Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamp and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
Speaker 1: what is your relationship with fire? And by fire I
Speaker 1: mean actual fire and not the American gladiator of fire?
Speaker 1: Ah right, okay, because I was gonna say, like, definitely
Speaker 1: a big bonk on the head with a giant foam
Speaker 1: thing into water. Yeah, yeah, but you know, of course
Speaker 1: fire would have caused that. But no, my relationship to
Speaker 1: fire it is. I wouldn't say it's complicated, but I
Speaker 1: would say, like, just like everybody else, there's something very
Speaker 1: alluring about fire, mesmerizing. Um, My earliest memories rose were,
Speaker 1: of of course, burning ants with magnified glass. You were
Speaker 1: one of those kids. I was definitely one of those kids.
Speaker 1: And um, and then waving my hand over a candle
Speaker 1: flame with my babysitter for a very long time, and
Speaker 1: why she was partaking of this with you. She was like,
Speaker 1: let's let's She and her hippie boyfriend were both like,
Speaker 1: let's do this thing was it was a hippie not
Speaker 1: like a g Gordon Liddy thing where you like hold
Speaker 1: your m okay, you like, look how macho and conservative
Speaker 1: I am, because I no, no, is the opposite. It
Speaker 1: was like, let's try to control this fire man. And
Speaker 1: now I cannot uh speak for them, but I will
Speaker 1: say that it's possible that maybe there was something that
Speaker 1: was enhancing the experience for them looking back now and understanding, um,
Speaker 1: teenagers back in the day. Coffee, Yeah, lots of coffee.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that was it. Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, that
Speaker 1: those were my memories of being absolutely mesmerized by fire,
Speaker 1: and you you well, I tend to think of fire
Speaker 1: is um it's not so much an element but a
Speaker 1: golden God that I that I honor, and and when
Speaker 1: I bring fire into the world, I am allowing a
Speaker 1: part of this god to rein of the world and
Speaker 1: destroy my Yeah. Was that that That's what I would
Speaker 1: say if I were a pyromaniac, perhaps, as we'll discussing
Speaker 1: this podcast, because that's that's because my history fires probably
Speaker 1: mostly uninteresting. Yes, when I was a kid, I probably
Speaker 1: had a stage where I went through where I really
Speaker 1: like firecrackers and it was it was fun to strap
Speaker 1: them to the backs of little g I Joe men
Speaker 1: and and just stick them into the dirt and watch
Speaker 1: things blow up, and you know, and we all and
Speaker 1: I love poking around in the fire. I was in
Speaker 1: boy Scouts. There's a lot of poking around in the fire. Uh.
Speaker 1: But eventually I kind of outgrew that. So I I
Speaker 1: like staring into the fire. I think I I like flames.
Speaker 1: There's something, you know, kind of scary about it. If
Speaker 1: I feel like I left a flame going in, say
Speaker 1: the in the bathroom in the morning, I will freak
Speaker 1: out and probably turn the car around or or turn
Speaker 1: my walk around and go back to the house to
Speaker 1: address it. But but I mean, fire is amazing. Fire
Speaker 1: is beautiful. Um, So we can't help would be fascinated
Speaker 1: by it. But it's probably a bad thing. We're too
Speaker 1: fascinated by it. Well, the the crazy thing about it
Speaker 1: is that, of course, when when we discovered fire, it
Speaker 1: really helped us out right as people, as a civilization,
Speaker 1: as the ability to even um exists as humans today,
Speaker 1: right right. It really fact, as we've discussed in the past,
Speaker 1: it really had a huge impact on the way that
Speaker 1: we hunt our food. For instance, um, you could use
Speaker 1: fire to clear out the vegetation around a watering hole,
Speaker 1: so you could see the prey animals that were creeping
Speaker 1: towards the water to drink and slay them. And then
Speaker 1: once you had slain the prey animal, you could conceivably
Speaker 1: roasted up and get more out of your meal um
Speaker 1: digest things that were normally not not not something you
Speaker 1: could digest, that's right. You would trans the ability to transform, yeah,
Speaker 1: foods that you wouldn't be able to digest. Right, And
Speaker 1: to say nothing of its use as a destroyer and
Speaker 1: as a weapon. I mean, fire has has pretty much
Speaker 1: always played a role in in human warfare. I mean,
Speaker 1: from the flaming era to a flaming stick, to h
Speaker 1: to napalm to the idea of of nuclear firestorms ravaging
Speaker 1: the continent following some sort of a World War three scenario.
Speaker 1: So I mean it, fire is is a big player
Speaker 1: in human civilizations, hopes, and fears. And I guess what
Speaker 1: we're trying to do is trying to occupy the mindset
Speaker 1: of someone who would be so in love with fire
Speaker 1: and be romancing fire, because on some level we all
Speaker 1: understand that again, you know, fire is the life givers,
Speaker 1: the destroyer. But some people, a very small personage of
Speaker 1: the population paramaniacs specifically UM are absolutely obsessed with it,
Speaker 1: and so we're gonna try to get you know, into
Speaker 1: their minds a little bit today. Although we will say
Speaker 1: that this is UH territory that hasn't been greatly explored
Speaker 1: for many reasons. Right now, we're not going to get
Speaker 1: into the chemical reaction of fire, but but just a
Speaker 1: quid engine here, we have an excellent article called how
Speaker 1: Fireworks by Tom Harris on how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Just go to the website and type in how fireworks
Speaker 1: and you go right to it. Here's a quote from it.
Speaker 1: Fire isn't matter at all. It's a visible, tangible side
Speaker 1: effect of matter changing form. It's one part of a
Speaker 1: chemical reaction, which, you know, just a quick quote from
Speaker 1: just what fire is. But it gives you a little
Speaker 1: more idea that we're a little insight into why it's
Speaker 1: so fascinating, because it is it's a thing between you know,
Speaker 1: and it's UH. In addition to being this life giver,
Speaker 1: this destroyer UM and you and you also, I've I've
Speaker 1: heard it argued that like every story we've ever told
Speaker 1: is essentially a story of camp fires. You know, like
Speaker 1: when we sit around the camp fire there's this primal
Speaker 1: experience of of of of humans with their light, with
Speaker 1: their warmth, and then beyond them the darkness of the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. Well then then there's a mysterious
Speaker 1: element of it too. I mean, you know, you take
Speaker 1: a candle and you turn it um, you know, to
Speaker 1: the right or left, it's always going to point up
Speaker 1: and unless as about to say, that's a gravity at
Speaker 1: work for you, unless you're on a spaceship. And then
Speaker 1: you get to see the blue flame in the red flame,
Speaker 1: which is really just the embers of that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's something really powerful to that. UM. But again, some
Speaker 1: people they get a little bit too excited by by
Speaker 1: this flame. And let's look at some examples of people
Speaker 1: who are too into their fire making. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So there's an infamous arsonist right who has a lot
Speaker 1: of the characteristics of a pyromaniac. And it hasn't you know,
Speaker 1: exactly been said this is a pyromaniac. And again we
Speaker 1: talk about he's definitely on the waiting list. Um, looks
Speaker 1: like he might make it. Paul Keller lives lives in Seattle.
Speaker 1: He is now serving in ninety nine year prison sentence
Speaker 1: and he started setting fires as a child and later
Speaker 1: tried to join the fire department. And he's an alcoholic
Speaker 1: um and during those fires, most likely he was probably imbibing.
Speaker 1: But he set something like seventy fires in his career
Speaker 1: and one at a nursing home facility. So obviously there's
Speaker 1: you know, you know that there's a dark side to this.
Speaker 1: But that's when you know that someone has certainly tipped
Speaker 1: over the edge of perhaps just seeing what a fire
Speaker 1: might do in some sort of scenario and then actually
Speaker 1: setting a fire knowing that many lives will be taken right.
Speaker 1: Another big case that hand across was one that mentioned
Speaker 1: in some of the literature. This British psychiatrist by the
Speaker 1: name of Randolph Parks that he did a whole paper
Speaker 1: two thousand five looking at this twenty year old homeless
Speaker 1: individual was not named at the study, but he was
Speaker 1: actually going on dousing people with lighter fluid and setting
Speaker 1: him on fire. Um and was he also had a
Speaker 1: number of other symptoms like it was this guy was
Speaker 1: was kind of out there because he was like hearing
Speaker 1: breathing in his bedroom and seeing blood on the wall.
Speaker 1: He reported having seen ghosts like people that looked like water,
Speaker 1: so he was having hallucination. He was having hallucinations. So
Speaker 1: on the light side, there's the porta potty pyromaniac. This
Speaker 1: was in San Francisco a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 1: he torched more than one t porta potties over two
Speaker 1: month period and would do this primarily a night. Although he,
Speaker 1: I say he could have very well been a woman.
Speaker 1: He or she was so bold enough as to actually
Speaker 1: um set one on fire during the daytime, in which
Speaker 1: you could see the porta potti combusting in all its glory,
Speaker 1: with all of its elements flying through the air. Well.
Speaker 1: You know, there's probably a study out there that we
Speaker 1: should look at on on porta potty vandalizing in general,
Speaker 1: because it seems like there's something about the porta potty
Speaker 1: that that humans are compelled to mess with it. I
Speaker 1: guess because it's this little room that's full of pooh,
Speaker 1: and we there's something and everyone that wants to tip
Speaker 1: it over or or hit it with a car or
Speaker 1: catch it on fire. Right, No, maybe you I think
Speaker 1: we just got a little insight there. Maybe I just don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not a big porta potty fans, so
Speaker 1: maybe it's part of my my rage against the Maybe
Speaker 1: it's your fear. It's like you're trying to master your
Speaker 1: fear of porta potties by imagining being tippled over. Like seriously,
Speaker 1: I went into one recently and it had a graded
Speaker 1: floor like a like a milk carton, like it had
Speaker 1: holes in it. That's how how why did it pick
Speaker 1: us that long to figure out that a porta potty
Speaker 1: needs holes in it so that it's not slick with mud,
Speaker 1: uh and other matter when someone goes into it after
Speaker 1: it's been up for a day or two. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean that's there's always room for a progress, right, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I told you how I was almost carried away in
Speaker 1: one at Cochella one year. Right. It was. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: it was not just a normal port port This is
Speaker 1: why you have the fear, tell us it was. It
Speaker 1: was not just a normal porta potty. They had those
Speaker 1: two and they were disgusting, of course, But they also
Speaker 1: had ones on the back of a truck, which is
Speaker 1: like this this big. It's like a full sized bathroom,
Speaker 1: you know, with sinks and all kind of fancy but
Speaker 1: also kind of gross. Yeah. Yeah, And I had gone
Speaker 1: in and I didn't know this, but they were closing
Speaker 1: it up, and they were about to take it away
Speaker 1: on the back of a truck with me still in it.
Speaker 1: And then some guy I like, haller is something you know,
Speaker 1: unintelligible that I can only call it a holler because
Speaker 1: it was that, you know, unintelligible through the door, and
Speaker 1: then shuts it. I'm like, I wonder what he's yelling about.
Speaker 1: And so I finished my business and I rushed to
Speaker 1: the door, and they're they're getting ready to haul it off,
Speaker 1: probably to throw it over the edge of a canyon somewhere,
Speaker 1: I guess. No, No, I'm just imagining that some sort
Speaker 1: of elaborate plot to kidnap you and then they force
Speaker 1: you into labor in some remote part of the world.
Speaker 1: So I didn't I didn't necessarily want to start it
Speaker 1: on a fire. But but but now you do. Now
Speaker 1: you've got these feelings about porta Potti that you that
Speaker 1: you are unresolved, that perhaps fire could help with Maybe
Speaker 1: fire could help me with that. All right, Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: swing back to the fire there that was. That's a
Speaker 1: fun little party potty diversion. Um, okay, so what is pyromania? Right? Um?
Speaker 1: That the term actually comes from French physician Charlos cretien
Speaker 1: Um and it's malamuni incendiary apologies from my French, which
Speaker 1: translates to insane incendiarism. Okay, so the terms kind of vague, right, Well,
Speaker 1: it's in the same way that insanity is often a
Speaker 1: term that is contested and and and depends on who's
Speaker 1: throwing it around and who's receiving it. Uh. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: look across the board and people have different definitions of
Speaker 1: who qualifies as insane and who qualifies as a pyromaniac.
Speaker 1: Which is really interesting too, because if you look at
Speaker 1: this criteria of of what is a pyromaniac, there's a
Speaker 1: very big lack of insanity in this list. Right, it's
Speaker 1: kind of actually spelling out this story of someone who
Speaker 1: is perfectly normal except really likes fires. Right and uh,
Speaker 1: and just to give another nod to how how loose
Speaker 1: the terminology can be, the FBI organized and Advanced Fire
Speaker 1: Investigation Training session a little while ago, and uh, at
Speaker 1: the start of the meeting, they ask over six hundred participants,
Speaker 1: which included fire agency personnels like insurance investigators, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: police officers, mental health professionals, various Walks of Life to
Speaker 1: write down their definition of pyromania, and not a single
Speaker 1: definition was identical. Well, and this is part of the problem,
Speaker 1: right if we have um discovered here and many are
Speaker 1: discovering in the field, is that this it hasn't been
Speaker 1: studied that well. And um, there's a lot of misinformation
Speaker 1: out there that we'll get to. But so far, the
Speaker 1: American Psychiatric Association is Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Speaker 1: Disorders has set forth the following criteria for a diagnosis. Okay, pyromania.
Speaker 1: And I can't help but think as we go through this,
Speaker 1: let's think of of one of the more famous pyromaniacs
Speaker 1: or potential pyromaniacs from popular culture, that being Beavis, Beavis
Speaker 1: and butt Head, because as you remember, he was rather
Speaker 1: enamored with the Golden Flame. Yes, well, and also Bart Simpson. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's Bart Big into the fire. I think that's what
Speaker 1: landed him in the in detention. Okay, Well, let's think
Speaker 1: of Bart and Beavis as we proceed. Okay, alright, First,
Speaker 1: the individual must have set fires deliberately and purposefully on
Speaker 1: more than one occasion. Okay, definitely on the this and
Speaker 1: I assume on Bart they've been that has been going
Speaker 1: on too long for them to have gone to that
Speaker 1: well more than once, I agree, and at least during
Speaker 1: the episode that would have been many times. The individual
Speaker 1: must be tense or exhibit outward emotional behaviors talking about
Speaker 1: facial expressions, changes in voice, excitement before setting fires. Definitely this. Yes,
Speaker 1: the individual must be interested in, curious about, fascinated with,
Speaker 1: and or attracted to fires in their situations. I think
Speaker 1: that kind of goes on That one's kind of silly
Speaker 1: because that kind of goes with the territory. The individual
Speaker 1: must experience pleasure, tension, relief, or gratification after setting fires
Speaker 1: or watching fires in their aftermaths. Yes, this is obviously
Speaker 1: the probably the biggest marker here, right, Yeah, Like it's
Speaker 1: kind of like the whole thing, like a five. I
Speaker 1: think there was like a Far Side cartoon where there's
Speaker 1: a building burning and the people are turning and noticing,
Speaker 1: like the dude that's just setting there with just wide
Speaker 1: eyes and just loving every minute of it. Like that's
Speaker 1: the guy that you're kind of suspect might have pyromania issues. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the guy with the kaleidoscope eyes is definitely. Other psychological
Speaker 1: disorders cannot better account for the individual's fire setting behavior,
Speaker 1: manic episodes, antisocial behavior. Okay, So for instance, if they're
Speaker 1: seeing things in the night bleeding walls and then decided
Speaker 1: to go set hopos on fire, that's a byproduct. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about pure pyromania here. Yeah. Um, And then
Speaker 1: the individual has no other motivations for setting the fire,
Speaker 1: like financial gain. All right, this is this is like insurance.
Speaker 1: I need insurance money, so I'm gonna burn my own
Speaker 1: building down. Yeah, my restaurant is not doing that great
Speaker 1: kitchen fire. Um. Expressing social or political ideas okay, Obviously
Speaker 1: burning down building as a sign of protests, burning people
Speaker 1: in effigy, right right, revenge or anger? Right, this is
Speaker 1: I don't like you, you said something bad to me,
Speaker 1: or I think or even like I perceive that you
Speaker 1: wronged me in some fashion, So I'm going to burn
Speaker 1: your cupical down. For any of the TLC hip hop
Speaker 1: fans out there, Um, Lisa left dial Opez, I believe
Speaker 1: burned down her fiance's mansion. Yes, right, it was in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: so TLC before well or I guess after the Learning Channel,
Speaker 1: but I'm thinking, yeah it was TLC, right, Um, I
Speaker 1: was thinking of the show because I'm not as familiar
Speaker 1: with all the TLC programming, so I thought maybe there's
Speaker 1: like a pyromania ladies. Yeah, and you know I've got
Speaker 1: one foot in there, so that you thought, Julie, she's
Speaker 1: just fun TLC dot com again. Um enough a kick boss, Julie.
Speaker 1: Um okay, So hiding other criminal activity, concealing a murderer, theft, right,
Speaker 1: getting rid of a body by burning it. Yeah, something
Speaker 1: dark like that. Improving his or her living circumstances, which
Speaker 1: I don't really get that. I get the financial gain,
Speaker 1: but you would think that would be one and the same.
Speaker 1: Responding to delusions or hallucinations or pair judgment, dementia, mental retardation,
Speaker 1: alcohol or dragon toxic what is improving his or her
Speaker 1: living So it's kind of like, you know, this living
Speaker 1: room is great, but I feel like it would be
Speaker 1: better if I've learned that. Yeah, it would be really
Speaker 1: shabby cheek if I could just you know, get a
Speaker 1: little singe to some of this furniture. Um also that
Speaker 1: the individual must not exhibit intoxication, criminal motivation, or other
Speaker 1: criminal psychiatric disorders. So when you take all of this,
Speaker 1: it's purely like this that that that one point, which
Speaker 1: is like number point number four, then the individual must
Speaker 1: experience pleasure attention really for gratifications. So that's really at
Speaker 1: the heart of this matter. Um. And just as a
Speaker 1: little side fact, in the US, only three percent of
Speaker 1: suspected arson fires lead to conviction. Okay uh. And then
Speaker 1: from slate dot com The Science of Pyromania, they say,
Speaker 1: maybe the true arson prone pyromaniacs are still roaming the streets.
Speaker 1: Some evidence suggests that arsonists tend to be non assertive
Speaker 1: offenders who internalize their anger with fires, enabling them to
Speaker 1: avoid face to face confrontation. Such evasiveness also makes them
Speaker 1: difficult to study. So what they're kind of what what
Speaker 1: all this is painting right here, is that it's very
Speaker 1: hard to study who a true pyromaniac maybe, and in fact,
Speaker 1: there's probably a lot of crossover from arsonists to pyromaniacs. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you kind of lift some of
Speaker 1: these constraints, especially the alcohol part. Right, if someone's using
Speaker 1: alcohol and they set a fire, that doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that they're not a pyromaniac, especially if they did that
Speaker 1: seventy times over the last four months. Right, I was
Speaker 1: looking at this article from the American Institute of Forensic
Speaker 1: Education that was talking about characteristics of quote, juvenile fire setters,
Speaker 1: because the whole thing is you're gonna have juveniles who
Speaker 1: are setting fires and they are not necessarily pyromaniacs as
Speaker 1: as we've do you know, discussed um given these constraints.
Speaker 1: Uh So, some of the examples they lay out in
Speaker 1: this article include the experimental curiosity fire center. And this
Speaker 1: is generally somebody younger than seven and and they're generally
Speaker 1: after they set the fire, they're generally quite upset by it.
Speaker 1: And it's more of a product of lack of supervision
Speaker 1: and easy access to fire setting materials. So this would
Speaker 1: be like, you know, you leave a cigarette lighter around
Speaker 1: a um, a six year old, there's nobody watching him.
Speaker 1: Of course he might set something on fire. That's why
Speaker 1: you don't leave the fire making implements around when when
Speaker 1: they're on their own generally, right, Like, you know, we
Speaker 1: leave an ax around my nephew and he starts chopping
Speaker 1: in a tree with it. It doesn't mean he's an
Speaker 1: act wheeling maniac. He's just a kid who season acts
Speaker 1: and nobody's watching, so he's gonna start swinging it's just
Speaker 1: what they do. It's true. Then there's the thrill seeking
Speaker 1: fire center and this is eleven to twelve years old.
Speaker 1: Um and uh this tends to be interrupted by the
Speaker 1: time they reach sixteen or seventeen, the article says, and
Speaker 1: uh and it, but it can become more dangerous over time.
Speaker 1: They're generally doing other bad things, and they tend to
Speaker 1: enjoy the drama and the chaos that the fire creates.
Speaker 1: And they they're often good manipulators. Their shallow, they're selfish,
Speaker 1: they like a moral compass, so they're a little bit narcissistic, right,
Speaker 1: and this is definitely one can see, like they say,
Speaker 1: becoming a more serious threat. It's not just a kid
Speaker 1: playing with fire. It's a kid playing with the emotions
Speaker 1: that a fire um evokes. And people right in realizing
Speaker 1: that they can get attention from this or pleasure from this,
Speaker 1: from the attention that the fire gets, because the fire
Speaker 1: always gets attention. It's pretty true. Um. Then there's another
Speaker 1: color classification, delinquent fire setter, and this is eleven to
Speaker 1: twelve year old and and generally these are these are
Speaker 1: individuals who uh set the fire. And then they're denying
Speaker 1: personal liability for the fire. They're blaming others, and it's
Speaker 1: generally more of a hyperactivity and impulsive things. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of a um, a continuation of that experimental curiosity,
Speaker 1: but that has more than just you know, lacking control
Speaker 1: over and the impulse control is pretty important. Impulse control.
Speaker 1: And so they're like, I'd like to set a fire
Speaker 1: and bam, they're already setting it. Uh. Then there's then
Speaker 1: they also classify revenge fire setters. And so again this
Speaker 1: according to what we discussed earlier, this would not be
Speaker 1: a pyromaniac. But this is why it gets so murky, right,
Speaker 1: because it's been studied in many different ways and labeled
Speaker 1: in many different ways. Right, these would be this would
Speaker 1: be like a fifteen year year old or older. And uh,
Speaker 1: they may be taking revenge against the society, a person,
Speaker 1: an institution of taking their group. It could be perceived
Speaker 1: wrong or a real wrong. Um. And uh. These fire
Speaker 1: setters generally expressed anger before the fire and relief after. Um.
Speaker 1: They often come from intact families with cold, withholding parents
Speaker 1: in a paranoid way of thinking. That's really interesting again, UM,
Speaker 1: I mean I keep seeing markers of narcissism because usually
Speaker 1: with people who are ncissistic. They have parents who have
Speaker 1: turned away from them, which makes them turn inward and
Speaker 1: began to become you know, the seats of narcissisms begin
Speaker 1: to grow. So that's sort of interesting to hear that. Cool.
Speaker 1: And then the the other category that they lay out
Speaker 1: in this article disordered coping fire setters and this is
Speaker 1: generally early childhood on set um and the these these
Speaker 1: are tend tend to be very dangerous. Uh, this is
Speaker 1: a situation where fire is a learned response to stress.
Speaker 1: They're generally male, and these fire set as they experience
Speaker 1: problems with with pretty much every aspect of their life.
Speaker 1: They would come with a from a history of violence. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's you know, abuse, neglect issues at home and uh,
Speaker 1: they will set a fire up say every day, and
Speaker 1: in the size doesn't matter. It might be you know,
Speaker 1: just burning something in the sink or setting fire to
Speaker 1: a tool shed. Um. Uh, you know, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: to them, but setting the fire like that lowers the stress.
Speaker 1: It's like it's just stress reliefs mechanism. That's pretty interesting. Um. Alright,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna take a break, but when we get back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about what Freud, Prometheus, and penises
Speaker 1: have to do with fire. Yes. This podcast is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow and the
Speaker 1: Discovery Channel. At Intel, we believe curiosity is the spark
Speaker 1: which drives innovation. Join us at curiosity dot com and
Speaker 1: explore the answers to life's questions. Alright, we're back. So Prometheus,
Speaker 1: of course, was the fire bringer from mythology who brought
Speaker 1: he was a Titan, brought the secret of the fire
Speaker 1: down from the gods who overthrew the Titans, and uh,
Speaker 1: and shares it with humans so humans can do all
Speaker 1: these things that we were talking about, like cooked food
Speaker 1: and dropping napalm and uh. And burned down all the
Speaker 1: shrubbery around a pond so they can eat the animals
Speaker 1: that drink from it. And uh. He ended up finding
Speaker 1: himself chained to a rock while an eagle feast son
Speaker 1: is liver right, right, But the liver grows back and
Speaker 1: so each day his liver becomes a meal again. So
Speaker 1: that's a great punishment. Um. But so he smuggled the
Speaker 1: fire in a hollow Fennel Stock and Freud our man.
Speaker 1: Freud saw this as a penis symbol. Ah, and this is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is from the Slate article about pyromani and it
Speaker 1: says uh. Psychiatra's Candice Germane and Michael Lejoy explained it
Speaker 1: as um sort of invoking the mechanism of reversal, so
Speaker 1: he he suggested. Freud suggested that it was not fire
Speaker 1: that man harbors and his penis, but the means of
Speaker 1: extinguishing fire the water of his stream of urine. But
Speaker 1: Freud also saw a more bid curiosity of fire is
Speaker 1: being related to excessive nocturnal and ursus bedwdding and children,
Speaker 1: with the erotically tinged warmth associated with ambient urine, essentially
Speaker 1: trapping problem bedwetters, and the phallic stage usually reserved for
Speaker 1: three to six years old. Of course, Freud shuts up
Speaker 1: on the scene. Yeah, and it's it's interesting that you
Speaker 1: did mention the whole peeing on the fire, because I
Speaker 1: don't remember ever peeing on a camp fire, but I
Speaker 1: know that was that was always a big deal in
Speaker 1: boy Scouts. I would say that if if I had
Speaker 1: the plumbing, I probably would do that, but I don't,
Speaker 1: so I can see how how that would be interesting
Speaker 1: to do. Another thing from that Slight article was really
Speaker 1: interesting is that in the eighteenth century, German physicians were
Speaker 1: convinced that fire setting tendencies were primarily in affliction of
Speaker 1: teenage girls with low i q s, and that that
Speaker 1: that burning things gave these girls an outlet for their
Speaker 1: sexual frustration ah, and they fuel lost right fire lust,
Speaker 1: which you know, I think has actually come to uh
Speaker 1: paint the way that we understand pyromania, because a lot
Speaker 1: of people have taken this idea of paramedics as sociopaths
Speaker 1: and people who are sexually disgruntled and they're just working
Speaker 1: out their their fantasies there um their sexual problems so
Speaker 1: on and so forth, which we know is not necessarily true,
Speaker 1: but of course that's that's what really rings well with
Speaker 1: a story. In fact, there's something called the mcdomenal triad
Speaker 1: and UM. It's basically this correlation of animal cruelty UM,
Speaker 1: which has been linked with obsession with fire setting and
Speaker 1: bedwetting beyond the age of five. So if you have
Speaker 1: all three of these traits or these behaviors, then you
Speaker 1: probably have more sociopathic tendencies. At least that's what the
Speaker 1: reasoning is. So you can understand why this idea of
Speaker 1: um of paramaniacs, is sexually frustrated or bedwetters came came
Speaker 1: to rise in our minds. Um. In fact, we know
Speaker 1: that this is a problematic suggestion that you these three
Speaker 1: behaviors creates a sociopathic tendency and a person. And in fact,
Speaker 1: we recently found out in the book by how Herzog,
Speaker 1: some we eat, some we love, and some we hate
Speaker 1: that this association with serial killers and animal cruelty is
Speaker 1: just pretty much plain wrong. Right. It's all about the
Speaker 1: child sort of testing the boundaries and and figuring out
Speaker 1: where they where they rank in relation to animals, right, right,
Speaker 1: And in fact, it's really common for kids to um
Speaker 1: has some sort of level of animal cruelty or experience
Speaker 1: with it because they are trying to master this position
Speaker 1: of power in their life and try to to suss
Speaker 1: it out for themselves. But according to how Herzog, the
Speaker 1: majority of people who abused animals as children do not
Speaker 1: grow up to be violent, and eight percent of serial
Speaker 1: killers do not have a known history of cruelty to animals.
Speaker 1: And he found this out by a myriative studies. UM
Speaker 1: that we're taken out, Um, definitely there are prisoners sociopathic
Speaker 1: prisoners that they studied and they really found no correlation there.
Speaker 1: It's interesting the you know, I'm thinking about like children,
Speaker 1: young children sort of discovering, uh, these things for the
Speaker 1: first time. I'm discovering the whole I can be cruel
Speaker 1: to an animal and what does that mean? And how
Speaker 1: do I relate to the animal? And then discovering lying.
Speaker 1: We discussed lying and then one of the other podcasts
Speaker 1: and uh and about discovering that power the ability to
Speaker 1: say something that isn't so and therefore alter the perceived
Speaker 1: universe of another person or in themselves. And then the
Speaker 1: fire kind of fits in naturally with that. To discover
Speaker 1: this ability to create this strange substance, to to create
Speaker 1: it or control it, or to just release it onto something.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know you can just imagine like a
Speaker 1: young mind, like what what they must think of fire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's another opportunity to either empathize or to destroy. Right.
Speaker 1: And I wonder to how it about about pyromania, how
Speaker 1: it how it factors into different walks of life, because
Speaker 1: there are certain there's certain um places in the world,
Speaker 1: certain families in the world. I mean, it varies depending
Speaker 1: on on your your upbringing. How exposed to fire you are.
Speaker 1: I mean, for some you're gonna be you're gonna be
Speaker 1: seeing fire every day. You're gonna be playing in the
Speaker 1: fire from an early age. While in other households or
Speaker 1: or environments, the fire is not going to be something
Speaker 1: that is readily available, especially if you know there are
Speaker 1: no smokers around, the camp fires around, if everything is
Speaker 1: just you know, like like electric heat. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that's why it's so hard to understand and to study,
Speaker 1: because it is colored by a person's perception. And there's
Speaker 1: not all I mean, other than setting the fire. There's
Speaker 1: not a lot of, um, you know, a common thread
Speaker 1: between people who are pyromanics. I mean, there are accounts
Speaker 1: of people who like, for instance, and think about this
Speaker 1: one guy who's a pyromaniac and he um, he had
Speaker 1: it for him. It was a sexual release and he
Speaker 1: had some but he had some very um important problems
Speaker 1: mental disorders that led him to create this association between
Speaker 1: sex and fire. For instance, you know, he had a
Speaker 1: strange relationship with his mom and she made him put
Speaker 1: his hand on a burner to understand that it was hot,
Speaker 1: And there were all these instances of fire throughout his
Speaker 1: young adult life. That he began to map against his sexuality,
Speaker 1: which then came out in fire setting. So but that's
Speaker 1: particular only for that one person, right, Um, but again
Speaker 1: very hard to understand, very hard to study. True piroma
Speaker 1: is actually really rare. We're talking about less than one
Speaker 1: percent to about four percent of arsons and uh. And
Speaker 1: then there's a whole other area that comes to mind
Speaker 1: when we're talking about pyromania um, or rather people who
Speaker 1: are really into fire but not necessarily pyromaniac. Like I've
Speaker 1: been to several different festivals or events where you have
Speaker 1: people that are really into fire, like, they're into using
Speaker 1: like stunt burned suits, they're into building their own flamethrowers.
Speaker 1: Theres right right and and uh and and they love fire.
Speaker 1: There's no denying that these guys and gals really um,
Speaker 1: at least figuratively, get off on the idea of catching
Speaker 1: things on fire, including themselves. Uh yeah, yeah. And you
Speaker 1: look for any you know, images from from any given
Speaker 1: say burning man and pyromaniac, and we're rather I'm using
Speaker 1: the terminal loosely, but people who are really into fire, um,
Speaker 1: they tend to really seek those events out. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know burning man, that keeps coming up, and someone that
Speaker 1: suggested we do a podcast on it, so I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe we can find a science angle there. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: we've discussed there that there are plenty of scientists at
Speaker 1: Burning Man. That's right, that's right. You can you can
Speaker 1: just go, I think give them like twenty cents and
Speaker 1: ask an astrophysicist a question. Yeah. Um, there's a booth there.
Speaker 1: What we're suggesting that you can go and visit and
Speaker 1: and not only just enjoy the Burning Man, but also
Speaker 1: learn more about the physical world. The Burning Man. It
Speaker 1: sounds like like kind of like if somebody's grandma, we're like,
Speaker 1: are you going to the Burning Man this year? The
Speaker 1: Burning Man? You're talking about the effigy that they burned, right, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: the big giant one at the festival that people would
Speaker 1: like writhe uncontrollably in front of And and again I
Speaker 1: think it comes back like the reason people get into
Speaker 1: that though, and uh and and I love the idea
Speaker 1: of a huge bondfire because it's it's like, it's a
Speaker 1: story of human civilization. It's the it's people gathering around
Speaker 1: its fire, something they create, something they create. It brings
Speaker 1: warmth that I'll allows them to digest different food that
Speaker 1: gives them power over the elements and over the other
Speaker 1: creatures of the earth, and then on the outside, the
Speaker 1: darkness of the unknown, of the dangerous, of the unexplored.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just stirs something deep within us, right,
Speaker 1: and it really complements peyote Alright. So, what we do
Speaker 1: know about pyromaniacs, or what we suspect is that it
Speaker 1: is an impulse control disorder, much like kleptomania or pathological gambling. Right,
Speaker 1: So how do we treat it? Behavioral therapy? So far,
Speaker 1: that's that's what most psychologists are thinking. But in a
Speaker 1: two thousand six letter to the editor of the Journal
Speaker 1: of Clinical Psychiatry, psychiatrist John Grant reported a case of
Speaker 1: one patient who fit the clinical definition of pyromania, the
Speaker 1: one that we talked about um and Grant was able
Speaker 1: to examine the brain of his patient with spect imaging
Speaker 1: and found a region in the left inferior frontal portion
Speaker 1: that had a low blood flow. So the patient underwent
Speaker 1: three weeks of daily behavioral therapy and a daily regiment
Speaker 1: of topium rate, which is an anti convulsant used to
Speaker 1: treat treat the seizures, and during that time, the patient
Speaker 1: reported a substantial decrease in his urge to set fires.
Speaker 1: And then when doctor Grant reimaged that the patient's brain,
Speaker 1: he found that that area was was no longer there,
Speaker 1: that the problem with the low blood flow no longer existed.
Speaker 1: So there's this idea that it could be biological. I'd
Speaker 1: also read that if we were had to treat it
Speaker 1: like UM an impulse control disorder such as pathological gambling
Speaker 1: or cleptomania, UM, we might look at the serotonin centers
Speaker 1: of the brain. UM, we might be able to treat
Speaker 1: them with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Okay, yeah, basically
Speaker 1: any depressants. Yeah, basically try to replace that behavior with
Speaker 1: the feeling that the reuptake inhibitors would give them, right,
Speaker 1: or the seratonin or maybe you get them. Really unto
Speaker 1: the idea of using flamethrowers at big events in the desert,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean maybe that's that's right. Maybe
Speaker 1: they get to put the torch to the burning man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there have it U pyromania. And we actually you
Speaker 1: actually threw the question out on our Facebook group what
Speaker 1: is your relationship to fire? And so we definitely would
Speaker 1: like to hear from everyone, Like, really, you don't have
Speaker 1: an excuse to not have an opinion on fire. It's
Speaker 1: not like it's not like we're asking about an Obscure
Speaker 1: Doors album or something. We're talking about fire. So you know,
Speaker 1: I'm very curious, like how did how does your upbringing
Speaker 1: relate to it? Like for me, it's like I remember
Speaker 1: like early on, we would go on camping trips or
Speaker 1: or my dad would be grilling, you know, on the
Speaker 1: back porch or something. So there was always not always,
Speaker 1: but there was frequently fire around and I definitely played
Speaker 1: in the fire. Yeah, and we got some really great
Speaker 1: responses on Facebook. Um, and everybody did have a different experience,
Speaker 1: although you know, some people were aunt colors like I was.
Speaker 1: That seems to be a common theme. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: let us let us know about that. And if you
Speaker 1: want to find us on Facebook, just do a search
Speaker 1: for stuff to blow to the mind. That's how you
Speaker 1: find us on there. Uh. And well when we're also
Speaker 1: on Twitter as below the mind. Uh, And we have
Speaker 1: to take those pretty regularly. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Speaker 1: Let me reach into the listener. Male back here real quick.
Speaker 1: Thank you robots, Laura writes in and says, Hi, Robert
Speaker 1: and Julie in regards to your comments on Japanese dollwomen,
Speaker 1: probably my favorite synonym for Lolita and living with robots?
Speaker 1: Can we build a better bot? I must correct Robert
Speaker 1: in that the darker sister of lo Lolita is referred
Speaker 1: to as Gothic Lolita. This is defined as a style
Speaker 1: similar to Lolita, which is the way of dressing as
Speaker 1: though one is an often female Victorian child, complete with
Speaker 1: many many lace frills through mixing, as the name suggests,
Speaker 1: a dark color palette. Though it is most popular in Japan,
Speaker 1: I am a frequenter of a few Gothic Lolita stores
Speaker 1: in Europe in the Great Duss Morgese Board of Camden
Speaker 1: Market and speak for my own experience. Just to clear
Speaker 1: things up, Thanks for providing an informative and mentally stimulating podcast, Laura.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I got that a little mixed up there.
Speaker 1: I think I was thinking of Kauai the whole like,
Speaker 1: and I may be saying that Kui call the cute,
Speaker 1: and then there's Kawaii nor the which is dark cute,
Speaker 1: So this is similar, but it's uh, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: the Gothic loluga. So they like she said, frills, but
Speaker 1: black frills. Just on a side tangent here too. When
Speaker 1: we were doing research for this, my eye landed on
Speaker 1: something called coro. I hope I have that right ka
Speaker 1: o r o, which I from what I understand, and
Speaker 1: I didn't pay a lot of attention to us because
Speaker 1: it didn't really relate to this podcast, but it is
Speaker 1: Japanese and it's sort of a weird thing is that
Speaker 1: there's this idea that your genitalia can retract, and there's
Speaker 1: this irrational fear that they may just completely retract into
Speaker 1: your body. Yeah, so there you go. I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe we need to do a podcast on irrational
Speaker 1: fear so I can understand that. Yeah, well it was
Speaker 1: one of the things I was like, that is bizarre,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I could understand have have somehow that could
Speaker 1: get in someone's mind and you would start to really
Speaker 1: fear that, especially as a child. Yes, yes, well they're there.
Speaker 1: There's a whole host of years that can be associated
Speaker 1: with with genitalia as a child, especially if nobody bothers
Speaker 1: to explain to you what he is going on with
Speaker 1: him or should be going on with them. But that's again.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, so maybe that's an
Speaker 1: upcoming episode. I don't know. So, Hey, so someone wants
Speaker 1: to We already talked about Facebook and Twitter. What if
Speaker 1: someone wants to send us some email and have the
Speaker 1: robot bring it to us? Oh? Very easy. All you
Speaker 1: have to do is send us a line at Blue
Speaker 1: the Mind at House to works dot com. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Speaker 1: Join the House to Work staff as we explore the
Speaker 1: most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.