Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And of course, if you've been listening to the show
Speaker 1: for a while, you probably know that just about every
Speaker 1: year we bring out some Lunar New Year themed content
Speaker 1: and uh, this year, Lunar New Year fell right on
Speaker 1: a Tuesday. Yeah, so how could we say no to that? Um? Now,
Speaker 1: whether you celebrate Western New Year or you or you
Speaker 1: like a good Lunar New Year or trip both or
Speaker 1: Chinese New Year, well, I think there's always room for
Speaker 1: both celebrations because you can you can shoot for your
Speaker 1: Western New Year, you can make your various goals and resolutions,
Speaker 1: and you can you have a good month to try
Speaker 1: them out and fail with them, and then you have
Speaker 1: another shot. You can say, all right, well I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go for Lunar New Year. This is gonna be my
Speaker 1: new beginning, because that first New Beginning didn't really take
Speaker 1: off like I wanted it to. And if you feel
Speaker 1: like you're early on you've already had your year kind
Speaker 1: of infested with a lot of negative energy, you can
Speaker 1: have some exorcisms, that's right. So that is one of
Speaker 1: the things we're gonna be talking about in this episode.
Speaker 1: It's this this episode, it might seem like something of
Speaker 1: a of a potpourri episode, but but there there's there's
Speaker 1: definitely a string connecting all of these together about the
Speaker 1: exorcism of spirits, the exorcism of you can I mean,
Speaker 1: you can even just think of them as negative emotional
Speaker 1: states and associations from your life as you head into
Speaker 1: some sort of new phase, which is kind of at
Speaker 1: the heart of so many of our approaches to a
Speaker 1: new year, we'll think about what most New Year's resolutions
Speaker 1: actually are. I don't have empirical evidence for this, but
Speaker 1: my gut feeling is that the majority of New Year's
Speaker 1: resolutions are to stop doing something you see as a
Speaker 1: negative presence in your life or reduce doing something you
Speaker 1: see a sort of like a demon on your back. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And now there's been pushback against that, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people say, we what we need to do. If
Speaker 1: we are going to set little resolutions, in addition to
Speaker 1: making them reasonable, we should try and make them more positive,
Speaker 1: like things I Am going to do. Uh. And then,
Speaker 1: of course realizing that you need to make it attainable.
Speaker 1: I don't know, making an attainable sounds kind of scary
Speaker 1: because then you'd have to actually do it. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: then yeah, if you set it up too if you
Speaker 1: set up too much of an obstacle, if the resolution
Speaker 1: is too great, then you're just guaranteed to fail and
Speaker 1: you're gonna feel bad about that. Anyway, what was it
Speaker 1: we said one year in the past? We uh, we
Speaker 1: decided the best New Year's resolution is that every year
Speaker 1: you should decide you're gonna live forever. Maybe so, and
Speaker 1: that might as well, right. Uh So we do have
Speaker 1: to point out that this new year, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of enthusiasm for the uh, the the ideas, the teachings
Speaker 1: of Marie Condo. Oh yes, I've been hearing all about this,
Speaker 1: and I will say so, I have not watched her show,
Speaker 1: I've not read her stuff. I don't really know anything
Speaker 1: about this except what I've gleaned second hand from the culture.
Speaker 1: But I I sense that there is inherent controversy and
Speaker 1: misunderstanding about her whole thing. But basically, what I gather
Speaker 1: is that she's for sort of cleaning, cleansing your physical
Speaker 1: surroundings and purging yourself of unnecessary, unwanted objects. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's my understanding. A lot of people have been watching
Speaker 1: her Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Condo, which which
Speaker 1: was of course released January one, twenty nineteen, clearly aiming
Speaker 1: for New Year's resolution minded folks. Uh. And she uses
Speaker 1: what is what she calls the con Marii method, which
Speaker 1: is said to be inspired by Shinto principles about the
Speaker 1: spirit of things in one's life. And yeah, the basic
Speaker 1: idea is throw out the stuff that isn't necessary and
Speaker 1: doesn't believe the quote is spark joy. Oh yeah, I've
Speaker 1: heard all about sparking joy. Yeah, and you know, I,
Speaker 1: you know I, I see no problem with that. I
Speaker 1: like that idea. I'd like to try and limit the
Speaker 1: clutter in my own life. And if something isn't making
Speaker 1: you happy, and it's a physical object and it's not necessary,
Speaker 1: it's not holding up a bookcase or anything or enabling
Speaker 1: you to make a living, like, what is it? What's
Speaker 1: it doing right? Well? And I also certainly think that,
Speaker 1: and I think I'm sometimes guilty of this myself, that
Speaker 1: hanging on to lots of old objects and not getting
Speaker 1: rid of them can essentially be a way of avoiding
Speaker 1: processing and thinking about your own past, you know, Like
Speaker 1: it can be a way like if you've got stuff
Speaker 1: from previous years that you just know you're not going
Speaker 1: to use again, but you don't want to go through
Speaker 1: it and see what you need to get rid of.
Speaker 1: That can often just be because you don't, you know,
Speaker 1: you're kind of afraid to sit down and think about
Speaker 1: what's been going on in your life, so like you
Speaker 1: don't do it. Yeah, Or one of my favorites when
Speaker 1: you find a box of old stuff that is quote
Speaker 1: unquote meaningful, but you forgot you had it. You have
Speaker 1: like looked in this box in years, and you ask youself, like,
Speaker 1: I think this stuff was dead to me, and I
Speaker 1: have brought it back to life by finding it. Maybe
Speaker 1: it should have just stayed dead. Sometimes dead is better, right,
Speaker 1: As a wise man once said, Uh so, you know,
Speaker 1: not to spend a lot of time on mary condo,
Speaker 1: but I imagine with with her work, Yeah, you're going
Speaker 1: to see people who really dig it, who really get
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about it, people who have a lot of problems
Speaker 1: with it, people who try it and experience success, and
Speaker 1: people who try it and find that, well, here's another
Speaker 1: self help um guru whose advice has not fixed my life.
Speaker 1: And I think that's part of the course with with
Speaker 1: most teachings, uh that are aimed at changing the shape
Speaker 1: of your life. I guess the more religious way of
Speaker 1: thinking about it would be that these objects have like
Speaker 1: a spirit to them, or spiritual energy. You obviously don't
Speaker 1: have to think that there's such a thing as a
Speaker 1: spirit in an object to recognize that objects have significance.
Speaker 1: You know, the objects around you. They trigger certain like
Speaker 1: cascades of memories and and and react actions and emotions,
Speaker 1: and so in a certain way, they can sort of
Speaker 1: have a spirit, even if they don't literally have a soul. Right,
Speaker 1: It's something that we have clearly projected through our own
Speaker 1: imaginations or own memories and even just through the like
Speaker 1: the nature of of building being a tool building and
Speaker 1: tool acquiring an object acquiring species. Yeah, I mean, is
Speaker 1: there any other species that acquires objects in the way
Speaker 1: we do? I mean, you could think about like birds
Speaker 1: that build, you know, bower birds building building nests with
Speaker 1: with strange attractive objects. But there is really nothing like
Speaker 1: us in terms of all the objects we we bring
Speaker 1: to surround ourselves with. Now you might think about a
Speaker 1: lot of those objects is like, well, that's because we
Speaker 1: are you know, primates with tool using intelligence, and most
Speaker 1: of these objects are tools that we've figured out how
Speaker 1: to use, but most of them you don't ever actually use.
Speaker 1: They actually are more like the bower bird that you know,
Speaker 1: most of them are not your kitchen knife that you
Speaker 1: use every day. They might be a tool that could
Speaker 1: maybe do something, but you never do that thing or
Speaker 1: you never use them. So it is more like you're
Speaker 1: just building a nest with strange bits of string intensil,
Speaker 1: and it's not even attracting a mate or keeping your
Speaker 1: in in the sense your collection of bubble heads or
Speaker 1: you're like grandfather's collection of bubble heads. Whatever it happens
Speaker 1: to be like something you even have you don't even
Speaker 1: have direct emotional attachment to. Perhaps like it's it's no
Speaker 1: longer winning you mates, it may be getting in the
Speaker 1: way of your relationship with your existing mate. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's it's this weird byproduct of the human experience. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Of course, then again, we we have a very complex
Speaker 1: way of appreciating our aesthetic surroundings, and some of these
Speaker 1: artificial objects we surround ourselves with are part of that.
Speaker 1: So I guess I walked in here wondering if I
Speaker 1: was going to have a take on the like whole
Speaker 1: like purging all your unwanted old objects thing. I don't
Speaker 1: have a take on it. I guess I just I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say, do it if you want to do it. Well,
Speaker 1: there's my boring pronouncement, folks. Well here's the definite fact.
Speaker 1: Marie Condo was not the first individual to say, hey,
Speaker 1: it's a new beginning, maybe I should throw a few
Speaker 1: things away. Right to think that the new year is
Speaker 1: a time to exercise old demons, whether metaphorically in the
Speaker 1: modern age or quite literally in the mythological context, that's right.
Speaker 1: So in this episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind,
Speaker 1: we are going to We're going to continue to explore
Speaker 1: these themes, and in doing so, we're gonna waltz between
Speaker 1: Chinese and Japanese myths and legends. And first of all,
Speaker 1: we are going to meet a demon slayer. I love
Speaker 1: a good demon slayer. Yeah, so this is gonna be
Speaker 1: what Buffy. No, no, no, this is the true fact.
Speaker 1: Buffy did slay demons in addition to vampires. Most for
Speaker 1: the vampire thing. I guess it looks better on a
Speaker 1: calling card. Most of the interesting ones were more demon
Speaker 1: than vampire, I think. Yeah, the vampires became less essential
Speaker 1: as the series went on. But but no, we're talking
Speaker 1: about one of the greatest did not the greatest demon slayer,
Speaker 1: demon queller, demon defeat exorcist of all time, demon eater,
Speaker 1: demon eatery ghost banisher. Uh demon I Gauger, Yes, I Gouger.
Speaker 1: He was a man, a spirit of of many skills.
Speaker 1: We're talking about zen Quay, the demon queller from from
Speaker 1: Chinese legend in mythology. There are a lot of fantastic
Speaker 1: paintings of zen Quay that I have found all over
Speaker 1: the internet. There's just a rich artistic tradition with this
Speaker 1: guy who's got this severe face that's sort of part
Speaker 1: of his mythology. That he's kind of like like nasty
Speaker 1: looking in the face, but that he's this real tough
Speaker 1: guy with a beard who's usually found commanding a troop
Speaker 1: of demons to do his will. Yeah, he's he's kind
Speaker 1: of a vulcan figure to a certain extent. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: he's he's often kind of like this squat maybe slightly
Speaker 1: ugly or ourid, disfigured individual. The depictions range from him
Speaker 1: just looking like an eccentric um like middle aged scholar
Speaker 1: to looking like an outright like troll with like red
Speaker 1: or dusky skin, you know, like he It varies a lot.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he's kind of serene seeming. Sometimes he is accompanied
Speaker 1: by demons. Other times he is like actively perpetrating violence
Speaker 1: against the demons, sometimes in a procession of demons as
Speaker 1: if on parade, sometimes being carried in a sedan chair
Speaker 1: by demons. So uh I actually, so there are different
Speaker 1: versions of the story about him, different details regarding with
Speaker 1: conflicting details, conflicting details about how he came to be,
Speaker 1: what his role was, who tasked him with this role? Well,
Speaker 1: tell me one version of the story, Robert, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is the first version I came across in a book
Speaker 1: of Chinese mythology. So they got the idea. Here's during
Speaker 1: the eighth century uh Emperor Ming of Time who lived
Speaker 1: six eighty five through seven sixty two. Uh an historic
Speaker 1: individual suffered a fever one night and was assailed by
Speaker 1: a rampaging demon dressed in red trousers. And though he
Speaker 1: asked the demon what its name was, and the demon said,
Speaker 1: my name is quote emptiness and desolation, and the Emperor
Speaker 1: was just powerless to stop it. You know, it's just
Speaker 1: still suffering under this fever. It's this demons running around
Speaker 1: like cat in the hat, just messing anything up. I
Speaker 1: think in some other tellings of it, it's running around
Speaker 1: with a flute and a purse that it has stolen
Speaker 1: from the emperor, which I think is a nice wrinkle
Speaker 1: on everything, because here we see the introduction of objects,
Speaker 1: objects with some sort of value or or or or
Speaker 1: spirit to them. So who will come in to save
Speaker 1: the emperor from this horrible ghost like figure. Well the
Speaker 1: Emperor calls for his guards, of course, but you know
Speaker 1: that that doesn't do any good. I don't even think
Speaker 1: they just they show up. Instead. What happens is a
Speaker 1: great frightening apparition storms into the chamber dressed in tattered
Speaker 1: robes and a torn bandanna. It grabs this red demon up,
Speaker 1: crunches it down into a ball cartoon style and then
Speaker 1: swallows it whole well. And then the spirit introduces itself
Speaker 1: to the Emperor as zong Quai, the soul of a
Speaker 1: talented scholar who committed suicide after failing to achieve top
Speaker 1: honors in the public examinations. The public examinations would have been.
Speaker 1: This was like the test to determine like where you
Speaker 1: were going to be professionally in society, so like if
Speaker 1: you get a good score, you would get some kind
Speaker 1: of good position in government service. Yeah, exactly. So it
Speaker 1: was a huge, huge deal, not no mine or test. Okay,
Speaker 1: So he he fails in achieving the score that he
Speaker 1: was going for, and different versions of it play this differently,
Speaker 1: and some he is kind of cheated out of top scores. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I've read one where he did get a
Speaker 1: top score but then something bad happened to him. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I think there's a version where the emperor at the
Speaker 1: time made fun of him for physical appearance and that
Speaker 1: led to the despair that ends in suicide. So they're yeah,
Speaker 1: there are different versions of exactly how it goes down,
Speaker 1: but in all of them he ends up dying the
Speaker 1: death of a suicide And is uh and is this
Speaker 1: reduced to this raith like form? But here here's the
Speaker 1: important detail. Since the imperial family had shown him honor
Speaker 1: and buried him in green robes like a member of
Speaker 1: the imperial household, despite his shame, he'd sworn to protect
Speaker 1: the emperor and his successors from the demons of despair. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you've got this beyond the grave demon fighter figure
Speaker 1: who's paying back the debt of his honorable burial. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have a vengeful ghost who kills demons, kills rogue spirits.
Speaker 1: Uh and and essentially as the I've seen him described
Speaker 1: as the immortal exorcist of Chinese mythology. And so the
Speaker 1: emperor in this case and this story ends up putting
Speaker 1: up a picture of him to honor him and to
Speaker 1: an invoke his presence over any you know, rogue spirits
Speaker 1: that might mess with his demeanor. And so this hanging
Speaker 1: up of a picture of gen Qui does sort of
Speaker 1: become a tradition, right Oh, yes, absolutely, generally you know,
Speaker 1: by doorways. So yeah, he's this tragic figure, clearly talented
Speaker 1: and driven. And again the details very depending on the telling.
Speaker 1: In one of them, I ran across. So he he dies,
Speaker 1: and he ends up in the tin hells of dai U,
Speaker 1: where the Tin Yama King's reside over the dead. And
Speaker 1: here the lords of the underworld recognize zen Quays potential
Speaker 1: and they offer him the position of King of Ghosts,
Speaker 1: thus tasking him with policing unruly spirits and demons, which
Speaker 1: I think is a pretty awesome origin story as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in fact, I I like that one more because it's
Speaker 1: you know, the the the agency here is not with
Speaker 1: the Emperor but with the lords of Hell. Yeah, they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: look we've got some spirits out here, some demons. They're
Speaker 1: given the tin hell is a bad name. I actually
Speaker 1: need you to go out and police them one by one.
Speaker 1: Like that's a whole that's a TV series right there.
Speaker 1: Like he's a cowboy or he's like an outlaw who's
Speaker 1: given a bounty to go collect or exactly. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this type of figure I feel like this does this
Speaker 1: trope does show up in in even modern fictions. Certainly
Speaker 1: there are plenty of modern fictions that actually use zen
Speaker 1: Quay as a as a title character. You will find
Speaker 1: zen Quay to this day in Chinese television shows, movies.
Speaker 1: I think I saw there was a video game apparently
Speaker 1: video games, the opera, um, etcetera. So he's he's no
Speaker 1: minor figure, as will continue to discuss. So, but basically
Speaker 1: he's roman about out on the land, uh, putting down rogues,
Speaker 1: spirits and ghosts and demons. Oh yeah, he's putting him
Speaker 1: to the sword. He's a he's gouging out their eyes.
Speaker 1: There's there's a painting or a tradition in paintings that
Speaker 1: show him gouging out the eye of a demon. So
Speaker 1: he's pretty ruthfully, he's a frightening figure, you know. With
Speaker 1: then again, there's a long tradition of having like a
Speaker 1: frightening figure to frighten away the demons and the spirits
Speaker 1: and and all the malicious uh unseen entities that might
Speaker 1: mess with with your health and happiness, and and he
Speaker 1: is he is one of them. So he's like a figure,
Speaker 1: a legendary figure embodying the spirit of apotropaic magic, the
Speaker 1: magic of warding off evil spirits and curses and stuff exactly. Now,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, not only is he happy to
Speaker 1: quell and uh and slay and sometimes mutilate and eat
Speaker 1: the demons that are running about, but he'll also bend
Speaker 1: them to his will. He'll make them serve him, carry
Speaker 1: him around on a litter for example, um as well
Speaker 1: as his sister who in the tellings U he's part
Speaker 1: of his gratitude to the emperor is Uh is betrothing
Speaker 1: his his sister to the emperor, I believe. So you
Speaker 1: end up with these illustrations such as the gong Kai
Speaker 1: scroll from the Late Song dynasty, which depicts Zong eat
Speaker 1: it in a litter carried and the litter is carried
Speaker 1: by two male demons, while another litter is carrying his
Speaker 1: sister carried by two female demons. And then you have
Speaker 1: two demon attendants carrying a dog a package. All in all,
Speaker 1: it's an eighteen demon servant entourage marching across this scroll.
Speaker 1: And there are also seven smaller captured demons, some trust
Speaker 1: up or in one case imprisoned in a jar like
Speaker 1: an octopus filling a beer bottle. Yeah, so he's not
Speaker 1: like in a sence, he is like the original Ghostbuster,
Speaker 1: but he's not content to just shove the captured ghosts
Speaker 1: into the containment unit. No, he is here to to
Speaker 1: make all the slimmers and what have you uh carry
Speaker 1: him about and then aid him in his ongoing war
Speaker 1: against the demons. This is an awesome scroll, by the way.
Speaker 1: I mean I mentioned earlier that there's a really cool
Speaker 1: artistic tradition and this is one great example. The demons though,
Speaker 1: so they're doing his will, But often the demons also
Speaker 1: appear to be kind of having a good time, like
Speaker 1: they'll be jumping about and doing cartwheels and sometimes playing instruments. Maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: there is there is definitely a sense of a of
Speaker 1: a parade to what we're seeing here, and it's a
Speaker 1: type of parade that to certainly too Western audiences, it
Speaker 1: instantly makes one think of these crampus parades that one
Speaker 1: sees where you have both um good st Nicholas marching
Speaker 1: through the street, but also the unruly or slightly unruly crampuses.
Speaker 1: And indeed, uh that that actually is there's actually a
Speaker 1: strong comparison to be made between these two when we
Speaker 1: start looking at some of the associations that Zong has
Speaker 1: with New Year's exorcisms in Chinese traditions. Oh yeah, so
Speaker 1: we started with the idea of the lunar new year
Speaker 1: and with exercising the old. So how does zen Quai
Speaker 1: tie back into that? Obviously I can begin to see
Speaker 1: the exorcism part. Oh yes, yeah, so, so I have
Speaker 1: actually a wonderful passage here I want to read. This
Speaker 1: is from a late eighteenth century description of festivities in
Speaker 1: Han Xiao from Wu Zimmu, as quoted by Sherman E.
Speaker 1: Lee in an Artibus Asia article from nine quote. On
Speaker 1: the four day of the twelfth Lunar month, regardless of
Speaker 1: poverty or wealth, all prepare vegetarian food and sweet dishes
Speaker 1: to sacrifice to Zal, the stove god. On the market
Speaker 1: streets are poor beggars three to five men in a
Speaker 1: company costumed as the figures of such as spirits and demons,
Speaker 1: Panguan zong Quai and his younger sister, beating gongs and
Speaker 1: striking drums from house to house they beg for money.
Speaker 1: The end of the twelve month is termed chu Ye,
Speaker 1: the eve of change. The official and commoner families, whether
Speaker 1: of greater or small households, prepare wine, sweep the gates
Speaker 1: and beams, remove the dust and dirt, clean the halls
Speaker 1: and doors. Change the door guardians. Door guardians are are
Speaker 1: a tradition h Chinese households with opi on the doors
Speaker 1: or by the doors uh you know, guarding the household.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, one has seen uh Santa Claus when when
Speaker 1: transferred into modern Chinese holiday traditions, Santa Claus has sometimes
Speaker 1: been utilized as twin doric guardians and hang pictures of
Speaker 1: Zong Quay, so again helped put it put up a
Speaker 1: picture of Zong to help keep the bad spirits away,
Speaker 1: and the passage continues. In the forbidden interior of the
Speaker 1: Imperial Palace, a great exorcism is carried out in a
Speaker 1: demon expelling ceremony. Face masks are placed on the head,
Speaker 1: and clothes and costumes with multi colored embroidered designs are worn.
Speaker 1: Hands grasp golden spears, silver Halbard's painted wooden knives and swords,
Speaker 1: multi huge dragons and phoenixes, and many colored flags and pinions,
Speaker 1: and for amusement, the musicians are costumed as Panguan, Zong, Qua,
Speaker 1: Zao Yun, etcetera. And the Forbidden interior, the drumming and
Speaker 1: blowing begin and the exorcism of evil spirits proceeds at
Speaker 1: the don Hua gate and goes around a dragon pond bay.
Speaker 1: So this is this in a nutshell, you know, it
Speaker 1: throws in a number of different New Year's traditions in
Speaker 1: Chinese culture. But also there is this sense of of
Speaker 1: the parade, the spectacle uh and people embodying themselves and
Speaker 1: kind of a Mummers tradition as the spirits, spirits and
Speaker 1: demons that are serving zen Quai or even zen Quay himself,
Speaker 1: but also the idea of linking the New Year with
Speaker 1: a type of exorcism and purging ritual exactly. Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: and Zong remains an important part of Chinese New Year iconography.
Speaker 1: You'll see him in parades certainly as ceremonial wall hangings
Speaker 1: as well. And again he remains a popular figure in
Speaker 1: Chinese opera, TV, movies, video games. For instance, there's a
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen film titled zhen Quai Snow Girl in
Speaker 1: the Dark Crystal that centers around our demon hunter. I
Speaker 1: assume it's a different Dark Crystal than correct, no relation
Speaker 1: to Hintston at all. But I bet if you had
Speaker 1: a Gartham infestation, he would get him right out of Yeah,
Speaker 1: he could clear some Gartham right out, sweep him right
Speaker 1: out of the out of the tomb. Alright. So, thus
Speaker 1: far have we spoken mainly of Chinese mythology. But the
Speaker 1: interesting thing about dozen Qua is that he travels. He
Speaker 1: travels eventually over into Japanese traditions as well as due
Speaker 1: depictions of demon and spirit processions. In Japan, he's known
Speaker 1: as shokai and the oldest images a date back to
Speaker 1: the twelfth century. So we're going to take a quick
Speaker 1: break and when we come back, we're going to pick
Speaker 1: up with Japanese traditions and another take on harmful spirits
Speaker 1: and things that need to be expelled in order to
Speaker 1: have a new beginning in your life. Alright, we're back
Speaker 1: and we returned to Japan. Yes, it is time to
Speaker 1: take a look at another lunar New Year related uh
Speaker 1: spirit exorcism and and cleaning up tradition that also ties
Speaker 1: in with demons. What a wonderful confluence of concepts. And
Speaker 1: who could be surprised that we're brought back to our
Speaker 1: old friend, the scholar Nariko t writer whose work on
Speaker 1: the monsters of Japanese folklore and literature we have cited
Speaker 1: multiple times on the show in the past. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: we've dealt with what giant spiders, the Kappa. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: wrote that paper on the transformation of ony from from
Speaker 1: monstrous and diabolical to cute and sexy, which we talked
Speaker 1: about in I think an October past maybe a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. Yeah, I'll make sure to link to
Speaker 1: that episode and some of these other Lunar New Year
Speaker 1: related episodes we've recorded in the past. On the landing page.
Speaker 1: For this episode, it's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot Com. Now,
Speaker 1: I want to look to a book that Nariko T.
Speaker 1: Writer wrote called Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan from
Speaker 1: the University Press of Colorado, where she discusses the tradition
Speaker 1: known as the suku Mogami narratives. And I'll explain what
Speaker 1: those are in just a second. But the Sukamogami are
Speaker 1: attested in old illustrated scrolls, with some with unknown authors,
Speaker 1: and there are multiple versions of this story that are
Speaker 1: reproduced across different sources. But writer writes that due to
Speaker 1: an aristocrats diary entry about one of these stories from
Speaker 1: fourteen eighty five, we know that the scrolls telling about
Speaker 1: this stuff emerged no later than the late fifteenth century.
Speaker 1: So definitely by late fifteenth century Japan, you've got these
Speaker 1: stories of the suku Mogami, which are tool specters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the so the idea of tools coming alive can be
Speaker 1: found in stories from as early as the hay On period,
Speaker 1: which is through five, but they first get their common
Speaker 1: name the Suku mogami later in the medieval period, and
Speaker 1: one particularly prominent story of tool specters is the Sukamogami
Speaker 1: Key The Record of the Tool Specters, a text which
Speaker 1: comes from sometime in the Moral Machi period thirt thirty
Speaker 1: six to fifteen seventy three, as we mentioned a minute ago,
Speaker 1: definitely no later than like the fourteen eighties. So you
Speaker 1: might wonder what our tool specters. Well, I think we
Speaker 1: should turn directly to the Sukumgami Key to get the
Speaker 1: full story. So this is gonna be I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: summarizing and quoting from writers full translation of an illustrated
Speaker 1: scroll of the Record of the Tool Specters from the
Speaker 1: Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, published in two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: So the scroll starts off by discussing a Japanese ritual
Speaker 1: known as the susu Horai literally the sweeping suit, which
Speaker 1: is this year end house cleaning ritual. And according to
Speaker 1: this tradition, every year people bring out old tools and
Speaker 1: discard them in alleyways before the change of the new year.
Speaker 1: And the author of the scroll extends this concept to
Speaker 1: quote renewing the hearth, fire, drawing fresh water, and renewing
Speaker 1: everything from clothing to furniture at the new year so
Speaker 1: we're seeing a few parallels and similarities some to some
Speaker 1: of the Chinese Lunar New Year UH rituals we were
Speaker 1: just talking about. Yeah, related to the like the physical
Speaker 1: cleansing of the space of of your home UH and
Speaker 1: in doing that also the removal of negative spirits and on.
Speaker 1: Then the idea of removing old tools. I mean that
Speaker 1: that that is a that's something that I think UH
Speaker 1: speaks to everybody. Like what is sadder than an old,
Speaker 1: unused tool in a drawer, you know, like a pair
Speaker 1: of rusted duh hedge clippers that are no longer even
Speaker 1: functional but you still have for some reason. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like, yeah, throw it in the alleyway, begone with it.
Speaker 1: Oh well, you still have them in case you ever
Speaker 1: need props for like a sauce equal I guess yeah.
Speaker 1: They're they're shooting at your house and you you know,
Speaker 1: so they're like, oh, where are the rusty tools and
Speaker 1: you're like, hold on, I got this, they had that.
Speaker 1: Or you open a cracker barrel right now. You know,
Speaker 1: there are always two options like what should I do
Speaker 1: with all this junk? Is it a cracker barrel? Or
Speaker 1: saw a movie? Which one is is in fashion at
Speaker 1: the moment, or if the things you be throwing out
Speaker 1: are like old road signs and alligators with sunglasses and
Speaker 1: hats on, you could open up early two thousands chilies.
Speaker 1: There you go. I would I would love to hear
Speaker 1: from anyone out there who who has some some hard
Speaker 1: facts on the the business of repurposing junk as as
Speaker 1: decoration in restaurants. I've noticed they don't do that as
Speaker 1: much these days. If you've go into a Chili's nowadays,
Speaker 1: the walls are very clean. I don't know how that happened.
Speaker 1: I have not been in one recently. Like, that's my
Speaker 1: other theories that we just simply don't go to restaurants
Speaker 1: with a junk on the walls anymore, you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: But let's go back to the ritual, the yearly ritual
Speaker 1: of the sweeping suit, the susu Hurai. Why this yearly ritual, Well,
Speaker 1: the author of this medieval scroll says, well, originally some
Speaker 1: scholars assume this to be based on like people emulating
Speaker 1: the extravagant wastefulness of the rich, but the author of
Speaker 1: the scroll says that this tradition is now known instead
Speaker 1: to be rooted in the avoidance of mischief and misfortune
Speaker 1: from a class of demons called the Suku mogami. In
Speaker 1: explaining this, the author relates a legend supposedly from an
Speaker 1: ancient Chinese text called Miscellaneous Records of Yen and Young,
Speaker 1: and writer notes that if this text exists, we don't
Speaker 1: really know anything about it. So, according to this legend,
Speaker 1: any common tool, container or instrument essentially gets granted a
Speaker 1: soul on its one birthday, and after that it becomes
Speaker 1: a type of sentient trickster demon that you don't want
Speaker 1: in your house. It's interesting, It's almost it makes sense, right.
Speaker 1: It sounds like after a hundred years, if you've had
Speaker 1: an object that has been around for an entire century,
Speaker 1: it's probably picked up a number of different associations. It
Speaker 1: has its own personal history, it has perhaps, uh you know,
Speaker 1: been shadowed by the death of a previous owner. It's
Speaker 1: taken on a life of its own. I mean, we
Speaker 1: see this to a certain extent with the consideration of
Speaker 1: like buildings and whatnot. Right when when a when a
Speaker 1: building or a location is old enough in uh, in
Speaker 1: various countries, certain new protections kick in. Like it is
Speaker 1: no longer treated like a like just any other building.
Speaker 1: Now it is an historic building, but to a certain thing.
Speaker 1: We kind of think this right when we when we
Speaker 1: look at it an item, we're like, oh, I can't
Speaker 1: throw that out that's a hundred years old has a soul? Now, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: what kind of jerk would I be? Exactly? We we
Speaker 1: do think this way. I mean, obviously we're not literally
Speaker 1: literally advocating the idea that objects have souls, but they
Speaker 1: gain something, and the something is in you. It's in
Speaker 1: your brain, Like you can't stop thinking about all the
Speaker 1: other hands that touched this thing and what it was
Speaker 1: used for. I mean, there's a common thing about like
Speaker 1: to get rid of the things that were owned by,
Speaker 1: say an ancestor of yours might make you feel like
Speaker 1: you're making your ancient ancestor more dead or more gone.
Speaker 1: You know, you're erasing their legacy or something. Absolutely, and
Speaker 1: of course we have we have so many different horror
Speaker 1: stories and ghost stories. They revolve around this basic concept.
Speaker 1: And speaking of I know, there has to be a
Speaker 1: story here, oh yeah, yeah. So in this particular story
Speaker 1: and the record of the Tool Specters, it starts with
Speaker 1: a bunch of tools getting thrown out in the trash
Speaker 1: during the susuhurai one year, the the yearly sweeping of
Speaker 1: the soot, the yearly cleansing. And so this group of
Speaker 1: old tools gather around after they're thrown out, and they
Speaker 1: become really angry about how they were mistreated. They say, quote,
Speaker 1: we have faithfully served the houses as furniture and utensils
Speaker 1: for a long time. Instead of getting the reward that
Speaker 1: is our due, we are abandoned in the alleys to
Speaker 1: be kicked by oxen and horses. Insult has been added
Speaker 1: to injury, and this is the greatest insult of all.
Speaker 1: Whatever it takes, we should become specters and exact vengeance.
Speaker 1: And I've got I've added an illustration here of meeting
Speaker 1: of all the tools hanging out, but beside a tree.
Speaker 1: We've got like a it's hard to tell what a
Speaker 1: lot of those are. There's obviously a Buddhist rosary, and
Speaker 1: there's something that looks like a whip. Yeah, somethink it
Speaker 1: was kind of like a foot rest or a side table.
Speaker 1: There's something looks like a plunger. I don't think that's
Speaker 1: what it is anyway. So one of the discarded tools was,
Speaker 1: as I just mentioned, a Buddhist Rosary, and it was
Speaker 1: called each year en Novice and h the each year
Speaker 1: in Novice counseled against vengeance, saying that well, our our
Speaker 1: karma probably earned us the fate of being thrown out,
Speaker 1: and we should instead turn the other cheek. But the
Speaker 1: others do not like this, and the discard there was.
Speaker 1: There's one discarded tool, which is a club, the discarded club,
Speaker 1: which Nariko t Rider translates as rough John, and rough
Speaker 1: John insults the eat your in novice and beats him
Speaker 1: within an inch of his life. I guess he beats
Speaker 1: him with himself. So the Rosary doesn't die. The Rosary
Speaker 1: escapes with the help of his disciples. I guess he's
Speaker 1: a Buddhist teacher Rosary and he's got disciples. But then
Speaker 1: there's another discarded tool. This discarded tool is an old
Speaker 1: scroll named Professor Classical Chinese literature. Um, that's I don't
Speaker 1: know that, maybe could have a more creative name. But
Speaker 1: I bet there's probably a pun in the original language there.
Speaker 1: I bet so there's something lost in the translation. Well,
Speaker 1: writer mentions that this thing is full of puns and
Speaker 1: word play, that a lot of it just doesn't come
Speaker 1: through in the English But so the professor Scroll addresses
Speaker 1: everybody with a plan. He says, quote, the beginning of
Speaker 1: creation is chaos, and there is no form for humans,
Speaker 1: grasses or trees. But because of yin Yang energy and
Speaker 1: the heavenly furnace, things are given temporary shapes. If we
Speaker 1: chance upon the art of yin Yang and heavenly craft,
Speaker 1: we inanimate beings will surely be given souls. Aren't such
Speaker 1: stories as the old pebbles talking and Mr Goose turning
Speaker 1: into a carriage? And Writer mentions that nobody knows what
Speaker 1: that means testimony to the transformation of beings at the
Speaker 1: time of yin yang change. So let us wait for
Speaker 1: the Setsubun, which is the lunar New Year's eve, when
Speaker 1: Yin and Yang change their places and shapes are formed
Speaker 1: out of entities. At that time we must empty ourselves
Speaker 1: and leave our bodies to the hands of a creation god.
Speaker 1: Then we will surely become specters. So the eve of
Speaker 1: the lunar New Year comes around, and the tools do
Speaker 1: what the professor advised them. They empty themselves and the
Speaker 1: creation God uses its power to change them into vengeful specters. Quote.
Speaker 1: Some tools became men or women, older, young, others took
Speaker 1: the shape of demons or goblins. Still others became beasts
Speaker 1: such as foxes and wolves. These various shapes were indeed
Speaker 1: fearful beyond description. And I've got another image here of
Speaker 1: what they look like once they're transformed. And and this
Speaker 1: is where we begin to see these spirits take on
Speaker 1: the the often common kind of comical appearance that you
Speaker 1: see in these various Yokai paintings. Yeah, you know, we
Speaker 1: will see this weird it looks like an umbrella, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Well, it's interesting the way you see
Speaker 1: this mingling of sort of like this comical trickster thing
Speaker 1: with this horrible, violent, malevolent spirit thing. They seem to
Speaker 1: exist right alongside each other. Like it's not like a
Speaker 1: demon is either just funny and playing jokes on you,
Speaker 1: or it's like eating you and kidnapping your children and
Speaker 1: boiling them alive. It's doing both. So after this transformation
Speaker 1: of the spirits, the reign of terror really begins. So
Speaker 1: they go in and out of the capital city taking
Speaker 1: out their anger against humans of all kinds. They steal
Speaker 1: animals and eat them, They kidnap humans and eat them.
Speaker 1: They're invisible, so the people don't really have any way
Speaker 1: of protecting themselves against them except for prayers, and so
Speaker 1: the tool Specters have a fabulous time exacting their revenge.
Speaker 1: They hold banquets and festivals around around their tricks and
Speaker 1: and their their vengeance. They have dances, they have drinking
Speaker 1: poetry readings, and eventually quote building a castle out of
Speaker 1: flesh and creating a blood fountain. Damn. So things are
Speaker 1: officially out of hand at this point. They are talking
Speaker 1: about building things out of flesh and making blood fountains. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's all it says about that. No, no further
Speaker 1: commentary about the flesh castle or the blood fountain. But
Speaker 1: this all comes to a head when the tool Specters
Speaker 1: attack a Prince regent's party as it's proceeding through the streets,
Speaker 1: and the Prince Regent repels the tool Specters with the
Speaker 1: help of a magical amulet, and this leads to a
Speaker 1: long section. The story in terms of just scroll length,
Speaker 1: is not nearly over by this point, because it gets
Speaker 1: into all this involved stuff about the imperial powers invoking
Speaker 1: the help of Buddhist religious leaders to summon spirits known
Speaker 1: as the Divine Boys to banish the Sukumogami, and then
Speaker 1: after the Sukumogami are defeated and humbled by the Divine Boys,
Speaker 1: the tool specters convert to Buddhism, and after that the
Speaker 1: scroll descends into this highly didactic parable about religious doctrine,
Speaker 1: about like attaining Buddha hood and the virtues of specifically
Speaker 1: the right kind of Buddhism, which is Shingon esoteric Buddhism.
Speaker 1: Like the scroll is sectarian, it's working hard for the
Speaker 1: Shingon sect with the Tools all repenting and joining up
Speaker 1: and achieving Buddha hood through their devotion to the Shingon program.
Speaker 1: And it kind of reminds me of like those Christian
Speaker 1: apocalypse movies that have a thriller plot about the Antichrist
Speaker 1: early on, but then the last twenty minutes is just
Speaker 1: a sermon about full immersion baptism. Yes, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: exactly the sort of thing look like going to haunted
Speaker 1: tractional haunted house. And then after after you get out
Speaker 1: of the house, you're you have to listen to a sermon.
Speaker 1: Like the plot kind of stops and you realize what
Speaker 1: this whole exercise was really about, yeah, or at least
Speaker 1: what paid for it. But I think that the tool
Speaker 1: specter's part is not incidental to the religious message because
Speaker 1: it actually does make a theological point. I think basically
Speaker 1: it's saying, hey, if even beings who are non sentient
Speaker 1: tools can achieve enlightenment through the awesome power of the
Speaker 1: shingle on esoteric Buddhism, think what a human could do.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, If this you know, umbrella or you know,
Speaker 1: a discarded UH shovel, it can essentially gain a soul
Speaker 1: and UH and achieve Buddha hood, then then certainly a
Speaker 1: human can do that as well, like you already have
Speaker 1: this tremendous advantage over a pair of head shears. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And actually, in her book, writer goes on to talk
Speaker 1: about like the traditions of UH. There's this isn't not
Speaker 1: the only story like this. There's this whole tradition of
Speaker 1: non human things attaining Buddha hood. This is fascinating because
Speaker 1: especially when we're talking about Japanese traditions here. Uh. There
Speaker 1: is a Japanese wrestling promotion professional wrestling promotion called DDT,
Speaker 1: and they have one championship in the promotion. I think
Speaker 1: it's there like their hardcore title UM and it started
Speaker 1: off with just various people holding the belt, but then
Speaker 1: various inanimate objects began to win the championship as well,
Speaker 1: Like I think a ladder has won the championship. I
Speaker 1: think the championship itself won itself at some point. I
Speaker 1: can't remember the entire um you know, lineage there, but
Speaker 1: but I wonder to what extent that plays in with
Speaker 1: these traditions, the idea that an inanimate object can can
Speaker 1: achieve something with its spirit, with its soul, then of
Speaker 1: course it can also win a championship professional wrestling belt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that this scroll descends into like making
Speaker 1: theological points, there's clearly like that kind of cheekiness about it,
Speaker 1: Like the the author of the story is having a
Speaker 1: lot of fun and writer, as I mentioned earlier, points
Speaker 1: out that there's a lot of there are a lot
Speaker 1: of like puns and word play that don't come through
Speaker 1: in the English version, but that this is I think
Speaker 1: supposed to be entertaining and funny. Like it's a little
Speaker 1: bit absurd the idea of like a club gaining a ole,
Speaker 1: or like a you know, the Rosary having disciples and
Speaker 1: all that, but that it actually does end up being
Speaker 1: part of the theological point that's being made. So is
Speaker 1: that that sweet spot that's mixing, Like, is it absurd
Speaker 1: just for comedy or is it actually making a point.
Speaker 1: It's kind of both, yeah, And it can be difficult
Speaker 1: to to really judge outside of its language or outside
Speaker 1: of its time and culture. Now, as for the idea itself,
Speaker 1: writer points out on our scholarship that the legend of
Speaker 1: the Suka Mogami does not come from this story. Rather,
Speaker 1: this story was created as an entertaining vehicle to sell
Speaker 1: the virtues of Shingon Buddhism to a wide audience by
Speaker 1: capitalizing on the pre existing belief in the Sukamogami, which
Speaker 1: is just this popular folk idea that tools must be
Speaker 1: discarded before they become too old and gain a soul
Speaker 1: and start getting up to no good. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: in the record of the tool specters itself, it almost
Speaker 1: seems a little bit backwards, right, because the tools somehow
Speaker 1: already seemed to be sent to in at least by
Speaker 1: the time like right after they get thrown out. Then
Speaker 1: it's the throwing out that causes them to want revenge
Speaker 1: on people and become monsters and build the flesh Palace
Speaker 1: and the blood fountain, when originally the tradition is that
Speaker 1: the throwing out is what's supposed to prevent this right.
Speaker 1: By throwing them out is what's supposed to keep them
Speaker 1: from becoming vengeful spirits that that mess with you. So
Speaker 1: the mythology in this one particular scroll seems a little. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the order of causation is here,
Speaker 1: but I'm captivated by the idea of like wanting to
Speaker 1: get rid of household items for the fear that they
Speaker 1: become endowed with a soul and do harm to their owners. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it comes back to to some of the
Speaker 1: Baitic basic Buddhist ideas concerning attachment right and having too many,
Speaker 1: too many things or or you know, physical things or
Speaker 1: non physical things in your life that you are shackle
Speaker 1: to in one way or another. You know, and you
Speaker 1: can imagine it coming to the point where you essentially
Speaker 1: are in a household where the items no longer serve you,
Speaker 1: but you serve them because they all have taken on
Speaker 1: a life of their own. You know. I did not
Speaker 1: think at all about the parallel to the idea of
Speaker 1: attachment and Buddhist I don't know how that went over
Speaker 1: my head. But yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's like part profound
Speaker 1: insight on the nature of suffering and attachment and part
Speaker 1: Brave Little Toaster. Know what's to deal with the Brave
Speaker 1: Little Toaster? You don't know the Brave Little Toaster children's book.
Speaker 1: It's a children's movie in which household items have uh
Speaker 1: there there, they have humanlike characteristics, and they get abandoned
Speaker 1: in an old house. And I think after journey across
Speaker 1: the wilderness, it's like homeward bound, except instead of like
Speaker 1: dogs and a cat, it's a toaster and a lamp
Speaker 1: and a radio. Well, you know this makes this, of course,
Speaker 1: reminds me of Maximum Overdrive Stephen King film. I wondered
Speaker 1: to what extent Maximum Overdrive is a treatment of these
Speaker 1: same ideas. Probably be reaching we get there, Yeah, probably
Speaker 1: reach and probably reaching after the Maximum Overdrive content here.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a second break, and when we
Speaker 1: come back we will talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: idea of anthropomorphizing objects. Thank alright, we're back. You know,
Speaker 1: I joked about Maximum Overdrive, But as I've mentioned before,
Speaker 1: Maximum Overdrive is a less ridiculous film. The more we
Speaker 1: um we imbue our our daily objects in our vehicles, etcetera,
Speaker 1: with with with some level of gadgetry, with internet connections
Speaker 1: and human voices and in a sense, but the Internet
Speaker 1: of things is kind of like a we were filling
Speaker 1: our objects with more unruly spirits or opening them up
Speaker 1: to malicious spirit um possession. Well that's an interesting idea
Speaker 1: because I actually so I want to look at a
Speaker 1: study that sort of puts together a framework for thinking
Speaker 1: about when we anthropomorphize a non human objects. So, of course,
Speaker 1: anthromorphization or anthropomorphism is when you attribute human characteristics, thoughts, feelings,
Speaker 1: or tendencies to non human objects. So this could be
Speaker 1: two animals, or it could be to robots or a computer,
Speaker 1: or even just like a you know, a coffee mug.
Speaker 1: You put a smiley face on a coffee mug, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna be afraid to shatter it because you've given
Speaker 1: it a face. You've given it some like the slight
Speaker 1: sliver of human identity. Yeah, and tons of studies have
Speaker 1: shown that we are we are so bad at not
Speaker 1: doing this, Like we we really just give ourselves over
Speaker 1: to anthropomorphism very easily. It takes almost no work at all.
Speaker 1: Once people get a room, but they essentially think about
Speaker 1: it as another person that lives in the house. It's
Speaker 1: I mean, we are this. This is just an absolutely
Speaker 1: insanely weak point of entry into our brains. This is
Speaker 1: how the skynet, the anti sky Net resistance defenses get penetrated.
Speaker 1: You just barely ask people to think of a machine
Speaker 1: as human and they'll do it. And it's an interesting
Speaker 1: question to think, like what the adaptive value that kind
Speaker 1: of like broadly inclusive idea of humanity is because on
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you often just it seems like
Speaker 1: people are way too quick to dehumanize each other real
Speaker 1: other humans, Right, you know, you don't like somebody for
Speaker 1: some reason, and you start thinking of them is not
Speaker 1: really human. And yet the you know, the room by
Speaker 1: bumping into your feet is like, that's a person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can be so selective about it when it comes
Speaker 1: to other humans and categorizations of humans. But yeah, when
Speaker 1: it comes to household items, we can just fall down
Speaker 1: this well of of of placing way too much value
Speaker 1: on all of our possessions. Yeah. Now, I wanted to
Speaker 1: look at one study that U the just basically put
Speaker 1: forward an interesting three part framework for thinking about the
Speaker 1: conditions under which we anthropomorphize objects. So this was by Epley,
Speaker 1: Weights and Capoccio in Psychological Review in two thousands seven
Speaker 1: called on Seeing Human a three factor theory of anthropomorphism,
Speaker 1: and basically I'll just do the short version. The authors
Speaker 1: here put forward a framework that suggests people are more
Speaker 1: likely to anthropomorphize under certain conditions, like you don't always
Speaker 1: anthropomorphize everything, equally, certain things are more likely to get anthropomorphized,
Speaker 1: and certain things make you more uh increase your tendency
Speaker 1: to do so. So one of the things they put
Speaker 1: forward is uh quote the accessibility and applicability of anthropocentric
Speaker 1: knowledge elicited agent knowledge. And this just means like when
Speaker 1: you can think of ways that this object actually is
Speaker 1: like a person, So like you can identify characteristics that
Speaker 1: are in some ways actually like what a person is like,
Speaker 1: Like if there is an object, even if it's a
Speaker 1: garbage can, that a peers to sort of have a head,
Speaker 1: or it's sort of has two feet, you know, or
Speaker 1: or the way that two screws or holding like a
Speaker 1: coat rack on the wall, it may look like those
Speaker 1: are eyes. The second is quote the motivation to explain
Speaker 1: and understand the behavior your of agents, which or they
Speaker 1: call this effectantce motivation. So essentially here this is just
Speaker 1: like when a thing's behavior is confusing to you and
Speaker 1: you're trying to understand why it's doing what it's doing.
Speaker 1: Under that condition, people start thinking of the thing as
Speaker 1: being like a human because they're they're trying to find
Speaker 1: some avenue to explain behavior, and that's like the easiest
Speaker 1: thing to go to. It's a poor carpenter who blames
Speaker 1: his tools, and yet at the same time that's exactly
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here. Well, yeah, it's like when
Speaker 1: your computer is screwing up and you don't know what's
Speaker 1: causing it, Like you can't actually troubleshoot it from a
Speaker 1: mechanical point of view, so you just start attributing malice
Speaker 1: to be like, what is this computer doing to me? Now, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's acting up. It is it is, it is.
Speaker 1: It takes on this malicious spirit. Yeah, and this is
Speaker 1: actually a useful way of thinking. I mean, this is uh,
Speaker 1: this is, in Daniel Dennett's terms, the intentional stance, Like
Speaker 1: if you can't think of why something is happening from
Speaker 1: the physical stance or the design stance, like you can't
Speaker 1: actually get into the code and troubleshoot your computer. You
Speaker 1: just start thinking about it as if it has intentions,
Speaker 1: because that's the only level that you're capable of accessing, right,
Speaker 1: And I basically think about printers this way all the time.
Speaker 1: I just I'm just a step away from just assuming
Speaker 1: that there is a malicious spirit that resides in every printer.
Speaker 1: And then the third motivation that they pose it is
Speaker 1: the desire for social contact and affiliation, which they called
Speaker 1: the sociality motivation. And this is when people feel they
Speaker 1: need social contact and relationships. When you're when you're feeling lonely,
Speaker 1: when you're feeling a desire for stronger social bonds, you
Speaker 1: are more likely they hypothesize to anthropomorphized non human objects.
Speaker 1: And then there were some follow up studies, actually one
Speaker 1: by Epley A, Kalis, Weights and Capoccio in two thousand
Speaker 1: eight in Psychological Science. Uh that essentially it tested out
Speaker 1: this question about loneliness and anthropomorphization. So they took gadgets
Speaker 1: like an alarm clock and air purifier and so forth,
Speaker 1: and ask people to rate how much they saw human
Speaker 1: qualities in these objects. Like the questions that would suss
Speaker 1: out do you think it has feelings, do you think
Speaker 1: it has intentions? And they found essentially that the lonelier
Speaker 1: you are, the more likely you are to anthropomorphize non
Speaker 1: human objects. And uh so that is one of the
Speaker 1: you know, that's one of those kind of like social
Speaker 1: science studies, like I wonder if that could be replicated.
Speaker 1: There is a replication of it from sixteen by Bart's,
Speaker 1: Chilova and uh Finurci, and so this was also in
Speaker 1: psychological science. It replicated the last study with a larger sample.
Speaker 1: They also found that this is kind of interesting. So
Speaker 1: people who are more psychologically lonely are more likely to
Speaker 1: think that inanimate objects have intentions and thoughts and stuff.
Speaker 1: But if you just ask people to think about a
Speaker 1: close personal relationship with someone that they could depend on,
Speaker 1: that caused people to anthropomorphize gadgets less if you just
Speaker 1: spin to minute thinking about that relationship in that person
Speaker 1: and then I just want to read another quote quote.
Speaker 1: Last we showed the attachment anxiety, characterized by intense desire
Speaker 1: for and preoccupation with closeness, fear of abandonment, and hyper
Speaker 1: vigilance to social cues, was a stronger predictor of anthropomorphism
Speaker 1: than loneliness. Was. This finding helps clarify the mechanisms underlying
Speaker 1: anthropomorphism and supports the idea that anthropomorphism is a motivated
Speaker 1: process reflecting the active search for potential sources of connection.
Speaker 1: So we know that it's extremely common to to sort
Speaker 1: of see a spirit in inanimate object. Even if you
Speaker 1: rationally know that, you know there's no reason to think
Speaker 1: that this old inanimate object from my house, this old
Speaker 1: gardening tool or whatever, actually has a soul or a
Speaker 1: spirit or anything magic about it or thoughts or intentions.
Speaker 1: We we have this tendency to see it that way,
Speaker 1: to think it has maybe bad energy that needs to
Speaker 1: be gotten rid of or good energy that needs to
Speaker 1: be protected. In pres irved. Clearly this energy is in us,
Speaker 1: It's in our brains. But this is this, This is
Speaker 1: a powerful feeling that lots of people share, and this
Speaker 1: seems to be one thing that could be going on
Speaker 1: when we project intentions on objects this way. It's not
Speaker 1: just about the object itself. A lot of times, it's
Speaker 1: about what we need socially, right, And so you could
Speaker 1: you can you can have these in situations where if
Speaker 1: an individual doesn't have enough like personal connections in their
Speaker 1: life and it makes them more susceptible to the sort
Speaker 1: of the siren song of the spirits and their possessions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can see it going both ways, right, Like
Speaker 1: you could see it if people are more likely to
Speaker 1: anthropomorphize objects, inanimate objects in a friendly way when they're
Speaker 1: more lonely. You can see how like having fear about
Speaker 1: loss of social connections, this attachment anxiety kind of state
Speaker 1: of mind could make you more likely to want to
Speaker 1: want to not let go of things to keep them,
Speaker 1: because it would almost be like if you let go
Speaker 1: of them, it's more like losing friends or like losing pets.
Speaker 1: And it's certainly I'm not going to be the person
Speaker 1: to say, uh, throw your dolls away if they're making
Speaker 1: you happy, you know, I mean, if it's if it's
Speaker 1: not helping you cope with, say, kind of a lonely
Speaker 1: time in your life, or just helps you cope with loneliness.
Speaker 1: In general, life can be lonely. It's all right to
Speaker 1: have a few bobble heads around. Yeah. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: another thing that's clearly coming through in these studies is
Speaker 1: that loneliness is not an objective state. It's a subjective state.
Speaker 1: Loneliness does not go away if you just actually physically
Speaker 1: have people around you. Loneliness depends on how you feel
Speaker 1: about your relationships, you know. I want to actually go
Speaker 1: back to Nariko t Writer for a minute in her
Speaker 1: Seven Demon Stories book, because she she has a long
Speaker 1: section in that book discussing all kinds of interesting ideas
Speaker 1: about the Suka mogami. But one of the things in
Speaker 1: there is the idea of, like, where does this come from?
Speaker 1: Like what's the possible origin of the tool specter's belief?
Speaker 1: And one of the things she points to is um
Speaker 1: the possibility of uh this belief coming from rituals in
Speaker 1: which an evil possessing demon is exercised from a person
Speaker 1: and deposited into a physical thing. And she gives an
Speaker 1: example of records about this type of purification ceremony that
Speaker 1: quote was held twice a year in the Imperial Palace,
Speaker 1: when the Emperor, Impress and Crown prints transferred their impurities
Speaker 1: as well as the accumulated impurities of the nation into
Speaker 1: five bamboo scales, swords, and a pot into which they
Speaker 1: breathed these agomano things into which pollution, defilement, and crimes
Speaker 1: are transferred for a purification ceremony. Were then to be
Speaker 1: thrown away in the river or on river banks. The
Speaker 1: discarded agomano, paper, dolls, jars, and whatever was used for
Speaker 1: the purification ceremony were to be abandoned with people's breath
Speaker 1: and impurities. These abandoned objects may have been thought to
Speaker 1: contain evil spirits and to act vengefully. Again, tools and
Speaker 1: utensils used in rituals seem to have had a deep
Speaker 1: relationship with the formation of Sukumagami beliefs, So this is
Speaker 1: tracing it back to like another sense of purging, like
Speaker 1: that not only do you purge bad old objects to
Speaker 1: get rid of them and get their you know, get
Speaker 1: the spirit that you've imbued them without of your way.
Speaker 1: That they were like literal rituals where you purge the
Speaker 1: badness out of yourself, you put it in a physical,
Speaker 1: inanimate object, and then you get rid of that object
Speaker 1: to take it away. It's sort of a classic type
Speaker 1: of like the sort of version of sympathetic magic, you know,
Speaker 1: where you're like you're transferring something to something else by
Speaker 1: touch or by ritual breathing or contact, and then you
Speaker 1: purge it, you get it out of your surroundings and
Speaker 1: it takes away the bad stuff with it. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of like writing a nasty email and then deleting
Speaker 1: it instead of sending it, that sort of thing. Kind
Speaker 1: of like that. Though, I think I've I've said on
Speaker 1: this show before that I have mixed feelings about the
Speaker 1: virtues of venting actually, like expressing your frustrations to get
Speaker 1: them out. I feel pretty convinced that sometimes enumerating all
Speaker 1: your frustrations with a person does not actually make you
Speaker 1: feel better in the long run, does not improve your
Speaker 1: state of mind, but can actually tend to make you
Speaker 1: just feel more frustrated, Like, you know, listing all the
Speaker 1: things you're mad about. It might be good to like
Speaker 1: have somebody sympathetic to talk to about your frustrations. But
Speaker 1: but I I have seen lots of cases in my
Speaker 1: life where venting that was supposed to help somebody feel
Speaker 1: better makes them feel worse and just makes them make
Speaker 1: themselves matter and matter. Yeah, I can just gonna get
Speaker 1: you riled up and and then there's no real way
Speaker 1: to shut it off. This this all does make like
Speaker 1: we're talking about kind of like literal um ways of
Speaker 1: venting and releasing here. I'm trying to think if there
Speaker 1: are any modern like secular or even just Western traditions
Speaker 1: that really entail this kind of like the the sympathetic
Speaker 1: magic of taking uh the bad out of you, putting
Speaker 1: into into something else, and than discarding it. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I wonder if this is this is the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that more secular people could benefit from
Speaker 1: without having to literally believe in any sort of magic,
Speaker 1: to just sort of enact a psychological drama that where
Speaker 1: where you like take all the bad stuff out and
Speaker 1: you put it in an object and you get rid
Speaker 1: of that object. If even even though you're not believing
Speaker 1: that this has literal magic power or their souls or
Speaker 1: spirits or ghosts or anything like that, the doing the
Speaker 1: physical ritual does something healthy and healing to your mind. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and into a certain extent, various like self help scenarios,
Speaker 1: you you are dealing with a spirit, and the spirit
Speaker 1: you're you're kind of trying to go exercises yourself in
Speaker 1: the sense that you're trying to become a new person. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we've talked about an the show before, like
Speaker 1: how you know how ridiculous that may seem, because we
Speaker 1: are always becoming a new person. We are essentially we're
Speaker 1: a different person now than we were earlier this morning,
Speaker 1: will be a different person this afternoon. But we're also
Speaker 1: creatures of habit, and we tend to do what we've
Speaker 1: done before, and we tend to think what we've thought before.
Speaker 1: And without without some kind of rupturing of those habits cycles,
Speaker 1: without something to to come in and force a change
Speaker 1: of routine, we will just tend to do the things
Speaker 1: we've done before. And sometimes those things are are things
Speaker 1: that make us feel bad. Right, And of course, if
Speaker 1: we're trying to change our routine, it's I've often seen
Speaker 1: it pointed out that it's easier to change your routine
Speaker 1: if you are, say on a trip, you know you're
Speaker 1: going vacations. Suddenly you can, you know, for many number
Speaker 1: of reasons, you can do things you don't do in
Speaker 1: a typical week. But sometimes, like just having a different
Speaker 1: physical environment allows you to break some of these habits
Speaker 1: that you've kept before. And physical ritual could be like
Speaker 1: that too, right, and certainly, changing your immediate physical uh circumstances,
Speaker 1: you know, purging yourself with various items could give you
Speaker 1: the advantage that you need in creating some new habits
Speaker 1: in your life. You know what I started at the
Speaker 1: beginning saying, I don't have a take because I've never
Speaker 1: watched the Marie Condo stuff or whatever, But I think
Speaker 1: maybe I'm coming around. I think through the course of
Speaker 1: this episode, I've talked myself into the idea that maybe,
Speaker 1: like changing your physical surroundings, purging yourself of old items
Speaker 1: that that you don't actually need anymore or have in
Speaker 1: a metaphorical way, become imbued with some kind of bad spirit,
Speaker 1: that's the associations in your memory that could actually have
Speaker 1: a really positive impact on your life. Maybe people should
Speaker 1: try it out. This episode is not paid for by
Speaker 1: the Marie Condo Show or anything like that, by the way, No, no,
Speaker 1: not at all. But speaking of Netflix, they've got Marie Condo. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's it's a hit. They have the Sabrina show where
Speaker 1: she fights demons, and it's a hit. They need to
Speaker 1: bridge these two. They need a show in which Marie
Speaker 1: Eacondo physically battles demons. If he goes to people's house,
Speaker 1: the houses to help them deal with their clutter, and
Speaker 1: then she physically battles the spirits of these items with
Speaker 1: a sword, gouges their eyes out, real real good. This
Speaker 1: proposal is definitely sparking some joy in me. I'm I'm yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm with you here. But in any case, yeah, I've
Speaker 1: been brought around. I think whether it's a Western style
Speaker 1: New Year's resolution, whether it's a ritual for lunar New Year,
Speaker 1: or whether it's good old fashioned spring cleaning, I think
Speaker 1: maybe maybe some good physical environment exorcism is actually a
Speaker 1: healthy thing to consider. All right, we're gonna end it
Speaker 1: right there, But if you want to check out more
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Speaker 1: That's right, talking about the importance of things in your life?
Speaker 1: Where do those things come from, who invented them, who
Speaker 1: improved upon the designs? And then how did they change
Speaker 1: our lives? Why are we so resistant to throw them out?
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producers Alex
Speaker 1: Williams and Try Harrison. If you would like to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us directly with feedback on this episode
Speaker 1: or any other, with a suggestion for a topic on
Speaker 1: the show in the future, or just to say hi,
Speaker 1: you can email us at blow the Mind at how
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