Speaker 1: Dear listeners, we've reached the end of another unexplained season,
Speaker 1: so I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank
Speaker 1: each and every one of you from the bottom of
Speaker 1: my heart for taking the time to listen to the show.
Speaker 1: A big shout out to those of you have been
Speaker 1: with us from the beginning, but even if you're listening
Speaker 1: to the show for the first time, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for giving us a shot. I know there's a
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff out there that is equally deserving
Speaker 1: of your time, so again, it's much appreciated, whether you're
Speaker 1: a straight up fan of horror and the weird, or
Speaker 1: you just like listening because the monotonous tone of my
Speaker 1: narration sends you instantly to sleep. You're all welcome, and
Speaker 1: I remain forever your humble servant. We've just got one
Speaker 1: more unexplained extra few to conclude season six, but don't fret.
Speaker 1: We'll be back very soon at the end of June
Speaker 1: with season seven for our seventh year of the podcast,
Speaker 1: which is frankly astonishing and once again all thanks to
Speaker 1: you listeners. So without further ado, thank you so much
Speaker 1: again and see you on the other side. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Unexplained Extra with Me Richard McLean Smith, where for the
Speaker 1: weeks in between episodes we look at stories and ideas that,
Speaker 1: for one reason or other, didn't make it into the
Speaker 1: previous show. In last week's episode, She's Electric, we trace
Speaker 1: the strange tale of fourteen year old Angelique Cottan from
Speaker 1: Normandy in France, who, in eighteen forty six, after a
Speaker 1: series of heavy electrical storms, was said to have displayed
Speaker 1: an unusual ability to move objects without touching them. Often,
Speaker 1: when I come across this kind of story, the first
Speaker 1: assumption made by the people exposed to the apparent supernatural
Speaker 1: event tends to be that some kind of haunting is
Speaker 1: taking place, or that Topesky poltergeist is to blame for
Speaker 1: the strange disturbances. It's unusual, then, that Angelique story seems
Speaker 1: to begin and end with the speculation that she was
Speaker 1: single handedly responsible for the peculiar goings on. There have
Speaker 1: been similar reports of strange powers afflicting people before and
Speaker 1: since the case of Angelique Kotan. In the year sixteen
Speaker 1: eighty six, a man called Brigman's who lived in Brussels,
Speaker 1: was said to be similarly affected. A commission was appointed
Speaker 1: by local magistrates to investigate his condition, and the unfortunate
Speaker 1: sufferer was pronounced a sorcerer. Luckily for him, he managed
Speaker 1: to make an escape and might have been burnt alive
Speaker 1: if he hadn't got away. Then, in America, in the
Speaker 1: early eighteen eighties, two so called electric girls were brought
Speaker 1: to the public's attention. Lulu Hurst, who took the name
Speaker 1: Georgia Wander, and Annie Abbott, whose sobriquet was the Little
Speaker 1: Georgia Magnet presented themselves as having powers very similar to
Speaker 1: those apparently exhibited by Angelique Cotan, making their names at
Speaker 1: stage performers. Their act involved them moving heavy pieces of
Speaker 1: furniture around, often held down by seemingly strong men. However,
Speaker 1: Hearst subsequently wrote in an autobiography that her so called
Speaker 1: powers were in fact nothing more than a stage trick.
Speaker 1: To day, the hypothetical psychic ability, by which a person
Speaker 1: is said to be able to move objects without a
Speaker 1: physical interaction, is known as psychokinesis. Experiments to prove the
Speaker 1: existence of this phenomenon of being criticized for lack of
Speaker 1: proper controls and repeatability, and are generally regarded as pseudoscience.
Speaker 1: One story that emerged out of Sweden in nineteen nineteen
Speaker 1: is certainly strange enough to make you think again. On
Speaker 1: April fifteenth, nineteen forty eight, a body was pulled out
Speaker 1: of Shechechen Harbor in Poland. It was identified as forty
Speaker 1: year old Swedish sailor Gustave Zander Nord, who had last
Speaker 1: been seen in January after he disappeared from the steamship
Speaker 1: he worked on, which had been docked in Shechechen Harbor
Speaker 1: at the time. A great deal of mystery surrounded the
Speaker 1: man's death, with some claiming it wasn't gnawed at all.
Speaker 1: What was perhaps stranger, though, was the story that came
Speaker 1: out two years previously concerning the man's early life. It
Speaker 1: was a priest named Ernest Bieker who revealed all to
Speaker 1: a Swedish newspaper in nineteen forty six. Some time toward
Speaker 1: the end of nineteen nineteen, Bieker received a letter from
Speaker 1: an elderly couple from the village of Jorgoa, just outside
Speaker 1: of Aorbloer in East Sweden. The couple had been having
Speaker 1: some problems with their grandson and had come to believe
Speaker 1: that he was possessed. They wanted Baker to conduct an
Speaker 1: exorcism on him. Dismissing their concerns, Baker ignored the letter
Speaker 1: and forgot all about it until a few weeks later,
Speaker 1: when a friend of his brought more news at the
Speaker 1: peculiar grandchild and insisted that everything the grandparents were saying
Speaker 1: was true. Worried that he'd made a terrible mistake, the
Speaker 1: priest set out immediately to pay the family a visit.
Speaker 1: What he found in their home troubled him greatly. The
Speaker 1: couple's grandson was Gustav Nord, who was twelve years old
Speaker 1: at the time. The boy was born in nineteen o
Speaker 1: seven and had endured a tough upbringing, frequently punctuated by
Speaker 1: violence at the hands of his father. By nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: his parents were separated and had effectively abandoned, leaving him
Speaker 1: to be brought up by his grandparents. Gustav was said
Speaker 1: to have been a relatively normal boy until sometime in
Speaker 1: the winter of nineteen nineteen, when he was caught up
Speaker 1: in a fight between his uncle and his neighbour. He'd
Speaker 1: been so scared that he fled his home and hid
Speaker 1: in a barn until things had died down. That night,
Speaker 1: when he returned home, strange things began to happen. It
Speaker 1: started with wrappings on his bedroom wall, then chairs began
Speaker 1: to move, and eventually Gustave was apparently thrown out of
Speaker 1: his own bed. As things escalated, it said that the
Speaker 1: phone began to ring of its own accord, lights flashed
Speaker 1: on and off, and objects were levitated off the ground.
Speaker 1: Unlike Gustav Nord's grandparents, the priest Ernst Bieker didn't think
Speaker 1: the boy was possessed, but instead was somehow directly responsible
Speaker 1: for the strange activity. This idea was in turn picked
Speaker 1: up by the boy's estranged father, who, on hearing about
Speaker 1: all the peculiar stories surrounding his son, returned suddenly in
Speaker 1: an attempt to exploit him, giving him the name the
Speaker 1: Electric Boy. He is said to have taken him around
Speaker 1: local towns, forcing him to perform for money, until local
Speaker 1: authorities eventually stepped in and put a stop to the abuse.
Speaker 1: Gustave is then said to have been sent for treatment
Speaker 1: at a psychiatric hospital, though the precise details of what
Speaker 1: occurred there are unknown. The case eventually came to the
Speaker 1: attention of psychologist and sometime parapsychologist Sidney Ulrights at Sweden's
Speaker 1: Uppsala University. Ulverretz collected numerous testimonies from the boy's family
Speaker 1: and several locally as officials who got involved in the case.
Speaker 1: Ulretz believed that Nord's power had something to do with
Speaker 1: animal magnetism. The idea was conceived by German physician Franz
Speaker 1: Anton Mesmer back in the eighteenth century. Mesmer formulated the
Speaker 1: theory that all animate things are connected by some kind
Speaker 1: of magnetic force or fluid, which permeated the entire universe
Speaker 1: and was present all around and inside of us, Much
Speaker 1: like the way gravity affects the ocean tides. Mesmer claimed
Speaker 1: that our bodies could also be fundamentally acted on by
Speaker 1: outside electromagnetic forces. According to Mesmer, most illness was caused
Speaker 1: by a disruption of this magnetic force insiderus. If the
Speaker 1: force could be manipulated back to its natural state, therefore,
Speaker 1: the illness would be cured. Despite his idea being roundly
Speaker 1: dismissed by the science establishment of the day, it became
Speaker 1: wildly popular in French society, where Mesmer applied his trade.
Speaker 1: At first, Mesmer encouraged his patients to swallow iron filings
Speaker 1: that he then attempted to move through the body with magnets. However,
Speaker 1: he soon dispensed with his tools, claiming that he could
Speaker 1: instead just manipulate the magnetic force using only his hands
Speaker 1: and his mind. Perhaps Gustav Naud thought Sidney Alretz had
Speaker 1: similarly been able to tap into this universal force and
Speaker 1: had found a way to manipulate it. As Mesmer's popularity sowed,
Speaker 1: many attested to the undeniable efficacy of his technique, which
Speaker 1: was credited with curing all manner of ailments. Medical practices
Speaker 1: at the time could often be quite brutal and disturbing,
Speaker 1: involving painful procedures applied without anesthetic. Part of Mesmer's appeal
Speaker 1: was the relatively benign nature of his treatments in comparison,
Speaker 1: which often amounted to little more than being touched or
Speaker 1: drinking what he claimed to be magnetized water. There's been
Speaker 1: much speculation about Mesmer's intentions towards some of his patients. Certainly,
Speaker 1: his tactile processes, which included a fondness for touching women
Speaker 1: on the lower abdomen and inner thighs, could be said
Speaker 1: to be sexually abusive. Disturbed by Mesmer's emergence and the
Speaker 1: questionable nature of his work, France's then King Louis the
Speaker 1: sixteenth appointed a scientific commission to investigate his theory. Members
Speaker 1: of the esteemed commission included founding father Benjamin Franklin and
Speaker 1: Joseph Ingne Schieton, after whom, as you may have guessed,
Speaker 1: the famed execution is instrument the guillotine is named after.
Speaker 1: The committee found Mesmer's theory to be completely without merit,
Speaker 1: a conclusion which is maintained to this day. Interestingly, however,
Speaker 1: despite there being no truth to Mesmer's central idea, whatever
Speaker 1: he was doing often seemed to have a genuine physical
Speaker 1: impact on its patients. It is now widely considered that
Speaker 1: what he had inadvertently stumbled upon was the power of suggestion,
Speaker 1: and he's been credited with helping to pioneer what would
Speaker 1: become known as the placebo effect. The term Mesmerism, named
Speaker 1: after Franz Anton Mesmer, has since come to be associated
Speaker 1: much more with the process of hypnotism, which was developed
Speaker 1: significantly by Scottish surgeon James Braid in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: After spending considerable time studying what it was about the
Speaker 1: idea of animal magnetism that actually had an effect on people.
Speaker 1: As for Gustave sander Nord, the Electric Boy, no definitive
Speaker 1: conclusion was ever reached about his apparent powers. After his
Speaker 1: body was taken out of Schetchen Harbor in Poland, he
Speaker 1: was laid to rest in the city where he was found,
Speaker 1: where you can still find its gravestone to day. This
Speaker 1: episode was written by Richard McLain Smith and Diane Hope.
Speaker 1: Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard
Speaker 1: mc clain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including
Speaker 1: the music, are also produced by Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained.
Speaker 1: The book and audiobook, featuring stories that have never before
Speaker 1: been featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes, and Noble Waterstones, among
Speaker 1: other bookstores. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in touch
Speaker 1: with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard
Speaker 1: on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your
Speaker 1: own you'd like to share. You can reach us online
Speaker 1: at Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter at Unexplained Pod
Speaker 1: and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast