Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time to go into the Old Vault. This is for
Speaker 1: an episode that published on April nineteen. This was part
Speaker 1: one of our series on the Sacred Mountain. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: This is a really fun pair of episodes that we
Speaker 1: did because we get into, of course, various global myths
Speaker 1: and folk traditions concerning sacred high peaks, places where Heaven
Speaker 1: touches the earth, where the gods dwell and strange entities
Speaker 1: may may linger as well, uh, places where you might
Speaker 1: go to uh on a quest to obtain some sort
Speaker 1: of rare substance to put in your potion, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. But then also we get into like how
Speaker 1: does this match up with you know, to to what
Speaker 1: extent might we explain these phenomena by looking at the
Speaker 1: way our bodies deal with very high altitudes. So it's
Speaker 1: a pretty fun x floration. This is part one. Let's
Speaker 1: dive in Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey are
Speaker 1: you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind? My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we
Speaker 1: are going to be discussing the sacred mountain. Of course,
Speaker 1: there's not just one sacred mountain. There are many sacred mountains.
Speaker 1: In fact, you know, you're probably close to one right now,
Speaker 1: because they're all over the world. We we discussed this
Speaker 1: a little bit in our recent episode about pressure, where
Speaker 1: we were talking about how how the atmosphere gets thinner,
Speaker 1: of course as you go higher up, And one of
Speaker 1: the things we started talking about was whether, you know,
Speaker 1: whether that might have anything to do with the prevalence
Speaker 1: of sacred or holy mountains in religious and cultural beliefs
Speaker 1: all around the world, because once you start looking for them,
Speaker 1: they're everywhere and every continent, I guess maybe not some Chaantarctica,
Speaker 1: but every other continent. You know, they're they're mountain top monasteries,
Speaker 1: there are mountains that are believed to be homes of
Speaker 1: the gods. There are mountains that are places of worship,
Speaker 1: mountains that are places of sacrifice, mountains that are believed
Speaker 1: to be forbidden or you know, otherwise magically you know, barred. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they really are in just about every culture. So
Speaker 1: what we wanted to do in this pair of episodes
Speaker 1: for stuff to pluy your mind is to really get
Speaker 1: into the idea of the sacred mountain. So this first
Speaker 1: episode is really going to be more about, first of all,
Speaker 1: why do we have these different feelings about mountains? Why
Speaker 1: do mountains invoke these different ideas and feelings in the
Speaker 1: human mind. And then we're going to run through some
Speaker 1: notable examples of sacred mountains. I have to did really
Speaker 1: drive home that this will not be an exhaustive mention
Speaker 1: of every sacred mountain tradition. I'm sure we're gonna leave
Speaker 1: off some very good ones, uh, some very notable cultural examples.
Speaker 1: We just can't cover them all, but we'll try and
Speaker 1: cover enough of them to give you a nice grounding.
Speaker 1: And then, of course, if you have a favorite sacred
Speaker 1: mountains that you've visited or just read about, UH, you
Speaker 1: can right into us and perhaps will share those in
Speaker 1: the future listener Male episode. And then that second episode
Speaker 1: that we're going to do about sacred mountains is going
Speaker 1: to get more into the psychology and the neuroscience and
Speaker 1: how and to what extent high altitude UH conditions could
Speaker 1: contribute to this interpretation of the sacred and the holy
Speaker 1: on mountains and on the tops of mountains, that's right.
Speaker 1: And though we are going to look all over the
Speaker 1: world in various places today, I think one place I
Speaker 1: wanted to start with is the mountain you might be
Speaker 1: less familiar with in Greek religion. Oh yeah, because you're
Speaker 1: probably instantly thinking, well, Mount Olympus, that's where the gods
Speaker 1: are the gods, that's where they're plotting all of their
Speaker 1: nefarious ends. But what about mount like aon home of
Speaker 1: the holy werewolf for the not so the unholy werewolf,
Speaker 1: the sanctuary of Zeus, the birthplace of Zeus, and the
Speaker 1: altar of blood sacrifice. Yeah, it invokes a number of
Speaker 1: the different ideas we're gonna be discussing here. So we
Speaker 1: wanted to read just a little bit from Pausanias is
Speaker 1: a historian. He wrote description of Greece. Uh, and this
Speaker 1: is from the second century c E. And this is
Speaker 1: like section eight. This is another one of those old
Speaker 1: texts you can find in full translated online that we're
Speaker 1: just gonna read a couple of paragraphs from it. Okay,
Speaker 1: On the highest point of the mountain is a mound
Speaker 1: of earth forming an altar of Zeus, like Chius and
Speaker 1: from it, most of the Peloponneseis can be seen. Before
Speaker 1: the altar on the east stand two pillars on which
Speaker 1: there were of old gilded eagles. On this altar they
Speaker 1: sacrifice in secret to like He and Zeus. I was
Speaker 1: reluctant to pry into the details of the sacrific vice.
Speaker 1: Let them be as they are, and we're from the beginning.
Speaker 1: On the east side of the mountain, there is a
Speaker 1: sanctuary of Apollo, surnamed Parhassian. They also give him the
Speaker 1: name Pythian. They hold every year a festival in honor
Speaker 1: of the god and sacrifice in the market place a
Speaker 1: boar to Apollo helper. And after the sacrifice here they
Speaker 1: at once carry the victim to the sanctuary of Parhassian
Speaker 1: Apollo in procession to the music of the flute. Cutting
Speaker 1: out the thigh bones, they burn them and also consume
Speaker 1: the meat of the victim on the spot. So here
Speaker 1: we get a description of like sacrifices of a boar.
Speaker 1: Though there have been rumors for a long time that
Speaker 1: human sacrifice was something that happened, you know that you
Speaker 1: would kill humans and offer them up to like He
Speaker 1: and Zeus on mountain, like Caias, so we should at
Speaker 1: least situate this. They mentioned that you could see the
Speaker 1: whole Peloponnese. But mountain like Kon now is it is
Speaker 1: a mountain in the region of Arcadia, which is long
Speaker 1: believed to be sort of this symbol or paragon of
Speaker 1: beautiful unspoiled wilderness, and that's down in the Peloponnese. And Zeus,
Speaker 1: like Chaius, is essentially wolf Zeus is. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: his his wolf power, ranger form. Yeah, so all everything
Speaker 1: you expect from from Zeus, king of the gods, except
Speaker 1: also with with lupine properties. And there are a lot
Speaker 1: of stories about the sort of the history of this
Speaker 1: mountain and the name like mount like Caon, and some
Speaker 1: tellings is said to be the birthplace or the home
Speaker 1: of Zeus, but also it's named for king like Heon
Speaker 1: of Arcadia, who was, of course, in some myths, foolish
Speaker 1: enough to mess with the gods of the Greek pantheon,
Speaker 1: to mess with a Yeah. So, according to Ovid's telling
Speaker 1: in the Metamorphosis, the king tried to trick Zeus into
Speaker 1: eating human flesh, and Zeus retaliated by turning him into
Speaker 1: a wolf or turning him into a were wolf. And
Speaker 1: I want to read this part of the poem as
Speaker 1: told in Ovid's Metamorphosis, as translated by Garth and Dryden. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's divide, Robert, you do this first section here, this
Speaker 1: dire experiment. He chose to prove if I were mortal
Speaker 1: or undoubted Jove. But first he had resolved to taste
Speaker 1: my power not long before. But in a luckless hour,
Speaker 1: some legates sent from the Molassian state. We're on a
Speaker 1: peaceful errand come to treat of these. He murders one.
Speaker 1: He boils the flesh and lays the mangled morsels in
Speaker 1: a dish. Some part he roasts, then serves it up
Speaker 1: so dressed, and bids me welcome to this humane feast. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the king captures some dudes, burns them, and then
Speaker 1: offers them up to Zeus like here, try it, uh,
Speaker 1: presuming I think to to trick Zeus into eating this
Speaker 1: human flesh, and Zeus continues, moved with disdain. The table.
Speaker 1: I are turned and with the avenging flames the palace burned.
Speaker 1: The tyrant, in a fright for shelter, gains the neighboring
Speaker 1: fields and scours along the planes howling, He fled and fain.
Speaker 1: He would have spoke, but human voice, his brutal tongue
Speaker 1: forsook about his lips. The gathered foam he churns, and
Speaker 1: breathing slaughters still with rage. He burns, but on the
Speaker 1: bleeding flock. His fury turns. His mantle, now his hide
Speaker 1: with rugged hairs, cleaves to his back, a famished face,
Speaker 1: he bears his arms, descend his shoulders, slink away to
Speaker 1: multiply his legs for chase of prey. He grows a wolf.
Speaker 1: His hoary nous remains, and the same rage in other
Speaker 1: members reiins. His eyes still sparkle in a narrower space,
Speaker 1: his jaws retained, the grin and violence of his face,
Speaker 1: And according to some if I remember correctly, this is
Speaker 1: this is kind of the birth of the werewolf. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is a one off, if not the
Speaker 1: earliest accounts you'll find of of of someone turning into
Speaker 1: a LuPone form. I don't remember if we discussed this
Speaker 1: story in the episode we did about the first Monster,
Speaker 1: about like the idea where what was the origin of
Speaker 1: beliefs in beings embodying both human and animal forms? Mixed together.
Speaker 1: We might have mentioned this, but of course apart from
Speaker 1: this myth, which I don't think this is a historical
Speaker 1: record in any case of werewolf transformation. Uh. The Despite
Speaker 1: the story of King like Kean and all this, the
Speaker 1: Mountain like An was in you know, without a doubt,
Speaker 1: a holy site in some versions of Greek religion, since
Speaker 1: it was sort of the home birthplace of Zeus, and
Speaker 1: it was also a place where blood sacrifices and burnt
Speaker 1: offerings to Zeus were brought. And it's long been known
Speaker 1: that animals were sacrificed and burned to Zeus here, but
Speaker 1: recently there's been some there have been some chilling discoveries.
Speaker 1: Archaeologists at the Sanctuary of Zeus have been excavating a
Speaker 1: giant ancient mound of ash about a hundred feet or
Speaker 1: about thirty meters wide that was the site of these
Speaker 1: animal sacrifices, mostly sheep and goat's, beginning around the sixteenth
Speaker 1: century BC, so going way back. And in twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: it was announced that they had found human remains here,
Speaker 1: that they found the skeleton of an adolescent male from
Speaker 1: what appears to be I think it's not positive, but
Speaker 1: it really looks like this was a human sacrifice from
Speaker 1: around the eleventh century b c um. And of course
Speaker 1: this wouldn't be the only case where we know of
Speaker 1: human sacrifice likely taking place up on a mountain. Like
Speaker 1: I think about the you know, going to the to
Speaker 1: South America, the children of Yuyiko or Yuyayako, right, and
Speaker 1: in the late nineties at some point they discovered three
Speaker 1: inca child mummies there that were up on the summit
Speaker 1: of the mountain. Is not known for sure what that is,
Speaker 1: but it appears to be a form of human sacrifice
Speaker 1: that was taking showing the religious significance of the mountain
Speaker 1: there too. Interesting. So I think this is a great
Speaker 1: example to start with here. Uh. It embodies a number
Speaker 1: of different things here pill grimmage, Uh, just the view
Speaker 1: mentioning just how much you can see from up there,
Speaker 1: and the idea too that this puts you put the
Speaker 1: place to put you in closer contact with the divine,
Speaker 1: with the gods. But now I'd like to talk just
Speaker 1: a little bit about the importance of geography and and
Speaker 1: naturally occurring forms as metaphors. We've talked about this will
Speaker 1: get bit on the show before, but you know, you
Speaker 1: can find root, branch, tree, river iconography all over the place.
Speaker 1: I think back to our episode and the Trident as well, which,
Speaker 1: according to some theories, was originally based on a fig leaf.
Speaker 1: So you know it, ancient people turned to natural forms
Speaker 1: as a way of thinking about the world and kind
Speaker 1: of externalizing thought. Uh And and you see that in
Speaker 1: in in every human tradition. So it should come as
Speaker 1: no surprise that mountains speak to us as well. After all,
Speaker 1: a sacred mountain is just one part of an overall
Speaker 1: sacred giog or fie. And I think that's important to note,
Speaker 1: Like ancient people's they wouldn't have thought like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is just land over here, and that's the lake,
Speaker 1: that's a river, and oh this mountain, that place is holy,
Speaker 1: that's where the gods live. Uh. No, the oceans, the mountains,
Speaker 1: the earth itself, the rivers, all of it comes into
Speaker 1: play for when you're considering a sacred view of the
Speaker 1: world or of the universe. Yeah, you know, I kind
Speaker 1: of think though that, Um, we might be kind of
Speaker 1: unusual as far as like people in history go, given
Speaker 1: that most of you know, most of us and the
Speaker 1: people listening to the show probably most of their exposure
Speaker 1: to religion is like to monotheisms like Christianity, Judaism and Islam,
Speaker 1: which I would say, as far as religions go, have
Speaker 1: unusually low investments in geography and and the land, because
Speaker 1: if you go to ancient pagan religions or indigenous religions
Speaker 1: of of of Europe and Africa and Asia, and in
Speaker 1: the America's, you find kind all kinds of like stories
Speaker 1: about how the land itself was created, and like like
Speaker 1: off the very common stories that the land and the
Speaker 1: features of the land were features of monsters that were
Speaker 1: slain by or the features of a body of a
Speaker 1: god that died long ago, or they have particular connections
Speaker 1: to holy sites that are geographically unique and significant for
Speaker 1: being unique. I mean, I guess Christianity, Islam, and Judaism
Speaker 1: have geographical locations that are holy, but that's mainly for
Speaker 1: like what is believed to be their historical role, right
Speaker 1: events that took place there uh structures that either were there,
Speaker 1: are or are still there in some form or another,
Speaker 1: And that's certainly a part of it as well discuss.
Speaker 1: But there are various other ways to to look at
Speaker 1: at sacred mountains and sacred geography and why those places
Speaker 1: are considered sacred. So just I think one important thing
Speaker 1: to just keep in mind is something I think most
Speaker 1: of us can relate to, and that is just the
Speaker 1: idea of a mountain or an impressive photo of one
Speaker 1: will likely summon feelings of grandeur or intimidation, adventure, peace efforts, seclusion,
Speaker 1: wonder or indeed connection to the heavens. Um. I mean
Speaker 1: this is why you see, uh, you know, posters and
Speaker 1: images and paintings of mountains. I mean they are they're
Speaker 1: beautiful about how and we travel to the mountains and
Speaker 1: then we stand, uh, either atop the mountain or certainly
Speaker 1: at a nice vista, and we we take it all
Speaker 1: in and it it summons feelings and summons emotions and
Speaker 1: takes us outside of ourselves. EO. Wilson talks about this
Speaker 1: a little bit when he's discussing the biophilia hypothesis, and
Speaker 1: I think this is in the context of him generally
Speaker 1: talking about evolutionary explanations for our aesthetic preferences, like why
Speaker 1: is it so often that the pictures we find beautiful
Speaker 1: include vistas from a high point of view, you know,
Speaker 1: being able to look down over a landscape and you
Speaker 1: offer some possible evolutionary explanations for that. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: this is like a more definable point where you can
Speaker 1: see things coming towards you. But yeah, it's hard to
Speaker 1: deny that when I see a mountain. I don't know
Speaker 1: if everybody feels this way as much as I do.
Speaker 1: When I see a mountain, I want to go up it.
Speaker 1: I've never done mountain climbing. I've done hiking and stuff,
Speaker 1: but I do want to go up to the top
Speaker 1: of the highest point and look down well see. And
Speaker 1: I think you and I are different in this regard. Uh,
Speaker 1: You've talked before on the show about how you have
Speaker 1: no problem like walking up to the edge of a cliff.
Speaker 1: I'm a little more reluctant to do that. But still,
Speaker 1: if I see like a crazy you know, cliff or peak,
Speaker 1: or or images of people mountain climbing, I do put
Speaker 1: myself imagine myself up there, and often terrify myself with
Speaker 1: the with the prospect. So I feel like that kind
Speaker 1: of like mental transportation is inevitable. But a couple of
Speaker 1: other things about just how we think about mountains a
Speaker 1: common trope in various mythologies, and we'll touch on Some
Speaker 1: specific examples here in a bit are that the mountain,
Speaker 1: or at least the mountain peak on some level, connects
Speaker 1: Earth to the sky. So it might be like a
Speaker 1: sky pill or situation where the mountain is holding up
Speaker 1: the cosmos, holding up the heavens, holding up the sky,
Speaker 1: or it is in some way an umbilical or a
Speaker 1: ladder and uh. Or that the mountain itself serves as
Speaker 1: a you know, an axis Monday, the central tent pole
Speaker 1: of a sacred cosmos, a stairway to heaven if you will. Well,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting because especially it pairs with older ways
Speaker 1: of thinking about the sky. You know, it's not all
Speaker 1: that uncommon for ancient peoples to have conceived of the
Speaker 1: sky as a place with solid ground that you could
Speaker 1: walk around in, you know, like a firmament. There's a
Speaker 1: dome over the earth and uh. And so you might wonder, well,
Speaker 1: what does something hold up the dome. If there's solid
Speaker 1: ground up there that the gods can walk around in,
Speaker 1: there must be something holding it up. And so you
Speaker 1: can imagine, well, maybe a mountain holds it up. That's
Speaker 1: the obvious answer. In fact, yes, you can see where
Speaker 1: this this complex weave emerges of an attempt to understand
Speaker 1: what is what your visit, what you're actually observing, what
Speaker 1: is the objective reality? And then also these mythic ideas
Speaker 1: of like what does about about structure and uh and
Speaker 1: and center and the importance of place and identity. There's also,
Speaker 1: from a practical sense, the fact that to stand atop
Speaker 1: of great height is to gain a crucial vantage point.
Speaker 1: In some cases that could be purely strategic, such as
Speaker 1: this is the E. O. Wilson thing. Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: see the movements of of herd animals, you can see
Speaker 1: the movements of enemy troops, etcetera. But I also wonder
Speaker 1: if it could be something a little more existential. I
Speaker 1: wonder if if such heights could be considered possibly capable
Speaker 1: of invoking something like the overview effect that proposed a
Speaker 1: state of mind or you know, a state of euphoric
Speaker 1: interconnectedness that ensues when one sees the planet Earth from
Speaker 1: outer space. It's not quite the same, sir, but I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if perhaps that affects scales down to some extent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can absolutely see that. So some astronauts report they
Speaker 1: look out the window of the International Space Station or
Speaker 1: of their you know, their vehicle and they see the
Speaker 1: Earth from space, and suddenly it just comes into sharp
Speaker 1: focus that that are you know, petty squabbles are exactly
Speaker 1: that they're petty. You know that they vanish in the
Speaker 1: face of the fact that we're all trapped on this
Speaker 1: ball together. And and it makes human concerns look small
Speaker 1: and makes people feel a strong sense of sort of
Speaker 1: the common interest of all humanity and the connectedness of
Speaker 1: all of our concerns because the fate of the Earth
Speaker 1: is the fate of all of us. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: can absolutely see that happening. I mean, so, imagine you
Speaker 1: normally you live in a small village or a city
Speaker 1: where you are. You know, you you've got your day
Speaker 1: to day concerns, you're angry with your neighbor, or you've
Speaker 1: got your politics that you're doing, if you're like a
Speaker 1: priest or something, and then you go up on a
Speaker 1: mountain and then you look down at the place where
Speaker 1: you come from the village or the city, or the farms,
Speaker 1: and suddenly everything looks tiny. This basic shift in visual
Speaker 1: and optical perspective could very well trigger a kind of
Speaker 1: the same kind of mental shift that people experience when
Speaker 1: they go into space. Yeah, absolutely, I was. I was
Speaker 1: doing a little reading about about some of these ideas,
Speaker 1: and it ran across an excellent little paper by Edwin
Speaker 1: Burne Bomb titled in Sacred Mountains Themes and Teachings, and
Speaker 1: this is from Mountain Research and Development twenty six And
Speaker 1: the author does a great job of just which just
Speaker 1: laying out some basics. For instance, lays out three basic
Speaker 1: ways that mountains are considered sacred uh. And and we
Speaker 1: can as I lay these out, you can certainly think
Speaker 1: two examples we've discussed already, and I think these will
Speaker 1: also be useful in considering examples we discussed in the
Speaker 1: rest of the podcast. So, burn Bomb says, first, specific
Speaker 1: peaks are singled out as places of sanctity. Uh. They're
Speaker 1: supported by myths and practices such as pilgrimages, meditation, and
Speaker 1: even sacrifice. Number two, they may contain sacred sites or
Speaker 1: objects like temples or shrines, or even something more natural
Speaker 1: like a spring. And then number three, the natural setting
Speaker 1: itself awakens a sense of wonder and awe. All three
Speaker 1: of these tend to work together, burn Bomb says, on
Speaker 1: an individual's experience with the sacredness of a mountain, Furthermore,
Speaker 1: Burned Bomb defined ten themes frequently seen in sacred mountains.
Speaker 1: So they are roughly height, center, power, God or God.
Speaker 1: Either the mountains of God itself, where it is the
Speaker 1: home of God's The mountain is a place of worship.
Speaker 1: The mountain is a paradise or a garden. Um is
Speaker 1: a place where the ancestors of the dead may reside,
Speaker 1: a source of cultural identity, a source of healing, or
Speaker 1: or just a source of water, which makes sense because
Speaker 1: I mean help goes downhill exactly, and also as a
Speaker 1: place of renewal. So these are again ten broad themes
Speaker 1: that Embomb identifies in the identity and characterization of sacred mountains.
Speaker 1: All right, well, we can look for these and examples
Speaker 1: of mountains that we talk about. So maybe I'll offer
Speaker 1: up one example of a mountain to think about, and
Speaker 1: then maybe after that take a break and then look
Speaker 1: at some others. Okay, but this first one is one
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the episode where we talked about pressure,
Speaker 1: because I think it's a commonly cited example of a
Speaker 1: very important holy mountain that's holy in multiple religions, not
Speaker 1: just one. Uh. And this would be the peaks. It's
Speaker 1: a peak in the Himalayas, known as Mount Kailash or
Speaker 1: Mount Kailasa uh. And so this is a holy mountain
Speaker 1: in multiple religions. In Hinduism, this mountain is believed to
Speaker 1: be the abode of Lord Shiva, the destroyer of evil,
Speaker 1: and of his wife Parvadi, who together sit in meditation
Speaker 1: at the summit of the mountain. And so the site
Speaker 1: of Mount Kailash is a destination of pilgrimage for many Hindus,
Speaker 1: who climb fifteen thousand feet or about four point six
Speaker 1: kilometers up this ascent path to the bay of the mountain,
Speaker 1: but do not climb its summit. In fact, climbing the
Speaker 1: sacred summit is forbidden, and though while we can't know
Speaker 1: for sure, it's often said that the summit has never
Speaker 1: been climbed by a human uh. Instead, it's believed virtuous
Speaker 1: for pilgrims to walk in a circle around the base
Speaker 1: of the mountain, but not go up to the summit.
Speaker 1: And this, of course is not just a holy site
Speaker 1: for Hindus, as I was saying, but it's also holy
Speaker 1: for Buddhists, for Jaynes, and for people of the indigenous
Speaker 1: religion of Tibetan known as bone. Yes, a very ancient
Speaker 1: animist religion. Yeah. Now, if you look at what a
Speaker 1: picture of Mount Kailosh looks like from below, I mean
Speaker 1: I would say, obviously I already know this about it
Speaker 1: when I've seen pictures of it. But it's not hard
Speaker 1: to see how a person looking up at this peak
Speaker 1: would begin to think that something powerful and holy and
Speaker 1: forbidden resided there. It does not look welcoming to assent
Speaker 1: like it. It doesn't look easy to climb, And I
Speaker 1: think there's something powerful about that to to like see
Speaker 1: a place and think, especially today's day and age, to think,
Speaker 1: I wonder if people have ever been on that spot,
Speaker 1: as a person ever stood there, and if the answer
Speaker 1: is even possibly no, there is something kind of sacred
Speaker 1: about that. Like we've we've pretty much screwed everything else up,
Speaker 1: but that one peak is is pristine. You will not
Speaker 1: find a slim gym wrapper there. Yeah, and that does
Speaker 1: seem important, right, I Mean part of the issue is, Uh,
Speaker 1: anytime there's a mountain that people say has not been climbed,
Speaker 1: obviously people are gonna want to climbate. So I've been
Speaker 1: reading you know, there's political controversy over this. It's like
Speaker 1: I think there was one point. I read a team
Speaker 1: of Spanish mountain climbers who announced that they were going
Speaker 1: to climb the mountain. But it's a it's a holy site,
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to climb it. Uh. Even though I
Speaker 1: think the team they were they were not Hindus or
Speaker 1: so they didn't share this belief about the religious forbiddenness
Speaker 1: of the mountaintop. The government authorities prevented them from climbing
Speaker 1: the mountain. I think just because they wanted to avoid
Speaker 1: this leading to unrest, or just two I guess, being
Speaker 1: seen as an insult to people who believe that the
Speaker 1: mountain should not be climbed. I mean, I do tend
Speaker 1: to wonder if people just started climbing a mountain like
Speaker 1: this all the time, would it kind of break the
Speaker 1: spell of this story? Would it make people? Would it
Speaker 1: make the mountains seem less holy? I don't know. That's
Speaker 1: something to consider, And after we come back from this
Speaker 1: next break, uh, we're going to take that consideration into
Speaker 1: specific examples. Uh, not only with actual mountains and some
Speaker 1: of the sacred ideas about them, but then will also
Speaker 1: be looking at some some mythological and even fictional mountains
Speaker 1: which I guess are kind of inherently safe from from
Speaker 1: mountain climbers laundering where they're not supposed to be. Thank alright,
Speaker 1: we're back. So we've been talking about holy mountains in
Speaker 1: religious beliefs and myths around the world. Have you got
Speaker 1: another example you wanted to talk about, Robert? Oh, yeah, here,
Speaker 1: here a couple of good ones. I think, one of
Speaker 1: course is Mountain ru. This is a great example of
Speaker 1: a mythical holy mountain, one that serves as a world
Speaker 1: access in Hindu, Jain Buddhist cosmology, for instance, in Tibetan
Speaker 1: Mandala's uh. Uh these really you know, complex and important
Speaker 1: works of art that are you know, all about conveying
Speaker 1: visually conveying complex um theological ideas. Uh. You'll see Mountain
Speaker 1: Marus sometimes situated as the center of things, surrounded by
Speaker 1: seven oceans, seven concentric mountain ranges, and beyond these ranges
Speaker 1: another ocean and islands. It's it's all an unreal geography,
Speaker 1: you know, and in that a very sacred and symbolic geography,
Speaker 1: a spatial representation of a rich and complex cosmology. Uh
Speaker 1: In in a similar frame of mind, and this is
Speaker 1: a one that's this is completely fictional. It's not a
Speaker 1: part of anybody's mythology. But if you're familiar with the
Speaker 1: Dante's Divine Comedy, we of course have the three books
Speaker 1: right where we begin with the Erno, we have an
Speaker 1: eventually in book three wind up in paradise. But to
Speaker 1: get there, uh, Dante and Virgil have to scale the
Speaker 1: amount of purgatory. Oh uh, the the the the earthly purgatory.
Speaker 1: So this is a mountain that is uh, that extends
Speaker 1: from earth to the threshold of heaven. And at the
Speaker 1: very top of the mountain, at the very peak, that's
Speaker 1: where the earthly paradise is located, the Eden of the
Speaker 1: of the Old Testament in Christian traditions. Okay, so this
Speaker 1: does uh, this makes more sense also if you know
Speaker 1: something about like medieval Catholic theology, right, which which had
Speaker 1: this belief in the idea of purgatory where it wasn't hell.
Speaker 1: You know, you weren't condemned there forever, but you were
Speaker 1: basically a good Christian, but you did some sins that
Speaker 1: were not atoned for, and so you have to go
Speaker 1: to purgatory before you can get to heaven. Right, So
Speaker 1: you spend some time there in you know, it's not hell,
Speaker 1: but it's not nice. It's not pleasant, uh, And you're
Speaker 1: stuck there until you essentially serve out your sentence, you're
Speaker 1: purified of your sin, and then you can be admitted
Speaker 1: into Heaven. Right. It is a literary symbolic representation of
Speaker 1: penitent Christian life. Um. Again, no one holds that the
Speaker 1: amount of Purgatory is a real place. They didn't very
Speaker 1: much a part of the literature here, but it does
Speaker 1: serve as kind of a nice example of some of
Speaker 1: the same ideas of mythological holy mountains. Well, one thing
Speaker 1: I do like about the idea of of holy mountains,
Speaker 1: including Purgatory, actually the amount of Purgatory, is that they
Speaker 1: do seem like an indication of older versions of religion
Speaker 1: that were more that could be situated on earth, because
Speaker 1: there were lots of parts of Earth that we didn't
Speaker 1: know about, right, you know, So like Dante could say, well, yes,
Speaker 1: you can enter Hell through a cave here and you
Speaker 1: go down, then you can go up the mountain of
Speaker 1: Purgatory and that's over here, and that would be okay,
Speaker 1: because you know, there was lots of the earth that
Speaker 1: he didn't know what was there. You could just assume
Speaker 1: it's somewhere undiscovered. Now, there of course plenty of actual
Speaker 1: mountains that are considered sacred, either by association with a
Speaker 1: mythical world mountain. You see that from time to time,
Speaker 1: where there's a mythological mountain and then a nearby mountain
Speaker 1: becomes associated with the same ze, same ideas through traditions,
Speaker 1: and then if we if we, as we have explored
Speaker 1: in past episodes, there's also the added dimensions of various
Speaker 1: pyramids and zigarrots that have been constructed as a sort
Speaker 1: of artificial mountain, allowing the people who built them to
Speaker 1: participate in mountaintops sacred rights and observances in some cases
Speaker 1: in regions where such peaks are are not readily available.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and just like in the case, say, like
Speaker 1: in Mount Kailosh, where it is believed that Lord Shiva
Speaker 1: and Parvati are dwell on top of the mountain. The ziggurat,
Speaker 1: I think is interpreted by many modern scholars to have
Speaker 1: been thought to be a home of the God by
Speaker 1: the people who use them, so like that maybe the
Speaker 1: priests would go up there and do some kind of right,
Speaker 1: but it was also believed that the God would come
Speaker 1: down and like sleep the night on the top of
Speaker 1: the zigguratte or might maybe even live there for some
Speaker 1: period absolutely, uh, you know, and another quick thing I
Speaker 1: want to mention and looking at at various mountain myths,
Speaker 1: I noticed that, you know, primordial beings often form mountains
Speaker 1: out of the soil, or as we mentioned earlier, they
Speaker 1: they their bodies or the bodies of loved ones become
Speaker 1: the mountains. And you know, it's it's easy to sort
Speaker 1: of take the formation of mountains for granted, with even
Speaker 1: just sort of a you know, um, a casual understanding
Speaker 1: of say, plectictonics and so forth. Basically, you know, just
Speaker 1: a surface level understanding of geology. But imagine trying to
Speaker 1: understand what a mountain was if you really had no
Speaker 1: idea about any of these things. I mean, unless you
Speaker 1: we're witnessed to volcanic eruption. Um, you know there there
Speaker 1: there are no mountain formation processes that are going to
Speaker 1: be readily observable, and so it makes as much sense
Speaker 1: of anything to turn to some of these, uh, these
Speaker 1: these purely mythological and cosmic explanations from why they are there. Well,
Speaker 1: you can get even weirder with it. I mean, one
Speaker 1: of my favorite examples. Is the coolest place I've ever
Speaker 1: been the Mount Stephen trilobite beds up in Britain. Mount Stephen,
Speaker 1: British Columbia, which is part of the Burgess Shale formation
Speaker 1: that I went to a couple of years ago. And
Speaker 1: so you try to imagine that, not having a any
Speaker 1: kind of scientific understanding, you go up a mountain and
Speaker 1: then up near the top there's just like a cliff
Speaker 1: where pieces of rock or shearing off and they've got
Speaker 1: the imprints of strange undersea monsters on them, and it's
Speaker 1: like you'd have no idea of figuring out how so
Speaker 1: this once was sedimentary rock at the bottom of an
Speaker 1: ocean and it has been pushed up and made into
Speaker 1: a mountain over hundreds of millions of years. Yeah, even
Speaker 1: knowing the geological geological processes in in place here, it's
Speaker 1: still amazing to behold and well beyond the scope of
Speaker 1: human lifetime and and uh and really sort of natural
Speaker 1: human perception. Absolutely so, just to them to run through
Speaker 1: some more examples here holy mountains that can kind of
Speaker 1: give a nice overview of some of these different different ideas.
Speaker 1: I was reading about the denhe Bane, the Navajo creation
Speaker 1: myth um complete with the creation and recreation of the
Speaker 1: sacred mountains across five worlds. So that involves the idea
Speaker 1: that four other worlds preceded the one that we live
Speaker 1: in now. And this is an idea that pops up
Speaker 1: in various Meso American and Native American religions. For the Aztecs,
Speaker 1: uh kawata Peck served as the mythical sacred mountain the
Speaker 1: serpent Mountain Uh in their mythical homeland of Asplan, and
Speaker 1: according to Nicoletta mastri On thought Co, the Great Temple
Speaker 1: of Tactalan is thought to be a replica of this
Speaker 1: holy mountain. So another example of recreating the holy mountain.
Speaker 1: An artificial holy mountain created uh, you know, in the
Speaker 1: likeness of a mythological form. In Norse mythology, human Bjorg
Speaker 1: is the mountain where the by frost connects Asgard and
Speaker 1: mid Guard Uh. This is home of the god him Doll.
Speaker 1: And then there's also perhaps that the less famous near Borg.
Speaker 1: This is the hiding place of the meat of poetry.
Speaker 1: Mount Fuji is important in Japanese culture. It represents, according
Speaker 1: to burn Baum quote quest for beauty and simplicity that
Speaker 1: lies at the heart of Japanese culture, and I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: Mount Fuji Is is one of these examples that like
Speaker 1: it's it's a cultural it's part of its cultural pride,
Speaker 1: like it is a part of the natural geography that
Speaker 1: people can take pride in and find a sense of
Speaker 1: identity in one thing. I think every time I see
Speaker 1: an image of Mount fuji Is it just looks very
Speaker 1: visually perfect, is very like gracefully sloped and symmetrical, kind
Speaker 1: of like it is a work of art. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you go to Tanzania, you will find Mount Kilimanjaro,
Speaker 1: and some of the Chaga people of that region, their
Speaker 1: myths and beliefs about the dormant volcano hold that it
Speaker 1: contains gateways to the spirit world. In Chinese mythology, though,
Speaker 1: there are a few different holy mountains of note. One
Speaker 1: is Mount Bougeo or BuJo Shan, and it's associated with
Speaker 1: the Pamir mountains in Central Asia, and it's one of
Speaker 1: the sky pillars holding up the heavens. And again there
Speaker 1: is a mountain trope found in various cultures. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a myth in which it was damaged by the water
Speaker 1: god gong Gong in his ancient battle for supremacy against
Speaker 1: the Yellow Emperor, and then after the Yellow Emperor's victory,
Speaker 1: the goddess Nuah had repair the damage. But in Chinese
Speaker 1: myth the the the Kunlon Mountain is perhaps the most important,
Speaker 1: as described in the excellent Handbook of Chinese Mythology by
Speaker 1: yang On and Turner. Uh, it is not only a
Speaker 1: key pillar of the sky but also on abode of
Speaker 1: gods and immortals. And there are really a lot of
Speaker 1: descriptions of it, and it's various fountains, magical trees, magical animals.
Speaker 1: It's really an entire sacred ecology unto itself. And if
Speaker 1: there's a particular magical plant, magical item, or sacred water
Speaker 1: that you wish to obtain uh, then Uh Kunlon is
Speaker 1: the place you'll find it. Yeah, it's it's it's everything
Speaker 1: it includes Uh. It holds, for instance, the Sweet Spring
Speaker 1: and Emerald Lake, the Pearl tree, the Jade tree, the
Speaker 1: tree of Immortality, Sinnabar River, which prevents death if you
Speaker 1: drink it, uh, the weak river where nothing floats. Um.
Speaker 1: So it has has all the magical items. Just scaling
Speaker 1: it and uh and scaling to the appropriate terraces on
Speaker 1: the mountain, according to some traditions, means that you can
Speaker 1: take on divine powers yourself over natural forces, perhaps acquire immortality,
Speaker 1: or even take on spirit status yourself, again, provided you
Speaker 1: know where to climb and you can survive the dangers.
Speaker 1: Various important mythic events are sometimes set on the mountain,
Speaker 1: including the goddess Nua's marriage to her brother and the
Speaker 1: subsequent population of the world. So again that's just there's
Speaker 1: just a few examples. There's so many other sacred mountains
Speaker 1: um that that we didn't You either didn't have time
Speaker 1: to include or just didn't have time to research. But again,
Speaker 1: if we left one out that you're particularly fond of
Speaker 1: or you've visited yourself, certainly right into us. Well, and
Speaker 1: these I would point out are just the sacred mountains
Speaker 1: that have accumulated like myths with staying power over theres
Speaker 1: because I would say there are a number were of
Speaker 1: now pretty well observed phenomena that would under normal circumstances
Speaker 1: be creating new sacred mountain myths all the time, and
Speaker 1: maybe we should explore that when we come back from
Speaker 1: a break. Than alright, we're back, we've discussed all these
Speaker 1: mythological ideas about about mountains and sacred mountains. But well,
Speaker 1: let's get into some more recent accounts that shed light
Speaker 1: on some of the things that are happening when humans
Speaker 1: go to great heights. All right, so I want to
Speaker 1: talk about an English mountaineer named Frank Smythe, who was
Speaker 1: famous and accomplished as a climber in his day, and
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty three he attempted to reach the summit
Speaker 1: of Mount Everest and if he had been successful, he
Speaker 1: would have been the first person in history to do it.
Speaker 1: But he failed. He fell short by only about three
Speaker 1: hundred meters or a thousand feet, which I'm sure is
Speaker 1: very frustrating when you know you're that close and you
Speaker 1: can see it and you can't make it up. But
Speaker 1: of once you hit those kind of altitudes, you're facing
Speaker 1: a lot of problems. And number one, he would have
Speaker 1: been climbing without oxygen assistance. This is something that climbers
Speaker 1: today obviously benefit from um But Smythe described in a
Speaker 1: first hand account after this experience a strange set of
Speaker 1: things that he saw and and felt while he was
Speaker 1: alone on this climb. So I just wanted to read
Speaker 1: a few sections from a from a piece that Smythe
Speaker 1: wrote called mirages at twenty eight thousand feet. Smythe wrote quote,
Speaker 1: during my solitary climb, too curious phenomena were experienced. It
Speaker 1: is with great diffidence that I described them, and then
Speaker 1: only at rutledge. Is the the expedition leader's request. I
Speaker 1: prefer to draw no inferences from them, and merely to
Speaker 1: describe them. The first was one that is by no
Speaker 1: means unique, and has been experienced in the past by
Speaker 1: solitary wanderers, now not only in mountains, but on desert
Speaker 1: wastes and in polar regions. All the time that I
Speaker 1: was climbing alone, I had a strong feeling that I
Speaker 1: was accompanied by a second person. This feeling was so
Speaker 1: strong that it completely eliminated all loneliness I might otherwise
Speaker 1: have felt. It even seemed that I was tied to
Speaker 1: my companion by our rope, and that if I slipped,
Speaker 1: he would hold me. I remember constantly glancing back over
Speaker 1: my shoulder, and once, when after reaching my highest point,
Speaker 1: I stopped to try and eat some mint cake, I
Speaker 1: carefully divided it and turned around with one half in
Speaker 1: my hand. It was almost a shock to find no
Speaker 1: one to whom to give it. It seemed to me
Speaker 1: that this presence was a strong, helpful and friendly one,
Speaker 1: and it was not until Camp six was cited that
Speaker 1: the link connecting me, as it seemed at the time,
Speaker 1: to the beyond was snapped, and although shipped in and
Speaker 1: the camp were but a few yards away, I suddenly
Speaker 1: felt alone. The second phenomenon may or may not have
Speaker 1: been an optical illusion. Personally, I am convinced that it
Speaker 1: was not. I was still some two hundred feet above
Speaker 1: Camp six and a considerable distance horizontally from it, when
Speaker 1: chancing to glance in the direction of the north ridge,
Speaker 1: I saw two curious looking objects floating in the sky.
Speaker 1: They strongly resembled kite balloons in shape, but one possessed
Speaker 1: what appeared to be squat underdeveloped wings, and the other
Speaker 1: a protuberant suggestive of a beak. They hovered motionless, but
Speaker 1: seemed slowly to pulsate, a pulsation incidentally much slower than
Speaker 1: my own heartbeats, which is of interest supposing that it
Speaker 1: was an optical illusion. The two objects were very dark
Speaker 1: in color and were silhouetted sharply against the sky or
Speaker 1: possibly a background of clouds. So interested was I that
Speaker 1: I stopped to observe them. My brain appeared to be
Speaker 1: working normally, and I deliberately put myself through a series
Speaker 1: of tests. First of all, I glanced away. The objects
Speaker 1: did not follow my vision, but they were still there
Speaker 1: when I looked back again. Then I looked away again,
Speaker 1: and this time identified by name a number of peaks, valleys,
Speaker 1: and glaciers by way of a mental test. But when
Speaker 1: I looked back again, the objects still confronted me. At
Speaker 1: this I gave them up as a bad job. But
Speaker 1: just as I was starting to move again, a mist
Speaker 1: suddenly drifted across. Gradually, they disappeared behind it, and when
Speaker 1: a minute or two later it had drifted clear, exposing
Speaker 1: the whole of the north Ridge once more, they had vanished,
Speaker 1: as mysteriously as they came. Strange experiences when climbing Everest alone. Now,
Speaker 1: this third man syndrome in particular is not at all
Speaker 1: unique to Smile, as he points out, In fact, reports
Speaker 1: like this come from many people in lonely struggles where
Speaker 1: survival seems to be at risk. Uh. There were reports
Speaker 1: from the Ernest Shackleton expedition through Antarctica in nineteen sixteen
Speaker 1: that they often believe there to be another companion among them.
Speaker 1: There was one piece in the British Medical Journal in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight where a doctor and so this
Speaker 1: is much more recent, where a doctor and mountain climber
Speaker 1: named Jeremy Windsor described his own firsthand experiences of this
Speaker 1: kind when he was climbing Mount Everest. He wrote quote,
Speaker 1: I first met Jimmy on the balcony, a cold, wind
Speaker 1: swept snow shelf, high up on the southeast ridge of
Speaker 1: Mount Everest, at an altitude of more than eight thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred meters. Our introduction had been brief, with little
Speaker 1: more than a muffled hello and a few words of
Speaker 1: encouragement passing between us over my right shoulder. Obscured by
Speaker 1: the bulky oxygen mask and the rim of down that
Speaker 1: smothered my face, I was sure I could see Jimmy
Speaker 1: moving lightly in the darkness, but despite him remaining close
Speaker 1: by me for the rest of the day, I didn't
Speaker 1: see him again. At the time, it hadn't worried me. Instead,
Speaker 1: I was warmed by the thought of human company, and
Speaker 1: too breathless to question what seemed so real. If the
Speaker 1: truth be told in my thoughts were really nothing more
Speaker 1: than brief flickers of images or sounds that vanished with
Speaker 1: the onset of each new breath. So once again a
Speaker 1: mysterious other accompanying someone as they scale great heights. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so in the middle of this, I was actually
Speaker 1: reading an NPR article about this phenomenon that reminded me
Speaker 1: of a haunting passage in the fifth section of T. S.
Speaker 1: Eliot's The Waste Land. That's the section entitled what the
Speaker 1: Thunder Said, which is an idea taken from the Upanishads.
Speaker 1: But of course that already implies the idea of like
Speaker 1: hearing voices coming from something other than people, you know,
Speaker 1: hearing voices in the thunder, but it mentioned something like
Speaker 1: this other companion, or what's known as third man syndrome
Speaker 1: or third man factor. And I went back and reread
Speaker 1: this section of the poem, and it was really interesting.
Speaker 1: Given what we're discussing here. It's talking about a journey
Speaker 1: through the mountains. I'm not sure exactly who's making this
Speaker 1: journey in the context of the poem maybe kind of disembodied.
Speaker 1: It might be implied that this journey is part of
Speaker 1: the search for the Holy Grail, which is a part
Speaker 1: of that poem. But but I could be wrong about that,
Speaker 1: And it's got this idea of the experience of an
Speaker 1: unseen third companion. So Elliott writes, here is no water,
Speaker 1: but only rock, rock, and no water in the sandy road,
Speaker 1: the road winding above among the mountains, which are mountains
Speaker 1: of rock without water. If there were water, we should
Speaker 1: stop and drink. Amongst the rock, one cannot stop or think.
Speaker 1: Sweat is dry, and feet are in the sand. If
Speaker 1: there were only water amongst the rock, dead mountain, mouth
Speaker 1: of curious teeth that cannot spit. Here one can neither stand,
Speaker 1: nor line, nor sit. There is not even silence in
Speaker 1: the mountains, but dry, sterile thunder without rain. There is
Speaker 1: not even solitude in the mountains, but red sullen faces,
Speaker 1: sneer and snarl from doors of mud cracked houses. And
Speaker 1: then a little bit further down, Elliott says, who is
Speaker 1: the third who walks always beside you? When I count,
Speaker 1: there were only you and I t other. But when
Speaker 1: I look ahead up the white road, there is always
Speaker 1: another one walking beside you, gliding wrapped in a brown mantle, hooded.
Speaker 1: I do not know whether a man or woman, But
Speaker 1: who is that on the other side of you. Now,
Speaker 1: of course Elliott is writing before Smith. I think this
Speaker 1: is in the early nineteen twenties, so Elliot's writing before
Speaker 1: Smyth's account is published or any of that. So this
Speaker 1: is a phenomenon that had already been observed, but it
Speaker 1: seems to be especially common among mountain climbers, and it's
Speaker 1: not the only strange perceptual anomaly that's often reported by
Speaker 1: mountain climbers. Think also of Smyth's second phenomenon, where he
Speaker 1: witnesses what you were reading about, Robert, the strange floating
Speaker 1: balloon creatures that uh, they were just up there over
Speaker 1: the peak. And so it's extremely common for mountain climbers
Speaker 1: to report strange experiences, perceptions, mystical encounters in the pursuit
Speaker 1: of high mountain peaks. And obviously, given these modern accounts,
Speaker 1: it's not hard at all to to imagine that they
Speaker 1: may have if something similar was going on in the
Speaker 1: ancient world, they may have played some role in the
Speaker 1: formation of religious beliefs about mountains. Absolutely, I think it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's it's very fascinated to think about. And now,
Speaker 1: of course we don't want to fall into the trap
Speaker 1: of of saying that, you know, all supernatural ideas about
Speaker 1: the mountains can be attributed to whatever is going on
Speaker 1: with third man syndrome. But uh, you can certainly imagine
Speaker 1: how in some cases it might help to produce ideas
Speaker 1: and myths concerning entities and gods in the mountains or
Speaker 1: strengthen those examples of the strengthen those traditions that are
Speaker 1: already set in place. Well, yeah, looking back to Barren
Speaker 1: Bomb's themes that are often seen with sacred mountains, of course,
Speaker 1: there's the idea that that mountains are often gods or
Speaker 1: the home of God's or the body of gods. It
Speaker 1: might be a place to go worship the gods. But also,
Speaker 1: like a couple of things he mentioned, are the idea
Speaker 1: of like ancestors or the dead or might have something
Speaker 1: to do with mountains. And you can clearly see how
Speaker 1: a hallucinated third person or second person or companion on
Speaker 1: a journey could be interpreted as an ancestor. Often when
Speaker 1: people when people hallucinate presence is helping them, they are
Speaker 1: interpreted to be ancestors. And also the idea of mountains
Speaker 1: being a place of pilgrimage, you know, if you're making
Speaker 1: this journey, someone could be there with you to make
Speaker 1: the pilgrimage. All right, on that note, we're going to
Speaker 1: close out this episode, but we are going to pick
Speaker 1: right back up in the next episode of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind. We're gonna thank everything we've discussed here
Speaker 1: about sacred Mountain traditions and beliefs as well as third
Speaker 1: Man syndrome, and we're gonna go a little deeper into
Speaker 1: the uh uh, into into what seems to be going
Speaker 1: on neurologically, psychologically, and yes, we'll even make just a
Speaker 1: little bit of room for the yetti. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you want to check out more episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, head on over to stuff to
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Speaker 1: Each episode is a different look at inventions the chechno
Speaker 1: history of the human species. Big thank you, as always
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tory Harrison.
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