Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is.
Speaker 3: Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick, and we are
Speaker 3: returning today with the second part in our series about
Speaker 3: worlds before Creation. The idea behind this series is that
Speaker 3: very often when we think about a creation myth or
Speaker 3: a creation story, we imagine what's called a creation ex nihilo.
Speaker 3: So there is nothing, and then suddenly, for some reason
Speaker 3: or by some act, a world is brought into being.
Speaker 3: So nothing existed before. Now there's a world. But the
Speaker 3: interesting thing is that if you start really looking at
Speaker 3: creation stories from all around the world, it seems to
Speaker 3: me that very few of them actually fit this description.
Speaker 3: And instead of being accounts of how the raw substance
Speaker 3: of the universe was brought into existence, what you most
Speaker 3: often get instead is a before and after story where
Speaker 3: a world of some kind already exists, usually in some
Speaker 3: kind of static or chaotic state, and then something happens
Speaker 3: which introduces distinctions and differences and somehow orders this pre
Speaker 3: existing world in such a way that characters can now
Speaker 3: exist and events can take place within it. And I
Speaker 3: realized that I've talked on the show plenty of times
Speaker 3: before about being attracted to imagery of weird wastelands and dark,
Speaker 3: unpopulated places. I don't know how unique I am in this.
Speaker 3: Maybe basically everybody thinks this is interesting, but I don't know,
Speaker 3: but it feels kind of personal to me that, for
Speaker 3: whatever reason, I have never been able to forget about
Speaker 3: that chapter in the Time Machine or the time Traveler
Speaker 3: goes millions of years into the future and sees this desolate,
Speaker 3: withering earth under the red sun and no people in it,
Speaker 3: just these crab monsters and stuff. Or the way I
Speaker 3: was talking in the last episode about being really haunted
Speaker 3: by that very short description at the beginning of the
Speaker 3: Book of Genesis of the dark, the dark deep waters
Speaker 3: in the wind of God rushing above them.
Speaker 2: Here's another one for you, since we're about to come
Speaker 2: up on Alien Day, but the Service of the Planet
Speaker 2: LV four twenty six.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, that's always That's always been one of
Speaker 3: my favorite parts of the movie, when they go down
Speaker 3: to the planet, the empty wastelands that feel like a
Speaker 3: pre created or pre ordered world. I think maybe this
Speaker 3: even connects to something we've dwelt on a lot in
Speaker 3: Weird House cinema episodes, these empty places scenes in movies
Speaker 3: which happened. I don't know, this has come up many times.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of our episodes on Night of the comment
Speaker 3: just recently the Last Man on Earth with Fincent Price.
Speaker 3: For some reason, that is just a really easy way
Speaker 3: to get my attention. I'm into this the waste land
Speaker 3: feeling or the empty world. So, in keeping with that
Speaker 3: tradition of fascination, I got very interested in talking about
Speaker 3: images from these creation stories of what the world is
Speaker 3: like before the creation event takes place. So that's what
Speaker 3: we've been talking about in the last episode, and we'll
Speaker 3: continue in this one creation narratives, but also with the
Speaker 3: special focus on what the world was like before the
Speaker 3: so called beginning and what kind of meaning or understanding
Speaker 3: these pre creation worlds imply. So for a brief refresher
Speaker 3: on the last episode, we talked about the Biblical creation
Speaker 3: narrative in the Book of Genesis, which is often understood
Speaker 3: to be an example of a creation story that actually
Speaker 3: is creation ex nihilo. It's taken as an account of
Speaker 3: like the creation of the raw substance of reality, but
Speaker 3: an interesting and I think to a lot of people.
Speaker 3: Surprising thing is that this is almost certainly not the
Speaker 3: intention of the original text. Most scholars today who look
Speaker 3: at the Hebrew of Genesis one tend to agree that
Speaker 3: it is actually not a tale of raw creation, but
Speaker 3: a story in which God orders and furnishes a pre existing,
Speaker 3: chaotic world. So this pre existing world is described as
Speaker 3: a world of darkness and deep waters, you know, the
Speaker 3: spirit of God hovering over the water. So it is
Speaker 3: a dark and chaotic kind of empty place, but it
Speaker 3: is a place. There's something there, there's water, there's you know,
Speaker 3: this wind of God, and we talked about that at
Speaker 3: some length. We also talked about interesting patterns that appear
Speaker 3: in multiple creation stories, often themes of darkness or undiffer
Speaker 3: differentiated masses of fluid of some kind existing in the
Speaker 3: world before, and creation acts or ordering acts that involve
Speaker 3: the separation of substances into discrete categories. I think that's
Speaker 3: a really interesting trend. We also talked about the pre
Speaker 3: creation world described in the opening lines of the Inuma
Speaker 3: a Leash, or the Babylonian epic of Creation, which is
Speaker 3: characterized mainly by the things of the world like the
Speaker 3: skies and the earth, being nameless, and I thought this
Speaker 3: hinted at a really interesting type of ontology in some
Speaker 3: ancient Mesopotamian thinking, where in some sense things begin to
Speaker 3: exist when they are given names and destinies, so a
Speaker 3: concept of existence that is at some level mediated by
Speaker 3: human recognition and salience, but also I think related to
Speaker 3: the concept you find all over ancient Ear Eastern thinking,
Speaker 3: where language itself has some kind of manifestation power to
Speaker 3: bring reality into existence. To bring it back to the
Speaker 3: Biblical creation narrative. In that narrative, God speaks things into
Speaker 3: existence by saying their names. But you also see this,
Speaker 3: for example, in ancient Egyptian Heca magic, where speaking or
Speaker 3: writing the names of things can manifest them in reality.
Speaker 3: Another interesting thing I was reflecting on about the anuma
Speaker 3: Aleish creation story that I think is going to be
Speaker 3: relevant to one of our major topics today is that
Speaker 3: you could legitimately mark multiple places in the story as
Speaker 3: the moment of creation. Right, So you could select the
Speaker 3: birth of the first gods, after the mingling of the
Speaker 3: different kinds of water. You could say, well, that's the
Speaker 3: moment of creation. Or you could select the later creation
Speaker 3: by combat story where the younger god Marduke kills the
Speaker 3: primordial being of saltwater, Tiamot chops up her body like
Speaker 3: a fish, and then makes the world we live in
Speaker 3: out of it? Which part is the creation? And I
Speaker 3: guess in different ways they're both creation events or both
Speaker 3: reordering events. And I think that that's an interesting thing
Speaker 3: to reflect on. People don't often think about it that way,
Speaker 3: that there can be multiple creations occurring sequentially.
Speaker 2: I keep and I'm going to come back to this
Speaker 2: idea again. I keep thinking about films and sequential films
Speaker 2: and in some of these discussions, and it's kind of
Speaker 2: like thinking about the Friday the Thirteenth franchise. Yes, there's
Speaker 2: a definite first film, but which is the first film
Speaker 2: that really sets the tone for what we think of
Speaker 2: as Friday the thirteenth.
Speaker 3: That's very true. Yes, So when people think about a
Speaker 3: Friday the Thirteenth movie, the thing they're thinking about the
Speaker 3: most common types of imagery and patterns don't really appear
Speaker 3: until maybe the third movie, and I would argue don't
Speaker 3: really get strengthened until the fourth movie. So yeah, that
Speaker 3: is very interesting. It's like they're all derivative of the
Speaker 3: first one, but the first one doesn't have the key
Speaker 3: features of the people think of about the series. Yeah, yeah, Anyway,
Speaker 3: in the previous episode, we also talked briefly about parallels
Speaker 3: in science. Obviously, religious and cultural creation stories are a
Speaker 3: very different type of project from physics based cosmology, so
Speaker 3: we weren't trying to say, like, you know, which of
Speaker 3: the creation narratives gets the science right. I don't think
Speaker 3: that's a very useful project, but at least for some grounding.
Speaker 3: We talked about scientific cosmology and about how we don't
Speaker 3: really know what, if anything, happened before the before the
Speaker 3: beginning of the Big Bang, or more precisely, before the
Speaker 3: cosmic inflation. There are some speculative models that could be
Speaker 3: candidates for a physics based world before, and these have
Speaker 3: over the years included things like a cyclically expanding and
Speaker 3: then contracting universe, or the idea that we are some
Speaker 3: kind of bubble that emerges from a pre existing universe
Speaker 3: and maybe this kind of renucleation just happens infinitely. But
Speaker 3: we don't have direct evidence for these types of hypotheses
Speaker 3: at present. The best you can do for a world
Speaker 3: before in physics is create a model that is mathematically
Speaker 3: consistent with the theories and observations we already have, but
Speaker 3: it's not going to be There's not really a way
Speaker 3: to confirm it with direct observations, at least as far
Speaker 3: as we know. Finally, we also talked about a really
Speaker 3: interesting creation narrative appearing in some Chinese traditions, which was
Speaker 3: the story of Pengu, or the ancient coiled one, who
Speaker 3: forms inside a cosmic egg within a cloud of chaotic vapor,
Speaker 3: then hatches, and in some tellings, separates the earth from
Speaker 3: the sky, sometimes with an axe, and then stands as
Speaker 3: a pillar holding the sky up from the earth. Another
Speaker 3: interesting tale of creation by separation. We also talked about
Speaker 3: versions of the Pengo story, which include the Taoist and
Speaker 3: Neo confusion concept of the wouji. And I'm sorry if
Speaker 3: I'm pronouncing that wrong, Rob you brought up last time.
Speaker 3: How with the inflection that means something totally different, or
Speaker 3: it means like nonsense or something, But in the way
Speaker 3: I was trying to say it, it is the formless
Speaker 3: state of existence before creation, so before the egg of Pegu.
Speaker 3: In these tellings with the wuci, it's the state you
Speaker 3: might characterize as limitless potential for becoming that is actually
Speaker 3: nothing in itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and this, and as in some of the
Speaker 2: other concepts we've discussed in specific stories, they're going to
Speaker 2: keep coming up again because, as we discussed there, there's
Speaker 2: certain various tropes that are popular in understanding and making
Speaker 2: sense of the origins of the world or the universe,
Speaker 2: and we see these reoccurring with different flavors.
Speaker 3: So let's see, Rob, do you mind if we kick
Speaker 3: things off today by looking at one of my examples here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3: So. One of the most beautiful and interesting creation narratives
Speaker 3: I have come across while reading a bunch of them
Speaker 3: for this series is the Maori creation story. Now, with
Speaker 3: this one especially, this will be true actually of a
Speaker 3: lot of the things we talk about, but with this
Speaker 3: one especially, it is important to flag that there is
Speaker 3: not one canonical text or telling of this story. There
Speaker 3: are a bunch of circulating versions which reflect both regional
Speaker 3: and tribal variations, and then variations unique to individual storytellers.
Speaker 3: So whatever version of the story you read or that
Speaker 3: I tell will not be able to be representative of
Speaker 3: all of them. But I'm going to try to capture
Speaker 3: some common themes that appear in multiple tellings, with the
Speaker 3: caveat that this is not the only nor the authoritative
Speaker 3: version of the story.
Speaker 2: Yeah. As we've discussed before a lot of times, the
Speaker 2: idea of canon when it comes to mythology is even
Speaker 2: in Western traditions, kind of an illusion. And then in
Speaker 2: Western and now analysis of other cultures is also either
Speaker 2: artificial or the product like colonial interference.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or just the product of textualization events. This come
Speaker 3: up in the last episode two that often the version
Speaker 3: of a story we start to think of as the
Speaker 3: definitive or canonical version is just the version that happened
Speaker 3: to get put into print first, or happen to be
Speaker 3: widely distributed in print first. Yeah, which might not have
Speaker 3: any more purchase on being the original tradition or the
Speaker 3: most widespread tradition among the original people who believed it.
Speaker 3: It's just the happenstance that it's the one that's in
Speaker 3: a book.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And we see this in the Greek tradition,
Speaker 2: for example, There'll be like a key text that ends
Speaker 2: up covering everything, and it is popular and it is
Speaker 2: a text that survives and continues to continues to resonate
Speaker 2: culturally for ages to come.
Speaker 3: Exactly. So in the context of Greek and Roman myths,
Speaker 3: we're very often going to be thinking of the way
Speaker 3: Avid tells it, or the way that Hesiod tells it,
Speaker 3: or something like that. Anyway, So there is one particular
Speaker 3: account of the Maori creation story that's from an older
Speaker 3: book that I just wanted to mention because in one
Speaker 3: case it's the only source I found of a detail
Speaker 3: that I wanted to flag later. So this older book
Speaker 3: is called, in its translated form, Polynesian Mythology and Ancient
Speaker 3: Traditional History of the New Zealand Race as furnished by
Speaker 3: their priests and chiefs. This was first published in eighteen
Speaker 3: fifty five, traditionally credited to the colonial administrator George Gray,
Speaker 3: but from what I've read, it was in reality significantly
Speaker 3: the work of a writer and Maori tribal leader named
Speaker 3: tay Rungi Kaheke, who has long been celebrated for his
Speaker 3: work in recording and translating Maori cultural traditions. And I
Speaker 3: apologize in advance for any pronunciations that I don't get
Speaker 3: quite right here. I'm doing my best based on the
Speaker 3: guidelines that I could find online, so I hope I
Speaker 3: get reasonably close so the story goes like this, long ago,
Speaker 3: the world was in darkness. The Skyfather Rungi Nui and
Speaker 3: or sometimes just shortened as Rungi Rungi Nui or Rungi
Speaker 3: and the Earth Mother Papa Tuanuku or just Papa were
Speaker 3: pressed against one another in a loving embrace. So Skyfather
Speaker 3: Rungi and Earth Mother Papa, they're hugging. They're hugging so
Speaker 3: tight that no light could penetrate between their bodies. But
Speaker 3: there was not nothing between their bodies. There was something
Speaker 3: between the Earth and the sky. It was the dwelling
Speaker 3: place of their children, the offspring of their union. So
Speaker 3: the children of the Sky Father and the Earth Mother
Speaker 3: lived smothered in darkness with no space to move. Now,
Speaker 3: another quick terminology note, because I initially got confused reading
Speaker 3: about this. Sometimes these children of the Sky Father and
Speaker 3: the Earth Mother, these younger beings, are translated as gods
Speaker 3: in English, and sometimes they're translated as if they are
Speaker 3: humans or people, or with words usually applied to humans
Speaker 3: like fathers. From what I could tell, the most culturally
Speaker 3: appropriate term is going to be the Maori term atua,
Speaker 3: which means a kind of supernatural ancestral being. So that's
Speaker 3: what I'm going to try to use here. So again
Speaker 3: we've got Rungi, the sky father, and Papa, the earth mother,
Speaker 3: and they're in this tight embrace, and the children the atuas,
Speaker 3: are between them. And what happens next varies by telling,
Speaker 3: but in some versions, one of the younger beings, one
Speaker 3: of the Atua, suggests that they kill their parents, or
Speaker 3: they kill their skyfather Rungi, so that they might break
Speaker 3: free of the dark embrace and have both light and
Speaker 3: room to move. But then in response another one of
Speaker 3: the atuas, this one named tne Matua or just Taune.
Speaker 3: This is the Attua of the forests and of birds
Speaker 3: and insects and beings that dwell in the forest so
Speaker 3: forests and the creatures that dwell there. Tane says he
Speaker 3: has a better idea. They will not harm their mother
Speaker 3: and father, but instead cleave them apart. So they shall
Speaker 3: push their father far away up above, and the children
Speaker 3: themselves will remain below, close to their mother who nursed them.
Speaker 3: And all of the younger beings agree to this plan
Speaker 3: except for one. There is one of the the Atua
Speaker 3: named Tafiri Matea, or the Atua of wind and storms,
Speaker 3: who is close to his sky father and fearce separation
Speaker 3: from him.
Speaker 2: Okay, so basically we're dealing with the primordial reverse parent trap.
Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting. Yes, so they're trying to get their
Speaker 3: parents apart because they I mean, it's hard to blame them.
Speaker 3: They they're like totally crushed in between them. The embrace
Speaker 3: is so tight. But yes, yes, instead of instead, instead
Speaker 3: of setting them up there trying to get them apart.
Speaker 3: But it's an impossible job, it seems, because Rungi and
Speaker 3: Papa are so vast. How can their embrace be broken?
Speaker 3: So all of the younger atua take turns trying, but
Speaker 3: eventually the stories often narrate them one by one, each
Speaker 3: trying to separate the mother and father in their embrace,
Speaker 3: but they can't do it. Eventually, only Tanae is able
Speaker 3: to drive them apart, and in one telling I read
Speaker 3: this is the telling from the eighteen fifty five book.
Speaker 3: The way he accomplishes this is by inverting his body.
Speaker 3: He plants his head head upon the body of the
Speaker 3: earth mother so on the ground, and then pushes his
Speaker 3: skyfather away with his feet and powerful legs, and in
Speaker 3: driving Rungi and Papa apart, Tane lets light into the
Speaker 3: world and is thus comes to be associated with light.
Speaker 3: He's sort of God or the Attua of the forests,
Speaker 3: but also in a way of light and in letting
Speaker 3: the light in this readies the world for the creation
Speaker 3: of humankind and the beginning of history. And in some
Speaker 3: tellings it is Tane himself who leads to the creation
Speaker 3: of humankind, because he creates the first woman named hine
Speaker 3: A Hue by forming her from the earth. So he
Speaker 3: takes the soil of the body of his mother, of
Speaker 3: the earth mother, and then breathes life into the form
Speaker 3: of the new woman he has made by breathing into
Speaker 3: her nostrils, and then together with her, Tane becomes the
Speaker 3: ancestor of humankind. Though I think the actual story is
Speaker 3: more convoluted. There are some steps involved, but they give
Speaker 3: rise to humankind down the road. But there are some
Speaker 3: interesting consequences of this separation. So after the separation, Rungi
Speaker 3: and Papa are in a state of grief about being
Speaker 3: torn apart because they were in love, you know, and
Speaker 3: now they're separated from one another, and that grief continues
Speaker 3: until this day. So Rangi cries for his beloved wife
Speaker 3: and his tears become the rain. Meanwhile, Papa cries and
Speaker 3: her tears become mists and fog. Papa also is sometimes
Speaker 3: depicted as being pregnant with another atua or having a
Speaker 3: younger atua, either at her breast or inside her. That
Speaker 3: younger atua is I think the youngest of this generation
Speaker 3: between them, and is named ru Ru Almoko. And this
Speaker 3: younger being embodies earthquakes. So the rumbling from deep inside
Speaker 3: the earth is this younger or possibly unborn god stirring
Speaker 3: within the Earth Mother. Another consequence is to remember the
Speaker 3: dissenting brother, the Tafiri Mati, the only one who did
Speaker 3: not want the sky father Rangi pushed away. In some tellings,
Speaker 3: he goes up to the sky to join his father
Speaker 3: after the separation, and as the embodiment of wind and storms,
Speaker 3: he batters the world below as a form of revenge
Speaker 3: or punishment. Also, in some versions of the story, Tane,
Speaker 3: as the guardian and embodiment of forests, is said to
Speaker 3: have clothed his earth mother with trees, either to hide
Speaker 3: her nakedness or to comfort her in the grief of
Speaker 3: her separation. So there are a lot of things I
Speaker 3: find really interesting about this story. One is that it
Speaker 3: frames the ordering of the present world not as an
Speaker 3: inevitable prelude to anything of value happening. You get that
Speaker 3: since in some of these other creation narratives, where it's
Speaker 3: like the creation story is what had to happen for
Speaker 3: anything interesting or worthwhile to take place, it's not really
Speaker 3: like that here. Instead, this story frames it as a
Speaker 3: as the victory of one divine party's interests over another's,
Speaker 3: and the losing parties continue to exist. So Skyfather and
Speaker 3: Earth Mother are perpetually thwarted and held apart from their embrace,
Speaker 3: but they still want each other, and they weep for
Speaker 3: each other. And the Atua of storms is constantly in reaction,
Speaker 3: is whipping the earth with these with these tempests, in
Speaker 3: a rage for his father being driven away. Another thing
Speaker 3: that I like and find interesting about this story is
Speaker 3: that in the narrative, the world before is not depicted
Speaker 3: as a bad or worthless place, at least least not
Speaker 3: from every perspective. Granted, from some perspectives in the story,
Speaker 3: it's not so great, Like the cramped darkness is certainly
Speaker 3: not appealing to Dutane and his brothers, but this pre
Speaker 3: creation state is not the frightening chaos of nameless, churning
Speaker 3: dark waters that we get in some of the stories
Speaker 3: we've talked about, like it is, it is not necessarily bad,
Speaker 3: and it is not nothingness. At least from Papa and
Speaker 3: Rangey's perspective, this primordial state is comfort and love. Isn't
Speaker 3: that kind of interesting. It's like it's an embrace so
Speaker 3: complete that not even light can pass through it, and
Speaker 3: thus the ordering of the world for human habitation is
Speaker 3: actually the shattering of a loving embrace.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fascinating. It's like this like a suffocating togetherness,
Speaker 2: Like it's not you know, it's it's certainly not evil.
Speaker 2: It may it even sounds like quite good, quite comforting,
Speaker 2: but it leaves no room for the development of other things.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, this does imply something kind of profound to me.
Speaker 3: And maybe this thought is not fully formed, but I
Speaker 3: was thinking about how there is a sense in which
Speaker 3: you can view human life as that which begins when
Speaker 3: perfect love and comfort is denied and you have to
Speaker 3: go searching for something to fill the gap. But coming
Speaker 3: back to that point of contrast, I mean this highlighted
Speaker 3: for me something I don't think I had thought about
Speaker 3: as much in the last episode was how you know,
Speaker 3: there's always room for kind of misinterpretation or you know,
Speaker 3: reading of attitudes into these ancient stories that maybe the
Speaker 3: people who believed in them wouldn't have had. But at
Speaker 3: least as far as I can infer from the texts
Speaker 3: that are passed down in a lot of these ancient
Speaker 3: like especially the Mesopotamian narratives, like that really does seem
Speaker 3: to me like the people who believed this thought the
Speaker 3: pre creation state was kind of a bad place, Like
Speaker 3: it feels like before the world was made, it was
Speaker 3: not a good scene, not good. It was like a dangerous, frightening,
Speaker 3: poisonous kind of void of meaning and history, and that
Speaker 3: finally some order is brought into it in which good
Speaker 3: things can happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a fascinating point. It'll be it'll be
Speaker 2: fun to compare this story too, to the next one
Speaker 2: we get into and trying to think about its primordial
Speaker 2: state in comparison to this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well maybe we can go right onto that now,
Speaker 3: because that's all I've got for now in the Maori
Speaker 3: creation narrative. But I really like that one. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: be thinking about it a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's The great thing about these different creation accounts,
Speaker 2: emergence accounts, if you will, they they're they're they're very
Speaker 2: thought provoking. They make you think about the texture of
Speaker 2: reality in our lives, uh, you know, presumably in the
Speaker 2: same way that they made ancient people's think about these questions,
Speaker 2: because these are not new questions either, the questions that
Speaker 2: humans have been asking, you know, since the dawn of history.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna be talking about specifically about about Aztec mythology,
Speaker 2: specifically the legend of the five signs. So we're gonna
Speaker 2: be dealing with sequential creations that lead to a fifth
Speaker 2: creation our own. And I'm going to come back to
Speaker 2: film here for a second, because Joe, maybe you have
Speaker 2: a good answer for this, But can you think of
Speaker 2: a single film franchise that doesn't really get get good
Speaker 2: until the fifth film or hits a notable high point
Speaker 2: with film number five. I tried to think of one,
Speaker 2: and I could not.
Speaker 3: I cannot. What's the fifth hell Raiser movie?
Speaker 2: Oh, let's say one. That would be Oh, that would
Speaker 2: be the Space one, right.
Speaker 3: I think now that's the fourth one.
Speaker 2: Oh, it would be Inferno.
Speaker 3: I think Inferno is one of the one that was
Speaker 3: originally not a hell raiser movie. It was a repurposed script.
Speaker 2: Okay, if it is Inferno and I don't have the
Speaker 2: list in front of me, Inferno, I perfectly enjoyed it
Speaker 2: at the time, but I don't think it's topping anybody's list.
Speaker 3: I barely remember what happened.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I was coming up with blanks on all
Speaker 2: of these a lot of Like, you know, it's a
Speaker 2: miracle if any film in a series is any good.
Speaker 2: But generally by five they're out of ideas. They're they're
Speaker 2: coasting on past ideas, and if they go you know,
Speaker 2: too much more than five, they may have great things
Speaker 2: in their future, but maybe not yet. Now, when you
Speaker 2: think about directors whose fifth films really see them hit
Speaker 2: their creative strides, well, there are some much better answers.
Speaker 2: You can point to things like Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather
Speaker 2: in seventy two, Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver in seventy six,
Speaker 2: or or John Carpenter's Escape from New York in eighty one. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 2: and those are all fine films and technically are like
Speaker 2: the fifth films in each individual's filmography. You can apply
Speaker 2: the same question to musicians and bands, and you can
Speaker 2: easily point to such examples as Bowie's The Rise and
Speaker 2: Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and
Speaker 2: seventy two, or Hey Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath from seventy three.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what my daughter's favorite album?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Likewise, authors and novels you could single out. I
Speaker 2: guess like two that came to my mind, where Kurt
Speaker 2: vonnug Gets Slaughterhouse five from sixty nine or Corman McCarthy's
Speaker 2: Blood Meridian from eighty five, with McCarthy in particular, like
Speaker 2: I love most of the books that preceded Blood Meridian,
Speaker 2: but Blood Meridian was certainly a huge hit for him,
Speaker 2: and also one that kind of sets the stage for
Speaker 2: most of the novels to follow. So let's come back
Speaker 2: to mythology. Let's come back to universes creations, cases where
Speaker 2: a fifth attempt has led to something that is successful
Speaker 2: in a way that previous versions of reality have not been.
Speaker 2: You know, that is going to be key to discussions
Speaker 2: of as tech mythology here and I as an aside,
Speaker 2: I did find at least some chatter online about and
Speaker 2: about worlds of software development and engineering that speculated that
Speaker 2: like version five of something is really where things come together.
Speaker 2: So maybe in that design world or those design worlds,
Speaker 2: there's you know a little more logical applied to this,
Speaker 2: But I don't know, I kind of get the impression
Speaker 2: that there's no there's no set rule about like what
Speaker 2: version of you know, what draft is the finished one,
Speaker 2: what version of a particular software is going to you know,
Speaker 2: really be the sweet spot? You know. It just sort
Speaker 2: of happens as it happens.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 2: So this idea that this reality is not the first
Speaker 2: creation but the fifth is one of the core concepts
Speaker 2: of certain know it cultures and of the Aztec peoples.
Speaker 2: They're the idea that there have been five ages, five sons.
Speaker 2: And I think you can view these indeed as separate
Speaker 2: worlds or as different phases of one world, separated by
Speaker 2: catastrophic mass extinction resets.
Speaker 3: So would this be that history is not just suffering
Speaker 3: setbacks the way you might think of, like, oh, with
Speaker 3: actual the biological history of the Earth, where there's a
Speaker 3: mass extinction and it sort of wipes out a lot
Speaker 3: of life, but there's still progress to build on each time.
Speaker 3: Is it like that or is it more like a
Speaker 3: resetting to zero in a way, it's.
Speaker 2: Kind of both based on my reading of it, interesting,
Speaker 2: you know, And again we kind of come back to
Speaker 2: the idea that we can only to a limited extent,
Speaker 2: compare like real world linear history to something like this.
Speaker 2: And indeed, there's a lot to dissect as well about
Speaker 2: the way the Aztec's thought about time and thought about it.
Speaker 2: They thought about it in a linear fashion, but a
Speaker 2: less linear fashion with like cyclical elements, like cyclical catastrophes
Speaker 2: in this case. And also, you know, it's easy to think, well, okay,
Speaker 2: we're talking about the same world, but just terrible things
Speaker 2: keep happening, but terrible things that require the establishment of
Speaker 2: a new sun, which of course is not really possible
Speaker 2: or at least extremely far fetched, given our understanding of
Speaker 2: the way the solar system works and how reality works.
Speaker 2: But again we're dealing with a mythic vision of the
Speaker 2: world and its creation. Now, just a reminder about the Aztecs.
Speaker 2: The Aztec Empire lasted roughly thirteen twenty five through fifteen
Speaker 2: twenty one CE, and it was a dominant meso American
Speaker 2: know civilization in Central Mexico with advanced astronomical mathematical, medical, engineering,
Speaker 2: and architectural knowledge. The empire fell during the colonial conquest
Speaker 2: of the Americas by the Spanish, but now it people
Speaker 2: live on. So for a fresh take on this topic,
Speaker 2: I turned to the book The Aztec Myths, A Guide
Speaker 2: to the Ancient Stories and Legends by Camilla Townsend, whose
Speaker 2: work entails less emphasis on colonial accounts and more on
Speaker 2: Nowait language sources. So you know, she still you will
Speaker 2: allude to these various codeses and so forth, but it's
Speaker 2: putting more emphasis on some of the oral histories and
Speaker 2: so forth. Along those lines, you'll also find plenty of
Speaker 2: breakdowns out there of the five Sons myth that are
Speaker 2: very sequential, and I believe these are more based on
Speaker 2: the Spanish codeses. But Townshend lays out a less formalized
Speaker 2: version of all of this, with more uncertainty about where
Speaker 2: each of the prior sons slash ages falls in any
Speaker 2: kind of sequential list, noting that the order and details
Speaker 2: vary depending on the storyteller.
Speaker 3: Oh so, this may be another case where there was,
Speaker 3: maybe in the past among some scholars, over confidence in
Speaker 3: the fixed of the story based on a textualization event exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So it's a great book and I highly
Speaker 2: recommend it for anyone who wants to dig deeper. And
Speaker 2: she has an additional book on Aztec history that also
Speaker 2: looks very good. I didn't pick that one up because
Speaker 2: we are focusing more on the mythology here. But anyway,
Speaker 2: here are the basics of the myth the basic breakdown,
Speaker 2: as she describes it. So, one of the recent suns,
Speaker 2: perhaps the first but also possibly the fourth, was born
Speaker 2: on the day for water. And eventually that sun died,
Speaker 2: the son of that age died, and the floods swept
Speaker 2: the people away, the people that lived in that world,
Speaker 2: and they became fish.
Speaker 3: But there was one term there I didn't understand. So
Speaker 3: one of the sons was born, you said on the
Speaker 3: day for water. That's the number four, and then water
Speaker 3: is that like a calindrical type of signal.
Speaker 2: In it is my understanding. This is like a translation
Speaker 2: of the knaw It name for the day. And it's
Speaker 2: also connected to sort of like the flavor of that world. Okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: So there will be like different like for water, four winds,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Because there's another age, the next one, if
Speaker 2: you will that She discusses involves the sun being born
Speaker 2: on the day for wind, and when this sun dies,
Speaker 2: the people were turned into monkeys and swept through the
Speaker 2: tree branches. And then there's another one of the suns
Speaker 2: that was born on the day for Ocelot, and the
Speaker 2: people of this sun were eaten by man eating beasts,
Speaker 2: perhaps some sort of giant feline predators. And this sun
Speaker 2: may have been quote swallowed in an eclipse from which
Speaker 2: there was no recovery ooh, which is a very ha
Speaker 2: thing way of putting it. And this ties into I
Speaker 2: think Aztec ideas about what an eclipse was, you know,
Speaker 2: not unique to their civilization, where it is the idea
Speaker 2: that the moon is being consumed or the sun is
Speaker 2: being consumed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and imagining trying to picture it like the sun
Speaker 3: goes behind the moon and then does not come out
Speaker 3: the other side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then that's the end of your age. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The third son, she writes, was born on the day
Speaker 2: for rain, and a rain of not water but fire
Speaker 2: and lava buried the people of this Sun in a
Speaker 2: single day. Possibly she writes as an ancient communal memory
Speaker 2: of actual volcanic destruction or just kind of like another
Speaker 2: category of known cataclysmic destruction, and then our current age,
Speaker 2: the Fifth Son is born on the day for movement,
Speaker 2: with the movement possibly referring to earthquakes. Oh interesting, and yeah,
Speaker 2: and so this is the age we're in and it
Speaker 2: is the age where the gods get everything right, like,
Speaker 2: this is the age that everything works. It's beautiful, it
Speaker 2: is tremendous as long as we can keep it. And
Speaker 2: then a lot in Aztec culture is about well, how
Speaker 2: do we keep this sun? You know, things have been
Speaker 2: set in motion. Powerful deities are involved in the in
Speaker 2: the in the way this world works. But then it
Speaker 2: is also our responsibility to help maintain the power of
Speaker 2: the sun through you know, among other things are rituals.
Speaker 2: So at the creation of this uh, this age, the
Speaker 2: age of the Fifth Son, Like basically this comes together
Speaker 2: as follows. She describes a dark, pre dawn world upon
Speaker 2: which no sun had yet risen. So again this is
Speaker 2: kind of like the idea that it's completely new creation.
Speaker 2: No sun has ever risen here. And in this world,
Speaker 2: the gods gather at Tiatua Khan and they ask each
Speaker 2: other who will carry the burden, who will take it
Speaker 2: upon himself to be the sun, to become the dawn
Speaker 2: to be the dawn son, something that in previous ages
Speaker 2: there's had to be, like, you know, the new Sun
Speaker 2: has had to be to be like the work and
Speaker 2: or sacrifice of a particular god.
Speaker 3: Interesting yet another story where at the beginning the thing
Speaker 3: that is needed is light.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So which god is going to step forth
Speaker 2: and be the s Well, there are numerous ones standing around,
Speaker 2: and there's a very proud god by the name of
Speaker 2: and I'm going to apologize for any pronunciations here I
Speaker 2: get incorrect, but you know, trying my best to land them.
Speaker 2: Here there's Texis Tecatal and he steps forward, saying like,
Speaker 2: yeah it's me. You know who else would it be
Speaker 2: proud to do so? But then the gods also kind
Speaker 2: of like nominate a particular pimple faced god, Nana Watson,
Speaker 2: and he kind of accepts the role with humility, like
Speaker 2: he went volunteering. But he's like, okay, you're all pointing
Speaker 2: at me, and you know I've gotten a lot of
Speaker 2: great stuff out of this gig. Yeah, I'll step forth.
Speaker 2: So both of these gods step forth to become the son,
Speaker 2: and the proud god Texas Takado he steps forth in
Speaker 2: a splendid headdress. And meanwhile Nana Watson is in a
Speaker 2: paper crown, and so, you know, one is proud, one
Speaker 2: is humble, and they move forth to to leap into
Speaker 2: the sacrificial fire that will allow them to become the Sun.
Speaker 2: And so the proud God he becomes scared and jumps
Speaker 2: back back out of the fire at first. Meanwhile, our
Speaker 2: pimple faced, humble god, he you know, he feels the
Speaker 2: pain of the fire, but he just keeps going. He's brave,
Speaker 2: and so in his immolation he becomes the Sun, our son,
Speaker 2: the fifth Son, and watching on text is tacadle he is.
Speaker 2: He's sort of like humbled by this and finally jumps
Speaker 2: in as well. He becomes the Moon.
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, sort of a second place in terms of bravery. Yeah,
Speaker 3: humbled by his failure in the first go Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah. So that also, I didn't I don't
Speaker 2: have an answer for this question, and maybe it exists
Speaker 2: elsewhere in this text or other text. I don't know
Speaker 2: if that means that previous realities had a moon, or
Speaker 2: if like a moon is sort of unique to the
Speaker 2: Fifth World because of this scenario. Yeah, but it could
Speaker 2: be a case where like, how do you imagine a
Speaker 2: sun without a moon. That's just part of our human
Speaker 2: understanding of things, the duality. But at any rate, the
Speaker 2: Fifth Son, the age of the Fifth Son, this is
Speaker 2: the Goldilocks territory. Everything is just right, the world's beautiful,
Speaker 2: it's balanced. And you know, there were problems with all
Speaker 2: of the previous versions of reality, you know, the like
Speaker 2: I think it's the first Son in some tellings wasn't
Speaker 2: strong enough. It was too weak. Obviously there are monsters
Speaker 2: running around eating people in other realities. So this is
Speaker 2: the one where everything is just right, isn't it funny?
Speaker 3: How just depending on which way you squint, either the
Speaker 3: seems like this is the world that's just right, which
Speaker 3: it is, or this is the worst possible world, which
Speaker 3: it also is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true, it's true, and you know the I
Speaker 2: guess the the interesting thing is it would have seemed
Speaker 2: this way to the Aztecs as well. I mean, there,
Speaker 2: I'm you know, they would you know, clearly, there were
Speaker 2: problems that they faced, you know, even before the big
Speaker 2: problem emerged, so you know they would have they would
Speaker 2: have been faced with this reality as well. But uh yeah,
Speaker 2: coming back to the gods, though, we're gonna. So on
Speaker 2: one level, we already have our answered the question like
Speaker 2: what came before the reality, well, different realities stretching back
Speaker 2: to a different like primordial age. And through each of
Speaker 2: these worlds, each of these universes, each of these sons,
Speaker 2: we had. The gods, the Aztec gods were present for
Speaker 2: each of these ages, and they began, however, prior to
Speaker 2: any of these sun ages, with a primordial dual deity
Speaker 2: named ome Za Waddle, which consisted of feminine aspects to
Speaker 2: Naka Kuti and Tonaka Seawattle. There's a nice artistic rendering
Speaker 2: of this dual entity in a book I have. This
Speaker 2: is by Ellen Stevens and illustrated by an artist who
Speaker 2: goes by the name Echo. It's called a pre Columbian Bestiary.
Speaker 2: I included just a snapshot that I took of me
Speaker 2: holding the book open in my front yard. Joe. For
Speaker 2: you others out there, I recommend you pick up the book.
Speaker 2: I couldn't find an image of this one online. But yeah,
Speaker 2: imagine an entity that is also two beings. So it
Speaker 2: is a single god, but it is a dual god.
Speaker 2: It is an entity of duality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, at least in this left illustration you've included.
Speaker 3: I would say that it has oh elements of being
Speaker 3: like one big complex geometric head or face, but it
Speaker 3: also looks kind of like two bodies joined in an
Speaker 3: embrace or twister. Maybe kind of a sexual energy to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so we have really really cool primordial energy
Speaker 2: to this entity. So the dual god produces offspring before
Speaker 2: any of the ages of the Sun, and the initial
Speaker 2: offspring take the form of the four brother gods, which
Speaker 2: some of these we've discussed in on the show before.
Speaker 2: So first up, we have the lord of the smoking mirror,
Speaker 2: tes Calipoca. Then we have the feathered serpent quetzal Cotal,
Speaker 2: and then we have the flayed one sheipe Totec, and
Speaker 2: then we also have Wetzelpacli, the god of war, and
Speaker 2: they have other dimensions beyond what I mentioned here, but
Speaker 2: that's just like the brief rundown of who they are.
Speaker 2: And so at first, these brother gods are more or
Speaker 2: less in equilibrium, but is each with each age of
Speaker 2: the Sun they quarrel with each other, and that equilibrium
Speaker 2: is just not sustained. And also it's like each of
Speaker 2: the previous four ages the Sun is sort of headed
Speaker 2: out by one particular god. So, for instance, the sun
Speaker 2: that the various accounts say the sun that Haspoca PoCA
Speaker 2: is responsible for, it's not bright enough, which makes sense
Speaker 2: because he's not the lord of light, he's the Lord
Speaker 2: of the black mirror. So back to the creator here,
Speaker 2: where does this creator come from? Because that ultimately is
Speaker 2: is where we're getting to. You know, we can say, well,
Speaker 2: what came before this world for previous worlds, but what
Speaker 2: came before all worlds? What is the true primordial nature
Speaker 2: out of which indeed this god emerges And so apparently
Speaker 2: the way it goes down is ometsuwattle. The dual God
Speaker 2: kind of emerges, springs into existence, or is self born,
Speaker 2: bringing about the creation of the universe as well, which
Speaker 2: leads to the creation of the First Son and the
Speaker 2: gods and so forth. And then after all of this
Speaker 2: is done, the dual God continues to dwell in what
Speaker 2: is sometimes called the thirteenth Aztec heaven, though heaven, of course,
Speaker 2: is a very loaded Western term, and we'll get into
Speaker 2: that a little bit here. But this particular realm is
Speaker 2: called omeicin which scholar mevel Leon Portella described in Aztec
Speaker 2: Thought and Culture, a study of the ancient non all
Speaker 2: mind as quote, the mansion of duality, the source of
Speaker 2: generation and life, the ultimate or meta physical region, the
Speaker 2: primordial dwelling place of the Ometzuwadel. So this is, according
Speaker 2: to Portilla quote, the place of cosmic origin of all things,
Speaker 2: and so the original deity dwells here, but the dual
Speaker 2: deity also exists, it's said, in the navel of the
Speaker 2: world and also in all things. So this entity is
Speaker 2: at the center of everything, but also is in everything.
Speaker 2: And there's a you know, there's a real sense of
Speaker 2: cosmic potential to this realm that it lives in. This
Speaker 2: Omeo can realm. It is, it's it's sometimes said to
Speaker 2: be the place where human souls originate, and it is
Speaker 2: described by Portilla as a place quote beyond time m hm. So,
Speaker 2: which we'll come back to.
Speaker 3: I'm seeing a lot of I'm seeing a lot of
Speaker 3: tensions here, like things existing both in the center of
Speaker 3: the world and seemingly outside of it at the same time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And that's that's one of the really things
Speaker 2: about this whole realm of of omeo Okin, this place
Speaker 2: where the dual God resides, because it's like this is
Speaker 2: at once kind of like the primordial state of things,
Speaker 2: but also a place that still exists within these sort
Speaker 2: of metaphysical uh map of creation for the Aztec. So
Speaker 2: it's kind of like, you know, like to call it
Speaker 2: to Heaven's not quite the same. Maybe it did, depending
Speaker 2: on how you interpret heaven. But it's almost like if
Speaker 2: you try, I do like to compare it to you know,
Speaker 2: scientific cosmology. Uh, it's like saying, like, Okay, the world,
Speaker 2: the universe began with the Big Bang, but then the
Speaker 2: Big Bang still exists and it's here, you know, in
Speaker 2: its own sort of pocket dimension. So if I'm understanding
Speaker 2: it all correctly. According to as Tech mythology, our world
Speaker 2: was preceded by four separate takes on the world or reality,
Speaker 2: each with a different sun. And before the first world,
Speaker 2: before the creation of the gods that would create and
Speaker 2: govern these different worlds, an all powerful, dual creator god
Speaker 2: emerged out of a kind of dark, timeless ocean of
Speaker 2: endless potential and non time, and that place of endless
Speaker 2: potential still exist as its own dimension within the broader cosmology.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's complex.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it really is. And that's one of the
Speaker 2: things that Portilla really drives home it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: we're not dealing with just sort of like a rough
Speaker 2: sketch of what things you know might have been, Like
Speaker 2: you know, the Aztecs were deeply, deeply invested in this
Speaker 2: idea and the philosophy of this idea, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a very deep concept. And I think I think
Speaker 2: the idea too, is that sometimes you know, Western views
Speaker 2: of as technothology may be somewhat dismissive of its complexity.
Speaker 2: This idea that Omeo can is beyond time, though, it
Speaker 2: reminded me of some things that I'd read from Joseph
Speaker 2: Campbell about eternity being beyond time, So there being a
Speaker 2: difference between we might think of something as being eternal
Speaker 2: and that it lasts forever or it's long lasting, but
Speaker 2: like true eternity is something that is outside of time,
Speaker 2: and I think that is what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2: You know, we were talking earlier about the role language
Speaker 2: plays and all of this, like thinking about how language
Speaker 2: changes and or enables humans to think about, you know,
Speaker 2: distant primordial origins in a way like what does like
Speaker 2: what does time do? Like we think of time, like
Speaker 2: thinking of time not only as like a constant knowing
Speaker 2: that that we have this procession of events, but also
Speaker 2: knowing that it's human perception of time that ends up
Speaker 2: coloring these different views of what of what the world
Speaker 2: is and what came before. But Portella writes that for
Speaker 2: the Aztecs, quote, space and time are conceived not as
Speaker 2: empty stage settings, but as factors that combine to regulate
Speaker 2: the occurrence of cosmic events. So that one takes I
Speaker 2: think a minute to sink in. But you know, it's
Speaker 2: this idea that, like time, for the Aztecs had weight
Speaker 2: and was alive and was carried and and you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's not just this thing that's passively occurring, like
Speaker 2: we're not We're not just in time riding down a
Speaker 2: river like. It's a lot more complicated than that. And
Speaker 2: it also ties into the various ritual acts that have
Speaker 2: to be carried out the Aztecs to ensure the continuation
Speaker 2: of things. So yeah, I found that really fascinating.
Speaker 3: If I'm interpreting this right. So we've described some of
Speaker 3: these other creation narratives as stage setting in a way
Speaker 3: that a lot of times the initial ordering of the
Speaker 3: world and a creation narrative seems to be setting the
Speaker 3: stage on which history can take place. Now, characters, maybe
Speaker 3: gods or humans can enter and do things on this
Speaker 3: stage we've created. But the way the Aztec conception of
Speaker 3: space and time is being described here, it sounds like
Speaker 3: it's not just a place in which history happens, that
Speaker 3: space and time are mechanisms, that they are the gears
Speaker 3: that are turned in order to drive events within the
Speaker 3: cosmos and within history.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's the vibe I'm getting as well.
Speaker 3: Not just the paper but the pencil in a way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, or at least that's as close as
Speaker 2: I can come to really comprehending it here. I've also
Speaker 2: I also saw it put like this, this interesting idea
Speaker 2: that a metsu Wadel is kind of the ontological sustainer
Speaker 2: of the universe. Like again, he sets in the navel
Speaker 2: and sort of sustains everything from the navel, but then
Speaker 2: the rituals and devotions of the Aztec people serve as
Speaker 2: the mechanical sustainer, so ensuring even the durability of the
Speaker 2: fifth Son. So like everything like this is the best world,
Speaker 2: but this world takes a lot of work to keep going,
Speaker 2: And apparently it's not, or at least the vibe I
Speaker 2: get here is there's no guarantee that will continue on.
Speaker 2: There's no guarantee there won't have to be a sixth son,
Speaker 2: but you know, we have a fifth son as long
Speaker 2: as we can keep it. So yeah, I really I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed diving into this one. And again, you know,
Speaker 2: we have this concept of like what came before, something
Speaker 2: like some sort of place where there's there's no light
Speaker 2: yet there's no there's not time, but there is potential
Speaker 2: for things and and then things begin, you know, to
Speaker 2: be set in motion.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I think we are hitting our time limit
Speaker 3: for today's episode, but I know we had more to
Speaker 3: say about this topic. And yet at the same time,
Speaker 3: we have some different episodes planned to record next week.
Speaker 3: So I think what we're gonna have to do is
Speaker 3: break at least for a week from talking about this
Speaker 3: the concept of worlds before and the the what came
Speaker 3: before in creation myths, and maybe we will come back
Speaker 3: to this in two or three weeks. Maybe we got
Speaker 3: a date with the worlds before in the near future.
Speaker 2: I think. So, yeah, we've got some some other stuff
Speaker 2: that we're already obligated to cover, but yeah, we'll come
Speaker 2: back to this and in the meantime you can write
Speaker 2: in and if you're if you know you're a particular
Speaker 2: fan or or you know we're culturally attached to a
Speaker 2: particular mythology and you're like, oh, definitely cover this one next. Well,
Speaker 2: you have I think an appropriate amount of time to
Speaker 2: get in touch with this and say, hey, make sure
Speaker 2: this one's on your radar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Or if you have anything you would like to
Speaker 3: add to the subjects we've already talked about.
Speaker 2: Please absolutely yes, all right, Well, just a reminder as
Speaker 2: we close out here. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is,
Speaker 2: of course a science and culture podcast, primarily with core
Speaker 2: episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we do a
Speaker 2: short form episode, and on Fridays we set aside most
Speaker 2: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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