.

4. Conversation with Chelsea Weber Smith (American Hysteria)

• Explores why conspiracy theories are so seductive—providing order and villainy for a chaotic world.
  • "It's just this way of ordering the chaos and just being like, I have this single villain or this single group of villains … then it feels like there's a lot more hope than trying to take on, like, a system that is so infinitely complicated that it just feels so impossible." (28:05, Chelsea Weber Smith)
• Moral panics as poetic metaphors for unaddressed societal pain, particularly abuse.
  • “We need this kind of poetic, or rather, like, large, metaphorical version where the evil is clear…big enough to hold our emotions, but also distant enough to not have to deal with the really, really, really frightening and traumatic truth.” (29:27, Chelsea Weber Smith)
• The phenomenon of scapegoating youth and "change-makers" as a recurring feature of moral panics.

5. What We Refuse to See—and the Cost

• Reframing the Satanic Panic as a deflection from real, everyday abuse—in families, communities, and institutions.
• “In the aftermath of the massacre, many of these children [from Jonestown] remained unidentified and were buried in a mass grave. They never came home. Beneath the jokes and the headlines, I think we knew we had failed to save them.” (40:17, Sarah Marshall)
• The mythic scale of the panic belied the banal, devastating realities society wanted to ignore.

6. Humanizing the Victims & Rejecting Scapegoating

• Stephen Jones reflects on the ordinary humanity of Jonestown's members, their hopes, and the traps they fell into—not because of 'evil', but because of the universal human desire for belonging and hope.
  • "No one knowingly joins a cult.… Some of us didn't choose it." (14:12, Stephen Jones via Chris Howden)
  • "The best thing I can do for myself is check that part of me that wants to, in my view, operate on the surface and be run by my ego and open up to the humanity of the people involved." (43:19, Stephen Jones via Chris Howden)

7. Cycle of Abuse: From Family to Cult to Nation

• The dynamics of abuse observed at Jonestown scale up to explain broader patterns—abusers claiming to protect, promising safety while tightening control.
  • “The logic of an abusive relationship or family just scales up to become the logic of a cult and then just scales up again to become the logic of a country.” (52:19, Sarah Marshall)
• The ultimate lesson: it is not the misfits or outsiders who are the most dangerous, but often those in positions of accepted authority.

8. Final Reflections & The Power of Recognition

• “The people who brought the Satanic panic back did so because they needed it. Because nothing allows you to control and exploit people quite like fear. And Satan is the original monster in the North American wilderness.” (53:49, Sarah Marshall)
• Marshall challenges listeners to confront who society defines as 'the devil'—and who benefits from such labels.

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Notable Quotes

• On why conspiracy theories endure:
  “It feels like there's a lot more hope than trying to take on, like, a system that is so infinitely complicated that it just feels so impossible, and you feel so powerless." (28:05, Chelsea Weber Smith)

• On moral panics as deflection:
  "So it's like we're finally addressing child abuse in the 70s and 80s, and we're horrified…We need this kind of poetic…version where the evil is clear…and really just a metaphor for the fear and the pain of what children are facing, but made big enough to hold our emotions, but also distant enough to not have to deal with the really, really, really frightening and traumatic truth." (29:27, Chelsea Weber Smith)

• On scapegoating and power:
  “The satanic panic led us into an upside down world. One in which we fear everyone but the people who actually mean us harm. Everyone but the people with actual power.” (49:13, Sarah Marshall)

• On learning from history:
  "The story might keep happening, but it's the same story every time. The logic of an abusive relationship or family just scales up to become the logic of a cult and then just scales up again to become the logic of a country." (52:19, Sarah Marshall)

• On confronting evil:
  “If anything, I would argue that the means justifies the end, but not the other way around…if I've done it in a way that is in keeping with my values and my ethics, I'm all for it.” (44:39, Stephen Jones via Chris Howden)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:42–03:05: Setting contemporary context—modern manifestations of panic.
• 04:13–25:38: Jonestown story, with Stephen Jones’ testimony.
• 26:41–37:20: Conversation with Chelsea Weber Smith, analysis of conspiracy and moral panics.
• 39:42–45:38: Returning to Jonestown children; Marshall and Jones’ reflections on humanity, evil, and surviving abuse.
• 48:34–54:09: Connects cult dynamics to societal patterns and contemporary fears, closing reflections.
• 52:19–54:09: Final summation of the pattern: abuse scaling up from individual to society.
• 53:49–54:09: The continuing use of 'the devil' as a tool for control.
• Selected Quotes: Embedded above with timestamps.

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Memorable Moments

• Stephen Jones’ survival story: The basketball team in Georgetown—“Not only are we not there to stand up against my father … but they're told that we're out killing people. … That's how we knew something terrible was happening in Jonestown.” (23:53, Stephen Jones via Chris Howden)
• Breaking the “drinking the Kool Aid” myth: “It was Flavor Aid because that was cheaper. And Jim Jones was hoarding hundreds of thousands of dollars while his people starved.” (22:28, Sarah Marshall)
• Reflection on scapegoating: “It's so much more attractive to simplify and push away…Those Satanists are over there, they're in the woods, they're underground in some layer. They're not here walking among me and the people that I love.” (35:48, Chelsea Weber Smith)

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Episode Tone

Sarah Marshall retains her trademark thoughtful, compassionate skepticism—blending investigative rigor with empathy for those swept up in the panic. The mood shifts from historical analysis to deeply personal testimony, culminating in a call for greater self-awareness, collective responsibility, and the courage to face hard truths.

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Conclusion

This finale ties together the series' throughlines: that societal panics distort real dangers, scapegoat the marginalized, and allow abusers in power to flourish. Jonestown becomes not just a case study in cult tragedy, but a metaphor for repeating patterns of coercion and blindness. Marshall’s closing exhortation is clear: learning the history is not meant to scare us with “monsters,” but to empower us to recognize—and break—the true cycles of harm.

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Summary compiled for listeners who haven’t heard the episode, preserving Sarah Marshall's voice and the episode's nuanced, reflective tone.

Transcript

[Chris Howden]

There are two kinds of Canadians those who feel something when they hear this music.

And those who've been missing out so far. I'm Chris Howden.

[Sarah Marshall]

And I'm Nil Kergzal. We are the co hosts of as It Happens and every day we speak with people at the center of the day's most hard hitting, heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious news stories.

[Chris Howden]

Also, we have puns here. Why as It Happens is one of Canada's longest running and most beloved shows. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts.

This is a CBC podcast.

[Sarah Marshall]

Just a heads up that this episode contains discussions about child abuse and suicidality. Please take care while listening.

Welcome to the Future.

2025, which sounds like a strange, dystopian year. And it is. We have survived, and continue to survive, a worldwide pandemic. Biff Tannen has come to power, and by that I mean Trump has been reelected and he is already enacting as much policy as possible where the cruelty is the point. And the satanic panic, which did not die, simply took a nice refreshing nap and has reemerged in the form of QAnon, of trans panic, queer panic, immigration panic, any kind of panic you want. The United States has got them all. If you've been following this story so far, you've learned a lot about the history of the Satanic panic as it spread across North America. We've talked to people who found their lives intersecting with the panic, like Professor Mary DeYoung, who wrote books on child abuse and who refused to participate as an expert witness in the satanic ricula beast trials that spread like wildfire in the early 80s. Or Matt Ferber, whose childhood was shaped by the recovered memory therapy that his mother underwent when he was growing up. And and Justin Sledge, who as a teenager was accused of being in a satanic cult as people in his small town struggled to make sense of a recent shooting. Or, like Liz and Anna from the last episode, two lesbian friends wrongly accused and brought to trial for satanic sexual abuse. And after getting to know all these people and traveling this far, you may be wondering why we brought you here and what all of this information amounts to. Why tell this story? More to the point, why study history at all if in fact even those who do remember the past seem condemned to repeat?

Seems that that as a society we never fully learn from our mistakes. And if we're not panicking about Satan, we can always find something else. We have proven that we will always be afraid of teenagers, of anyone who deviates from the norm and of problems that are hard to solve. Our fear leads us to witch hunts, both figurative and sometimes very literal. So if we can't stop this history from repeating, why learn it at all? To answer that question, I want to tell you one last story. Because before the Satanic panic even began, there was a cult that grew to a massive scale while maintaining a facade of respectability. And the number of lives it destroyed, including the number of children's lives, was staggering. It was called the People's Temple, and its leader was not Satan himself, but a guy from Indiana named Jim Jones.

I'm Sarah Marshall, and this is the devil you know.

[Chris Howden]

We're going to reach out to areas where man has seemed to have difficulty.

As we concentrate that the gifts of the Holy Spirit might function are what the secularist might speak of as the paranormal.

[Sarah Marshall]

Let us believe.

[Chris Howden]

Let us believe. It was a mass murder that transfixed the world.

[Sarah Marshall]

The victims, almost a thousand men, women.

[Chris Howden]

And children who had followed Jim Jones.

[Sarah Marshall]

A carousel charismatic church leader promising peace.

[Chris Howden]

And love in the jungles of South America.

[Sarah Marshall]

On November 20, 1978, news broke of the largest mass murder in recorded history. At the time, media outlets generally described the event as a mass suicide. And as people looked at Jonestown through their TV screens, the mystery seemed only to deepen. In a time of peace, how could so many innocent lives come to such an end when there was no war in sight? At the time, most people had very little concept of the way cults functioned. It was the news of the deaths in Jonestown that provided the impetus for people to learn what a cult even was and how it could suck you in, how you might feel inspired to come to a meeting or a sermon, and how the services you took part in might appeal to the very best parts of your nature, to your belief in equality and social justice and in giving everything you had to the greater good.

Maybe the food was great and the music was even better, but the sense of fellowship was what really made you stay. All of that was true of the People's Temple.

As pilgrims are here.

[Chris Howden]

There were many different reasons people came into the temple, regardless of what got you in there. And there's a lot we either hear, yeah, a bunch of crazy and these stupid people, they follow this guy, this charismatic man, and they just chose it because of him or healing or whatever, or it's. Yeah, these people came because they really wanted to change the world. And it was all altruism that had people joining the temple. Well, it's all of it, right? It's a mixed bag.

[Sarah Marshall]

This is Stephen Jones. Jim Jones and Marceline Jones were his parents. Stephen grew up in the temple, first as a child in Indiana, then as an increasingly rebellious adolescent in California after the temple moved there, and finally as a young man in Jonestown.

[Chris Howden]

Many of them really, really did want to change society in a good way. And many of them were absolutely drawn to the beauty of the temple, because when you came into an open meeting in the temple, you saw every color in the rainbow, dressed in every color in the rainbow, hooping and hollering to gospel and soul. And it was very attractive. It's beautiful. Now, what people don't know is that we were intentionally sat white, black, white, black, white, black.

[Sarah Marshall]

The People's Temple had reached the jungles of South America by a circuitous route. Jim Jones founded it in 1955 when he was an idealistic young street preacher in Indianapolis. And he was helped every step of the way by his equally idealistic wife, a nurse named Marceline. And it's one of the most revealing facts of the story that Jim and Marceline Jones and the People's Temple really did do work that helped lead to the racial integration of the city of Indianapolis, which says a lot more about how racist America is than it does about Jim Jones. But that was always one of the temple's biggest selling points, particularly to people of color, that Jim Jones would take better care of you than the rest of the world would and especially the rest of the country. And when things were bad, he would always be the first to tell you that things would be much worse for you out there where he couldn't protect you.

[Chris Howden]

I would be in an auditorium, and I'm waving my hand and I'm smiling at. And. And I'm thinking, this is just. This is crazy. I hate my life.

Why am I here? But I'm looking around me at a bunch of other people waving their hand and smiling and everything, and I'm thinking, I'm the only one who's faking it. What I now know is easily the majority of the people in the auditorium were, on some level, doing the same thing I was. But we all thought we were the only one, right?

A California congressman, three American journalists, and a woman were gunned down, murdered by a gang of fanatics. Congressman Leo Ryan had gone to the town of Georgetown in Guyana to investigate allegations. And some young Californians were being held prisoners and virtual slaves by a mysterious cult called the People's Temple.

[Sarah Marshall]

On November 18, 1978, Congressman Leo Ryan went to Guyana, along with an NBC News crew and future congresswoman Jackie Speier. He did so at the behest of several of his constituents, whose family members had become swallowed up by the People's Temple. Families received letters in which their loved ones swore they were happy in Jonestown. And yet, something seemed off. When Congressman Ryan and his crew arrived at Jonestown, they were welcomed warmly and given a tour of the compound. What they saw were apparently happy people and smiling faces. But everything was not as it appeared. Beneath the surface, conditions were dire. People were starving, abused, sleep deprived, and constantly watched by Jones. They had become used to hearing his thoughts broadcast on a PA system night and day. And they had also become used to suicide drills in which they were forced to prove their allegiance to Jim Jones and to Jonestown by going through the motions of mass suicide. Those who could were forced to work in the fields for up to 18 hours a day, attempting to grow enough crops to sustain the rest of the temple. And the people of color who had joined the People's Temple based on Jones future of racial equality and a better future found themselves in a situation that was different from slavery only in name. Despite the constant surveillance, a handful of people were able to communicate to Ryan and his group that they wanted to leave, and Ryan agreed to take them. Jones appeared to agree to this as well. But as Congressman Leo Ryan tried to leave with the defectors, the group was gunned down on the airstrip by Jones security team. Congressman Ryan was killed along with members of the news crew. Those who weren't killed lay silent, pretending to be dead, and a few escaped and fled through the jungle. Back at Jonestown, armed guards rounded up temple members and brought them to the pavilion where Jim Jones began his final sermon on the topic of what he called revolutionary suicide. Much like Nixon, Jim Jones recorded seemingly everything. And he recorded this, too. We're going to play some for you in just a minute. The United States government, Jones said, was coming for the temple members. And the only thing they could do was save themselves and their children by dying here and now.

[Chris Howden]

I tell you, I don't care how many screams you hear, I don't care how many anguish cries. Death is a million times preferable to 10 more days of this life. If you knew what was ahead of you, if you knew what was ahead of you, you'd be glad to be stepping over tonight. Death, death, death.

First, I should say that I was tricked into going to Jonestown. I had stateside moved out of the temple. My mother got me an apartment. I was on my way out at age 17 and had long been rebelling against my father. I write about it.

[Sarah Marshall]

This, again, is Stephen Jones. He grew up loving animals and being out in nature. He dreamed of being an actor, and he loved to play basketball. And he knew Kim Jones not just as a religious leader, but as his dad.

[Chris Howden]

And he tried to get me to come back. I refused to come back. He came to my apartment and all but begged me to return and live with him in the temple. And I said I wouldn't. It wasn't long after that that he said he wanted me to make one more trip with him to Jonestown. I said I would not go. He talked to my mother, promised her that I. That he would not keep me there if I went. And she came to me and said, just go. Don't. Because my mother and I were always.

Trying to manage dad. We didn't want our relationship ever to be a threat to him. And.

Mom, long before me, had really gotten caught up in managing dad. Once she knew she couldn't leave because of us and other factors, she went about trying to make where she was her prison, essentially a livable place, not just for her, but for others in the temple. And so part of managing him was, okay, let's not get him too fired up. Go to Jonestown with him. He's not going to keep you there. And once I got there, he wouldn't let me come back.

[Sarah Marshall]

Even if you can hide your true nature from the people whose lives you control, it's much harder to maintain that facade with your own family. From a very young age, Stephen understood pretty much exactly what his dad was up to. But that didn't mean he could get away.

[Chris Howden]

I think that by definition, we were a cult, but I think that when that word is used, it lumps everyone into one whole and really dismisses the humanity of the people that were there. No one knowingly joins a cult. Many of us, what a lot of people don't know is that that final night, 300 of the people who died were children. Some of us didn't choose it.

So I would say, by definition, it was a cult. But it was much, much more than that.

[Sarah Marshall]

And Stephen grew up watching his father demand more and more control over not just his family, but everyone in the People's Temple. And as time passed, Jim Jones also needed his followers to see him not just as their leader, but as God. Jim Jones had never believed in God himself, but he had always understood religion as a means of control. The punishments he demanded became more severe. He forced temple members to engage in physical combat. He sexually abused his followers. And when his targets were men.

[Chris Howden]

His.

[Sarah Marshall]

He reminded them that they had to learn to submit so they could become better socialists. After a while, everything was a test of loyalty, and everyone had to call him Father.

Jim Jones also seemed to become increasingly addicted to staging miracles, in addition to being addicted to speed. He convinced his wife, Marceline, that he could read minds. With her help, he performed faith healings where he told followers that he had removed tumors from their bodies with his bare hands. He staged assassination attempts so that he could miraculously survive them, not just once or twice, but over and over again. He used chicken liver for the tumors and chicken blood for the assassination attempts. To remain safe within the People's Temple, you had to not just believe Jim Jones was God, but make him feel that he was. And he needed more belief every day.

Jim Jones sent Stephen down to help build Jonestown for the same reason he did so much else. To keep his son from gaining independence and to isolate him further from the rest of the world. But as Stephen tells it, at least he got to spend a little time away from his dad.

[Chris Howden]

And I thought the leader and the leadership was too fucked up to in any way build a better society. And we already felt, even stateside, more like a fascist than a truly communist or socialist organization. But I was building a town for my community, for my people, for my family, for my loved ones. And I was doing it. I mean, finally I. I had some agency. And we worked very long hours, we worked very hard. We work 18 hour days, but we ate like kings. And our time was our time. We got to do with whatever we wanted. With our free time, we were building. We. I mean, we cleared thousands of acres and built. I don't think people realize the size of Jonestown and the amount of dwellings. There weren't enough dwellings for the amount of people there. But we made it work and, you know, kind of communal people that we were. And it wasn't long after dad got back, almost immediately, work went from being a means of production to a means of control.

And we ate poorly. And our time was his time. When we got off work, we didn't work as many hours, but you had to be in front of him or listening to him most of the time when you weren't working. And even there were times when I was in the depths of the bush, I could still hear his voice coming over the loudspeakers.

[Sarah Marshall]

I want to step back for a second, think about how different this is from everything we learned about the satanic panic. In that story. Cultists join up with the explicit goal of doing harm and worshiping Satan. These stories never asked us to imagine the best parts of our nature being used against us. And they never asked us to understand why people joined cults and stayed in them with the much more familiar logic of abuse. Because if you find it hard to believe Stephen's claim that no one would knowingly join a cult, ask yourself if you think someone would knowingly enter an abusive relationship. In both cases, you are far more likely to get in trouble, not because you wish to do harm, but because you believe that something is wrong with you, something is missing, and then someone comes along and tells you they can fix it.

Once Kim Jones moved the temple members down to Jonestown, he had them exactly where he wanted them. Separated from the rest of the world and anyone who could help them by an impenetrable jungle and forced to listen to his sermons day and night. But still, it was not enough.

[Chris Howden]

His source of adulation was finite. Now he had no one else. He needed new people to convince him that they loved him. And I should say it didn't matter if they really loved him. It only mattered that it looked to him like they loved him. My dad's entire sense of self resided in his perception of other people's perception of him.

I think part of your question was not only what brought people in, but what had them go to their death. And all the many different things were at play. People had been.

Riddled with anxiety for days. I mean, we listen. There wasn't a day that didn't go by once my dad was in Jonestown that I didn't feel extreme anxiety. He cultivated fear. He played fear constantly. So that was the culture that was throughout. You felt that anxiety. But it was ramped up once the congressman came there. So people were exhausted. It also been hammered into us for years that everyone on the outside wanted our demise, wanted our death, our torturous death, even. And frankly, if you're an African American and you've already experienced what you're experiencing in the States and the less than second class citizenship it is to be a person of color in the States, coming from what so many of them came from, it's really not a big leap to think, I've got nothing to go back to, it's only going to be worse kind of thing. So that's at play as well, I think, in a lot of people back.

[Sarah Marshall]

In the United States, Jim Jones had convinced many of his followers that there was an impending nuclear war that only he could save them from. He told black Temple members that they would be sent to concentration camps if they didn't flee to Jonestown first. But once they arrived in the utopia that was supposed to await them, temple members found themselves worked to the bone on minimal rations and even less sleep. And the man who had preached racial justice and equality had created his very own plantation, one that very clearly did not have the capacity to feed. All the people were now trapped there.

[Chris Howden]

So there's that fear that's working on everybody. And on top of that.

Most of the people were still forced, in some way physically coerced into. Into this. There were armed guards. I mean, incredibly courageous strong people who I know were not with my father died in that pavilion. There's nobody you know, you know, stepping up and saluting smartly and drinking the Kool Aid.

Every imaginable coercion that could be brought to bear would happen that night and led to the deaths of the people. It was mass murder. Absolutely.

[Sarah Marshall]

We've all heard that joke about drinking the Kool Aid, and I want us to reflect on why we say that. It's a classic sitcom shorthand that's supposed to be a joke, but barely conceals a tragedy, because the things we cannot stand to face we cover with a punchline. But the truth always remains just below the surface. Today, people talk about drinking the Kool Aid when they describe starting a new meal kit subscription or getting really into Pilates. For most people, it's come to signify joining a group or a belief system or even starting a new diet. But always it is about a choice you have made for yourself. It may be a choice you have second thoughts about, but it's your choice. You don't use the phrase to refer to a choice that was forced upon you by someone else, and you don't use it to describe a world of abuse where your ability to choose anything feels as unreachable as your ability to escape. And another thing, and this might seem like a small quibble, but it's not. The people trapped at Jonestown didn't drink Kool Aid that night. It was Flavor Aid because that was cheaper. And Jim Jones was hoarding hundreds of thousands of dollars while his people starved and certainly couldn't be expected to buy a name brand.

[Chris Howden]

The people that could be counted on most to stand up to my father, me being one of them, my brother Tim being another, and others who were on the basketball team and who were support from my mother, who stood up to my father, we're not there. We're in Georgetown playing basketball. Not only are we not there to stand up against my father and maybe have stopped what happened at the airstrip, but at least found a voice and stood up in the pavilion when things started going down, not only we not there, but they're told that we're out killing people. We were given the order to go out and get revenge. We didn't entertain that order for one second, but we were given that order. It was because we were given that order. That's how we knew something terrible was happening in Jonestown.

[Sarah Marshall]

With armed guards standing watch, Jim Jones forced the citizens of Jonestown to administer cyanide to their children. Then the adults drank the poison themselves. As accustomed as they were to the suicide drills that Jim Jones demanded, it is impossible to know how many people even comprehended the reality of their situation until it was too late. For some people, this meant watching their children die in their arms. Some people were forced to drink the poison at gunpoint. But it seems to me all too easy to understand why others didn't require that treatment. What exactly do you have left to live for when you have just been forced to kill your child? What do you have left to live for when everyone you love is dying around you?

One of the biggest questions people had when they learned about the massacre at Jonestown was how. How could people choose not just to take their own lives, but to take their children's lives too? And the answer is that the citizens of Jonestown didn't choose death at all. It was chosen for them by the man who had taken away their ability to choose anything for themselves. And he took their lives not for the devil, but for himself.

[Chris Howden]

There are two kinds of Canadians. Those who feel something when they hear this music.

And those who've been missing out so far. I'm Chris Howden.

[Sarah Marshall]

And I'm Niel Kurgsal. We are the co hosts of as It Happens. And every day we speak with people at the center of the day's most hard hitting, heartbreaking, and sometimes hilarious news stories.

[Chris Howden]

Also, we have puns. Hear why as It Happens is one of Canada's longest running and most beloved shows. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sarah Marshall]

One of the people I talk to most often about how to navigate today's moral panics is my friend, Kelsey Weber Smith. And like me, they have been trying to make sense of the satanic panic for a long time.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I am Chelsea. I host a podcast called American Hysteria, and we cover things like moral panics and urban legends and how fantastical thinking has shaped American culture from the Puritans to the present.

[Sarah Marshall]

There you go, and is your show art still an image of an apple with a razor blade inside?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

That's right, Sarah. And the hand holding it is wearing both an Illuminati pyramid eye All Seeing Eye ring and then a pentagram ring. So we're really trying to cover all the important big dogs.

[Sarah Marshall]

One of the lingering questions I have even at the end of this particular project is why the lure of conspiracy theories is so strong for so many people. And how far do you have to go before a conspiracy theory leads you into a cult? Chelsea is literally a professional skeptic, but that skepticism is built on a foundation of deep understanding.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I call myself a former fantastical thinker. I just. I liked the esoteric nature. I liked the secrets. I liked the digging. I liked the research. I liked the mystique. And I liked that there was something bigger happening on a grander scale, whatever that might be. And just like anyone who is really into conspiracy theories now, I think it's just this way of ordering the chaos and just being like, I have this single villain or this single group of villains that if I could just take them down. Not that I was, like, gonna take them down, but, you know, what if we could identify this, like, small group of people, then it feels like there's a lot more hope than trying to take on, like, a system that is so infinitely complicated that it just feels so impossible, and you feel so powerless.

[Sarah Marshall]

This is one of the most surprising things about the satanic panic and maybe about any moral panic. No matter how scary the story becomes, even if Satan himself is a character, it's still a story with heroes and villains. It's also a story with an ending.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I tend to read moral panics.

[Sarah Marshall]

And.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

The like as kind of the, like, poetry of society in, you know, it's obviously not a positive piece of poetry necessarily, but I think that when we are trying to understand something, whether it be personal or whether it be, you know, massive and cultural, we need metaphors to process it in the way that we feel we need to in a way that gives it the gravity that it needs. Needs. So it's like we're finally addressing child abuse in the 70s and 80s, and we're horrified. We are. Instead of facing the fact that this is an issue that largely happens between family members or people in close proximity, you know, we need to blow this up because we can't really deal with that fact. So we need this kind of poetic, or rather, like, large, metaphorical version where the evil is clear and it's away and it is overblown. And really just a metaphor for the fear and the pain of what children are facing, but writ large and made big enough to hold our emotions, but also distant enough to not have to deal with the really, really, really frightening and traumatic truth that it is not Satanists, it is parents, neighbors, teachers, coaches, religious leaders.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

It's like, I don't know, I just feel like there's an element of that that externalizes our fear and our desire to make simple what is extremely complicated.

[Sarah Marshall]

By asking us to look for Satanists, the Satanic panic allowed us to ignore the everyday abuse taking place in our own neighborhoods. And if I believed in Satan, I might argue that this great show of smoke and mirrors that directed our attention away from real problems seems almost like the devil's work. But I don't believe in the devil. I do believe in the human capacity to tell stories and to distract ourselves from what we fear most by telling ourselves that we are confronting a bigger fear, the fear to end all fears. It's fair to say that human beings once spent a significant amount of our time and energy just trying to avoid getting eaten. And our DNA hasn't really changed since then. To some extent, our fears are inevitable, but what's not inevitable is what we do with them and the scapegoats we blame when we can't find the devil.

Do you think it would be accurate to say that the Satanic panic represented a moral panic in response to gay liberation and women's liberation? I think definitely.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I think.

[Sarah Marshall]

And what. What is a moral panic in this context? And what. What purpose do they serve?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Well, the definition that I would give would be.

A much overblown or entirely invented threat to the social order.

[Sarah Marshall]

That.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

Covers up the real reaction that people are having, often to changes in things like civil rights or cultural changes that move us farther away from. I mean, what else but kind of white Christian nationalism and the nuclear family and all of the. The kind of, you know, 1950s era ideals that people often would like to return to. I think that the actual moral panic often covers up real issues that are much more complicated and difficult to address in favor of a really serious, simplistic narrative that uses scapegoats to make the problem outside of the person or group that's promoting the moral panic or falling for the moral panic. And it's just this. This sleight of hand that allows us to kind of look over here and not have to look at the real problem because it's too difficult, difficult to deal with.

So many of our moral panics. Are about the youth.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

It's like that's kind of the ever and I mean I moral panic a little bit about the youth sometimes. It's like that's always kind of the catalyst of a lot. It's often the catalyst of, of moral panic. I think because by virtue of, of what it means to be young, you are trying to change the world and you're trying to make a world that's more inclusive, usually for more people, which then challenges power structures and the status quo. And that usually makes people a little nervous, a little mad, very mad.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's hard to miss the fact that the moral panics of today like human trafficking, immigration, trans rights and that stone cold classic Satan himself spend a whole lot of time claiming to be for the children. But our children have always known more than we believe. And it's when they can see the truths we have learned to ignore that we panic most of all. It's easy to act for the children. It's harder to actually listen to them. Yeah. And what are the truths that we aren't facing?

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

I think that it's just a lot of the real forces that are harmful to children. Maybe that's the politicians who are taking away free lunches or the politicians that are, you know, allowing kids to have their health insurance taken away or you know, the close family members, the close community members or the close family members or community members that we actually have to look at when we look at child abuse. Again, that is like so difficult to do and so painful to have to face. And it's just so much more convenient to create a all powerful villain that is responsible for all of the ills that you as a person face, that the people that you love face. It's just so much more attractive to simplify and push away. It's like those Satanists are over there, they're in the woods, they're underground in some layer. They're not here walking among me and the people that I love.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

It's like just a lot less scary. Even though it's so scary. That's what's so funny is like the story of Satan and his minions. That's very scary.

[Sarah Marshall]

But it's boiling babies and oil. Yeah.

[Chelsea Weber Smith]

It's less scary than like having to look at your own community.

[Sarah Marshall]

One thing that's probably very clear to you by now is that the satanic panic is all about not just saving the children, but saving babies too. Because apparently Satanists loved sacrificing babies and did so all the time. These stories helped lay the foundation for the Panic, maybe most notably in the 1980 book Michelle remembers. And that book, which, as you remember, sold itself as a true story, a young Canadian woman who was certainly suffering from the trauma of abuse and neglect managed to really get her therapist's attention only when she told a story that included such horrors as a newborn baby getting crucified again. This is almost literally the worst thing you can think of, but it's so bad that it rises above reality to the level of hammer horror. This is a scary world to live in, partly because babies really do die all the time. They die because of low birth weight and bad prenatal care, because of the lack of access to maternal health care, because of violence and domestic abuse. But one of the systemic threats babies actually aren't facing is crucifixion. If we really want to panic, there are so many problems we should panic about more often. But it's so much easier to look for Satanists, even, or especially if you know you'll never find them. This was also one of the most glaring pieces of evidence against the widespread existence of murderous satanic cults almost from the very beginning. If the cults were sacrificing babies all the time, then where were they going? These infant sacrifices were supposedly everywhere. Michelle remembers gave us a scene where a long line of Satanists enters a conference, each with a baby under one arm, like a French guy with a baguette. And yet, after the sacrifices were over, no one could ever find the babies. And people looked. Police and forensic teams spent valuable time and money searching for the mass baby graves that were surely somewhere out there. And no one ever found a thing. Yet on some level, I think we knew something was out there.

Like Stephen said, a third of the people who died that night at Jonestown were children. Older children sat together or stayed with their families and drank the poison themselves. But toddlers and babies who were too young even to drink out of cups had the poison injected into their mouths with syringes, the same way you would feed a baby animal. They died excruciating deaths. And in the aftermath of the massacre, many of these children remained unidentified and were buried in a mass grave. They never came home.

Beneath the jokes and the headlines, I think we knew we had failed to save them. And learning to prevent the same thing from happening must have seemed too difficult. So we spent the next few decades inventing victims who allowed us to look for Satan. We looked for the massive and macabre, rather than dealing with everyday domestic abuse, which was what Jonestown was at its Heart. In essence, Kim Jones told his people, if I can't have you, nobody will. No belief in Satan was necessary, just one man's need to make people believe in him.

[Chris Howden]

I believe evil is such an overused word and has many meanings, I think, or broad. Broad meaning. But I think evil can be done for by my definition. But I don't think like you say, I don't think it's done by evil people like it's done by human beings.

[Sarah Marshall]

The death toll of the Jonestown massacre was almost absolute. Of the people who were still at the compound that night, who left for the airstrip with Congressman Ryan's party or who were at Temple headquarters in the capital city, there were 87 survivors.

87 survivors and 918 people dead. And Stephen. Stephen survived because Jonestown had a basketball team and they had gone to the capital city of Georgetown, Guyana, to play a game. The team existed partly to make life a little more livable for some of the young men at Jonestown. Stephen was on it, and so were his brothers, Tim and Jim Jr. But the basketball team also existed because it made life seem more livable. A little bit of pr. Sleight of hand, like the chicken served for dinner during Congressman Ryan's visit. Because by that time, meat was an almost unthinkable luxury in Jonestown. The day after the game, Stephen and his teammates went to the movies. They chose a John Saxon movie, which was appealing to Stephen, partly because John Saxon had been an Enter the Dragon, a movie he loved.

[Chris Howden]

What's your style? My style? You can call it the art of fighting without fighting. The art of fighting without fighting. Show me some of it.

[Sarah Marshall]

The basketball team was still at the movies when Jim Jones radioed the Temple's small headquarters in Georgetown. He commanded Stephen and his brothers to murder the Temple's enemies. When his sons learned of his message, they refused and they survived. That night, they were three of the 87.

Stephen Jones has now spent much of his life trying to help people understand just who the world lost that night. And the victims of Jonestown, including his mother, Marceline, live on today through his love for them.

[Chris Howden]

I think my experience of human beings, myself included, at times in my life, were looking for something to be mad at and afraid of.

And if it's served up on a platter, we lap it up. The best thing I can do for myself is check that part of me that wants to, in my view, operate on the surface and be run by my ego and open up to the humanity of the people involved in whatever it is I'm looking at and how I explore that subject or that event.

Changes drastically when I do that.

Once I find myself in a very righteous position.

Anything I have to do to accomplish my goal is okay, all right? And in the temple, it was the end justifies the means. That was our credo. And I. I know that is a absolutely toxic philosophy. It's, It's. It's. It's incredibly dangerous. If anything, I would argue that the means justifies the end, but not the other way around. What I mean by that is, even if I don't accomplish what it is, whatever it is I set out to accomplish, if I've done it in a way that is in keeping with my values and my ethics.

I'm all for it, right? Rather than compromising any of those things to accomplish what I think is a lofty goal, even. Right. And I think I feel like our society is full of that. It's in advertising, it's in sport, it's absolutely in politics. Convince yourself you got the best product, the best person, the best agenda. If you can convince yourself of that, then anything goes to accomplish that, to get that person in office to get that product sold.

If I busy myself with judging others and I feed my outrage at other people's behavior, and I.

Help myself feel better about me by.

Making people worse than me, then I'm really missing out on an opportunity to maybe make a good, positive difference while I'm here.

It's a Rumi saying, which is beyond ideas of right doing and wrongdoing. There's a field. I'll meet you there. And that is beautiful to me.

[Sarah Marshall]

What do you do when you grow up in the household of a man who made paranoia and abuse into a religion? Maybe you have an answer because it's happened to you as well. And one answer is that you survive however you can, day by day. And if we look to Steven's life for answers, I think one of them is make love the greatest value of your life and put no idol before it, including your own ego. You do your best to love and treat it as the difficult practice it is. You work hard every day to keep your heart open, and you keep listening for answers to life's mysteries, big and small.

[Chris Howden]

There are two ways that I would go into the bush If I wanted to see animals. I would go in very, very early, and I would become part of it. And then animals come into big, you know, and I make sure I'm up against something, and there's no wind, so it's not going to Carry my scent. And so animals would come into view and I could, I could see them, but which was fine because I, I, you know, I was protected and I knew how to, to take care of myself. Another big cat or something came into view, which, which did not happen. But another way, if you are not wanting to get jumped and you want to be sure that, you know, you make some noise as you're walking through the bush and the only, only animals you're going to see are monkeys or birds usually. So I was really taken aback as I was walking when I heard a rustling to the right side in the bush. And that took me aback because usually, you know, anything on ground level would be silent if I was coming. And this, then the next thing I saw was this big head at about 2ft off the ground, poke out of the bush and a big lizard head, the reptilian head. And it looked at me and I stopped and it didn't even, it just walked out, had it looked at me for a while and then just looked forward and just walked across the path directly in front of me. And this thing was easily six foot long and a couple feet high. And if you've ever seen a monitor lizard, they got the really wide legs and the gate and everything. And I spent years trying to find this thing, but I was always looking for monitor lizards. Oh, by the way, it was, it was jet black, jet black. And it just sauntered across in front of me, and I could never find it. And then my wife Kelly, I told her about it, said, I'll find it. I said, no, you won't.

[Sarah Marshall]

I've looked.

[Chris Howden]

I'll find it. Took her an hour. She called somebody at her own, the university she went to, and a heptologist there, and it's called a Tegu. So I was looking for the wrong thing.

[Sarah Marshall]

The thing about the Satanic panic and the fear it tried to sell us about cult leaders operating before our very eyes, disguised as respectable members of society and indoctrinating your neighbor, your friend, your children, all these things had happened. It happened in Jonestown. Some of the most extreme predictions of the Satanic panic had actually been entirely accurate. They just came a few years too late. Like I said, we learned the wrong lessons from Jonestown. We learned to fear cults, but we learned to believe that cults come from anything different from the mainstream. We learned that we should look out for Hare Krishna's tambourines, hippies and outsiders. We learn to find some other to blame, when in reality the cultists we should have feared were the Jim Joneses of our society. The middle class white Christian men leading groups of believers to slaughter. The satanic panic led us into an upside down world. One in which we fear everyone but the people who actually mean us harm. Everyone but the people with actual power. We learned to point the finger at misfit teens and minimum wage daycare workers and lesbians minding their own business. We learned to ignore the real threat. Jonestown revealed real flaws in our society. It showed how one man could gather a flock by promising people a better life and avoid suspicion until it was far too late. But instead of examining these flaws, we invented a different problem to solve. We returned to our roots of colonization and witch hunts. Only this time, we were hunting for Satanists. And they were always just one step ahead of us. So we kept plunging forward, searching for the truth and ignoring the danger that was so real, we didn't even want to look at it.

If you look at all these stories, you see a pattern. Jim Jones can't let you leave the compound because he is the one who will care for you better than anyone else can. He tells you he's the one who protects you. He is the one who loves you. And where Jonestown ends, the jungle begins. The unknown is out there. There are monsters. There are predators. Death and destruction await you outside. You have to stay with him. You have to stay with him until he destroys you himself. Because once you've gained control over every part of a person's life, taking that life is all that remains.

The world treated Jonestown as a mystery when the news first broke, A story that necessitated those true crime cliche words, unthinkable and unimaginable. And it's fair that we wanted it to make no sense, to be something that could not happen again. But the dynamics of the story, in the end, were very thinkable. They were so familiar that they didn't even need to be imagined. And for anyone who has experienced abuse or witnessed it up close, the dynamics might be all too easy to recognize. You are nothing without me. Your abuser might say, you can't survive without my help. You deserve whatever I do to you. And anyone else would do worse. There are monsters in the jungle. Stay with me.

The fact that this pattern repeats across time and scale is horrifying and exhausting. But if we recognize this pattern, it also gives us a power that nothing and no one can take away. Because the story might keep happening, but it's the same story every time. The logic of an abusive relationship or family just scales up to become the logic of a cult and then just scales up again to become the logic of a country. I don't think the Satanic panic came back because it was due for a resurgence, like lace camis and low rise jeans. I certainly don't think we are in the grips of the Satanic panic again, because this time there might actually be some dangerous Satanists around. If there's anything we've learned, it's that the size of the panic has nothing to do with the size of the threat. And if we've learned a second thing from all these stories, I think it's moral panics are a very useful way to control people. Never stop being afraid, says the cult leader or the dictator, and never stop believing that I can save you. Let me frighten you with a threat that I invented. So whatever I do to you seems to matter less. No one else can save you. There are monsters in the jungle. Stay with me.

The people who brought the Satanic panic back did so because they needed it. Because nothing allows you to control and exploit people quite like fear. And Satan is the original monster in the North American wilderness. That shadowy character who allows us to feel righteous as we satisfy the the very worst of our urges. When European settlers came to this land, they told themselves that they were driving out the devil by committing genocide. In today's Satanic panic, we get to save ourselves from Satan by persecuting queer people, disabled people, people of color, and pretty much every marginalized minority we can find up to and including the very children we claim claim to be protecting. So go into the jungle, look for the monsters, look for the devil and ask them questions. And if a monster or a devil is really just anyone whose mere existence can be used as an excuse for fear, anyone who questions a dictator or lives beyond the prison of abuse, then maybe you're a monster. Maybe you're the devil. You are the devil we've been looking for for all this time. And I'm so happy we finally found you.

Thank you for listening to the devil you know. Our producer is Mary Stephan Hagan. Fact checking by Katherine Barner, Production assistants and script contributions by Nicole Ortiz. Thanks to Jay Cowett for voice coaching. The voice actors you heard in this show were River Butcher, Aubrey Gordon, Michael Hobbs, Jamie Loftus, Woody Schticks, Alex Steed, Janet Varney and K. Chelsea Weber Smith. Additional music in this episode provided by Carolyn Kendrick. I've been your host. Sarah Marshall, our sound designer is Evan Kelly Rohni Nair is our coordinating producer. Our podcast art was designed by Sasha Stephen Our cross promo producers are Amanda Cox and Kelsey Cueva. Our video producers are Evan Igard, Tamina Aziz and John Lee. Special thanks to Julia Whitman. Our senior producer is Jeff Turner. Executive producers are Chris Oak and Cecil Fernandez. Tanya Springer is Manager of Growth for CBC Podcasts. Arif Narani is the director and Leslie Merklinger is the Executive Director of CBC Podcasts.

The garments that are stained with sin and be washed in the blood of lamb There's a fountain flowing for the soul unclean Are you washed in the blood of the lamb? Are you washed in the blood in the soul? Cleansing blood of the lamb.

[Chris Howden]

Are your garments flawless?

[Sarah Marshall]

Are they white as snow? Oh, be washed in the blood of the lamb Are you washed in the blood in the soul Cleansing blood of the lamb. Are your garments flawless? Are they white as snow? Or be washed and in the blood of the lamb.

[Chris Howden]

Sam.

All my friends, believe me, we are Opportunity to Get rich, to obtain great wealth is here now we know that living in this world means dealing with what philosophers would call the phenomenology of evil, or, as theologians would put it, the doctrine of sin. Never in the history of the world did a poor man without capital have the opportunities to get rich quickly and honestly, as he does in our country today. There is sin and evil in the world, and we're enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. I say you ought to get rich, and it's your duty to get rich.

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