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Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history

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Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right

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Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. There's a reason why the

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Speaker 1: concept of visualization is so popular. Some experts believe that

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Speaker 1: if you believe something strongly enough, you can will it

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Speaker 1: into existence that new car or arrays at work. As

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Speaker 1: former Disney employee Tom Fitzgerald once said, if you can

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Speaker 1: dream it, you can do it. Alexandra David Neil had

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Speaker 1: lofty dreams too, which she managed to will into an

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Speaker 1: exciting life of her own. Born into poverty in eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty eight, her childhood was spent exploring spaces not meant

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Speaker 1: for women at the time. When she was fifteen years old,

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Speaker 1: she attempted to ernie to England from the Netherlands, foiled

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Speaker 1: only by her lack of funds. Over the next several years,

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Speaker 1: she did make it to England and Spain and Switzerland,

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Speaker 1: all without anyone's help. She had a passion for joining

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Speaker 1: secret societies as well any that would take her, including

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Speaker 1: the Freemasons, of which her father had been a member.

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Speaker 1: During this time, she also studied subjects like anarchy and feminism,

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Speaker 1: converted to Buddhism, and trained to become an opera singer.

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Speaker 1: She even performed as first singer at the Hanoi Opera

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Speaker 1: House in Vietnam. Over the years, Alexandra dove deep into

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Speaker 1: many subjects, but none as important to her as Buddhism.

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Speaker 1: Her devotion to it took her to India and Tibet

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Speaker 1: many times, and she published several books on her travels,

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Speaker 1: as well as on religious mysticism. One of those books

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Speaker 1: came out in nine It was quickly translated from its

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Speaker 1: original French into English as Magic and Mysticism in Tibet.

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Speaker 1: Inside it, Alexandra discussed a certain spiritual phenomena known as

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Speaker 1: a rule pa, which she referred to as a tulpa.

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Speaker 1: According to Alexandra, autolpa was a manifestation of will and

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Speaker 1: energy brought into the real world. She had witnessed many

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Speaker 1: fantastic things throughout her life, but nothing like what she

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Speaker 1: had seen during one night in Tibet. In n Alexandra

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Speaker 1: had hired a Tibetan man named wang Do to assist

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Speaker 1: her in carrying her luggage and hauling supplies. Once she'd

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Speaker 1: set up camp and gotten settled. Wang Do left to

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Speaker 1: be with his family for a three week sabbatical. While

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Speaker 1: he was away, he was also supposed to collect more

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Speaker 1: food and supplies for the camp and bring back additional

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Speaker 1: workers to aid Miss David Neil. Three weeks turned into

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Speaker 1: a month, which turned into two months, and there was

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Speaker 1: still no sign of wange Do. Alexandra figured he'd abandoned

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Speaker 1: her to stay with his family at home, until one

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Speaker 1: night when she had a dream of him traveling up

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Speaker 1: the hill wearing a sun hat, which he'd never had before.

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Speaker 1: The Next day, another servant rushed into her tent, claiming

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Speaker 1: that he saw wang Do approaching. She ran out to

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Speaker 1: see for herself, and there he was, wearing the same

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Speaker 1: hat as in her dream, but without any of the

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Speaker 1: supplies or workers that he had been tasked with bringing.

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Speaker 1: She and two other servants watched him for a while

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Speaker 1: as he climbed up the hill. At one point, he

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Speaker 1: was obscured by a chorton a small circular structure meant

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Speaker 1: for prayer and meditation. Alexandra and the servants kept their

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Speaker 1: eyes on the spot. Maybe he'd stop to pay his

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Speaker 1: respects or take a break. They waited for some time

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Speaker 1: before Alexandra told the servants to go to the chorton

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Speaker 1: and check behind it for him. Looking through a pair

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Speaker 1: of binoculars, she finally got her answer. Whangdu had disappeared.

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Speaker 1: Hours passed and no one could understand how or why

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Speaker 1: the man had evaporated into thin air. Then, just as

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Speaker 1: the sun was setting over the camp, he reappeared, and

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Speaker 1: he wasn't a mirage this time either. A caravan of

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Speaker 1: supplies and additional servants trailed behind him, and on top

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Speaker 1: of his head he was wearing that sun hat Alexandra

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Speaker 1: had seen in her dream. As soon as he reached

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Speaker 1: the camp, she interrogated him and the new servants on

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Speaker 1: their whereabouts earlier that day. According to their stories, as

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Speaker 1: well as the stories of people who had met the

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Speaker 1: caravan along the way, Wang Do and the workers had

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Speaker 1: been nowhere near the hill prior to dusk. The only

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Speaker 1: explanation Alexandra could come up with was that both her

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Speaker 1: dream and the vision everyone saw of Wang Do traveling

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Speaker 1: alone up the hill had benetoba, a manifestation of their

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Speaker 1: will and energy, but not one created by her. It

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Speaker 1: had to have been made by Wang Do himself to

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Speaker 1: let them know that he was on his way, which

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Speaker 1: is something I'm sure you'd all agree is more than

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Speaker 1: a little curious. There's an allure to the idea of

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Speaker 1: a secret recipe, isn't there. Colonel Sanders famously refused to

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Speaker 1: tell anyone the seven herbs and spices that made his

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Speaker 1: fried chicken so popular. John Pemberton's formula for Coca Cola

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Speaker 1: is locked inside a steel vault, the contents of which

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Speaker 1: are known only to a select few employees. And McDonald's

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Speaker 1: famous secret sauce that yellowy substance drizzled on its big

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Speaker 1: Max was a trade secret for years before the recipe

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Speaker 1: was revealed by the company in two thousand and twelve.

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Speaker 1: When it comes to beloved products, that often comes down

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Speaker 1: to a key ingredient or a combination of them that

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Speaker 1: makes them so coveted. One such ingredient has been used

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Speaker 1: for centuries all over the world, and its origins are

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Speaker 1: not what anyone would expect. In September of two thousand twelve,

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Speaker 1: a young boy in the UK stumbled upon it on

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Speaker 1: the beach with his father. Before that, the Ming dynasty

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Speaker 1: would have imported it from Africa and Sri Lanka. Henry

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Speaker 1: the fifth nostra damas and legendary lover Casanova believed it

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Speaker 1: was imbued with special qualities, especially in the romance department.

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Speaker 1: But where did this miracle substance originate? Whales? Sperm whales,

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Speaker 1: to be exact, Only one percent of the three fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand sperm whales in existence managed to produce it, and

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Speaker 1: the process is not exactly pretty. When a sperm whale

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Speaker 1: eats its favorite food squid, the body of the ingested

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Speaker 1: animal gets pushed through the whales intestines and four stomachs

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Speaker 1: with no problem. The beak, though, goes on a more

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Speaker 1: troublesome journey. That beak, which is slightly curved and pointed

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Speaker 1: on the end, scrapes along the whales insides. It carves

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Speaker 1: out pieces of the intestinal lining, which is collected along

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Speaker 1: with feces as it travels. The resulting mass is so

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Speaker 1: dense the whale can't digest it, and anything caught behind

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Speaker 1: it can't pass through the rectum either. To alleviate the

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Speaker 1: pressure building inside, the whale's lower intestines take in more water,

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Speaker 1: but the process doesn't loosen the rock like beak. Instead,

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Speaker 1: the mass just hardens further. Now in some cases, the

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Speaker 1: whale manages to pass the beaky build up on its

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Speaker 1: own most of the time, though it doesn't see the

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Speaker 1: light of day until that whale has died, freed from

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Speaker 1: its biological prison by the process of decomposition. But it's

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Speaker 1: not just the whale that makes this concentration of squid,

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Speaker 1: beaks and feces so special. It's the ocean itself. If

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Speaker 1: the substance is harvested directly from a dead whale, it

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Speaker 1: has a dark, thick and mucous light consistency. It's only

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Speaker 1: when exposed to the briny deep that it becomes such

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Speaker 1: a beloved and valuable commodity. People have done pretty absurd

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Speaker 1: things to obtain this stuff over the years. One man

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Speaker 1: in crawled through the neck of a dead sperm whale

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Speaker 1: that had washed ashore. He wormed his way through its

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Speaker 1: intestines until he was able to pry the large stone free. Today,

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Speaker 1: hunters along shorelines keep their eyes peeled for objects that

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Speaker 1: look like rocks or petrified dog droppings in the hopes

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Speaker 1: of discovering a chunk for themselves, and they're way more

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Speaker 1: knowledgeable about poop than anyone probably should be. According to

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Speaker 1: those who have found this special brand, of whale excrement.

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Speaker 1: The scent can be woods like fresh air mixed with

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Speaker 1: a healthy dose of manure. But there is a reason

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Speaker 1: people go crazy looking for the fecal remnants of sperm whales.

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Speaker 1: The monetary value the mass that that young English boy

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Speaker 1: and his father found in two thousand twelve, it was

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Speaker 1: worth a whopping sixty three thousand dollars. Another two and

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Speaker 1: a half pound piece was found in two thousand fifteen,

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Speaker 1: and it was sold for over fourteen thousand dollars. Why

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Speaker 1: such big bucks for undigested squidbeaks because of how they're used.

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Speaker 1: What has been considered everything from an aphrodisiac to a

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Speaker 1: superfood to an additive to cigarettes to make them smell better,

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Speaker 1: is also the main ingredient in perfume. Its official name

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Speaker 1: is ambergris. And if you've ever spirtsched yourself with Chanelle

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Speaker 1: number five before at night on the town, then you've

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Speaker 1: undoubtedly been exposed to the secret ingredient in some of

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Speaker 1: your favorite to romas. And if you're thinking this all

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Speaker 1: sounds too strange and maybe too gross to be true,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry to say it's not. This tale does in

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Speaker 1: fact past the smell test. I hope you've enjoyed today's

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Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by

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Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by

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Speaker 1: me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I

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Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,

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Speaker 1: book series, and television show and you can learn all

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Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.

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Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,