Mike Wendling is the National Digital Reporter for the BBC. He is the co-founder of the BBC's disinformation unit and was editor and presenter of BBC Trending.  While topics related to disinformation and extremism became popular starting in 2016, he’s been covering this subject matter for decades. He is the author of the book Alt Right: From 4chan To White House as well as the brand new book Day of Reckoning: How the Far Right Declared War on Democracy.

Jake and Travis chat with Mike about covering conspiracy theories, adventures in the field, the legacy of 2000 Mules, and Mike’s experiences attempting to use a medbed.

Day of Reckoning: How the Far Right Declared War on Democracy by Mike Wendling
https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349718/day-of-reckoning/

Mike Wendling on Twitter
https://twitter.com/mwendling

Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

On the Road With the Conspiracist Right feat Mike Wendling (Premium E244) Sample

Conspiracy theories, melted online communities and cursed media — we pry open the cracks in consensus reality and journey into the hidden worlds below. The QAA Podcast is a mix of reporting, comedy, and history hosted by Jake Rockatansky, Travis View, and Julian Feeld along with co-hosts Annie Kelly, Liv Agar and Brad Abrahams. Formerly known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

News

In the late 19th century a Frenchman pulled off one of the greatest hoaxes of all time and inspired countless conspiracy theories about Freemasonry that still circulate today.  The man, who went by the pseudonym Leo Taxil, started his career by publishing several texts smearing the Pope and the Catholic Church. But then he switched sides. He claimed he converted to Catholicism and to prove his devotion he started publishing anti-Masonic texts.These new works included wild stories about a secret satanic sect with freemasonry called Palladism. Despite the fact that these stories are far beyond the limits of believability, they were taken seriously by the Catholic Church. Taxil finally admitted that his multiple books about satanism in Freemasonry were all part of an elaborate, 12-year-long-hoax.
In the second part of the two-part series, we discuss Leo Taxil’s multiple books which supposedly exposed Satanism in Freemasonry, why he called Charleston, South Carolina the “Luciferian Rome,” and the dramatic public confession that sent shockwaves among Catholics and Freemason alike.
REFERENCES
Dickie, John. The Craft: How the Freemasons Made the Modern World. Public Affairs, 2020

Ziegler, Robert. Satanism, magic and mysticism in fin-de-siècle France. Springer, 2012.

Van Luijk, Ruben. Children of Lucifer: The origins of modern religious Satanism. Oxford University Press, 2016

Introvigne, Massimo. "Satanism: a social history.". Brill, 2016.

The Confession of Leo Taxil
https://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/taxil_confessed.html

Mellor, Alec. A Hoaxer of Genius
https://skirret.com/papers/ahoaxerofgenius-leotaxil.html

Wikisource: The Works of Leo Taxil
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Auteur:L%C3%A9o_Taxil

Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

The Taxil Hoax and Satanic Freemasonry Part 2 (Premium E246) Sample

A paranoid, red scare conspiracy theory about a Japanese ultra-nationalist gang aiming to unite the African American population and overthrow the U.S. government. A flourishing proleterian literature scene driven to madness by the FBI. This strange story is brought to us by journalist and writer Devin Thomas O'Shea and set in Saint Louis, Missouri in the 1930's.

Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to podcast mini-series like Manclan, Trickle Down, Perverts and The Spectral Voyager: https://www.patreon.com/QAA

Devin O'Shea: https://x.com/devintoshea / https://linktr.ee/devintoshea

Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (http://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

http://qaapodcast.com

QAA was formerly known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

Proleterian Literature & the Red Dragons with Devin O'Shea (E280)

In the late 19th century a Frenchman pulled off one of the greatest hoaxes of all time and inspired countless conspiracy theories about Freemasonry that still circulate today.  The man, who went by the pseudonym Leo Taxil, started his career by publishing several texts smearing the Pope and the Catholic Church. But then he switched sides and claimed he converted to Catholicism. To prove his devotion he started publishing anti-Masonic texts. These new works included wild stories about a secret satanic sect with freemasonry called Palladism. Despite the fact that these stories are far beyond the limits of believability, they were taken seriously by the Catholic Church. Taxil finally admitted that his multiple books about satanism in Freemasonry were all part of an elaborate, 12-year-long-hoax.

In part 1 of this series, we explore the childhood of “Leo Taxil,” his hoaxes in France and Switzerland, and the anti-Church writings that forced him to fend off lawsuits and criminal charges.

In part 2, we’ll get into the thousands of pages he wrote about secret satanism in Freemasonry, how the public swallowed these stories up, and his dramatic confession that it was all a lie.

REFERENCES

Dickie, John. The Craft: How the Freemasons Made the Modern World. Public Affairs, 2020

Ziegler, Robert. Satanism, magic and mysticism in fin-de-siècle France. Springer, 2012.

Van Luijk, Ruben. Children of Lucifer: The origins of modern religious Satanism. Oxford University Press, 2016

Mellor, Alec. A Hoaxer of Genius
https://skirret.com/papers/ahoaxerofgenius-leotaxil.html

Wikisource: The Works of Leo Taxil
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Auteur:L%C3%A9o_Taxil

Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

The Taxil Hoax and Satanic Freemasonry Part 1 (Premium E245) Sample

This week, Jake and Liv break down the rap beef that took the world by storm this past month.  And of course, because it’s 2024 and the universe has decided to spare none of the QAA hosts, the lyrics contained within the multiple diss tracks became the source of endless amounts of conspiracy theories and baking - with one particular poster claiming to be a “secret insider” set to expose the crimes of the elite.  Sound familiar?  Of course it does!  We will never be free of this, and our souls cry out into the void. 

For those who haven’t been following, Jake will catch everyone up to speed on why the beef began in the first place, as well as the accusations contained in each rapper’s lyrics.   Then we will descend into hell where Liv will unpack the countless theories circulating in online forums, and the culmination of these theories resulting in real world violence.  


Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to ongoing series like Manclan, Trickle Down, Perverts and The Spectral Voyager: www.patreon.com/QAA


Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe & Jake Rockatansky. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com)

www.qaapodcast.com

QAA was formerly known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

On the Road With the Conspiracist Right feat Mike Wendling (Premium E244) Sample

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