Podcast Summary:
The Devil You Know with Sarah Marshall (CBC)
Episode: Yet another helping from Satan: The Devil’s storytellers
Date: December 12, 2025
Guest: Bill Ellis, Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies, Penn State University
Main Theme & Purpose
In this bonus episode, Sarah Marshall interviews Bill Ellis, an expert in folklore and the study of rumor panics, to examine the roots and mechanisms of the Satanic Panic. The conversation expands from the pop culture manifestations of Satanic Panic in the 1980s and 90s to the deeper, recurring elements of human psychology, storytelling, and community trauma that fuel such episodes. The discussion highlights how legends become embedded in society—not just as fictions, but as ongoing debates that shape, respond to, and reflect cultural anxieties.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Origins of Folklore Interest and Entry into the Field
- [02:33] Bill Ellis describes his early fascination with medieval literature and folklore, noting how the monsters and heroes of the past are "improvised and recreated in contemporary time" and how few were seriously studying modern folklore.
- Quote:
"It was fascinating to see all of this being improvised and recreated in the contemporary time." — Bill Ellis [03:00]
2. The Nature and Function of Urban Legends
- [03:34] Ellis recalls being contacted by media about urban legends such as the "gang headlight ritual," and notes how these stories travel.
- Insight:
Most people sharing these legends "doubt them," but there's a social value in debating credibility. - Quote:
"Statistically, the person who was most likely to pass on an urban legend was a person who doubted it." — Bill Ellis [04:00]
- [05:33] Folklore and legends serve therapeutic, normalizing functions, offering stories that help people process fears and make sense of their world.
3. Satanic Panic: Definition and Historical Parallels
- [06:27] Ellis affirms "Satanic Panic" as an accurate term, emphasizing its short-lived, self-consuming nature, likened to demonic possession or mass hysteria.
- Parallel: The Salem Witch Trials are given as a historic precedent, fading as quickly as they erupted.
- Quote:
"It is, in the original sense of the word, almost a possession of the soul." — Bill Ellis [06:47]
4. Personal Experience During the Satanic Panic
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[08:09] Ellis recounts a rural Ohio murder interpreted through the lens of existing legends about witches and devil-worshippers.
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Law enforcement investigations often sought evidence for stories students recounted in folklore classes, blurring lines between legend and reality.
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Quote:
"This event...was being seen through the filter of a whole range of adolescent legends...about devil worshipers and witches." — Bill Ellis [08:40]
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[10:52] He notes the shift in Christian charismatic groups during the 1970s, which began to externalize threats—uniting against perceived “enemies of God”—as a precursor to police action against supposed Satanists.
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Insight: This progression led law enforcement to use supernatural fears as grounds for secular criminal prosecution.
5. The Blending of Fantasy and Authority
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[14:18] The episode discusses the outlandish testimonies in cases like the Fran and Dan Keller daycare trial, highlighting the physical impossibility of events (e.g., children told a gorilla’s finger was cut off and its blood consumed).
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Question: How do impossible stories cross from marginal religious communities to the beliefs of police and mental health professionals?
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Quote:
"Police officers, psychologists, people who are of the secular world, still believe stories that contain physical impossibilities." — Interviewer [15:20]
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[15:29] Ellis explains that the power of these stories doesn't lie in their literal truth but in the emotional and symbolic trauma they signify, allowing authorities to prosecute as if the acts were real offenses against individuals and the state, not just God.
6. Scapegoating and Social Dynamics
- [18:36] Sarah Marshall asks about the communal function of blaming "satanic cults" after traumatic events.
- [19:14] Ellis responds with a discussion of scapegoating, referencing the Old Testament ritual of the scapegoat and comparing these panics to cathartic, psychologically satisfying, but potentially damaging rituals within a society.
- Quote:
"One of the inevitable events that takes place is that people try to find a scapegoat, try to find someone or some group to blame." — Bill Ellis [19:25]
7. Cycles and Recurrence of Panic
- [21:25] The Satanic Panic is characterized as not a one-time cultural aberration, but part of a recurring pattern in human society.
- [21:49] Ellis advocates for "ethnography, ethnography, ethnography"—the systematic, empathetic study of these patterns—as the only way to build resilience against future panics.
- Ultimately, panics are "self-consuming"; their intensity deflates as communities recognize the harm done to innocents and forget the details.
- Quote:
"These kinds of crusades...are in the end, self-consuming. Because...people realize that they are punishing the innocent with the guilty." — Bill Ellis [22:35]
- He cites Ecclesiastes:
"Do you say that this is new? No, it's been in the times before. It's happened before. It will happen again. Nobody will remember." — Bill Ellis [22:55]
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
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On the Nature of Legends:
"It's not the story, it's the debate that takes place with the help of the story." — Bill Ellis [04:30]
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On Human Motivation:
"Folklore, by and large, is therapeutic. It satisfies some kind of mental need." — Bill Ellis [05:35]
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On Recurrence:
"It's difficult to remember. And that's one of the reasons why it needs to be looked at as an active dynamic." — Bill Ellis [22:57]
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On Scapegoating:
"The immediate instinct is...this is part of the process of grief over this. One of the reactions is anger." — Bill Ellis [19:14]
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On Research Approach:
"My feeling is ethnography. Ethnography, ethnography. The more you know about it, the more you can realistically make comments about it." — Bill Ellis [21:49]
Timestamps for Key Segments
- [02:33] Bill Ellis’s entry into folklore studies
- [03:34] Urban legend transmission and function
- [06:27] The “Satanic Panic” as a term and cultural phenomenon
- [08:09] Real-life cases filtered through legend
- [10:52] Religious roots of the panic and its spread to law enforcement
- [14:18] The Keller case and physical impossibility in testimony
- [19:14] Scapegoating and emotional processing after trauma
- [21:49] Addressing panics through ethnography; cyclical nature
Takeaway
This episode challenges listeners to consider how rumor panics like the Satanic Panic are born not of irrationality or fringe thinking, but from deeply ingrained human patterns—storytelling, grief, scapegoating, and a need for meaning during crisis. Bill Ellis offers a nuanced perspective that places such panics in a historical and psychological context, emphasizing the need for careful, empathetic study (ethnography) to equip society for future cycles. The conversation serves both as a cautionary tale about collective memory and as a guide for approaching future social anxieties with understanding instead of fear.