Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. The American political circus is based on a
Speaker 1: two party system and has been since the mid eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats each put up their candidates for election
Speaker 1: to various offices, and the American people vote for who
Speaker 1: they'd like to represent them. However, other factions have formed
Speaker 1: over the years to catch those who feel that neither
Speaker 1: party deserves to represent their interest. From the Green Party
Speaker 1: to the Working Class Party to the Alliance Party, these
Speaker 1: splinter groups have become little more than a distraction. They
Speaker 1: do earn several thousand votes each election, but they don't
Speaker 1: amount to much overall. Almost nothing, ever, changes, But one
Speaker 1: group did want to change things, and they almost did
Speaker 1: until the Bears moved in. It started when Yale student
Speaker 1: Jason Sorens wrote an article for a niche political publication.
Speaker 1: Jason was a libertarian who believed in small government, fiscal conservatism,
Speaker 1: and free market capitalism with almost no oversight. Sorens fashioned
Speaker 1: himself something of an activist, and he sought out other
Speaker 1: like minded individuals to join him. He was starting a
Speaker 1: brand new enterprise that would establish a community for people
Speaker 1: who shared his ideas. His concept was centered on the
Speaker 1: idea of secession, but rather than separate from the United States,
Speaker 1: he would force a state to bend to his will.
Speaker 1: He called it the Free State Project, and it was
Speaker 1: started due to sorens frustration with the Libertarian Party, more
Speaker 1: specifically it's inability need to get any of its candidates
Speaker 1: elected to office, so he turned to the past for inspiration.
Speaker 1: Like other extremist leaders who had come before him, Sorens
Speaker 1: believed that an extreme act of migration was necessary to
Speaker 1: achieve his goals. He planned on overtaking the politics of
Speaker 1: a particular states and in turn swaying the country toward libertarianism.
Speaker 1: After an unsurprising undemocratic vote, the Free State movement settled
Speaker 1: on New Hampshire, thanks in large part to its live
Speaker 1: free or die mentality. A subset of followers formed an
Speaker 1: off shoot called the Freetown Project and moved into the
Speaker 1: small town of Grafton. Now Grafton had a modest population
Speaker 1: of just over eleven people before the Freetowners moved in,
Speaker 1: a number that jumped up by another two hundred rather quickly.
Speaker 1: They saw its low property tax rates and lack of
Speaker 1: zoning laws as the signs of a perfect libertarian utopia.
Speaker 1: The freetowners, mostly made up of white males, believed that
Speaker 1: they were liberating Grafton with their wild new ideas about
Speaker 1: how the government and run and how budgets should be spent. Instead,
Speaker 1: locals greeted them with hostility, and that might have been
Speaker 1: for a good reason. You see, the freetowners had come
Speaker 1: with yrs, RVs and shipping containers, which became their homes.
Speaker 1: One of the leaders of the movement, Larry pen Darvis,
Speaker 1: had a strange agenda he was dead set on seeing through.
Speaker 1: It included organ trafficking, old fashioned duels, and the right
Speaker 1: to organize fights between folks without a home, presumably for
Speaker 1: entertainment and betting purposes. He also supported what he called
Speaker 1: consensual cannibalism, something he referred to as a victimless crime.
Speaker 1: But not everyone shared pen Darvis's views. He eventually left
Speaker 1: Grafton for Texas. But the freetowners didn't want a free
Speaker 1: market system that embodied their libertarian ideologies either. All they
Speaker 1: wanted was a smaller budget and lower taxes, which went
Speaker 1: about as you might expect. Grafton suffered dearly after it's
Speaker 1: yearly one million dollar budget got slashed to about three
Speaker 1: quarters of that. Violent crime went up, while road repairs
Speaker 1: went down. Domestic violence spiked, The Senior Citizens Council lost
Speaker 1: its funding, and town employees could no longer afford to
Speaker 1: heat their homes. As some people put it, the town
Speaker 1: went feral, which probably explains what happened next. Farmers started
Speaker 1: noticing that livestock was being taken from under their noses.
Speaker 1: One woman's kittens were snatched and eaten while she was
Speaker 1: still playing with them on her lawn, and neighbors began
Speaker 1: getting strange visitors on their porches. These weren't religious preachers
Speaker 1: or even girls scouts selling cookies. They were far more menacing. Grafton,
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, had been invaded by bears, black bears, to
Speaker 1: be exact, which normally didn't bother people. However, now the
Speaker 1: animals that had been keeping themselves in the woods were
Speaker 1: taking over the town. But why well. One theory is
Speaker 1: that the lack of funding for animal control and bear
Speaker 1: proofing garbage cans led to the incursion. Another is that
Speaker 1: the influx of outsiders encroaching on the bears domains results
Speaker 1: to them seeking other places to unwind, like swimming pools
Speaker 1: and decks. Some people even fed the bears, which may
Speaker 1: have kept them coming back for more. Whatever the cause,
Speaker 1: the bears did more than rereak havoc on Grafton. They
Speaker 1: drove the freetowners apart, with many fending for themselves and
Speaker 1: leaving their neighbors to figure things out on their own.
Speaker 1: And soon enough, the freetown projects simply died off, well,
Speaker 1: more like it was absorbed. The free state movement that
Speaker 1: had started it all took control as more and more
Speaker 1: freetowners opted to live without regulations or rules, and Grafton
Speaker 1: has shared its town with the libertarians ever since. But
Speaker 1: you might be wondering when all this occurred. Clearly, a
Speaker 1: town overrun with anti government cultists seeking political freedom couldn't
Speaker 1: happen today. Right Wrong, This didn't happen in the seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: or the eighteen hundreds, or even the nineteen hundreds. The
Speaker 1: free state project was started in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: and it's still going strong twenty years later, although their
Speaker 1: numbers aren't as high as they had hoped. Apparently, some
Speaker 1: people find the idea of living in a town full
Speaker 1: of potholes and wild animals to be well unbearable. It's
Speaker 1: no secret that during World War Two, Adolf Hitler turned
Speaker 1: to some unconventional methods to try and gain an edge
Speaker 1: against Allied forces. There's potential evidence that the Nazi Party
Speaker 1: itself was inspired by occult influences. Beginning in the nineteen twenties. Books, movies,
Speaker 1: and television shows for the past seven decades have speculated
Speaker 1: as to the efforts Hitler might have gone to in
Speaker 1: order to create his master race, from mad scientists to
Speaker 1: religious artifacts to Satan worship. The Third Reich didn't just
Speaker 1: rely on tanks and guns to carry out its abhorrent agenda.
Speaker 1: That attempted to reach over into other worlds and even
Speaker 1: other dimensions for a leg up. For example, Heinrich Himler,
Speaker 1: one of the main architects of the Holocaust, was an
Speaker 1: unflinching zealot who spent much of his time on extracurricular
Speaker 1: projects to help the Nazis one of which inadvertently ended
Speaker 1: up as the plot of the third Indiana John's film.
Speaker 1: Himmler was on a quest for the Holy Grail, hoping
Speaker 1: to use it to give himself superpowers. But Hitler and
Speaker 1: his stooges weren't the only one seeking out supernatural means
Speaker 1: for success, because across the ocean, in the state of Maryland,
Speaker 1: a young group of Americans were doing the same thing,
Speaker 1: with one singular goal to take out the Furor with
Speaker 1: a little witchcraft. William Seabrook born in Westminster, Maryland in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty four, held a number of jobs during his
Speaker 1: sixty one years on Earth. He was a journalist and
Speaker 1: adventurer who wrote about distant cultures. He had served in
Speaker 1: World War One with the French Army, and most famously,
Speaker 1: he was an occultist. In fact, he was good friends
Speaker 1: with the prior addition to our Cabinet of Curiosities Alistair Crowley,
Speaker 1: who stayed with Seabrook at his Maryland farm in nineteen nineteen. However,
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty one, the eccentric Mr Seabrook had found
Speaker 1: a new cause to get behind. He saw what was
Speaker 1: going on in Germany with Hitler's forces advancing across Europe
Speaker 1: and knew something had to be done. This was almost
Speaker 1: a full year before the Japanese would bomb Pearl Harbor
Speaker 1: and thrust the country into war. Seabrook, along with a
Speaker 1: cadre of young hopefuls, gathered at a cabin in the
Speaker 1: woods belonging to a man named Charles Tupper. The group
Speaker 1: had brought with them numerous tools with which to carry
Speaker 1: out their spells, including tom tom drums, nails, axes, a
Speaker 1: mannequin and a Nazi uniform, oh and lots of rum.
Speaker 1: They fit the uniform on the dummy and drew a
Speaker 1: toothbrush mustache under its nose, giving it a familiar appearance.
Speaker 1: They had just made an effigy of Adolph Hitler. What
Speaker 1: followed next was documented by Life magazine, which had tagged
Speaker 1: along for what it dubbed as a hexane party. Seabrook
Speaker 1: and his compatriots were preparing to carry out a massive
Speaker 1: voodoo in canation on Hitler in order to stop him
Speaker 1: from across the pond. As Seabrook himself wrote in a
Speaker 1: newspaper article in n Let the doubters laugh at such
Speaker 1: things if they want to, I have lived with voodoo
Speaker 1: priests and felt myself the awfulness of their strange powers. Personally,
Speaker 1: I want no part of the danger that lies in
Speaker 1: such sinister explorations. They propped up their Hitler effigy in
Speaker 1: a chair as Seabrook coached one of the attendees on
Speaker 1: how to play the correct rhythm on the drum. Then
Speaker 1: the hexinge began. Each person took turns hammering nails into
Speaker 1: the dummies heart, all while clamoring you are Hitler, Hitler,
Speaker 1: is you the woes that come to you, let it
Speaker 1: come to him. There were also death dolls made a
Speaker 1: fabric that looked like the furor, which the participants shoved
Speaker 1: pins into throughout the night, before burying them face down
Speaker 1: in the swamp outside. Hitler, who had been rumored to
Speaker 1: be paranoid and superstitious, was also said to have believed
Speaker 1: in black magic. Perhaps all the damage done to the
Speaker 1: dolls and the mannequin might have given him a headache
Speaker 1: or a bit of heartburn, maybe a sore arm. Well,
Speaker 1: it's doubtful, but Seabrook, Tupper and the others knew that
Speaker 1: the effects of the incantation wouldn't be felt immediately. They
Speaker 1: wanted word of their Hex Hitler event to find its
Speaker 1: way to Europe to inspire others to carry it forward
Speaker 1: as well. The war continued on for another four years
Speaker 1: after that, so it's probably safe to say that their
Speaker 1: efforts weren't of much use. But buried somewhere in the
Speaker 1: Maryland Woods are a bunch of pin riddled death dolls
Speaker 1: that look an awful lot like Adolf Hitler, proof that
Speaker 1: even though they didn't get any closer to stopping War
Speaker 1: War two, they did put an end to a lot
Speaker 1: of their own stress and anxiety that night. Unusual, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but also more than a little curious. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,