WEBVTT - Oh Goat, You Devil - Part 3 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.040 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.239 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:20.959 we are back with part three of our series on 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:25.200 the Goat and the Devil, where we are exploring reasons 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:30.800 for the some would say unfair association in especially Christian cultures, 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.760 between the ordinary domestic goat, a wonderful animal, and the 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:39.640 demonic realm of sin and flames. Now, in previous episodes, 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.479 we've talked about the basic biology of the goat is 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:47.480 a browsing bovid that was once adapted to harsher environments 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:51.400 like mountains and forests, but sometime many thousands of years ago, 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.560 was domesticated by the humans who used to hunt it. 0:00:54.920 --> 0:01:00.240 We talked about mythical inspirations for later goatman devil's paly, 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.400 lying in the figure of the Greek god Pan and 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.120 in the satyrs and fawns that bore his image. We 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:10.880 talked about goat reproduction and goat voices. How it's possible 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.760 that goats could be interpreted as sinful by judgmental human 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:18.280 eyes because because of the he goat's reputation for being 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.320 very enthusiastic about mating and the idea that it's possible 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:26.000 people have seen goats as uncanny because sometimes some goats, 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:30.479 when they kind of moan and scream, they sound freakishly human. Uh. 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:32.959 In the second episode, we talked about the role of 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.920 goats in the Hebrew Bible, where they could be associated 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.800 with demonic forces because of the ritual of the Day 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:41.520 of Atonement, where it is said that one goat is 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.280 sent off into the wilderness to carry the sins of 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:47.720 the people off for as a zel, and that that 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:51.000 name is sometimes interpreted as some kind of demonic power. 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.760 We also talked about goats in the Christian New Testament, 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.000 where Jesus is said to have given apocalyptic preaching that 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:00.200 when the Son of Man comes to bring the of 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.480 the age, he will separate the righteous from the unrighteous. 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:05.960 And what's the image use there. It's as the shepherd 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:08.640 separates the sheep from the goats. The goats are the 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.360 bad ones. And finally, we also talked about goat lore 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.359 from around the world to point out that the association 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:19.080 between goats and evil is by no means universal. There 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:23.360 are some very interesting counter examples in Chinese mythology in 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.920 Basque mythology with this figure of the black billy goat 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:31.640 deity who protects livestock and so forth. So it's been 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:34.320 a wild ride so far, a wild goat ride. But 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.240 to kick things off today, I wanted to come back 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.919 to our discussion about the particular uh features of goat 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:47.520 biology that people of centuries past might possibly have interpreted 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.040 as devilish or sinful in one way uh in someone 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:53.640 in one way or another. And the example I wanted 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.320 to look at here is goat eyes. One might argue 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.200 that you haven't really been stared at until you've been 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:02.400 stared at by a goat, And part of the reason 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:04.680 for that is when you're being stared at by a goat, 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:06.640 you're not quite sure if you're being stared at by 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.679 a goat. That's right. It comes down to the the 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:14.040 the inhuman shape of the goat pupils. Yeah yeah uh. 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:15.760 And before I get there, I want to say that 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.280 the goats stare does not have to be imbued with 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.960 any kind of menace. I came across a a very sweet, 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:24.600 whimsical little poem. I wanted to read a bit from 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.320 this is by the British Canadian poet Robert Service, who 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.360 wrote a poem called the Goat and I and uh 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.480 it goes each sunny day upon my way a goat 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.480 I pass. He has a beard of silver gray and 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.320 a bell of brass, And all the while I am 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.200 in sight, he seems to muse and stares at me 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:47.080 with all his might, and choose, and choose upon the hill, 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.520 so timy, sweet with joy of spring, he hails me 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:54.000 with a tiny bleat of welcoming. Though half the globe 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:58.320 is drenched with blood and cities flare contentedly, he choose 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.680 the cud and does not care. Oh gentle friend, I 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.840 know not what your age maybe, but of my years 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:07.680 I'd give the lot yet left to me to chew 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:11.160 a thistle and not choke, but bright of eye gaze 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:15.000 at the old world, weary bloke who hobbles by. This 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.600 is great. I love how this drives some like an 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:23.279 overall interpretation of goat physiology that that I think we 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:25.320 can often fall into, and that is of the goat 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.760 as the old goat, Like there's even if a goat. 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:30.800 You do see some goats that look, you know, very 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:34.120 virile and young, and in a goatish fashion, but oftentimes 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.640 you'll encounter goats who do kind of hobble about there. 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.640 They have all these likenesses that we attribute to elderly 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.239 human individuals. You know, you'll have the beard and so forth. 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:48.960 But but yeah, this is a neat little poem summing 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:54.360 up the uh, the independent and relatable spirit of the goat. Oh. 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:58.000 I also I left off a final stanza where essentially 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.320 the last stance is just like, why am I writing 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:05.599 a poem about a goat? It's not great? Um so, 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.200 but yeah, anyway, the gaze of the goat has often 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.160 been observed to have a strange character in one way 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:17.080 or another. Sometimes it's it's more like what services saying here, 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:22.560 almost narcotically placid and unmoved. And yet other times people 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:24.840 notice that the gaze of the goat is kind of 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:28.599 thrillingly alien, because, unlike with a dog or a cat, 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:31.599 it can be hard to tell if a goat is 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.520 actually looking at you, or at least for me, it can. 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:37.560 Despite the efforts of Robert's service, the the eye of 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:41.279 the goat has often been characterized as creepy, and I 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:42.800 think there could be a couple of reasons for that. 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.840 It might be because it's a bit harder to tell 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.440 where the goat is focusing than it is with some 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:53.200 other kind of animals, like our predatory companion animals um 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:55.640 Or maybe it's just because the eye of a goat 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:58.680 sort of looks weird. It looks unusual if you're not 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.000 used to it, because laws instead of around pupil as 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.560 you alluded to earlier, Rob, the goat has a horizontal 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:10.720 pupil sometimes described as rectangular in shape I think sometimes 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.280 kind of described as like elongated capsule shape, so it's 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.440 like a rectangle with kind of rounded edges. I've also 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.640 found some photos where it looks like a horizontal capital 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.400 I with a hint of those cross beams or slight 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.760 bulges at the ends of the rectangle. And the question 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:30.600 is why do goat pupils look that way? Well, funny enough, 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.240 we actually did an episode just a while back which 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:37.479 contained a segment about the evolutionary reasoning behind different pupil 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.239 shapes in the Animal Kingdom. The episode was The Three 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:44.160 Pupil Die, and I think the study we talked about 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:46.480 in that show is still a good one to inform 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:48.720 us on the question I've just raised. So to to 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:52.240 bring up the same paper again. This was by Martins 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.960 Banks at All published in the journal Science Advances in 0:06:57.120 --> 0:06:59.839 and it's called why do Animal eyes have pupils of 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:04.159 different shapes? Basic conclusion is that an animal's pupil shape 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:08.560 is usually determined by what its ecological niches, what its 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:13.000 role in the food chain is. So animals like humans, tigers, 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.960 and wolves have round pupils. Round pupils appear to be 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:21.360 common a common shape for active hunters who chase down 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:25.760 their prey. Meanwhile, predators that are lower to the ground 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:28.680 or hunt by way of ambush, so a predator that 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.920 might lie in wait and then pound suddenly on a 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:36.640 prey animal, these tend to have vertical pupils vertically oriented 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:41.040 slit pupils, and the vertical slits seem to be adaptive 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.679 for low down ambush predators because they're helpful in using 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:49.680 tricks called stereopsis and defocus blur to very precisely judge 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:56.320 the distance needed for a single uh exact medium range pounds. 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:01.360 But herbivores prey animals are more likely to have horizontal 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.720 pupils like the goat UH. To quote from the study, 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:10.880 horizontally elongated pupils creates sharp images of horizontal contours ahead 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:17.240 and behind, creating a horizontally panoramic view that facilitates detection 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:22.760 of predators from various directions and forward locomotion across uneven terrain. 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.400 So these horizontal pupils are good for scanning the whole 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:30.000 panorama of the environment, seeing at all angles of all 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:34.760 the time to watch out for any approaching predators, which 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:37.280 might be one of the reasons you can get that 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.640 creepy feeling where you can't tell if the goat is 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:43.439 actually looking at you. The goat is sort of designed 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.800 by nature to be looking everywhere rather than to be 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:50.160 looking at you. But I also thought it's an interesting 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:55.280 note about the forward locomotion across uneven terrain given the 0:08:55.280 --> 0:09:00.560 the evolutionary history of goats occupying mountains and craggy landscape. 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:06.719 Though again, less craggy creatures like horses also have horizontal pupils. 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.880 So that made me wonder about the question why do 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:14.920 we tend to notice the horizontal orientation of goat pupils 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:18.040 more than we notice it in horses and other herbivores. 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:20.800 I think this must be a common thing. It's at 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.959 least true for me, and so I was looking into this. 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.240 Uh And I want to make two non expert observations 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.520 just by looking at a lot of photos on Google. 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:35.160 One is that the horse pupil seems less noticeably elongated 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:37.480 in the horizontal dimension than the goat pupil. So they're 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.200 both horizontal, but the horse pupil seems a little bit 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.520 shorter usually or the goat went off and looks visibly 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.600 stretched out. Second, and I think this might be even 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.679 more important, there seems to be, on average, a stronger 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.760 color contrast within the goat's eye. If you just look 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.440 at a bunch of pictures of the eyes of horses 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:58.840 and the eyes of goats, it seems goats on average 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.760 have lighter colored irises, which really makes the pupil pop. 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:06.200 That makes the people stand out, which makes it look 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:10.080 more noticeably alien, at least to me. Interesting. I remember 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:11.600 in that episode on The Three People that I we 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:15.920 talked about pupil changes in the shape of the pupil 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:21.520 with predators tended to vary as well depending on height. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.960 that's right, But I don't remember any such distinction being 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:29.040 made in the materials we were looking at then regarding herbivores, 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:33.199 like if goat versus cow versus horse, etcetera. Yeah, I 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.000 don't recall any distinction like that either, but definitely there 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.640 was a change in height, uh in in predators, because again, 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:43.319 the taller predators have round pupils and the shorter predators 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.400 have vertical slip pupils. Uh. And so part of that 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.480 has to do with a difference in hunting strategy, like 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:52.600 chasing versus ambushing, But part of it has to do 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:55.400 also with just I think, managing the angles at which 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.440 you would be observing your prey. Now, this instantly makes 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:00.280 me think of something that I guess we got into 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:02.640 a little bit in the three people that Eyes. What 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.760 sort of eyes do we expect? Knowing all of this 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:10.480 of divine beings and divine emissaries, Uh, certainly in the 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.400 like the Irish and uh in some Chinese traditions that 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:15.679 we discussed in that episode, we talked about the idea 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:20.000 of someone with three pupils or three irises being uh 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.960 in some way enlightened and having superior vision and perhaps 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:28.079 wisdom as well. UH. But but taking all that we've 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:30.320 discussed here into the scenario, it's like, Okay, if we 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.480 have some sort of god or godlike being or anti 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:37.439 god taking on the head and eyes of a goat. Well, 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.520 in a way, it's it seems more fitting. It's like, 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:41.960 uh that this is a being that can look in 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:45.120 many directions at once and doesn't need to focus its 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.760 attention and maybe doesn't focus its attention all that much. 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:50.640 And hey, being a god, maybe you don't want its 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.800 attention focused too heavily. Well. Also, the thinking about the 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.160 predator prey distinction, I mean, shouldn't the horizontal pupils make 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.320 it less dangerous, Like wouldn't round pupils or really be 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.040 the most dangerous. Yeah, But then I get it comes 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.040 down to the human scenario, right. We want to we 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:10.520 want to connect with the human in the superhuman, and 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.640 therefore we want them to have pupils. Though I guess 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.520 we see, especially in modern depictions, you know, we love 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:20.959 to like black out the eyes of inhuman beings, uh, 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.320 you know, often with those really cool contact lenses. So 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.120 we'll have various there's so many treatments of this where 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.720 various fallen angels and so forth, we'll have all black 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:34.360 eyes or maybe all white eyes, and that tends to 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:38.320 note some sort of strangeness of vision as well. Yeah, 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.880 I think you're right about that. Like, sometimes otherworldly beings 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.199 are just depicted as having eyes like that, sometimes their 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.160 eyes change into all white or all black or something 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:51.240 when they are exercising a type of second sight. Wait, 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.199 it sometimes works quite well, though sometimes you're kind of 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:58.080 I think you're kind of inconveniencing your actors by taking 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.199 away their eyes, are taking away one of their tools. Well, 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:03.760 maybe we should look at a little bit more goat 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.280 mythology and goat symbolism in history. I think if we're 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.280 trying to figure out why, especially a lot of say 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:15.800 Continental European Christian cultures made an association between the devil 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.600 and goats, I think we must talk about the figure 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.760 known as Baha Met. Yeah, and this is this is 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:28.439 a fascinating but also kind of convoluted UH situation because 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:34.680 it involves multiple different cultures either appropriating or interpreting or 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:40.080 misinterpreting or outlight rights slandering something that other culture, the 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.640 previous cultures or or or different cultures believed in or 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:48.240 believe in UH. And the end result is this um, 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:51.160 this strange satanic goat creature that you're more likely to 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.440 encounter now in a TV show or on a heavy 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:58.600 metal T shirt, that sort of thing. So I covered 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:00.760 some of this in a Monster Fact episode about the 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:05.439 Goat of Mendis that came about UH shortly after we 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:09.040 recorded a weird House cinema episode on the film The 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.920 Devil Rides Out, which prominently features Uh the Satanic goatman 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.040 appearing at a black mass. And so this this entity 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.920 Bapha May or the Goat of Mendi's is essentially a 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:25.280 Western occultists distortion of a Greek interpretation of the God 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.640 of Egypt, the Egyptian god known as but neb Jadette 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.400 Uh that was worshiped in Mendis, which is the Greek 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:38.560 name for an ancient Egyptian city named Jadette, also known 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:43.320 today as tell L Ruba. Fifth century Greek historian Herodotus 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:47.200 wrote of this god and his practices and made veiled 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:51.360 references to sexual aspects of the worship, and also compared 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.760 the entity to Pan, of course, from from Western traditions. 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:58.920 So all already, I know this. This sounds like some 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.440 sort of You can imagine like the different pins on 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.400 a board with the different bits of string colored string 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.840 showing you where all this is going across a map 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:12.160 of of Europe. And North Africa. So here's a quote 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:17.760 from from Herodotus via S. Birch's translation. Quote. Now, the 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.840 reason why those of the Egyptians whom I have mentioned 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:25.400 do not sacrifice goats, female or male, is this The 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:29.360 Mendians count Pan to be one of the eight gods. Now, 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.040 these eight gods, they say, came into being before the 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:35.640 twelve gods, and the painters and image makers represent in 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:39.040 painting and in sculpture the figure of Pan, just as 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:43.400 the Helenes do with goat's face and legs, not supposing 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.800 him to be really like this, but to resemble the 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.280 other gods. The cause, however, why they represent him in 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:54.080 this form, I prefer not to say. The Mendesian's then 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.320 reverence all goats, and the males more than the females, 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.480 and the goatherds too have greater honor than other herdsman. 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:04.880 But the goats one especially is reverenced, and when he 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.400 dies there is great mourning in all the Mendisian district, 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:11.680 and both the goat and Pan are called in the 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:15.760 Egyptian tongue Mendies. Okay, So, not knowing exactly what's going 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:20.640 on here, I would wonder if Herodotus is seriously misinterpreting 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:25.360 reports he has heard about Egyptian worship in light of 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.360 Greek religion. Yeah, yeah, there's a there's there's clearly a 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.040 lot going on, like using Greek religion to try and 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:36.880 understand what uh individuals in this region are worshiping going 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.200 You know, there's so many ways that the information here 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:44.000 can become skewed. We have this veiled um reference to 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:46.560 uh I believe other critics have pointed out that he's 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:51.720 he's referencing supposed beast reality uh in worship and so forth. 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.160 So already we're engaging in uh In in various levels 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:59.240 of misinterpretation and perhaps slander. Now, as Geraldine Pinch explains 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:04.040 in her excellent book Egyptian Mythology, the word for ram 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:08.400 bah and the word for soul or manifestation sound much 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.800 the same in Egyptian uh to the ancient Egyptians, so 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:16.440 they were often regarded as manifestations of other deities such 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:20.359 as Osiris and Pinch rights quote. The sexual aspect of 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:24.000 the culted Mendis made it particularly disliked by early Christians, 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:27.879 but Nebjudet's form as a ram or goat headed man 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.680 was reinterpreted as a devil figure who entered Western tradition 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.080 as the Horned King of the Witches. A classic example 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:40.040 of literal demonization, taking a god in in another mythology, 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.199 in this case one having the head of a of 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.800 a sheep or a goat, and saying that, well, actually, 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:49.000 this is just a demon in our mythology, right right, 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:51.879 But of course they gets more complicated than that. They are. 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:54.720 All these are additional threads going on here, because as 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:58.199 for the the actual name Goat of Mendis, this is 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:02.439 the name given by French right or Elfeus Levi in 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:07.640 the nineteenth century, most likely referencing the writings of Herodotus. 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.480 The most well known image of this particular monstrous humanoid 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:16.080 is in the eighteen fifties sixth edition of Levi's book 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:20.360 Dogma and Ritual of High Magic. And as with any 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:24.159 many examples of divine and occult imagery, the image of 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:26.840 Baha may here Is or the Goat of Mendes is 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:31.440 highly symbolic, and it's been incorporated into various occult traditions, subcultures, 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.639 new religious movements, and so forth. I think everyone's probably 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:38.600 seen this. This is the like a a goat being 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.800 with the the upper body of sometimes a female, but 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:44.760 sometimes like half the chest is female half as male. 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:50.200 They're like black angelic wings, the goat head, the pentagram 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:54.479 on the forehead, a middle horn that is like a torch, 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.920 various other symbols going on in the image as load 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.560 it with stuff to look at. Yeah, yeah, so, I 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:05.520 mean as far as images of the divine or the demonic, 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:07.800 it's a pretty great one. There's lots to focus on, 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:10.879 lots to try and figure out. And at the very least, 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:13.080 you know, as we've discussed many times before, the basic 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:16.600 symbolism involved here of combining beast with man or beast 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:21.000 with woman, et cetera. Like, it instantly starts forming patterns 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:22.720 in the mind. You can't look at it and not 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.199 have some sort of reaction. Oh. I don't know if 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:28.200 I've noticed this before, but at least in Levi's depiction, 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:32.280 it incorporates a symbol that is like the caduceus or 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.040 like the rod of Asclepius. It has the rod and 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:44.720 the snakes intertwined around it. Yeah. Yeah. Now, as for 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:49.639 the name Baha may here this gets us into something 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:51.240 that we've we've touched on a few times in the 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.280 on the show before never devoted like full episode to it, 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.600 but it it involves the Templars, the poor Knights of 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:02.240 Christ and the Temple of Solomon's. Just to to get 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.280 the basics out here again. This was a religious military 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:09.439 order of the Catholic Church during the Crusades, which ran 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:15.919 about roughly ten through twelve UH. They were This organization 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.600 was intended to serve as a as a as a 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:22.040 way to protect pilgrims on their way to the Holy Lands, 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:25.280 but a sort of power creep occurred. They were given 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.320 free rein to move across borders, They were made exempt 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:32.040 from taxes and ended up playing key military roles in 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:35.760 various battles of the Crusades, and even the non warriors 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:40.000 became important, managing the movement of funds across vast distances 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:43.000 UH that were involved in the Crusades and setting up 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.400 a kind of proto banking system. They became powerful, and 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:50.200 so they made powerful enemies, and as the Crusades failed, 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:54.360 the Templars were blamed and finally Fillip the Fourth of France, 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.000 with the aid of Pope Clement the Fifth, who was 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:01.320 then based in France UM, they pressed the order and 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:06.200 falsely accused them or generally everyone. I think most sources 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.040 and historians agree that these are false or trumped up 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:13.080 charges of blasphemy and heresy, saying that, among other things, 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:17.080 they worshiped a severed head called Baha may Uh. There's 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:19.760 a whole litany of charges against them. Some of them 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:22.119 were burned at the stake, I think fifty six in total, 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:27.600 and that included Grandmaster Jacques Delay and others. Other members 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:31.920 of the order were absorbed into different militaries and so forth. Now, 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:35.080 the name Bappa may here is generally understood to be 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:39.000 a French corruption of the name Muhammad, the most of 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:43.880 the monstrous templar god. Bapha may is therefore a product 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:47.720 of trumped up charges that the templars had converted to 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.159 the Islamic faith of their enemies, and the French and 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:56.600 Papal accusers invoked this fanciful and grotesque degradation of Islam 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:00.159 to make their case, because, to be clear, nowhere in 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:03.919 Islamic traditions do you find a creature like this. So 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:07.120 it's essentially the monster at the heart of a xenophobic 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:13.040 conspiracy theory Uh created to slander ones political enemies. In 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:16.600 the Middle Ages. Yes, pretty much this, And there's a 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:19.480 lot more to the to all of this as well, 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:22.199 And certainly when you get into writings about the templars, 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:26.960 there's they're added theories, some perhaps worth talking about, some 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:30.879 worth skipping over unless you're engaging in just like pure entertainment, 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:33.600 I suppose. But but yeah, this seems to be the 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:37.240 most straightforward explanation. And it is kind of interesting how 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:40.360 in this you have something that is put together as 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:44.960 a corruption, as a slander, uh, and over time it 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:47.240 kind of takes on life of its own. It becomes 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:51.560 used as a symbol of liberation, becomes used as a 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:56.360 symbol of rebellion against organized religion, it becomes used as 0:22:56.400 --> 0:23:00.520 a a part of new religious movements. Even so, it's 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:04.520 always fascinating the life of symbols and the life of 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:09.480 ideas like this. Well, speaking of rebellion, there is one 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:13.399 more biological feature of goats that I wanted to talk about. 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:15.800 If you're ready, Robert, or are you ready to get 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:18.880 into goat intelligence, let's do it. I think this one 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:21.760 is interesting because while I don't think this is a 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:26.560 primary reason that the goats would be identified with devils 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:28.840 or with the legions of Hell, I do I do 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:31.439 think there is some interesting resonances here, and we can 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:34.280 come back to that, But basically I was just thinking 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:37.680 what is more readily identified with evil than intelligence? Right, 0:23:37.760 --> 0:23:42.840 because intelligence is often associated with a tendency toward rebellion, 0:23:42.960 --> 0:23:45.720 or a tendency maybe to think a little too critically 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:48.960 about what somebody is telling you to do. And while 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:52.879 goats are not generally a species known for how smart 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:56.280 they are, there's some evidence that at least in some ways, 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:58.880 they might be more clever than we give them credit for, 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:02.520 but that it's also a kind of intelligence that is 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:07.320 sort of alien to human primate intelligence. So I want 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:10.320 to look at a paper by L. D. F. Briefer 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:15.040 at All published in Frontiers in Zoology called Goats excel 0:24:15.119 --> 0:24:19.240 at Learning and Remembering, a highly novel cognitive task, published 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:23.920 in ten to explain the context of what the authors 0:24:23.920 --> 0:24:26.760