It seems that many people from Africa, most especially Nigeria, mistakenly believe that Satanists are the Illuminati. And that we’re hiring. This is a lie. 

Exploring the Nigerian Illuminati myth, tonight on Satansplain

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I would like to begin this episode of Satansplain, with a special message.
It is a message for a specific audience, whose primary language may not be English.

For this reason, I am speaking slower and more clearly than I usually speak.
I shall resume my normal speaking style, later on.

I am a Satanist. I am also a member of the Church of Satan. And I am the host of a Satanism podcast. As such, I often receive messages from people, asking me how they can become a Satanist or join the Church of Satan.
Some of these people who contact me do have a basic understanding of Satanism.
Unfortunately, there are many who contact me with requests to join, but do NOT understand Satanism.
More specifically, we Satanists receive many messages from Nigeria, and sometimes other African countries. Almost always, these people are under the mistaken belief that we Satanists are the Illuminati. That is, an alleged secret society of people who control the world’s wealth and power. It seems that every person from Nigeria who contacts us, for whatever reason, believes that we are all ultra-wealthy billionaires, and that by converting to Satanism or joining the Church of Satan, they can become wealthy too.

If this is what YOU believe, then this message is for YOU. 

I am here to tell you that you have been told a lie.

To address these common misconceptions you may have, there are 4 truths I would like to make clear.

• Number one: joining a Satanic organization, will not guarantee you wealth. 

  • You may have been told that Satanists are members of a group called the Illuminati, who are very rich and powerful. Again, this is simply a lie. There is no such thing as Illuminati. They do not exist. There are certainly some rich and powerful people in the world, and there are long standing religious beliefs that try to associate wealth or success with being in league with the Devil, but this does not mean most richest and powerful people in the world are devil worshipers. And it’s certainly not true that merely becoming a devil worshiper will put you in a club of rich people.

  • Likewise, you may have been told that the Freemasons are devil worshipers, and control wealth and power in the world. Thus you may have been told that being a devil worshiper will make you rich. Again, this is a lie. The Freemasons are a real organization, but they are not devil worshipers, nor do their members all have global wealth or power.

  • There are certainly SOME Satanists who HAPPEN to be rich, or powerful, but they became that way, through the same way many OTHER people became rich, which is through their own hard work in the real world. They did not become rich by merely joining a group of Satanists they found on the internet, or selling their soul.

  • In fact, you cannot sell your soul in exchange for money or power. This is an old superstition, which Satanists do not believe, as there is no proof that a soul exists or that such a transaction is possible.

  • Once again, merely becoming a Satanist, or joining the Church of Satan, will not magically make you a rich person.

• Point number two: We, the Church of Satan, are only interested in members who truly understand our religion, which is Satanism. 

  • Satanism is a religion defined and described in the book The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey. You can purchase this paperback book, to learn what our religion is truly about, and decide if it is for you. But again, if you thought that we are a group of devil worshipers who can make you automatically rich, then you have been told a lie.

• Point number three: We do not tolerate scams. 

  • Now there is a reason why I mention this. There are many other people from Nigeria and other countries who are professional scammers.  Crooks. I am not saying that YOU are necessarily a crook. But there are many people in Nigeria who are. These are called 419 scams and they are very popular.
    Likewise, as a resident of Nigeria yourself, YOU should not trust people who claim they are from the Illuminati, or the Church of Satan, and can make YOU rich. Those people are lying to you. They are not real Satanists and they are not people in the Illuminati, and they cannot make you rich. 

• And finally, point number four. We do not have a special church or branch of Satanism in your country, nor do we need one. 

  • Over the years, we’ve noticed that many residents of Africa attempt to use membership in religious organizations as a means to obtain funds from the government. It seems that if you tell the government that you are a minister of a local church, you can get money from the government. For this reason, the Church of Satan refuses applications for membership and other items sent in the mail from Africa, UNLESS, the resident from Africa first CONTACTS the Church of Satan through email and demonstrates that they indeed have an understanding of our philosophy. Then, and only then, will we process applications to join.

  • More importantly, the Church of Satan decidedly does not HAVE local branches or churches like many other religions do, as we have no NEED for them. Satanism is not a religion that requires congregating for church services. There are Church of Satan members who wish to socialize with other fellow Church of Satan members in their area, but they do so without the need for an official branch or local building owned by the organization. They just contact each other online or in person and make plans accordingly. Any and all official correspondence can be done by networking through the Church of Satan’s international headquarters in New York, and its representatives who have direct correspondence to that.

So those are my four points. If, after hearing and understanding all of them, you still wish to learn the TRUTH about Satanism, you can visit our website, Church of Satan dot com.  Otherwise, please do not mistake websites and social media accounts with the word Satan or Devil in the title, with being the Illuminati. The Illuminati does not exist, and there is no organization nor magic ritual which will make you a rich person.

On a final note, this message is not to say that NO residents of Africa understand Satanism at all. Indeed, there are some people in Africa who truly understand Satanism, and do NOT have the misconceptions about us being the Illuminati, or try to use affiliation to build a church in Africa.  There are some Church of Satan members who do live in Africa. But unfortunately, again, the number of scam artists in Africa and most especially Nigeria is exceptionally high, as is the number of people who mistakenly think Satanism can grant them automatic wealth. So we are forced to take precautions.

Thank you for listening.

And now for the REST of you listeners, I’m sorry if that was slow and painful for you to hear, but it had to be said. I’m going to take a break right now. And when I come back, for the rest of the show I’m going to talk ABOUT this strange phenomenon about people from Nigeria who think we’re the Illuminati, and my own theories on where this comes from.  In fact this will be part 1 of a 2-part rant on Satansplain because in the next episode I’ll be digging DEEP into the topic of Freemasonry and the Illuminati and all of that stuff that gets erroneously lumped in with Satanism. Stay tuned.

[break]

Bill M. here with Satansplain. There are many ways to listen to Satansplain. You can listen on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Audible, Stitcher, and other places too. Also right on the official website, Satansplain dot com. Follow Satansplain on Facebook and Twitter. All of the links are right on the website. Give us a like or a follow or a good rating wherever and whenever possible. I appreciate that. You can also email me. Bill@ Satansplain dot com is the email address.

So I really wanted to get that message out in the first half of this episode, because I think I’m going to be USING this episode as a reply back to these sorts of people. Because this happens a LOT. Some of you Satanists may have experienced it yourself. You may get a private message, or a Friend request on Facebook or similar, or you may be on a Satanism internet forum or a Satanism social media PAGE or what have you. And you’ll see somebody who says, “I want to join you!” So naturally perhaps you’re a little confused, and ask, join what? What do you mean? And it turns out that this person thinks that by virtue of being a Satanist, you can somehow grant them great wealth and power. USUALLY, not always, but USUALLY, this person will be from Nigeria. 

And again, even if YOU haven’t personally witnessed this, believe me, I’ve seen it happen a LOT. I’ve been an admin for years on the big, public Church of Satan forum on Facebook, and it got so bad that when we see a request to join the group from somebody from Nigeria, we just deny the request. 100%, and I mean literally 100% of the people I’ve seen from Nigeria who contact the Church of Satan, do so under the illusion that we’re the Illuminati. And in fact, I’ve seen it happen with almost ANY website or social media page with Devil or Satan in the title.

So not ONLY do they believe in the Illuminati. Not ONLY do they believe that there is some sort of ultra-wealthy ultra-secret oligarchy who runs the world’s wealth. Not ONLY do they believe you can contact this oligarchy through ANY social media page with Devil or Satan in the title. But they ALSO BELIEVE, that we have all of these millionaire job positions in the Illuminati to give away…to complete strangers, who didn’t even have the courtesy to attach a job résumé.

So sad. So very sad.

Now, I have fun with these people over on my Facebook page, Dr. Vincent Schitz, PhD in Satanic Memes. I tried REASONING with these people and it usually got me nowhere. So finally I just got so fed up that now all I do is reply to them with nothing but lyrics from 1980s pop songs. I keep posting lines of a particular 80s song in reply to each of their questions. Sometimes they stop responding after a few lines. Other times I can get through the ENTIRE song, and they still don’t understand what’s going on. I managed to get through the Kenny Loggins song Footloose with a woman from Nigeria once. Another time I got through Video Killed the Radio Star. It’s fun. I screen shot all of this and make memes out of it.

But this problem even goes beyond social media. At the Church of Satan, we get MAIL, physical mail, POSTAL mail, from people in Nigeria and some other African countries. And again, it’s the same thing. They want to join, but they really, REALLY don’t understand Satanism. They think we can make them rich, either because they think we’re the Illuminati, or that we can teach them how to sell their soul in exchange for money, or a combination of the both. In fact, it got so bad, that we have a disclaimer on the Church of Satan website saying, “Look if you’re from Africa, please EMAIL us first. We want to make sure you’re somebody who GETS it. Then once that’s clear, THEN you can send up an application or whatever. But we’ve gotten so much kooky stuff from Africa, and Nigeria especially, that we just RETURN it unless the person has contacted us first.”
Fortunately some people come through. As I said, I DO know some Church of Satan members in Africa. There’s one from Ethiopia I’ve been in correspondence with for many years. But they’re the exception, not the rule.

Now what’s even more bizarre is that this has been happening before the Internet. One time Magistra Peggy Nadramia, the Highe Priestess of the Church of Satan, showed me an example from the Church of Satan archives of a letter they got from I think the 1980s, maybe even the 1970s, from somebody in Africa. And it was the same sort of thing. Thinking we could make them rich.

So this all begs the question: WHY does this happen? WHAT makes people believe this? And why is it, at least more often than not, people from Nigeria? To be honest, I’m not completely sure. But I’ll give you MY hypotheses on all of this.

First, forget about Africa for a moment. What is the connection between Satanism, Freemasonry, and the Illuminati? It seems to me that there are several different, otherwise unrelated conspiracy theories and fables wrapped up in this whole thing. Is there a connection between Satanism and great wealth? Well, in a couple of ways. There are the old folktales about people selling their soul to the Devil for great fortune. It’s pure mythical folklore, but there are still some gullible people in the 20th century who believe it. There’s also the general notion of associating wealth or success to the Devil, or something Satanic. The Holy, MEEK thing to do in not only Christianity but spiritual religions in general is to denounce materialism and all that. It’s a recurring theme. Obviously, people like Joel Osteen have some way or another they rationalize it, I’m sure. When it comes to actual Satanism, one of the reasons why we CALL our religion Satanism is because we take these notions that it’s bad to have money or it’s bad to be successful or it’s bad to enjoy material things, and we wear it on our sleeve. I LIKE money. I LIKE sex. I LIKE being an atheist. I take PRIDE in being skeptical. I LIKE humor rather than piety. So if these sorts of things are what have traditionally been called Satanic, then hey, call me a Satanist.

Now what about Satanism, and Freemasonry? Is there a connection there?  Well there has been a lot of propaganda leveled at the Freemasons. A lot of this comes from a series of propaganda pieces written in the late 1800s by a fellow named Leo Taxil. And he claimed among other things that the Freemasons were devil worshipers. And they use the image of a five-pointed star here, or this strange symbol there. So there are people to this day who believe these stories.

Additionally, there are conspiracy theories about Freemasons being related to the Illuminati, which is alleged this oligarchy of people who secretly own and control everything in the world. It’s true that there WAS an actual group called the Illuminati in Bavaria, present day Germany, and it was modeled after Freemasonry. It was a fraternal organization with its own rituals and code of ethics and what not. But that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s been dead for a long time. Never the less, there are people who believe the Illuminati is real, and that it’s somehow connected to the Freemasons or came out of the Freemasons, and when you combine that with the notion that Freemasons are devil worshipers as well as the notion that to be rich and powerful you must have sold your soul to the Devil or something, then you can see how all of this may have gotten wrapped up.

Most often these days, you see the Q-Anon conspiracy theory, or the sorts of conspiracy theories that Alex Jones and people similar to him are going on about all the time, that there are rich and powerful people who are trying to control things in a particular way on a global scale -- which in and of itself is I would say a real thing -- but then they add that oh, these global elitists form a private cabal where they have a club and interact all the time, AND they’re also devil worshipers who meet for Satanic rituals in key places like Bohemian Grove, and blah blah blah.. And so as is typical with conspiracy theorists, they’ll look for little symbols that really aren’t there to try to connect the dots of their beliefs.

There’s a whole running gag you may have seen online. It’s kind of a meme. Where people will zoom in on a photo and see a triangle in it somewhere, like maybe a wrinkle in somebody’s shirt makes a triangle, and they say “Ah ha”, and they draw a red circle around the triangle to point it out and say, “Illuminati: confirmed!”

But anyway, that’s a brief overview of how these stories between the Freemasons, the Illuminati, and Satanism have overlapped and gotten mixed up together. In the NEXT episode of Satansplain, I’m going to get down into the more historic details about all of this.

Let’s get back to this observation about Africa, and this phenomenon of Africans -- most especially Nigerians -- who see a website or a social media site with Devil or Satan in the name, and think that it’s a recruiting station for billionaire job positions in the Illuminati.

Somehow, all of what I’ve mentioned, about devil worship, and the Freemasons, and the Illuminati, gets mistranslated as “OK, Satanists must be rich and powerful, so if I just talk to a Satanist, he can tell me how to become a Satanist so that I can get rich too.”

One POSITIVE thing I will say with this take, is that…it’s kind of Satanic, when you think about it. Most people hear these tales about Freemasons being devil worshipers and the the Illuminati, and these people being secretly rich and in power, and getting this power from the Devil and so on. And most people who end up BELIEVING in these stories think, “Oh my God, we have to stop this. We have to be aware of what they’re doing. There are these evil people working with the power of Satan.”  But here you have the Nigerians who say, “Wait, rich and powerful devil worshipers? Wow, that sounds amazing. Where do I sign up?”

So again, when you think of it that way, ironically it’s kind of Satanic take. I mean granted it’s all based on a misconception and superstitions, but that response is at least based on self-interest.

Now when it comes to trying to explain WHY this phenomenon seems to come mostly from Nigeria, I’ve heard different guesses from people, but a lot of them I don’t buy..

For example, I’ve heard people rationalize it with, “Well, it’s Africa. Africa is full of superstitious people.”  To which I say, “Yeah, maybe. But the same can be said about lots of other places in the world. I mean, look here in first-world countries. There are so many people here in the United States who believe in Devil and believe you can make deals with the Devil. Not to mention believe in the Illuminati. 

People may likewise say, “Well there’s not only a lack of education in Africa, but also a lot of poverty and desperation.” Which, again, begs me to point out that there are lots of OTHER countries in the world that have poverty and desperation. Even if we restrict things to just Africa, or just sub-Saharan Africa, why would we be getting these sorts of messages from people in Nigeria?  Why not Kenya, or Chad, or the Republic of the Congo, or these other surrounding countries. I mean sometimes that does happen. A couple of years back I was interviewed for a newspaper in Kenya, because somebody had claimed to set up a branch of the Church of Satan there, and I was explaining that this is a lie. This wasn’t us. Somebody is falsely using our name. We don’t HAVE chapters like that because we don’t need them, and so on.

So not 100% of the people with these sorts of beliefs I’ve been talking about are from Nigeria, but seemingly 100% of people from Nigeria who contact Satanists, DO have those beliefs.

I was on the public Church of Satan forum on Facebook when this topic came up. The topic came up, of Nigerians messaging Satanists and asking if they can join the Illuminati. We get people like that trying to join the group every week, and at this point if we see somebody is from Nigeria we just decline the request. We don’t bother anymore. Like I said, 100% of the time it’s these Illuminati-obsessed people.

Anyway, the topic comes up, and with that, the question of “Hey, what’s up with all of these people from Nigeria who think we’re in the Illuminati?”
There was a guy there who was not a Church of Satan member, but was in the forum -- it’s a group where both members and non-members talk Satanism -- and anyway this guy answered, “Well, the people you’re talking about are from Africa. And Africa is just full of a bunch of stupid mud-hut dwellers who are behind the rest of civilization. That’s why all this ignorance comes from Africa. They haven’t built multi-story buildings, they haven’t done this other technology.”
Yeah, this guy apparently believes that the whole continent of Africa looks like something straight out of an issue of National Geographic.
And I told him, “Um, no. That’s not true. The entire continent of Africa does not look like something straight out of an issue of National Geographic. SOME parts do, but otherwise there are skyscrapers and factories and cars and stuff just like the other continents. In any case, I know that THIS guy from Nigeria asking how to get into the Illuminati was certainly not some kind of mud-hut dweller.”

He says, “Oh really? Well how do you KNOW he’s NOT?”

I said, “Um, because…he contacted me on the… INTERNET.”

[pause] I don’t think the thread went on for much longer after that.

So in trying to answer the real question here I thought, OK, what do we KNOW about Nigeria?

Well I do know that Nigeria is famous for 419 Scams. It’s not something that I think explains the Illuminati Satanism thing, but it’s something I think is worth spending a few minutes talking about, as we try to get a picture of what Nigeria may be like..

So the 419 Scam gets its name from Article 419 of Nigeria’s criminal code, which concerns frauds and scams. Sometimes the 419 scam is also called the Bank of Nigeria scam, or the Advance Fee scam. I’m sure a lot of your listeners are already familiar with this. If not, the scam goes something like this.
You’re checking your email, or your private messages on social media, and you see an email or a message from somebody who says he’s in Africa, and he has this huge fortune of money from the diamond business. Twelve million dollars, sitting in this bank account in the Bank of Nigeria, but he can’t take it out because the government has the account frozen, or he can’t use his name because he’s a civil servant and he’s barred from taking the money. So he needs YOUR help in getting this money into a different account. If you help him, he’ll give you a 25% cut of the fortune. Let’s say you write back to him and say you agree. I mean three million dollars sounds nice after all, plus you’re doing a real humanitarian thing in helping him. He says, OK, first I need help paying for this translation fee. You send him money, then he says, Oh no, something else went wrong. I need more money. And then eventually it’s “OK, we’re all set, just give me your bank account information and I can transfer those millions of dollars to you. You really helped me out. God bless you.” So yeah, basically, there is no millions of dollars sitting in the Bank of Nigeria under his name. It’s a scam, and he got your private information to help suck YOUR bank account dry. Then he deletes his email address, never writes you back again, and goes on to the next victim.

So that’s the gist of the scam. Sometimes it’s money in the Bank of Nigeria. Sometimes it’s a check that has to be cashed against an American bank and that’s why he needs your help. Sometimes it’s as simple as, “Hey, you won the international lottery game. You’ve won $8 million dollars. We just need you to pay this $50 transaction fee and it’s yours.”

There are COUNTLESS, countless variations of this. But one of its names again is the Advance Fee scam, because in all cases, regardless of what fictional or heartbreaking story is used to dress it up, it always comes down to the promise of some fortune if you pay some sort of fee to help it along in advance, then the scammers take that money and leave.
And this predates the Internet, by the way. People were doing this with chain letters through the postal mail before. There was one happening in the early 20th century I guess called the Spanish Prisoner scam, where a person claims to be from Spain and wants help funding this espionage and so on.
But there IS a documented case of a scammer from Nigeria doing this as far back as 1920. He went by the name Professor Crent-sil. And he wrote letters trying to scam people like this, and was charged with three counts of fraud in 1921. Now here’s the funny part; Crent-sil got off.  According to an article I got about this from Newsweek from 2016, titled “The Origins of Nigeria's Notorious 419 Scams”, it says the magistrate presiding over his case discharged Crent-sil, with a caution on the first count and acquitted him on the two others for lack of corroborating evidence. And Crent-sil bragged that he got off because of his own magic ju-ju powers. So…heh heh, how about that? Nigerians who believe they can get away with scamming thanks to occult powers. It’s like we’ve come full circle on this.

But yeah, in any case, this is something that has been going on all over the world, but it’s always been especially bad in Nigeria. In fact it got so bad that in 1991, the Bank of Nigeria had to issue a public statement of, “Look, we don’t have all of this money in this special account that people are talking about. People who send you these stories are trying to scam you.”

As you can imagine, the incidents of these 419 scams went up exponentially with the Internet. You don’t need to buy stamps to send millions of emails. And if the chance of somebody falling for this scam is one in a thousand, well, you just email thousands and thousands of people and eventually you’ll get that person.
I mean I’ve been getting these sorts of emails probably about as long as I’ve been using the Internet, which has been about…30 years. But I noticed about 10 or 15 years ago, the spelling and grammar on these letters were getting worse and worse. And my immediate thought was “Oh geez, these scammers are so stupid. They can’t even spell this correctly.” But then I remember reading an article sometime later that explained, “No, sometimes that is deliberate. Because when you send millions of these emails out, that one person who is still dumb enough to fall for it, despite all of the crappy writing, is PRECISELY the sort of person you want. The sort of person more likely to be stupid enough to manipulate.”
Another thing I want to say about 419 scams, is that there’s a website which has been around for many, many years, called 419 Eater dot com. And it’s a group of people who basically scam the scammers. A lot of these 419 scammers will basically do anything to make you feel that you can trust them. So there have been pranks like, “OK, I’ll send you the money to help the Bank of Nigeria, but to make sure I know you’re a real person, send me a photo of yourself, balancing an orange on your head.” Or, “Send me a photo of yourself holding a sign that says, “I’m into bestiality”. And of course the photos they get back are funny, and there were some cases where they were able to scam money OUT of the scammers. Lots of great elaborate hoaxes on the hoaxers. Check it out sometime, 419 Eaters dot com.

Now…I just spent some time talking about 419 Scams, but this still doesn’t explain the Illuminati people in Nigeria. Or the Illumi-NUTTERS as I call them. Because after all, these are not people emailing us Satanists and promising to make *us* rich; they’re asking us if we can make *them* rich!
There is however another scam of sorts from Nigeria that relates to religion. And to explain what I’m talking about, I’m going to read you a note that’s right from the official Church of Satan website, Church of Satan dot com:
“If you are a resident of a nation situated on the African continent, do not send any attempts to register with us unless you have contacted us via e-mail and gained pre-approval.

We’ve discovered that many unscrupulous residents of these nations attempt to use membership in religious organizations as a means to obtain funds from their governments under the pretense of being a representative of an organization. Sincere students of our philosophy from these nations must contact us via e-mail first and demonstrate a knowledge of our philosophy before we will pre-approve an attempt at Registered Membership.

Our apologies to those who resonate with Satanism in these lands, but the ratio of scam artists is exceptionally high and this is our most direct recourse. Any postal mail or payment attempts that are not approved will be refused and we are not responsible for the return of unauthorized postal sendings.”

So that’s the message from the Church of Satan. And yes, it seems that people in Africa and especially Nigeria try to set up churches for the purpose of getting government funds. I’m sure that if you can point to evidence of an existing church and say “Look, we’re a branch of this real church”, then that can lend some credibility. I’m…not so sure a self-declared branch of the Church of Satan would go over all that well PUBLICLY in some of these places, but here’s an article from about 5 years ago from Forbes Africa, talking about the phenomenon. The article is titled, “Is It Time To Tax Nigeria’s Churches?” Well anybody who understands PenTAGonal Revisionism knows my answer to THAT question. But to read you an excerpt from the article, quote:
Religious institutions are not taxed in Nigeria because the current legal regime grants them a tax-exempt status. This is reflected in a number of tax legislations in Nigeria, which grant ecclesiastical bodies (alongside charitable and educational institutions of a public nature) a tax-exempt status unless they engage in a trade or business.

This situation is similar to the United States [..]

Irrespective of the law, there are a number of reasons – I daresay valid reasons – these institutions should be taxed. The first reason is that churches have branched out into profitable activities (such as owning expensive private schools and publishing houses) while enjoying their tax-exempt status. For this reason, Chief Demola Seriki, a former Minister of State for Interior, stated that religious institutions are not carrying out charitable activities but building empires, using revenues from their businesses to purchase private jets and renting out apartments in the church camps, but refusing to pay land use charges to the government. This statement by a former government official shows the intensity of the debate and reflects the concern of a majority of Nigerians.

Another reason advanced by the supporters of the idea of taxing religious institutions is that religious leaders are getting extremely rich over their non-taxable profits. In 2011, a FORBES ranking of the 10 richest pastors in the world had five Nigerians. The richest on that list is Nigeria’s Pastor David Oyedepo with an estimated net worth of  $150 million. Also worthy of note is that religious institutions contribute approximately 2.5% to the GDP, which is the same as the financial sector.”

Now again, people contacting us wanting to join the Illuminati are not asking if they can start a branch of the Church of Satan in Nigeria, but sometimes we DO get emails like that. And what I just read may lend some insight into why that’s the case.

But to further answer the question of why these messages are predominantly coming from Nigeria, I THINK the bottom line is that they just have much bigger numbers in terms of people who would do that. Let me list a few statistics about Nigeria to explain what I mean.

First of all, I would argue that you’re unlikely to hear tales about Devil worship or selling your soul unless you live in a predominantly Christian nation. Now per capita, Nigeria is NOT the most Christian country in Africa. It turns out that Nigeria is roughly 50-50 Christian and Muslim. Nigeria DOES however have the highest total NUMBER of Christians than any other African country, by far. And that’s largely due to the fact that of all African countries, Nigeria has the highest human population, period. So statistically, we would expect anyway that any random emails we get from strangers in Africa would be more likely to come from Nigeria, since that’s where you’d find the most number of people and thus the most number of people with Internet access. And it turns out that of all of the countries in the world, do you know where Nigeria ranks in terms of number of internet users? They’re number 6. The top three are China, India, and the United States. But Nigeria has by far the most number of internet users in Africa. Over 136 million internet users, which is about 64% of the population. In fact, Nigeria not only has the most number of internet users of all African nations, but also the most number of internet users PER CAPITA of any other African nation.
So once again, the math says that if you are to get an email from a random stranger from anywhere in the entire continent of Africa, chances are very good that it comes from Nigeria.

But even so, the religious factor of Nigeria I suspect is important. Constitutionally Nigeria does have freedom of religion. It’s been that way since at least 1999. Their constitution forbids religious discrimination and says that there is no STATE religion. I’ve had some friends from outside of the U.S. who’ve said they don’t understand why there are seemingly so many crazy religious Christians in the United States, given that you have freedom of religion and more importantly that there is no state religion. Whereas I think in some Scandinavian countries, you are registered at birth as being part of the state church whether you like it or not. But just to quickly finish this side point: since there is no state religion in the U.S., that lets other religions compete against each other in the free market of ideas. And what this usually means is that the religions or specific denominations that are more aggressive with proselytizing and recruiting are more likely to obtain the bigger numbers.
So getting back to Nigeria, it turns out that Nigeria is a HIGHLY religious country. Plus, the high populations of Muslims versus Christians makes for a lot of tension. I was reading a report I found done by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. I’ll try to give the link for that in the description of this episode on Satansplain dot com. But they rank different countries by how much religious freedom they seem to have, and Nigeria they say DOES have religious freedom technically, but there is a LOT of crazy stuff going on. Kidnapping, assassination of priests. I won’t go into all of the details now. But the bottom line is yeah, Nigeria is a highly religious country, religion plays a huge role there in politics. There are parts of Nigeria ruled by Shariah Law apparently. LOTS of crazy religious stuff going on in Nigeria.

Another statistic that I think is meaningful, is that Nigeria’s national language is English. There are in fact, many separate languages spoken in Nigeria, but nationally they push for English I guess to help unify the citizens. A lot of the conspiracy theories and what not on the Internet about the Illuminati and the Freemasons and conspiracy theory crap in general, I would SUSPECT, is in English. And if that’s correct, then it would follow that people who can read and speak English, even poorly, and who can get online, would be running into those sorts of stories and also be able to contact Satanists they find.

Here’s another statistic. Nigeria, it turns out, has a high GDP, but a low score on the Human Development Index. Basically the GDP means economically they do surprisingly well compared to their neighbors. And my hunch is that this would translate to also having better technological development than their neighbors. More internet access. But the Human Development Index rating basically means that Nigeria is considered one of the most corrupt nations in the world. To quote Wikipedia’s page on Nigeria, “Corruption runs through every level of Nigerian government. From considerable contract fraud at the top, through petty bribery, money laundering schemes, embezzlement and seizing salaries from fake workers, it is estimated that corruption within the state apparatus costs the country billions of dollars every year.”

So let’s recap. Nigeria. It’s a country where scams and get rich quick schemes are ingrained in the culture, in more ways than one. It’s a country with a lot of English speakers, though perhaps not a whole lot of English scholars. Nigeria has more internet technology, perhaps especially compared to other countries where corruption runs high. Nigeria has way more people. Way, way more people on the INTERNET than any of its neighbors on the continent. Nigeria has a lot of RELIGIOUS people, to the point where the country gets  put on watchlists.

When you add all of this up, I think it helps explain why belief in quick riches, belief in conspiracy theories, belief in a literal Satan, and enough skills in English to read something but not comprehend it fully, are all things that may be coming to your inbox from Nigeria.

Thank you for listening. As I’ve said, I have much, much more to cover about the Freemasons and the mythical Illuminati and how these stories get mixed up with Satanism. That will be in the NEXT episode of Satansplain. Until then, Hail Satan.

• https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/06/14/time-tax-nigerias-churches/

• https://www.newsweek.com/origins-nigerias-notorious-419-scams-456701

• https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/USCIRF%202020%20Annual%20Report_42720_new_0.pdf

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