I’ve been following along pretty closely as the Catholics here in Oklahoma City have cast about themselves for some way to shut down the Satanists here in Oklahoma City, at least with respect to their upcoming Black Mass. I wrote earlier about Bill Donahue’s attempts to leverage public outrage and Paul Coakley’s attempts to demand replevin of the (allegedly) consecrated host through the courts. A certain friendly atheist over at Patheos has covered this story in some depth (as have some vastly less enlightened Patheos bloggers) and one of my favorite law professors has weighed in repeatedly on the relevant legal issues.
Even after reading all the news and blogs, though, it felt like I wasn’t getting the whole story. Since this is a local story, and since we have a local podcast, we decided to dig down a bit further and find out what really happened. I’m still waiting to hear back from the Catholics (who sort of scare me, to be honest) but the Satanists were fairly forthcoming when I visited their church last weekend. Learned quite a bit from them, including why the Satanists in OKC aren’t exactly in communion with those in NYC, why a conducting a true Black Mass requires a level of sexual confidence and lack of performance anxiety usually reserved for porn stars, and why goats are considered symbols of the left-hand path.
I also learned that unconsecrated wafers taste just awful. It’s no wonder religious people feel the need to work magic on those things. If you don’t mind a fair helping of blasphemous obscenity, then you may well enjoy the show. If you are the sort of person who gets offended, though, better just skip this one.
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