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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And of course, if you've been listening to the show

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Speaker 1: for a while, you probably know that just about every

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Speaker 1: year we bring out some Lunar New Year themed content

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Speaker 1: and uh, this year, Lunar New Year fell right on

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Speaker 1: a Tuesday. Yeah, so how could we say no to that? Um? Now,

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Speaker 1: whether you celebrate Western New Year or you or you

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Speaker 1: like a good Lunar New Year or trip both or

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Speaker 1: Chinese New Year, well, I think there's always room for

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Speaker 1: both celebrations because you can you can shoot for your

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Speaker 1: Western New Year, you can make your various goals and resolutions,

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Speaker 1: and you can you have a good month to try

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Speaker 1: them out and fail with them, and then you have

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Speaker 1: another shot. You can say, all right, well I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: go for Lunar New Year. This is gonna be my

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Speaker 1: new beginning, because that first New Beginning didn't really take

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Speaker 1: off like I wanted it to. And if you feel

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Speaker 1: like you're early on you've already had your year kind

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Speaker 1: of infested with a lot of negative energy, you can

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Speaker 1: have some exorcisms, that's right. So that is one of

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Speaker 1: the things we're gonna be talking about in this episode.

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Speaker 1: It's this this episode, it might seem like something of

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Speaker 1: a of a potpourri episode, but but there there's there's

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Speaker 1: definitely a string connecting all of these together about the

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Speaker 1: exorcism of spirits, the exorcism of you can I mean,

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Speaker 1: you can even just think of them as negative emotional

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Speaker 1: states and associations from your life as you head into

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Speaker 1: some sort of new phase, which is kind of at

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Speaker 1: the heart of so many of our approaches to a

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Speaker 1: new year, we'll think about what most New Year's resolutions

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Speaker 1: actually are. I don't have empirical evidence for this, but

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Speaker 1: my gut feeling is that the majority of New Year's

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Speaker 1: resolutions are to stop doing something you see as a

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Speaker 1: negative presence in your life or reduce doing something you

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Speaker 1: see a sort of like a demon on your back. Right. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And now there's been pushback against that, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of people say, we what we need to do. If

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Speaker 1: we are going to set little resolutions, in addition to

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Speaker 1: making them reasonable, we should try and make them more positive,

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Speaker 1: like things I Am going to do. Uh. And then,

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Speaker 1: of course realizing that you need to make it attainable.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, making an attainable sounds kind of scary

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Speaker 1: because then you'd have to actually do it. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: then yeah, if you set it up too if you

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Speaker 1: set up too much of an obstacle, if the resolution

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Speaker 1: is too great, then you're just guaranteed to fail and

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Speaker 1: you're gonna feel bad about that. Anyway, what was it

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Speaker 1: we said one year in the past? We uh, we

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Speaker 1: decided the best New Year's resolution is that every year

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Speaker 1: you should decide you're gonna live forever. Maybe so, and

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Speaker 1: that might as well, right. Uh So we do have

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Speaker 1: to point out that this new year, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of enthusiasm for the uh, the the ideas, the teachings

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Speaker 1: of Marie Condo. Oh yes, I've been hearing all about this,

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Speaker 1: and I will say so, I have not watched her show,

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Speaker 1: I've not read her stuff. I don't really know anything

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Speaker 1: about this except what I've gleaned second hand from the culture.

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Speaker 1: But I I sense that there is inherent controversy and

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Speaker 1: misunderstanding about her whole thing. But basically, what I gather

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Speaker 1: is that she's for sort of cleaning, cleansing your physical

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Speaker 1: surroundings and purging yourself of unnecessary, unwanted objects. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: that's my understanding. A lot of people have been watching

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Speaker 1: her Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Condo, which which

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Speaker 1: was of course released January one, twenty nineteen, clearly aiming

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Speaker 1: for New Year's resolution minded folks. Uh. And she uses

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Speaker 1: what is what she calls the con Marii method, which

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Speaker 1: is said to be inspired by Shinto principles about the

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Speaker 1: spirit of things in one's life. And yeah, the basic

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Speaker 1: idea is throw out the stuff that isn't necessary and

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Speaker 1: doesn't believe the quote is spark joy. Oh yeah, I've

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Speaker 1: heard all about sparking joy. Yeah, and you know, I,

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Speaker 1: you know I, I see no problem with that. I

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Speaker 1: like that idea. I'd like to try and limit the

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Speaker 1: clutter in my own life. And if something isn't making

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Speaker 1: you happy, and it's a physical object and it's not necessary,

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Speaker 1: it's not holding up a bookcase or anything or enabling

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Speaker 1: you to make a living, like, what is it? What's

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Speaker 1: it doing right? Well? And I also certainly think that,

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Speaker 1: and I think I'm sometimes guilty of this myself, that

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Speaker 1: hanging on to lots of old objects and not getting

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Speaker 1: rid of them can essentially be a way of avoiding

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Speaker 1: processing and thinking about your own past, you know, Like

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Speaker 1: it can be a way like if you've got stuff

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Speaker 1: from previous years that you just know you're not going

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Speaker 1: to use again, but you don't want to go through

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Speaker 1: it and see what you need to get rid of.

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Speaker 1: That can often just be because you don't, you know,

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Speaker 1: you're kind of afraid to sit down and think about

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Speaker 1: what's been going on in your life, so like you

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Speaker 1: don't do it. Yeah, Or one of my favorites when

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Speaker 1: you find a box of old stuff that is quote

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Speaker 1: unquote meaningful, but you forgot you had it. You have

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Speaker 1: like looked in this box in years, and you ask youself, like,

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Speaker 1: I think this stuff was dead to me, and I

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Speaker 1: have brought it back to life by finding it. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it should have just stayed dead. Sometimes dead is better, right,

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Speaker 1: As a wise man once said, Uh so, you know,

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Speaker 1: not to spend a lot of time on mary condo,

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Speaker 1: but I imagine with with her work, Yeah, you're going

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Speaker 1: to see people who really dig it, who really get

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Speaker 1: enthusiastic about it, people who have a lot of problems

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Speaker 1: with it, people who try it and experience success, and

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Speaker 1: people who try it and find that, well, here's another

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Speaker 1: self help um guru whose advice has not fixed my life.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's part of the course with with

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Speaker 1: most teachings, uh that are aimed at changing the shape

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Speaker 1: of your life. I guess the more religious way of

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Speaker 1: thinking about it would be that these objects have like

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Speaker 1: a spirit to them, or spiritual energy. You obviously don't

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Speaker 1: have to think that there's such a thing as a

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Speaker 1: spirit in an object to recognize that objects have significance.

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Speaker 1: You know, the objects around you. They trigger certain like

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Speaker 1: cascades of memories and and and react actions and emotions,

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Speaker 1: and so in a certain way, they can sort of

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Speaker 1: have a spirit, even if they don't literally have a soul. Right,

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Speaker 1: It's something that we have clearly projected through our own

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Speaker 1: imaginations or own memories and even just through the like

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Speaker 1: the nature of of building being a tool building and

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Speaker 1: tool acquiring an object acquiring species. Yeah, I mean, is

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Speaker 1: there any other species that acquires objects in the way

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Speaker 1: we do? I mean, you could think about like birds

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Speaker 1: that build, you know, bower birds building building nests with

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Speaker 1: with strange attractive objects. But there is really nothing like

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Speaker 1: us in terms of all the objects we we bring

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Speaker 1: to surround ourselves with. Now you might think about a

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Speaker 1: lot of those objects is like, well, that's because we

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Speaker 1: are you know, primates with tool using intelligence, and most

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Speaker 1: of these objects are tools that we've figured out how

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Speaker 1: to use, but most of them you don't ever actually use.

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Speaker 1: They actually are more like the bower bird that you know,

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Speaker 1: most of them are not your kitchen knife that you

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Speaker 1: use every day. They might be a tool that could

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Speaker 1: maybe do something, but you never do that thing or

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Speaker 1: you never use them. So it is more like you're

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Speaker 1: just building a nest with strange bits of string intensil,

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Speaker 1: and it's not even attracting a mate or keeping your

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Speaker 1: in in the sense your collection of bubble heads or

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Speaker 1: you're like grandfather's collection of bubble heads. Whatever it happens

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Speaker 1: to be like something you even have you don't even

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Speaker 1: have direct emotional attachment to. Perhaps like it's it's no

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Speaker 1: longer winning you mates, it may be getting in the

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Speaker 1: way of your relationship with your existing mate. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it's it's this weird byproduct of the human experience. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Of course, then again, we we have a very complex

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Speaker 1: way of appreciating our aesthetic surroundings, and some of these

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Speaker 1: artificial objects we surround ourselves with are part of that.

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Speaker 1: So I guess I walked in here wondering if I

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Speaker 1: was going to have a take on the like whole

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Speaker 1: like purging all your unwanted old objects thing. I don't

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Speaker 1: have a take on it. I guess I just I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna say, do it if you want to do it. Well,

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Speaker 1: there's my boring pronouncement, folks. Well here's the definite fact.

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Speaker 1: Marie Condo was not the first individual to say, hey,

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Speaker 1: it's a new beginning, maybe I should throw a few

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Speaker 1: things away. Right to think that the new year is

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Speaker 1: a time to exercise old demons, whether metaphorically in the

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Speaker 1: modern age or quite literally in the mythological context, that's right.

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Speaker 1: So in this episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind,

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Speaker 1: we are going to We're going to continue to explore

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Speaker 1: these themes, and in doing so, we're gonna waltz between

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Speaker 1: Chinese and Japanese myths and legends. And first of all,

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Speaker 1: we are going to meet a demon slayer. I love

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Speaker 1: a good demon slayer. Yeah, so this is gonna be

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Speaker 1: what Buffy. No, no, no, this is the true fact.

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Speaker 1: Buffy did slay demons in addition to vampires. Most for

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Speaker 1: the vampire thing. I guess it looks better on a

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Speaker 1: calling card. Most of the interesting ones were more demon

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Speaker 1: than vampire, I think. Yeah, the vampires became less essential

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Speaker 1: as the series went on. But but no, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about one of the greatest did not the greatest demon slayer,

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Speaker 1: demon queller, demon defeat exorcist of all time, demon eater,

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Speaker 1: demon eatery ghost banisher. Uh demon I Gauger, Yes, I Gouger.

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Speaker 1: He was a man, a spirit of of many skills.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about zen Quay, the demon queller from from

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Speaker 1: Chinese legend in mythology. There are a lot of fantastic

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Speaker 1: paintings of zen Quay that I have found all over

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Speaker 1: the internet. There's just a rich artistic tradition with this

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Speaker 1: guy who's got this severe face that's sort of part

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Speaker 1: of his mythology. That he's kind of like like nasty

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Speaker 1: looking in the face, but that he's this real tough

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Speaker 1: guy with a beard who's usually found commanding a troop

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Speaker 1: of demons to do his will. Yeah, he's he's kind

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Speaker 1: of a vulcan figure to a certain extent. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: he's he's often kind of like this squat maybe slightly

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Speaker 1: ugly or ourid, disfigured individual. The depictions range from him

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Speaker 1: just looking like an eccentric um like middle aged scholar

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Speaker 1: to looking like an outright like troll with like red

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Speaker 1: or dusky skin, you know, like he It varies a lot.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes he's kind of serene seeming. Sometimes he is accompanied

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Speaker 1: by demons. Other times he is like actively perpetrating violence

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Speaker 1: against the demons, sometimes in a procession of demons as

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Speaker 1: if on parade, sometimes being carried in a sedan chair

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Speaker 1: by demons. So uh I actually, so there are different

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Speaker 1: versions of the story about him, different details regarding with

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Speaker 1: conflicting details, conflicting details about how he came to be,

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Speaker 1: what his role was, who tasked him with this role? Well,

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Speaker 1: tell me one version of the story, Robert, Okay, this

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Speaker 1: is the first version I came across in a book

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Speaker 1: of Chinese mythology. So they got the idea. Here's during

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Speaker 1: the eighth century uh Emperor Ming of Time who lived

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Speaker 1: six eighty five through seven sixty two. Uh an historic

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Speaker 1: individual suffered a fever one night and was assailed by

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Speaker 1: a rampaging demon dressed in red trousers. And though he

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Speaker 1: asked the demon what its name was, and the demon said,

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Speaker 1: my name is quote emptiness and desolation, and the Emperor

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Speaker 1: was just powerless to stop it. You know, it's just

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Speaker 1: still suffering under this fever. It's this demons running around

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Speaker 1: like cat in the hat, just messing anything up. I

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Speaker 1: think in some other tellings of it, it's running around

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Speaker 1: with a flute and a purse that it has stolen

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Speaker 1: from the emperor, which I think is a nice wrinkle

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Speaker 1: on everything, because here we see the introduction of objects,

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Speaker 1: objects with some sort of value or or or or

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Speaker 1: spirit to them. So who will come in to save

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Speaker 1: the emperor from this horrible ghost like figure. Well the

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Speaker 1: Emperor calls for his guards, of course, but you know

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Speaker 1: that that doesn't do any good. I don't even think

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Speaker 1: they just they show up. Instead. What happens is a

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Speaker 1: great frightening apparition storms into the chamber dressed in tattered

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Speaker 1: robes and a torn bandanna. It grabs this red demon up,

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Speaker 1: crunches it down into a ball cartoon style and then

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Speaker 1: swallows it whole well. And then the spirit introduces itself

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Speaker 1: to the Emperor as zong Quai, the soul of a

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Speaker 1: talented scholar who committed suicide after failing to achieve top

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Speaker 1: honors in the public examinations. The public examinations would have been.

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Speaker 1: This was like the test to determine like where you

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Speaker 1: were going to be professionally in society, so like if

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Speaker 1: you get a good score, you would get some kind

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Speaker 1: of good position in government service. Yeah, exactly. So it

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Speaker 1: was a huge, huge deal, not no mine or test. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So he he fails in achieving the score that he

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Speaker 1: was going for, and different versions of it play this differently,

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Speaker 1: and some he is kind of cheated out of top scores. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think I've read one where he did get a

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Speaker 1: top score but then something bad happened to him. Anyway.

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Speaker 1: I think there's a version where the emperor at the

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Speaker 1: time made fun of him for physical appearance and that

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Speaker 1: led to the despair that ends in suicide. So they're yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are different versions of exactly how it goes down,

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Speaker 1: but in all of them he ends up dying the

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Speaker 1: death of a suicide And is uh and is this

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Speaker 1: reduced to this raith like form? But here here's the

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Speaker 1: important detail. Since the imperial family had shown him honor

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Speaker 1: and buried him in green robes like a member of

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Speaker 1: the imperial household, despite his shame, he'd sworn to protect

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Speaker 1: the emperor and his successors from the demons of despair. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so you've got this beyond the grave demon fighter figure

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Speaker 1: who's paying back the debt of his honorable burial. Right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you have a vengeful ghost who kills demons, kills rogue spirits.

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Speaker 1: Uh and and essentially as the I've seen him described

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Speaker 1: as the immortal exorcist of Chinese mythology. And so the

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Speaker 1: emperor in this case and this story ends up putting

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Speaker 1: up a picture of him to honor him and to

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Speaker 1: an invoke his presence over any you know, rogue spirits

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Speaker 1: that might mess with his demeanor. And so this hanging

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Speaker 1: up of a picture of gen Qui does sort of

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Speaker 1: become a tradition, right Oh, yes, absolutely, generally you know,

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Speaker 1: by doorways. So yeah, he's this tragic figure, clearly talented

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Speaker 1: and driven. And again the details very depending on the telling.

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Speaker 1: In one of them, I ran across. So he he dies,

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Speaker 1: and he ends up in the tin hells of dai U,

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Speaker 1: where the Tin Yama King's reside over the dead. And

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Speaker 1: here the lords of the underworld recognize zen Quays potential

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Speaker 1: and they offer him the position of King of Ghosts,

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Speaker 1: thus tasking him with policing unruly spirits and demons, which

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Speaker 1: I think is a pretty awesome origin story as well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in fact, I I like that one more because it's

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Speaker 1: you know, the the the agency here is not with

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Speaker 1: the Emperor but with the lords of Hell. Yeah, they're like, hey,

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Speaker 1: look we've got some spirits out here, some demons. They're

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Speaker 1: given the tin hell is a bad name. I actually

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Speaker 1: need you to go out and police them one by one.

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Speaker 1: Like that's a whole that's a TV series right there.

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Speaker 1: Like he's a cowboy or he's like an outlaw who's

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Speaker 1: given a bounty to go collect or exactly. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: this type of figure I feel like this does this

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Speaker 1: trope does show up in in even modern fictions. Certainly

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Speaker 1: there are plenty of modern fictions that actually use zen

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Speaker 1: Quay as a as a title character. You will find

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Speaker 1: zen Quay to this day in Chinese television shows, movies.

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Speaker 1: I think I saw there was a video game apparently

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Speaker 1: video games, the opera, um, etcetera. So he's he's no

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Speaker 1: minor figure, as will continue to discuss. So, but basically

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Speaker 1: he's roman about out on the land, uh, putting down rogues,

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Speaker 1: spirits and ghosts and demons. Oh yeah, he's putting him

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Speaker 1: to the sword. He's a he's gouging out their eyes.

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Speaker 1: There's there's a painting or a tradition in paintings that

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Speaker 1: show him gouging out the eye of a demon. So

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Speaker 1: he's pretty ruthfully, he's a frightening figure, you know. With

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Speaker 1: then again, there's a long tradition of having like a

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Speaker 1: frightening figure to frighten away the demons and the spirits

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Speaker 1: and and all the malicious uh unseen entities that might

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Speaker 1: mess with with your health and happiness, and and he

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Speaker 1: is he is one of them. So he's like a figure,

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Speaker 1: a legendary figure embodying the spirit of apotropaic magic, the

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Speaker 1: magic of warding off evil spirits and curses and stuff exactly. Now,

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Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, not only is he happy to

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Speaker 1: quell and uh and slay and sometimes mutilate and eat

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Speaker 1: the demons that are running about, but he'll also bend

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Speaker 1: them to his will. He'll make them serve him, carry

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Speaker 1: him around on a litter for example, um as well

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Speaker 1: as his sister who in the tellings U he's part

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Speaker 1: of his gratitude to the emperor is Uh is betrothing

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Speaker 1: his his sister to the emperor, I believe. So you

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Speaker 1: end up with these illustrations such as the gong Kai

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Speaker 1: scroll from the Late Song dynasty, which depicts Zong eat

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Speaker 1: it in a litter carried and the litter is carried

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Speaker 1: by two male demons, while another litter is carrying his

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Speaker 1: sister carried by two female demons. And then you have

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Speaker 1: two demon attendants carrying a dog a package. All in all,

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Speaker 1: it's an eighteen demon servant entourage marching across this scroll.

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Speaker 1: And there are also seven smaller captured demons, some trust

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Speaker 1: up or in one case imprisoned in a jar like

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Speaker 1: an octopus filling a beer bottle. Yeah, so he's not

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Speaker 1: like in a sence, he is like the original Ghostbuster,

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Speaker 1: but he's not content to just shove the captured ghosts

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Speaker 1: into the containment unit. No, he is here to to

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Speaker 1: make all the slimmers and what have you uh carry

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Speaker 1: him about and then aid him in his ongoing war

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Speaker 1: against the demons. This is an awesome scroll, by the way.

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Speaker 1: I mean I mentioned earlier that there's a really cool

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Speaker 1: artistic tradition and this is one great example. The demons though,

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Speaker 1: so they're doing his will, But often the demons also

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Speaker 1: appear to be kind of having a good time, like

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Speaker 1: they'll be jumping about and doing cartwheels and sometimes playing instruments. Maybe, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there is there is definitely a sense of a of

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Speaker 1: a parade to what we're seeing here, and it's a

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Speaker 1: type of parade that to certainly too Western audiences, it

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Speaker 1: instantly makes one think of these crampus parades that one

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Speaker 1: sees where you have both um good st Nicholas marching

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Speaker 1: through the street, but also the unruly or slightly unruly crampuses.

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Speaker 1: And indeed, uh that that actually is there's actually a

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Speaker 1: strong comparison to be made between these two when we

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Speaker 1: start looking at some of the associations that Zong has

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Speaker 1: with New Year's exorcisms in Chinese traditions. Oh yeah, so

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Speaker 1: we started with the idea of the lunar new year

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Speaker 1: and with exercising the old. So how does zen Quai

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Speaker 1: tie back into that? Obviously I can begin to see

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Speaker 1: the exorcism part. Oh yes, yeah, so, so I have

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Speaker 1: actually a wonderful passage here I want to read. This

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Speaker 1: is from a late eighteenth century description of festivities in

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Speaker 1: Han Xiao from Wu Zimmu, as quoted by Sherman E.

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Speaker 1: Lee in an Artibus Asia article from nine quote. On

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Speaker 1: the four day of the twelfth Lunar month, regardless of

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Speaker 1: poverty or wealth, all prepare vegetarian food and sweet dishes

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Speaker 1: to sacrifice to Zal, the stove god. On the market

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Speaker 1: streets are poor beggars three to five men in a

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Speaker 1: company costumed as the figures of such as spirits and demons,

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Speaker 1: Panguan zong Quai and his younger sister, beating gongs and

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Speaker 1: striking drums from house to house they beg for money.

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Speaker 1: The end of the twelve month is termed chu Ye,

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Speaker 1: the eve of change. The official and commoner families, whether

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Speaker 1: of greater or small households, prepare wine, sweep the gates

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Speaker 1: and beams, remove the dust and dirt, clean the halls

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Speaker 1: and doors. Change the door guardians. Door guardians are are

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Speaker 1: a tradition h Chinese households with opi on the doors

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Speaker 1: or by the doors uh you know, guarding the household.

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Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, one has seen uh Santa Claus when when

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Speaker 1: transferred into modern Chinese holiday traditions, Santa Claus has sometimes

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Speaker 1: been utilized as twin doric guardians and hang pictures of

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Speaker 1: Zong Quay, so again helped put it put up a

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Speaker 1: picture of Zong to help keep the bad spirits away,

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Speaker 1: and the passage continues. In the forbidden interior of the

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Speaker 1: Imperial Palace, a great exorcism is carried out in a

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Speaker 1: demon expelling ceremony. Face masks are placed on the head,

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Speaker 1: and clothes and costumes with multi colored embroidered designs are worn.

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Speaker 1: Hands grasp golden spears, silver Halbard's painted wooden knives and swords,

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Speaker 1: multi huge dragons and phoenixes, and many colored flags and pinions,

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Speaker 1: and for amusement, the musicians are costumed as Panguan, Zong, Qua,

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Speaker 1: Zao Yun, etcetera. And the Forbidden interior, the drumming and

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Speaker 1: blowing begin and the exorcism of evil spirits proceeds at

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Speaker 1: the don Hua gate and goes around a dragon pond bay.

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Speaker 1: So this is this in a nutshell, you know, it

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Speaker 1: throws in a number of different New Year's traditions in

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Speaker 1: Chinese culture. But also there is this sense of of

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Speaker 1: the parade, the spectacle uh and people embodying themselves and

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Speaker 1: kind of a Mummers tradition as the spirits, spirits and

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Speaker 1: demons that are serving zen Quai or even zen Quay himself,

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Speaker 1: but also the idea of linking the New Year with

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Speaker 1: a type of exorcism and purging ritual exactly. Yes, you know,

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Speaker 1: and Zong remains an important part of Chinese New Year iconography.

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Speaker 1: You'll see him in parades certainly as ceremonial wall hangings

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Speaker 1: as well. And again he remains a popular figure in

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Speaker 1: Chinese opera, TV, movies, video games. For instance, there's a

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Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen film titled zhen Quai Snow Girl in

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Speaker 1: the Dark Crystal that centers around our demon hunter. I

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Speaker 1: assume it's a different Dark Crystal than correct, no relation

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Speaker 1: to Hintston at all. But I bet if you had

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Speaker 1: a Gartham infestation, he would get him right out of Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he could clear some Gartham right out, sweep him right

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Speaker 1: out of the out of the tomb. Alright. So, thus

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Speaker 1: far have we spoken mainly of Chinese mythology. But the

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Speaker 1: interesting thing about dozen Qua is that he travels. He

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Speaker 1: travels eventually over into Japanese traditions as well as due

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Speaker 1: depictions of demon and spirit processions. In Japan, he's known

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Speaker 1: as shokai and the oldest images a date back to

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Speaker 1: the twelfth century. So we're going to take a quick

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Speaker 1: break and when we come back, we're going to pick

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Speaker 1: up with Japanese traditions and another take on harmful spirits

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Speaker 1: and things that need to be expelled in order to

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Speaker 1: have a new beginning in your life. Alright, we're back

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Speaker 1: and we returned to Japan. Yes, it is time to

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Speaker 1: take a look at another lunar New Year related uh

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Speaker 1: spirit exorcism and and cleaning up tradition that also ties

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Speaker 1: in with demons. What a wonderful confluence of concepts. And

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Speaker 1: who could be surprised that we're brought back to our

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Speaker 1: old friend, the scholar Nariko t writer whose work on

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Speaker 1: the monsters of Japanese folklore and literature we have cited

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Speaker 1: multiple times on the show in the past. Oh, yes,

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Speaker 1: we've dealt with what giant spiders, the Kappa. Yeah, she

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Speaker 1: wrote that paper on the transformation of ony from from

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Speaker 1: monstrous and diabolical to cute and sexy, which we talked

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Speaker 1: about in I think an October past maybe a couple

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Speaker 1: of years ago. Yeah, I'll make sure to link to

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Speaker 1: that episode and some of these other Lunar New Year

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Speaker 1: related episodes we've recorded in the past. On the landing page.

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Speaker 1: For this episode, it's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot Com. Now,

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Speaker 1: I want to look to a book that Nariko T.

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Speaker 1: Writer wrote called Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan from

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Speaker 1: the University Press of Colorado, where she discusses the tradition

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Speaker 1: known as the suku Mogami narratives. And I'll explain what

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Speaker 1: those are in just a second. But the Sukamogami are

425
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:07,280
Speaker 1: attested in old illustrated scrolls, with some with unknown authors,

426
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:10,199
Speaker 1: and there are multiple versions of this story that are

427
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: reproduced across different sources. But writer writes that due to

428
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 1: an aristocrats diary entry about one of these stories from

429
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:21,639
Speaker 1: fourteen eighty five, we know that the scrolls telling about

430
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:25,640
Speaker 1: this stuff emerged no later than the late fifteenth century.

431
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:28,640
Speaker 1: So definitely by late fifteenth century Japan, you've got these

432
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 1: stories of the suku Mogami, which are tool specters. Yeah,

433
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,199
Speaker 1: the so the idea of tools coming alive can be

434
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 1: found in stories from as early as the hay On period,

435
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 1: which is through five, but they first get their common

436
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:47,919
Speaker 1: name the Suku mogami later in the medieval period, and

437
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 1: one particularly prominent story of tool specters is the Sukamogami

438
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:56,760
Speaker 1: Key The Record of the Tool Specters, a text which

439
00:24:56,800 --> 00:25:00,359
Speaker 1: comes from sometime in the Moral Machi period thirt thirty

440
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:02,880
Speaker 1: six to fifteen seventy three, as we mentioned a minute ago,

441
00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: definitely no later than like the fourteen eighties. So you

442
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 1: might wonder what our tool specters. Well, I think we

443
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 1: should turn directly to the Sukumgami Key to get the

444
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 1: full story. So this is gonna be I'm gonna be

445
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: summarizing and quoting from writers full translation of an illustrated

446
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 1: scroll of the Record of the Tool Specters from the

447
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,639
Speaker 1: Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, published in two thousand nine.

448
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:31,680
Speaker 1: So the scroll starts off by discussing a Japanese ritual

449
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:36,400
Speaker 1: known as the susu Horai literally the sweeping suit, which

450
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: is this year end house cleaning ritual. And according to

451
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:43,919
Speaker 1: this tradition, every year people bring out old tools and

452
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: discard them in alleyways before the change of the new year.

453
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: And the author of the scroll extends this concept to

454
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 1: quote renewing the hearth, fire, drawing fresh water, and renewing

455
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,639
Speaker 1: everything from clothing to furniture at the new year so

456
00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: we're seeing a few parallels and similarities some to some

457
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,919
Speaker 1: of the Chinese Lunar New Year UH rituals we were

458
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 1: just talking about. Yeah, related to the like the physical

459
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: cleansing of the space of of your home UH and

460
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 1: in doing that also the removal of negative spirits and on.

461
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 1: Then the idea of removing old tools. I mean that

462
00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 1: that that is a that's something that I think UH

463
00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:24,680
Speaker 1: speaks to everybody. Like what is sadder than an old,

464
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 1: unused tool in a drawer, you know, like a pair

465
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 1: of rusted duh hedge clippers that are no longer even

466
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:33,640
Speaker 1: functional but you still have for some reason. Uh yeah,

467
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:36,399
Speaker 1: that's like, yeah, throw it in the alleyway, begone with it.

468
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 1: Oh well, you still have them in case you ever

469
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 1: need props for like a sauce equal I guess yeah.

470
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: They're they're shooting at your house and you you know,

471
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:46,439
Speaker 1: so they're like, oh, where are the rusty tools and

472
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: you're like, hold on, I got this, they had that.

473
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 1: Or you open a cracker barrel right now. You know,

474
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:52,960
Speaker 1: there are always two options like what should I do

475
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: with all this junk? Is it a cracker barrel? Or

476
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:57,679
Speaker 1: saw a movie? Which one is is in fashion at

477
00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 1: the moment, or if the things you be throwing out

478
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: are like old road signs and alligators with sunglasses and

479
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: hats on, you could open up early two thousands chilies.

480
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: There you go. I would I would love to hear

481
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: from anyone out there who who has some some hard

482
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:17,560
Speaker 1: facts on the the business of repurposing junk as as

483
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,679
Speaker 1: decoration in restaurants. I've noticed they don't do that as

484
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 1: much these days. If you've go into a Chili's nowadays,

485
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 1: the walls are very clean. I don't know how that happened.

486
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 1: I have not been in one recently. Like, that's my

487
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:30,960
Speaker 1: other theories that we just simply don't go to restaurants

488
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:33,639
Speaker 1: with a junk on the walls anymore, you know. Okay,

489
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 1: But let's go back to the ritual, the yearly ritual

490
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: of the sweeping suit, the susu Hurai. Why this yearly ritual, Well,

491
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 1: the author of this medieval scroll says, well, originally some

492
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: scholars assume this to be based on like people emulating

493
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 1: the extravagant wastefulness of the rich, but the author of

494
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:55,360
Speaker 1: the scroll says that this tradition is now known instead

495
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 1: to be rooted in the avoidance of mischief and misfortune

496
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:03,199
Speaker 1: from a class of demons called the Suku mogami. In

497
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:06,360
Speaker 1: explaining this, the author relates a legend supposedly from an

498
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 1: ancient Chinese text called Miscellaneous Records of Yen and Young,

499
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:13,680
Speaker 1: and writer notes that if this text exists, we don't

500
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 1: really know anything about it. So, according to this legend,

501
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: any common tool, container or instrument essentially gets granted a

502
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 1: soul on its one birthday, and after that it becomes

503
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 1: a type of sentient trickster demon that you don't want

504
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: in your house. It's interesting, It's almost it makes sense, right.

505
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 1: It sounds like after a hundred years, if you've had

506
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 1: an object that has been around for an entire century,

507
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: it's probably picked up a number of different associations. It

508
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: has its own personal history, it has perhaps, uh you know,

509
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 1: been shadowed by the death of a previous owner. It's

510
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: taken on a life of its own. I mean, we

511
00:28:55,800 --> 00:29:00,080
Speaker 1: see this to a certain extent with the consideration of

512
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: like buildings and whatnot. Right when when a when a

513
00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 1: building or a location is old enough in uh, in

514
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 1: various countries, certain new protections kick in. Like it is

515
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: no longer treated like a like just any other building.

516
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: Now it is an historic building, but to a certain thing.

517
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: We kind of think this right when we when we

518
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:21,000
Speaker 1: look at it an item, we're like, oh, I can't

519
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 1: throw that out that's a hundred years old has a soul? Now, well, yeah,

520
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: what kind of jerk would I be? Exactly? We we

521
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: do think this way. I mean, obviously we're not literally

522
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: literally advocating the idea that objects have souls, but they

523
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 1: gain something, and the something is in you. It's in

524
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 1: your brain, Like you can't stop thinking about all the

525
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 1: other hands that touched this thing and what it was

526
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:43,240
Speaker 1: used for. I mean, there's a common thing about like

527
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 1: to get rid of the things that were owned by,

528
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: say an ancestor of yours might make you feel like

529
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: you're making your ancient ancestor more dead or more gone.

530
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 1: You know, you're erasing their legacy or something. Absolutely, and

531
00:29:57,440 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: of course we have we have so many different horror

532
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 1: stories and ghost stories. They revolve around this basic concept.

533
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 1: And speaking of I know, there has to be a

534
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: story here, oh yeah, yeah. So in this particular story

535
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: and the record of the Tool Specters, it starts with

536
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 1: a bunch of tools getting thrown out in the trash

537
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: during the susuhurai one year, the the yearly sweeping of

538
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: the soot, the yearly cleansing. And so this group of

539
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 1: old tools gather around after they're thrown out, and they

540
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: become really angry about how they were mistreated. They say, quote,

541
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: we have faithfully served the houses as furniture and utensils

542
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: for a long time. Instead of getting the reward that

543
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 1: is our due, we are abandoned in the alleys to

544
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: be kicked by oxen and horses. Insult has been added

545
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: to injury, and this is the greatest insult of all.

546
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 1: Whatever it takes, we should become specters and exact vengeance.

547
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: And I've got I've added an illustration here of meeting

548
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: of all the tools hanging out, but beside a tree.

549
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 1: We've got like a it's hard to tell what a

550
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: lot of those are. There's obviously a Buddhist rosary, and

551
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 1: there's something that looks like a whip. Yeah, somethink it

552
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: was kind of like a foot rest or a side table.

553
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 1: There's something looks like a plunger. I don't think that's

554
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 1: what it is anyway. So one of the discarded tools was,

555
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: as I just mentioned, a Buddhist Rosary, and it was

556
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 1: called each year en Novice and h the each year

557
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 1: in Novice counseled against vengeance, saying that well, our our

558
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 1: karma probably earned us the fate of being thrown out,

559
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 1: and we should instead turn the other cheek. But the

560
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: others do not like this, and the discard there was.

561
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:32,760
Speaker 1: There's one discarded tool, which is a club, the discarded club,

562
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: which Nariko t Rider translates as rough John, and rough

563
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: John insults the eat your in novice and beats him

564
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: within an inch of his life. I guess he beats

565
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:47,200
Speaker 1: him with himself. So the Rosary doesn't die. The Rosary

566
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 1: escapes with the help of his disciples. I guess he's

567
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: a Buddhist teacher Rosary and he's got disciples. But then

568
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: there's another discarded tool. This discarded tool is an old

569
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: scroll named Professor Classical Chinese literature. Um, that's I don't

570
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 1: know that, maybe could have a more creative name. But

571
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: I bet there's probably a pun in the original language there.

572
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 1: I bet so there's something lost in the translation. Well,

573
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:15,400
Speaker 1: writer mentions that this thing is full of puns and

574
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 1: word play, that a lot of it just doesn't come

575
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 1: through in the English But so the professor Scroll addresses

576
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 1: everybody with a plan. He says, quote, the beginning of

577
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 1: creation is chaos, and there is no form for humans,

578
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: grasses or trees. But because of yin Yang energy and

579
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:36,240
Speaker 1: the heavenly furnace, things are given temporary shapes. If we

580
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 1: chance upon the art of yin Yang and heavenly craft,

581
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 1: we inanimate beings will surely be given souls. Aren't such

582
00:32:45,120 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 1: stories as the old pebbles talking and Mr Goose turning

583
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: into a carriage? And Writer mentions that nobody knows what

584
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:56,239
Speaker 1: that means testimony to the transformation of beings at the

585
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 1: time of yin yang change. So let us wait for

586
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 1: the Setsubun, which is the lunar New Year's eve, when

587
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: Yin and Yang change their places and shapes are formed

588
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: out of entities. At that time we must empty ourselves

589
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 1: and leave our bodies to the hands of a creation god.

590
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 1: Then we will surely become specters. So the eve of

591
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: the lunar New Year comes around, and the tools do

592
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 1: what the professor advised them. They empty themselves and the

593
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 1: creation God uses its power to change them into vengeful specters. Quote.

594
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 1: Some tools became men or women, older, young, others took

595
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: the shape of demons or goblins. Still others became beasts

596
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: such as foxes and wolves. These various shapes were indeed

597
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 1: fearful beyond description. And I've got another image here of

598
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 1: what they look like once they're transformed. And and this

599
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 1: is where we begin to see these spirits take on

600
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: the the often common kind of comical appearance that you

601
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: see in these various Yokai paintings. Yeah, you know, we

602
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 1: will see this weird it looks like an umbrella, that

603
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Well, it's interesting the way you see

604
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 1: this mingling of sort of like this comical trickster thing

605
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 1: with this horrible, violent, malevolent spirit thing. They seem to

606
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:13,359
Speaker 1: exist right alongside each other. Like it's not like a

607
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:16,840
Speaker 1: demon is either just funny and playing jokes on you,

608
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 1: or it's like eating you and kidnapping your children and

609
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: boiling them alive. It's doing both. So after this transformation

610
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 1: of the spirits, the reign of terror really begins. So

611
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: they go in and out of the capital city taking

612
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:34,640
Speaker 1: out their anger against humans of all kinds. They steal

613
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 1: animals and eat them, They kidnap humans and eat them.

614
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: They're invisible, so the people don't really have any way

615
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 1: of protecting themselves against them except for prayers, and so

616
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 1: the tool Specters have a fabulous time exacting their revenge.

617
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: They hold banquets and festivals around around their tricks and

618
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 1: and their their vengeance. They have dances, they have drinking

619
00:34:56,160 --> 00:35:00,120
Speaker 1: poetry readings, and eventually quote building a castle out of

620
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: flesh and creating a blood fountain. Damn. So things are

621
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 1: officially out of hand at this point. They are talking

622
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 1: about building things out of flesh and making blood fountains. Yes,

623
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 1: and that's all it says about that. No, no further

624
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: commentary about the flesh castle or the blood fountain. But

625
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 1: this all comes to a head when the tool Specters

626
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: attack a Prince regent's party as it's proceeding through the streets,

627
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,279
Speaker 1: and the Prince Regent repels the tool Specters with the

628
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 1: help of a magical amulet, and this leads to a

629
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: long section. The story in terms of just scroll length,

630
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: is not nearly over by this point, because it gets

631
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:43,799
Speaker 1: into all this involved stuff about the imperial powers invoking

632
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 1: the help of Buddhist religious leaders to summon spirits known

633
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 1: as the Divine Boys to banish the Sukumogami, and then

634
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 1: after the Sukumogami are defeated and humbled by the Divine Boys,

635
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: the tool specters convert to Buddhism, and after that the

636
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 1: scroll descends into this highly didactic parable about religious doctrine,

637
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:08,399
Speaker 1: about like attaining Buddha hood and the virtues of specifically

638
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: the right kind of Buddhism, which is Shingon esoteric Buddhism.

639
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 1: Like the scroll is sectarian, it's working hard for the

640
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 1: Shingon sect with the Tools all repenting and joining up

641
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 1: and achieving Buddha hood through their devotion to the Shingon program.

642
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:26,960
Speaker 1: And it kind of reminds me of like those Christian

643
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 1: apocalypse movies that have a thriller plot about the Antichrist

644
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:32,520
Speaker 1: early on, but then the last twenty minutes is just

645
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 1: a sermon about full immersion baptism. Yes, yeah, I know

646
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,200
Speaker 1: exactly the sort of thing look like going to haunted

647
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 1: tractional haunted house. And then after after you get out

648
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 1: of the house, you're you have to listen to a sermon.

649
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: Like the plot kind of stops and you realize what

650
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:49,719
Speaker 1: this whole exercise was really about, yeah, or at least

651
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: what paid for it. But I think that the tool

652
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:55,399
Speaker 1: specter's part is not incidental to the religious message because

653
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:58,400
Speaker 1: it actually does make a theological point. I think basically

654
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 1: it's saying, hey, if even beings who are non sentient

655
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: tools can achieve enlightenment through the awesome power of the

656
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:08,840
Speaker 1: shingle on esoteric Buddhism, think what a human could do.

657
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, If this you know, umbrella or you know,

658
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: a discarded UH shovel, it can essentially gain a soul

659
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: and UH and achieve Buddha hood, then then certainly a

660
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:25,360
Speaker 1: human can do that as well, like you already have

661
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:29,799
Speaker 1: this tremendous advantage over a pair of head shears. Yeah.

662
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,399
Speaker 1: And actually, in her book, writer goes on to talk

663
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: about like the traditions of UH. There's this isn't not

664
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 1: the only story like this. There's this whole tradition of

665
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:43,400
Speaker 1: non human things attaining Buddha hood. This is fascinating because

666
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:47,399
Speaker 1: especially when we're talking about Japanese traditions here. Uh. There

667
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:52,320
Speaker 1: is a Japanese wrestling promotion professional wrestling promotion called DDT,

668
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 1: and they have one championship in the promotion. I think

669
00:37:57,520 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 1: it's there like their hardcore title UM and it started

670
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 1: off with just various people holding the belt, but then

671
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 1: various inanimate objects began to win the championship as well,

672
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 1: Like I think a ladder has won the championship. I

673
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:17,319
Speaker 1: think the championship itself won itself at some point. I

674
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 1: can't remember the entire um you know, lineage there, but

675
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 1: but I wonder to what extent that plays in with

676
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 1: these traditions, the idea that an inanimate object can can

677
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 1: achieve something with its spirit, with its soul, then of

678
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:33,479
Speaker 1: course it can also win a championship professional wrestling belt. Yeah,

679
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:37,240
Speaker 1: despite the fact that this scroll descends into like making

680
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:42,000
Speaker 1: theological points, there's clearly like that kind of cheekiness about it,

681
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 1: Like the the author of the story is having a

682
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:46,959
Speaker 1: lot of fun and writer, as I mentioned earlier, points

683
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 1: out that there's a lot of there are a lot

684
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 1: of like puns and word play that don't come through

685
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 1: in the English version, but that this is I think

686
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 1: supposed to be entertaining and funny. Like it's a little

687
00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 1: bit absurd the idea of like a club gaining a ole,

688
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:03,520
Speaker 1: or like a you know, the Rosary having disciples and

689
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:06,760
Speaker 1: all that, but that it actually does end up being

690
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:09,840
Speaker 1: part of the theological point that's being made. So is

691
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: that that sweet spot that's mixing, Like, is it absurd

692
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:15,400
Speaker 1: just for comedy or is it actually making a point.

693
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 1: It's kind of both, yeah, And it can be difficult

694
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 1: to to really judge outside of its language or outside

695
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:24,880
Speaker 1: of its time and culture. Now, as for the idea itself,

696
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:27,360
Speaker 1: writer points out on our scholarship that the legend of

697
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 1: the Suka Mogami does not come from this story. Rather,

698
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 1: this story was created as an entertaining vehicle to sell

699
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,480
Speaker 1: the virtues of Shingon Buddhism to a wide audience by

700
00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 1: capitalizing on the pre existing belief in the Sukamogami, which

701
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:46,399
Speaker 1: is just this popular folk idea that tools must be

702
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 1: discarded before they become too old and gain a soul

703
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 1: and start getting up to no good. Uh. And so

704
00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:54,760
Speaker 1: in the record of the tool specters itself, it almost

705
00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:58,240
Speaker 1: seems a little bit backwards, right, because the tools somehow

706
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 1: already seemed to be sent to in at least by

707
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: the time like right after they get thrown out. Then

708
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: it's the throwing out that causes them to want revenge

709
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: on people and become monsters and build the flesh Palace

710
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,759
Speaker 1: and the blood fountain, when originally the tradition is that

711
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:15,879
Speaker 1: the throwing out is what's supposed to prevent this right.

712
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: By throwing them out is what's supposed to keep them

713
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:21,319
Speaker 1: from becoming vengeful spirits that that mess with you. So

714
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:24,560
Speaker 1: the mythology in this one particular scroll seems a little. Uh.

715
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the order of causation is here,

716
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:31,239
Speaker 1: but I'm captivated by the idea of like wanting to

717
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 1: get rid of household items for the fear that they

718
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: become endowed with a soul and do harm to their owners. Well,

719
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: I mean it comes back to to some of the

720
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: Baitic basic Buddhist ideas concerning attachment right and having too many,

721
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: too many things or or you know, physical things or

722
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:52,200
Speaker 1: non physical things in your life that you are shackle

723
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: to in one way or another. You know, and you

724
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 1: can imagine it coming to the point where you essentially

725
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:01,880
Speaker 1: are in a household where the items no longer serve you,

726
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: but you serve them because they all have taken on

727
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 1: a life of their own. You know. I did not

728
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:08,239
Speaker 1: think at all about the parallel to the idea of

729
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:10,799
Speaker 1: attachment and Buddhist I don't know how that went over

730
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 1: my head. But yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's like part profound

731
00:41:14,920 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: insight on the nature of suffering and attachment and part

732
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 1: Brave Little Toaster. Know what's to deal with the Brave

733
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: Little Toaster? You don't know the Brave Little Toaster children's book.

734
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 1: It's a children's movie in which household items have uh

735
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 1: there there, they have humanlike characteristics, and they get abandoned

736
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 1: in an old house. And I think after journey across

737
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 1: the wilderness, it's like homeward bound, except instead of like

738
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:39,319
Speaker 1: dogs and a cat, it's a toaster and a lamp

739
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 1: and a radio. Well, you know this makes this, of course,

740
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 1: reminds me of Maximum Overdrive Stephen King film. I wondered

741
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:49,879
Speaker 1: to what extent Maximum Overdrive is a treatment of these

742
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 1: same ideas. Probably be reaching we get there, Yeah, probably

743
00:41:54,680 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 1: reach and probably reaching after the Maximum Overdrive content here.

744
00:41:58,400 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a second break, and when we

745
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 1: come back we will talk a little bit about the

746
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 1: idea of anthropomorphizing objects. Thank alright, we're back. You know,

747
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 1: I joked about Maximum Overdrive, But as I've mentioned before,

748
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 1: Maximum Overdrive is a less ridiculous film. The more we

749
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 1: um we imbue our our daily objects in our vehicles, etcetera,

750
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:27,640
Speaker 1: with with with some level of gadgetry, with internet connections

751
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:31,760
Speaker 1: and human voices and in a sense, but the Internet

752
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 1: of things is kind of like a we were filling

753
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:38,440
Speaker 1: our objects with more unruly spirits or opening them up

754
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:43,280
Speaker 1: to malicious spirit um possession. Well that's an interesting idea

755
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:45,880
Speaker 1: because I actually so I want to look at a

756
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 1: study that sort of puts together a framework for thinking

757
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 1: about when we anthropomorphize a non human objects. So, of course,

758
00:42:53,760 --> 00:43:00,280
Speaker 1: anthromorphization or anthropomorphism is when you attribute human characteristics, thoughts, feelings,

759
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:02,759
Speaker 1: or tendencies to non human objects. So this could be

760
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:06,400
Speaker 1: two animals, or it could be to robots or a computer,

761
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:08,799
Speaker 1: or even just like a you know, a coffee mug.

762
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 1: You put a smiley face on a coffee mug, and

763
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:14,319
Speaker 1: you're gonna be afraid to shatter it because you've given

764
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:18,000
Speaker 1: it a face. You've given it some like the slight

765
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 1: sliver of human identity. Yeah, and tons of studies have

766
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:24,919
Speaker 1: shown that we are we are so bad at not

767
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 1: doing this, Like we we really just give ourselves over

768
00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 1: to anthropomorphism very easily. It takes almost no work at all.

769
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:35,879
Speaker 1: Once people get a room, but they essentially think about

770
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,919
Speaker 1: it as another person that lives in the house. It's

771
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:42,480
Speaker 1: I mean, we are this. This is just an absolutely

772
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:46,320
Speaker 1: insanely weak point of entry into our brains. This is

773
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 1: how the skynet, the anti sky Net resistance defenses get penetrated.

774
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 1: You just barely ask people to think of a machine

775
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: as human and they'll do it. And it's an interesting

776
00:43:56,160 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: question to think, like what the adaptive value that kind

777
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 1: of like broadly inclusive idea of humanity is because on

778
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you often just it seems like

779
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:09,959
Speaker 1: people are way too quick to dehumanize each other real

780
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: other humans, Right, you know, you don't like somebody for

781
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: some reason, and you start thinking of them is not

782
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 1: really human. And yet the you know, the room by

783
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:20,919
Speaker 1: bumping into your feet is like, that's a person. Yeah,

784
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: we can be so selective about it when it comes

785
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 1: to other humans and categorizations of humans. But yeah, when

786
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 1: it comes to household items, we can just fall down

787
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 1: this well of of of placing way too much value

788
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: on all of our possessions. Yeah. Now, I wanted to

789
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:40,439
Speaker 1: look at one study that U the just basically put

790
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:44,239
Speaker 1: forward an interesting three part framework for thinking about the

791
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:49,399
Speaker 1: conditions under which we anthropomorphize objects. So this was by Epley,

792
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:53,439
Speaker 1: Weights and Capoccio in Psychological Review in two thousands seven

793
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 1: called on Seeing Human a three factor theory of anthropomorphism,

794
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:00,920
Speaker 1: and basically I'll just do the short version. The authors

795
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:03,359
Speaker 1: here put forward a framework that suggests people are more

796
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:08,240
Speaker 1: likely to anthropomorphize under certain conditions, like you don't always

797
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 1: anthropomorphize everything, equally, certain things are more likely to get anthropomorphized,

798
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:18,040
Speaker 1: and certain things make you more uh increase your tendency

799
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 1: to do so. So one of the things they put

800
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:25,840
Speaker 1: forward is uh quote the accessibility and applicability of anthropocentric

801
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:29,080
Speaker 1: knowledge elicited agent knowledge. And this just means like when

802
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 1: you can think of ways that this object actually is

803
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 1: like a person, So like you can identify characteristics that

804
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 1: are in some ways actually like what a person is like,

805
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:42,480
Speaker 1: Like if there is an object, even if it's a

806
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,240
Speaker 1: garbage can, that a peers to sort of have a head,

807
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:48,239
Speaker 1: or it's sort of has two feet, you know, or

808
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 1: or the way that two screws or holding like a

809
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:54,479
Speaker 1: coat rack on the wall, it may look like those

810
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 1: are eyes. The second is quote the motivation to explain

811
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 1: and understand the behavior your of agents, which or they

812
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 1: call this effectantce motivation. So essentially here this is just

813
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:08,799
Speaker 1: like when a thing's behavior is confusing to you and

814
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: you're trying to understand why it's doing what it's doing.

815
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 1: Under that condition, people start thinking of the thing as

816
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 1: being like a human because they're they're trying to find

817
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:21,320
Speaker 1: some avenue to explain behavior, and that's like the easiest

818
00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:24,240
Speaker 1: thing to go to. It's a poor carpenter who blames

819
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:27,320
Speaker 1: his tools, and yet at the same time that's exactly

820
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here. Well, yeah, it's like when

821
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:31,600
Speaker 1: your computer is screwing up and you don't know what's

822
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:34,719
Speaker 1: causing it, Like you can't actually troubleshoot it from a

823
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:38,040
Speaker 1: mechanical point of view, so you just start attributing malice

824
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: to be like, what is this computer doing to me? Now, yeah, yeah,

825
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 1: it's it's acting up. It is it is, it is.

826
00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:47,520
Speaker 1: It takes on this malicious spirit. Yeah, and this is

827
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 1: actually a useful way of thinking. I mean, this is uh,

828
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 1: this is, in Daniel Dennett's terms, the intentional stance, Like

829
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:56,600
Speaker 1: if you can't think of why something is happening from

830
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:59,160
Speaker 1: the physical stance or the design stance, like you can't

831
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:02,799
Speaker 1: actually get into the code and troubleshoot your computer. You

832
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 1: just start thinking about it as if it has intentions,

833
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 1: because that's the only level that you're capable of accessing, right,

834
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:11,879
Speaker 1: And I basically think about printers this way all the time.

835
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 1: I just I'm just a step away from just assuming

836
00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:19,200
Speaker 1: that there is a malicious spirit that resides in every printer.

837
00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:22,279
Speaker 1: And then the third motivation that they pose it is

838
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:25,719
Speaker 1: the desire for social contact and affiliation, which they called

839
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 1: the sociality motivation. And this is when people feel they

840
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:33,600
Speaker 1: need social contact and relationships. When you're when you're feeling lonely,

841
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:37,759
Speaker 1: when you're feeling a desire for stronger social bonds, you

842
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 1: are more likely they hypothesize to anthropomorphized non human objects.

843
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:45,439
Speaker 1: And then there were some follow up studies, actually one

844
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:49,360
Speaker 1: by Epley A, Kalis, Weights and Capoccio in two thousand

845
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 1: eight in Psychological Science. Uh that essentially it tested out

846
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:58,160
Speaker 1: this question about loneliness and anthropomorphization. So they took gadgets

847
00:47:58,239 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 1: like an alarm clock and air purifier and so forth,

848
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:04,719
Speaker 1: and ask people to rate how much they saw human

849
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 1: qualities in these objects. Like the questions that would suss

850
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 1: out do you think it has feelings, do you think

851
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:14,120
Speaker 1: it has intentions? And they found essentially that the lonelier

852
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:18,399
Speaker 1: you are, the more likely you are to anthropomorphize non

853
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 1: human objects. And uh so that is one of the

854
00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:23,240
Speaker 1: you know, that's one of those kind of like social

855
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:25,920
Speaker 1: science studies, like I wonder if that could be replicated.

856
00:48:26,120 --> 00:48:29,960
Speaker 1: There is a replication of it from sixteen by Bart's,

857
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: Chilova and uh Finurci, and so this was also in

858
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,520
Speaker 1: psychological science. It replicated the last study with a larger sample.

859
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 1: They also found that this is kind of interesting. So

860
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 1: people who are more psychologically lonely are more likely to

861
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:48,800
Speaker 1: think that inanimate objects have intentions and thoughts and stuff.

862
00:48:49,120 --> 00:48:51,759
Speaker 1: But if you just ask people to think about a

863
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: close personal relationship with someone that they could depend on,

864
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 1: that caused people to anthropomorphize gadgets less if you just

865
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:02,720
Speaker 1: spin to minute thinking about that relationship in that person

866
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:06,280
Speaker 1: and then I just want to read another quote quote.

867
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:11,200
Speaker 1: Last we showed the attachment anxiety, characterized by intense desire

868
00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:15,200
Speaker 1: for and preoccupation with closeness, fear of abandonment, and hyper

869
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:20,400
Speaker 1: vigilance to social cues, was a stronger predictor of anthropomorphism

870
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:24,400
Speaker 1: than loneliness. Was. This finding helps clarify the mechanisms underlying

871
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:28,799
Speaker 1: anthropomorphism and supports the idea that anthropomorphism is a motivated

872
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 1: process reflecting the active search for potential sources of connection.

873
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 1: So we know that it's extremely common to to sort

874
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 1: of see a spirit in inanimate object. Even if you

875
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 1: rationally know that, you know there's no reason to think

876
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:45,799
Speaker 1: that this old inanimate object from my house, this old

877
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:48,400
Speaker 1: gardening tool or whatever, actually has a soul or a

878
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 1: spirit or anything magic about it or thoughts or intentions.

879
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: We we have this tendency to see it that way,

880
00:49:54,040 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 1: to think it has maybe bad energy that needs to

881
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:58,920
Speaker 1: be gotten rid of or good energy that needs to

882
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 1: be protected. In pres irved. Clearly this energy is in us,

883
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 1: It's in our brains. But this is this, This is

884
00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: a powerful feeling that lots of people share, and this

885
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 1: seems to be one thing that could be going on

886
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:15,319
Speaker 1: when we project intentions on objects this way. It's not

887
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: just about the object itself. A lot of times, it's

888
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 1: about what we need socially, right, And so you could

889
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 1: you can you can have these in situations where if

890
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:25,919
Speaker 1: an individual doesn't have enough like personal connections in their

891
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:30,000
Speaker 1: life and it makes them more susceptible to the sort

892
00:50:30,040 --> 00:50:33,960
Speaker 1: of the siren song of the spirits and their possessions. Yeah,

893
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:36,120
Speaker 1: and you can see it going both ways, right, Like

894
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:39,360
Speaker 1: you could see it if people are more likely to

895
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:43,759
Speaker 1: anthropomorphize objects, inanimate objects in a friendly way when they're

896
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:46,840
Speaker 1: more lonely. You can see how like having fear about

897
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:50,319
Speaker 1: loss of social connections, this attachment anxiety kind of state

898
00:50:50,360 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 1: of mind could make you more likely to want to

899
00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:55,560
Speaker 1: want to not let go of things to keep them,

900
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:57,480
Speaker 1: because it would almost be like if you let go

901
00:50:57,560 --> 00:51:00,480
Speaker 1: of them, it's more like losing friends or like losing pets.

902
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:03,280
Speaker 1: And it's certainly I'm not going to be the person

903
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,880
Speaker 1: to say, uh, throw your dolls away if they're making

904
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:09,399
Speaker 1: you happy, you know, I mean, if it's if it's

905
00:51:09,400 --> 00:51:12,320
Speaker 1: not helping you cope with, say, kind of a lonely

906
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 1: time in your life, or just helps you cope with loneliness.

907
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:17,239
Speaker 1: In general, life can be lonely. It's all right to

908
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:19,279
Speaker 1: have a few bobble heads around. Yeah. Well, I mean,

909
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:21,719
Speaker 1: another thing that's clearly coming through in these studies is

910
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:26,440
Speaker 1: that loneliness is not an objective state. It's a subjective state.

911
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 1: Loneliness does not go away if you just actually physically

912
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:35,280
Speaker 1: have people around you. Loneliness depends on how you feel

913
00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:38,960
Speaker 1: about your relationships, you know. I want to actually go

914
00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: back to Nariko t Writer for a minute in her

915
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:44,839
Speaker 1: Seven Demon Stories book, because she she has a long

916
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:47,280
Speaker 1: section in that book discussing all kinds of interesting ideas

917
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:49,759
Speaker 1: about the Suka mogami. But one of the things in

918
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:52,040
Speaker 1: there is the idea of, like, where does this come from?

919
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:55,280
Speaker 1: Like what's the possible origin of the tool specter's belief?

920
00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:58,840
Speaker 1: And one of the things she points to is um

921
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:04,319
Speaker 1: the possibility of uh this belief coming from rituals in

922
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:08,760
Speaker 1: which an evil possessing demon is exercised from a person

923
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 1: and deposited into a physical thing. And she gives an

924
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 1: example of records about this type of purification ceremony that

925
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:20,760
Speaker 1: quote was held twice a year in the Imperial Palace,

926
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: when the Emperor, Impress and Crown prints transferred their impurities

927
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:28,480
Speaker 1: as well as the accumulated impurities of the nation into

928
00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:33,040
Speaker 1: five bamboo scales, swords, and a pot into which they

929
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:38,600
Speaker 1: breathed these agomano things into which pollution, defilement, and crimes

930
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:41,960
Speaker 1: are transferred for a purification ceremony. Were then to be

931
00:52:42,080 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: thrown away in the river or on river banks. The

932
00:52:45,239 --> 00:52:49,160
Speaker 1: discarded agomano, paper, dolls, jars, and whatever was used for

933
00:52:49,200 --> 00:52:52,880
Speaker 1: the purification ceremony were to be abandoned with people's breath

934
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:56,239
Speaker 1: and impurities. These abandoned objects may have been thought to

935
00:52:56,280 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 1: contain evil spirits and to act vengefully. Again, tools and

936
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:02,879
Speaker 1: utensils used in rituals seem to have had a deep

937
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:08,279
Speaker 1: relationship with the formation of Sukumagami beliefs, So this is

938
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:12,799
Speaker 1: tracing it back to like another sense of purging, like

939
00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:16,120
Speaker 1: that not only do you purge bad old objects to

940
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:18,000
Speaker 1: get rid of them and get their you know, get

941
00:53:18,040 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 1: the spirit that you've imbued them without of your way.

942
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:23,840
Speaker 1: That they were like literal rituals where you purge the

943
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:26,840
Speaker 1: badness out of yourself, you put it in a physical,

944
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:29,720
Speaker 1: inanimate object, and then you get rid of that object

945
00:53:29,760 --> 00:53:31,719
Speaker 1: to take it away. It's sort of a classic type

946
00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:35,080
Speaker 1: of like the sort of version of sympathetic magic, you know,

947
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:38,000
Speaker 1: where you're like you're transferring something to something else by

948
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:41,640
Speaker 1: touch or by ritual breathing or contact, and then you

949
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:43,880
Speaker 1: purge it, you get it out of your surroundings and

950
00:53:43,920 --> 00:53:46,479
Speaker 1: it takes away the bad stuff with it. Oh yeah,

951
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:49,440
Speaker 1: kind of like writing a nasty email and then deleting

952
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:52,200
Speaker 1: it instead of sending it, that sort of thing. Kind

953
00:53:52,239 --> 00:53:54,440
Speaker 1: of like that. Though, I think I've I've said on

954
00:53:54,440 --> 00:53:57,640
Speaker 1: this show before that I have mixed feelings about the

955
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:02,239
Speaker 1: virtues of venting actually, like expressing your frustrations to get

956
00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:05,920
Speaker 1: them out. I feel pretty convinced that sometimes enumerating all

957
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:09,480
Speaker 1: your frustrations with a person does not actually make you

958
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:12,319
Speaker 1: feel better in the long run, does not improve your

959
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,239
Speaker 1: state of mind, but can actually tend to make you

960
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:18,520
Speaker 1: just feel more frustrated, Like, you know, listing all the

961
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:21,440
Speaker 1: things you're mad about. It might be good to like

962
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:26,040
Speaker 1: have somebody sympathetic to talk to about your frustrations. But

963
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:28,759
Speaker 1: but I I have seen lots of cases in my

964
00:54:28,840 --> 00:54:32,399
Speaker 1: life where venting that was supposed to help somebody feel

965
00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:35,680
Speaker 1: better makes them feel worse and just makes them make

966
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:39,520
Speaker 1: themselves matter and matter. Yeah, I can just gonna get

967
00:54:39,520 --> 00:54:42,319
Speaker 1: you riled up and and then there's no real way

968
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:44,719
Speaker 1: to shut it off. This this all does make like

969
00:54:44,719 --> 00:54:48,520
Speaker 1: we're talking about kind of like literal um ways of

970
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:52,359
Speaker 1: venting and releasing here. I'm trying to think if there

971
00:54:52,400 --> 00:54:57,480
Speaker 1: are any modern like secular or even just Western traditions

972
00:54:57,520 --> 00:55:02,360
Speaker 1: that really entail this kind of like the the sympathetic

973
00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:06,280
Speaker 1: magic of taking uh the bad out of you, putting

974
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:09,040
Speaker 1: into into something else, and than discarding it. Yeah. Well,

975
00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:12,759
Speaker 1: I mean I wonder if this is this is the

976
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:16,479
Speaker 1: kind of thing that more secular people could benefit from

977
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:19,240
Speaker 1: without having to literally believe in any sort of magic,

978
00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:24,600
Speaker 1: to just sort of enact a psychological drama that where

979
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:26,840
Speaker 1: where you like take all the bad stuff out and

980
00:55:26,880 --> 00:55:28,879
Speaker 1: you put it in an object and you get rid

981
00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:32,400
Speaker 1: of that object. If even even though you're not believing

982
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:35,279
Speaker 1: that this has literal magic power or their souls or

983
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 1: spirits or ghosts or anything like that, the doing the

984
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:43,919
Speaker 1: physical ritual does something healthy and healing to your mind. Yeah. Yeah,

985
00:55:43,960 --> 00:55:47,799
Speaker 1: and into a certain extent, various like self help scenarios,

986
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:51,440
Speaker 1: you you are dealing with a spirit, and the spirit

987
00:55:51,440 --> 00:55:54,560
Speaker 1: you're you're kind of trying to go exercises yourself in

988
00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:58,480
Speaker 1: the sense that you're trying to become a new person. Uh.

989
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:00,920
Speaker 1: You know, we've talked about an the show before, like

990
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:03,719
Speaker 1: how you know how ridiculous that may seem, because we

991
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:06,600
Speaker 1: are always becoming a new person. We are essentially we're

992
00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:09,280
Speaker 1: a different person now than we were earlier this morning,

993
00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 1: will be a different person this afternoon. But we're also

994
00:56:12,120 --> 00:56:15,120
Speaker 1: creatures of habit, and we tend to do what we've

995
00:56:15,160 --> 00:56:18,360
Speaker 1: done before, and we tend to think what we've thought before.

996
00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:23,680
Speaker 1: And without without some kind of rupturing of those habits cycles,

997
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:26,600
Speaker 1: without something to to come in and force a change

998
00:56:26,600 --> 00:56:29,799
Speaker 1: of routine, we will just tend to do the things

999
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:32,680
Speaker 1: we've done before. And sometimes those things are are things

1000
00:56:32,719 --> 00:56:35,080
Speaker 1: that make us feel bad. Right, And of course, if

1001
00:56:35,120 --> 00:56:38,319
Speaker 1: we're trying to change our routine, it's I've often seen

1002
00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:40,360
Speaker 1: it pointed out that it's easier to change your routine

1003
00:56:40,440 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 1: if you are, say on a trip, you know you're

1004
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:45,680
Speaker 1: going vacations. Suddenly you can, you know, for many number

1005
00:56:45,719 --> 00:56:47,120
Speaker 1: of reasons, you can do things you don't do in

1006
00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:50,680
Speaker 1: a typical week. But sometimes, like just having a different

1007
00:56:50,680 --> 00:56:54,080
Speaker 1: physical environment allows you to break some of these habits

1008
00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:57,480
Speaker 1: that you've kept before. And physical ritual could be like

1009
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:03,080
Speaker 1: that too, right, and certainly, changing your immediate physical uh circumstances,

1010
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:06,719
Speaker 1: you know, purging yourself with various items could give you

1011
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:11,840
Speaker 1: the advantage that you need in creating some new habits

1012
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:13,960
Speaker 1: in your life. You know what I started at the

1013
00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:16,480
Speaker 1: beginning saying, I don't have a take because I've never

1014
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:19,000
Speaker 1: watched the Marie Condo stuff or whatever, But I think

1015
00:57:19,080 --> 00:57:21,520
Speaker 1: maybe I'm coming around. I think through the course of

1016
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:24,840
Speaker 1: this episode, I've talked myself into the idea that maybe,

1017
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:29,240
Speaker 1: like changing your physical surroundings, purging yourself of old items

1018
00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:31,880
Speaker 1: that that you don't actually need anymore or have in

1019
00:57:31,920 --> 00:57:35,000
Speaker 1: a metaphorical way, become imbued with some kind of bad spirit,

1020
00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:38,320
Speaker 1: that's the associations in your memory that could actually have

1021
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:41,640
Speaker 1: a really positive impact on your life. Maybe people should

1022
00:57:41,680 --> 00:57:44,960
Speaker 1: try it out. This episode is not paid for by

1023
00:57:45,040 --> 00:57:47,840
Speaker 1: the Marie Condo Show or anything like that, by the way, No, no,

1024
00:57:47,960 --> 00:57:51,520
Speaker 1: not at all. But speaking of Netflix, they've got Marie Condo. Okay,

1025
00:57:51,680 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 1: it's it's a hit. They have the Sabrina show where

1026
00:57:55,720 --> 00:57:57,920
Speaker 1: she fights demons, and it's a hit. They need to

1027
00:57:57,960 --> 00:58:00,000
Speaker 1: bridge these two. They need a show in which Marie

1028
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:03,760
Speaker 1: Eacondo physically battles demons. If he goes to people's house,

1029
00:58:04,160 --> 00:58:06,320
Speaker 1: the houses to help them deal with their clutter, and

1030
00:58:06,400 --> 00:58:10,360
Speaker 1: then she physically battles the spirits of these items with

1031
00:58:10,480 --> 00:58:13,320
Speaker 1: a sword, gouges their eyes out, real real good. This

1032
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:18,439
Speaker 1: proposal is definitely sparking some joy in me. I'm I'm yeah,

1033
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:20,920
Speaker 1: I'm with you here. But in any case, yeah, I've

1034
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:23,400
Speaker 1: been brought around. I think whether it's a Western style

1035
00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:27,200
Speaker 1: New Year's resolution, whether it's a ritual for lunar New Year,

1036
00:58:27,640 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 1: or whether it's good old fashioned spring cleaning, I think

1037
00:58:29,880 --> 00:58:34,200
Speaker 1: maybe maybe some good physical environment exorcism is actually a

1038
00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:36,400
Speaker 1: healthy thing to consider. All right, we're gonna end it

1039
00:58:36,520 --> 00:58:38,440
Speaker 1: right there, But if you want to check out more

1040
00:58:38,480 --> 00:58:40,640
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over

1041
00:58:40,720 --> 00:58:42,400
Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where

1042
00:58:42,400 --> 00:58:45,120
Speaker 1: we'll find all the episodes. That's where you'll find links

1043
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:47,920
Speaker 1: out to our various social media accounts. That's where you

1044
00:58:47,960 --> 00:58:50,040
Speaker 1: will find our merchandise store, where you can buy some

1045
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:55,400
Speaker 1: cool shirts, stickers, throw pillows, etcetera. With our logo or

1046
00:58:55,480 --> 00:58:57,920
Speaker 1: some cool designs on it. If you buy something there,

1047
00:58:57,920 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 1: that's a cool way to support the show. If you

1048
00:58:59,560 --> 00:59:01,880
Speaker 1: want to s a forth the show, even in an

1049
00:59:01,920 --> 00:59:05,040
Speaker 1: even more essential way, in a way that doesn't cost

1050
00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:08,320
Speaker 1: you a dime, just rate and review us wherever you

1051
00:59:08,440 --> 00:59:11,440
Speaker 1: have the power to do so, and subscribe to invention.

1052
00:59:11,840 --> 00:59:14,960
Speaker 1: That's right, talking about the importance of things in your life?

1053
00:59:15,000 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 1: Where do those things come from, who invented them, who

1054
00:59:18,440 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: improved upon the designs? And then how did they change

1055
00:59:21,080 --> 00:59:23,320
Speaker 1: our lives? Why are we so resistant to throw them out?

1056
00:59:23,600 --> 00:59:27,040
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producers Alex

1057
00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:29,800
Speaker 1: Williams and Try Harrison. If you would like to get

1058
00:59:29,840 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 1: in touch with us directly with feedback on this episode

1059
00:59:32,480 --> 00:59:35,120
Speaker 1: or any other, with a suggestion for a topic on

1060
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Speaker 1: the show in the future, or just to say hi,

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00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:39,560
Speaker 1: you can email us at blow the Mind at how

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00:59:39,640 --> 00:59:52,600
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

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00:59:52,640 --> 00:59:54,960
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: about the Four Foo