Altar Ego

Altar Ego

Hosted by two close friends, one a therapist raised Southern Baptist, now agnostic; the other a spiritually curious ex-Catholic who believes in ghosts and is terrified of demons... we dive into dark tales and crimes committed in the name of God (or the devil). Through ethical retellings of possessions, prophecies, cults, and beliefs, we investigate spirituality, belief systems, and the ambiguous psychological spaces in between.

  1. 16 HR AGO

    Episode 30: The Crossroads Legend: Did Robert Johnson Really Make a Deal with the Devil?

    At a quiet crossroads in the Mississippi Delta, a legend was born. Robert Johnson is one of the most influential blues musicians of all time. His music shaped generations, yet his story is wrapped in something far darker. According to folklore, Johnson disappeared as an unremarkable guitarist and returned with a talent so extraordinary that people struggled to explain it. The answer, some believed, was simple and unsettling. He had made a deal with the devil. In this episode, we explore the origins of the crossroads myth and how it became tied to Johnson’s life and legacy. We look at the cultural and spiritual significance of crossroads in African American folklore and Hoodoo traditions, where these spaces were seen as places of transformation, power, and exchange. We also examine how religion, fear, and storytelling shaped the narrative, and why this legend has endured for nearly a century. Was it a supernatural pact, a carefully crafted persona, or something else entirely? Sources: Crossroads (folklore and mythology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossroads_(folklore) Robert Johnson – Biography and legacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson Tommy Johnson – Origins of the crossroads legend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Johnson “Cross Road Blues” myth and analysis (compiled research and scholarship) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_Road_Blues Wald, Elijah. Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues https://www.harpercollins.com/products/escaping-the-delta-elijah-wald Guralnick, Peter. Searching for Robert Johnson https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/159166/searching-for-robert-johnson-by-peter-guralnick/ Graves, Tom. Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p072051 Evans, David. Tommy Johnson (1971 biography) Conforth, Bruce. “The Truth About Robert Johnson” (Living Blues Magazine) National Blues Museum – Robert Johnson history and myth clarification https://nationalbluesmuseum.org

    32 min

  2. 15 APR

    Episode 29: What Really Happened to the Sodder Children?

    Five children vanish in a house fire… and no bodies are ever found. On Christmas Eve 1945, the Sodder family fire should have been a tragic accident. A home goes up in flames. Parents survive. Five of their children are presumed dead. Except there’s one problem; there were no remains. No bones. No evidence they were ever in the fire at all. What follows is decades of unanswered questions, strange sightings, and a family that refused to believe the official story. Were the children taken? Did they escape? Or is this a case where grief and belief reshaped reality? In this episode, we break down what happened that night, the inconsistencies that still don’t make sense, and why this case continues to live at the intersection of mystery and myth. Sources: Abbott, Karen (December 25, 2012). "The Children Who Went Up In Smoke". Smithsonian.  “Sodder children disappearance.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation

    55 min

  3. 9 APR

    Episode 28: The White Witch of Rose Hall

    In this episode of Altar Ego, Heather takes us to Jamaica’s Rose Hall to explore the legend of Annie Palmer, known as the White Witch. Said to have practiced dark magic and ruled her plantation with fear, her story lives at the crossroads of modern paranormal beliefs, folklore, violence, and exploitation. Was Annie Palmer even real? Was she a practitioner of the occult? Or has her legacy been shaped by something else completely? Sources: https://rosehall.com/history-of-rose-hall/ https://www.britannica.com/place/Jamaica https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20201025/white-witch-rose-hall-fact-or-fiction https://uwipress.com/books/the-white-witch-of-rosehall/ https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/rose-hall https://rosehall.com/history-of-rose-hall/ https://www.britannica.com/place/Jamaica/Rose-Hall https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20201025/white-witch-rose-hall-fact-or-fiction https://uwipress.com/books/the-white-witch-of-rosehall/ https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/white-witch-rose-hall https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/rose-hall https://www.britannica.com/place/Jamaica/History https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/sugar-slavery-and-plantations/ https://www.bl.uk/georgian-britain/articles/sugar-and-slavery https://www.britannica.com/place/Jamaica/Plantation-economy https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/caribbean-american-passages/jamaica.html https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/jamaica/plantation_life.htm https://www.bl.uk/georgian-britain/articles/absentee-planters-and-slavery https://academic.oup.com/shm/article/25/3/539/1682564 https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/death-in-the-tropics/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Maroon-history-of-slavery https://www.bl.uk/caribbean-collection/articles/the-maroons-of-jamaica

    45 min

  4. 2 APR

    Episode 27: Dancing til you Die?

    The second installation in our LSD series... This week, we're diving into one of history's most fascinating fungi: ergot. From the sacred rituals of the Eleusinian Mysteries in ancient Greece, through the terrifying plagues that swept medieval Europe, to its profound cultural significance throughout indigenous practices and its role in shaping modern medicine and psychedelic history.

    57 min

  5. 25 MAR ·  BONUS

    Bonus: Heated Rivalry Take

    In this special bonus episode, Heather shares her personal take on Heated Rivalry and how it hits surprisingly close to home. More reflective and intimate than our usual episodes, join us for a gentle review of Heather's experience watching the series that we've all fallen in love with.

    43 min

  6. 19 MAR

    Episode 26: From Internet Myth to Real Violence; The Slender Man Case and the 2024 Escape

    CW: violence involving minors, themes of mental illness, delusion, and psychiatric hospitalization. Listener discretion advised. In this episode, Heather takes us back to 2014, when two twelve-year-old girls in Waukesha, Wisconsin, lured a friend into the woods and attacked her after becoming convinced they needed to prove themselves to the fictional internet figure known as Slender Man. We walk through how an online horror character created in 2009 grew into a widespread piece of internet folklore, and how those beliefs intersected with the girls’ lives. The episode also follows the legal outcomes and recent events involving a brief escape. Beware the Slenderman. Directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky, HBO Documentary Films, 2016. Broadcast on HBO, 23 Jan. 2017 Evan Casey, “Wisconsin woman who stabbed classmate in order to please Slender Man will be released to a group home,” Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), July 17, 2025 Todd Richmond, “Slender Man stabbing victim’s family ‘nervous’ about release,” The Associated Press, Sept. 14, 2021 YouTube, “Bodycam Shows Arrest of ‘Slender Man’ Stabber Morgan Geyser: ‘I Did Something Really Wrong’,” published to YouTube, [video], https://youtu.be/anj5s5jAQgE. (Bodycam footage of her arrest after leaving custody.) Todd Richmond, “Wisconsin judge sends Slender Man attacker back to mental health institution after group home escape,” ABC7 Chicago (Associated Press), Dec. 23, 2025. Knudsen, Eric (Victor Surge). “Create Paranormal Images” thread. Something Awful Forums, June 2009. Dewey, Caitlin. “The complete history of ‘Slender Man,’ the meme that compelled two girls to stab a friend.” The Washington Post, June 3, 2014. Romano, Aja. “The definitive Slender Man story: how an urban legend went too far.” The Verge, June 3, 2014. Marble Hornets. Created by Troy Wagner and Joseph DeLage. YouTube series, 2009–2014. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr Ammo.com Research Team. Murders by Weapon Type in the United States. https://ammo.com/research/murders-by-weapon-type Clauset, Aaron, et al. “On the Distribution of Criminal Offenses,” arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0402646 Brennan, Iain R., et al. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178922000556 National Library of Medicine (PMC). Knife Crime Risk Factors. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PMC7732065/

    2h 7m

  7. 11 MAR

    Episode 25: LSD + The Acid King

    In 1938, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann synthesized LSD by accident and experienced the first-ever LSD trip. By the mid-1960s the U.S. government had funded over 1,000 clinical studies on it, secretly tested it on soldiers without their consent, and then criminalized it entirely... all within the same two decades. In the first of a several-part series, this episode covers the discovery and history of LSD. We also get into Ricky Kasso, the seventeen-year-old from Northport, Long Island, known as The Acid King among peers, who murdered his friend Gary Lauwers and left his body in the woods for 35 days. In 1984, Gary's murder became the face of Satanic Panic in America.

    42 min
  8. Episode 24: Judas Priest Suicide Trial

    5 MAR

    Episode 24: Judas Priest Suicide Trial

    CW: This episode discusses suicide, attempted suicide, depression, substance use, and themes of self-harm. Listener discretion advised. In 1990, Judas Priest stood trial in a Nevada courtroom. Not for drugs. Not for violence. Not for anything they physically did. But for what their music supposedly said. Two young men attempted suicide after spending hours listening to the band’s song “Better by You, Better Than Me.” Their families believed hidden subliminal messages in the track pushed them over the edge. What follows is a lawsuit that combined grief, fear, culture wars, and the lingering shadow of the Satanic Panic.  In this episode, Heather unpacks what really happened. We talk about subliminal messaging, moral responsibility, and why we so often search for something external to blame.  Sources: Pazder, Lawrence & Smith, Michelle. Michelle Remembers. Congdon & Weed, 1980.https://archive.org/details/michelleremembers00pazdde Becker, Gavin. The Gift of Fear. Little, Brown and Company, 1997.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56465.The_Gift_of_FearMcNally, Richard J. Remembering Trauma. Harvard University Press, 2003.https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674016764Wright, Gary. Dream Weaver: A Memoir. Da Capo Press, 2014.https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/gary-wright/dream-weaver/9780306822374/Loftus, Elizabeth F. “Creating False Memories.” Scientific American, 1997.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/creating-false-memories/Liu, Jia & Kanwisher, Nancy. “The Perception of Face-Like Objects.” Psychological Science, 2014.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797614524583American Psychological Association. “Questions and Answers About Memories of Childhood Abuse.”https://www.apa.org/monitor/may01/memorieMcMartin Preschool Trial Overview – Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.https://da.lacounty.gov/media/news/mcmartin-preschool-caseCalifornia Court of Appeal Records (McMartin-related cases).https://law.justia.com/cases/california/Vance v. Judas Priest, Nevada Supreme Court Opinion (1992).https://law.justia.com/cases/nevada/supreme-court/1992/22575-1.html

    1hr 11min
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About

Hosted by two close friends, one a therapist raised Southern Baptist, now agnostic; the other a spiritually curious ex-Catholic who believes in ghosts and is terrified of demons... we dive into dark tales and crimes committed in the name of God (or the devil). Through ethical retellings of possessions, prophecies, cults, and beliefs, we investigate spirituality, belief systems, and the ambiguous psychological spaces in between.

Information

  • Creator
    Altar Ego
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    34
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Altar Ego
  • Show Website
    Altar Ego

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