Worldwide Panic

Failed State Update
  • 5.0 (2)
  • News Commentary
  • Updated Weekly

Worldwide Panic is a weekly conversation about the stories, myths, and anxieties shaping our world. Journalist Joseph L. Flatley and Lucien Greaves, co-founder of The Satanic Temple, examine how fear spreads, how belief takes hold, and why certain narratives return long after they’re debunked. From media panics to political spectacle to the strange edges of culture, WorldWide Panic explores what happens when shared reality starts to crack. This is a co-production of The Satanic Temple TV and Failed State Update

  1. Aug 25

    206. Putin's Geopolitical Satanic Panic

    Watch this episode on TST TV! https://thesatanictemple.tv/categories/worldwide-panic In this episode of Worldwide Panic, we catch up after Lenny's launch of a new podcast, The Inner Empire, an investigation into why people believe what they believe, featuring cult members, magicians, and Christian evangelicals. Lucien discusses the value some Satanic Temple members find in tarot reding and other ritual practices they don't take literally. From there we turn to the main topic: a recent Open Global Rights report, "The Devil Wears Handcuffs: How Russia Invents International Extremist Movements," and Lucien walks through the surreal history of Russia's campaign against the Satanic Temple — from Putin's early digs at the Baphomet monument, to state media falsely tying TST to financing the Ukrainian military, to Russia's 2023 "undesirable organization" designation and the diplomatic scramble that followed. Subscribe to Failed State Update: http://lennyflatley.substack.com/ Lucien's newsletter: https://luciengreaves.substack.com/https://luciengreaves.substack.com/

  2. Aug 15 ·  Bonus

    Introducing The Inner Empire

    From Joseph L. Flatley, co-host of Worldwide Panic. THE INNER EMPIRE is a podcast that pulls together a lot of what I’ve spent years reporting on and thinking about: cults, the occult, conspiracy culture, and the platforms that have inserted themselves directly into our daily life. Here’s the simplest way I can put it: for five hundred years, people have known how to install a belief in someone’s mind: magicians did it with ritual and symbol, cults did it with repetition and isolation, ad men did it with images. What’s changed is that the same basic mechanism now runs automatically, every time you open an app, with nobody at the controls. This show is about tracing that mechanism across history and figuring out how it ended up running our lives without anyone deciding it should. Enjoy this introduction. Be sure to subscribe so you can hear new episodes when are released. Available wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to sign up for my newsletter, Failed State Update: ⁠⁠https://lennyflatley.substack.com/⁠

    Introducing The Inner Empire

  3. Jul 14

    205. MKULTRA Whistleblower Tells All!

    Watch this episode on TST TV: https://thesatanictemple.tv/ In this episode of Worldwide Panic, we discuss the oeuvre of Emma Katherine, host of the Imagination Podcast, an conspiracy influencer who platforms self-described survivors of satanic ritual abuse and MKUltra “programming.” Lucien recounts his own 2024 Twitter clashes with Emma and her followers, who accused him of being secretly connected to the Process Church of the Final Judgment — a defunct 1970s cult he’d researched and appeared in documentaries about — and who labeled him a “pedophile protector” for publicly debunking the Hampstead ritual-abuse hoax. Emma’s work is a case study in how conspiratorial communities validate one another’s claims through anecdote and mutual reinforcement rather than evidence, and how social media's format rewards volume and repetition of assertion over coherent argument. From there, the conversation widens into a broader discussion of media credulity around satanic panic and MKUltra mythology, including a detailed takedown of the Netflix Sons of Sam docuseries and its reliance on the late Maury Terry’s evidence-free theory linking the Process Church to the Son of Sam and Manson murders, Greaves’ own testy exchange with the documentary's filmmaker, and a shared frustration with credentialed figures like Mitch Horowitz lending unwarranted credibility to shaky claims in similar productions. Subscribe to Failed State Update: https://lennyflatley.substack.com/ Lucien's newsletter: https://luciengreaves.substack.com/

  4. Jul 6

    204. MK-Ultra is Back (Unfortunately)

    Watch this program on TST TV: https://thesatanictemple.tv/ Congress held hearings on the CIA's MKULTRA mind control program last week, but instead of uncovering new evidence, lawmakers mostly resurrected conspiracy narratives that have been circulating since the 1970s. In this episode of Worldwide Panic, Lenny and Lucien break down what actually happened during the hearing, who the witnesses were, why they were pretty f*****g lame, and how documented government abuses have become entangled with decades of speculation about psychic assassins, mind-control slaves, and other enduring myths. Along the way, they examine the strange political incentives driving today's "declassification" movement, the difference between genuine historical scandals like COINTELPRO and sensationalized folklore, and why bad evidence remains bad evidence — even when it's used against bad people. Lucien Greaves on Substack: https://luciengreaves.substack.com/ Lenny's newsletter, Failed State Update: https://lennyflatley.substack.com/ Theme music: “Satanic Planet” by Satanic Planet

  5. Jul 1

    FIXED: 203. Ringo, Colin Ross, and the ISSTD papers

    NOTE: We accidentally uploaded the wrong audio file before. This is the corrected version. This week: Lucien receives a “top secret” book exposing the coming ruling cabal (available on Amazon), as well as Lenny’s recent book on Timothy Leary. And we discuss an absurd documentary revealing that Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by a double. Next, we dig into academic papers by Colin Ross and Michael Salter, and recount some of Lucien’s run-ins with the ISSTD over the years.Also: Ted Gunderson, Stan Romanek, a self-styled psychic soldier who went by Omega Unit 193, and the time Lucien got stuck in an elevator with Warwick Middleton. Further Reading: -Subscribe to Joseph L. Flatley's Failed State Update newsletter: ⁠⁠http://lennyflatley.substack.com/⁠⁠ -Lucien Greaves on Substack: https://luciengreaves.substack.com/ Theme music: “Satanic Planet” by Satanic Planet

  6. Jun 23

    202. A Therapist, a Search Warrant, and a Coverup

    Watch this episode on TST TV: https://thesatanictemple.tv/programs/wp-202-a-therapist-a-search-warrant-and-a-coverup A prominent trauma specialist is accused of warning a patient about an impending police search warrant, a decision prosecutors say allowed evidence to be destroyed before investigators arrived. What begins as a bizarre criminal case soon opens onto a much larger story about recovered memories, dissociative disorders and ritual abuse allegations. From there, Joseph L. Flatley and Lucien Greaves talk about the ISSTD, a professional community that has spent decades defending claims many researchers consider discredited. Along the way, they explore the enduring influence of conspiracy thinking in therapeutic settings, the legacy of the Satanic Panic, and why certain beliefs continue to survive long after the evidence behind them has collapsed. Also: Feral House has a new series on TST TV! And Lucien catches fire while filming a video for Satanic Planet. Links: -Lucien Greaves on Substack: https://luciengreaves.substack.com/ -Subscribe to Joseph L. Flatley's Failed State Update newsletter: ⁠⁠http://lennyflatley.substack.com/⁠⁠ Theme music: “Satanic Planet” by Satanic Planet

  7. Jun 16

    201. Is it Disclosure Day Already?

    Watch this episode on TST TV: https://thesatanictemple.tv/programs/wp201-is-it-disclosure-day-already In this episode of Worldwide Panic, Lucien and Lenny kick off Season 2 with a look at the recent wave of Pentagon UAP file releases and the decades-old "disclosure day" mythology that ufologists have built around the promise of a coming revelation.The conversation traces how thin, uncontextualized documents get inflated into proof through credentialed-sounding "whistleblowers," recycled tabloid sourcing, and sloppy AP-wire framing, drawing a direct parallel to recent Epstein files coverage, where a single ambiguous mention becomes a headline regardless of what it actually says.The episode closes with Lenny discussing his new book The Occult Timothy Leary, and Leary's own derisive take on UFO believers. Subscribe to Joseph L. Flatley's Failed State Update newsletter: ⁠⁠http://lennyflatley.substack.com/⁠⁠ More info on Lenny's book The Occult Timothy Leary: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Occult-Timothy-Leary/Joseph-L-Flatley/9798888500842 Lucien Greaves on Substack: https://luciengreaves.substack.com/ Theme music: “Satanic Planet” by Satanic Planet

  8. 12/22/2025

    107. Lucien and Lenny Let the Devil in

    In this episode of Worldwide Panic, we examine Let the Devil In, a recent docuseries centered on a 1988 New Jersey murder-suicide that has been retroactively framed through the lens of Satanic panic and occult fear. The conversation interrogates how the series presents its material: the use of reenactments, graphic imagery, and speculative testimony to imply supernatural causation where evidence is fragmentary or altogether absent. What emerges is a critique of true-crime storytelling in the streaming era: not as entertainment alone, but as a belief-producing system that rewards implication over proof and atmosphere over accountability. Watch this on TST TV: ⁠https://thesatanictemple.tv/⁠ Subscribe to Failed State Update: ⁠http://lennyflatley.substack.com/⁠ Theme music: “Satanic Planet” by Satanic Planet

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Ratings & Reviews

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About

Worldwide Panic is a weekly conversation about the stories, myths, and anxieties shaping our world. Journalist Joseph L. Flatley and Lucien Greaves, co-founder of The Satanic Temple, examine how fear spreads, how belief takes hold, and why certain narratives return long after they’re debunked. From media panics to political spectacle to the strange edges of culture, WorldWide Panic explores what happens when shared reality starts to crack. This is a co-production of The Satanic Temple TV and Failed State Update

Information

  • Creator
    Failed State Update
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    14
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Failed State Update
  • Show Website
    Worldwide Panic