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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is.

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Speaker 3: Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick, and we are

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Speaker 3: returning today with the second part in our series about

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Speaker 3: worlds before Creation. The idea behind this series is that

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Speaker 3: very often when we think about a creation myth or

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Speaker 3: a creation story, we imagine what's called a creation ex nihilo.

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Speaker 3: So there is nothing, and then suddenly, for some reason

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Speaker 3: or by some act, a world is brought into being.

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Speaker 3: So nothing existed before. Now there's a world. But the

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Speaker 3: interesting thing is that if you start really looking at

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Speaker 3: creation stories from all around the world, it seems to

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Speaker 3: me that very few of them actually fit this description.

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Speaker 3: And instead of being accounts of how the raw substance

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Speaker 3: of the universe was brought into existence, what you most

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Speaker 3: often get instead is a before and after story where

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Speaker 3: a world of some kind already exists, usually in some

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Speaker 3: kind of static or chaotic state, and then something happens

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Speaker 3: which introduces distinctions and differences and somehow orders this pre

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Speaker 3: existing world in such a way that characters can now

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Speaker 3: exist and events can take place within it. And I

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Speaker 3: realized that I've talked on the show plenty of times

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Speaker 3: before about being attracted to imagery of weird wastelands and dark,

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Speaker 3: unpopulated places. I don't know how unique I am in this.

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Speaker 3: Maybe basically everybody thinks this is interesting, but I don't know,

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Speaker 3: but it feels kind of personal to me that, for

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Speaker 3: whatever reason, I have never been able to forget about

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Speaker 3: that chapter in the Time Machine or the time Traveler

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Speaker 3: goes millions of years into the future and sees this desolate,

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Speaker 3: withering earth under the red sun and no people in it,

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Speaker 3: just these crab monsters and stuff. Or the way I

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Speaker 3: was talking in the last episode about being really haunted

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Speaker 3: by that very short description at the beginning of the

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Speaker 3: Book of Genesis of the dark, the dark deep waters

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Speaker 3: in the wind of God rushing above them.

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Speaker 2: Here's another one for you, since we're about to come

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Speaker 2: up on Alien Day, but the Service of the Planet

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Speaker 2: LV four twenty six.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, that's always That's always been one of

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Speaker 3: my favorite parts of the movie, when they go down

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Speaker 3: to the planet, the empty wastelands that feel like a

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Speaker 3: pre created or pre ordered world. I think maybe this

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Speaker 3: even connects to something we've dwelt on a lot in

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Speaker 3: Weird House cinema episodes, these empty places scenes in movies

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Speaker 3: which happened. I don't know, this has come up many times.

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Speaker 3: I'm thinking of our episodes on Night of the comment

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Speaker 3: just recently the Last Man on Earth with Fincent Price.

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Speaker 3: For some reason, that is just a really easy way

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Speaker 3: to get my attention. I'm into this the waste land

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Speaker 3: feeling or the empty world. So, in keeping with that

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Speaker 3: tradition of fascination, I got very interested in talking about

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Speaker 3: images from these creation stories of what the world is

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Speaker 3: like before the creation event takes place. So that's what

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Speaker 3: we've been talking about in the last episode, and we'll

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Speaker 3: continue in this one creation narratives, but also with the

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Speaker 3: special focus on what the world was like before the

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Speaker 3: so called beginning and what kind of meaning or understanding

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Speaker 3: these pre creation worlds imply. So for a brief refresher

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Speaker 3: on the last episode, we talked about the Biblical creation

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Speaker 3: narrative in the Book of Genesis, which is often understood

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Speaker 3: to be an example of a creation story that actually

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Speaker 3: is creation ex nihilo. It's taken as an account of

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Speaker 3: like the creation of the raw substance of reality, but

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Speaker 3: an interesting and I think to a lot of people.

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Speaker 3: Surprising thing is that this is almost certainly not the

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Speaker 3: intention of the original text. Most scholars today who look

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Speaker 3: at the Hebrew of Genesis one tend to agree that

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Speaker 3: it is actually not a tale of raw creation, but

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Speaker 3: a story in which God orders and furnishes a pre existing,

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Speaker 3: chaotic world. So this pre existing world is described as

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Speaker 3: a world of darkness and deep waters, you know, the

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Speaker 3: spirit of God hovering over the water. So it is

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Speaker 3: a dark and chaotic kind of empty place, but it

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Speaker 3: is a place. There's something there, there's water, there's you know,

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Speaker 3: this wind of God, and we talked about that at

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Speaker 3: some length. We also talked about interesting patterns that appear

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Speaker 3: in multiple creation stories, often themes of darkness or undiffer

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Speaker 3: differentiated masses of fluid of some kind existing in the

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Speaker 3: world before, and creation acts or ordering acts that involve

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Speaker 3: the separation of substances into discrete categories. I think that's

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Speaker 3: a really interesting trend. We also talked about the pre

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Speaker 3: creation world described in the opening lines of the Inuma

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Speaker 3: a Leash, or the Babylonian epic of Creation, which is

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Speaker 3: characterized mainly by the things of the world like the

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Speaker 3: skies and the earth, being nameless, and I thought this

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Speaker 3: hinted at a really interesting type of ontology in some

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Speaker 3: ancient Mesopotamian thinking, where in some sense things begin to

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Speaker 3: exist when they are given names and destinies, so a

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Speaker 3: concept of existence that is at some level mediated by

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Speaker 3: human recognition and salience, but also I think related to

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Speaker 3: the concept you find all over ancient Ear Eastern thinking,

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Speaker 3: where language itself has some kind of manifestation power to

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Speaker 3: bring reality into existence. To bring it back to the

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Speaker 3: Biblical creation narrative. In that narrative, God speaks things into

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Speaker 3: existence by saying their names. But you also see this,

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Speaker 3: for example, in ancient Egyptian Heca magic, where speaking or

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Speaker 3: writing the names of things can manifest them in reality.

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Speaker 3: Another interesting thing I was reflecting on about the anuma

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Speaker 3: Aleish creation story that I think is going to be

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Speaker 3: relevant to one of our major topics today is that

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Speaker 3: you could legitimately mark multiple places in the story as

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Speaker 3: the moment of creation. Right, So you could select the

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Speaker 3: birth of the first gods, after the mingling of the

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Speaker 3: different kinds of water. You could say, well, that's the

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Speaker 3: moment of creation. Or you could select the later creation

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Speaker 3: by combat story where the younger god Marduke kills the

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Speaker 3: primordial being of saltwater, Tiamot chops up her body like

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Speaker 3: a fish, and then makes the world we live in

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Speaker 3: out of it? Which part is the creation? And I

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Speaker 3: guess in different ways they're both creation events or both

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Speaker 3: reordering events. And I think that that's an interesting thing

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Speaker 3: to reflect on. People don't often think about it that way,

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Speaker 3: that there can be multiple creations occurring sequentially.

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Speaker 2: I keep and I'm going to come back to this

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Speaker 2: idea again. I keep thinking about films and sequential films

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Speaker 2: and in some of these discussions, and it's kind of

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Speaker 2: like thinking about the Friday the Thirteenth franchise. Yes, there's

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Speaker 2: a definite first film, but which is the first film

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Speaker 2: that really sets the tone for what we think of

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Speaker 2: as Friday the thirteenth.

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Speaker 3: That's very true. Yes, So when people think about a

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Speaker 3: Friday the Thirteenth movie, the thing they're thinking about the

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Speaker 3: most common types of imagery and patterns don't really appear

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Speaker 3: until maybe the third movie, and I would argue don't

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Speaker 3: really get strengthened until the fourth movie. So yeah, that

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Speaker 3: is very interesting. It's like they're all derivative of the

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Speaker 3: first one, but the first one doesn't have the key

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Speaker 3: features of the people think of about the series. Yeah, yeah, Anyway,

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Speaker 3: in the previous episode, we also talked briefly about parallels

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Speaker 3: in science. Obviously, religious and cultural creation stories are a

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Speaker 3: very different type of project from physics based cosmology, so

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Speaker 3: we weren't trying to say, like, you know, which of

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Speaker 3: the creation narratives gets the science right. I don't think

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Speaker 3: that's a very useful project, but at least for some grounding.

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Speaker 3: We talked about scientific cosmology and about how we don't

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Speaker 3: really know what, if anything, happened before the before the

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Speaker 3: beginning of the Big Bang, or more precisely, before the

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Speaker 3: cosmic inflation. There are some speculative models that could be

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Speaker 3: candidates for a physics based world before, and these have

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Speaker 3: over the years included things like a cyclically expanding and

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Speaker 3: then contracting universe, or the idea that we are some

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Speaker 3: kind of bubble that emerges from a pre existing universe

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Speaker 3: and maybe this kind of renucleation just happens infinitely. But

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Speaker 3: we don't have direct evidence for these types of hypotheses

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Speaker 3: at present. The best you can do for a world

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Speaker 3: before in physics is create a model that is mathematically

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Speaker 3: consistent with the theories and observations we already have, but

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Speaker 3: it's not going to be There's not really a way

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Speaker 3: to confirm it with direct observations, at least as far

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Speaker 3: as we know. Finally, we also talked about a really

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Speaker 3: interesting creation narrative appearing in some Chinese traditions, which was

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Speaker 3: the story of Pengu, or the ancient coiled one, who

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Speaker 3: forms inside a cosmic egg within a cloud of chaotic vapor,

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Speaker 3: then hatches, and in some tellings, separates the earth from

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Speaker 3: the sky, sometimes with an axe, and then stands as

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Speaker 3: a pillar holding the sky up from the earth. Another

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Speaker 3: interesting tale of creation by separation. We also talked about

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Speaker 3: versions of the Pengo story, which include the Taoist and

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Speaker 3: Neo confusion concept of the wouji. And I'm sorry if

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Speaker 3: I'm pronouncing that wrong, Rob you brought up last time.

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Speaker 3: How with the inflection that means something totally different, or

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Speaker 3: it means like nonsense or something, But in the way

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Speaker 3: I was trying to say it, it is the formless

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Speaker 3: state of existence before creation, so before the egg of Pegu.

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Speaker 3: In these tellings with the wuci, it's the state you

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Speaker 3: might characterize as limitless potential for becoming that is actually

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Speaker 3: nothing in itself.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and this, and as in some of the

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Speaker 2: other concepts we've discussed in specific stories, they're going to

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Speaker 2: keep coming up again because, as we discussed there, there's

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Speaker 2: certain various tropes that are popular in understanding and making

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Speaker 2: sense of the origins of the world or the universe,

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Speaker 2: and we see these reoccurring with different flavors.

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Speaker 3: So let's see, Rob, do you mind if we kick

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Speaker 3: things off today by looking at one of my examples here?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.

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Speaker 3: So. One of the most beautiful and interesting creation narratives

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Speaker 3: I have come across while reading a bunch of them

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Speaker 3: for this series is the Maori creation story. Now, with

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Speaker 3: this one especially, this will be true actually of a

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Speaker 3: lot of the things we talk about, but with this

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Speaker 3: one especially, it is important to flag that there is

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Speaker 3: not one canonical text or telling of this story. There

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Speaker 3: are a bunch of circulating versions which reflect both regional

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Speaker 3: and tribal variations, and then variations unique to individual storytellers.

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Speaker 3: So whatever version of the story you read or that

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Speaker 3: I tell will not be able to be representative of

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Speaker 3: all of them. But I'm going to try to capture

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Speaker 3: some common themes that appear in multiple tellings, with the

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Speaker 3: caveat that this is not the only nor the authoritative

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Speaker 3: version of the story.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. As we've discussed before a lot of times, the

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Speaker 2: idea of canon when it comes to mythology is even

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Speaker 2: in Western traditions, kind of an illusion. And then in

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Speaker 2: Western and now analysis of other cultures is also either

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Speaker 2: artificial or the product like colonial interference.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, or just the product of textualization events. This come

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Speaker 3: up in the last episode two that often the version

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Speaker 3: of a story we start to think of as the

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Speaker 3: definitive or canonical version is just the version that happened

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Speaker 3: to get put into print first, or happen to be

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Speaker 3: widely distributed in print first. Yeah, which might not have

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Speaker 3: any more purchase on being the original tradition or the

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Speaker 3: most widespread tradition among the original people who believed it.

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Speaker 3: It's just the happenstance that it's the one that's in

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Speaker 3: a book.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And we see this in the Greek tradition,

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Speaker 2: for example, There'll be like a key text that ends

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Speaker 2: up covering everything, and it is popular and it is

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Speaker 2: a text that survives and continues to continues to resonate

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Speaker 2: culturally for ages to come.

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Speaker 3: Exactly. So in the context of Greek and Roman myths,

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Speaker 3: we're very often going to be thinking of the way

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Speaker 3: Avid tells it, or the way that Hesiod tells it,

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Speaker 3: or something like that. Anyway, So there is one particular

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Speaker 3: account of the Maori creation story that's from an older

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Speaker 3: book that I just wanted to mention because in one

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Speaker 3: case it's the only source I found of a detail

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Speaker 3: that I wanted to flag later. So this older book

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Speaker 3: is called, in its translated form, Polynesian Mythology and Ancient

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Speaker 3: Traditional History of the New Zealand Race as furnished by

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Speaker 3: their priests and chiefs. This was first published in eighteen

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Speaker 3: fifty five, traditionally credited to the colonial administrator George Gray,

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Speaker 3: but from what I've read, it was in reality significantly

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Speaker 3: the work of a writer and Maori tribal leader named

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Speaker 3: tay Rungi Kaheke, who has long been celebrated for his

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Speaker 3: work in recording and translating Maori cultural traditions. And I

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Speaker 3: apologize in advance for any pronunciations that I don't get

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Speaker 3: quite right here. I'm doing my best based on the

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Speaker 3: guidelines that I could find online, so I hope I

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Speaker 3: get reasonably close so the story goes like this, long ago,

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Speaker 3: the world was in darkness. The Skyfather Rungi Nui and

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Speaker 3: or sometimes just shortened as Rungi Rungi Nui or Rungi

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Speaker 3: and the Earth Mother Papa Tuanuku or just Papa were

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Speaker 3: pressed against one another in a loving embrace. So Skyfather

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Speaker 3: Rungi and Earth Mother Papa, they're hugging. They're hugging so

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Speaker 3: tight that no light could penetrate between their bodies. But

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Speaker 3: there was not nothing between their bodies. There was something

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Speaker 3: between the Earth and the sky. It was the dwelling

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Speaker 3: place of their children, the offspring of their union. So

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Speaker 3: the children of the Sky Father and the Earth Mother

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Speaker 3: lived smothered in darkness with no space to move. Now,

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Speaker 3: another quick terminology note, because I initially got confused reading

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Speaker 3: about this. Sometimes these children of the Sky Father and

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Speaker 3: the Earth Mother, these younger beings, are translated as gods

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Speaker 3: in English, and sometimes they're translated as if they are

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Speaker 3: humans or people, or with words usually applied to humans

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Speaker 3: like fathers. From what I could tell, the most culturally

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Speaker 3: appropriate term is going to be the Maori term atua,

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Speaker 3: which means a kind of supernatural ancestral being. So that's

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Speaker 3: what I'm going to try to use here. So again

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Speaker 3: we've got Rungi, the sky father, and Papa, the earth mother,

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Speaker 3: and they're in this tight embrace, and the children the atuas,

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Speaker 3: are between them. And what happens next varies by telling,

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Speaker 3: but in some versions, one of the younger beings, one

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Speaker 3: of the Atua, suggests that they kill their parents, or

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Speaker 3: they kill their skyfather Rungi, so that they might break

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Speaker 3: free of the dark embrace and have both light and

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Speaker 3: room to move. But then in response another one of

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Speaker 3: the atuas, this one named tne Matua or just Taune.

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Speaker 3: This is the Attua of the forests and of birds

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Speaker 3: and insects and beings that dwell in the forest so

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Speaker 3: forests and the creatures that dwell there. Tane says he

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Speaker 3: has a better idea. They will not harm their mother

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Speaker 3: and father, but instead cleave them apart. So they shall

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Speaker 3: push their father far away up above, and the children

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Speaker 3: themselves will remain below, close to their mother who nursed them.

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Speaker 3: And all of the younger beings agree to this plan

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Speaker 3: except for one. There is one of the the Atua

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Speaker 3: named Tafiri Matea, or the Atua of wind and storms,

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Speaker 3: who is close to his sky father and fearce separation

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Speaker 3: from him.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so basically we're dealing with the primordial reverse parent trap.

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Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting. Yes, so they're trying to get their

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Speaker 3: parents apart because they I mean, it's hard to blame them.

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Speaker 3: They they're like totally crushed in between them. The embrace

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Speaker 3: is so tight. But yes, yes, instead of instead, instead

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Speaker 3: of setting them up there trying to get them apart.

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Speaker 3: But it's an impossible job, it seems, because Rungi and

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Speaker 3: Papa are so vast. How can their embrace be broken?

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Speaker 3: So all of the younger atua take turns trying, but

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Speaker 3: eventually the stories often narrate them one by one, each

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Speaker 3: trying to separate the mother and father in their embrace,

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Speaker 3: but they can't do it. Eventually, only Tanae is able

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Speaker 3: to drive them apart, and in one telling I read

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Speaker 3: this is the telling from the eighteen fifty five book.

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Speaker 3: The way he accomplishes this is by inverting his body.

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Speaker 3: He plants his head head upon the body of the

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Speaker 3: earth mother so on the ground, and then pushes his

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Speaker 3: skyfather away with his feet and powerful legs, and in

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Speaker 3: driving Rungi and Papa apart, Tane lets light into the

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Speaker 3: world and is thus comes to be associated with light.

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Speaker 3: He's sort of God or the Attua of the forests,

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Speaker 3: but also in a way of light and in letting

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Speaker 3: the light in this readies the world for the creation

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Speaker 3: of humankind and the beginning of history. And in some

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Speaker 3: tellings it is Tane himself who leads to the creation

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Speaker 3: of humankind, because he creates the first woman named hine

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Speaker 3: A Hue by forming her from the earth. So he

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Speaker 3: takes the soil of the body of his mother, of

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Speaker 3: the earth mother, and then breathes life into the form

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Speaker 3: of the new woman he has made by breathing into

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Speaker 3: her nostrils, and then together with her, Tane becomes the

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Speaker 3: ancestor of humankind. Though I think the actual story is

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Speaker 3: more convoluted. There are some steps involved, but they give

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Speaker 3: rise to humankind down the road. But there are some

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Speaker 3: interesting consequences of this separation. So after the separation, Rungi

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Speaker 3: and Papa are in a state of grief about being

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Speaker 3: torn apart because they were in love, you know, and

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Speaker 3: now they're separated from one another, and that grief continues

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Speaker 3: until this day. So Rangi cries for his beloved wife

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Speaker 3: and his tears become the rain. Meanwhile, Papa cries and

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Speaker 3: her tears become mists and fog. Papa also is sometimes

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Speaker 3: depicted as being pregnant with another atua or having a

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Speaker 3: younger atua, either at her breast or inside her. That

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Speaker 3: younger atua is I think the youngest of this generation

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Speaker 3: between them, and is named ru Ru Almoko. And this

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Speaker 3: younger being embodies earthquakes. So the rumbling from deep inside

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Speaker 3: the earth is this younger or possibly unborn god stirring

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Speaker 3: within the Earth Mother. Another consequence is to remember the

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Speaker 3: dissenting brother, the Tafiri Mati, the only one who did

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Speaker 3: not want the sky father Rangi pushed away. In some tellings,

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Speaker 3: he goes up to the sky to join his father

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Speaker 3: after the separation, and as the embodiment of wind and storms,

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Speaker 3: he batters the world below as a form of revenge

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Speaker 3: or punishment. Also, in some versions of the story, Tane,

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Speaker 3: as the guardian and embodiment of forests, is said to

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Speaker 3: have clothed his earth mother with trees, either to hide

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Speaker 3: her nakedness or to comfort her in the grief of

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Speaker 3: her separation. So there are a lot of things I

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Speaker 3: find really interesting about this story. One is that it

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Speaker 3: frames the ordering of the present world not as an

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Speaker 3: inevitable prelude to anything of value happening. You get that

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Speaker 3: since in some of these other creation narratives, where it's

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Speaker 3: like the creation story is what had to happen for

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Speaker 3: anything interesting or worthwhile to take place, it's not really

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00:21:10,640 --> 00:21:14,240
Speaker 3: like that here. Instead, this story frames it as a

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Speaker 3: as the victory of one divine party's interests over another's,

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Speaker 3: and the losing parties continue to exist. So Skyfather and

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Speaker 3: Earth Mother are perpetually thwarted and held apart from their embrace,

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Speaker 3: but they still want each other, and they weep for

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Speaker 3: each other. And the Atua of storms is constantly in reaction,

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Speaker 3: is whipping the earth with these with these tempests, in

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Speaker 3: a rage for his father being driven away. Another thing

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Speaker 3: that I like and find interesting about this story is

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Speaker 3: that in the narrative, the world before is not depicted

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Speaker 3: as a bad or worthless place, at least least not

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Speaker 3: from every perspective. Granted, from some perspectives in the story,

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Speaker 3: it's not so great, Like the cramped darkness is certainly

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Speaker 3: not appealing to Dutane and his brothers, but this pre

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Speaker 3: creation state is not the frightening chaos of nameless, churning

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Speaker 3: dark waters that we get in some of the stories

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Speaker 3: we've talked about, like it is, it is not necessarily bad,

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Speaker 3: and it is not nothingness. At least from Papa and

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Speaker 3: Rangey's perspective, this primordial state is comfort and love. Isn't

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Speaker 3: that kind of interesting. It's like it's an embrace so

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Speaker 3: complete that not even light can pass through it, and

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Speaker 3: thus the ordering of the world for human habitation is

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Speaker 3: actually the shattering of a loving embrace.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fascinating. It's like this like a suffocating togetherness,

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Speaker 2: Like it's not you know, it's it's certainly not evil.

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Speaker 2: It may it even sounds like quite good, quite comforting,

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Speaker 2: but it leaves no room for the development of other things.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, this does imply something kind of profound to me.

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Speaker 3: And maybe this thought is not fully formed, but I

366
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:16,480
Speaker 3: was thinking about how there is a sense in which

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00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:22,080
Speaker 3: you can view human life as that which begins when

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00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:25,639
Speaker 3: perfect love and comfort is denied and you have to

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Speaker 3: go searching for something to fill the gap. But coming

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Speaker 3: back to that point of contrast, I mean this highlighted

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Speaker 3: for me something I don't think I had thought about

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Speaker 3: as much in the last episode was how you know,

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Speaker 3: there's always room for kind of misinterpretation or you know,

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Speaker 3: reading of attitudes into these ancient stories that maybe the

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Speaker 3: people who believed in them wouldn't have had. But at

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Speaker 3: least as far as I can infer from the texts

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Speaker 3: that are passed down in a lot of these ancient

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Speaker 3: like especially the Mesopotamian narratives, like that really does seem

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00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:03,560
Speaker 3: to me like the people who believed this thought the

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Speaker 3: pre creation state was kind of a bad place, Like

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Speaker 3: it feels like before the world was made, it was

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Speaker 3: not a good scene, not good. It was like a dangerous, frightening,

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Speaker 3: poisonous kind of void of meaning and history, and that

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Speaker 3: finally some order is brought into it in which good

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Speaker 3: things can happen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a fascinating point. It'll be it'll be

387
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 2: fun to compare this story too, to the next one

388
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 2: we get into and trying to think about its primordial

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Speaker 2: state in comparison to this one.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well maybe we can go right onto that now,

391
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Speaker 3: because that's all I've got for now in the Maori

392
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Speaker 3: creation narrative. But I really like that one. I'm gonna

393
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Speaker 3: be thinking about it a lot.

394
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's The great thing about these different creation accounts,

395
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 2: emergence accounts, if you will, they they're they're they're very

396
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 2: thought provoking. They make you think about the texture of

397
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Speaker 2: reality in our lives, uh, you know, presumably in the

398
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 2: same way that they made ancient people's think about these questions,

399
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:06,480
Speaker 2: because these are not new questions either, the questions that

400
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 2: humans have been asking, you know, since the dawn of history.

401
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:17,200
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna be talking about specifically about about Aztec mythology,

402
00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 2: specifically the legend of the five signs. So we're gonna

403
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 2: be dealing with sequential creations that lead to a fifth

404
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 2: creation our own. And I'm going to come back to

405
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 2: film here for a second, because Joe, maybe you have

406
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 2: a good answer for this, But can you think of

407
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:38,920
Speaker 2: a single film franchise that doesn't really get get good

408
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:41,919
Speaker 2: until the fifth film or hits a notable high point

409
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:44,480
Speaker 2: with film number five. I tried to think of one,

410
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 2: and I could not.

411
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Speaker 3: I cannot. What's the fifth hell Raiser movie?

412
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Speaker 2: Oh, let's say one. That would be Oh, that would

413
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Speaker 2: be the Space one, right.

414
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Speaker 3: I think now that's the fourth one.

415
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:56,920
Speaker 2: Oh, it would be Inferno.

416
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:00,399
Speaker 3: I think Inferno is one of the one that was

417
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 3: originally not a hell raiser movie. It was a repurposed script.

418
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Speaker 2: Okay, if it is Inferno and I don't have the

419
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 2: list in front of me, Inferno, I perfectly enjoyed it

420
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:12,680
Speaker 2: at the time, but I don't think it's topping anybody's list.

421
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:14,640
Speaker 3: I barely remember what happened.

422
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:17,359
Speaker 2: So yeah, I was coming up with blanks on all

423
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:19,399
Speaker 2: of these a lot of Like, you know, it's a

424
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 2: miracle if any film in a series is any good.

425
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:27,880
Speaker 2: But generally by five they're out of ideas. They're they're

426
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 2: coasting on past ideas, and if they go you know,

427
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:33,360
Speaker 2: too much more than five, they may have great things

428
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:36,439
Speaker 2: in their future, but maybe not yet. Now, when you

429
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 2: think about directors whose fifth films really see them hit

430
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 2: their creative strides, well, there are some much better answers.

431
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 2: You can point to things like Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather

432
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 2: in seventy two, Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver in seventy six,

433
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 2: or or John Carpenter's Escape from New York in eighty one. Sure, yeah,

434
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 2: and those are all fine films and technically are like

435
00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 2: the fifth films in each individual's filmography. You can apply

436
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:05,120
Speaker 2: the same question to musicians and bands, and you can

437
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:08,919
Speaker 2: easily point to such examples as Bowie's The Rise and

438
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 2: Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and

439
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:14,880
Speaker 2: seventy two, or Hey Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath from seventy three.

440
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, what my daughter's favorite album?

441
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 2: Yeah. Likewise, authors and novels you could single out. I

442
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 2: guess like two that came to my mind, where Kurt

443
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:27,440
Speaker 2: vonnug Gets Slaughterhouse five from sixty nine or Corman McCarthy's

444
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:31,959
Speaker 2: Blood Meridian from eighty five, with McCarthy in particular, like

445
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 2: I love most of the books that preceded Blood Meridian,

446
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 2: but Blood Meridian was certainly a huge hit for him,

447
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:41,679
Speaker 2: and also one that kind of sets the stage for

448
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 2: most of the novels to follow. So let's come back

449
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 2: to mythology. Let's come back to universes creations, cases where

450
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 2: a fifth attempt has led to something that is successful

451
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 2: in a way that previous versions of reality have not been.

452
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:03,880
Speaker 2: You know, that is going to be key to discussions

453
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 2: of as tech mythology here and I as an aside,

454
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 2: I did find at least some chatter online about and

455
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 2: about worlds of software development and engineering that speculated that

456
00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:19,399
Speaker 2: like version five of something is really where things come together.

457
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 2: So maybe in that design world or those design worlds,

458
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 2: there's you know a little more logical applied to this,

459
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 2: But I don't know, I kind of get the impression

460
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 2: that there's no there's no set rule about like what

461
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 2: version of you know, what draft is the finished one,

462
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 2: what version of a particular software is going to you know,

463
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 2: really be the sweet spot? You know. It just sort

464
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:41,720
Speaker 2: of happens as it happens.

465
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 3: I guess.

466
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 2: So this idea that this reality is not the first

467
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 2: creation but the fifth is one of the core concepts

468
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 2: of certain know it cultures and of the Aztec peoples.

469
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 2: They're the idea that there have been five ages, five sons.

470
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 2: And I think you can view these indeed as separate

471
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 2: worlds or as different phases of one world, separated by

472
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 2: catastrophic mass extinction resets.

473
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 3: So would this be that history is not just suffering

474
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 3: setbacks the way you might think of, like, oh, with

475
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 3: actual the biological history of the Earth, where there's a

476
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 3: mass extinction and it sort of wipes out a lot

477
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 3: of life, but there's still progress to build on each time.

478
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 3: Is it like that or is it more like a

479
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 3: resetting to zero in a way, it's.

480
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 2: Kind of both based on my reading of it, interesting,

481
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 2: you know, And again we kind of come back to

482
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 2: the idea that we can only to a limited extent,

483
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 2: compare like real world linear history to something like this.

484
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 2: And indeed, there's a lot to dissect as well about

485
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 2: the way the Aztec's thought about time and thought about it.

486
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 2: They thought about it in a linear fashion, but a

487
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 2: less linear fashion with like cyclical elements, like cyclical catastrophes

488
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 2: in this case. And also, you know, it's easy to think, well, okay,

489
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 2: we're talking about the same world, but just terrible things

490
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 2: keep happening, but terrible things that require the establishment of

491
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 2: a new sun, which of course is not really possible

492
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 2: or at least extremely far fetched, given our understanding of

493
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 2: the way the solar system works and how reality works.

494
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 2: But again we're dealing with a mythic vision of the

495
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 2: world and its creation. Now, just a reminder about the Aztecs.

496
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 2: The Aztec Empire lasted roughly thirteen twenty five through fifteen

497
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 2: twenty one CE, and it was a dominant meso American

498
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 2: know civilization in Central Mexico with advanced astronomical mathematical, medical, engineering,

499
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 2: and architectural knowledge. The empire fell during the colonial conquest

500
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 2: of the Americas by the Spanish, but now it people

501
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 2: live on. So for a fresh take on this topic,

502
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 2: I turned to the book The Aztec Myths, A Guide

503
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 2: to the Ancient Stories and Legends by Camilla Townsend, whose

504
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 2: work entails less emphasis on colonial accounts and more on

505
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 2: Nowait language sources. So you know, she still you will

506
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 2: allude to these various codeses and so forth, but it's

507
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 2: putting more emphasis on some of the oral histories and

508
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 2: so forth. Along those lines, you'll also find plenty of

509
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 2: breakdowns out there of the five Sons myth that are

510
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 2: very sequential, and I believe these are more based on

511
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:40,040
Speaker 2: the Spanish codeses. But Townshend lays out a less formalized

512
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 2: version of all of this, with more uncertainty about where

513
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 2: each of the prior sons slash ages falls in any

514
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 2: kind of sequential list, noting that the order and details

515
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 2: vary depending on the storyteller.

516
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 3: Oh so, this may be another case where there was,

517
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 3: maybe in the past among some scholars, over confidence in

518
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 3: the fixed of the story based on a textualization event exactly.

519
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So it's a great book and I highly

520
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 2: recommend it for anyone who wants to dig deeper. And

521
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 2: she has an additional book on Aztec history that also

522
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 2: looks very good. I didn't pick that one up because

523
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 2: we are focusing more on the mythology here. But anyway,

524
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 2: here are the basics of the myth the basic breakdown,

525
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 2: as she describes it. So, one of the recent suns,

526
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 2: perhaps the first but also possibly the fourth, was born

527
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 2: on the day for water. And eventually that sun died,

528
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 2: the son of that age died, and the floods swept

529
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 2: the people away, the people that lived in that world,

530
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 2: and they became fish.

531
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 3: But there was one term there I didn't understand. So

532
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 3: one of the sons was born, you said on the

533
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 3: day for water. That's the number four, and then water

534
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 3: is that like a calindrical type of signal.

535
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 2: In it is my understanding. This is like a translation

536
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 2: of the knaw It name for the day. And it's

537
00:32:56,360 --> 00:33:01,200
Speaker 2: also connected to sort of like the flavor of that world. Okay, yeah, okay,

538
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 2: So there will be like different like for water, four winds,

539
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 2: et cetera. Because there's another age, the next one, if

540
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 2: you will that She discusses involves the sun being born

541
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 2: on the day for wind, and when this sun dies,

542
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 2: the people were turned into monkeys and swept through the

543
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 2: tree branches. And then there's another one of the suns

544
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 2: that was born on the day for Ocelot, and the

545
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:28,600
Speaker 2: people of this sun were eaten by man eating beasts,

546
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:32,520
Speaker 2: perhaps some sort of giant feline predators. And this sun

547
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 2: may have been quote swallowed in an eclipse from which

548
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 2: there was no recovery ooh, which is a very ha

549
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 2: thing way of putting it. And this ties into I

550
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 2: think Aztec ideas about what an eclipse was, you know,

551
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:47,840
Speaker 2: not unique to their civilization, where it is the idea

552
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 2: that the moon is being consumed or the sun is

553
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 2: being consumed.

554
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, and imagining trying to picture it like the sun

555
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 3: goes behind the moon and then does not come out

556
00:33:57,200 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 3: the other side.

557
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then that's the end of your age. Yeah.

558
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 2: The third son, she writes, was born on the day

559
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:07,320
Speaker 2: for rain, and a rain of not water but fire

560
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:10,319
Speaker 2: and lava buried the people of this Sun in a

561
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 2: single day. Possibly she writes as an ancient communal memory

562
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:17,840
Speaker 2: of actual volcanic destruction or just kind of like another

563
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 2: category of known cataclysmic destruction, and then our current age,

564
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:26,240
Speaker 2: the Fifth Son is born on the day for movement,

565
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 2: with the movement possibly referring to earthquakes. Oh interesting, and yeah,

566
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 2: and so this is the age we're in and it

567
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:39,279
Speaker 2: is the age where the gods get everything right, like,

568
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:43,000
Speaker 2: this is the age that everything works. It's beautiful, it

569
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 2: is tremendous as long as we can keep it. And

570
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 2: then a lot in Aztec culture is about well, how

571
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:51,839
Speaker 2: do we keep this sun? You know, things have been

572
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 2: set in motion. Powerful deities are involved in the in

573
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 2: the in the way this world works. But then it

574
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 2: is also our responsibility to help maintain the power of

575
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 2: the sun through you know, among other things are rituals.

576
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:13,279
Speaker 2: So at the creation of this uh, this age, the

577
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:17,360
Speaker 2: age of the Fifth Son, Like basically this comes together

578
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 2: as follows. She describes a dark, pre dawn world upon

579
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:23,320
Speaker 2: which no sun had yet risen. So again this is

580
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 2: kind of like the idea that it's completely new creation.

581
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 2: No sun has ever risen here. And in this world,

582
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:32,399
Speaker 2: the gods gather at Tiatua Khan and they ask each

583
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 2: other who will carry the burden, who will take it

584
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 2: upon himself to be the sun, to become the dawn

585
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:43,280
Speaker 2: to be the dawn son, something that in previous ages

586
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 2: there's had to be, like, you know, the new Sun

587
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 2: has had to be to be like the work and

588
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 2: or sacrifice of a particular god.

589
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:54,279
Speaker 3: Interesting yet another story where at the beginning the thing

590
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:55,399
Speaker 3: that is needed is light.

591
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:58,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So which god is going to step forth

592
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 2: and be the s Well, there are numerous ones standing around,

593
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:04,880
Speaker 2: and there's a very proud god by the name of

594
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:08,800
Speaker 2: and I'm going to apologize for any pronunciations here I

595
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 2: get incorrect, but you know, trying my best to land them.

596
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 2: Here there's Texis Tecatal and he steps forward, saying like,

597
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 2: yeah it's me. You know who else would it be

598
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:24,239
Speaker 2: proud to do so? But then the gods also kind

599
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 2: of like nominate a particular pimple faced god, Nana Watson,

600
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 2: and he kind of accepts the role with humility, like

601
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 2: he went volunteering. But he's like, okay, you're all pointing

602
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:37,360
Speaker 2: at me, and you know I've gotten a lot of

603
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 2: great stuff out of this gig. Yeah, I'll step forth.

604
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 2: So both of these gods step forth to become the son,

605
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 2: and the proud god Texas Takado he steps forth in

606
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:53,719
Speaker 2: a splendid headdress. And meanwhile Nana Watson is in a

607
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 2: paper crown, and so, you know, one is proud, one

608
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,879
Speaker 2: is humble, and they move forth to to leap into

609
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 2: the sacrificial fire that will allow them to become the Sun.

610
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 2: And so the proud God he becomes scared and jumps

611
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 2: back back out of the fire at first. Meanwhile, our

612
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 2: pimple faced, humble god, he you know, he feels the

613
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 2: pain of the fire, but he just keeps going. He's brave,

614
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 2: and so in his immolation he becomes the Sun, our son,

615
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 2: the fifth Son, and watching on text is tacadle he is.

616
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:34,200
Speaker 2: He's sort of like humbled by this and finally jumps

617
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 2: in as well. He becomes the Moon.

618
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, sort of a second place in terms of bravery. Yeah,

619
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:45,080
Speaker 3: humbled by his failure in the first go Yeah.

620
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah. So that also, I didn't I don't

621
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 2: have an answer for this question, and maybe it exists

622
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:52,920
Speaker 2: elsewhere in this text or other text. I don't know

623
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 2: if that means that previous realities had a moon, or

624
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 2: if like a moon is sort of unique to the

625
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 2: Fifth World because of this scenario. Yeah, but it could

626
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 2: be a case where like, how do you imagine a

627
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:08,640
Speaker 2: sun without a moon. That's just part of our human

628
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 2: understanding of things, the duality. But at any rate, the

629
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:13,799
Speaker 2: Fifth Son, the age of the Fifth Son, this is

630
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 2: the Goldilocks territory. Everything is just right, the world's beautiful,

631
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 2: it's balanced. And you know, there were problems with all

632
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 2: of the previous versions of reality, you know, the like

633
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 2: I think it's the first Son in some tellings wasn't

634
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 2: strong enough. It was too weak. Obviously there are monsters

635
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 2: running around eating people in other realities. So this is

636
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 2: the one where everything is just right, isn't it funny?

637
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,800
Speaker 3: How just depending on which way you squint, either the

638
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 3: seems like this is the world that's just right, which

639
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:46,399
Speaker 3: it is, or this is the worst possible world, which

640
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 3: it also is.

641
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true, it's true, and you know the I

642
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 2: guess the the interesting thing is it would have seemed

643
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 2: this way to the Aztecs as well. I mean, there,

644
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 2: I'm you know, they would you know, clearly, there were

645
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:01,399
Speaker 2: problems that they faced, you know, even before the big

646
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 2: problem emerged, so you know they would have they would

647
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 2: have been faced with this reality as well. But uh yeah,

648
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:20,839
Speaker 2: coming back to the gods, though, we're gonna. So on

649
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 2: one level, we already have our answered the question like

650
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 2: what came before the reality, well, different realities stretching back

651
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 2: to a different like primordial age. And through each of

652
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 2: these worlds, each of these universes, each of these sons,

653
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 2: we had. The gods, the Aztec gods were present for

654
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 2: each of these ages, and they began, however, prior to

655
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 2: any of these sun ages, with a primordial dual deity

656
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:59,320
Speaker 2: named ome Za Waddle, which consisted of feminine aspects to

657
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 2: Naka Kuti and Tonaka Seawattle. There's a nice artistic rendering

658
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:09,839
Speaker 2: of this dual entity in a book I have. This

659
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 2: is by Ellen Stevens and illustrated by an artist who

660
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 2: goes by the name Echo. It's called a pre Columbian Bestiary.

661
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:21,360
Speaker 2: I included just a snapshot that I took of me

662
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 2: holding the book open in my front yard. Joe. For

663
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 2: you others out there, I recommend you pick up the book.

664
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 2: I couldn't find an image of this one online. But yeah,

665
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 2: imagine an entity that is also two beings. So it

666
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 2: is a single god, but it is a dual god.

667
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 2: It is an entity of duality.

668
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, at least in this left illustration you've included.

669
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 3: I would say that it has oh elements of being

670
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:52,799
Speaker 3: like one big complex geometric head or face, but it

671
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 3: also looks kind of like two bodies joined in an

672
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 3: embrace or twister. Maybe kind of a sexual energy to it.

673
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so we have really really cool primordial energy

674
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 2: to this entity. So the dual god produces offspring before

675
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 2: any of the ages of the Sun, and the initial

676
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:14,919
Speaker 2: offspring take the form of the four brother gods, which

677
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:17,440
Speaker 2: some of these we've discussed in on the show before.

678
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 2: So first up, we have the lord of the smoking mirror,

679
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:24,320
Speaker 2: tes Calipoca. Then we have the feathered serpent quetzal Cotal,

680
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:28,920
Speaker 2: and then we have the flayed one sheipe Totec, and

681
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 2: then we also have Wetzelpacli, the god of war, and

682
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:36,400
Speaker 2: they have other dimensions beyond what I mentioned here, but

683
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 2: that's just like the brief rundown of who they are.

684
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 2: And so at first, these brother gods are more or

685
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:46,239
Speaker 2: less in equilibrium, but is each with each age of

686
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:49,400
Speaker 2: the Sun they quarrel with each other, and that equilibrium

687
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:52,319
Speaker 2: is just not sustained. And also it's like each of

688
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 2: the previous four ages the Sun is sort of headed

689
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:58,720
Speaker 2: out by one particular god. So, for instance, the sun

690
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 2: that the various accounts say the sun that Haspoca PoCA

691
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,400
Speaker 2: is responsible for, it's not bright enough, which makes sense

692
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:10,040
Speaker 2: because he's not the lord of light, he's the Lord

693
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:14,359
Speaker 2: of the black mirror. So back to the creator here,

694
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 2: where does this creator come from? Because that ultimately is

695
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 2: is where we're getting to. You know, we can say, well,

696
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 2: what came before this world for previous worlds, but what

697
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 2: came before all worlds? What is the true primordial nature

698
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:33,280
Speaker 2: out of which indeed this god emerges And so apparently

699
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 2: the way it goes down is ometsuwattle. The dual God

700
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:41,240
Speaker 2: kind of emerges, springs into existence, or is self born,

701
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:45,279
Speaker 2: bringing about the creation of the universe as well, which

702
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 2: leads to the creation of the First Son and the

703
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:52,840
Speaker 2: gods and so forth. And then after all of this

704
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:56,239
Speaker 2: is done, the dual God continues to dwell in what

705
00:42:56,360 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 2: is sometimes called the thirteenth Aztec heaven, though heaven, of course,

706
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:05,959
Speaker 2: is a very loaded Western term, and we'll get into

707
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:09,239
Speaker 2: that a little bit here. But this particular realm is

708
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:15,880
Speaker 2: called omeicin which scholar mevel Leon Portella described in Aztec

709
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 2: Thought and Culture, a study of the ancient non all

710
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 2: mind as quote, the mansion of duality, the source of

711
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 2: generation and life, the ultimate or meta physical region, the

712
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:32,760
Speaker 2: primordial dwelling place of the Ometzuwadel. So this is, according

713
00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:37,040
Speaker 2: to Portilla quote, the place of cosmic origin of all things,

714
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:41,760
Speaker 2: and so the original deity dwells here, but the dual

715
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 2: deity also exists, it's said, in the navel of the

716
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 2: world and also in all things. So this entity is

717
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 2: at the center of everything, but also is in everything.

718
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 2: And there's a you know, there's a real sense of

719
00:43:56,960 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 2: cosmic potential to this realm that it lives in. This

720
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 2: Omeo can realm. It is, it's it's sometimes said to

721
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 2: be the place where human souls originate, and it is

722
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:15,400
Speaker 2: described by Portilla as a place quote beyond time m hm. So,

723
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:16,799
Speaker 2: which we'll come back to.

724
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:20,680
Speaker 3: I'm seeing a lot of I'm seeing a lot of

725
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:23,520
Speaker 3: tensions here, like things existing both in the center of

726
00:44:23,560 --> 00:44:26,759
Speaker 3: the world and seemingly outside of it at the same time.

727
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And that's that's one of the really things

728
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:35,479
Speaker 2: about this whole realm of of omeo Okin, this place

729
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 2: where the dual God resides, because it's like this is

730
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 2: at once kind of like the primordial state of things,

731
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:45,799
Speaker 2: but also a place that still exists within these sort

732
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 2: of metaphysical uh map of creation for the Aztec. So

733
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:54,320
Speaker 2: it's kind of like, you know, like to call it

734
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 2: to Heaven's not quite the same. Maybe it did, depending

735
00:44:57,440 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 2: on how you interpret heaven. But it's almost like if

736
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:02,880
Speaker 2: you try, I do like to compare it to you know,

737
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 2: scientific cosmology. Uh, it's like saying, like, Okay, the world,

738
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:09,920
Speaker 2: the universe began with the Big Bang, but then the

739
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 2: Big Bang still exists and it's here, you know, in

740
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:16,760
Speaker 2: its own sort of pocket dimension. So if I'm understanding

741
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:19,920
Speaker 2: it all correctly. According to as Tech mythology, our world

742
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 2: was preceded by four separate takes on the world or reality,

743
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:25,720
Speaker 2: each with a different sun. And before the first world,

744
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 2: before the creation of the gods that would create and

745
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:32,160
Speaker 2: govern these different worlds, an all powerful, dual creator god

746
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:34,840
Speaker 2: emerged out of a kind of dark, timeless ocean of

747
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 2: endless potential and non time, and that place of endless

748
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:43,680
Speaker 2: potential still exist as its own dimension within the broader cosmology.

749
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:45,360
Speaker 3: Okay, that's complex.

750
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it really is. And that's one of the

751
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 2: things that Portilla really drives home it's like, you know,

752
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:53,279
Speaker 2: we're not dealing with just sort of like a rough

753
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 2: sketch of what things you know might have been, Like

754
00:45:56,480 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 2: you know, the Aztecs were deeply, deeply invested in this

755
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:04,719
Speaker 2: idea and the philosophy of this idea, Like, you know,

756
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:07,920
Speaker 2: it's a very deep concept. And I think I think

757
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 2: the idea too, is that sometimes you know, Western views

758
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 2: of as technothology may be somewhat dismissive of its complexity.

759
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:22,400
Speaker 2: This idea that Omeo can is beyond time, though, it

760
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:25,280
Speaker 2: reminded me of some things that I'd read from Joseph

761
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 2: Campbell about eternity being beyond time, So there being a

762
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 2: difference between we might think of something as being eternal

763
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 2: and that it lasts forever or it's long lasting, but

764
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:40,840
Speaker 2: like true eternity is something that is outside of time,

765
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:43,960
Speaker 2: and I think that is what we're talking about here.

766
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:49,280
Speaker 2: You know, we were talking earlier about the role language

767
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:51,800
Speaker 2: plays and all of this, like thinking about how language

768
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 2: changes and or enables humans to think about, you know,

769
00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 2: distant primordial origins in a way like what does like

770
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:03,960
Speaker 2: what does time do? Like we think of time, like

771
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 2: thinking of time not only as like a constant knowing

772
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 2: that that we have this procession of events, but also

773
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 2: knowing that it's human perception of time that ends up

774
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:17,800
Speaker 2: coloring these different views of what of what the world

775
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:22,680
Speaker 2: is and what came before. But Portella writes that for

776
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 2: the Aztecs, quote, space and time are conceived not as

777
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 2: empty stage settings, but as factors that combine to regulate

778
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:34,279
Speaker 2: the occurrence of cosmic events. So that one takes I

779
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:36,920
Speaker 2: think a minute to sink in. But you know, it's

780
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:41,359
Speaker 2: this idea that, like time, for the Aztecs had weight

781
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 2: and was alive and was carried and and you know,

782
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:49,759
Speaker 2: it's it's not just this thing that's passively occurring, like

783
00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 2: we're not We're not just in time riding down a

784
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:55,880
Speaker 2: river like. It's a lot more complicated than that. And

785
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 2: it also ties into the various ritual acts that have

786
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:03,120
Speaker 2: to be carried out the Aztecs to ensure the continuation

787
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:09,319
Speaker 2: of things. So yeah, I found that really fascinating.

788
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:13,480
Speaker 3: If I'm interpreting this right. So we've described some of

789
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:17,680
Speaker 3: these other creation narratives as stage setting in a way

790
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 3: that a lot of times the initial ordering of the

791
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:24,440
Speaker 3: world and a creation narrative seems to be setting the

792
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:28,760
Speaker 3: stage on which history can take place. Now, characters, maybe

793
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:31,840
Speaker 3: gods or humans can enter and do things on this

794
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:37,719
Speaker 3: stage we've created. But the way the Aztec conception of

795
00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:40,520
Speaker 3: space and time is being described here, it sounds like

796
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:44,279
Speaker 3: it's not just a place in which history happens, that

797
00:48:44,360 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 3: space and time are mechanisms, that they are the gears

798
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 3: that are turned in order to drive events within the

799
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 3: cosmos and within history.

800
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:57,239
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's the vibe I'm getting as well.

801
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 3: Not just the paper but the pencil in a way.

802
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:04,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, or at least that's as close as

803
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:08,240
Speaker 2: I can come to really comprehending it here. I've also

804
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 2: I also saw it put like this, this interesting idea

805
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:17,520
Speaker 2: that a metsu Wadel is kind of the ontological sustainer

806
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 2: of the universe. Like again, he sets in the navel

807
00:49:20,520 --> 00:49:23,760
Speaker 2: and sort of sustains everything from the navel, but then

808
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 2: the rituals and devotions of the Aztec people serve as

809
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:32,319
Speaker 2: the mechanical sustainer, so ensuring even the durability of the

810
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:36,360
Speaker 2: fifth Son. So like everything like this is the best world,

811
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:39,400
Speaker 2: but this world takes a lot of work to keep going,

812
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:42,400
Speaker 2: And apparently it's not, or at least the vibe I

813
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:45,879
Speaker 2: get here is there's no guarantee that will continue on.

814
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:48,840
Speaker 2: There's no guarantee there won't have to be a sixth son,

815
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 2: but you know, we have a fifth son as long

816
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 2: as we can keep it. So yeah, I really I

817
00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:57,360
Speaker 2: really enjoyed diving into this one. And again, you know,

818
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 2: we have this concept of like what came before, something

819
00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 2: like some sort of place where there's there's no light

820
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 2: yet there's no there's not time, but there is potential

821
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 2: for things and and then things begin, you know, to

822
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 2: be set in motion.

823
00:50:14,680 --> 00:50:17,080
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I think we are hitting our time limit

824
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 3: for today's episode, but I know we had more to

825
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:22,320
Speaker 3: say about this topic. And yet at the same time,

826
00:50:22,719 --> 00:50:26,560
Speaker 3: we have some different episodes planned to record next week.

827
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:29,040
Speaker 3: So I think what we're gonna have to do is

828
00:50:29,239 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 3: break at least for a week from talking about this

829
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:37,000
Speaker 3: the concept of worlds before and the the what came

830
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:39,839
Speaker 3: before in creation myths, and maybe we will come back

831
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 3: to this in two or three weeks. Maybe we got

832
00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:45,440
Speaker 3: a date with the worlds before in the near future.

833
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:47,440
Speaker 2: I think. So, yeah, we've got some some other stuff

834
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 2: that we're already obligated to cover, but yeah, we'll come

835
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:53,279
Speaker 2: back to this and in the meantime you can write

836
00:50:53,320 --> 00:50:55,240
Speaker 2: in and if you're if you know you're a particular

837
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 2: fan or or you know we're culturally attached to a

838
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 2: particular mythology and you're like, oh, definitely cover this one next. Well,

839
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:04,120
Speaker 2: you have I think an appropriate amount of time to

840
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:06,319
Speaker 2: get in touch with this and say, hey, make sure

841
00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:07,240
Speaker 2: this one's on your radar.

842
00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, Or if you have anything you would like to

843
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 3: add to the subjects we've already talked about.

844
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:16,239
Speaker 2: Please absolutely yes, all right, Well, just a reminder as

845
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:18,120
Speaker 2: we close out here. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is,

846
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:21,279
Speaker 2: of course a science and culture podcast, primarily with core

847
00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 2: episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we do a

848
00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:27,319
Speaker 2: short form episode, and on Fridays we set aside most

849
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 2: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on

850
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:30,799
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema.

851
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:34,520
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

852
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:36,560
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

853
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:39,920
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

854
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:41,879
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

855
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact Stuff to Blow your

856
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:54,040
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.

857
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:57,319
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

858
00:51:57,400 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

859
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:03,080
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