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Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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

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Speaker 1: The vault hangs open and we journey inside. But this

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Speaker 1: time is it so much a vault or is it

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Speaker 1: more a crypt? Is it a burial vault full of

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Speaker 1: grave flesh? Well, you know how the Google's operate, Joe.

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Speaker 1: The ghouls are always a tunneling between one subdraine in

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Speaker 1: structure in the next. So they might have began in

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Speaker 1: the catacombs, they might have began in a tomb, but

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Speaker 1: they ended up burrowing their way into the Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind Vault at some point, and now they

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Speaker 1: pretty much have the run of the place. This episode

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Speaker 1: was originally published on October. It was an October classic

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Speaker 1: from a few years ago. So we hope you enjoy

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Speaker 1: our exploration of the ghoul. Welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. A man

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Speaker 1: he had known in Boston, a painter of strange pictures

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Speaker 1: with a secret studio and an ancient and unhallowed alley

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Speaker 1: near a graveyard, had actually made friends with the ghouls

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Speaker 1: and had taught him to understand the simpler part of

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Speaker 1: their disgusting meeping and glibbering for all their laughter, ghouls

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Speaker 1: or a dull lock. Hunger is the fire in which

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Speaker 1: they burn, and it burns hotter than the hunger for

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Speaker 1: power over men or for knowledge of the gods, and

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Speaker 1: a craze mortal. It vaporizes delicacy and leaves behind only

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Speaker 1: a slag of anger and lust. Hey, welcome to stuff

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Speaker 1: to bow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. And those were two quick readings, the

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Speaker 1: first from HP Lovecrafts The dream Quest of Unknown Cat

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Speaker 1: and the second from Brian McNaughton's The Throne of Bones

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Speaker 1: Um available via Wildside Press. And that, by the way,

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Speaker 1: is not only one of my favorite publications that deal

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Speaker 1: with Google's it's probably one of my favorite books of

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Speaker 1: all time. Now do you love it more than the

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Speaker 1: D and D Monster Manual? Well, the two different types

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Speaker 1: of reeds there, I mean, I do love the Monster

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Speaker 1: Manual for my sort of catalog oriented monster consideration. And indeed,

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Speaker 1: guls have have long had a cherished role in the

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Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons setting. So what is throwing of Bones about?

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Speaker 1: Throwing of bones is a it's a collection of short

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Speaker 1: stories in one central novella set in a dark fantasy

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Speaker 1: setting that's vaguely Roman, vaguely tolkien Esque, I guess. But

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Speaker 1: but what has more in common with the works of

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Speaker 1: say Clark, Ashton Smith and some of the weird dark

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Speaker 1: fantasy writers of an earlier time. Oh, I should get

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Speaker 1: into that, because I've recently discovered that I really dig

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Speaker 1: Roman themes in in dark literature, because on your and

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Speaker 1: Christians recommendation, I read The Great God Pan, which has

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Speaker 1: that that fantastic reference to the statues from ancient Rome

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Speaker 1: of the you know, the horrific visage of the goat,

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Speaker 1: the old goat skin. Yeah. Well, one of the things

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Speaker 1: I love about McNaughton's work is that he brings this

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Speaker 1: dark seriousness of weird fiction and horror into his writing.

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Speaker 1: But there's also this gallows humor. There's this uh, especially

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Speaker 1: prominent with the ghouls, because the ghoul is this creature

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Speaker 1: that in It's in the versions that I like the most.

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Speaker 1: They're they're gross, they're evil, they're sly, but they're also

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Speaker 1: a little mischievous. They also have this weird, black sense

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Speaker 1: of humor about them. Uh, And I feel like mcnalton.

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Speaker 1: It really brings that to life. Well, if you haven't

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Speaker 1: figured it out by now, we're going to be talking

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Speaker 1: about ghoules today, and sadly, I think this is going

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Speaker 1: to have to be our final oct Ober podcast. It

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Speaker 1: has been a great run this month of monsters and

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Speaker 1: demons and madness. You're gonna have to sober up in

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Speaker 1: the next episode a little bit and get back on

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Speaker 1: track for the holidays. But yeah, it's been a fun right, Okay,

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Speaker 1: So Google's I think these days, when the average person

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Speaker 1: is presented with the concept of a Google, what kind

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Speaker 1: of descriptive features are you're going to get? I would

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Speaker 1: say they'd be very generic. I mean, what is a

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Speaker 1: ghoul to us today? It's just some kind of vaguely

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Speaker 1: monstrous creature. In fact, you could even think of Google

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Speaker 1: as a broader term into which other monsters fit, like

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Speaker 1: the vampire is a type of Google. Well, the word

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Speaker 1: is used that way a lot. I have to admit

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Speaker 1: that I have to bite my tongue to keep from

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Speaker 1: correcting people when someone refers to a non Google as

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Speaker 1: a Google. I want to say, no, that's that's technically

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Speaker 1: not a Google. That is just a ghost that is

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Speaker 1: somebody in a vampire costume. A google is a specific

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Speaker 1: thing and you have to use the um appropriately. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well I brought that up specifically to provoke you. So Robert,

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Speaker 1: come on, tell me, what is a ghoul really? All right?

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Speaker 1: So it's gonna it's gonna vary, and we're gonna get

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Speaker 1: it before we end up at discussing actual science behind

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Speaker 1: the google. So yes, that is coming in the second half.

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Speaker 1: We're going to discuss the ancient roots and sort of

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Speaker 1: the modern fictional roots. But in most cases, you're looking

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Speaker 1: at this creature that might be unliving or maybe it's

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Speaker 1: just living on the margins of what we think of

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Speaker 1: as as an actual appropriate member of the natural world.

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Speaker 1: It's very much the monster as outsider, a motif very

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Speaker 1: much so. Yeah, making its home graveyards and places of

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Speaker 1: of of loss and death, and it feasts upon human remains.

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Speaker 1: So it is essentially a cannibalistic scavenger and scavenger in

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Speaker 1: the true sense, and that it's sort of dwells at

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Speaker 1: the edges of the camp. You know, you have civilization

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Speaker 1: as the encampment where our activity dwells. You don't find

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Speaker 1: the ghoul in the mid of the city, you find

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Speaker 1: the goal trailing behind you, feasting on what you leave behind. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think in some cases you have Googles that are

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Speaker 1: following armies. I always love that motif and would love

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Speaker 1: to see that that that used more, especially in the

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Speaker 1: fantasy settings. You have some some sort of army going

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Speaker 1: out to fight a battle. If they always do well,

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Speaker 1: then surely there are camp followers and there are Googles

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Speaker 1: right behind them. Yeah, the other type of camp follower.

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Speaker 1: But based on what we've said so far, it should

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Speaker 1: be clear that the concept of the goal has not

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Speaker 1: remained static over time. I mean it's not even fully unified. Today.

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Speaker 1: You've got this generic goal and then you've got Robert's

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Speaker 1: very specific goal. How has the ghoul changed over time?

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Speaker 1: And where did the idea originally come from? All right, well,

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Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginnings then, if not the

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Speaker 1: beginning of the universe, because we have to look at

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Speaker 1: pre Islamic Arabic mythology. This mythology is so cool and

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Speaker 1: I was so delighted to read it, so our main

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Speaker 1: sore son. This is a paper by Ahmed al Rawi

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Speaker 1: called the Mythical Ghoul and Arabic Culture and this was

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Speaker 1: a really fun read. Yes it was. This was one

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Speaker 1: of my key sources on the how stuff Works article

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Speaker 1: How ghoules work. Um, yeah, and he gets into the

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Speaker 1: you know, just the original root of the word word

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Speaker 1: for starters, which is from the Arabic ghoule or g

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Speaker 1: h u l that may stem from Galu, which is

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Speaker 1: the name of an ancient demon correct and the galou

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Speaker 1: played a role in some of their their key literature

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Speaker 1: and mythology, one of them being the death and rebirth

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Speaker 1: mythology of the god Demuzi or the Demuzi is sort

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Speaker 1: of equal to Tamus, which is another god of the

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Speaker 1: ancient Middle East. But the death and rebirth mythology corresponds

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Speaker 1: to the growth and harvest cycle of food crops. So

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Speaker 1: there you can see another one of the ways that

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Speaker 1: that our mythology ties into our way of life, the

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Speaker 1: way we make a living in our and our basic

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Speaker 1: material concerns informed the stories we tell about, you know,

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Speaker 1: the creation of the world and the behavior of the gods.

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Speaker 1: And and there you've got just like the crops die

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Speaker 1: every year and then are reborn later in the next

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Speaker 1: season or regrow out of you know, the dead fields

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Speaker 1: of the previous harvest. You've got the god Demuzi or Tamuse,

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Speaker 1: who's a vegetation god, who is abducted and taken down

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Speaker 1: into the realm of death. And who is the abductor

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Speaker 1: of Demuzi or Tamus. It's the Galu, the demon right.

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Speaker 1: And this is fascinating too, because we see the google

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Speaker 1: tied into some of our our earliest and most powerful

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Speaker 1: myths concerning the flow of the seasons. Totally. Yeah, But

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Speaker 1: following its role in the official mythology of of ancient

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Speaker 1: Babylon and ancient Mesopotamia, you have this idea of the

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Speaker 1: ghoule emerging as more of a ground level folklore creature.

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Speaker 1: You know that that it's mentioned all in all of

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Speaker 1: the standard mythology and folk tales and superstitions of the

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Speaker 1: average person living in ther be In Peninsula, and Arabic

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Speaker 1: scholars have actually documented the way in which this monster

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Speaker 1: emerged in the thinking of the people. Yeah, Arabic scholars

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Speaker 1: of the eighth, ninth, and ten centuries, they compiled various

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Speaker 1: Bedouin folk tales involving the Gooules, and many of these

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Speaker 1: found their way into the collection The Thousand and One

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Speaker 1: Nights and This is key because translations of this book

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Speaker 1: of course traveled to Europe in the eighteenth century, as

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Speaker 1: did the notion with the ghoul, and this is where,

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Speaker 1: as we'll get into later, we see the google emerge

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Speaker 1: in Western culture and in the in eventually in fictional

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Speaker 1: creations of the late eighteenth century and most importantly the

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Speaker 1: nineteentie century. Yeah, so I get the feeling it's more

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Speaker 1: the European grave ghoul that ends up becoming the D

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Speaker 1: and D monster. Yes, um, though you do see at times,

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Speaker 1: say the modern motifs kind of reaching back into into

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Speaker 1: Arabic folklore for for some additional depth. Yeah. I here

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Speaker 1: we should mention a couple of these pre Islamic ghoul

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Speaker 1: accounts because they are fascinating. So one of the stories

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Speaker 1: that al Rawi tells in his paper is that it's

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Speaker 1: recounted according to the scholar al Masudi, and he writes

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Speaker 1: the following. Arabs before Islam believed that when God created

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Speaker 1: genies from the gusts of fire, he made from this

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Speaker 1: type of fire their female part, but one of their

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Speaker 1: eggs was split into hince the kutrube, which looked like

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Speaker 1: a cat, was created. As for the devils. They came

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Speaker 1: from another egg and settled in the seas. Other evil

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Speaker 1: creatures such as the marid inhabited the islands, The ghoul

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Speaker 1: resided in the wilderness, and the siloi dwelt in the

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Speaker 1: lavatories and waste areas, and the hamma lived in the

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Speaker 1: air in the form of a flying snake. So these

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Speaker 1: are some awesome monsters that are being described here. I

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Speaker 1: love the idea of a lavatory and waste area monster

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Speaker 1: because that's again it's a it's a wonderful place for

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Speaker 1: a haunting. That's a wonderful borderland. Right. Well, it's a

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Speaker 1: place where you're vulnerable and usually where you're isolated, right

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Speaker 1: where do you have to go off by yourself? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's where you might encounter the supernatural. Um. But then,

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Speaker 1: of course there is another source that says that quote.

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Speaker 1: The devils wanted to eaves drop on heaven, so God

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Speaker 1: threw meteors at them, whereupon some were burnt, fell into

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Speaker 1: the sea and later turned into crocodiles, while others dropped

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Speaker 1: onto the ground and changed into ghouls. So there you've

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Speaker 1: got a ghoule origin and a crocodile origin at the

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Speaker 1: same time. They're essentially siblings um and plenty of the

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Speaker 1: other stories also depict the ghoul as a shape shifter

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Speaker 1: that's able to disguise its appearance. Uh. This appears to

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Speaker 1: be a common feature. Other common features are that the

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Speaker 1: traditional Arabic ghoul is often female in appearance. And I

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Speaker 1: thought this was interesting. It can be killed with a

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Speaker 1: good chopped from a sword. And if I'm reading this right,

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Speaker 1: it sort of makes it different from the vampire, the werewolf,

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Speaker 1: and these other monsters which can often only be killed

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Speaker 1: through magically appropriate means, like you have to have the

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Speaker 1: you know, the one magic bullet that is known to

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Speaker 1: kill the monster, as to the silver or holy water

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Speaker 1: steaked through the heart or or whatever it is for

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Speaker 1: that monster. Individually, the ghoul can be killed by violence,

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Speaker 1: but it does have to be a very mighty and

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Speaker 1: strategic form of violence because an interesting development on the

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Speaker 1: myth is that, according to some versions, the ghoul would

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Speaker 1: only die if you hit it with one mighty blow

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Speaker 1: with a sword, because if you hit it more than once,

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Speaker 1: then you would have to hit it a thousand times

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Speaker 1: more before it would die. Yeah, that's so you had

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Speaker 1: to time your one strike, you know, you had to

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Speaker 1: get the one really good one in well, that could

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Speaker 1: I could see that making sense In terms of the creature.

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Speaker 1: You sort of have to get that surprise is hit in.

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Speaker 1: You've got to get that. To put in D n

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Speaker 1: D terms, you have to get that that that surprise

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Speaker 1: attack bonus, right, and if you don't, then you're gonna

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Speaker 1: have to apply a lot of smaller attacks to win.

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Speaker 1: I've also read and this would of course be post

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Speaker 1: Islamic interpretations, but in these interpretations you could also at

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Speaker 1: least drive a Google away with readings from the Koran. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that definitely comes up later where you can use the

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Speaker 1: holy or spiritual power of of a of a good

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Speaker 1: spiritual force by like saying the name of Allah or

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Speaker 1: by quoting from the Koran, and that will tend to

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Speaker 1: drive it into remission. Essentially, it will say, no, why

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Speaker 1: do you do this to me? But you can also

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Speaker 1: whack it with the sword as long as you whack

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Speaker 1: it really good. Just once. Now, speaking of Islamic traditions,

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Speaker 1: you're probably wondering, what did Mohammed have to say about Google's. Well,

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Speaker 1: Mohammed's words on the existence of Google's vary depending on

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Speaker 1: which text you read. So the Koran does not mention

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Speaker 1: them at all. That's important to stress here. Karan does

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Speaker 1: mention gin but not not ghoules. Yes, but contested references

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Speaker 1: do pop up in the head Eat that's a book

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Speaker 1: of Mohammed's attributed acts and sayings. Yeah, so they're they're

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Speaker 1: definitely conflicting bits of scholarship about what Mohammed had to

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Speaker 1: say about ghoules. If anything, but to quote, I'll RAWI

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Speaker 1: again on the people who do say that the prophet

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Speaker 1: had something to say about ghouls. What he said was quote,

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Speaker 1: Ghouls are the demons or enchantresses of genies that hurt

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Speaker 1: human beings by eating or spoiling their food, or by

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Speaker 1: frightening travelers when they're in the wilderness, and in order

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Speaker 1: to avoid their harm, one can recite a verse from

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Speaker 1: the Holy Koran or call for prayer, since they hate

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Speaker 1: any reference to God. And that first part mentioned something

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Speaker 1: about the wilderness. This is something that pops up again

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Speaker 1: and again in the literature about the about the ghouls.

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Speaker 1: That you know these ancient ghoul folk tales is you

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Speaker 1: don't expect to encounter them in the middle of civilization.

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Speaker 1: There you counter them on the road in the wilderness.

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Speaker 1: Between places they're in that intermediary world. I like to

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Speaker 1: how this mentions um eating and spoiling of food. It's

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Speaker 1: tied uh inherently to our survival via consumption of food

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Speaker 1: and the potential violation of that food, and and and

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Speaker 1: just into general um ideas of purity and cleanliness in

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Speaker 1: our food. Yeah, well, I mean, you certainly don't want

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Speaker 1: something that eats corpse flesh getting into your pantry, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're just going to tear it out in there, obviously.

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Speaker 1: But you may have noticed that so far there hasn't

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Speaker 1: been a whole lot, if anything, about the eating of

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Speaker 1: corpse flesh. That's right, And that's something that we'll get

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Speaker 1: into in a bit now. In some accounts, Mohammed dismisses

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Speaker 1: ghouls as completely non existent. In others, he gives advice

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Speaker 1: on banishing them. His companion, though, abou Asada al Sadi,

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Speaker 1: takes a more balanced approach, and he states that ghoules

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Speaker 1: lived in the pre Islamic past, but that Allah no

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Speaker 1: longer permits them to exist. Meanwhile, there's also a legend

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Speaker 1: that umar have been I'll caught him. Another of Mohammed's

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Speaker 1: companions put a google to the sword on the road

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Speaker 1: to Syria. Yeah, this was great. So the story goes

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Speaker 1: a female ghoul stops him on the road and asks

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Speaker 1: him where are you going, and Umar says it is

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Speaker 1: none of her business, and then she does the move

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Speaker 1: from the Exorcist where she turns her head all the

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Speaker 1: way around. That's really part of the story. It said that. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and then he splits her down the middle with the sword. Alright,

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Speaker 1: so single I'm guessing single blow there, right, he does it, right,

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Speaker 1: he hits her with the one blow. But then later

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Speaker 1: he comes back and the body is gone. So either

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Speaker 1: she survived or the other googles came and took her

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Speaker 1: body away, or more some sort of magical disappearance. Yeah. So,

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Speaker 1: so if we consider the google that eats human flesh

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Speaker 1: a kind of perversion of the idea of corpse cannibalism,

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Speaker 1: what is the ghoul that eats ghoul flesh? It's like

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Speaker 1: meta cannibalism. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and it's only ties

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Speaker 1: in with with how we see scavengers behave towards their

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Speaker 1: own sometimes. And that's that's key here, because although ghouls

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Speaker 1: were sometimes associated with scavenging hyenas in a in Arabic test,

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Speaker 1: they really don't have this grave ghoul association where they're

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Speaker 1: going to come and take your dead loved ones from

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Speaker 1: the graveyard after the funeral and eat their corpses. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: This particular detail, according to al Rawi, seems to emerge

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Speaker 1: from Anton Galan's French translation of The Thousand and One

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Speaker 1: Nights in the early eighteenth century. So not only did

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Speaker 1: Ghalan take liberties in his translation, he even introduced and

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Speaker 1: allegedly created a female character named Amina who prefers the

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Speaker 1: company of graveyard ghouls to that of her new husband. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this and you can see this definitely appealing to

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Speaker 1: some of the Gothics andsibilities of the time in Europe. Right,

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Speaker 1: But this inaccurate translation was hugely influential in the Western

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Speaker 1: world and and in you know, informing their the Western

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Speaker 1: worlds understanding of the Middle East, so inspiring the work

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Speaker 1: of William Beckford, the eighteenth century author of the Arabian

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Speaker 1: theme novel thatfic, and the folkloric studies of of another

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Speaker 1: individual named Sabine Baring Gould. So we see. So that's interesting,

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Speaker 1: and you have this rich tradition of ghouls within in

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Speaker 1: Arabic traditions. Just some wonderful details. They're already a fabulous creature,

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Speaker 1: but then it gets tweaked a little bit, either in

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Speaker 1: you know, mistranslation or creative embellishment of the myth as

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Speaker 1: it translates into European um fiction and folklore and European

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Speaker 1: understandings of the Middle East. Yeah, it's fascinating, this evolution

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Speaker 1: of the ghoul meme, because if you trace the ancient

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Speaker 1: pre Islamic Arabic ghoul up through the way the grave

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Speaker 1: ghoul comes to be understood in European culture. What's the

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Speaker 1: common thread there? I mean, you've seen the evolution basically

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Speaker 1: of a word, the word ghoul, But is there a

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Speaker 1: common themeat dick element that remains the same throughout it

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Speaker 1: despite just general monstrousness or malevolence. Yeah, I think it works.

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Speaker 1: Like I feel like that the google as we have

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Speaker 1: seen it and discussed it in in pre European traditions.

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Speaker 1: I feel like it's able to take on the mantle

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Speaker 1: of of corpse eating rather rather honestly like it adds

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Speaker 1: another dimension to it and certainly tweaks it in a

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Speaker 1: new direction, but not in a direction that feels out

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Speaker 1: of character with its origins. Okay, I can accept that. Now,

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Speaker 1: if we look elsewhere in the world, do we find

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Speaker 1: myths of creatures that are similar to the ghoul we do? Uh? Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's definitely worth noting that even if the original Arabic

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Speaker 1: ghouls didn't eat corpses, they have peers in Asian folk

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Speaker 1: tales that do so. In the Tamil mythology of India,

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Speaker 1: they have the shaggy haired creatures known as the pay

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Speaker 1: who sought out human battle so as to lap blood

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Speaker 1: from the open women of the dying um. Still, other

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Speaker 1: ghoules emerge in the eighth century. In the eighth century

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Speaker 1: Tibetan Book of the Dead, which details the Buddhist journey

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Speaker 1: through death and into the realms beyond death, the reincarnation um. Here,

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Speaker 1: in the dream like state known as Bardo, the departed

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Speaker 1: soul encounters that the the Pisach ghouls, and these are

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Speaker 1: fierce female beings with be steel heads and an appetite

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Speaker 1: for bones and viscera. That's interesting. Now, another thing that

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Speaker 1: we see commonly here is that in these early visions,

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Speaker 1: the ghouls are very often female like, explicitly described as

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Speaker 1: female and appearance, whereas the ghouls that I think we

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Speaker 1: think of today tend to be either sort of um

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Speaker 1: androgyni is tending towards masculine or or fully male. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think there is a definite tendency to to generate

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Speaker 1: a masculine idea of the ghoule in Western culture, though

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Speaker 1: though some of my favorite books on the matter have

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Speaker 1: definitely have female googles. Now. In the conclusion of his

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Speaker 1: article uh al Rawi, he says that the ghoules may

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Speaker 1: have been inspired just by you know, things that people

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Speaker 1: actually did encounter in reality, like people with various birth defects. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: particularly things like cleft pal at cleft lip, distortions of

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Speaker 1: the mouth, and facial features you know, which sadly do

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Speaker 1: um can and do interfere in our interpretation of of

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Speaker 1: of an individual substance. Yeah. I think this is a

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Speaker 1: common feature you see in the origins of monster legends.

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Speaker 1: This is often hypothesized that we would just see someone

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Speaker 1: that uh that had you know, some kind of atypical

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Speaker 1: way of looking, and that we would interpret that as well,

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Speaker 1: you know, this person is cursed or evil or there

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Speaker 1: there's something wrong with them. They didn't have the light

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Speaker 1: of modern medical science to just say no, they're a

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Speaker 1: person like anybody else. Yeah, very much in keeping with

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Speaker 1: the change link to editions that you find in Europe,

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Speaker 1: right that surely that this year your actual child was

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Speaker 1: taken away by fairies and this is the goblin that's

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Speaker 1: left in in its place. YEA. Now, on top of that,

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Speaker 1: Victorian adventure and Middle Eastern scholar and just all around

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Speaker 1: fascinating individual. Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton. Uh. He explained

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Speaker 1: the Arabic ghoule as a mythical creature that embodies human

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Speaker 1: fears and tampoos concerning graveyards check, desert wastes check and

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Speaker 1: cannibalism and specifically survival cannibalism. If we're to tie it

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Speaker 1: into other mid cycles that such as the Wind to Go,

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Speaker 1: that did definitely have such a strong resonant place in

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Speaker 1: uh in the Native peoples of North America, because it's

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Speaker 1: tied with that fear of survival cannibalism as an a

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Speaker 1: as a possible necessity during harsh winters. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can see a very strong sort of theme emerging,

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Speaker 1: which is that all of these disparate things are sort

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Speaker 1: of united by the sense that they're playing on fears

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Speaker 1: of the periphery, the edges, the outside, and the taboo,

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Speaker 1: as as many monsters do. Yes, So, as previously mentioned,

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Speaker 1: thousand and one Night serves as this cultural bridge, and

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a slightly distorted cultural bridge by which

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Speaker 1: Middle Eastern ghoules migrate into Western fictional traditions. And in

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Speaker 1: addition to the above examples, in the original Arabic text,

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Speaker 1: the ghouls of thousand and one Nights are also vile

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Speaker 1: tricksters and depending on again those translations, they may be

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Speaker 1: flesh eaters. They kidnapped victims, They lure lustful me into

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Speaker 1: their doom by taking on the guys of beautiful women.

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Speaker 1: Again that shape shifting motif. Yeah, that's a common thing

402
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Speaker 1: you see in the Arabic stories, is that there's a

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Speaker 1: like a female ghoul hanging out by the road and

404
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Speaker 1: calling men to come over and see her. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: over come over and see me sometime and desert wells.

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Speaker 1: And of course that's a wonderful uh, a classic monster

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Speaker 1: troupe that we continue to play with today. Um. But

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Speaker 1: then of course also sometimes they break into your storerooms

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Speaker 1: and they much on your dates. I think that's what

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Speaker 1: Mohammed was mentioning. Yeah, but Some of the key early adapters,

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Speaker 1: if you will, to Goulden were po Lord Byron and

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Speaker 1: hands Christian Andersen. Yeah, they all made mention of ghouls

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Speaker 1: um in the in the nineteenth century and their writings.

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Speaker 1: What what did Hans Christian Andersen write about ghouls um?

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Speaker 1: I think it's just in one particular story, and I

416
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Speaker 1: don't think they play a huge role, but they pop

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Speaker 1: up like clearly they were, you know, one of the

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Speaker 1: many magical creatures. He was too, and they're just in

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Speaker 1: the mix there in the cultural mi asthma. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So they end up picking him up, playing with him

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Speaker 1: to a certain degree, and then you have a new

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Speaker 1: generation come along in the twentieth century Lovecraft, of course,

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Speaker 1: HP Lovecraft, who we've mentioned other weird fiction authors of

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Speaker 1: the day, including Clark Ashton Smith who wrote some wonderful

425
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:02,159
Speaker 1: ghoul stories. They continue to cultivate gould them in a

426
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:05,880
Speaker 1: new dark form, tying it in with some of the

427
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 1: the dark weird motifs that are a part of weird fiction. Uh,

428
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: particularly in lovecraft case. You have Pigman's model, Ah, yeah,

429
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 1: which you read correct. Yeah, yeah. Robert told me before

430
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:19,160
Speaker 1: this episode that I should read Pickman's model and I did.

431
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:21,679
Speaker 1: It was very interesting, and it's also one of the

432
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:23,719
Speaker 1: interesting things about it to me is that it is

433
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:27,400
Speaker 1: different from all these other stories that where we've been

434
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 1: saying that the ghoul is sort of on the periphery,

435
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 1: as a scavenger on the outside, trailing behind the camp

436
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,359
Speaker 1: or whatever. In this story, the ghoul emerges as a

437
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:40,160
Speaker 1: feature of a sort of shadowy meta city, a shadowy

438
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 1: city within a city that there's a part of the

439
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 1: city that the narrator is taken to by Pickman, who's

440
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,920
Speaker 1: this creepy artist who draws creepy things or I guess

441
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 1: paints creepy things, and they go to his house in

442
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,680
Speaker 1: this bizarre part of the city where suddenly there are

443
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 1: tunnels going back to seemingly maybe back in time to

444
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 1: Salem and witchcraft and monstrous things maybe emerging from them,

445
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 1: and it's right there in the heart of Boston in

446
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:09,400
Speaker 1: that story, right, Yeah, it is. There's very much this

447
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: feeling that the ghoul kind of resides in the city's

448
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 1: history as well as in its architectural history. So there's

449
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:20,960
Speaker 1: a there's a sense that the bodies that the ghoules

450
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,440
Speaker 1: feed on, or not even current graves they're they're kind

451
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: of feasting on the past. So Pigman's model is a

452
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 1: key work in the Western ghoul and we see here

453
00:26:31,800 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: that it really gets its clause into our our horror literature. Yeah,

454
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:40,639
Speaker 1: there are several key scenes describing well describing paintings of

455
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:45,959
Speaker 1: ghouls eating the dead flesh of human beings and uh.

456
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 1: And from here this spreads that Lovecraft of Courses is

457
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:53,439
Speaker 1: hugely influential, and so his idea of Gouldham spreads into

458
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 1: various works of fantasy and dark fantasy. Again Clark, Ashton Smith,

459
00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:00,640
Speaker 1: Brian McNaughton, Neil Gaiman. More recently, do you even see

460
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,800
Speaker 1: ghouls show up in the Harry Potter series, though not

461
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:07,159
Speaker 1: that convincingly. Now, if we're gonna go with the D

462
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:09,880
Speaker 1: and D model, what would you what type of creature

463
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 1: would you say, Lord Voldemort is Is Is he more

464
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,520
Speaker 1: of a Lich or he's kind of got some ghoul features? Right? Then?

465
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:19,199
Speaker 1: He I feel like he's a he's a variation on

466
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 1: the Lich, you know, like what with the whole of

467
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:26,160
Speaker 1: storing of the soul and the various hor cruxes. Yeah,

468
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 1: but he has a ghoulish appearance for sure. Yeah. Now

469
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: I was curious. I didn't have time to look this

470
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 1: up before we recorded, but I just had the thought, Um,

471
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 1: what about the nasgool in Tolkien? Do you think that

472
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:41,640
Speaker 1: the ghoul in Nascol meaning the nasgoul or the ring

473
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 1: wraiths in Lord of the Rings and these evil spirits

474
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:48,439
Speaker 1: who are obsessed with with finding the Ring of Power

475
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 1: and they want to grab it and bring it back

476
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 1: to their master. Uh. And and I believe the word

477
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: nasgoul means ring wraith, and so the ghoul there being

478
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 1: some kind of evil spirit I won or if Tolkien

479
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 1: was inspired by the Arabic word ghoul there, well, you know,

480
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: I'm not that much of a Tolkien scholar, so we

481
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: have to have to call out for our listeners to

482
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:12,440
Speaker 1: see if anybody has any insight on that. But and

483
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:16,159
Speaker 1: I don't know to what extent he was interested in

484
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 1: Arabic culture and Arabic languages. I know he was in

485
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: the language end the language, and it seems completely possible

486
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 1: that he would have been familiar with with these tales.

487
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 1: So I would if I had to bet on it,

488
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, he surely the nas goal has

489
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: two has its origins in pre Islamic Arabic folklore, and

490
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:40,719
Speaker 1: of course we continue to see great works of horror

491
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: and other fictions that involved the ghoul. Catlin R. Kiernan

492
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: has a great um has a great novel called Daughter

493
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:49,720
Speaker 1: of Hounds that deals with ghoules. I recommend that he's

494
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 1: a wonderful old weird tale short story called Far Below

495
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 1: by Robert Barbara Johnson, and this involves ghouls in the

496
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 1: New York subway system. That's a great read if you

497
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: can find a copy, oh man, that does sound great. Yeah,

498
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 1: And and comics and TV we see plenty of examples there.

499
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 1: There's a wonderful episode of Tales from the Crypt called

500
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 1: Morning Mess that involves uh a shadowy organization that seems

501
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 1: to be very interested in in supplying burial for vagrants

502
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: and transients who die. But of course there's a ghoulish

503
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: secret at the heart of it. Oh No, Now, I

504
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 1: recall a particular Tales from the Crypt comic segment that

505
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 1: I read years ago that was about It was about

506
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 1: a tale of a tragic tale of young lovers. And

507
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 1: the woman dies and she her body is entombed in

508
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 1: a crypt, and then her lover is locked in the

509
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 1: mausoleum with her like locked into the crypt and he

510
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: cannot get out, and he's trying to escape and he can't.

511
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: And then much later the police find him and they

512
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,800
Speaker 1: find that he actually survived in there for a long time.

513
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: And the ominous ending is that I find he died

514
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 1: of formalde hyde poisoning. Well, that's that's a pretty good one. Yeah,

515
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 1: I need to go back and read some of these

516
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:09,719
Speaker 1: old tales from the crypts. I don't have a lot

517
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 1: of experience with actual comics, but oh I haven't read

518
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: many either. That's a one. That's one a friend of

519
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 1: mine recommended to me. Excellent to have to look that up. So, yeah,

520
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 1: we men, and we mentioned Dungeons and Dragons already that

521
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 1: the Gohougles have have a long played a role in

522
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: in in Dungeons and Dragons. They've always been in the

523
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 1: monster manuals, both Googles and I believe, and they also

524
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: have a like an advanced version of the Google called

525
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 1: a gas and then variations on Googles that pop up

526
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: in different add on. So tell me just basically, what

527
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: is your encounter with the ghoul? Look like it's just

528
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 1: basic sword fodder, Like it's not very very tough. The

529
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: standard Google isn't particularly tough. We're intelligent. The gas is

530
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: a little more potent and uh in a little more yeah,

531
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: and a little tougher to encounter. But they're not They're

532
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: not high end monstering counters, unless, of course, you encountering

533
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 1: them in significant numbers. But despite all this, the Ghoul

534
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:07,240
Speaker 1: has never really, as you I think eloquently put it

535
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: in our notes, exploded into the main stream, at least

536
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: not in the way that the vampire or the werewolf

537
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: for or even Frankenstein's creature has. You know, we never

538
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: got the universal monster movie of the Ghoul. Yeah, yeah,

539
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:22,719
Speaker 1: I mean there have been occasional films that I think

540
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: there was even a Boris Carla film titled the Ghoul though,

541
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 1: really yeah, but it's not particularly in keeping obviously, I've

542
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: never seen it. Yeah, So yeah, it's just I guess

543
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: the Ghoul is not that sexy. The Ghoul the ideas

544
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 1: that it represents are maybe maybe not as comfortably uh

545
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 1: contemplated as that of vampires and werewolves. Well, certainly not

546
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: as sexy. I mean, that's the thing about if you

547
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: go back and watch a bell Legostis Dracula, it's it's

548
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: very slick. You know, it's Dracula is kind of sexy.

549
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: He's not gross and monstrous. The ghoul is disgusting. Ye. Yeah,

550
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 1: and I think that's a big reason, but it continues

551
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 1: to be. It's kind of like one of those bands

552
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 1: that never really you know, takes off into stupid superstardom,

553
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 1: but they always have their following, right, So I would

554
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 1: say that ghouls are kind of like the Maybe they're

555
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 1: the fish of the monster world, right, Like, not everybody's

556
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 1: gonna have a lot of familiarity with them or be

557
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: able to tell you what their top ten hits are,

558
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: but they have a hardcore following and they're not going

559
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: away even if you know some of the details about them,

560
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 1: you know, are a little ambiguous. So we've discussed the folkloric, mythological,

561
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: fictional history of the ghoul from ancient pre pre Islamic

562
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 1: Arabic traditions on up into the latest edition of The

563
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons Monster Man. Yeah. But of course, the

564
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 1: eating of dead flesh is not merely the stuff of fantasy.

565
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a This is not only something

566
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 1: you commonly see in the natural world. It is a

567
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 1: standard way of making a living for many organisms. Yeah,

568
00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 1: I mean, we've discussed on this show before. In the past,

569
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 1: we've discussed basic cannibalism as it occurs in nature is

570
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 1: a very When you strip away all the human complications,

571
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:09,440
Speaker 1: it makes a certain economic sense. Sure, you're just talking

572
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: about flash, you're talking about energy. You're talking about absorbing

573
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: the energy back into a viable being. I think a

574
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 1: question we should keep in mind throughout the course of

575
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 1: this part about science is the question of why cannibalism

576
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 1: is such a taboo among humans and it's and obviously,

577
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: I mean, it would be quite clear why violent cannibalism

578
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: is so like you kill somebody and eat their flesh.

579
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: But I'm talking about the kind of cannibalism that, as

580
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: you just alluded to, makes a kind of basic energy

581
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 1: economics sense, Like your loved one dies and then we

582
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 1: say no, no, you will not eat their flesh. Right. Well,

583
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 1: I feel like the big theme here. We'll discuss another

584
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: possible theme in a minute, but the big one, of course,

585
00:33:56,560 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 1: ties right into what we've previously talked about concerning UH

586
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: natural burial versus UH modern burial traditions. Is that we

587
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: just get wrapped up in the idea of that corpse

588
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,560
Speaker 1: still being the person than it was. Yeah. Yeah, so

589
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 1: we did definitely allude to this in our episode called

590
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: Human Remains Past President in the Future. But there there

591
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 1: is the idea that we can never fully accept that

592
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 1: the dead body of the person we loved is not

593
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:25,720
Speaker 1: in some sense still that person, not in some sense

594
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: still in a way alive, and thus in that way,

595
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 1: there really among humans at least may not be such

596
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 1: a thing psychologically as non violent cannibalism. Like if you

597
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:42,360
Speaker 1: if your cousin dies and you rationally know you're no

598
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 1: longer hurting him by eating his body, you just can't

599
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 1: on some level except that you're doing violence to his flesh,

600
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 1: and it seems like you're doing a harmful thing. Okay,

601
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: So let's go on a journey, Okay, traveling back down

602
00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: the highway of human evolution and human ascension. Uh, a

603
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:03,279
Speaker 1: road that as we travel, what you're gonna see some

604
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 1: rather ghoulish characters standing along the wayside. I think if

605
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: we look back into early human history, we can see

606
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: both of the major aspects of the goal, both the

607
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:21,359
Speaker 1: scavenger aspect and the cannibalistic aspect. Okay, so we're gonna

608
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,839
Speaker 1: travel back two point five million years to the dawn

609
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: of the Polistocene epoch, and you'll find our austro look

610
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 1: pithy scene ancestors scrambling to deserve diversify their diets in

611
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 1: a changing world. Okay, so these are people who are

612
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 1: they're not living a comfortable existence like us, supported by

613
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: agriculture and supply to stores of food. They're living at

614
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:48,000
Speaker 1: the edge r at the edge of hunger. They need

615
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:51,880
Speaker 1: to find food constantly. Yeah, and uh, according to the

616
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen paper Humans and Scavengers the Evolution of

617
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: Interactions and Ecosystem Services that's published in the journal Bioscience,

618
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 1: where specific we're talking about increasing seasonality in uh, precipitation

619
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:08,800
Speaker 1: in the African savannahs, and this is forcing our austro

620
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 1: lepithasine ancestors to diversify again to cope with the developing

621
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:16,920
Speaker 1: seasonal bottleneck in fruits and other soft plant foods. So

622
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:21,520
Speaker 1: it's becoming harder to make a living gathering plant matter exactly.

623
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: So you end up with two approaches to responses to

624
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: this bottleneck. Okay, you have some early hominides that turned

625
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 1: to seeds and roots, they start diversifying in that direction. Uh,

626
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 1: the roots are going to be available year round. UH

627
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:39,760
Speaker 1: seeds can be uh can be acquired in different seasons

628
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:43,319
Speaker 1: as well. That doesn't sound very good to me. Yeah,

629
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 1: well that's what's the what this other group decided. And

630
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: they're the ones who decided to try out some of

631
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: the meat to be found on large vertebrate carcasses. But

632
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:55,800
Speaker 1: they're not hunting because we're not like hunting. Hunting is

633
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: a is a technological advancement, but also hadn't come along yet. Well,

634
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:02,200
Speaker 1: I mean, think about all of the deficiencies human human

635
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: beings have as natural hunters, and we don't have uh

636
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 1: teeth and claws and powerful jaws like a lion or

637
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:12,840
Speaker 1: a tiger or something like that. We do have smarts

638
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 1: and we can make tools, but we can't just chase

639
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:18,960
Speaker 1: down a gazelle and rip it apart the way that

640
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 1: these other large predators can. And that's what these early

641
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 1: meat eaters had to do. They had to they had

642
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 1: to wait, they had to watch, they had to look

643
00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:28,840
Speaker 1: for the signs they have vultures in the sky, or

644
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 1: or the movements of known predators or larger known scavengers.

645
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: Strategic meat acquisition. Yeah, find find where they're going and

646
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 1: try and either pick up the pieces afterwards, or try

647
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 1: and steal it again. These are scavengers. Are their whole

648
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:47,919
Speaker 1: past is scavenging, and so if they're going to start

649
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 1: in quote, encompassing meat into their diet as well, then

650
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:54,919
Speaker 1: they're gonna try to do it through scavenging strategies. Yeah.

651
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 1: And you can even see this in what scientists say

652
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 1: about the most ancient human tools we've discovered, because what

653
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 1: do you think the first human tools are. Obviously what

654
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:06,200
Speaker 1: would come to your mind is hunting tools, right, Yeah,

655
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 1: you think about like, yeah, yeah, spears, axes, stuff like

656
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 1: that to kill animals with. Uh. And obviously if we

657
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 1: do go back to certain periods, we do find ancient

658
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:18,759
Speaker 1: hunting weapons, but a lot of what you find appears

659
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 1: to be early tools used for the processing of animal carcasses,

660
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: So not necessarily for the killing, but for for processing

661
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:30,319
Speaker 1: for like a butchery. Yeah, like very much. The idea

662
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: of finding the body and needing to get that narrow

663
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: out right, trying to get some neat out of this, uh,

664
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 1: this dead large vertebrate. Uh that can that you can

665
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 1: can sustain you, but you're gonna have to use your

666
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,719
Speaker 1: tools to do it. Yeah, it's a smart strategy, and

667
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 1: hominids are not the only animal species that has ever

668
00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 1: tried it. But yeah, you you look to what the

669
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: predator has already done, and then you engage in klepto parasitism,

670
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:59,919
Speaker 1: the stealing parasitism. You you take advantage of their word

671
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 1: and claim it for your own. Yeah, and if you

672
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 1: take you to the next level, you engage in confrontational scavenging.

673
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:09,799
Speaker 1: So this is uh. And this is something we still

674
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:13,759
Speaker 1: see to this day, uh in rare instances. And and

675
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,239
Speaker 1: they're these are the kind of traditions that you know,

676
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: may not survive too much longer in our modern world.

677
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:23,879
Speaker 1: But there are Cameroonian villagers who continue to steal meat

678
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: from lion kills to this day. I mean, it's a

679
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:29,839
Speaker 1: smart strategy. It totally makes sense. The lion has done

680
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:32,320
Speaker 1: the work, and if you can bluff your way in

681
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:34,879
Speaker 1: just long enough to just to scare him away enough

682
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:36,800
Speaker 1: to where you can cut off a little bit of

683
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 1: the kill and run off with it. And then instead

684
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: of hopefully instead of coming after you, they'll just return

685
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 1: to their own kill to harvest the rest of the

686
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 1: meat for themselves. Yeah, you can bribe the lion with

687
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 1: the work it's already done. Yeah, bribe it with the work.

688
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: It's already done. Steal just enough to where they're not

689
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: going to miss it, and and come after you. Now,

690
00:39:55,680 --> 00:40:00,440
Speaker 1: over time, this eventually develops into more powerful huntings hills. Right,

691
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:04,240
Speaker 1: we developed the technology and the strategies and the brain

692
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 1: power to not only drive away the hunters, but to

693
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:13,240
Speaker 1: usurp their role as hunters. And according to that paper

694
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 1: published in the General Bioscience quote, the close association between

695
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:21,279
Speaker 1: human hunters and vertebrate scavengers probably played a role in

696
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: the diversification of cultural services. So this is interesting because

697
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 1: we're all used to these motifs of the the early

698
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: hunter and gatherer, right, and we tend not to think

699
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:35,839
Speaker 1: about scavenging too much in that scenario. We don't think

700
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: about the ghoulish history of human ascension and the idea

701
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 1: that there was a time where we're essentially hyenas were

702
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:46,719
Speaker 1: essentially vultures. And maybe that's one of the reasons that

703
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:50,239
Speaker 1: the the the the idea of the google still is

704
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:54,279
Speaker 1: so repellent because it does mirror our own history. Well,

705
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 1: there is something that we find inherently distasteful about scavenging

706
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 1: as a way of life. Right, Like, I think that

707
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 1: is very common among humans to sort of see it

708
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 1: as essentially ignoble or unchivalrous, almost like it is honorable

709
00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: to hunt and kill your food, you know, that's a

710
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 1: sort of an admirable struggle. But there's something just kind

711
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 1: of like gross and unpleasant about scavenging and looking through

712
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: you know, trash piles and dead bodies and stories roadkill. Right.

713
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 1: It's probably one of the modern ideas that it's just

714
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 1: you tend to just to triot b to like, oh,

715
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:32,839
Speaker 1: that's a screwed up hillbilly thing to do to eat

716
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:35,719
Speaker 1: the deer that you hit with your car. But really,

717
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 1: why Like if you ran over a deer with your

718
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:40,200
Speaker 1: car and you're into eating deer meat and the problem

719
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 1: and you have the means to process it, that's still

720
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: a fresh kill. It's just as fresh as the one

721
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 1: that the dude shot from a deer stand. So why not. Now,

722
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: if we think of these ancient hominids as in a

723
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: way very economically conscious, essentially that they're making maximum use

724
00:41:57,320 --> 00:41:59,879
Speaker 1: of what skills and tools they have to get inner

725
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:02,879
Speaker 1: resources from their environment, and the main way they find

726
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: to do that is scavenging, even maybe kind of dangerous

727
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:09,880
Speaker 1: and scary forms of scavenging. Did they ever turn that

728
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 1: scavenging impulse in word, Yeah, that's the big, big question, right,

729
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 1: because it leads into into concerns about, well, how does

730
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:21,360
Speaker 1: this scavenging creature, this creature that has that has learned

731
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:24,279
Speaker 1: the value of meat, has adapted to survive via meat,

732
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: and then suddenly suddenly it puts new it applies new

733
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:31,520
Speaker 1: meaning to their own debt. Suddenly, Hey, I could go

734
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,319
Speaker 1: out and I could try and steal this body from

735
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:37,799
Speaker 1: a lion, but here's a dead member of our own community.

736
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:40,479
Speaker 1: It's made out of meat. I can eat that meat.

737
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 1: And it's also worth noting too that eventually, as we

738
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: developed technologies to to better process and cook meat, we're

739
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:51,240
Speaker 1: better able to deal with some of the disease issues

740
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:55,360
Speaker 1: that are inherent with scavenging. Right, we reduced some of

741
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 1: the natural risk. Yeah, but why not why not turn

742
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 1: to that meat, especially if I have and really built

743
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: up as much uh, you know, human cultural whole taboos

744
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 1: regarding the consumption of that food. Yeah, and I think

745
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 1: some scientists think that we did make that leap. Yes.

746
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 1: According to paleontologist Isabelle Cassaries, our ancestors likely turned to

747
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:18,320
Speaker 1: cannibalism due to lack of resources and competition for territory

748
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:22,200
Speaker 1: at critical points and their ascensions. So you basically we're

749
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:25,280
Speaker 1: talking again about survival cannibalism. You find ways to supplement

750
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 1: your diet when it gets tough, you can, you can

751
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:29,800
Speaker 1: deal with you can scavenge for meat. But then what

752
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 1: happens when that runs low. Bat's when you turn to

753
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:33,879
Speaker 1: your own dead and you give it a try. Yeah.

754
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 1: What did ancient hominids and the Donner Party have in common? Yeah,

755
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 1: they knew what made economic sense. Yeah, and it makes sense.

756
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 1: We've talked about the economy of cannibalism. It's widespread death

757
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:48,280
Speaker 1: throughout the animal kingdom, including among human and non human primates.

758
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:51,400
Speaker 1: Because sure, killing and eating your own kind tends to

759
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:55,879
Speaker 1: interfere with the long term genetic mission of just reproducing

760
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: and making more of yourself, but it works like a

761
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 1: charm in terms of short term survival. Nevertheless, as I

762
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: mentioned before, there is this intensely strong taboo against it.

763
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 1: We we just do not feel generally like this is

764
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 1: an okay thing to do, or at least I can

765
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 1: I can speak for myself and say that no, that

766
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:18,759
Speaker 1: does not seem like an okay idea, and it I

767
00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:21,399
Speaker 1: think to most people seems that way. Yeah, Like, even

768
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:23,319
Speaker 1: if the sandwich is really good and you're like, oh man,

769
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:26,320
Speaker 1: this is such a good sandwich, in the back of

770
00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 1: your mind you're thinking, but this this used to be ron.

771
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:31,399
Speaker 1: Now I'm eating and ron as a sandwich and that's

772
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:35,920
Speaker 1: really messing it up. Oh he's so savory. But there

773
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:38,879
Speaker 1: may be reasons for this taboo beyond what we mentioned before.

774
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:41,120
Speaker 1: So earlier we were talking about the idea that it's

775
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,080
Speaker 1: just hard to shake the feeling that the flesh of

776
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:46,760
Speaker 1: a dead person is not still in some way able

777
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 1: to be harmed or in somebody still that person. But

778
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 1: there could possibly be selection pressures that favor a taboo

779
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:58,000
Speaker 1: against cannibalism, right, yes, And this is uh, this is

780
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:01,880
Speaker 1: where we end up talking about curu disease and all

781
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:06,600
Speaker 1: and and discussing prions. So what are prions. Well, prions

782
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:12,440
Speaker 1: are abnormal proteins that induce irregular protein folding in brain cells,

783
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: and this construction leads to flawed brain tissue, resulting in

784
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:21,760
Speaker 1: progressive and incurable brain damage. One of the most notable

785
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:25,360
Speaker 1: examples here, certainly for our purposes, in this podcast is

786
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 1: Curu disease, which is found in New Guinea among the

787
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: for A people. It's a rare breed of of disorder

788
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: caused by by this type of prion. Also, it's known

789
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 1: as the shaking disease what's what kuru means right, and

790
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 1: sometimes referred to as the laughing disease because scientists observed

791
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:47,800
Speaker 1: fits of hysterical laughing among those afflicted. Yeah, and so

792
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 1: obviously it is a it is a fatal, very terrible

793
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: disease that you do not want to get at all.

794
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:57,560
Speaker 1: But what scientists observed is that it only really tends

795
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:01,360
Speaker 1: to happen though it's comparable to some other prion diseases

796
00:46:01,520 --> 00:46:05,240
Speaker 1: like like c j D, but it only really seems

797
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 1: to happen in the for A tribe of New Guinea.

798
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 1: And this is related to the some of the rituals

799
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:15,680
Speaker 1: practiced by this tribe of Indo cannibalism, which sort of

800
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: flips the script on cannibalism, like we've been talking about,

801
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 1: I mean, from our cultural perspective, we've got this taboo

802
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:24,560
Speaker 1: on cannibalism because we think of it as a kind

803
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 1: of disrespectful or harmful thing to do to the remains

804
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: of a person, but it's not necessarily thought of by

805
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 1: everyone in that way. I mean, this is a sort

806
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 1: of respectful cannibalism, the the the loving incorporation of a

807
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 1: dead loved one's flesh back into your society in the

808
00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:45,879
Speaker 1: form of food. Yeah, taking your dead loved one back

809
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 1: into yourself as food into your body, taking their body

810
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:52,520
Speaker 1: and spirit into yourself. So it in their beliefs and

811
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 1: their traditions that the cannibal indo cannibalism takes on a

812
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 1: form of of beauty. Really. Yeah, So this in a

813
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:01,560
Speaker 1: way that my seems strange to a lot of people,

814
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:05,080
Speaker 1: could be a beautiful way of looking at the consumption

815
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:07,799
Speaker 1: of human flesh, excepted that it did have this very

816
00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: very unfortunate medical consequence of leading to kuru disease, right,

817
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 1: and doctors first first really focused in on this in

818
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,759
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties when curu was popping up among the

819
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 1: four A tribespeople decimating whole villages, and the science is

820
00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:27,000
Speaker 1: quickly discovered that the only way to acquire the disease

821
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:30,839
Speaker 1: was through the consumption of contaminated brain tissue. So they

822
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:35,320
Speaker 1: just had to shut down the funeral rights, and that

823
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 1: is how they were actually able to to stop the

824
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 1: spread of Kuru disease among these tribes people. But the

825
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 1: obvious idea here is if it is possible to get

826
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 1: an extremely dangerous fatal disease by consuming In this case,

827
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:52,839
Speaker 1: I believe the brain tissue of your dead loved ones,

828
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 1: but possibly there could be other cases where consuming the

829
00:47:56,480 --> 00:48:00,640
Speaker 1: dead tissue of human beings is a disease threat. Would

830
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:06,279
Speaker 1: there eventually be an evolutionary selection pressure against cannibalism? Well,

831
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: would there be enough of a pressure that that is

832
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: an argument is often made. However, I did find us

833
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:15,279
Speaker 1: some work by a medical researcher, Michael Alper's, and he

834
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 1: points out that the widespread presence of genes protecting against

835
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 1: prior disease suggests that human endo cannibalism was fairly common

836
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:27,240
Speaker 1: for thousands of years. So we see the genetic legacy

837
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:32,719
Speaker 1: of continuous Indo cannibalism, the continuous consumption of human debt

838
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 1: enough to where we build up a certain amount of

839
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,400
Speaker 1: resistance to these prior on So why do we need

840
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:40,920
Speaker 1: a gene for Indo cannibalism taboo? If we can just

841
00:48:41,080 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 1: have a gene for Indo cannibalism, I don't know. Shield

842
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:48,799
Speaker 1: that makes it safe. It's basically like finding a cannibalism

843
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 1: cookbook in your on your friends bookshelf. Yeah, and then

844
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 1: confining what you have this if you didn't right right

845
00:48:56,160 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 1: like clearly clearly that we know what the secret ingredient

846
00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:02,400
Speaker 1: is in the meat loaf. Now, so it seems like

847
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:04,960
Speaker 1: there are some lines of evidence indicating that in the

848
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 1: past humans were eating some some some grave flesh. Yeah,

849
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 1: that I believe so based on the research material we

850
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: were looking at. Scavenging, just scavenging for dead meat is

851
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 1: a part of our evolutionary history, and so is the

852
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:24,040
Speaker 1: consumption of our own debt. And therefore the the idea

853
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 1: of the graveyard ghoule is very much a dark reflection

854
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: of if not who we are today, then at least

855
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:34,480
Speaker 1: of who we have been as a species in the past.

856
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:39,480
Speaker 1: The scavenger. Yes, so I think about that the next

857
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:43,319
Speaker 1: time you you see an episode of I don't know, Supernatural,

858
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 1: I think sometimes as ghouls, or you watch an Old

859
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:49,400
Speaker 1: Tales from the Crypts episode, or read some delightful fiction

860
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:52,879
Speaker 1: that involves the Google death. Well, unfortunately, as I said

861
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:54,640
Speaker 1: at the beginning, I think this episode is going to

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00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:58,840
Speaker 1: have to conclude our October lineup of creepy and monstrous content.

863
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:02,200
Speaker 1: But please keep listening because even after October, we will

864
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:05,520
Speaker 1: continue to serve up to all of you intellectual scavengers

865
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:10,240
Speaker 1: some tasty and sometimes forbidden morsels. Indeed, and in the meantime,

866
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: be sure to check out Stuff to Blow your Mind

867
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 1: dot com. That's the mothership. That's where you'll find all

868
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:17,160
Speaker 1: the podcast episodes. You'll find videos, including a new Monster

869
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:19,919
Speaker 1: Science episodes that have been going up. You'll find blog

870
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 1: posts as well as links out to our social media

871
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 1: accounts uh such as Facebook and Twitter. We'll blow the

872
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:27,640
Speaker 1: mind on both of those, and we are Stuff to

873
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:29,440
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind on tumbler. And if you want to

874
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 1: write to us and let us know your favorite appearance

875
00:50:31,520 --> 00:50:35,920
Speaker 1: of ghouls in literature, or your favorite scientific fact about

876
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:40,080
Speaker 1: scavenging or cannibalism or any other eating of corpse flesh,

877
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:42,319
Speaker 1: you can email us at blow the Mind at how

878
00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 1: stuff Works at dot com. For more on this and

879
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:51,439
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.