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

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And it is October

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Speaker 3: on Stuff to Blow Your Mind, which means the Uncanny

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Speaker 3: Pods continue. And today we're back with part two in

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Speaker 3: a series we started on Tuesday about the monster cats

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Speaker 3: of Japanese legend the cat yo Kai. So a brief

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Speaker 3: recap of what we talked about last time. We covered

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Speaker 3: a bit about the general role of cats in Japanese history,

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Speaker 3: in Japanese culture, and then we discussed a couple of

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Speaker 3: famous cat yo kai altered cats in monster form, including

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Speaker 3: the neko mata, which may be a sort of giant

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Speaker 3: monster cat or general large predator of the mountain forests,

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Speaker 3: or maybe a cat that reaches a certain age, like

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Speaker 3: a domestic house cat that reaches a certain age, maybe

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Speaker 3: the age of one hundred, and then transforms into a monster.

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Speaker 3: We also talked about the bakan Echo, a sort of

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Speaker 3: a moral shape shifting cat that may play pranks, may

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Speaker 3: drink blood, may exact deadly revenge, etc. Does that about

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Speaker 3: cover it.

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Speaker 2: Roub, Yeah, Yeah, pretty much? And an important thing to

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Speaker 2: keep in mind, this is something we were talking about

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Speaker 2: off Mike before we came in here, is that there's

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Speaker 2: a certain amount of overlap between these different classifications. I mean,

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Speaker 2: more generally, as we've often discussed with folklore and legends

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Speaker 2: and mythology and even religion, that there's not often like

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Speaker 2: a strong canonizing, codifying force that is coming in and

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Speaker 2: saying like, Okay, this is this creature and this is

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Speaker 2: this other creature. You know, things shift over time, Ideas merge,

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Speaker 2: ideas influence one another, and I mean really, if you

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Speaker 2: want to look outside of folklore and mythology and legend

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Speaker 2: to find examples of this, I mean look no further

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Speaker 2: than say, like comic book characters, where like a character

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Speaker 2: like Lex Luthor or the Riddler, you know, have changed

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Speaker 2: multiple times over the years to reflect different ideas in

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Speaker 2: popular culture, with like Lex Luthor becoming less of a

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Speaker 2: mad scientist in a mecha suit and becoming like a

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Speaker 2: corporate businessman and so forth. The Riddler suddenly is the

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Speaker 2: Zodiac Killer in recent films, you know that sort of thing.

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Speaker 3: Uh huh. I think that's a great comparison. But even

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Speaker 3: in that case, at least the things you're talking about

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Speaker 3: are fixed media documents like you know, comic books and films,

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Speaker 3: which continue to exist in a fixed form. When something

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Speaker 3: is just sort of oral legend and part of a culture,

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Speaker 3: there's almost a limitless kind of free flow of the

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Speaker 3: boundaries of the concept.

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Speaker 2: Right right, There's no like central publication that is to

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Speaker 2: some extent controlling the form. And you can argue just

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Speaker 2: how much even something like The Riddler is controlled by say,

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Speaker 2: DC Comics, because ultimately you have fan fiction, fan art,

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Speaker 2: et cetera. But yeah, outside of that, you know, we're

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Speaker 2: dealing with with situations where things are just growing organically,

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Speaker 2: often in oral storytelling traditions, and then it gets influenced

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Speaker 2: by various artistic renditions and so forth.

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Speaker 3: So today we're going to be talking about some more

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Speaker 3: Japanese stories of magical cats. Not all monster cats, but

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Speaker 3: some of them are monster cats. But before we get

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Speaker 3: into that, I wanted to look at something more broadly

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Speaker 3: about the perception of cats as powerful beings. So in

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Speaker 3: multiple sources I was reading for the series, there would

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Speaker 3: be little comments and asides that were variations on the

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Speaker 3: perception that cats just seem to have some kind of

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Speaker 3: obscure hidden power, that something about the nature of the

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Speaker 3: cat suggests there's more than meets the eye. And I

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Speaker 3: find myself intuitively very much in agreement with that. But

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Speaker 3: I would back up and say, even before you get

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Speaker 3: to the assumption about magical powers, I think there is

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Speaker 3: just something about a cat that suggests power of some sort.

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Speaker 3: Like despite the fact that cats are Internet famous for

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Speaker 3: being you know, goofy goobers, cute, goofy goobers, no doubt,

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Speaker 3: they often are just as often when, especially when I'm

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Speaker 3: in the physical presence of a cat, I often feel

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Speaker 3: that a house cat is commanding a strange, mysterious power

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Speaker 3: and respect. And I was talking to my wife Rachel

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Speaker 3: about this and she said, basically she had the same feeling.

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Speaker 3: She said, when in the presence of a cat's it's

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Speaker 3: this kind of a creature that's holding something over you. Specifically,

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Speaker 3: in her case, she talked about the feeling of the

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Speaker 3: need to impress a cat like this is an animal

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Speaker 3: that is passing judgment on you, and you are failing

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Speaker 3: and there might be some kind of bad consequence to

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Speaker 3: the fact that you are not standing up in the

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Speaker 3: eyes of the cat.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, when you go over to a friend's

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Speaker 2: house and a dog. The dog may initially bark at you,

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Speaker 2: but you know, as is often the case in my experience,

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Speaker 2: then the owner will say no, no, no, Hugo or

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Speaker 2: whatever the dog's name is, this person is fine, this

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Speaker 2: person's fine, and eventually, in my experience, the dog tends

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Speaker 2: to listen to this and it's like, okay, all right,

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Speaker 2: it's fine the cat. You know, the best you can

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Speaker 2: do when someone comes over is say like, look, I

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Speaker 2: have nothing to do with how this cat is going

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Speaker 2: to receive you. I can give you advice, I can

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Speaker 2: tell you what not to do, but ultimately it's out

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Speaker 2: of my hands.

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Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, you know, I'm not the boss here.

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Speaker 3: In a way, so I can sense why people in

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Speaker 3: various cultures throughout history might start to wonder if the

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Speaker 3: domestic cat is brimming with bloodthirsty sorcery, and all it

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Speaker 3: would take is that same feeling. I have that intuitive

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Speaker 3: sense that the cat is powerful for some reason, but

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Speaker 3: paired with the observation that that sense of power is

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Speaker 3: incongruous with the cat's actual physical size and strength. Like

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Speaker 3: you know that that sense of power cannot be justified

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Speaker 3: through what a cat can literally actually do so the

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Speaker 3: mind fills with magic. And I will add that, of course,

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Speaker 3: the comparison to dogs is unavoidable. I love dogs. I

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Speaker 3: am more of a dog person than a cat person,

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Speaker 3: and I would not say this about dogs at all.

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Speaker 3: This seems totally unique to cats. Dogs do not seem

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Speaker 3: to have hidden power or magic in this way.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, as a cat person, I find that when I

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Speaker 2: encounter a new dog, it's like things often push to

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Speaker 2: one extreme or another. You know, a dog is either

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Speaker 2: suspicious or hostile towards you, or they are just instantly

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Speaker 2: already your friend and want to, you know, get all

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Speaker 2: up in your business and see if you have treats

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Speaker 2: and so forth. And of course you know, on the

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Speaker 2: thread end of the spectrum obviously, as in my first example,

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Speaker 2: a lot of times it's like yeah, the initial barking

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Speaker 2: at a stranger, but then they're like, oh, okay, they're fine.

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Speaker 2: But with the cat, there's often there often seems to

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Speaker 2: be and again this is general, this is generality. Then

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Speaker 2: they're gonna be in vidual exceptions with the cats as

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Speaker 2: there are with the dogs. But they seem to occupy

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Speaker 2: this middle ground, you know, where it's like a no friends,

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Speaker 2: no enemies, approach to relationship.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's good. But anyway, so this got me wondering, like,

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Speaker 3: why is it that cats seem powerful in this way?

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Speaker 3: I don't know if they seem this way to everyone,

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Speaker 3: but I think at least a lot of people must

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Speaker 3: share this feeling I have. And this turned out to

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Speaker 3: be a difficult question to answer in a way that

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Speaker 3: felt really solid and empirically justified. I don't think I

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Speaker 3: have a great answer to this question, but I've turned

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Speaker 3: up a few possible interesting ideas. So the first place

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Speaker 3: I look to try to get some empirically justified threads

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Speaker 3: on this is I was wondering, well, what are the

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Speaker 3: behavioral markers of power in humans that we might just

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Speaker 3: be sort of mapping on to the behavior of cats.

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Speaker 3: And this is great because you know, the whatever government

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Speaker 3: agencies or whatever are tracking my Internet behavior must now

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Speaker 3: think I'm about to start a second career as one

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Speaker 3: of the psychopath dating advice coaches, because I'm here searching

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Speaker 3: for studies on what makes humans seem powerful? How do

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Speaker 3: humans signal dominance and high status? Uh so, TikTok, masculinity, priesthood,

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Speaker 3: here I come.

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Speaker 2: I imagine there's a lot out there that equates dog

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Speaker 2: ownership with strength and cat ownership with sensitivity. Uh. These are,

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Speaker 2: of course both ridiculous stereotypes, but you do see this

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Speaker 2: sort of thing reflected, like, look at this guy, he's

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Speaker 2: got a he's got a big dog. Must be it

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Speaker 2: must be a really powerful fellow. Look this, this, this

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Speaker 2: creature is clearly physically powerful, and it just works for him.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's observient to him.

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Speaker 3: Where is the boss?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, whereas the cat ownership, you know, is often interpreted

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Speaker 2: in the opposite direction. I guess one of the seasonally

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Speaker 2: appropriate examples is, of course, when when people realized or

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think this was always kind of out

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Speaker 2: in the open, but when people realize that that metal

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Speaker 2: musician Glenn Danzig is a cat person and has cats

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Speaker 2: and buys cat letter, right, people had a lot of

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Speaker 2: fun with that concept because he pushes this hyper masculine

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Speaker 2: identity out there, right, and so it just dealing with

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Speaker 2: like those really like outrageous gender stereotypes. It was like,

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Speaker 2: it seemed counterintuitive that this individual would have a cat.

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Speaker 2: But then again, when you get into all the spooky stuff, right,

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Speaker 2: it seems perfectly logical that he would have multiple black cats.

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Speaker 3: I feel like I could have told you Danzig was

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Speaker 3: a cat person. I don't know how I knew, but

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Speaker 3: I knew. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think there are old photos of them with cats,

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Speaker 2: long before the kitty litter shopping photo went viral.

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Speaker 3: But anyway, what did I come up with here? Okay?

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Speaker 3: I think about two ideas that are potentially interesting and

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Speaker 3: one that was kind of a failed rabbit trail. We'll

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Speaker 3: do the failed one first. This idea is about eye contact.

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Speaker 3: I have the impression that something about the way a

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Speaker 3: cat looks at you can feel intimidating, and that there's

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Speaker 3: something about the gaze of a cat that that has

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Speaker 3: to do with this feeling of power that I impute

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Speaker 3: to them. And I wondered if this had something to

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Speaker 3: do with our instincts about eye contact. I think it's

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Speaker 3: absolutely clear that eye contact is one of the most

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Speaker 3: potent and complicated elements of human body language. How much

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Speaker 3: you do or don't connect with somebody's gaze. Who engages

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Speaker 3: and breaks off eye contact and when they do it.

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Speaker 3: These gestures that we make with our eyes are interpreted

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Speaker 3: as containing lots of socially relevant information, And if you

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Speaker 3: doubt this just like try to have a conversation with somebody,

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Speaker 3: but don't do what feels natural with eye contact, like

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Speaker 3: force yourself to maintain eye contact longer than you naturally

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Speaker 3: would or something. It will I guarantee you immediately become

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Speaker 3: extremely uncomfortable and you will both get freaked out for

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Speaker 3: whatever reason. Humans just read a lot into how they

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Speaker 3: manage eye contact with each other. There are a bunch

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Speaker 3: of studies about this, and while there might be a

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Speaker 3: lot of different kind of information encoded in patterns of

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Speaker 3: eye contact, it's clear that one of the important types

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Speaker 3: of social information that we interpret in patterns of eye

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Speaker 3: contact has to do with power, status, and dominance. For example,

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Speaker 3: there are studies showing that, at least in some human

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Speaker 3: on human scenarios, people perceive to be powerful or in

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Speaker 3: leadership roles are more likely to maintain eye contact once

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Speaker 3: it is initiated, so you meet the powerful person's gaze

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Speaker 3: and the powerful person will stare you down. Conversely, people

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Speaker 3: who are perceived in social interactions as subservient or less

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Speaker 3: powerful are more likely to break off eye contact and

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Speaker 3: avert their gaze from that of a person they perceive

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Speaker 3: as more powerful or higher status than them. So I

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Speaker 3: was thinking about this, and I was thinking, what this

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Speaker 3: does feel like It squares with experiences I've had with

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Speaker 3: cats where they will just like stare into my eyes

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Speaker 3: until I feel uncomfortable and feel like I have to

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Speaker 3: look away, And this does appear to be a true

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Speaker 3: dynamic for humans. But I couldn't really connect this to

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Speaker 3: any empirical evidence that cats are especially prone to this,

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Speaker 3: that cats are more likely than any other animal to

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Speaker 3: hit you with a laser beam of unbroken eye contact.

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Speaker 3: Like I said, I feel like I've had this experience before,

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Speaker 3: but I don't think it's generally true of cats. In fact,

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Speaker 3: a lot of like veterinary sources I was reading claim

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Speaker 3: exactly the opposite. They say that cats tend to find

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Speaker 3: sustained eye contact threatening and stressful, and that you should

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Speaker 3: not stare right into their eyes because it will bother them.

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Speaker 3: The reasoning being that that cats only whole eye contact

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Speaker 3: with each other when they are preparing to fight, which

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Speaker 3: would mirror the idea that eye contact has something to

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Speaker 3: do with sort of like a you know, dominance and

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Speaker 3: competition in mammals. So if vets and other experts say

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Speaker 3: that cats generally avoid prolonged eye contact with humans. That's

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Speaker 3: sort of the opposite of what I was wondering about.

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Speaker 3: So I don't know, maybe there's something I'm missing, but

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Speaker 3: I think my intuition about cats was just wrong in

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Speaker 3: this case.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard that cats favor a narrowing of the

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Speaker 2: eyes and a head nod, though I've never investigated it

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Speaker 2: to see if there's anything substantial backing it up. But

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Speaker 2: in my limited experience, it kind of sort of seems

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Speaker 2: to work, you know, like if I find myself staring

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Speaker 2: at my cats, sometimes I'll do that, and you know,

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Speaker 2: it seems like we have a cool moment. But in general, though,

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Speaker 2: I would say, in my experience is all very subjective obviously,

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Speaker 2: but cats have very captivating eyes. They have very large eyes.

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Speaker 2: They're the eyes of a predator, you know, an obligate predator. Here.

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Speaker 2: They also are eyes that are finely tuned for work

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Speaker 2: in low light environments. They will appear to gleam, you know,

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Speaker 2: in low light environments, which often has an impact on

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Speaker 2: various supernatural interpretations, you know, eyes gleaming in the night,

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Speaker 2: glowing in the night, and so forth. Whereas with dogs,

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Speaker 2: I don't know, sometimes I encounter dogs, and it's like

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Speaker 2: their eyes feel like they're completely dark, you know, like

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Speaker 2: they're like a doll's eyes, but not in like a

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Speaker 2: threatening Jaws fashion, but in a like this is a

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Speaker 2: stuffed animal fashion, like there's no agency here. This this

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Speaker 2: animal is just just dumb as I'll get out.

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Speaker 3: I don't feel that about dogs. But yeah, not.

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Speaker 2: All dogs, just some dogs I have encountered. Their eyes

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Speaker 2: feel very dark and like I don't read them as well,

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Speaker 2: whereas cat eyes are are there, if they're wide open,

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Speaker 2: certainly they're very intense.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think with some dogs you don't really get

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Speaker 3: to see much other than the pupil, you know, like

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Speaker 3: you're not seeing a lot of the whites of a

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Speaker 3: dog's eye usually, which is something we use to interpret

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Speaker 3: the theory of mind and other humans because, like, you know,

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Speaker 3: when we're trying to understand what other humans are thinking,

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Speaker 3: we look at where they're looking with their eyes, and

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Speaker 3: that necessarily involves being able to see the relative proportion

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Speaker 3: of the whites of the eyes on you know, Like,

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Speaker 3: so we look at where their pupils are pointed. With

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Speaker 3: a dog, yeah, a lot of times, like the darker

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Speaker 3: part of the eyeball like fills up most of what

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Speaker 3: you can see.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and a theory of mind, of course, is central

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Speaker 2: to all of this. Anybody who's familiar with animals will

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Speaker 2: tell you that, depending on the animal, it may not

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Speaker 2: be the eyes that are the prime indicator of mood

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Speaker 2: and so forth. I mean ears are especially important in

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Speaker 2: a number of animals, like what are their ears doing,

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Speaker 2: how are their ears positioned? And so forth.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, Okay, so I think my thing about eye contact

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Speaker 3: that's not really going anywhere. But a couple of other

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Speaker 3: ideas I think might be onto something. One is about elevation.

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Speaker 3: It seems to me that cats often seek to occupy

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Speaker 3: high places in the room, on top of shelves and

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Speaker 3: tall furniture in lofted areas, looking down on others, and

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Speaker 3: unlike dogs, cats are climbers. They can actually get up

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Speaker 3: to the high places. So I think even if a

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Speaker 3: dog wanted to be up on top of the ship,

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Speaker 3: it probably can't get there, but a cat can. Once again,

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Speaker 3: I didn't know if this was a real trend with

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Speaker 3: cats or just my personal idiosyncratic experience. While I looked

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Speaker 3: it up to see if there are any studies on this,

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Speaker 3: and there are, so I was reading in a book

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Speaker 3: called The Domestic Cat, The Biology of Its Behavior from

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Speaker 3: Cambridge University Press two thousand, edited by Turner and Batesen,

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Speaker 3: And they're summarizing some research on this, and they say,

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Speaker 3: quote Smith at All nineteen ninety four examined the behavior

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Speaker 3: of cats in shelters with specific reference to their spatial

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Speaker 3: distribution and object preferences. The cats used structures more often

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Speaker 3: than the floor of their pins, and high structures which

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Speaker 3: provided vantage points, were used more frequently than low ones.

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Speaker 3: Other studies have confirmed that cats prefer high shelves and

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Speaker 3: enclosed areas. So this is not just my gut feeling.

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Speaker 3: Researchers have investigated this and they found that yes, cats do,

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Speaker 3: on average actually prefer to get up high and look

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Speaker 3: down on everyone else. Now pair that with the fact

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Speaker 3: that I think is totally clear that humans frequently use

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Speaker 3: physical elevation to signal power. Think of the elevation of

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Speaker 3: the king or the queen's throne over the throne room,

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Speaker 3: the elevation of the judge's bench over the courtroom, the

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Speaker 3: elevation of the preacher's pulpit, etc. It seems like a

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Speaker 3: common cross cultural reality that when we want to signal

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Speaker 3: that a person is powerful and they must be respected

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Speaker 3: and even feared. We put them up on an elevated

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Speaker 3: piece of furniture. So related to this cultural convention, which

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Speaker 3: in turn might proceed from some biological realities, we regard

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Speaker 3: the entity up in a high place looking down on

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Speaker 3: us as a being with power over us. Cats, on

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Speaker 3: average do selectively seek out elevated perches and high vantage points.

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Speaker 3: So I guess that's one possible contributing factor to our

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Speaker 3: perceptions of the strange power of a cat. And by

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Speaker 3: the way, I was thinking, I can think of any

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Speaker 3: other common domestic animal that is able to do this,

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Speaker 3: like you know, dogs and all the common farm animals

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Speaker 3: and so forth don't climb up on shelves to peer

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Speaker 3: down at us. The only other one I was thinking

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Speaker 3: of was maybe like the goat, which does like to

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Speaker 3: get up on top of the roofs of the pins

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Speaker 3: and so forth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was about to ask you if you had

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Speaker 2: forgotten our friend the goat, because the goat seems like

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Speaker 2: the most striking example of animals that like, you go

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Speaker 2: out and you'll see you'll see goats in a field

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Speaker 2: and they have access to a hay bale or some

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Speaker 2: other elevated structure. You'll often find multiple goats enjoying that

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Speaker 2: heightened perspective, whereas cats, I don't know, you know, I

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Speaker 2: don't doubt the research here, but you'll find cats enjoying

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Speaker 2: elevated positions, but also shelving and other locations that are

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Speaker 2: maybe less high, that are maybe picked out more because

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Speaker 2: they are enclosed. You know, they're boxy, they're like little caves. Likewise,

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Speaker 2: I mean, you'll find cats being on shoes and so

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Speaker 2: forth with ground level. So, I don't know, it seems

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Speaker 2: less pronounced in cats than with goats. For sure, Goats

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Speaker 2: would seem to be the superstars uh here when it

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Speaker 2: comes to elevated positions, I think the we do often

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Speaker 2: put out uh like little pedestals and throne like structures

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Speaker 2: for them to use, even of course climbing towers and

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Speaker 2: so forth, So we do facilitate, uh, their their you know,

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Speaker 2: their their desire to have some sort of an elevated position,

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Speaker 2: and and also you know that'll end up looking like

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Speaker 2: we have provided a special place for them, a throne

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Speaker 2: for them to rule over the household. Uh Though at

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Speaker 2: the same time, as we've discussed in the show before.

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Speaker 2: They'll also favor say a discarded ikea instruction manual that's

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Speaker 2: left on a bed. Oh, they'll they'll they'll lay in

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Speaker 2: an empty box. So it's I don't know, I feel

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Speaker 2: like they they do what they want. You know, you

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Speaker 2: can't you can't entirely expect them to just go to

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Speaker 2: the highest place. They're gonna also find a comfy place

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Speaker 2: and that on that count, I would also add that

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Speaker 2: one of the things about cats that may make them

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Speaker 2: seem more powerful is the way they will recline in

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Speaker 2: sudden some circumstances, especially if they're say on a couch

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Speaker 2: where they have something to lean their bodies back against.

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Speaker 2: They'll sometimes have this body position that makes them look

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Speaker 2: like a reclining bipedal humanoid. And you know, their belly

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Speaker 2: will perhaps be a little exaggerated since they may be

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Speaker 2: an indoor cat that eats plenty, and this will sort

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Speaker 2: of add to this feeling of a rotund ruler on

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Speaker 2: their throne.

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Speaker 3: Jab of the cat.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but at the very least to your point, Yes,

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Speaker 2: cats will take advantage of various surface levels on which

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Speaker 2: to rest and to you know, view their domain, and

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Speaker 2: a lot of times that will put them a certainly

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Speaker 2: at a higher vantage point, perhaps one that is more

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Speaker 2: on the level with human beings as opposed to just

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Speaker 2: being on the floor.

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Speaker 3: All right. Another idea I had about cats in the

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Speaker 3: perception of power, what if kats seem powerful because they

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Speaker 3: are non compliant or non conforming. There are multiple studies

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Speaker 3: on this dynamic in humans. Just to refer to one

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Speaker 3: that seems to be cited a lot, there is a

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Speaker 3: study by Sylvia Balsa, Francesca Gino, and a not Keenan

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Speaker 3: called the Red Sneakers Effect Inferring status and competence from

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Speaker 3: signals of non conformity. This is from the Journal of

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Speaker 3: Consumer Research from twenty fourteen. What seems to have incited

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Speaker 3: this research is just some anecdotal observations that run counter

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Speaker 3: to the conventional win wisdom that if you want to

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Speaker 3: be respected, you need to dress sharp. You know. I've

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Speaker 3: heard variations on this my whole life. Dress for the

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Speaker 3: job you want, not the job you have, And they

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Speaker 3: don't actually include, like in that statement, what you're supposed

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Speaker 3: to wear, But the unspoken assumption is that this means

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Speaker 3: dress up, not dressed down. You know, where in my case,

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Speaker 3: the uh this is interpreted as wear a tie, shine

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Speaker 3: your shoes, et cetera. But the authors here point out

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Speaker 3: that counter to this conventional wisdom in certain sectors of

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Speaker 3: business and culture they cite observations in Silicon Valley, there

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Speaker 3: seems to be a principle operating in exactly the opposite direction.

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Speaker 3: People in these contexts seem to try to signal their power,

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Speaker 3: competence and high status by dressing down relative to their peers,

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Speaker 3: so like you know, the CEO because they will not

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Speaker 3: tuck their shirt in. You know, they're showing up at

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Speaker 3: the board meeting in flip flops. So that's just an

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Speaker 3: anecdotal observation. But the authors here wanted to put together

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Speaker 3: a experiments to investigate empirically whether in some contexts non

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Speaker 3: conforming behaviors or non compliance with social expectations, whether that

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Speaker 3: does on average confer the appearance of power, competence and

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Speaker 3: high status, and generally, in their experiments, which involve different

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Speaker 3: kinds of you know, like staged encounters you might imagine

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Speaker 3: in a university or business setting or whatever, they did

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Speaker 3: indeed find that sometimes non compliance and non conformity are

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Speaker 3: interpreted by others as signs of power, and they compare

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Speaker 3: non conformity and non compliance with social expectations to a

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Speaker 3: form of conspicuous consumption. Conspicuous consumption is a classic concept

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Speaker 3: where people try to show off their high status by

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Speaker 3: showing off that they can afford luxury goods, so, you know,

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Speaker 3: having like expensive jewelry on or wearing you know, something

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Speaker 3: that is impractically expensive, of an expensive car, or something

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Speaker 3: like that to make people think that you are powerful

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Speaker 3: and important. In their discussion section the author's write quote,

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Speaker 3: we demonstrate that non conforming behavior as a costly, invisible signal,

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Speaker 3: can operate similarly to conspicuous consumption, and compared to conforming behavior,

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Speaker 3: lead to inferences of enhanced status and competence in the

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Speaker 3: eyes of others. Across a series of lab and field studies,

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Speaker 3: we explore observer's reactions to a variety of non conforming

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Speaker 3: behaviors in different settings and find that observers confer higher

434
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 3: status and competence to non conforming individuals compared to conforming ones.

435
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:42,920
Speaker 3: At a process level, our investigation reveals that the positive

436
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:46,879
Speaker 3: inferences from signals of non conformity are driven by perceived

437
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 3: autonomy and moderated by observer's need for uniqueness. So The

438
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 3: theory here seems to be that people interpret non conformity

439
00:24:56,280 --> 00:25:00,199
Speaker 3: as an honest display of autonomy. Somebody who is not

440
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 3: complying with social expectations is sort of conveying I will

441
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:08,280
Speaker 3: be fine without your approval, I don't need it, which ironically,

442
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 3: in some cases makes some people seem more competent, more powerful,

443
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,480
Speaker 3: and more worthy of respect. So what are the boundaries

444
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 3: of this effect? Because it obviously does not apply in

445
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:22,280
Speaker 3: every scenario, The authors in this paper, across their multiple studies,

446
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 3: think that. Well, they say, they find that this effect

447
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 3: only appears when the observer is familiar with the environment

448
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 3: and social expectations within it. So you know, when there

449
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 3: are quote established norms of formal conduct in the given context,

450
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 3: and when the observer knows what they are. So like

451
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 3: there have to be implied social rules in a place,

452
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:46,680
Speaker 3: and the observer has to know what they are. They

453
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 3: also find that the perception of status and competence associated

454
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:55,399
Speaker 3: with nonconformity only appears if the observer believes that the

455
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 3: person in question, the non conforming person, is violating the

456
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:02,520
Speaker 3: norms on purpose, if it seems like they're simply not

457
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 3: aware that they're dressing or speaking inappropriately. That doesn't confer

458
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:10,480
Speaker 3: any sense of power. The power comes from willful flaunting

459
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 3: of social expectations. So how does this connect to cats. Obviously,

460
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 3: cats don't dress themselves or use language, so it wouldn't

461
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 3: make sense to talk about them intentionally flaunting expected dress

462
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:26,719
Speaker 3: codes or ways of speaking. But I think basically anybody

463
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:31,000
Speaker 3: would have to agree that cats exude an air of

464
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 3: non compliance and nonconformity, especially when contrasted with other domestic

465
00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 3: animals like the dog. The dog, of course, you know,

466
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:43,640
Speaker 3: highly social and usually quite eager to please. The dog

467
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:45,640
Speaker 3: will put on a tie for you if it can,

468
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 3: by God. But there is something about the way that

469
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 3: like if you try to train a cat. I mean,

470
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 3: it's not true that you can't train a cat. Sometimes

471
00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:58,000
Speaker 3: people do do it, but it is notoriously difficult, and

472
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:00,439
Speaker 3: often when people try it on their own, cat just

473
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 3: ignores you, often not just ignoring you, but like staring

474
00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 3: right in your face while it ignores what you want

475
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 3: it to do. And I think that does maybe convey

476
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 3: a sense of willful flaunting of social expectations that could

477
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,120
Speaker 3: map on to these intuitions we have about human behavior

478
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 3: that when somebody is just like, no, I'm just not

479
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 3: going to comply with the social norms. That makes them

480
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:28,159
Speaker 3: seem like, oh wow, this is a powerful person and

481
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,160
Speaker 3: I have maybe I should respect them.

482
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:35,639
Speaker 2: Well, it is true that cats are quite ungovernable, the

483
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 2: notoriously so. It's also one of their their charms too,

484
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 2: but one of the frustrations of keeping them as well.

485
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,159
Speaker 2: There's a sticker design out there. I don't know. I

486
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 2: get served ads for it all the time on like Instagram,

487
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:49,920
Speaker 2: I guess because I look at cat videos and it's

488
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:53,200
Speaker 2: though like a cartoon cat with two middle fingers up

489
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 2: and it says you can't stop me, which I love

490
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 2: because it does perfectly capture the spirit of the cat.

491
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 2: They will do what they want. And yeah, like I

492
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:07,480
Speaker 2: imagine it's different like if a dog, say, were to

493
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 2: poop on your bed, you know this would what would

494
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 2: that be?

495
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:12,800
Speaker 3: Like, Joe?

496
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 2: What as a dog owner, how does that go down?

497
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 3: You get the sense that when a dog, I mean

498
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,879
Speaker 3: all dogs are different, of course, so we're speaking in generalizations,

499
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 3: but I think on average dog owners would probably say

500
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:28,159
Speaker 3: that a dog can be made to feel ashamed about

501
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:30,560
Speaker 3: like that you show the dog that they pooped on

502
00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:33,680
Speaker 3: the bed. There's a sense that like the dog couldn't

503
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 3: help it, it just got caught up in the moment,

504
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 3: or it really needed to go and it pooped on

505
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 3: the bed. And then it looks at the poop and

506
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 3: it's like, I'm sorry. A cat, you don't get that

507
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 3: at all.

508
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 2: That's right with a cat. The first part may still

509
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 2: obviously be true. The cat could various circumstances just made

510
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 2: it to where the cat ended up leaving its poop

511
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:56,959
Speaker 2: on the bed, But there is this feeling that the

512
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 2: cat is saying, actually, this is where my poop goes. Now,

513
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 2: this is just how it is. I have made this decision,

514
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 2: and what are you.

515
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 3: Going to do about it? I don't need your approval.

516
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 2: Yeah you don't like it, there, move it. You're the

517
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 2: one who handles my poop for me. But yeah, I

518
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 2: mean that you encounter this all the time with cats,

519
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 2: Like you attempt to get them a new litter that

520
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 2: will be better for them and better for the whole household,

521
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 2: and they reject it, or you get them a comfy

522
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 2: new bed, but instead they're going to go sweep on

523
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 2: the instructions for putting together the fancy cat bed that

524
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 2: you just bought. You know, they're going to do what

525
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 2: they want. They're not necessarily they may do what you

526
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 2: want in time, but they're not going to do it

527
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 2: on your schedule. They have their own agenda in place.

528
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 3: So to summarize, I don't think I have a comprehensive

529
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 3: theory about why cats seem powerful, but I think we

530
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 3: got a few interesting ideas there. I think the non

531
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:51,479
Speaker 3: compliance and nonconformity thing maybe a big part of it.

532
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 3: I think the elevation might possibly be a part of it.

533
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 3: I don't think the eye contact thing really goes anywhere,

534
00:29:57,560 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 3: but I'd be interested what listeners think, especially if you

535
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 3: have I don't know if you're like a vet you

536
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 3: work with cats or anything, or even if you know

537
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 3: you just got a lot of cats and you want

538
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 3: to tell us about them, Like, where do you think

539
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 3: the sense that cats have a hidden power comes from?

540
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 2: I think another area that comes to mind is this

541
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 2: sort of idea that there is a vanity, like like

542
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 2: a king Lee or queenly vanity to the cat. And

543
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 2: I was thinking about this specifically last night because my

544
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 2: son and I are I'm slowly reading Watership down to

545
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 2: him when we still do some story time. He does

546
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 2: lots of reading on his own. But I was like, Watershiped.

547
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 2: If you're all into all these animal books, let's do

548
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 2: Watership Down. And we were just reading a part in

549
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 2: this in which the rabbits encounter a cat. A cat

550
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 2: in Watership Down is a deadly illegal in one of

551
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 2: the thousand enemies of the rabbit people, but in this

552
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 2: encounter they managed to outrun the cat. And one of

553
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 2: the rabbit's comments that the cats quote hate to look foolish,

554
00:30:57,680 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 2: and this matches up with a lot of the things

555
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 2: that unseasoned cat behavior. They will often seemingly walk off

556
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:07,240
Speaker 2: stumbles and mistakes with the kind of nonchalant that didn't

557
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 2: happen vibe. This is of course all theory of mind

558
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 2: and personification on our part, but that's how we often

559
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 2: end up interpreting it. So the cat may seem prideful

560
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 2: and powerful in a way, you know, kind of like

561
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 2: eager to cover up a stumble it made, when of course,

562
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 2: in reality, the cat is just doing some mix of

563
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 2: just recovering from whatever they did wrong and moving on

564
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 2: or conserving energy instead of wasting you know, time focusing

565
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 2: on it. It's also coming back a little bit to

566
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 2: the the subjects that we discussed in the last episode,

567
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 2: this idea of cats catching on early in Japan with royalty,

568
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:47,600
Speaker 2: with nobility, and you have this, this this clear mental

569
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 2: picture of a Japanese emperor, someone who is in a

570
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 2: position where I'm you know, I'm imagining there's a lot

571
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 2: of a lot of yes men surrounding them, there's a

572
00:31:57,840 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of power, there's a lot of

573
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 2: things being done in such a way as to please

574
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 2: the emperor, and then into their life strolls a cat,

575
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 2: which you know is adorable and interesting, but also is

576
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 2: not going to do what an emperor wants a cat

577
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:16,760
Speaker 2: to do. Like again, they are ungovernable to the last

578
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 2: of them, to a fault. Even so, I think it's

579
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:22,400
Speaker 2: interesting to imagine that scenario and being part of there,

580
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 2: and it's almost like they occupy would have occupied, like

581
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 2: this gesture's place in the presence of the emperor, Like,

582
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 2: here is a creature that will not do whatever I want,

583
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 2: And in a way, there's something liberating about that.

584
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 3: I think that's a really good comparison. Yeah, like the

585
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 3: power of the jester, like the one who can criticize

586
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:43,959
Speaker 3: the king because they're a goober.

587
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, now, coming back a bit to Japanese

588
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 2: lore and legend and tradition concerning cats. I want to

589
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 2: get into a few other ideas here. I want to

590
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 2: mention again that two of my primary sources here are

591
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 2: kaid Yo The Supernatural Cats of by Zach Davison, and

592
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 2: then also a book titled The Japanese Myths The Guide

593
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:09,480
Speaker 2: to God's Heroes and Spirits by Joshua Friedman. The first

594
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:10,720
Speaker 2: cat I want to touch on, I think I may

595
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 2: have mentioned this one in passing, but is the cat

596
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:17,160
Speaker 2: is the Meneki neko, the inviting cat. This is a

597
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 2: cat that I think everyone a cat statue if you

598
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:23,719
Speaker 2: will that I think everyone has seen, probably in person,

599
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 2: probably in multitudes at times. And if you haven't seen

600
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 2: one in person, surely you've seen an image of this.

601
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 2: This is a little statue of a cat gesturing with

602
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 2: it with a face down paw, welcoming good luck into

603
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 2: a space. A lot of times these are like solar

604
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 2: and or battery powered as well, and so you get

605
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 2: that little motion of the inviting paw.

606
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 3: I don't think I knew what this was called, but

607
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 3: I thought of this as the lucky cat, and it

608
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 3: kind of has a in some forms. It has a

609
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 3: paw that waves like the lever of an old school

610
00:33:57,600 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 3: cash register.

611
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:02,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Its origins are in the Edo period,

612
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 2: when it was apparently observed that cats sometimes manipulate their

613
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:10,720
Speaker 2: paw in this way that resembles the Japanese traditional hand

614
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 2: gesture to come inside. I think in Western traditions it's

615
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 2: often easy to look at that and think of like

616
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 2: waving or like you say, pulling a lever, But in

617
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 2: Japanese tradition, I believe this would be more like, yeah,

618
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 2: come inside. And the cat then is welcoming good luck

619
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 2: generally inside a home or business. They are not, and

620
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:35,440
Speaker 2: I can't stress this enough, not welcoming in vampires. So

621
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 2: if you are a vampire out there, do not misinterpret

622
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 2: a luck cat as being an open invitation to come inside,

623
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 2: because it's not gonna work.

624
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 3: I can't believe this has never come up before when

625
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 3: a vampire has to be invited in? Does that apply

626
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 3: to places of business or only to homes? And if

627
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 3: it applies to places of business, is the open sign

628
00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 3: welcome enough or does it have to come out of

629
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:00,280
Speaker 3: a person's mouth.

630
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:03,239
Speaker 2: I don't know. It depends on the interpretation. Yeah, if

631
00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 2: it's by appointment only. I think the vampire cannot come

632
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:09,399
Speaker 2: inside all right. Now. As for the lut cats, though

633
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 2: Davison shares several more tidbits, I wasn't familiar with any

634
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:15,839
Speaker 2: of this. I'm going to stress though, that there's no

635
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:19,799
Speaker 2: real cannon here regarding what any of these details mean.

636
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 2: And some you'll apparently find traditions that are the opposite

637
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 2: of some of the standards here. But in general, you

638
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 2: look at one of these lut cats, you may see

639
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:32,840
Speaker 2: a red bib or collar. This is a symbol of

640
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:37,040
Speaker 2: Buddhist divinity. Oftentimes you'll see it holding a coin, a

641
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 2: gold coin. This is from the Edo period as well.

642
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 2: It's got a cobine. It represents like vast wealth. And

643
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 2: I think there's also this idea too that is kind

644
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 2: of like, as Davison points out, like pearls before swine.

645
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:51,960
Speaker 2: You know, it's like a coin for a cat is

646
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 2: something that a cat cannot actually appreciate, but it's kind

647
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 2: of fun that it has it.

648
00:35:57,920 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 3: The cat would rather have a lot of aluminum foil.

649
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, the colors mean a lot. Apparently. You often see

650
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 2: white ones. A white luck cat typically means happiness. It's

651
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:14,360
Speaker 2: inviting in happiness. Red color real it's inviting in relationship

652
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 2: success or and or protection from illness. The black color

653
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 2: is protection from evil spirits. Gold cats obviously mean money.

654
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 2: But then there are all sorts of newer colors that

655
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:29,759
Speaker 2: have apparently been introduced just in general popular culture, like

656
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 2: blue for academic success, green for health, pink for love,

657
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 2: and then calico apparently is considered the luckiest of all,

658
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 2: I guess because you get a combination of colors and

659
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:45,280
Speaker 2: calicos of like luck associations like traditionally in Japan, also

660
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:49,920
Speaker 2: depending on which hand is doing the waving, some traditions

661
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 2: say left hand invites in money, right brings in customers,

662
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 2: though sometimes apparently this is reversed so it depends who

663
00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:01,400
Speaker 2: you're asking about it. Right is for home, left is

664
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:04,800
Speaker 2: for business, left hand. It also apparently has a connotation

665
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 2: with holding one's liquor, which apparently ties into the idea,

666
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:11,760
Speaker 2: particularly with a luck cat in a restaurants, of keeping

667
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 2: clients drinking so that they're ordering more food. But again

668
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 2: that nothing is there's no strict canon or coat here.

669
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 2: You'll find various interpretations of this. Again, origins go back

670
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 2: to the Edo period. You would have these motionless clay models,

671
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 2: and there are a number of stories that lay out

672
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:35,359
Speaker 2: how these clay statues came to be. There are some

673
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 2: stories apparently in which you have a situation where a

674
00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 2: hero is saved from ill luck or attack by a

675
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 2: becketting cat in the night, and therefore after the fact

676
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:47,640
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, well this cat saved my life, will

677
00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 2: I will now honor it. There's one story that Davison

678
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:56,479
Speaker 2: relates in which there's like a samurai protecting this woman.

679
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:59,000
Speaker 2: They're going through the dark streets at night. This cat

680
00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 2: jumps out. He thinks it's a threat. He slays the

681
00:38:02,239 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 2: cat and then realizes, oh, this cat was protecting us

682
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 2: or warning us, and then he feels vast guilt and

683
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 2: a shrine is built to the cats. There's also a

684
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:16,360
Speaker 2: cat temple origin story of sorts. There's an actual cat

685
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:20,880
Speaker 2: temple in Japan. Gotukuji, i believe is what it is called.

686
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,799
Speaker 2: So the cat is apparently, in some traditions, said to

687
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:27,240
Speaker 2: be one of only two animals that did not weep

688
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 2: upon the death of the Buddha. I've seen it also

689
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:32,360
Speaker 2: put other ways that like the cat does not accept

690
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 2: the Buddhist teaching, et cetera. Whatever, the details. You know,

691
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:37,640
Speaker 2: it matches up with the spirit of the cat. The

692
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 2: cat does not seem likely to be greatly emotionally disturbed

693
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 2: by the death of even the Buddha, and also is

694
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 2: going to be rather neutral on Buddhist teachings.

695
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 3: The cat is like, I will keep my attachments, thank

696
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 3: you very much.

697
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:54,759
Speaker 2: Yes, But the story goes that, okay, cats are not

698
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:59,560
Speaker 2: really lined up with the spirit of Buddhist teachings. Therefore

699
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:01,880
Speaker 2: they're not a great animal to have at a holy site.

700
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,280
Speaker 2: But the story is that a monk kept one anyway

701
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 2: because it was cute and adorable, et cetera, et cetera,

702
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 2: so he hides it from the abbot there. But then

703
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 2: one night during a storm, the cat invites a powerful

704
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:17,000
Speaker 2: lord to the temple for refuge, and that temple, Kotukuji,

705
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 2: becomes the Cat Temple and today hosts thousands of luck cats.

706
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 2: You can find various pictures of this place online and

707
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 2: just yeah, tons and tons of white luck cats.

708
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:30,719
Speaker 3: Wow. I'm looking at a picture you included in the outline,

709
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 3: and it looks like drifts of snow with strawberries.

710
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:38,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there are a bunch of them. Now again,

711
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:40,600
Speaker 2: we discuss that there's a lot of overlap with these

712
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 2: different stories about the cats, supernatural cats of Japan, and

713
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 2: this general idea that there's kind of an evolution. A

714
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 2: cat becomes old enough, a cat becomes one hundred years old,

715
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 2: and then the tale splits. It becomes something else. More

716
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 2: tails mean more power, power even to change its shape

717
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 2: and take on human form, manipulate aid, or hunt humans

718
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 2: for sport, that sort of thing.

719
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 3: Oh and when you said this, I just realized I

720
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:07,840
Speaker 3: forgot to mention when I did the recap at the

721
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:10,399
Speaker 3: beginning that yes, the Neko mata has a forked tail

722
00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:13,759
Speaker 3: or two tails, that's like primary characteristic. I left out

723
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:14,759
Speaker 3: apologies about that.

724
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 2: Now, while a lot of these ideas with supernatural cats

725
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 2: are or they become the idea that this is something

726
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 2: that a normal cat can and will turn into. One

727
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:37,840
Speaker 2: exception to this is the idea of the Neko Musumi.

728
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 2: This is the cat Daughter, and Zach Davison discusses this

729
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:45,840
Speaker 2: in the book The Cat Daughter in Question. Here is

730
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 2: a cat human hybrid, but her origin isn't situated in

731
00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 2: the domestic cat at all. She's not a former domestic

732
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 2: cat that is transformed into this state. She's also attributed

733
00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 2: with certain acts that are feline in nature, like cat

734
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 2: bathing and killing of rodents in line with their feline qualities. Now,

735
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 2: as Davison lays out the origins of this one in

736
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 2: the path of his evolution, kind of walk us through

737
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:12,840
Speaker 2: a couple of centuries of weird tales and oddities in

738
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:16,800
Speaker 2: Japanese culture. The earliest version of the tail stems from

739
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:22,479
Speaker 2: the Missy Momo or Seeing Things shows in the seventeen hundreds. These,

740
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 2: he writes, were quote a combination of American freak shows,

741
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:29,360
Speaker 2: haunted houses, and the believe it or Not style of

742
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 2: exhibitions still popular today. So amid so this would be

743
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 2: a situation for you to encounter various Jokai artifacts, including

744
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:43,440
Speaker 2: the original Fiji Mermaid, which originated here in this setting

745
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 2: and then ended up traveling into the West. But this

746
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 2: is where the original cat Daughter is said to have existed.

747
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:54,359
Speaker 2: It's unknown, however, if this was somebody that had a

748
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:58,359
Speaker 2: birth defect, if it was somebody who had been made

749
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 2: up with special makeup or lighting or of it's with

750
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:04,879
Speaker 2: some combination of different elements. But there was supposedly an

751
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 2: individual that was the cat Daughter, and you would pay

752
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:09,839
Speaker 2: to see them are.

753
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 3: There even any physical descriptions other than that in some sense,

754
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 3: some vague sense, she looks like a cat.

755
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think we don't have a

756
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 2: lot to go on here, based on my reading of Davidson.

757
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 2: So the Misimomo shows they die out, maybe they're no

758
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 2: longer popular. But the story here of the cat Daughter

759
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 2: comes back during the Edo period in the Kaidan or

760
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 2: ghost story collections, sometimes she's called the Licking Girl again

761
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:41,480
Speaker 2: because she's half cat half human and she does things

762
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,399
Speaker 2: that a cat will do, like bathe herself by licking

763
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 2: or fur, and of course killing various rodents that's also huge.

764
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 2: But again her origins in these cases are still mysterious.

765
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:54,359
Speaker 2: Nobody's saying that she was a domestic cat at one point.

766
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:58,319
Speaker 2: She's just this anomaly, and apparently it counts. During the

767
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 2: Edo period also sometimes present her again as a historical fact.

768
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:07,879
Speaker 2: Davidson points out that there's like one particular work that's

769
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 2: primarily a historical and political diary and they just refer

770
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:13,080
Speaker 2: to the Cat Daughter as a fact, like this is

771
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 2: a person that exists or existed, which I guess makes

772
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 2: sense if its origins are in this Missy Momo seeing

773
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 2: things show, but then things continue to evolve, and finally,

774
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 2: in the nineteen thirties, the story takes on this form

775
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 2: of a Buddhist morality lesson. So, in this story, you

776
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 2: have a father who makes his living producing cat skin shamasin's.

777
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 2: This is a stringed instrument that was sometimes traditionally made

778
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:44,240
Speaker 2: with cat or dog skin. And so in this story,

779
00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 2: the father has killed something like five hundred cats in

780
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 2: his trade to make these nice musical instruments that he sells.

781
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:54,640
Speaker 2: But this ends up cursing his bloodline, causing his daughter

782
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:56,920
Speaker 2: to be born as park cat.

783
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 3: So this is something kind of like a harmic punishment.

784
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Now I want to point out there are

785
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:07,800
Speaker 2: also illustrations of the Nikomata from the seventeen hundreds. We

786
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 2: talked about the Nikomada in the last episode, which depicts

787
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 2: this creature in sort of like a cat humanoid form

788
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 2: playing a shamasen and this was, I guess apparently amusing

789
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,959
Speaker 2: because the shamasin might have been made out of cat skin.

790
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:24,280
Speaker 2: All Right, the next one I want to discuss very briefly.

791
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm gonna go into this one much,

792
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:28,480
Speaker 2: but if you happen to be on any of our

793
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 2: social media profiles, you may have seen an image selected

794
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 2: to promote this episode, and it consists of what appears

795
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:41,799
Speaker 2: to be just a giant chonker of a cat, maybe

796
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:44,279
Speaker 2: not even leaping, but just sort of reaching out of

797
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 2: the high bushes and small trees to swat at a

798
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 2: human or a pair of humans and cause them great

799
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 2: agony and fear.

800
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 3: Elephant sized cat rising like steam out of the weeds.

801
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:01,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the cat, I love his this very sort

802
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:05,920
Speaker 2: of neutral look on its face, like it doesn't look fearsome.

803
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 2: And there are plenty of depictions of cats taking on

804
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:15,400
Speaker 2: you know, sort of evil and terrifying facial features, but

805
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:18,399
Speaker 2: this one, this cat looks very neutrals as he sort

806
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:22,359
Speaker 2: of you know, emerges from the bushes, and yeah, he's

807
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 2: a total chonker. Very much reminds me of the cat

808
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 2: meme of Oh laud he coming. I don't know if

809
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 2: you've seen this one. This is the highest level on

810
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 2: the chalk spectrum for how chonky a cat may be.

811
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:38,360
Speaker 3: I'm not familiar, but I understand the concept. Okay.

812
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:45,719
Speaker 2: This picture is a nineteenth century image from Kawan Nabi Kyoshi.

813
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 2: This is supposed to be a giant cat attacking people

814
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 2: in the forest. Now, this is supposed to be a

815
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:57,359
Speaker 2: depiction of the aeromote o ya maneko or the aeromote

816
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 2: great mountain cat. So this is a remote island of Japan,

817
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 2: and it is indeed home to a small aerio mote cat,

818
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:09,959
Speaker 2: a subspecies of leopard cat that is only found there.

819
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:13,480
Speaker 2: It's critically endangered. It is not giant, but there are

820
00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:17,480
Speaker 2: legends of a much bigger cat with shining eyes that

821
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:20,000
Speaker 2: lives in the mountain. So, you know, I guess you

822
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:23,839
Speaker 2: could say it's kind of a cryptid of Japan. And

823
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:27,280
Speaker 2: you know, who knows if there is there's anything to this. Again,

824
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 2: cats when they're you know, they may have that appearance

825
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 2: of glowing eyes in the dark. And you can imagine

826
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 2: how just just sighting one of these normal small wildcats,

827
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:41,280
Speaker 2: what could have led to this idea that there's something

828
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 2: bigger lurking in the wilds.

829
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:45,719
Speaker 3: I was thinking about this after we recorded part one

830
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:48,479
Speaker 3: the other day, because of course, the world is full

831
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 3: of actual big cat predators, lions, tigers, leopards. You know,

832
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 3: these these are large predatory felines that can can could

833
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 3: really mess you up. But it seems that the idea

834
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:02,399
Speaker 3: of taking like, even if you live in a place

835
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:06,360
Speaker 3: where there are no large predatory cats, you could almost

836
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 3: like invent the idea yourself just by looking at a

837
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:12,240
Speaker 3: house cat and thinking, wow, this we're bigger and stronger.

838
00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 3: I'd really be in trouble.

839
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:17,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's that's obviously always a concern

840
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:19,680
Speaker 2: with cats. You know, there's always the joke about like,

841
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:22,880
Speaker 2: if a cat we're larger than a human, you know,

842
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 2: you would just eat you, that sort of thing. Yeah,

843
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 2: but yeah, I guess it's always you never want to

844
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,319
Speaker 2: err just entirely on the side of oh, well there's

845
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:33,400
Speaker 2: a tradition in this culture of a giant animal, that

846
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:37,120
Speaker 2: giant animal certainly existed, because obviously that's not always the case.

847
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:39,600
Speaker 2: I mean, because the human imagination is powerful enough to

848
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:42,879
Speaker 2: imagine large and small versions of any animals. There are

849
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 2: no giant man sized spiders in Japan, but there are

850
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 2: still stories about them exactly.

851
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, And we make this point a lot on the show.

852
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:55,279
Speaker 3: Sometimes weird stories and myths and legends do go back

853
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 3: to some kind of historical event that maybe is getting

854
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:01,399
Speaker 3: altered through retelling. It doesn't have to be that way.

855
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 3: You don't have to assume that every crazy story goes

856
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:07,440
Speaker 3: back to something that really happened. People just are creative

857
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:08,399
Speaker 3: people make things up.

858
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's really a disservice at times

859
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 2: to the to the human imagination and to and also

860
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:19,879
Speaker 2: to the traditions of various peoples to say like, oh, well,

861
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:22,200
Speaker 2: they clearly didn't think of this on their own. It

862
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 2: must have been encrypted or Another version of this, of course,

863
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:27,560
Speaker 2: is the idea like, oh, look at this weird thing

864
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 2: in their art. It has to be ancient aliens, like

865
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:32,680
Speaker 2: when you when you do that. There are a number

866
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:35,399
Speaker 2: of problems with the ancient aliens. I bought this, as

867
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:37,839
Speaker 2: we've touched on many times before, but a big one

868
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 2: too is like you're you're doing a disservice to whatever

869
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:45,359
Speaker 2: traditional society you're commenting on by saying that this thing

870
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:50,160
Speaker 2: that they that they imagined, interpreted, that you know, has

871
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 2: this important role in their belief system. When you just say, oh,

872
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 2: that's that's people from another planet. That's not nothing they did.

873
00:48:57,520 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 2: This is nothing that is a part of them. This

874
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:01,480
Speaker 2: is something external to them.

875
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 3: Right, And of course that applies to like real human accomplishments,

876
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 3: you know, buildings and structures, saying like, oh, people couldn't

877
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 3: have done that without without alien help. That is wrong, misguided,

878
00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:13,920
Speaker 3: not an appropriate reaction to the evidence, and it is

879
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 3: insulting to you know, people who worked hard and we're clever.

880
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 3: But also it applies to stories. You know, stories were

881
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 3: say like, oh, you know, this being came out of

882
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 3: the water and it had these physical features and all

883
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:28,239
Speaker 3: those things. There's no reason you have to assume that

884
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:32,360
Speaker 3: that's based on people actually encountering some being. They didn't understand.

885
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 3: People were creative in the past, just like they're creative now.

886
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 3: People today make up stories about fantastical beings and beasts.

887
00:49:39,160 --> 00:49:40,160
Speaker 3: They did then too.

888
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:44,400
Speaker 2: Right, But then again, you know, we are creatures that

889
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:46,840
Speaker 2: live in the natural world, and we are often inspired

890
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 2: by the natural world, and we kind of get back

891
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:52,280
Speaker 2: into that. In the final example, I want to highlight

892
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:55,160
Speaker 2: here this may be one of my favorites. It is

893
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:58,880
Speaker 2: the idea of the Kasha. This one's interesting because in

894
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 2: its origin it is not a cat at all, but

895
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:06,080
Speaker 2: a terrifying flaming cart with or without only attendants, so

896
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:11,040
Speaker 2: terrifying you know, troll like demon beings attending it or

897
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:14,040
Speaker 2: sometimes not attending it. It comes down from the sky

898
00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:18,200
Speaker 2: to drag away the souls of sinners who are living

899
00:50:18,280 --> 00:50:22,360
Speaker 2: in the end times, drag them down to Hell and

900
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:26,279
Speaker 2: its many torments, because the cycle of reincarnation has run

901
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:29,879
Speaker 2: its course. You know, there's everything is broken, so it's

902
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:31,799
Speaker 2: time for the hell cart to come and just drag

903
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 2: people away. Or at least that's how Kamakura Buddhists of

904
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:39,360
Speaker 2: the twelfth through fourteenth centuries apparently viewed matters. But much later,

905
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 2: during the eighteen hundreds, you have influential yokai chronicler Tori

906
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:47,280
Speaker 2: Yama Sekan coming around. We've talked about him before because

907
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:52,040
Speaker 2: a very influential figure in sort of laying out what

908
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:56,600
Speaker 2: various yokai looked like and also just straight up making

909
00:50:56,640 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 2: things up, like very much like creating on his own.

910
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:02,600
Speaker 2: I think we've touched on some of these before. Where

911
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:05,719
Speaker 2: when you many yokai have you know, very you know,

912
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:09,879
Speaker 2: cultural origins within the larger culture and in traditional folk

913
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:12,399
Speaker 2: beliefs and particularly in rural areas, but also in many

914
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:15,799
Speaker 2: in urban areas as well. But sometimes Sekan just sort

915
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 2: of made something up because it was clever, or you know,

916
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:21,920
Speaker 2: it commented on some social or political element of the

917
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:25,239
Speaker 2: time that sort of thing. So he comes along and

918
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:30,799
Speaker 2: he reinterprets the Kasha as a cat creature covered in flames.

919
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:34,799
Speaker 2: They fear some cat creature, and Joe, I've included an

920
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:37,279
Speaker 2: image of the Kasha here as a yokai for you.

921
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:41,680
Speaker 3: That is brutal. The flames are coming off of its sideways.

922
00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 2: M Yeah, and there's these wonderful like Japanese flames that

923
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 2: kind of feel like like tendrils or tentacles, you know,

924
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:52,839
Speaker 2: like they're they're reaching out to grab you. There's also

925
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,440
Speaker 2: this kind of like spiral motif behind it, like it

926
00:51:55,480 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 2: has just come out of a warp from the hell domains. So, yeah,

927
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 2: a fearsome creature come to get your soul.

928
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:05,880
Speaker 3: I guess the sideways flame suggests like a whipping wind

929
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:07,320
Speaker 3: or a storm or something.

930
00:52:07,719 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a very chaotic entity. And according to Davison,

931
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:17,279
Speaker 2: this is purely a product of Sekan's creativity, but his

932
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 2: work was again highly influential, so it stuck. The Kasha

933
00:52:21,880 --> 00:52:25,560
Speaker 2: was now a flesh eating animal spirit, and especially for

934
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:28,759
Speaker 2: the wicked. The idea is that during your funeral possession,

935
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:32,760
Speaker 2: a great wind may blow everything over, knock over your casket,

936
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:35,839
Speaker 2: open up the casket, your body comes rolling out and

937
00:52:35,880 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 2: then in swoops the kasha to consume your corpse.

938
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:39,960
Speaker 3: Wow.

939
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 2: Now, eventually those Nikomada stories we talked about in the

940
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 2: first episode, they end up influencing this kasha legend, making

941
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:51,919
Speaker 2: it a normal house cat that has been transformed due

942
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:55,680
Speaker 2: to its proximity to the human dead. So allow a

943
00:52:55,719 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 2: normal cat to access a dead human body and they

944
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:02,880
Speaker 2: will try transform into a kasha and drag it away,

945
00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 2: you know, and you know, it may its tail may split,

946
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 2: and all the other motifs that we've discussed. But something

947
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 2: about being near the dead body, or drinking blood of

948
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:17,799
Speaker 2: the dead, or you know, licking the body of the

949
00:53:17,880 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 2: dead as something of this nature will cause this transformation. Now,

950
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:25,759
Speaker 2: in the last episode, we mentioned that stories concerning the

951
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:30,920
Speaker 2: bacan eco in the dead, how these were were probably

952
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:36,160
Speaker 2: linked on various levels to observations of post mortem predation

953
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:40,160
Speaker 2: of human corpses by cats. Now it's not just cats,

954
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:42,520
Speaker 2: Dogs and other pets have also been observed to do this,

955
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:45,040
Speaker 2: to have a little to eat off of a dead

956
00:53:45,120 --> 00:53:51,040
Speaker 2: human body. Apparently dogs wait a while and are a

957
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:53,880
Speaker 2: little more concerned about it in regards to cats. I

958
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:56,839
Speaker 2: think cats do it. I didn't look up any hard

959
00:53:57,239 --> 00:54:02,239
Speaker 2: data on this, but Davidson ALUs to this. But at

960
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 2: any rate, cats will get in there and have a

961
00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:05,120
Speaker 2: little to eat off of the dead.

962
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 3: One of the probably disturbing realities to humans coming on

963
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 3: the scene is that I've read when this happens, the animals,

964
00:54:11,719 --> 00:54:14,200
Speaker 3: including cats, often go for the face first.

965
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:20,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not personal, it's just nature. Cats are meteors.

966
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 2: But this is a case where the Kasha legend seems

967
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:26,239
Speaker 2: to be linked to these observations as well. So you

968
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:29,440
Speaker 2: get this idea that, like, look, keep the cats away

969
00:54:29,480 --> 00:54:32,760
Speaker 2: from the dead, or they will interfere with them, which

970
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:36,960
Speaker 2: on one level is yes, absolutely true. They will. They

971
00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:40,520
Speaker 2: will probably have a little bite, they will investigate the meat.

972
00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:46,960
Speaker 2: And you can imagine how this takes on fantastic exaggerated proportions,

973
00:54:46,960 --> 00:54:48,719
Speaker 2: the idea that the cat is not just going to

974
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:51,439
Speaker 2: eat of the dead. The cat may do something more

975
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:55,000
Speaker 2: directly that impacts the soul of the deceased. They may

976
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:57,440
Speaker 2: drag them to hell, they may take on the form

977
00:54:57,520 --> 00:55:00,600
Speaker 2: of the deceased, or as pops up in story concerning

978
00:55:00,640 --> 00:55:03,759
Speaker 2: both the Kasha and the Nikomata, they may leap over

979
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:07,560
Speaker 2: the body, and in doing so they kind of unleash

980
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:11,120
Speaker 2: invisible strings that then reanimate the dead.

981
00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:15,200
Speaker 3: They raise the dead through invisible strings. Wow, I love that.

982
00:55:15,960 --> 00:55:19,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So here we have a very uh you know,

983
00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:22,839
Speaker 2: necromantic view of the powers of the cat, you know,

984
00:55:23,440 --> 00:55:26,680
Speaker 2: and uh and it and again it's it's fascinating because yes,

985
00:55:26,719 --> 00:55:28,799
Speaker 2: it is fantastic, and it ties into all these other

986
00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:32,120
Speaker 2: ideas in the given culture here, but also a lot

987
00:55:32,160 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 2: of it is vested in just our experiences of living

988
00:55:36,680 --> 00:55:40,600
Speaker 2: with cats. That cats do seem to have this this secrecy,

989
00:55:40,680 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 2: this neutrality, and they do things at times that seem

990
00:55:44,200 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 2: to imply some some darker agenda, some some hidden system

991
00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:52,440
Speaker 2: of rules and laws that govern their behavior, you know,

992
00:55:52,520 --> 00:55:54,240
Speaker 2: either in this world or the next.

993
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 3: Uh.

994
00:55:55,120 --> 00:55:58,799
Speaker 2: They're they're, they're they're constantly fascinating and constantly forcing us

995
00:55:58,800 --> 00:56:01,440
Speaker 2: to wonder, like, what are they up to? What are

996
00:56:01,520 --> 00:56:03,680
Speaker 2: they on about? What's their whole deal?

997
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 3: Well, Rob, I have greatly enjoyed this exploration of the

998
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:10,240
Speaker 3: various magical cat morphs and altered cats of Japan.

999
00:56:11,120 --> 00:56:12,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. And next week

1000
00:56:12,920 --> 00:56:15,720
Speaker 2: we'll have an all new exploration for the Halloween season.

1001
00:56:16,280 --> 00:56:18,319
Speaker 2: I don't think we've entirely decided what it is yet,

1002
00:56:18,360 --> 00:56:22,439
Speaker 2: but it'll be awesome. Trust us now. On another note,

1003
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 2: I mentioned social media earlier. Go check out our various

1004
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:29,080
Speaker 2: social media presences if you haven't had a chance, because

1005
00:56:29,280 --> 00:56:31,359
Speaker 2: they're all back up and running. You can find them

1006
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:33,360
Speaker 2: all linked on stuff to Blow Yourmind dot com. We

1007
00:56:33,440 --> 00:56:37,239
Speaker 2: are STBYM podcast on Instagram. If you use any of

1008
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:39,399
Speaker 2: these things, go check them out. If you don't use

1009
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:41,480
Speaker 2: any of these things, hey, don't go sign up for

1010
00:56:41,560 --> 00:56:43,800
Speaker 2: them because we said we were using them.

1011
00:56:44,920 --> 00:56:47,479
Speaker 3: It's not worth it. But if you're already there.

1012
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:49,239
Speaker 2: If you're already there, it's a way to keep up

1013
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:51,960
Speaker 2: with what we're doing on the show. You may notice

1014
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:54,239
Speaker 2: that we have some new host photos. You can see

1015
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:58,520
Speaker 2: new photos of Joe and myself. These were taken at

1016
00:56:58,600 --> 00:57:02,440
Speaker 2: the Museum of Illusion Atlanta. I did delightful and educational

1017
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:07,800
Speaker 2: attraction located in Atlantic Station here in Atlanta. This facility

1018
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:12,240
Speaker 2: features a whole host of visual illusions, including illusion rooms

1019
00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:15,279
Speaker 2: you can walk into and interact with. They also have

1020
00:57:15,800 --> 00:57:18,120
Speaker 2: cameras there and also you can bring in your own devices,

1021
00:57:18,160 --> 00:57:23,160
Speaker 2: take your own selfies, and enjoy all sorts of strange illusions,

1022
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:27,600
Speaker 2: mirror unreal reflections that sort of thing, Joe. We had

1023
00:57:27,640 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 2: a really good time looking into various infinity mirrors. There's

1024
00:57:31,360 --> 00:57:34,200
Speaker 2: even an upside down room. You remember this one.

1025
00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:38,280
Speaker 3: Yes, I really enjoyed the hatch that goes down forever.

1026
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:41,360
Speaker 3: It gave me evocations of the House of Leaves.

1027
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:44,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that was a really fun one. We tried

1028
00:57:44,160 --> 00:57:46,320
Speaker 2: to get some photo We got a few photos there,

1029
00:57:46,720 --> 00:57:49,440
Speaker 2: but it was really hard to capture that infinity feeling.

1030
00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:52,400
Speaker 2: But yeah, Museum of Illusions Atlanta, it's fun for all ages.

1031
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 2: You can learn more about it at MOI Atlanta dot com.

1032
00:57:56,480 --> 00:57:59,080
Speaker 2: Oh and while we're at it, Hey, it's Halloween season.

1033
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:02,480
Speaker 2: We have a new logo design for the Halloween season.

1034
00:58:02,520 --> 00:58:04,120
Speaker 2: You can get it on various merch if you go

1035
00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:05,800
Speaker 2: to our merch store, go to stuff to Blow Yourmind

1036
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:08,640
Speaker 2: dot com and click the store tab. You can also

1037
00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:11,560
Speaker 2: find images of this on our various social media accounts.

1038
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:13,600
Speaker 2: But it's the Stuff to Blow your Mind logo but

1039
00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:17,080
Speaker 2: with some various occult images added to it, and you

1040
00:58:17,120 --> 00:58:18,840
Speaker 2: can get that on any shirt color.

1041
00:58:19,400 --> 00:58:20,840
Speaker 3: Get one in time for Halloween.

1042
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:24,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, get a sticker, get of whatever else they make.

1043
00:58:24,840 --> 00:58:27,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you want one, don't let us pressure you.

1044
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:31,480
Speaker 2: Come on it's there for fun. It's there for fun.

1045
00:58:31,480 --> 00:58:34,360
Speaker 3: If you want, how do you say, well, what's the

1046
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:37,400
Speaker 3: most non coercive way to encourage people to buy? Go buy,

1047
00:58:37,560 --> 00:58:39,160
Speaker 3: but you don't have to but go buy.

1048
00:58:39,600 --> 00:58:44,040
Speaker 2: We made something that we think is fun, but it's

1049
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:44,920
Speaker 2: totally optional.

1050
00:58:45,080 --> 00:58:45,960
Speaker 3: It's not required.

1051
00:58:47,760 --> 00:58:49,760
Speaker 2: In the meantime. Hey, if you want to check out

1052
00:58:49,800 --> 00:58:51,360
Speaker 2: other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you know

1053
00:58:51,400 --> 00:58:53,920
Speaker 2: where to find us anywhere you get your podcasts. On

1054
00:58:53,960 --> 00:58:57,800
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays we have a core episode. On Mondays,

1055
00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:00,120
Speaker 2: we do listener mail. On Wednesdays we usually do a

1056
00:59:00,160 --> 00:59:02,480
Speaker 2: short form artifact or a monster Fact episode. There will

1057
00:59:02,480 --> 00:59:04,720
Speaker 2: be a Monster Fact episode next week, and then on

1058
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:07,040
Speaker 2: Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk

1059
00:59:07,040 --> 00:59:09,040
Speaker 2: about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

1060
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:12,960
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1061
00:59:13,120 --> 00:59:14,800
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1062
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:17,280
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1063
00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:19,479
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1064
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:22,600
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1065
00:59:22,640 --> 00:59:31,600
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

1066
00:59:31,680 --> 00:59:34,640
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1067
00:59:34,720 --> 00:59:37,520
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio, app,

1068
00:59:37,680 --> 00:59:54,800
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.