WEBVTT - From the Vault: Reconsider the Bean, Part 2 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.440 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:12.120 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:14.120 Time to go into the vault for an older episode 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:16.840 of the show. This is part two of our series 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:21.160 on beans called Reconsider the Bean. This episode originally aired 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:29.400 on May Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:38.800 the production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.800 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.080 I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:46.720 our talk about beans. You know, I'm thinking this one's 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.839 gonna be even even it's like a two bean salad 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:51.879 if the last episode was a one bean salad. We've 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:54.319 got a lot of great stuff to get to today. Well, 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:58.000 this is one I think that especially will well. I 0:00:58.040 --> 0:00:59.760 don't know if it'll make everyone think about beans in 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:03.200 an way, but it might in m chest because I 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:06.759 feel like, especially in that first episode, we were kind 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:09.080 of approaching or I was certainly approaching it. Like, you know, 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.840 beans are are very interesting, but they're also kind of mundane, 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.960 and they're the in this the mundane nature of beings 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.560 seems to run deep. You have beamed doubt well to 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:25.000 a certain extent. But uh, in the space between recording 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.800 the last episode and uh in recording this one, I 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.360 found a number of new angles and then um and 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:33.880 then leap frogged off rokoff a couple of angles you explored, 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.360 And I think it really paints a picture of beans 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:40.120 as a far weirder um part of our world and 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.480 are part of our culture and myth making, even if 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.120 a lot of that weirdness has largely been sort of 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:49.280 bled out um of sort of the like popular modern 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.040 understanding of the food. Yeah, I think that's right. So 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:54.920 if you out there still have bean doubts, allow us 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.279 to try to evaporate them with some with some deft 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.760 parching through today's episode. So I wanted to start off 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:05.840 today by talking about philosophers and beings and a particular 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:10.680 bean field slaughter from Greek history slash legend. So there 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.560 are actually a surprising number of stories about Greek philosophers 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.360 and beings. There was one that I came across, and 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:19.760 in the last episode I mentioned this book that I 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.440 had been quoting by Ken Alba called Beans a History 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:26.840 from Bloomsberry Publishing in and I'm going to refer back 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.360 to that book a lot in this episode two. But 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:31.160 there was one thing I came across, and that that 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:36.200 was talking about the cynic philosopher Diogenes, who the one 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:38.760 fact you may remember about him, if if nothing else, 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.720 is that he famously lived in a jar in Athens 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.000 instead of in a house like on a shelf. No, 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:46.679 not on a shelf. I think it was like out 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.040 in the out in a public square or something. It's 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.840 like a turned over jar. Uh. And and this is 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.000 consistent with the idea of the Cynic school of philosophy, 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.280 which is not about cynicism and the modern English use 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:00.360 of the word which means the sort of I don't know, 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.959 a pessimistic suspicion of others. Uh. The Cynic school of 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:09.480 philosophy meant rejecting unnatural social norms and conventions and sort 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.240 of being true to yourself, for true to your nature. 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:17.000 So Diogenes was famous for violating taboos and rejecting the 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.079 conventional norms of Greek culture in his day. So I 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:22.520 think he was known for being dirty, of course, living 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.800 in a big ceramic jar, for hanging out with dogs. 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.280 I think, for being nude, and doing inappropriate things in 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:31.840 public like if I remember correctly, there's a story that 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.080 he uh decided to defecate while in the middle of 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.520 watching a play. But apparently another way that he showed 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:42.280 contempt for society's and norms and and the normal sort 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.480 of like a food valorization scale, is that he made 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:49.720 a point of eating a type of being known as lupins. Uh. 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.320 This is a being that was considered in many cases 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.640 only fit for feeding to animals or for the extremely 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.520 poor and starving. Now, of course this is not true. 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:00.920 Lupins are a perfectly good food if prepared in the 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.040 right way, and they're part of many uh you know, 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.160 food traditions around the world. But that, like we talked 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.320 about in the last episode, there are often negative cultural 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.040 and especially class associations with certain types of beans. And 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:15.600 you can't say lupin's are are a very They're a 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.080 difficult being. There there are being you really got to 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.279 get to know because they've got these toxic alkaloids in 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:23.120 them that you have to get out of them by 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:25.680 soaking the beans for a long time, and supposedly you 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:28.040 got to do all this other stuff to make them appetizing. 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.560 But so I think by eating them Diogenes was sort 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:33.640 of doing the equivalent of saying, like, you know, look 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:35.960 at me, I'll eat dog food. I don't give a crap. 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:40.600 But the the Greek philosopher being connection I really want 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:46.000 to talk about is between Beans and Pythagoras. So the 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:50.440 ancient Greek philosopher and religious leader Pythagoras lived from about 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.840 five seventy to four nine d b c E. And 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:58.160 though he was extremely influential, it is actually hard to 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.159 know all that much with certain t about the life 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.839 of Pythagoras because none of his writing survives, so we 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.120 have nothing from his own hand, and the earliest accounts 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.240 of his life and teachings come from hundreds of years 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:15.279 after he lived, and they often differ substantially from one another. 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:19.479 So when exploring basically any factual claim about Pythagoras and 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.720 his teachings, there's going to be disagreement within our sources 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.440 and in the analysis of modern scholars. So unfortunately there's 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:28.279 not a lot you can say about him with certainty. 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:30.719 But with that in mind, there's a lot of stuff 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.480 you can say about him that can be understood as 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:37.360 according to some sources. Right, we have echoes of Pythagoras, 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:41.080 uh As opposed to just Pythagoras like itself in a 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:45.000 pure recorded form right. But in these echoes from Pythagoras 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:49.359 some really interesting facts emerge. So a bit of basic background. 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.520 Pythagoras was born on the Greek island of Samos, again 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.960 some time around the year five seventy bc uh. He 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.720 was said to have traveled extensively around the ancient world 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.320 and youth, and he eventually founded a sort of religious 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.600 commune in Croton, a place in the south of Italy. 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:12.720 Pythagoras taught some kind of mystical beliefs that unified aspects 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:17.159 of metaphysics about the soul and the universe with mathematics 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.080 and numbers, which seem to occupy some kind of sacred 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.760 position in his worldview, as well as music which tied 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:27.719 in with the mathematical aspects, and also teachings about nutrition 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:30.880 and politics, so like in the realm of politics. It 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:36.440 seems that the Pythagoreans disdained tyranny, and they really disdained democracy. 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.400 They favored a kind of oligarchy where the body politics 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.360 would be ruled by supposedly the best of men, you know, 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:48.040 rulers appointed for their virtues. That always works out. Yeah. 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.760 And in terms of nutrition, again there's some disagreement, but 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:58.320 the Pythagoreans were widely understood to be vegetarians, eating bread, honey, 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.880 and vegetables. More on that in a bit now, as 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:03.840 with his life and his teachings, there are a bunch 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:06.560 of conflicting accounts of the death of Pythagoras. But I 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:10.000 wanted to start with one of these stories about his 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.560 murder at the hands of a mob, and oh god 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:15.680 it again it's hard to keep all these straight. But 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.080 I think in this account, or at least in some 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:22.120 of these accounts, he's attacked by a mob that favors democracy. 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.600 So the people have spoken and and it is time 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.840 for Pythagoras to be slaughtered. So this account comes from 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:32.040 the writing of Diogenes Laertis, who is probably writing sometime 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:35.640 around the third century CES. So understand that it's like 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.840 hundreds of yours, like seven hundred or eight hundred years 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.960 after Pythagoras lived as a long time later. Oh, and 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.200 this is translated by a CD younge. Diogenes writes the 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:50.800 following Pythagoras died in this manner when he was sitting 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.320 with some of his companions in Milo's house. Some one 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.880 of those whom he did not think worthy of admission 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.520 into it, was excited by envy to set fire to it. 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.240 But some say that the people of Crotona themselves did this, 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.240 being afraid lest he might aspire to tyranny, and that 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:11.680 Pythagoras was caught as he was trying to escape and 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.480 coming to a place full of beans, he stopped there, 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:17.880 saying that it was better to be caught than to 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:21.120 trample on the beans, and better to be slain than 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:23.720 to speak. And so he was murdered by those who 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.760 were pursuing him. And in this way also most of 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:30.480 his companions were slain, being in number about forty, but 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:34.199 that a very few did escape. So what I when 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.120 I first read this, I was like the pigeon and 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:39.920 moonraker that does a double take? I did that? What? What? So? 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.880 According to this story, Pythagoras and his followers were running 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.680 away from a violent mob, and they came to a 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.959 bean field, and they decided it was better to stop 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.800 running and get chopped to pieces by the crowd than 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:57.000 to step on the beans. This is the first time 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:59.240 I'll mention this, but I probably mentioned it again. So 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.120 in the previo this episode, I made a statement about 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.040 how how you know beans are less interesting compared to corn, 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:08.880 that corn is spook here, that it's children of the corn, 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:12.440 not children of the being that uh and and uh 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:14.320 and likewise, you know you would you would maybe be 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:16.600 afraid of he who lurks behind the rows in the 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:18.880 corn field, but not in the bean field. Like there's 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.280 something about a corn field that can be kind of creepy, 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:25.280 especially in Stephen King's stories. But when when we look 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:27.960 back through uh in this account, but also in other 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:30.760 accounts that will look at later on, we really get 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.000 the feeling that that the I mean certainly there were 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.679 no corn fields in Italy at this at this time, 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.080 like beans bean fields were that place. So if you 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:43.920 can imagine a Stephen King's story where Solar, a fringe 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.960 religious leader on the run, refuses to go into the corn, 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.360 would rather face death by mob, but then go into 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.000 the corn, like that makes sense in a Stephen King's story. 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:55.440 So just sort of imagine that it's beans instead of 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.079 corn in the Stephen king universe, and I feel like 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.600 we get an appropriate idea of how Pythagoras and his 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.600 followers are are believed to have felt at this point right, 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.360 at least according to this story, But yeah, you're you're 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.520 exactly right. I love it. And and and there are other 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:12.760 versions of the story, by the way, particularly told by 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.880 one author named Iamblicus, who say that it was not 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:20.200 Pythagoras himself who died because he wouldn't cross a bean field, 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.079 but that it was a cadre of his disciples who 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:25.240 were chased to the edge of the field and then 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.480 accepted this gruesome death rather than cross it. And in 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:33.240 iamblicus version in particular, there's this detail that the last 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.480 member of pythagoras Is followers who were slain was a 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:41.680 pregnant woman named Timyka, who bit off her own tongue 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.840 rather than reveal the secret of why the beans were prohibited. 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.160 That's more, that's more walking behind the rose. I think, yeah, yeah, 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.839 that's that's some straight up Stephen king jus right there. Now. 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:54.840 As I mentioned, there are other accounts of the death 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.080 of Pythagoras, But what we know is that either this 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.080 account is in some way based on the truth, or 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.280 if not, it was at least considered plausible enough to 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:08.600 believe given what people knew about Pythagoras in the ancient world, 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.480 and it seems that one of the things widely known 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.800 about him was that he really disdained beans. Have come 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.760 across some really good illustrations of him, you know, just 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.000 saying like no to beans. Like he's standing next to 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:22.720 a bunch of beans and he's like, uh yeah, both 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:27.080 hands up, looking away, get away. So why on earth 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.079 would anybody believe that that this ancient Greek religious leader 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:35.240 would rather die a painful, bloody death than trespass the 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.720 bean field. Well, there are a ton of possible answers, 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.760 and in a way, I think they're all fascinating. But 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:43.800 here's one of the main ones that I wanted to 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:45.559 talk about, and we will go through a number here, 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:47.960 as as explored by Alba in his book, But one 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.400 of the main things comes down to a teaching that 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:54.360 is consistently associated with Pythagoras in the earliest writings about 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.720 his life, which is that he taught the metaphysical doctrine 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:02.320 known as metam psychosis, which is usually translated into English 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:07.080 as the transmigration of souls. This is actually very similar 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:11.040 to other ideas of reincarnation that you might have encountered before. 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:14.520 So according to the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.560 The Pythagoreans believed that there was an immaterial and immortal 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.720 soul that was separate from the body. This soul would 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:25.160 survive the death of the body, and after the death 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:27.679 of the body, the soul would be installed in a 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:31.800 new body, possibly the body of another human or another animal. 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:36.199 And this probably connects to one of the other Pythagorean 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.679 teachings that I mentioned before, which is that it's widely 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.679 understood that the Pythagoreans preached against the eating of meat. 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.040 He and his followers were said to be vegetarians. And 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.040 if if he was both a vegetarian and a believer 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:53.040 that that human souls and animal souls would transmigrate back 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:55.959 and forth into human and animal bodies, you can kind 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.280 of see how these beliefs would fit together, like if 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:00.400 you were to eat a chicken or a cow, you 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.360 might literally be cannibalizing a dead relative. Now, if this 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:07.240 is truly what Pythagoras taught, it is not known for 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:09.840 sure where he got this idea, though it's been speculated 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.480 that he could have acquired it from Indian thought during 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:14.880 his travels. It has has said that he traveled all 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.280 over the ancient world. But where this idea comes from, 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.120 we just don't know. Yeah, I mean it obviously it 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:23.880 sounds like a in many ways, like a less robust 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:28.599 version of of reincarnation as you encounter it in in 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:33.600 in Buddhism and Hinduism. Uh. But yeah, so it would 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:35.720 be interesting if this was an idea that he picked 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.280 up in his travels. There are some ancient authors, like 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:40.960 I recall reading somewhere that I think it might have 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.280 been Herodotus who said that Pythagoras got this idea from 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.480 the Egyptians. But I don't think there's any indication that 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:51.240 Egyptian religion ever featured reincarnation in this way, so that 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.640 seems to be probably a mistake on herodotus part. Now, 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:56.880 a slight variation on the reasoning here is just that 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:01.480 vegetarianism was considered consistent with a non violent way of 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:06.199 life preached by the Pythagoreans. But so this makes sense, right. 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:08.760 You don't know the exact reason, but it would seem 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:10.680 to all sort of fit together if he believed in 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:14.520 the transmigration of souls and also preached vegetarianism that you know, 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:16.760 don't eat animals because they might have souls that you 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:19.400 would you know, wouldn't want to be eating in them. 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.640 But then there's this other strange dietary prohibition of the 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:27.239 Pythagorean cult, which is that Pythagoras allegedly forbade his followers 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:33.280 to eat beans, which again, modern vegetarians and vegans, you know, 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.640 you know that you need the beans. Yeah, exacting, and 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.760 it seems counterintuitive in several ways. Yes, this is a 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.600 problem right now. At the time, within Greek culture, these 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.440 would have been over overwhelmingly. This would have been referring 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:50.280 to fava beans, like the Faziola's genus that gives rise 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.520 to many of the common beans we eat today. That 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:54.840 is a genus that comes from the America's and had 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.400 not crossed the the Atlantic yet. So probably what they're 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:00.400 talking about here are fava beans. So though I guess 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.360 there could have been lentils and stuff too, but it 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.280 seems they were referring to fava beans, and fava beans 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:07.760 were a common source of food for people and for 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:11.640 grazing animals like for cattle in the Mediterranean at the time. 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.160 Of course, beans are an especially important food if you're 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.960 a vegetarian, So why would Pythagoras have forbidden not only 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.880 eating them, but even treading upon them, even going into 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.800 a field where they're being grown. Well, here I'm want 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:30.360 to quote from Albola's book. Quote. The simplest and perhaps 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:34.000 most plausible explanation is that beans are part of the 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:39.000 whole cycle of reincarnation and they house human souls. To 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.440 eat a bean is thus a form of murder. This 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:46.680 was Varros explanation, and Orphic Fragment puts it like this, 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.680 eating beans and gnawing on the heads of one's parents 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.440 are one and the same. I think that's a sufficiently 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.440 vivid image, right, Like you you want to eat beans? 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.360 How would you feel about chewing on your dad's head? 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.760 It's very it's very dantee and actually it makes me 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:09.160 think of Count Ugolino and Archbishop grou Giery. But anyway, 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.000 so yeah, the idea here would be that beans contain souls, 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.880 potentially human souls. Now there's more. Now I want to 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.400 get into more explanation on that mode of thinking in 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:21.520 a bit, But first I also just wanted to mention 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:25.400 some alternative explanations offered by other writers over the centuries, 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:29.560 which Albola sort of catalogs and discusses. Now, there are 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.160 some explanations for the being prohibition that would be based 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.960 in politics, So I think these would be more sort 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:41.160 of metaphorical interpretations of the idea that the Pythagoras would 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:44.840 would have being scorn. One idea here is that beans 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:49.320 were a symbol of democracy, the democracy that Pythagoras hated, 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.760 because beans were used to cast votes. Right, you might 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:54.880 have a jar where if you want to vote ya, 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:56.640 you put in a black bean, and if you want 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:58.640 to vote nay, put in a white bean, or maybe 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:00.760 you put in different jars. You something like that. It 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:03.120 can be a it can be a way to tally 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:07.280 anonymous votes. Of course in a proper oligarchy. Uh, nobody 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.679 would need to vote with beans, right, that's right, the 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:11.560 best rule. And then do you just keep your beans 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:13.960 at home or in the field? Uh? Yeah, or you 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.359 or you just keep them away. But also the idea 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.680 here is that there could be a political implication, which 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:22.480 is just that beans are the food of the working class, 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:26.359 whereas meat was preferred by the rich elites, and probably 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:30.040 in Pythagoras's view, the better people, the people who deserve 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:32.920 to rule because of their virtues would have been associated 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.280 with meat, while you know, whereas the people who don't 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:37.240 know how to rule a city, that they would be 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:40.000 the people eating beans. I guess one way the one 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:42.200 thing we have to sort of think about with this, 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:45.400 this idea of this being the part of the pythagora 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.800 and belief system is to realize too that like, it 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.080 doesn't mean they were necessarily going out trying to liberate 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:54.760 the bean fields or or necessarily trying to change the 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.720 way that other groups UH consumed food. They could have 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.720 been very like closed off from them and saying this 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.120 is how we live, this is and then we are 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:08.359 better for it. Um. I think that's that's kind of 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:09.879 a distinction. I think in general we have to keep 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:13.040 in mind when thinking about different religious religious groups in 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.840 the contemporary world for sure, but also just historically, that 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:20.240 that not every religious group is going to be about 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.000 about spreading their belief system to all around them, right, 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.320 and not all like religious dietary restrictions are meant to 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.399 be a universal rule. Right. For example, I think there 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:33.280 are a lot of religious scholars of say like Judaism 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.000 and Islam that would say, like prohibitions on pork and 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.520 other types of food that are prohibited within that religion 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:42.040 are not meant to be universal prohibitions, but their prohibitions 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.120 for the faithful. Right. But then again, I'm not sure 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.400 if we That's a possibility always when you're considering dietary 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.840 restrictions that are advocated by religious groups. But I do 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.080 recall coming across at least one legend, though one for 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.359 I don't recall the source of this, where Pythagoras was 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.000 said to have tried to convince a cow not to 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.120 eat fava beans. So if you're if you're preaching the cows, 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.879 that's probably it probably means you want all humans to 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:09.359 obey as well, right, But then again, that also sounds 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.640 like a perfect parody of someone whose belief system you're 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.080 you don't agree with, don't completely understand. You're like, oh, 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:17.720 I bet Pathagoras is out there. What's he gonna do? 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.280 Is gonna tell the cows not eat beans? Yeah? That though, 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:24.080 that that could very well be the context there. Um, Okay, 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.840 So there are other possible explanations. One is more nutritional 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.320 and psychological, you know, pretty straightforward, beans give you gas, 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.480 and gas prevents you from having a clear head, and 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.399 a lot of ancient philosophers were really concerned about like 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.359 cutting things out that would cause problems in the body, 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.520 that would interfere with you having clear thinking. You gotta 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:45.560 have a clear head to live a good life, and 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.280 so you can't be going around farting. You know, this 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:50.320 is this is interesting because I was I was thinking 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:52.840 about this like it in terms of how we think 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:56.439 about flatulence and plate us. We it's easy to have 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.040 a very like one to one vision of that, you know, 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:01.440 the idea of like, well, farting is distracting and you 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:03.159 don't want to do it, that's gonna mess with your 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:06.680 mental um outlook, or you know, we'll or we'll get 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:08.480 into some of these ideas later where it's like, well, 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:11.200 a fart is a ghost. You don't want ghosts coming 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:12.640 out of your but you know that kind of thing. 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:15.679 But uh, there's an idea that I ran across in 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.680 a book that I was I was really enjoying reading 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.760 through a book called Plants of Life Plants of Death 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:27.160 by Frederick J. Simoons and We which which deals not 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:30.800 not only with beans but various other plants entered traditions 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.159 in a number of different cultures in the East and 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:37.199 in the West, and uh in Africa, etcetera, about how 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:39.119 there are these different ideas of life and death wrapped 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:45.200 up in them. And in getting into the idea of 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:49.960 of beans and flatulens and in discussing Pythagorean bean bands, uh, 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:52.800 he discussed several of the possibilities, but but one that 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.720 I hadn't really thought about was the connection between flatuns 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:03.560 and bad dreams. And he cred it's uh Fridericus bomb 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:06.520 in this idea. But I've also read that Diogenes touched 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:11.840 on this in considering Pythagorean ideas quote one should abstain 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:14.080 from fava beans since they are full of wind and 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:17.679 take part in the soul. And if one abstains from 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:20.719 from them, one stomach will be less noisy, and this 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:25.200 is key, one's dreams will be less oppressive and calmer. Now, 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:30.960 that quote attributed to uh uh two Diogenes was brought 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:33.120 up in a l A Times article on beings from 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:37.439 by Russ Parsons. But I thought that was that that 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:39.960 was interesting, perhaps more telling. Yeah, if you're if your 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:44.119 sleep is troubled, if your dreams are troubled, troubled because 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.800 you're you're going to bed gassy with beans, then that 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:51.760 that could very well darken your outlook on life or 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:54.280 or mess with your head, especially in an age where 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:59.639 you have, you know, maybe more supernatural ideas. Uh. Concerning 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:03.440 dream teams and the interpretation of dreams, Yeah, that's really interesting. 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:05.320