Southern Demonology

Episodes

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  The House that Wants you Back 26.10.2026 55m

  Send us Fan Mail Why do some houses seem to want people back? Modern paranormal stories describe dwellings that remember, watch, and call their former occupants home, and the claim usually arrives with the assurance that people have always believed houses could behave that way. The older sources tell a more complicated story. In the final episode of our October series, JJ follows the troubled house from Mesopotamian omens that read fungus on a wall as a sign of death in the household, through...
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  Something Is Knocking: The Folklore of Things You Should Never Let In 19.10.2026 57m

  Send us Fan Mail What happens when something knocks at the door and nobody should be outside? Horror has taught us a familiar rule: some supernatural beings cannot cross a threshold unless they are invited in. Vampires wait for permission, black-eyed children ask to enter, and modern paranormal lore frequently warns that demons can gain access only after someone has opened the door, literally or spiritually. But how old is that idea? In this episode of Southern Demonology, JJ traces the folkl...
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  The Witching Hour Never Existed, so Why are we Afraid of 3:00 A.M.? 12.10.2026 56m

  Send us Fan Mail Why are so many people afraid of 3:00 a.m.? Modern paranormal culture often calls it the witching hour or the devil’s hour, sometimes claiming that three in the morning represents an inversion of the traditional hour of Christ’s death. The explanation sounds ancient, which is part of what makes it so convincing. The history, however, points somewhere else. In this episode of Southern Demonology, JJ traces the development of supernatural fear at night through biblical texts, a...
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  Never Say its Name: The Dangerous Name in Magic and Demonology 05.10.2026 1h 3m

  Send us Fan Mail What happens when you say a demon's name? Modern horror often treats supernatural names as invitations, as though speaking the wrong one aloud might attract the very thing you are trying to avoid. Ancient magical and exorcistic traditions, however, often understood names very differently. In this episode of Southern Demonology, JJ traces the history of dangerous names through ancient Egypt, biblical and Jewish traditions, Greco-Egyptian magical texts, the Testament of Solomon...
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  What the Hell is an Angel? 28.09.2026 50m

  Send us Fan Mail What exactly is an angel? Today, we tend to think of angels as a distinct class of spiritual beings, complete with wings, names, ranks, and an elaborate heavenly hierarchy. Yet the Hebrew word mal'akh and the Greek angelos originally mean something much simpler: messenger. A human being could be a mal'akh just as readily as a heavenly being could. In this episode of Southern Demonology, JJ traces how that job description gradually became an ontological category. We begin with...
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  The Kingdom that Cannot Create: from Ahriman to the Preternatural 21.09.2026 48m

  Send us Fan Mail For thousands of years, the demonic has refused to remain the same. Ancient Zoroastrianism envisioned a cosmic struggle in which Ahriman and the daēvas invaded and corrupted the good creation. Centuries later, Second Temple Jewish writers described rebellious angels, hostile spirits, Mastema, Belial, and eventually Satan within an increasingly organized landscape of supernatural evil. Christianity inherited that world, but also inherited a problem: if Satan rules a kingdom op...
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  Satan: When the Adversary Became the Devil 14.09.2026 45m

  Send us Fan Mail What if Satan was not always the Devil? In the final installment of Southern Demonology’s four-part exploration of the development of supernatural evil, JJ turns to the figure who would eventually overshadow nearly every other adversary in Western demonology: Satan. But the story does not begin with a fallen angel ruling a kingdom of demons. The Hebrew word satan originally described an adversary or opponent, and the Hebrew Bible could apply the term to human beings, angels, ...
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  Belial: When Wickedness Acquires a Kingdom 07.09.2026 53m

  Send us Fan Mail What happens when supernatural evil acquires more than a leader? What happens when wickedness acquires a kingdom? In the third installment of Southern Demonology’s four-part exploration of the development of supernatural evil during the Second Temple period, JJ turns to Belial and the remarkable demonology preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Belial did not begin as the proper name of a demon. The Hebrew term beliyya'al originally conveyed ideas such as wickedness, worthless...
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  Mastema: When Hostility Gets a Name 31.08.2026 46m

  Send us Fan Mail What happens when supernatural hostility stops being just a force and becomes a prince? In the second episode of Southern Demonology’s four-part arc on the development of evil in Second Temple Judaism, JJ turns to Mastema, one of the most fascinating and misunderstood figures in ancient Jewish demonology. We begin with the word itself. Mastema originally means hostility or enmity, but over time that abstract idea becomes increasingly personified until Jubilees presents Mastem...
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  What the Hell is a Demon? 24.08.2026 45m

  Send us Fan Mail What exactly is a demon? It sounds like a simple question, especially for a podcast called Southern Demonology. But the further back we travel into the ancient world, the harder that question becomes to answer. In this episode, JJ traces the concept of the demon from the dangerous spirits and numinous powers of ancient Mesopotamia through the Hebrew Bible and into the dramatically changing supernatural landscape of Second Temple Judaism. Along the way, we explore why a destru...
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  Azazel wasn't Always a Demon 17.08.2026 32m

  Send us Fan Mail Azazel is one of the most recognizable names in demonology. Yet the earliest text to mention him never clearly tells us that he is a demon at all. In this episode of Southern Demonology, we trace Azazel from the strange ritual of Leviticus 16, where one goat is designated “for Azazel” and sent into the wilderness, into the much darker world of 1 Enoch, where Azazel becomes one of the great corrupters of humanity. There he teaches forbidden knowledge, weapons, metallurgy, and ...
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  It Smiled at Her: Amanda's Story 10.08.2026 1h 2m

  Send us Fan Mail In this deeply unsettling episode of Southern Demonology, JJ is joined by Amanda to discuss a lifetime of traumatic and deeply disturbing experiences that appear to move far beyond ordinary paranormal activity. What begins with a terrifying childhood encounter and an entity described as a black mass with no eyes and a grotesque, impossible smile develops into a larger conversation about trauma, attachment, spiritual danger, and the difference between obsession and oppression....
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  Doug Bradley Pt 2 03.07.2026 1h 20m

  Send us Fan Mail In Part 2 of this special conversation, Doug Bradley moves beyond horror cinema and into the deeper waters of the paranormal. The discussion turns toward haunted houses, family ghost stories, religious belief, folk practice, Ouija experiences, and the strange tension between skepticism and personal encounter. Along the way, Doug reflects on whether ghost experiences are truly the dead, whether some phenomena may be psychological rather than supernatural, and why certain stori...
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  Doug Bradley 26.06.2026 1h 8m

  Send us Fan Mail In Part 1 of this special two-part conversation, The Wandering Road Podcast and Southern Demonology Podcast sit down with horror legend Doug Bradley for a wide-ranging discussion that goes far beyond Hellraiser. Doug reflects on his lifelong fascination with ghosts, horror, mythology, and the paranormal, and explains why he describes himself as a “religious atheist.” From there, the conversation moves into religion, the problem of evil, the Hebrew Bible, demonology, and the s...
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  Nephilim: The Unholy Union of Spirit and Flesh 15.06.2026 31m

  Send us Fan Mail The Nephilim are often remembered as giants, but 1 Enoch presents them as something far more terrifying. In this episode, JJ explores the Nephilim as the product of a rebellion that begins when the Watchers bind themselves in a curse, descend from their proper estate, and force together spirit and flesh in a way that should never have happened. The result is not merely violence on the earth, but a profound violation of the created order itself. From Genesis 6 to the Watchers ...
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  The Hidden History of Archangels 08.06.2026 34m

  Send us Fan Mail Where did the idea of archangels actually come from, and why do so many traditions speak of seven of them? In this episode, JJ traces the development of the archangels from the Hebrew Bible through Second Temple Jewish literature, Tobit, 1 Enoch, and later Christian tradition. Along the way, he explains why only a few names—especially Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael—became widely recognized, while others such as Uriel, Raguel, Sariel, Remiel, Phanuel, Jeremiel, and Dokiel remai...
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  Lilith: Wind, Night, and Wasting 01.06.2026 36m

  Send us Fan Mail Lilith is one of the oldest, most controversial, and most misunderstood names in all of demonology. In this first episode of the named demons series, JJ examines Lilith through the lens of language, history, and reception rather than modern mythmaking. Beginning with her Mesopotamian roots and moving through Isaiah 34, Psalm 91’s allusive “arrow that flieth by day,” the Dead Sea Scrolls, and later Jewish tradition, this episode explores how Lilith developed into one of the mo...
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  Free Will in a Haunted Universe 25.05.2026 1h 9m

  Send us Fan Mail In this crossover-style conversation with Chris from The Wandering Road, JJ dives into one of theology’s oldest and most stubborn questions: do human beings truly have free will, or are we simply moving through a script already known by God? What begins with a discussion of UFO disclosure, alien life, and the theological panic such revelations might cause quickly turns toward much deeper ground: divine omniscience, prophecy, demonic possession, moral responsibility, and wheth...
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  Demonic Sigils: Myth, Magic, or the Greatest Hoax Ever Told? 18.05.2026 50m

  Send us Fan Mail In this episode, JJ is joined by Chris and Dean from the Wandering Road for a conversation centered around the world of demonic sigils. Together, they explore where these symbols actually originated, how they became tied to demons and occult practices, and whether there’s any real historical or theological basis behind them at all. The discussion takes a closer look at the validity of demonic sigils themselves questioning whether they were ever genuinely believed to hold pow...
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  The Dark, the Desk, and the Shadow Man 11.05.2026 49m

  Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Southern Demonology, JJ takes a brief pause from the ongoing demonology series for a conversation with Tommy from the Let’s Get Freaky podcast. Tommy shares the personal encounters that first drew him into the world of paranormal investigation and podcasting, beginning with a childhood home marked by unexplained footsteps, oppressive atmospheres, and a terrifying full-bodied apparition seated at his bedroom desk. From there, the conversation moves through s...