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Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time for

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Speaker 2: a vault episode. This originally aired February fourteenth, twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 2: and it's called Because It Is My Heart Part one.

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Speaker 2: This is the first part of a series we did

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Speaker 2: about heart removal and heart burial and such concepts.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's that time of year, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: Valentine's it's a pon us. So get in there and

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Speaker 1: enjoy this heart related content.

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Speaker 2: Let's jump right in.

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Speaker 1: In the Desert, I saw a creature, naked bestial who's

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Speaker 1: squatting upon the ground, held his heart in his hands

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Speaker 1: and ate of it. I said, is it good? Friend?

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Speaker 1: It is bitter, bitter, he answered, But I like it

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Speaker 1: because it is bitter and because it is my heart.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And that, of

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Speaker 1: course is the poem in the Desert by Stephen Crane,

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Speaker 1: a poem that I've long found nice and creepy and

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Speaker 1: thought provoking.

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of it depends on which word

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Speaker 2: in the last sentence you emphasize. Does he like it

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Speaker 2: because it is my heart or because it is my heart?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there are several ways to piece it apart there.

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Speaker 1: But it's also the perfect poem for Valentine's Day. Today

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Speaker 1: is Valentine's Day. I don't know if anyone has ever

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Speaker 1: taken in the desert and transformed it into a Valentine,

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Speaker 1: but I think that's a fabulous idea. Depending on who

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Speaker 1: you're giving it to, you want to make sure that

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Speaker 1: they're going to understand the cleverness of this. But it's

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Speaker 1: just the right length. You know. You could put you know,

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Speaker 1: half of it on the front, half of it inside.

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Speaker 1: You could draw the best youal creature there consuming its

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Speaker 1: own heart. Somebody has to have done this before. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure someone will send links to this effect to us.

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Speaker 2: You could put it on those little heart shaped candies

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Speaker 2: that look like they're like made of chalk.

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Speaker 1: Basically, Oh yeah, that would be clever. I mean, it

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Speaker 1: has to have been done. It's such a great idea.

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Speaker 2: Does anybody eat those? By the way, that does somebody

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Speaker 2: like the taste of chalk enough that they would consume that.

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Speaker 1: I remember eating them when I was a child, you know,

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Speaker 1: and maybe and I don't know if they're bitter, that

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Speaker 1: would but they are shaped like hearts. Yeah, at a

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Speaker 1: time when you ate a lot of candy, it made

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Speaker 1: sense to at least try a few of them. But

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Speaker 1: I think then you realize there were better candies to eat,

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Speaker 1: easier candies to eat.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a childhood mentality. It's like, well, it's

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Speaker 2: not good, but it is candy, so I guess I

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Speaker 2: have to eat it.

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Speaker 1: I should at least at least try it. It's just polite. Yeah. So, yes,

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Speaker 1: it's Valentine's Day, a time when we tend to think

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Speaker 1: about the over commercialization of love, and especially romantic love,

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Speaker 1: as well as the symbolism of the human heart. You know,

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Speaker 1: I think this is a topic we've touched on before

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Speaker 1: on the show. You know, when it comes to the heart,

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Speaker 1: we know that this is the center of our circulatory system.

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Speaker 1: We know it pumps our blood, but it's also seen

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Speaker 1: as the symbolic or metaphoric seed of love and passion.

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Speaker 1: And given all these complex ways of thinking about the heart,

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Speaker 1: we also tend to feel a certain kind of way

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Speaker 1: about the topic of heart removal. When it comes up,

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Speaker 1: be it something that comes up in the biological you know,

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Speaker 1: the medical world, or if it comes up in random

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Speaker 1: horror movies, or just as a turn of phrase.

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Speaker 2: Is this how you landed on heart removal for the

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Speaker 2: topic this week? Where you watching a movie where a

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Speaker 2: heart gets ripped out?

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Speaker 1: I don't think I was specifically when I started thinking

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Speaker 1: about this, but we have watched several movies on Weird

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Speaker 1: House Cinema, our Friday Weird movie episodes that like. Particularly,

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Speaker 1: I think some seventies films we've watched, such as The

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Speaker 1: Loreleized Grasp, horr Rises from the Tomb, Return of the

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Speaker 1: Blind Dead, I think all three of those feature a

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Speaker 1: scene in which somebody's heart is cut out and it's

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Speaker 1: eaten by say a monster or occultest night that sort

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Speaker 1: of thing.

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Speaker 2: Wait, am I remembering wrong? Is the whole point of

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Speaker 2: Lorealized Grasp that the monster eats people's hearts?

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Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, she does. Yeah. Well, I mean there are

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Speaker 1: the aspects of the film, but it clearly in terms

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Speaker 1: of what is the gory point of the film that

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Speaker 1: seemed to be one of its main fascinations.

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Speaker 2: Well, she eats people's hearts since she falls in love

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Speaker 2: with that. I don't know, Spanish German, Elvis Peter Fonda

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Speaker 2: kind of guy.

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Speaker 1: Oh, yes, yes, anyway, yes, yeah, go back to those

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Speaker 1: episodes if you want more of that. When it comes

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Speaker 1: to heart ripping, of course, there are some more famous

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Speaker 1: examples that probably come to everyone's mind. There's the nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety two fighting gay Mortal Kombat. I think everybody that

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Speaker 1: was around in the nineties and in decades after, but

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Speaker 1: especially in the nineties, you have that very pixelized version

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Speaker 1: of that heart rip in mind. And then, of course

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Speaker 1: there's the nineteen eighty four film Indiana Jones and the

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Speaker 1: Temple of Doom, which features a rather famous heart rip

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Speaker 1: scene that despite the film being set in India, this

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Speaker 1: actual heart rip and all the things that the baddies

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Speaker 1: are up to are really take gory elements from at

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Speaker 1: least a couple of non Indian cultures, and some of

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Speaker 1: the cultures we're going to discuss in this episode and

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Speaker 1: kind of make a patchwork villain religion here for Indiana

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Speaker 1: Jones to go up against. And I think they also

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Speaker 1: incorporate more than a little bit of fictional satanic ritual,

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Speaker 1: like it's a very humbly able culture that Indiana Jones

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Speaker 1: is supposedly encountering in that movie, to say the least. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: now other heart rips of note correct me if I'm wrong,

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Speaker 1: but doesn't Jason Vorhees ripped out of heart at least once.

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Speaker 2: Oh I don't recall. Probably yeah, well.

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Speaker 1: I do know.

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Speaker 2: That's one of the worst movies in the whole series.

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Speaker 2: Ends up like The Bunch of People, A bunch of

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Speaker 2: like troops come in and blow up Jason, and then

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Speaker 2: somebody eats Jason's heart and turns into Jason.

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Speaker 1: It's brilliant, Okay, I I had, I haven't. I don't

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Speaker 1: think i'd actually seen Leprechaun six aka Leprechaun Back to

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Speaker 1: the Hood from two thousand and three. This is the

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Speaker 1: last one to star Warwick Davis, but that has a

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Speaker 1: heart rip in it. Like the heart rip scene I

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Speaker 1: guess in a film is usually pretty easy to do

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Speaker 1: because you just it's mostly sound effect and then the

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Speaker 1: visual of somebody holding a bloody, palpitating heart. Oftentimes that's

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Speaker 1: done by having the person squeeze like kind of a

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Speaker 1: rubber heart create the sound effective you desire. Other examples

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Speaker 1: come to mind the horror movie Valentine's Day. I'd forgotten

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Speaker 1: about this, but the Prophecy films have a lot of this,

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Speaker 1: with angels ripping each other's hearts out. Dumb and Dumber

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Speaker 1: has a heart rip scene that I'd forgotten about. I

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Speaker 1: can't remember if is that supposed to be a dream

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Speaker 1: sequence or is that supposed to really happen or does

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Speaker 1: it matter? In Dumb and Dumber it is a dream sequence, Okay, Okay.

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Speaker 1: Then there's a Rambo, Last Blood and Last of the Mohicans.

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Speaker 2: I've actually seen very few of these movies.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, we might have to come back to the

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Speaker 1: Prophecy films. Oh but I don't know. Some of those

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Speaker 1: you could probably miss, especially maybe Leprechaun six. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a staple of horror. Oftentimes, if

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Speaker 1: you have any kind of like supernatural being, you know,

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Speaker 1: you have some sort of really lightning quick heart rip.

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Speaker 1: There's a great example of this on the HBO series

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Speaker 1: True Blood, which I guess overall looking back on it

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Speaker 1: kind of a mixed bag. But the excellent character actor

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Speaker 1: Dennis O'Hare does have this wonderful character, the vampire King

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Speaker 1: of Mississippi. His name is Russell Eddington. He's a real

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Speaker 1: highlight of the show. While he's on the show, and

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Speaker 1: there's a scene where I forget exactly what ticks him off,

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Speaker 1: but vampires are supposed to be secret in the series,

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Speaker 1: and he just gets mad and instantly like speeds to

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Speaker 1: like a live news broadcast and rips the broadcasters heart

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Speaker 1: out through his back, along with the piece of his spine,

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Speaker 1: and that stands out in my mind is one of

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Speaker 1: the finest moments of that series.

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Speaker 2: The main thing that comes to my mind is that

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Speaker 2: the manual heart removal is the primary move of an

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Speaker 2: unarmed Terminator in the Terminator films.

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Speaker 1: Oh did he rip some hearts out?

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Speaker 2: That's what Yeh's what Arnold Schwarzenegger does in the first

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Speaker 2: movie when he comes out to the punks. Yeah, he

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Speaker 2: like Bill Paxton or somebody or the guy Bill Paxton's

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Speaker 2: hanging out with.

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Speaker 1: It's been so long since I saw the first Terminator.

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Speaker 1: I really need to go back in and watch it.

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Speaker 2: I don't know why that's the move they chose. I mean,

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Speaker 2: it's scary in the movie. I don't know if that

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Speaker 2: really speaks of robotic efficiency.

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Speaker 1: It's like taking the batteries out right, yeah, all right, Well,

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Speaker 1: with that out of the way, we're gonna begin to

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Speaker 1: move into what we're ultimately really talking about in this

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Speaker 1: pair of episodes this week, and that is heart removals

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Speaker 1: and how they factored into different views, different supernatural understandings

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Speaker 1: of the human body and the cosmos. We're not gonna

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Speaker 1: we're probably not gonna go super in depth into heart

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Speaker 1: symbolism and metaphors in terms of trying to be, you know,

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Speaker 1: to completely cover the topic, because it is a broad topic.

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Speaker 1: You have, like any given culture has some sort of

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Speaker 1: idea about what the heart is, and there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of overlap, but then there are some distinct ideas mixed

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Speaker 1: in there as well, and we'll touch on some of these.

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Speaker 1: I think a good place to start would be, of course,

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Speaker 1: with the Egyptian heart. Now, there was we had a

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Speaker 1: past episode of the show this was there was an

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Speaker 1: interview that I did with author Bill Shutt, who wrote

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Speaker 1: a book called Pump. It's quite good. It gets into

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Speaker 1: animal hearts and various in the history of understanding the

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Speaker 1: human heart, Medical History of the Heart. Wonderful read. And

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Speaker 1: in that book he does bring up that, yes, the

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Speaker 1: ancient Egyptians knew the heart is ab or ib or HATI.

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Speaker 1: It was treated with a great deal of reverence, as

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Speaker 1: this was the organ said to contain a record of

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Speaker 1: the individual's good and bad deeds. And I think a

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Speaker 1: number of any if you've consumed any amount of Egyptology

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Speaker 1: over the years, you're probably familiar with the basic scenario

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Speaker 1: that is often related here that after you have died,

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Speaker 1: it is this heart that will be weighed against a

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Speaker 1: feather of maat the Goddess of Truth, to see if

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Speaker 1: you can indeed pass on into the realms beyond our

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Speaker 1: life here on earth, will or if you're going to

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Speaker 1: be consumed by this ferocious beast of annihilation and thus

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Speaker 1: no longer exist.

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Speaker 2: I think it's a crocodile type or crocodile ish beast,

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Speaker 2: isn't it.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it is a crocodile asque I'm blanking on

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Speaker 1: the name of the entity off the top of my head,

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Speaker 1: But yeah, you basically have the split road between annihilation

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Speaker 1: and continued existence. But you can only continue to exist

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Speaker 1: if your heart matches up against this feather of maat

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Speaker 1: the Goddess of Truth. Now, as Geraldine Pinch mentions in

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Speaker 1: her book, Egyptian mythology. Yeah, the ancient Egyptian's view, the

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Speaker 1: heart is the organ of thought and feeling, and it

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Speaker 1: was the seat of consciousness itself, and Maat the goddess

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Speaker 1: here is often seen as this ostridge feather adorned goddess

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Speaker 1: of truth and goodness. So thus her feather would match

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Speaker 1: the weight of your heart if you had truth in

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Speaker 1: your heart, if you had not at in your heart

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Speaker 1: at all. So that's the basic scenario there now. Shut

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Speaker 1: cites historian Roger K. French, who rationalized that the basic

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Speaker 1: idea in the Egyptian model here is that life is warm.

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Speaker 1: The heart is warm, the heart moves, and with its

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Speaker 1: movements we breathe, and our vessels carry blood to the

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Speaker 1: rest of our body. Shut also points out that the

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Speaker 1: fifteen fifty five BCE Book of the Heart may reveal

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Speaker 1: some level of understanding regarding heart attacks and aneurysms among

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Speaker 1: the ancient Egyptians, but historians are not all in agreement

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Speaker 1: onto what degree we could interpret it this way. Now,

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Speaker 1: given the importance of the heart in all of this,

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Speaker 1: especially the continuation of the soul and Egyptian belief, this

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Speaker 1: probably reminds a lot of people out there of another

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Speaker 1: fact about the mummified remains of an individual, about what

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Speaker 1: happens to various internal organs. Several of these internal organs

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Speaker 1: are often placed inside of a canomic jar, including the heart.

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Speaker 2: Yes, And so that brings me to how I wanted

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Speaker 2: to look at a specific example of a mummy to

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Speaker 2: examine treatment of the heart in a case where it

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Speaker 2: was well documented. So obviously, Egyptian embalming, mummification, and burial

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Speaker 2: practices varied by time and place, and ancient Egyptian civilization

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Speaker 2: spans a really long time, thousands of years. So the

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Speaker 2: example I'm about to talk about is not characteristic of

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Speaker 2: everything in ancient Egypt. But I thought it was interesting

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Speaker 2: to look at one example in particular, especially because it

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Speaker 2: contradicts a generalization that many people have made over the

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Speaker 2: years about Egyptian mummification, one that I definitely remember learning

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Speaker 2: when I was younger. And the generalization is this that

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Speaker 2: during mummification the brain is always removed. Of course, you

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Speaker 2: get the famous grotesque image of the hook going through

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Speaker 2: the face holes to remove the brain, and that the heart,

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Speaker 2: being the seat of the soul, as you just explained,

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Speaker 2: was left in place in the body. So maybe the

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Speaker 2: other organs were removed, but the heart was left in

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Speaker 2: the chest.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, if memory serves, I think I'm

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Speaker 1: remembering from a past episode on mummies. The brain. We

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Speaker 1: have to remember the brain, I believe, is often thought

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Speaker 1: to have gone rancid first, to rot it first, and

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Speaker 1: therefore we have to factor that into all this as well,

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Speaker 1: along with these understandings for the ancient Egyptians about what

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Speaker 1: organs were doing.

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Speaker 2: Now, the specific mummy I was reading about that contradicted

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Speaker 2: this generalization was featured in a paper based especially around

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Speaker 2: some ct scan research that was published in twenty fourteen

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Speaker 2: in the journal the academic journal The Yearbook of Mummy Studies.

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Speaker 2: It's a funny name. Makes you imagine the mummies are

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Speaker 2: like writing, you know, stay cool, have a great summer,

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Speaker 2: or they're like going through drawing hearts around all the

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Speaker 2: mummies they have a crush on like this mummy's so

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Speaker 2: cute anyway. So I was reading about this paper in

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Speaker 2: a concurrent article in Live Science by Owen juris called

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Speaker 2: ancient Egyptian mummy found with brain no heart. So this

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Speaker 2: mummy is the body of a woman who lived about

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Speaker 2: seventeen hundred years ago according to radiocarbon dating, placing her

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Speaker 2: under the period of Roman control of Egypt. And she

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Speaker 2: died somewhere between the ages of thirty and fifty, and

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Speaker 2: her body shows signs of severe dental health issues and

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Speaker 2: tooth loss, which apparently is quite common for ancient Egyptian

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Speaker 2: bodies from this period. I don't know if that's because

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Speaker 2: they were getting lots of sugar or what. I don't

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Speaker 2: know what the explanation is, but a lot of dental problems.

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Speaker 2: In the religious and cultural context would be This was

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Speaker 2: a person who still adhered to a version of tradition

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Speaker 2: Egyptian religion, or the variant of it that was popular

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Speaker 2: at this time, at a time when Christianity was actually

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Speaker 2: spreading through the region and becoming more and more dominant. Now,

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Speaker 2: in contradiction to the brain removed, heart left in place

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Speaker 2: generalization I heard when I was growing up, this mummy

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Speaker 2: is exactly the opposite. Analysis of CT scans by the

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Speaker 2: researchers found that the embalmers in this case they worked

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Speaker 2: by making an incision in the perineum and then through

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Speaker 2: here they removed the intestines, the stomach, the liver, and

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Speaker 2: the heart. Heart came out too. So after all these

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Speaker 2: organs were removed, they lined the incision that they had

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Speaker 2: made with resin and linen cloth, and then they placed

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Speaker 2: a couple of plaques on this woman's body, on the skin,

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Speaker 2: over the stomach and over the sternum, and to read

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Speaker 2: from Jeres's summary quote, something that may have been intended

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Speaker 2: to ritually heal the damage the embalmers had done and

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Speaker 2: act as a replacement of sorts for removed heart. And

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Speaker 2: this would not be the only example in ancient Egyptian

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Speaker 2: emvolving practices where the heart was taken out and something

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Speaker 2: else was put in there, seemingly in its place or

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Speaker 2: to replace it. I'll mention another couple of examples of

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Speaker 2: that in a minute. But after this, her body was

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Speaker 2: treated with spices and with lichen covering I think her

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Speaker 2: head and her upper body, and she was wrapped and

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Speaker 2: buried somewhere near Luxor. At the time of this article,

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Speaker 2: by the way, the mummy was in the collection of

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Speaker 2: the Red Path Museum at McGill University in Montreal. But anyway,

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Speaker 2: this raises an interesting question if the heart was so

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Speaker 2: important in Egyptian religion, that so important that for a

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Speaker 2: long time, people assumed it was always left in place

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Speaker 2: when bodies were mummified. What was happening in the cases

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Speaker 2: where it actually was removed and how common was that? Well,

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Speaker 2: to quote a profane named Andrew Wade from Master University

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Speaker 2: who's the author of another piece I'm going to look

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Speaker 2: at in a minute, Wade says, quote, we don't really

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Speaker 2: know what's happening to the hearts that are removed. So

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Speaker 2: it's assumed that, as you alluded to a minute ago, robed,

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Speaker 2: they were usually when they were removed, they were put

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Speaker 2: into canopic jars, which we know we're used to hold

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Speaker 2: internal organs removed from other mummies, but that's not always

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Speaker 2: known for sure. So sometimes we just don't know what

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Speaker 2: happened to the heart. And there's still the question of

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Speaker 2: why why did they do this? Well, we don't know,

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Speaker 2: but the authors of the ct study speculate that perhaps

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Speaker 2: the two plaques on her abdomen and her sternum were

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Speaker 2: meant as a kind of healing or a replacement for

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Speaker 2: the wounds inflicted by the embalming process itself. Like, okay,

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Speaker 2: we had to cut a hole in your body in

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Speaker 2: order to process your body for burial, So here's a

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Speaker 2: plaster healing symbol to counteract that incision. And then perhaps

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Speaker 2: the plaque on the sternum was somehow a replacement for

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Speaker 2: the missing heart, But again we don't know for sure,

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Speaker 2: and we don't know why the heart was removed. But

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Speaker 2: I came across another piece that has some interesting thoughts

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Speaker 2: about this. So for a more general look at the

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Speaker 2: treatment of the heart in Egyptian mummification, I was looking at.

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Speaker 2: I don't think this is a paper in an academic journal.

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Speaker 2: I think this is a fact sheet from a presentation

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Speaker 2: at an academic conference that was put together by a

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Speaker 2: couple of experts, by Andrew D. Wade and Andrew J. Nelson.

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Speaker 2: I know that one of the two authors here, Wade,

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Speaker 2: was the one who was quoted in that article we

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Speaker 2: were just talking about. So the authors of this presentation

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Speaker 2: here say that many generalizations made these days about the

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Speaker 2: treatment of the heart in Egyptian mummification are based not

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Speaker 2: on modern empirical research, but rather on accounts given by

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Speaker 2: classical authors. So if we are going to use literary evidence,

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Speaker 2: evidence from ancient texts for what these funeral practices were,

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Speaker 2: you know, it would be really good to have a

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Speaker 2: lot of direct Egyptian accounts, and we have some Egyptian

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Speaker 2: accounts about beliefs about funeral practices and the afterlife, but

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Speaker 2: instead a lot of the literary evidence we use is

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Speaker 2: mostly in Greek and Roman texts from authors like Herodotus

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Speaker 2: and Plutarch, And in fact, they say, the only author

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Speaker 2: specifically mentioning the heart as opposed to making more general

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Speaker 2: statements about what is done with the organs during mummification

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Speaker 2: is the Ptolemaic period Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, who writes

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Speaker 2: as follows quote, when they have gathered to treat the

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Speaker 2: body after it has been slit open, one of them

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Speaker 2: thrusts his hand through the opening in the corpse into

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Speaker 2: the trunk and extracts everything but the kidneys and the heart,

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Speaker 2: and another one cleanses each of the viscera, washing them

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Speaker 2: in palm wine and spices. So based on this we've

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Speaker 2: got Diodorus here saying that the heart is always left

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Speaker 2: in place. But of course, remember he was Ptolemaic period,

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Speaker 2: and this is one author. And this presentation I looked

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Speaker 2: at was designed to compare those literary accounts of heart

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Speaker 2: treatment to evidence again from CT scans or from mummies

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Speaker 2: that have actually been empirically taken apart and described in

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Speaker 2: the scientific literature. So we looked to see what was

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Speaker 2: left in them. And they say there are three basic

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Speaker 2: patterns of heart treatment and mummies. One is retention, so

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Speaker 2: the heart stays in the chest even if other organs

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Speaker 2: are removed. Number two is removal, the heart is taken

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Speaker 2: out of the body. And number three is replacement, where

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Speaker 2: the heart is removed and something symbolic is left in

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Speaker 2: its place, generally something called a heart scaub, which is

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Speaker 2: a type of amulet. So how do the empirical finding

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Speaker 2: stack up the author's write quote the heart was noted

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Speaker 2: as intact in only twenty one of eighty individuals, where

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Speaker 2: this organ's disposition was recorded in barely more than a

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Speaker 2: quarter of the individuals, and this sample was the heart

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Speaker 2: retained in situ. In only one case was the heart

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Speaker 2: possibly sewn back into place, and in one other case

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Speaker 2: was a heart scare of a present presumably to replace

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Speaker 2: the removed heart. And so rob you can see I've

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Speaker 2: included a chart from their presentation below where you can

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Speaker 2: look at the trends where these are not percentages, but

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Speaker 2: these are absolute numbers. Of examples from these different periods,

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Speaker 2: and you can see that heart retention predominates in the

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Speaker 2: small number of samples of mummies we have from the

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Speaker 2: Middle and New Kingdoms. But then as time goes on,

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Speaker 2: heart retention is outnumbered by heart removals in the Third

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Speaker 2: Intermediate Period, the Late Period, and the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. So,

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Speaker 2: in the words of the authors quote, mummies were increasingly

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Speaker 2: absent their hearts from the New Kingdom onward. As time

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Speaker 2: goes on, more and more of the mummies we find

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Speaker 2: have their hearts removed, and so the authors conclude to quote,

400
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Speaker 2: the stereotype of universal heart retention or replacement on accidental

401
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Speaker 2: removal is far from the truth. The heart was uncommonly

402
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Speaker 2: retained in situ and rarely returned or replaced by a

403
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Speaker 2: heart scare up. The hypothesis constructed from the stereotyped account

404
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Speaker 2: by Diodorus is therefore falsified by these data.

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Speaker 1: Interesting. Interesting, yeah, Now also worth just driving home though,

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Speaker 1: that this is all separate, of course, from the purely

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Speaker 1: sort of mythological situation in which the heart is weighed

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Speaker 1: that's taking place in another realm, that is not taking

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Speaker 1: place in the physical world.

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Speaker 2: Right, this is a study about what happened to the bodies,

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Speaker 2: not necessarily about what the people in question believed about

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Speaker 2: what was happening in the afterlife.

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Speaker 1: Right, And though of it's also worth driving home that

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Speaker 1: also with belief, especially when we're talking about ancient Egypt. Again,

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Speaker 1: like you said, we're talking about a very long period

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Speaker 1: of time in which practices change, but also beliefs also change.

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Speaker 1: So it's hard to just you can't just sum everything

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Speaker 1: up and like say a pamphlet about like here's what

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Speaker 1: the ancient Egyptians believed or did, because you're covering such

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Speaker 1: a broad period of time.

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Speaker 2: Correct, And this is the point the authors here are making.

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Speaker 2: They use this as evidence that the classical descriptions of

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Speaker 2: Egyptian mummification by like Greek and Latin authors should only

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Speaker 2: be used, as they say, at best quote a possible

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Speaker 2: snapshot of mummification performed by one particular workshop unquote, and

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Speaker 2: not like an adequate description of universal practices or even

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Speaker 2: of the most common practices across time and space. So

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Speaker 2: but I still had the question about like why, though,

429
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Speaker 2: is there any clue as to why this difference that

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Speaker 2: in some cases the heart is retained in other cases

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Speaker 2: the heart is removed, and are there any trends in

432
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 2: like whose hearts were removed and whose were left in place.

433
00:24:57,040 --> 00:25:00,400
Speaker 2: The authors do offer a bit of speculation here that,

434
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:03,640
Speaker 2: you know, interestingly and the mummies available to us, there

435
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:06,720
Speaker 2: seems to be a somewhat of a correlation with access

436
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 2: to mummification by different classes. So in the New Kingdom

437
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 2: there essentially was a process of democratization of mummification. Previously,

438
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 2: mummification had been an incredibly exclusive right which was only

439
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:27,680
Speaker 2: available to you know, the top top elites. But then

440
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 2: they say quote as time progressed, the nobles gained increasing

441
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 2: access to mummification and retained their hearts. With the democratization

442
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:42,160
Speaker 2: of mummification, however, the commoners being mummified were not receiving

443
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 2: the same treatment, possibly to ensure that the elite maintained

444
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 2: a more favorable afterlife than their subjects.

445
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that went in a different direction than I

446
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:54,879
Speaker 1: was expecting. I thought it would just maybe be like, well,

447
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:58,440
Speaker 1: this is this is a premium service for premium customers.

448
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 1: We can't offer the same level of mummification services for

449
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 1: a lesser price. But it seems like it also could

450
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 1: be ensuring the status quo in the afterlife.

451
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:09,679
Speaker 2: It could be because I mean, so I don't know

452
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:12,440
Speaker 2: how it would necessarily be cheaper to remove the heart

453
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 2: than not remove the heart, you know, like it just

454
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 2: in terms of the actual cost in the like labor

455
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 2: to the embalmers. So yeah, it could be a deliberate

456
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 2: choice to sort of create an artificial tiered system for

457
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 2: quality of mummification and make sure, well, there's a really

458
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,959
Speaker 2: special kind of mummification where your heart stays in and

459
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 2: that's only available to the elites. But we don't know

460
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:39,439
Speaker 2: that for sure. I want to be very clear, we

461
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 2: don't know the reasoning. But that is an interesting, plausible

462
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 2: scenario that it's like it was in order to create

463
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 2: a kind of elite or premium tiered type of mummification

464
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 2: at a time when more people were getting mummification at all. Fascinating,

465
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:58,680
Speaker 2: But we don't know for sure, and so I think

466
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 2: this remains a really tristing question I would love to

467
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 2: know more of someone can have more evidence to shed

468
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:08,719
Speaker 2: direct light on why this difference emerged.

469
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 1: Now, another scenario of heart removal that's rather different in

470
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 1: many respects, but one that probably instantly comes to many

471
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 1: people's minds that I want to discuss is the ritual

472
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 1: removal of human hearts by the Mayans and the Aztecs,

473
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 1: but especially for research purposes here the Mayans, so the

474
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 1: ancient Mayans are known to have performed human sacrifices involving

475
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: the removal of the heart, though not in the post

476
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:52,160
Speaker 1: mortem sense, the removal of the heart essentially via ritualistic sacrifice,

477
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: ritualistic execution. You could think of it as vivisection or

478
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: just or even death by heart removal, I imagine. One

479
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:04,440
Speaker 1: article I was reading on the topic was Procedures in

480
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: Human Heart Extraction and Ritual Meaning by Tesler and Chuchina,

481
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: published in Latin American Antiquity in two thousand and six,

482
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: And as you can tell by the title, this is

483
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:19,160
Speaker 1: a paper that deals predominantly with the procedures. How were

484
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:23,640
Speaker 1: they carrying this out? Not so much, you know, the whys.

485
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: We'll get into some of the whys. But essentially these

486
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:30,959
Speaker 1: were religious practices. But I was not aware that there

487
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: was There's been so much, so much discussion and attempts

488
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: to understand exactly how the heart was removed. So they

489
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 1: looked at skeletal remains, a suspected heart removal human sacrifice cases,

490
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 1: and contended that the sacrificers would carry these procedures out

491
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 1: by quote a trans diaphragmatic And I had to look

492
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 1: that up. Webster says, use the hard G on trans diaphragmatic.

493
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: So I'm going with what Webster's saying in this case,

494
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: the definition being occurring, passing, or performed through the diaphragm.

495
00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 1: You mean the diaphragum, Yes, the diaphragm. And so this

496
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 1: would yeah opening immediately below the rib cage, and this

497
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 1: would help ensure rapid removal of the heart. And this

498
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: is where they get into their going up against some

499
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 1: previous theories about how they carried this out. In particular,

500
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 1: there was an eight to ten minute procedure estimate by

501
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: Robesik and Hales in nineteen eighty four. These authors had

502
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:34,240
Speaker 1: argued that the sacrificer would have cut through the thorax

503
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 1: from side to side, collapsing the lung in the process.

504
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 1: This would make the victim unconscious within three to four

505
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 1: minutes and allow the rest of the surgery to proceed

506
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 1: without struggle. And they do kind of frame it as

507
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: kind of a surgery the section with heart removal occurring

508
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: while the heart was still palpitating, which seemed to be

509
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 1: the desired effect to pull the heart out while the

510
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: heart seems to still have life in it. Another analysis

511
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: from Gonzales Torres argued as well for a below the

512
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 1: ribs approach, but stressed that the exact style may have

513
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 1: varied from region to region. So again we get into

514
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: a similar situation with mummification. Just because one mummification lab

515
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:18,479
Speaker 1: was doing it one way doesn't mean they were doing

516
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 1: it the same way at another lab at another time.

517
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 1: And likewise, the way hearts were removed via blood ritual

518
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: blood sacrifice in one instance, it might be different in another,

519
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 1: you know, different styles for different sacrificers, or some sort

520
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: of evolution of style Tesla and Chacina. Meanwhile, right quote.

521
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: It must be underlined in this context that ritual heart

522
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: removal entailed a violent vivisection of a struggling victim, and

523
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 1: was therefore quicker and fundamentally distinctive from the cautious procedures

524
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:54,800
Speaker 1: implied in a quote unquote surgical operation as visualized by

525
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 1: Rubiesack and Hales. Now, the sacrificial victims in these situations

526
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: were typically enslaved people, sometimes children or prisoners of war

527
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: who were I'm reading that they were often either painted

528
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: blue first or pelted with arrows, and once the heart

529
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: was removed, its blood was generally used to smear or

530
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 1: anoint some sort of divine icon or some sort of structure,

531
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 1: that sort of thing.

532
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 2: Now, as sacrifices, these would have had a religious significance.

533
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 2: Is the significance of the act better understood than maybe

534
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 2: the significance of the removal or non removal of the

535
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 2: heart in the Egyptian example?

536
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 1: I believe so, based on the work I was looking at.

537
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 1: There's a paper here by Tesler and Oliver in Open

538
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: Caskets and Broken Hearts, great title from a twenty twenty

539
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: edition of Current Anthropology, and the authors here are right

540
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: that the quote partitioning and the liberation of vitalizing matter,

541
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: namely the heart and blood, fed specific sacred forces during

542
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 1: divine cult and mythic reenactment. They also provide a note

543
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: on Aztec sacrifices quote. As for the Aztecs, we conclude

544
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: that different trunk opening procedures were practiced as part of

545
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: ritual sequences that in each case enabled access to the

546
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: cosmic sacred mountain with its vivifying essences. So in other words,

547
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:24,640
Speaker 1: hearts and blood were essentially food for gods of the

548
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: sun and gods of the earth, deities who in turn

549
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: sacrificed or were in turn, or you could say, originally

550
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 1: sacrificed something to create the universe. And the sacrifices here

551
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 1: were acts of the actual blood ritual sacrifices, not the

552
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: mythological sacrifices, were acts of quote, obligation, reciprocation, and reenactment.

553
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 1: So there are several different things going on there, Like

554
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 1: there's a sort of a mythic understanding of what the

555
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 1: heart and the blood is. There's this reenactment of things

556
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:57,960
Speaker 1: that occurred in sacred time, the idea that there was

557
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 1: some sort of blood ritual and sacrifice that occurred with

558
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: mythological beings, and the thing that is taking place in

559
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: the sacrifice is important insofar as it is re enacting

560
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 1: this mythic incident. And there's this also, you know, basically,

561
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 1: like what we sort of generalize about sacrifice, something is

562
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: offered up so that something else may be offered down

563
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: to us as humans. They also mentioned in this article

564
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 1: that while the under the rib technique does seem more common,

565
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 1: and I believe This is a slightly later work. There

566
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 1: are three distinct tactics that were used. There's cutting directly

567
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: under the ribs, there's making an incision between two ribs,

568
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: and then there's horizontally severing the sternum in order to

569
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 1: access the heart. But again it seems like going under

570
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: the ribs was the most common technique. Now additionally and

571
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 1: just sort of like trying to get into the whole,

572
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 1: like what did ancient people or in this case, what

573
00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 1: did the Mayans who are engaging in heart removal sacrifice?

574
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: What did they think of the heart? What other ideas

575
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: we're going on regarding the center of our circulatory system.

576
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: On this I found an interesting discussion of ideas concerning

577
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 1: the human body among the Satal people. The Adal people

578
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:18,279
Speaker 1: are a Mayan people in southern Mexico. So in this

579
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 1: particular work, it is the Ethnophysiology of the Satal Maya

580
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: of the Highland Chapists by Cameron Lyttleton Adams. This was

581
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 1: a Doctor's of Philosophy dissertation from the University of Georgia.

582
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to get into everything that's discussed here,

583
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:36,880
Speaker 1: and again this is not the Mayan people of old,

584
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 1: but contemporary Mayan peoples, but there are these interesting ideas

585
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 1: in their thinking about the connection of the heart to cognition,

586
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 1: not thinking with the heart instead of the brain, but

587
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:53,799
Speaker 1: sort of thinking with it. So I found that kind

588
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,399
Speaker 1: of interesting because there are some other instances we'll get

589
00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: into as well, in addition to the Egyptian model, where

590
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: this seems like maybe a modern twist on these older

591
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 1: ideas of the heart being the center of thought, the

592
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: center of being. So maybe it's a situation where like

593
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:11,719
Speaker 1: in the modern world, you know that the brain is

594
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 1: the center of cognition, but there's still the symbolic and

595
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 1: metaphorical importance of the heart as being something vital to

596
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 1: who we are and having some sort of emotional connection

597
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: which I think we can all relate to that, especially

598
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 1: on Valentine's to Day. We're so on Valentine's Day, we're

599
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 1: so steeped in this idea that, yeah, the heart is

600
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 1: not just a thing that pumps blood.

601
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:37,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there is to some degree some accuracy and

602
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:40,880
Speaker 2: wisdom in that way of thinking. Because, of course, while

603
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 2: I think it is quite clear that the brain is

604
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:47,400
Speaker 2: the necessary organ for cognition, like you couldn't have thinking

605
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 2: without the brain, that the rest of the body influences

606
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 2: the thinking that happens in the brain, and the brain

607
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:56,800
Speaker 2: is not like a thing floating apart from the body.

608
00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:01,719
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Adams has this wonderful little line in here

609
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:05,800
Speaker 1: I want to read. I found this very fascinating quote. Further,

610
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 1: health is referred to by the semantic pair walking and working,

611
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:15,919
Speaker 1: and the heart is conceived of as a homunculous, an

612
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:20,360
Speaker 1: internal being that makes commands that must be obeyed. Now,

613
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 1: I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth or

614
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:25,920
Speaker 1: visualizations in anyone else's worldview, so I don't think this

615
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:28,880
Speaker 1: is supposed to literally be a homunculus or this idea

616
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:31,399
Speaker 1: that like the heart, that in each of us there's

617
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 1: like a squat, little like tough, little like red flesh

618
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 1: being that lives in the center of our chest and

619
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, puppet masters the rest of us.

620
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 1: It's more like an idea of like what's going on

621
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:47,279
Speaker 1: in the heart versus what's going on on the outside.

622
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,480
Speaker 1: It's this is more metaphorical, but I think it's still

623
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,840
Speaker 1: an intriguing idea. Well, and I could.

624
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 2: Be misunderstanding, but I kind of read that as it

625
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,799
Speaker 2: sounds like it's suggesting the heart as a something that

626
00:36:59,880 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 2: is separate from the conscious mind but has desires of

627
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 2: its own that must be obeyed.

628
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair as well, though it

629
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 1: is it's hard for me to not just picture like

630
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: literal homunculus in the heart, but I know that's not

631
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:16,240
Speaker 1: what the author is going for here. But it's interesting

632
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:18,120
Speaker 1: to think about all this. Like when we think about

633
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 1: heart and brain, we think, okay, brain is thought, heart

634
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:22,960
Speaker 1: is his certain story system. But of course if we

635
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: know that the two need each other, like the brain

636
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 1: cannot live independent of some sort of heart that is

637
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: doing the job of the heart, be that a transplanted

638
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: heart or an artificial heart, like that is a role

639
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:37,840
Speaker 1: that has to be filled for the brain to do

640
00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:39,080
Speaker 1: its thing as well.

641
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 2: And that feedback from and input from the rest of

642
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 2: the body affects how the brain works. The r for

643
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,840
Speaker 2: in incredibly mundane ways that you're familiar with, such as

644
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 2: like you think different when you're hungry, like when you're

645
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 2: getting feedback from your digestive system or something, or from

646
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,319
Speaker 2: your blood sugar. That's going to affect the way you

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00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 2: feel and the way you think. But it also in

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00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 2: much subtler and stranger ways as well, that there's a

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00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 2: relationship between what's happening and say, your gut microbiome and

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00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:10,920
Speaker 2: the way your brain works, and on and on.

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00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And then of course there's the very simple

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00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 1: observation that, hey, when I am very excited, when I'm agitated,

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00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 1: my heart is beating faster, and when I'm very calm,

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00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: my heart is beating very slowly, and realizing that, yeah,

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00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:25,919
Speaker 1: there are all these very observable connections between the way

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00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 1: that we you know, what's going on in our mind

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00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: and our being and what's going on seemingly in the

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00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:32,480
Speaker 1: center of our chest.

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00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:34,799
Speaker 2: All right, well, I think maybe we're going to have

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00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 2: to call this episode there for part one, but we

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00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 2: will be back in part two to discuss more heart

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00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 2: removal traditions and thoughts about heart removal from the point

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00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 2: of view of other cultures. In Norse traditions, in medieval Christianity,

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00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about boiling some crusaders. It's going

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00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 2: to be fun.

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00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 1: Yes, there will be more human sacrifice, there will be

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00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 1: more heart removed, and much more. So. Be sure to

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00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:07,040
Speaker 1: check back in on Thursday as we continue our special

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00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:11,320
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day celebration of the removed Heart. In the meantime,

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00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:14,240
Speaker 1: if you would like to listen to other episodes Stuff

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00:39:14,239 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, well you will find them all

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00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:20,120
Speaker 1: in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We

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00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:22,880
Speaker 1: have our core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays

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00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 1: we do a listener mail episode. On Wednesdays the normal schedules,

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00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:31,840
Speaker 1: we do a short form Monster Factor or Artifact episode,

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00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:34,279
Speaker 1: and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to

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00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 1: do an episode of Weird House Cinema. That's where really

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00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 1: most of the heart ripping takes place on this show.

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00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:43,320
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If you

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00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:45,360
Speaker 2: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

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00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 2: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic

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00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 2: for the future, or just to say hello, you can

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00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind

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00:39:53,120 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 2: dot com.

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00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 3: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 3: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. H