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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the Old Vault. This is for

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Speaker 1: an episode that published on April nineteen. This was part

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Speaker 1: one of our series on the Sacred Mountain. Oh yeah.

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Speaker 1: This is a really fun pair of episodes that we

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Speaker 1: did because we get into, of course, various global myths

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Speaker 1: and folk traditions concerning sacred high peaks, places where Heaven

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Speaker 1: touches the earth, where the gods dwell and strange entities

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Speaker 1: may may linger as well, uh, places where you might

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Speaker 1: go to uh on a quest to obtain some sort

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Speaker 1: of rare substance to put in your potion, that sort

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Speaker 1: of thing. But then also we get into like how

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Speaker 1: does this match up with you know, to to what

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Speaker 1: extent might we explain these phenomena by looking at the

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Speaker 1: way our bodies deal with very high altitudes. So it's

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Speaker 1: a pretty fun x floration. This is part one. Let's

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Speaker 1: dive in Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey are

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Speaker 1: you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind? My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we

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Speaker 1: are going to be discussing the sacred mountain. Of course,

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Speaker 1: there's not just one sacred mountain. There are many sacred mountains.

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Speaker 1: In fact, you know, you're probably close to one right now,

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Speaker 1: because they're all over the world. We we discussed this

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Speaker 1: a little bit in our recent episode about pressure, where

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Speaker 1: we were talking about how how the atmosphere gets thinner,

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Speaker 1: of course as you go higher up, And one of

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Speaker 1: the things we started talking about was whether, you know,

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Speaker 1: whether that might have anything to do with the prevalence

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Speaker 1: of sacred or holy mountains in religious and cultural beliefs

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Speaker 1: all around the world, because once you start looking for them,

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Speaker 1: they're everywhere and every continent, I guess maybe not some Chaantarctica,

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Speaker 1: but every other continent. You know, they're they're mountain top monasteries,

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Speaker 1: there are mountains that are believed to be homes of

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Speaker 1: the gods. There are mountains that are places of worship,

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Speaker 1: mountains that are places of sacrifice, mountains that are believed

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Speaker 1: to be forbidden or you know, otherwise magically you know, barred. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and they really are in just about every culture. So

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Speaker 1: what we wanted to do in this pair of episodes

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Speaker 1: for stuff to pluy your mind is to really get

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Speaker 1: into the idea of the sacred mountain. So this first

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Speaker 1: episode is really going to be more about, first of all,

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Speaker 1: why do we have these different feelings about mountains? Why

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Speaker 1: do mountains invoke these different ideas and feelings in the

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Speaker 1: human mind. And then we're going to run through some

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Speaker 1: notable examples of sacred mountains. I have to did really

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Speaker 1: drive home that this will not be an exhaustive mention

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Speaker 1: of every sacred mountain tradition. I'm sure we're gonna leave

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Speaker 1: off some very good ones, uh, some very notable cultural examples.

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Speaker 1: We just can't cover them all, but we'll try and

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Speaker 1: cover enough of them to give you a nice grounding.

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Speaker 1: And then, of course, if you have a favorite sacred

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Speaker 1: mountains that you've visited or just read about, UH, you

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Speaker 1: can right into us and perhaps will share those in

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Speaker 1: the future listener Male episode. And then that second episode

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Speaker 1: that we're going to do about sacred mountains is going

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Speaker 1: to get more into the psychology and the neuroscience and

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Speaker 1: how and to what extent high altitude UH conditions could

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Speaker 1: contribute to this interpretation of the sacred and the holy

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Speaker 1: on mountains and on the tops of mountains, that's right.

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Speaker 1: And though we are going to look all over the

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Speaker 1: world in various places today, I think one place I

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Speaker 1: wanted to start with is the mountain you might be

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Speaker 1: less familiar with in Greek religion. Oh yeah, because you're

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Speaker 1: probably instantly thinking, well, Mount Olympus, that's where the gods

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Speaker 1: are the gods, that's where they're plotting all of their

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Speaker 1: nefarious ends. But what about mount like aon home of

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Speaker 1: the holy werewolf for the not so the unholy werewolf,

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Speaker 1: the sanctuary of Zeus, the birthplace of Zeus, and the

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Speaker 1: altar of blood sacrifice. Yeah, it invokes a number of

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Speaker 1: the different ideas we're gonna be discussing here. So we

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Speaker 1: wanted to read just a little bit from Pausanias is

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Speaker 1: a historian. He wrote description of Greece. Uh, and this

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Speaker 1: is from the second century c E. And this is

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Speaker 1: like section eight. This is another one of those old

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Speaker 1: texts you can find in full translated online that we're

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Speaker 1: just gonna read a couple of paragraphs from it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: On the highest point of the mountain is a mound

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Speaker 1: of earth forming an altar of Zeus, like Chius and

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Speaker 1: from it, most of the Peloponneseis can be seen. Before

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Speaker 1: the altar on the east stand two pillars on which

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Speaker 1: there were of old gilded eagles. On this altar they

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Speaker 1: sacrifice in secret to like He and Zeus. I was

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Speaker 1: reluctant to pry into the details of the sacrific vice.

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Speaker 1: Let them be as they are, and we're from the beginning.

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Speaker 1: On the east side of the mountain, there is a

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Speaker 1: sanctuary of Apollo, surnamed Parhassian. They also give him the

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Speaker 1: name Pythian. They hold every year a festival in honor

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Speaker 1: of the god and sacrifice in the market place a

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Speaker 1: boar to Apollo helper. And after the sacrifice here they

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Speaker 1: at once carry the victim to the sanctuary of Parhassian

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Speaker 1: Apollo in procession to the music of the flute. Cutting

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Speaker 1: out the thigh bones, they burn them and also consume

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Speaker 1: the meat of the victim on the spot. So here

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Speaker 1: we get a description of like sacrifices of a boar.

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Speaker 1: Though there have been rumors for a long time that

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Speaker 1: human sacrifice was something that happened, you know that you

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Speaker 1: would kill humans and offer them up to like He

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Speaker 1: and Zeus on mountain, like Caias, so we should at

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Speaker 1: least situate this. They mentioned that you could see the

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Speaker 1: whole Peloponnese. But mountain like Kon now is it is

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Speaker 1: a mountain in the region of Arcadia, which is long

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Speaker 1: believed to be sort of this symbol or paragon of

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Speaker 1: beautiful unspoiled wilderness, and that's down in the Peloponnese. And Zeus,

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Speaker 1: like Chaius, is essentially wolf Zeus is. Yeah, it's like

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Speaker 1: his his wolf power, ranger form. Yeah, so all everything

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Speaker 1: you expect from from Zeus, king of the gods, except

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Speaker 1: also with with lupine properties. And there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of stories about the sort of the history of this

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Speaker 1: mountain and the name like mount like Caon, and some

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Speaker 1: tellings is said to be the birthplace or the home

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Speaker 1: of Zeus, but also it's named for king like Heon

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Speaker 1: of Arcadia, who was, of course, in some myths, foolish

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Speaker 1: enough to mess with the gods of the Greek pantheon,

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Speaker 1: to mess with a Yeah. So, according to Ovid's telling

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Speaker 1: in the Metamorphosis, the king tried to trick Zeus into

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Speaker 1: eating human flesh, and Zeus retaliated by turning him into

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Speaker 1: a wolf or turning him into a were wolf. And

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Speaker 1: I want to read this part of the poem as

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Speaker 1: told in Ovid's Metamorphosis, as translated by Garth and Dryden. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's divide, Robert, you do this first section here, this

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Speaker 1: dire experiment. He chose to prove if I were mortal

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Speaker 1: or undoubted Jove. But first he had resolved to taste

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Speaker 1: my power not long before. But in a luckless hour,

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Speaker 1: some legates sent from the Molassian state. We're on a

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Speaker 1: peaceful errand come to treat of these. He murders one.

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Speaker 1: He boils the flesh and lays the mangled morsels in

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Speaker 1: a dish. Some part he roasts, then serves it up

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Speaker 1: so dressed, and bids me welcome to this humane feast. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So the king captures some dudes, burns them, and then

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Speaker 1: offers them up to Zeus like here, try it, uh,

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Speaker 1: presuming I think to to trick Zeus into eating this

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Speaker 1: human flesh, and Zeus continues, moved with disdain. The table.

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Speaker 1: I are turned and with the avenging flames the palace burned.

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Speaker 1: The tyrant, in a fright for shelter, gains the neighboring

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Speaker 1: fields and scours along the planes howling, He fled and fain.

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Speaker 1: He would have spoke, but human voice, his brutal tongue

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Speaker 1: forsook about his lips. The gathered foam he churns, and

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Speaker 1: breathing slaughters still with rage. He burns, but on the

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Speaker 1: bleeding flock. His fury turns. His mantle, now his hide

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Speaker 1: with rugged hairs, cleaves to his back, a famished face,

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Speaker 1: he bears his arms, descend his shoulders, slink away to

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Speaker 1: multiply his legs for chase of prey. He grows a wolf.

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Speaker 1: His hoary nous remains, and the same rage in other

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Speaker 1: members reiins. His eyes still sparkle in a narrower space,

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Speaker 1: his jaws retained, the grin and violence of his face,

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Speaker 1: And according to some if I remember correctly, this is

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Speaker 1: this is kind of the birth of the werewolf. Oh yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is this is a one off, if not the

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Speaker 1: earliest accounts you'll find of of of someone turning into

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Speaker 1: a LuPone form. I don't remember if we discussed this

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Speaker 1: story in the episode we did about the first Monster,

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Speaker 1: about like the idea where what was the origin of

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Speaker 1: beliefs in beings embodying both human and animal forms? Mixed together.

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Speaker 1: We might have mentioned this, but of course apart from

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Speaker 1: this myth, which I don't think this is a historical

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Speaker 1: record in any case of werewolf transformation. Uh. The Despite

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Speaker 1: the story of King like Kean and all this, the

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Speaker 1: Mountain like An was in you know, without a doubt,

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Speaker 1: a holy site in some versions of Greek religion, since

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Speaker 1: it was sort of the home birthplace of Zeus, and

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Speaker 1: it was also a place where blood sacrifices and burnt

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Speaker 1: offerings to Zeus were brought. And it's long been known

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Speaker 1: that animals were sacrificed and burned to Zeus here, but

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Speaker 1: recently there's been some there have been some chilling discoveries.

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Speaker 1: Archaeologists at the Sanctuary of Zeus have been excavating a

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Speaker 1: giant ancient mound of ash about a hundred feet or

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Speaker 1: about thirty meters wide that was the site of these

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Speaker 1: animal sacrifices, mostly sheep and goat's, beginning around the sixteenth

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Speaker 1: century BC, so going way back. And in twenty sixteen

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Speaker 1: it was announced that they had found human remains here,

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Speaker 1: that they found the skeleton of an adolescent male from

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Speaker 1: what appears to be I think it's not positive, but

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Speaker 1: it really looks like this was a human sacrifice from

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Speaker 1: around the eleventh century b c um. And of course

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Speaker 1: this wouldn't be the only case where we know of

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Speaker 1: human sacrifice likely taking place up on a mountain. Like

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Speaker 1: I think about the you know, going to the to

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Speaker 1: South America, the children of Yuyiko or Yuyayako, right, and

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Speaker 1: in the late nineties at some point they discovered three

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Speaker 1: inca child mummies there that were up on the summit

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Speaker 1: of the mountain. Is not known for sure what that is,

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Speaker 1: but it appears to be a form of human sacrifice

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Speaker 1: that was taking showing the religious significance of the mountain

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Speaker 1: there too. Interesting. So I think this is a great

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Speaker 1: example to start with here. Uh. It embodies a number

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Speaker 1: of different things here pill grimmage, Uh, just the view

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Speaker 1: mentioning just how much you can see from up there,

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Speaker 1: and the idea too that this puts you put the

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Speaker 1: place to put you in closer contact with the divine,

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Speaker 1: with the gods. But now I'd like to talk just

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Speaker 1: a little bit about the importance of geography and and

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Speaker 1: naturally occurring forms as metaphors. We've talked about this will

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Speaker 1: get bit on the show before, but you know, you

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Speaker 1: can find root, branch, tree, river iconography all over the place.

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Speaker 1: I think back to our episode and the Trident as well, which,

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Speaker 1: according to some theories, was originally based on a fig leaf.

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Speaker 1: So you know it, ancient people turned to natural forms

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Speaker 1: as a way of thinking about the world and kind

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Speaker 1: of externalizing thought. Uh And and you see that in

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Speaker 1: in in every human tradition. So it should come as

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Speaker 1: no surprise that mountains speak to us as well. After all,

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Speaker 1: a sacred mountain is just one part of an overall

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Speaker 1: sacred giog or fie. And I think that's important to note,

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Speaker 1: Like ancient people's they wouldn't have thought like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is just land over here, and that's the lake,

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Speaker 1: that's a river, and oh this mountain, that place is holy,

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Speaker 1: that's where the gods live. Uh. No, the oceans, the mountains,

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Speaker 1: the earth itself, the rivers, all of it comes into

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Speaker 1: play for when you're considering a sacred view of the

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Speaker 1: world or of the universe. Yeah, you know, I kind

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Speaker 1: of think though that, Um, we might be kind of

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Speaker 1: unusual as far as like people in history go, given

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Speaker 1: that most of you know, most of us and the

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Speaker 1: people listening to the show probably most of their exposure

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Speaker 1: to religion is like to monotheisms like Christianity, Judaism and Islam,

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Speaker 1: which I would say, as far as religions go, have

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Speaker 1: unusually low investments in geography and and the land, because

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Speaker 1: if you go to ancient pagan religions or indigenous religions

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Speaker 1: of of of Europe and Africa and Asia, and in

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Speaker 1: the America's, you find kind all kinds of like stories

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Speaker 1: about how the land itself was created, and like like

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Speaker 1: off the very common stories that the land and the

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Speaker 1: features of the land were features of monsters that were

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Speaker 1: slain by or the features of a body of a

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Speaker 1: god that died long ago, or they have particular connections

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Speaker 1: to holy sites that are geographically unique and significant for

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Speaker 1: being unique. I mean, I guess Christianity, Islam, and Judaism

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Speaker 1: have geographical locations that are holy, but that's mainly for

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Speaker 1: like what is believed to be their historical role, right

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Speaker 1: events that took place there uh structures that either were there,

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Speaker 1: are or are still there in some form or another,

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Speaker 1: And that's certainly a part of it as well discuss.

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Speaker 1: But there are various other ways to to look at

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Speaker 1: at sacred mountains and sacred geography and why those places

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Speaker 1: are considered sacred. So just I think one important thing

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Speaker 1: to just keep in mind is something I think most

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Speaker 1: of us can relate to, and that is just the

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Speaker 1: idea of a mountain or an impressive photo of one

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Speaker 1: will likely summon feelings of grandeur or intimidation, adventure, peace efforts, seclusion,

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Speaker 1: wonder or indeed connection to the heavens. Um. I mean

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Speaker 1: this is why you see, uh, you know, posters and

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Speaker 1: images and paintings of mountains. I mean they are they're

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Speaker 1: beautiful about how and we travel to the mountains and

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Speaker 1: then we stand, uh, either atop the mountain or certainly

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Speaker 1: at a nice vista, and we we take it all

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Speaker 1: in and it it summons feelings and summons emotions and

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Speaker 1: takes us outside of ourselves. EO. Wilson talks about this

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Speaker 1: a little bit when he's discussing the biophilia hypothesis, and

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Speaker 1: I think this is in the context of him generally

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Speaker 1: talking about evolutionary explanations for our aesthetic preferences, like why

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Speaker 1: is it so often that the pictures we find beautiful

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Speaker 1: include vistas from a high point of view, you know,

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Speaker 1: being able to look down over a landscape and you

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Speaker 1: offer some possible evolutionary explanations for that. You know, maybe

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Speaker 1: this is like a more definable point where you can

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Speaker 1: see things coming towards you. But yeah, it's hard to

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Speaker 1: deny that when I see a mountain. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if everybody feels this way as much as I do.

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Speaker 1: When I see a mountain, I want to go up it.

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Speaker 1: I've never done mountain climbing. I've done hiking and stuff,

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Speaker 1: but I do want to go up to the top

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Speaker 1: of the highest point and look down well see. And

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Speaker 1: I think you and I are different in this regard. Uh,

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Speaker 1: You've talked before on the show about how you have

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Speaker 1: no problem like walking up to the edge of a cliff.

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Speaker 1: I'm a little more reluctant to do that. But still,

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Speaker 1: if I see like a crazy you know, cliff or peak,

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Speaker 1: or or images of people mountain climbing, I do put

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Speaker 1: myself imagine myself up there, and often terrify myself with

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Speaker 1: the with the prospect. So I feel like that kind

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Speaker 1: of like mental transportation is inevitable. But a couple of

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Speaker 1: other things about just how we think about mountains a

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Speaker 1: common trope in various mythologies, and we'll touch on Some

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Speaker 1: specific examples here in a bit are that the mountain,

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Speaker 1: or at least the mountain peak on some level, connects

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Speaker 1: Earth to the sky. So it might be like a

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Speaker 1: sky pill or situation where the mountain is holding up

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Speaker 1: the cosmos, holding up the heavens, holding up the sky,

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Speaker 1: or it is in some way an umbilical or a

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Speaker 1: ladder and uh. Or that the mountain itself serves as

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Speaker 1: a you know, an axis Monday, the central tent pole

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Speaker 1: of a sacred cosmos, a stairway to heaven if you will. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's really interesting because especially it pairs with older ways

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Speaker 1: of thinking about the sky. You know, it's not all

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Speaker 1: that uncommon for ancient peoples to have conceived of the

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Speaker 1: sky as a place with solid ground that you could

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Speaker 1: walk around in, you know, like a firmament. There's a

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Speaker 1: dome over the earth and uh. And so you might wonder, well,

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Speaker 1: what does something hold up the dome. If there's solid

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Speaker 1: ground up there that the gods can walk around in,

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Speaker 1: there must be something holding it up. And so you

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Speaker 1: can imagine, well, maybe a mountain holds it up. That's

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Speaker 1: the obvious answer. In fact, yes, you can see where

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Speaker 1: this this complex weave emerges of an attempt to understand

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Speaker 1: what is what your visit, what you're actually observing, what

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Speaker 1: is the objective reality? And then also these mythic ideas

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Speaker 1: of like what does about about structure and uh and

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Speaker 1: and center and the importance of place and identity. There's also,

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Speaker 1: from a practical sense, the fact that to stand atop

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Speaker 1: of great height is to gain a crucial vantage point.

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Speaker 1: In some cases that could be purely strategic, such as

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Speaker 1: this is the E. O. Wilson thing. Yeah, you can

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Speaker 1: see the movements of of herd animals, you can see

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Speaker 1: the movements of enemy troops, etcetera. But I also wonder

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Speaker 1: if it could be something a little more existential. I

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Speaker 1: wonder if if such heights could be considered possibly capable

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Speaker 1: of invoking something like the overview effect that proposed a

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Speaker 1: state of mind or you know, a state of euphoric

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Speaker 1: interconnectedness that ensues when one sees the planet Earth from

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Speaker 1: outer space. It's not quite the same, sir, but I'm

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Speaker 1: wondering if perhaps that affects scales down to some extent. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can absolutely see that. So some astronauts report they

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Speaker 1: look out the window of the International Space Station or

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Speaker 1: of their you know, their vehicle and they see the

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Speaker 1: Earth from space, and suddenly it just comes into sharp

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Speaker 1: focus that that are you know, petty squabbles are exactly

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Speaker 1: that they're petty. You know that they vanish in the

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Speaker 1: face of the fact that we're all trapped on this

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Speaker 1: ball together. And and it makes human concerns look small

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Speaker 1: and makes people feel a strong sense of sort of

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Speaker 1: the common interest of all humanity and the connectedness of

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Speaker 1: all of our concerns because the fate of the Earth

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Speaker 1: is the fate of all of us. And yeah, I

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Speaker 1: can absolutely see that happening. I mean, so, imagine you

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Speaker 1: normally you live in a small village or a city

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Speaker 1: where you are. You know, you you've got your day

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Speaker 1: to day concerns, you're angry with your neighbor, or you've

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Speaker 1: got your politics that you're doing, if you're like a

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Speaker 1: priest or something, and then you go up on a

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Speaker 1: mountain and then you look down at the place where

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Speaker 1: you come from the village or the city, or the farms,

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Speaker 1: and suddenly everything looks tiny. This basic shift in visual

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Speaker 1: and optical perspective could very well trigger a kind of

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Speaker 1: the same kind of mental shift that people experience when

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Speaker 1: they go into space. Yeah, absolutely, I was. I was

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Speaker 1: doing a little reading about about some of these ideas,

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Speaker 1: and it ran across an excellent little paper by Edwin

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Speaker 1: Burne Bomb titled in Sacred Mountains Themes and Teachings, and

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Speaker 1: this is from Mountain Research and Development twenty six And

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Speaker 1: the author does a great job of just which just

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Speaker 1: laying out some basics. For instance, lays out three basic

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Speaker 1: ways that mountains are considered sacred uh. And and we

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Speaker 1: can as I lay these out, you can certainly think

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Speaker 1: two examples we've discussed already, and I think these will

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Speaker 1: also be useful in considering examples we discussed in the

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Speaker 1: rest of the podcast. So, burn Bomb says, first, specific

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Speaker 1: peaks are singled out as places of sanctity. Uh. They're

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Speaker 1: supported by myths and practices such as pilgrimages, meditation, and

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Speaker 1: even sacrifice. Number two, they may contain sacred sites or

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Speaker 1: objects like temples or shrines, or even something more natural

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Speaker 1: like a spring. And then number three, the natural setting

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Speaker 1: itself awakens a sense of wonder and awe. All three

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Speaker 1: of these tend to work together, burn Bomb says, on

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Speaker 1: an individual's experience with the sacredness of a mountain, Furthermore,

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Speaker 1: Burned Bomb defined ten themes frequently seen in sacred mountains.

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Speaker 1: So they are roughly height, center, power, God or God.

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Speaker 1: Either the mountains of God itself, where it is the

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Speaker 1: home of God's The mountain is a place of worship.

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Speaker 1: The mountain is a paradise or a garden. Um is

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Speaker 1: a place where the ancestors of the dead may reside,

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Speaker 1: a source of cultural identity, a source of healing, or

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Speaker 1: or just a source of water, which makes sense because

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Speaker 1: I mean help goes downhill exactly, and also as a

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Speaker 1: place of renewal. So these are again ten broad themes

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Speaker 1: that Embomb identifies in the identity and characterization of sacred mountains.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, we can look for these and examples

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Speaker 1: of mountains that we talk about. So maybe I'll offer

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Speaker 1: up one example of a mountain to think about, and

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Speaker 1: then maybe after that take a break and then look

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Speaker 1: at some others. Okay, but this first one is one

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Speaker 1: I mentioned in the episode where we talked about pressure,

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Speaker 1: because I think it's a commonly cited example of a

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Speaker 1: very important holy mountain that's holy in multiple religions, not

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Speaker 1: just one. Uh. And this would be the peaks. It's

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Speaker 1: a peak in the Himalayas, known as Mount Kailash or

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Speaker 1: Mount Kailasa uh. And so this is a holy mountain

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Speaker 1: in multiple religions. In Hinduism, this mountain is believed to

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Speaker 1: be the abode of Lord Shiva, the destroyer of evil,

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Speaker 1: and of his wife Parvadi, who together sit in meditation

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Speaker 1: at the summit of the mountain. And so the site

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Speaker 1: of Mount Kailash is a destination of pilgrimage for many Hindus,

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Speaker 1: who climb fifteen thousand feet or about four point six

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Speaker 1: kilometers up this ascent path to the bay of the mountain,

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Speaker 1: but do not climb its summit. In fact, climbing the

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Speaker 1: sacred summit is forbidden, and though while we can't know

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Speaker 1: for sure, it's often said that the summit has never

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Speaker 1: been climbed by a human uh. Instead, it's believed virtuous

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Speaker 1: for pilgrims to walk in a circle around the base

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Speaker 1: of the mountain, but not go up to the summit.

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Speaker 1: And this, of course is not just a holy site

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Speaker 1: for Hindus, as I was saying, but it's also holy

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Speaker 1: for Buddhists, for Jaynes, and for people of the indigenous

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Speaker 1: religion of Tibetan known as bone. Yes, a very ancient

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Speaker 1: animist religion. Yeah. Now, if you look at what a

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Speaker 1: picture of Mount Kailosh looks like from below, I mean

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Speaker 1: I would say, obviously I already know this about it

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Speaker 1: when I've seen pictures of it. But it's not hard

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Speaker 1: to see how a person looking up at this peak

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Speaker 1: would begin to think that something powerful and holy and

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Speaker 1: forbidden resided there. It does not look welcoming to assent

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Speaker 1: like it. It doesn't look easy to climb, And I

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Speaker 1: think there's something powerful about that to to like see

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Speaker 1: a place and think, especially today's day and age, to think,

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Speaker 1: I wonder if people have ever been on that spot,

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Speaker 1: as a person ever stood there, and if the answer

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Speaker 1: is even possibly no, there is something kind of sacred

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Speaker 1: about that. Like we've we've pretty much screwed everything else up,

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Speaker 1: but that one peak is is pristine. You will not

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Speaker 1: find a slim gym wrapper there. Yeah, and that does

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Speaker 1: seem important, right, I Mean part of the issue is, Uh,

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Speaker 1: anytime there's a mountain that people say has not been climbed,

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Speaker 1: obviously people are gonna want to climbate. So I've been

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Speaker 1: reading you know, there's political controversy over this. It's like

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Speaker 1: I think there was one point. I read a team

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Speaker 1: of Spanish mountain climbers who announced that they were going

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Speaker 1: to climb the mountain. But it's a it's a holy site,

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Speaker 1: you're not supposed to climb it. Uh. Even though I

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Speaker 1: think the team they were they were not Hindus or

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Speaker 1: so they didn't share this belief about the religious forbiddenness

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Speaker 1: of the mountaintop. The government authorities prevented them from climbing

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Speaker 1: the mountain. I think just because they wanted to avoid

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Speaker 1: this leading to unrest, or just two I guess, being

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Speaker 1: seen as an insult to people who believe that the

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Speaker 1: mountain should not be climbed. I mean, I do tend

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Speaker 1: to wonder if people just started climbing a mountain like

428
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:18,000
Speaker 1: this all the time, would it kind of break the

429
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:21,320
Speaker 1: spell of this story? Would it make people? Would it

430
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:23,920
Speaker 1: make the mountains seem less holy? I don't know. That's

431
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 1: something to consider, And after we come back from this

432
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:29,480
Speaker 1: next break, uh, we're going to take that consideration into

433
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:34,159
Speaker 1: specific examples. Uh, not only with actual mountains and some

434
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: of the sacred ideas about them, but then will also

435
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 1: be looking at some some mythological and even fictional mountains

436
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:42,680
Speaker 1: which I guess are kind of inherently safe from from

437
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:47,880
Speaker 1: mountain climbers laundering where they're not supposed to be. Thank alright,

438
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 1: we're back. So we've been talking about holy mountains in

439
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 1: religious beliefs and myths around the world. Have you got

440
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:57,160
Speaker 1: another example you wanted to talk about, Robert? Oh, yeah, here,

441
00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:59,119
Speaker 1: here a couple of good ones. I think, one of

442
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: course is Mountain ru. This is a great example of

443
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:05,360
Speaker 1: a mythical holy mountain, one that serves as a world

444
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: access in Hindu, Jain Buddhist cosmology, for instance, in Tibetan

445
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:13,440
Speaker 1: Mandala's uh. Uh these really you know, complex and important

446
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 1: works of art that are you know, all about conveying

447
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: visually conveying complex um theological ideas. Uh. You'll see Mountain

448
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:26,239
Speaker 1: Marus sometimes situated as the center of things, surrounded by

449
00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 1: seven oceans, seven concentric mountain ranges, and beyond these ranges

450
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 1: another ocean and islands. It's it's all an unreal geography,

451
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 1: you know, and in that a very sacred and symbolic geography,

452
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: a spatial representation of a rich and complex cosmology. Uh

453
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:48,119
Speaker 1: In in a similar frame of mind, and this is

454
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 1: a one that's this is completely fictional. It's not a

455
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 1: part of anybody's mythology. But if you're familiar with the

456
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:58,119
Speaker 1: Dante's Divine Comedy, we of course have the three books

457
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: right where we begin with the Erno, we have an

458
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: eventually in book three wind up in paradise. But to

459
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 1: get there, uh, Dante and Virgil have to scale the

460
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:14,440
Speaker 1: amount of purgatory. Oh uh, the the the the earthly purgatory.

461
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:18,200
Speaker 1: So this is a mountain that is uh, that extends

462
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:21,639
Speaker 1: from earth to the threshold of heaven. And at the

463
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:24,720
Speaker 1: very top of the mountain, at the very peak, that's

464
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:29,240
Speaker 1: where the earthly paradise is located, the Eden of the

465
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:32,400
Speaker 1: of the Old Testament in Christian traditions. Okay, so this

466
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 1: does uh, this makes more sense also if you know

467
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:39,120
Speaker 1: something about like medieval Catholic theology, right, which which had

468
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: this belief in the idea of purgatory where it wasn't hell.

469
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 1: You know, you weren't condemned there forever, but you were

470
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 1: basically a good Christian, but you did some sins that

471
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:50,679
Speaker 1: were not atoned for, and so you have to go

472
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 1: to purgatory before you can get to heaven. Right, So

473
00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: you spend some time there in you know, it's not hell,

474
00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:00,640
Speaker 1: but it's not nice. It's not pleasant, uh, And you're

475
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: stuck there until you essentially serve out your sentence, you're

476
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: purified of your sin, and then you can be admitted

477
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:10,679
Speaker 1: into Heaven. Right. It is a literary symbolic representation of

478
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: penitent Christian life. Um. Again, no one holds that the

479
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:20,239
Speaker 1: amount of Purgatory is a real place. They didn't very

480
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: much a part of the literature here, but it does

481
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: serve as kind of a nice example of some of

482
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 1: the same ideas of mythological holy mountains. Well, one thing

483
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 1: I do like about the idea of of holy mountains,

484
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 1: including Purgatory, actually the amount of Purgatory, is that they

485
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: do seem like an indication of older versions of religion

486
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: that were more that could be situated on earth, because

487
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:49,119
Speaker 1: there were lots of parts of Earth that we didn't

488
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 1: know about, right, you know, So like Dante could say, well, yes,

489
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,679
Speaker 1: you can enter Hell through a cave here and you

490
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: go down, then you can go up the mountain of

491
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 1: Purgatory and that's over here, and that would be okay,

492
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:02,440
Speaker 1: because you know, there was lots of the earth that

493
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 1: he didn't know what was there. You could just assume

494
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:09,920
Speaker 1: it's somewhere undiscovered. Now, there of course plenty of actual

495
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: mountains that are considered sacred, either by association with a

496
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 1: mythical world mountain. You see that from time to time,

497
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: where there's a mythological mountain and then a nearby mountain

498
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: becomes associated with the same ze, same ideas through traditions,

499
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 1: and then if we if we, as we have explored

500
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 1: in past episodes, there's also the added dimensions of various

501
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: pyramids and zigarrots that have been constructed as a sort

502
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 1: of artificial mountain, allowing the people who built them to

503
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 1: participate in mountaintops sacred rights and observances in some cases

504
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: in regions where such peaks are are not readily available.

505
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and just like in the case, say, like

506
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 1: in Mount Kailosh, where it is believed that Lord Shiva

507
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: and Parvati are dwell on top of the mountain. The ziggurat,

508
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: I think is interpreted by many modern scholars to have

509
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 1: been thought to be a home of the God by

510
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: the people who use them, so like that maybe the

511
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 1: priests would go up there and do some kind of right,

512
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: but it was also believed that the God would come

513
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 1: down and like sleep the night on the top of

514
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 1: the zigguratte or might maybe even live there for some

515
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 1: period absolutely, uh, you know, and another quick thing I

516
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: want to mention and looking at at various mountain myths,

517
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 1: I noticed that, you know, primordial beings often form mountains

518
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 1: out of the soil, or as we mentioned earlier, they

519
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: they their bodies or the bodies of loved ones become

520
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:33,640
Speaker 1: the mountains. And you know, it's it's easy to sort

521
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 1: of take the formation of mountains for granted, with even

522
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: just sort of a you know, um, a casual understanding

523
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: of say, plectictonics and so forth. Basically, you know, just

524
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 1: a surface level understanding of geology. But imagine trying to

525
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: understand what a mountain was if you really had no

526
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: idea about any of these things. I mean, unless you

527
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: we're witnessed to volcanic eruption. Um, you know there there

528
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: there are no mountain formation processes that are going to

529
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: be readily observable, and so it makes as much sense

530
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: of anything to turn to some of these, uh, these

531
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 1: these purely mythological and cosmic explanations from why they are there. Well,

532
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: you can get even weirder with it. I mean, one

533
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 1: of my favorite examples. Is the coolest place I've ever

534
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: been the Mount Stephen trilobite beds up in Britain. Mount Stephen,

535
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: British Columbia, which is part of the Burgess Shale formation

536
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 1: that I went to a couple of years ago. And

537
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 1: so you try to imagine that, not having a any

538
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 1: kind of scientific understanding, you go up a mountain and

539
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 1: then up near the top there's just like a cliff

540
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: where pieces of rock or shearing off and they've got

541
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: the imprints of strange undersea monsters on them, and it's

542
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 1: like you'd have no idea of figuring out how so

543
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 1: this once was sedimentary rock at the bottom of an

544
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: ocean and it has been pushed up and made into

545
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: a mountain over hundreds of millions of years. Yeah, even

546
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: knowing the geological geological processes in in place here, it's

547
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: still amazing to behold and well beyond the scope of

548
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 1: human lifetime and and uh and really sort of natural

549
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: human perception. Absolutely so, just to them to run through

550
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: some more examples here holy mountains that can kind of

551
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: give a nice overview of some of these different different ideas.

552
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 1: I was reading about the denhe Bane, the Navajo creation

553
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 1: myth um complete with the creation and recreation of the

554
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 1: sacred mountains across five worlds. So that involves the idea

555
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: that four other worlds preceded the one that we live

556
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:41,719
Speaker 1: in now. And this is an idea that pops up

557
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 1: in various Meso American and Native American religions. For the Aztecs,

558
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:50,720
Speaker 1: uh kawata Peck served as the mythical sacred mountain the

559
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: serpent Mountain Uh in their mythical homeland of Asplan, and

560
00:31:56,560 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: according to Nicoletta mastri On thought Co, the Great Temple

561
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: of Tactalan is thought to be a replica of this

562
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 1: holy mountain. So another example of recreating the holy mountain.

563
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 1: An artificial holy mountain created uh, you know, in the

564
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: likeness of a mythological form. In Norse mythology, human Bjorg

565
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 1: is the mountain where the by frost connects Asgard and

566
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 1: mid Guard Uh. This is home of the god him Doll.

567
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: And then there's also perhaps that the less famous near Borg.

568
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: This is the hiding place of the meat of poetry.

569
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: Mount Fuji is important in Japanese culture. It represents, according

570
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 1: to burn Baum quote quest for beauty and simplicity that

571
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 1: lies at the heart of Japanese culture, and I think, yeah,

572
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 1: Mount Fuji Is is one of these examples that like

573
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: it's it's a cultural it's part of its cultural pride,

574
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: like it is a part of the natural geography that

575
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 1: people can take pride in and find a sense of

576
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: identity in one thing. I think every time I see

577
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 1: an image of Mount fuji Is it just looks very

578
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: visually perfect, is very like gracefully sloped and symmetrical, kind

579
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:10,440
Speaker 1: of like it is a work of art. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

580
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:14,000
Speaker 1: If you go to Tanzania, you will find Mount Kilimanjaro,

581
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: and some of the Chaga people of that region, their

582
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: myths and beliefs about the dormant volcano hold that it

583
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 1: contains gateways to the spirit world. In Chinese mythology, though,

584
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 1: there are a few different holy mountains of note. One

585
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: is Mount Bougeo or BuJo Shan, and it's associated with

586
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,600
Speaker 1: the Pamir mountains in Central Asia, and it's one of

587
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: the sky pillars holding up the heavens. And again there

588
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 1: is a mountain trope found in various cultures. Uh, there's

589
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 1: a myth in which it was damaged by the water

590
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 1: god gong Gong in his ancient battle for supremacy against

591
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: the Yellow Emperor, and then after the Yellow Emperor's victory,

592
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 1: the goddess Nuah had repair the damage. But in Chinese

593
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: myth the the the Kunlon Mountain is perhaps the most important,

594
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 1: as described in the excellent Handbook of Chinese Mythology by

595
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 1: yang On and Turner. Uh, it is not only a

596
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 1: key pillar of the sky but also on abode of

597
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 1: gods and immortals. And there are really a lot of

598
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:25,880
Speaker 1: descriptions of it, and it's various fountains, magical trees, magical animals.

599
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: It's really an entire sacred ecology unto itself. And if

600
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 1: there's a particular magical plant, magical item, or sacred water

601
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:38,759
Speaker 1: that you wish to obtain uh, then Uh Kunlon is

602
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: the place you'll find it. Yeah, it's it's it's everything

603
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 1: it includes Uh. It holds, for instance, the Sweet Spring

604
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 1: and Emerald Lake, the Pearl tree, the Jade tree, the

605
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:53,360
Speaker 1: tree of Immortality, Sinnabar River, which prevents death if you

606
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 1: drink it, uh, the weak river where nothing floats. Um.

607
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 1: So it has has all the magical items. Just scaling

608
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:04,319
Speaker 1: it and uh and scaling to the appropriate terraces on

609
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: the mountain, according to some traditions, means that you can

610
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 1: take on divine powers yourself over natural forces, perhaps acquire immortality,

611
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: or even take on spirit status yourself, again, provided you

612
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 1: know where to climb and you can survive the dangers.

613
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: Various important mythic events are sometimes set on the mountain,

614
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:29,239
Speaker 1: including the goddess Nua's marriage to her brother and the

615
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:32,839
Speaker 1: subsequent population of the world. So again that's just there's

616
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:35,879
Speaker 1: just a few examples. There's so many other sacred mountains

617
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: um that that we didn't You either didn't have time

618
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:42,360
Speaker 1: to include or just didn't have time to research. But again,

619
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 1: if we left one out that you're particularly fond of

620
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:48,600
Speaker 1: or you've visited yourself, certainly right into us. Well, and

621
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:52,800
Speaker 1: these I would point out are just the sacred mountains

622
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:57,879
Speaker 1: that have accumulated like myths with staying power over theres

623
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:00,319
Speaker 1: because I would say there are a number were of

624
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 1: now pretty well observed phenomena that would under normal circumstances

625
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: be creating new sacred mountain myths all the time, and

626
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:11,239
Speaker 1: maybe we should explore that when we come back from

627
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 1: a break. Than alright, we're back, we've discussed all these

628
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: mythological ideas about about mountains and sacred mountains. But well,

629
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 1: let's get into some more recent accounts that shed light

630
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 1: on some of the things that are happening when humans

631
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: go to great heights. All right, so I want to

632
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: talk about an English mountaineer named Frank Smythe, who was

633
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 1: famous and accomplished as a climber in his day, and

634
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty three he attempted to reach the summit

635
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: of Mount Everest and if he had been successful, he

636
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:48,319
Speaker 1: would have been the first person in history to do it.

637
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 1: But he failed. He fell short by only about three

638
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: hundred meters or a thousand feet, which I'm sure is

639
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: very frustrating when you know you're that close and you

640
00:36:57,120 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 1: can see it and you can't make it up. But

641
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: of once you hit those kind of altitudes, you're facing

642
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: a lot of problems. And number one, he would have

643
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:09,080
Speaker 1: been climbing without oxygen assistance. This is something that climbers

644
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:14,759
Speaker 1: today obviously benefit from um But Smythe described in a

645
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:20,280
Speaker 1: first hand account after this experience a strange set of

646
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:24,640
Speaker 1: things that he saw and and felt while he was

647
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:27,399
Speaker 1: alone on this climb. So I just wanted to read

648
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:31,400
Speaker 1: a few sections from a from a piece that Smythe

649
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:35,720
Speaker 1: wrote called mirages at twenty eight thousand feet. Smythe wrote quote,

650
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: during my solitary climb, too curious phenomena were experienced. It

651
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:44,439
Speaker 1: is with great diffidence that I described them, and then

652
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 1: only at rutledge. Is the the expedition leader's request. I

653
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,880
Speaker 1: prefer to draw no inferences from them, and merely to

654
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 1: describe them. The first was one that is by no

655
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 1: means unique, and has been experienced in the past by

656
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:01,880
Speaker 1: solitary wanderers, now not only in mountains, but on desert

657
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 1: wastes and in polar regions. All the time that I

658
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 1: was climbing alone, I had a strong feeling that I

659
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:14,879
Speaker 1: was accompanied by a second person. This feeling was so

660
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 1: strong that it completely eliminated all loneliness I might otherwise

661
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 1: have felt. It even seemed that I was tied to

662
00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:26,320
Speaker 1: my companion by our rope, and that if I slipped,

663
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:30,440
Speaker 1: he would hold me. I remember constantly glancing back over

664
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 1: my shoulder, and once, when after reaching my highest point,

665
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 1: I stopped to try and eat some mint cake, I

666
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 1: carefully divided it and turned around with one half in

667
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 1: my hand. It was almost a shock to find no

668
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:46,359
Speaker 1: one to whom to give it. It seemed to me

669
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:49,839
Speaker 1: that this presence was a strong, helpful and friendly one,

670
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,960
Speaker 1: and it was not until Camp six was cited that

671
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:55,720
Speaker 1: the link connecting me, as it seemed at the time,

672
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:59,719
Speaker 1: to the beyond was snapped, and although shipped in and

673
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:02,800
Speaker 1: the camp were but a few yards away, I suddenly

674
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: felt alone. The second phenomenon may or may not have

675
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: been an optical illusion. Personally, I am convinced that it

676
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 1: was not. I was still some two hundred feet above

677
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: Camp six and a considerable distance horizontally from it, when

678
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 1: chancing to glance in the direction of the north ridge,

679
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 1: I saw two curious looking objects floating in the sky.

680
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 1: They strongly resembled kite balloons in shape, but one possessed

681
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 1: what appeared to be squat underdeveloped wings, and the other

682
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:32,799
Speaker 1: a protuberant suggestive of a beak. They hovered motionless, but

683
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:36,799
Speaker 1: seemed slowly to pulsate, a pulsation incidentally much slower than

684
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 1: my own heartbeats, which is of interest supposing that it

685
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 1: was an optical illusion. The two objects were very dark

686
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:45,840
Speaker 1: in color and were silhouetted sharply against the sky or

687
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 1: possibly a background of clouds. So interested was I that

688
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:52,719
Speaker 1: I stopped to observe them. My brain appeared to be

689
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 1: working normally, and I deliberately put myself through a series

690
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 1: of tests. First of all, I glanced away. The objects

691
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 1: did not follow my vision, but they were still there

692
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 1: when I looked back again. Then I looked away again,

693
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:08,720
Speaker 1: and this time identified by name a number of peaks, valleys,

694
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:11,520
Speaker 1: and glaciers by way of a mental test. But when

695
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,359
Speaker 1: I looked back again, the objects still confronted me. At

696
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 1: this I gave them up as a bad job. But

697
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 1: just as I was starting to move again, a mist

698
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:23,440
Speaker 1: suddenly drifted across. Gradually, they disappeared behind it, and when

699
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: a minute or two later it had drifted clear, exposing

700
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 1: the whole of the north Ridge once more, they had vanished,

701
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 1: as mysteriously as they came. Strange experiences when climbing Everest alone. Now,

702
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 1: this third man syndrome in particular is not at all

703
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 1: unique to Smile, as he points out, In fact, reports

704
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 1: like this come from many people in lonely struggles where

705
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: survival seems to be at risk. Uh. There were reports

706
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 1: from the Ernest Shackleton expedition through Antarctica in nineteen sixteen

707
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:58,359
Speaker 1: that they often believe there to be another companion among them.

708
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: There was one piece in the British Medical Journal in

709
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:04,799
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight where a doctor and so this

710
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:07,560
Speaker 1: is much more recent, where a doctor and mountain climber

711
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 1: named Jeremy Windsor described his own firsthand experiences of this

712
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:15,240
Speaker 1: kind when he was climbing Mount Everest. He wrote quote,

713
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:19,240
Speaker 1: I first met Jimmy on the balcony, a cold, wind

714
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: swept snow shelf, high up on the southeast ridge of

715
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:25,920
Speaker 1: Mount Everest, at an altitude of more than eight thousand,

716
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 1: two hundred meters. Our introduction had been brief, with little

717
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 1: more than a muffled hello and a few words of

718
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: encouragement passing between us over my right shoulder. Obscured by

719
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 1: the bulky oxygen mask and the rim of down that

720
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:42,240
Speaker 1: smothered my face, I was sure I could see Jimmy

721
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 1: moving lightly in the darkness, but despite him remaining close

722
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 1: by me for the rest of the day, I didn't

723
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 1: see him again. At the time, it hadn't worried me. Instead,

724
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 1: I was warmed by the thought of human company, and

725
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: too breathless to question what seemed so real. If the

726
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:00,640
Speaker 1: truth be told in my thoughts were really nothing more

727
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:04,360
Speaker 1: than brief flickers of images or sounds that vanished with

728
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: the onset of each new breath. So once again a

729
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: mysterious other accompanying someone as they scale great heights. Yeah,

730
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 1: and so in the middle of this, I was actually

731
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 1: reading an NPR article about this phenomenon that reminded me

732
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 1: of a haunting passage in the fifth section of T. S.

733
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:24,880
Speaker 1: Eliot's The Waste Land. That's the section entitled what the

734
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: Thunder Said, which is an idea taken from the Upanishads.

735
00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 1: But of course that already implies the idea of like

736
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 1: hearing voices coming from something other than people, you know,

737
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:38,200
Speaker 1: hearing voices in the thunder, but it mentioned something like

738
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 1: this other companion, or what's known as third man syndrome

739
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 1: or third man factor. And I went back and reread

740
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:47,920
Speaker 1: this section of the poem, and it was really interesting.

741
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 1: Given what we're discussing here. It's talking about a journey

742
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:54,400
Speaker 1: through the mountains. I'm not sure exactly who's making this

743
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:57,359
Speaker 1: journey in the context of the poem maybe kind of disembodied.

744
00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:00,359
Speaker 1: It might be implied that this journey is part of

745
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: the search for the Holy Grail, which is a part

746
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:04,799
Speaker 1: of that poem. But but I could be wrong about that,

747
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:07,759
Speaker 1: And it's got this idea of the experience of an

748
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 1: unseen third companion. So Elliott writes, here is no water,

749
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:15,479
Speaker 1: but only rock, rock, and no water in the sandy road,

750
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: the road winding above among the mountains, which are mountains

751
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:22,040
Speaker 1: of rock without water. If there were water, we should

752
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:25,560
Speaker 1: stop and drink. Amongst the rock, one cannot stop or think.

753
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:28,799
Speaker 1: Sweat is dry, and feet are in the sand. If

754
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: there were only water amongst the rock, dead mountain, mouth

755
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:36,840
Speaker 1: of curious teeth that cannot spit. Here one can neither stand,

756
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 1: nor line, nor sit. There is not even silence in

757
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 1: the mountains, but dry, sterile thunder without rain. There is

758
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:48,120
Speaker 1: not even solitude in the mountains, but red sullen faces,

759
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 1: sneer and snarl from doors of mud cracked houses. And

760
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 1: then a little bit further down, Elliott says, who is

761
00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 1: the third who walks always beside you? When I count,

762
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:00,879
Speaker 1: there were only you and I t other. But when

763
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: I look ahead up the white road, there is always

764
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:08,360
Speaker 1: another one walking beside you, gliding wrapped in a brown mantle, hooded.

765
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:11,000
Speaker 1: I do not know whether a man or woman, But

766
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 1: who is that on the other side of you. Now,

767
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:17,160
Speaker 1: of course Elliott is writing before Smith. I think this

768
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 1: is in the early nineteen twenties, so Elliot's writing before

769
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 1: Smyth's account is published or any of that. So this

770
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: is a phenomenon that had already been observed, but it

771
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 1: seems to be especially common among mountain climbers, and it's

772
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 1: not the only strange perceptual anomaly that's often reported by

773
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 1: mountain climbers. Think also of Smyth's second phenomenon, where he

774
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:39,880
Speaker 1: witnesses what you were reading about, Robert, the strange floating

775
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: balloon creatures that uh, they were just up there over

776
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:47,440
Speaker 1: the peak. And so it's extremely common for mountain climbers

777
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: to report strange experiences, perceptions, mystical encounters in the pursuit

778
00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:57,600
Speaker 1: of high mountain peaks. And obviously, given these modern accounts,

779
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 1: it's not hard at all to to imagine that they

780
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:03,600
Speaker 1: may have if something similar was going on in the

781
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: ancient world, they may have played some role in the

782
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:09,799
Speaker 1: formation of religious beliefs about mountains. Absolutely, I think it's

783
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,520
Speaker 1: it's a it's it's very fascinated to think about. And now,

784
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:13,919
Speaker 1: of course we don't want to fall into the trap

785
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 1: of of saying that, you know, all supernatural ideas about

786
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:21,680
Speaker 1: the mountains can be attributed to whatever is going on

787
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 1: with third man syndrome. But uh, you can certainly imagine

788
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 1: how in some cases it might help to produce ideas

789
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 1: and myths concerning entities and gods in the mountains or

790
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:39,359
Speaker 1: strengthen those examples of the strengthen those traditions that are

791
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:42,320
Speaker 1: already set in place. Well, yeah, looking back to Barren

792
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 1: Bomb's themes that are often seen with sacred mountains, of course,

793
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:49,719
Speaker 1: there's the idea that that mountains are often gods or

794
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: the home of God's or the body of gods. It

795
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 1: might be a place to go worship the gods. But also,

796
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:56,840
Speaker 1: like a couple of things he mentioned, are the idea

797
00:45:56,880 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: of like ancestors or the dead or might have something

798
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:02,279
Speaker 1: to do with mountains. And you can clearly see how

799
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 1: a hallucinated third person or second person or companion on

800
00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:11,879
Speaker 1: a journey could be interpreted as an ancestor. Often when

801
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:15,600
Speaker 1: people when people hallucinate presence is helping them, they are

802
00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:18,760
Speaker 1: interpreted to be ancestors. And also the idea of mountains

803
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 1: being a place of pilgrimage, you know, if you're making

804
00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 1: this journey, someone could be there with you to make

805
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:25,960
Speaker 1: the pilgrimage. All right, on that note, we're going to

806
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:28,479
Speaker 1: close out this episode, but we are going to pick

807
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:31,000
Speaker 1: right back up in the next episode of Stuff to

808
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind. We're gonna thank everything we've discussed here

809
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:38,879
Speaker 1: about sacred Mountain traditions and beliefs as well as third

810
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:41,840
Speaker 1: Man syndrome, and we're gonna go a little deeper into

811
00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 1: the uh uh, into into what seems to be going

812
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 1: on neurologically, psychologically, and yes, we'll even make just a

813
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 1: little bit of room for the yetti. In the meantime,

814
00:46:53,040 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: if you want to check out more episodes of Stuff

815
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, head on over to stuff to

816
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mothership. That's where

817
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 1: you find all the shows. You'll find links out to

818
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:04,360
Speaker 1: social media. You will also find a little tab for

819
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 1: our store, and hey, if you want to support us,

820
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:09,319
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821
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:11,640
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822
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:13,920
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823
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Speaker 1: make sure that you've subscribed to Invention as well. That's

824
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 1: the other podcast that Joe and I put out every week.

825
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 1: Each episode is a different look at inventions the chechno

826
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 1: history of the human species. Big thank you, as always

827
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:30,760
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tory Harrison.

828
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:32,799
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829
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 1: with feedback about this episode or any other, to suggest

830
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, just to say hello, you

831
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

832
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:52,719
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a

833
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts

834
00:47:55,520 --> 00:47:58,440
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

835
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:07,440
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836
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