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Speaker 1: At length. The universal hubbub, wild of stunning sounds and voices,

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Speaker 1: all confused, borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear

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Speaker 1: with loudest vehemence. Thither he plies, undaunted to meet there

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Speaker 1: whatever power or spirit of the nethermost abyss might in

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Speaker 1: that noise reside of whom to ask which way the

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Speaker 1: nearest coast of darkness lies bordering on light. When straight

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Speaker 1: behold the throne of Chaos and his dark pavilion spread

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Speaker 1: wide on the wasteful deep, with him enthroned, sat sable,

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Speaker 1: vested night, eldest of things, the consort of his reign,

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Speaker 1: And by them stood orcas and eighties and the dreaded

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Speaker 1: name of dim Rumor next, and chants and tumults and confusion,

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Speaker 1: all embroil'd and dis gourd with a thousand various mouths.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, A production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, Welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and I'm so excited. It's my favorite

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Speaker 1: time of the year. It's October, which is my favorite

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Speaker 1: month of the year anyway, but it's also my favorite

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Speaker 1: time of the year at work, because it's Monster Month

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Speaker 1: here on stuff to blow your mind. That's right, when

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Speaker 1: we devote the entire month of October and sometimes a

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Speaker 1: little change two topics that are either obsessed with monsters

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Speaker 1: or or darkness or horror or terror. Is there anything

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Speaker 1: even remotely HALLOWEENI We just fully embrace it. It's the

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Speaker 1: most wonderful time of the year. And so and you know,

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Speaker 1: as we were coming up with episodes to record this year,

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Speaker 1: where we you know, our minds turned to things we've

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Speaker 1: covered in the past. So on one hand, there's an

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Speaker 1: old episode of the show about the mind flares of

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Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons, uh, and it's led various folks to

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Speaker 1: request another episode dealing with something from the world of

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Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons. And likewise, last year we did an

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Speaker 1: episode on the Great Basilisk where we talk about this

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Speaker 1: concept of not only the monstrous Basilist, but this kind

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Speaker 1: of uh, you know, tech world futuristic vision of an

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Speaker 1: all powerful, malevolent AI. And so we decided we we'd

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Speaker 1: up the Anti this year and discuss uh an entity

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Speaker 1: that kind of combines both of these themes. And so

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the demogorgan. Now, I would

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Speaker 1: not be surprised for the largest portion of you out

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Speaker 1: there are familiar with the idea of a dem ogorgan,

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Speaker 1: primarily from the recent Netflix show Stranger Things. I guess

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Speaker 1: it's mainly the first season of that, right, Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean the creature it keeps popping up as well, but

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Speaker 1: it's mainly that that first excellent season of Stranger Things.

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Speaker 1: And uh, and think that's a good place to start.

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Speaker 1: Like the most recent pop culture incarnation of the democ organ,

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Speaker 1: it's probably one of the best new cinematic monsters that

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Speaker 1: we've encountered in recent years. Uh, you know, this category

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Speaker 1: confusion entity that's at once humanoid and be steal but

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Speaker 1: at times these bipedal and other times it's crawling around

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Speaker 1: on all fours. It's like a venus flytrap minotaur. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the other cool aspect of it. It's it's it's

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Speaker 1: head at times looks like a featureless mask of flesh,

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Speaker 1: but then it opens up in these these flower petals,

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Speaker 1: these kind of uh you know, razor toothed flower petals

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Speaker 1: around this gaping maw. But I also like that it's

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Speaker 1: a dimension hopper, right, which kind of means it's always

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Speaker 1: it could pop up anywhere. Yeah, it travels through dimensions, though,

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Speaker 1: though I'm uncertain if that's part of its natural abilities,

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Speaker 1: because we see it feeding on an egg in its

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Speaker 1: own dimension at one point. Uh. And perhaps it takes

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Speaker 1: to hunting in our world due to the weakening of

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Speaker 1: the connection between the two. Uh, you know, due to

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Speaker 1: mad science of course. Um. But if this is the case,

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Speaker 1: it's still quite proficient a traveling between the worlds through

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Speaker 1: those rips and tears to acquire food. Right, So it

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Speaker 1: could actually be a rather mundane predator in its own world.

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Speaker 1: It's just that Matthew Modine and his psychic projects unleashed

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Speaker 1: this predator into it made it an invasive species in

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Speaker 1: our world. Right. Yeah, yeah, like it, like it. It

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Speaker 1: does pretty well in its own world, but here it

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Speaker 1: can really go at it, you know, like a Superman

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Speaker 1: with the yellow sun. Yeah. But of course, in Stranger Things,

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Speaker 1: we also learned that the kids in the in the story,

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Speaker 1: they name this creature the democ Organ because they are

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Speaker 1: actively playing Dungeons and Dragons and they and they are

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Speaker 1: playing a campaign that involves the democ Organ. Uh. This,

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Speaker 1: this Prince of Demons is mighty demon lord of just

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Speaker 1: immense power. Now, Robert, I know that you have a

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Speaker 1: reputation as a quite cruel dungeon master yourself. So do

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Speaker 1: you subject to your adventuring travelers to a democ Organ

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Speaker 1: every now and then? No? Not not no, not yet.

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Speaker 1: And it's not the kind of thing would you would

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Speaker 1: inflict on your adventures in a haphazard fashion. It is

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Speaker 1: one of the most powerful entities in the game, So

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Speaker 1: it's it's the kind of thing you cap off an

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Speaker 1: entire campaign with that you would only throw at, you know,

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Speaker 1: a higher level, like really high level characters. Um. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess you could throw it in haphazardly if you

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Speaker 1: have just kind of a very casual game where people

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Speaker 1: have like just immensely powerful characters. In each week you

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Speaker 1: just battle some things that are tremendously powerful to just

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Speaker 1: see how it all shakes out. But um, for instance,

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Speaker 1: in the campaign Out of the Abyss, which is a

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Speaker 1: campaign that I've been playing in my group that I've

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Speaker 1: been a dungeon mastering for about four years now, we

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Speaker 1: are almost at the point where the dem Ogorgan may

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Speaker 1: be encountered. Yeah, so we've been building up to it.

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Speaker 1: Do you have Demogorgon que music ready to go when

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Speaker 1: it happens. Basically, I mean, it's a it's a big deal.

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Speaker 1: It's uh, you know, we have an enormous figuring that

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Speaker 1: we've been putting together. It's a it's huge. Okay, Well,

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Speaker 1: in the Dungeons and Dragons world, what is this demogorgon creature?

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Speaker 1: It's obviously nothing like what's in Stranger things like that.

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Speaker 1: It's not a venus fly trap minotaur, right, So in

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Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons, the Demogorgon dates back to nineteen seventy six.

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Speaker 1: That's when this entity um originated in a supplement titled

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Speaker 1: Eldric Wizards by Gary Gygax himself and Brian Bloom. And

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Speaker 1: if you look around online you can find this in

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Speaker 1: PDF form and it has some you know, some adorably

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Speaker 1: kind of crude illustrations of what the various creatures would

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Speaker 1: look like. Those those those the illustrations, and Dungeons Dragons

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Speaker 1: have come a long way, like the most like the

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Speaker 1: earliest version of the Demogorgon that is illustrated in this

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Speaker 1: book is just crude sketch of this, uh, this kind

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Speaker 1: of two headed, tentacle armed, chicken footed thing with baboon heads, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: with baboon heads. But the like it's cute. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's like, it's kind of like the monsters in the

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Speaker 1: Ranking and Bass Middle Earth, and and of course, you know,

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Speaker 1: part most the big thing Abou Dungeons and Dragons is

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Speaker 1: that it does take place in the mind, and especially

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Speaker 1: early on they did, they didn't have elaborate illustrations. You're

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Speaker 1: supposed to, you know, come up with it yourself. Today

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Speaker 1: we have elaborate illustrations. The most recent fifth edition illustrations

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Speaker 1: of the democ Organ are just absolutely beautiful, where it

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Speaker 1: seems like there's like a burning sun inside of the creature.

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Speaker 1: But I want to read just a quick description from

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Speaker 1: that original nineteen seventy six supplement to to properly describe

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Speaker 1: what the creature looks like, because the basic description has

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Speaker 1: not changed. Okay, melt my mind with terror. Okay, quoth

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Speaker 1: Guy GaX and bloom here. Uh. It is contended by

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Speaker 1: some that this demon lord is supreme and in any event,

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Speaker 1: he is awesome in his power. This gigantic demon is

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Speaker 1: eighteen tall and reptilian. His skin is plated with snake

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Speaker 1: like scales. His body and legs are those of a

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Speaker 1: giant lizard. His twin necks resemble snakes, and his thick

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Speaker 1: tail is fort Dimcgorgan has two heads which bear the

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Speaker 1: visages of evil baboons or perhaps mandrils. Rather than having arms,

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Speaker 1: he has great tentacles. His appearance testifies to his command

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Speaker 1: of cold blooded things such as serpents, reptiles and octopi.

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Speaker 1: And Robert, you brought in a glorious figurine that I

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Speaker 1: now hold in my hand. It's uh, it's very nice. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is a small one. The big one I couldn't

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Speaker 1: even bring in because it's just it's it's too enormous.

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Speaker 1: It would alarm people. Uh and they would they would

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Speaker 1: wonder what was about to befall them. So so yeah, basically,

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Speaker 1: this description, though, holds up. It's been tweaked a little bit.

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Speaker 1: I think at one point the heads were more hyena

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Speaker 1: like because, as I mentioned earlier, we've had various editions

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Speaker 1: of dungeons and dragons were on addition five at this point.

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Speaker 1: Uh and uh and in each edition has brought about

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Speaker 1: various changes to the rules, the mechanic, to the lore.

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Speaker 1: And we'll get into some of that in a minute.

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Speaker 1: As it relates to de mcgorgan um and then the

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Speaker 1: art who has mostly gotten just tremendously better over the years.

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Speaker 1: And again the most recent fifth edition art is absolutely

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Speaker 1: splendid to behold. But of course, another thing to keep

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Speaker 1: in mind is that the democ organ is a demon,

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Speaker 1: a demon lord. And given the moral panics surrounding supposed

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Speaker 1: Satanists and the the the quote unquote dangers of D

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Speaker 1: and D back in the nineteen eighties, the various demons

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Speaker 1: and devils in the game Lore lost their titles at

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Speaker 1: one point. UM. So when I originally started playing back

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Speaker 1: in the nineties, Uh, these various devils and demons were

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Speaker 1: known as uh the tanari uh instead of actually referring

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Speaker 1: to them as demons. So it's a rebrand. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was a rebrand because everyone was freaking out about imagined Satanist,

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Speaker 1: which I think we've discussed on the show before. The

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Speaker 1: Satanism as presented in the Satanic Panic of the eighties,

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Speaker 1: Uh did not exist, no one, No one has actually

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Speaker 1: no ritual um you know, sacrificial uh worship of Satan

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Speaker 1: has has occurred in human history. Uh, certainly not on

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Speaker 1: the organized scale that uh that you see described in

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Speaker 1: some of these moral panics. But but anyway, Yeah, then

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Speaker 1: the demonic edge was taken off the game for a while,

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Speaker 1: and if you wish to invoke such entities you had

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Speaker 1: to you had to bust out an older monster manual. Thankfully,

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Speaker 1: the Demons of the Abyss and the Devils of the

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Speaker 1: Nine Hells have made the return, and Demcgregan himself is

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Speaker 1: is not only back, but he's a he's a cover batty,

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Speaker 1: you know, he's he's there on the cover of Out

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Speaker 1: of the Abyss and is the uh the creature that

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Speaker 1: you battle at the very end, and you know he's

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Speaker 1: he's not only fearsome physically, he's also a highly intelligent entity.

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Speaker 1: He has an intelligent score of twenty, which is you know,

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Speaker 1: like like top of the d Twentykay, how high does

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Speaker 1: it go? Is twenty the most intelligent? Yeah, twenty is

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Speaker 1: is is tremendously impressive. So a John von Neumann kind

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Speaker 1: of thing, Like it's I think like a ten is

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Speaker 1: is more in keeping with like, you know, sort of

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Speaker 1: average human intelligence. This thing is beyond that, Like eighteen

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Speaker 1: is is like really high for a starting character in

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Speaker 1: in Dungen'son Dragons starting mortal character. But the dem o

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Speaker 1: Gorgon does not use this intelligence for the good of humankind.

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Speaker 1: The de m Ocgorgan is gonna, what is gonna design

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Speaker 1: the most nefarious financial instruments that have ever been uh imagined?

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean he's he's completely chaotically evil. Um.

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Speaker 1: He's also known as the Sibilant Beast and the Master

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Speaker 1: of the Spiraling depths. And uh. But in those two heads,

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Speaker 1: each one has a name in dungeons and dragon's lore,

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Speaker 1: one is Annual and the other is Hathoradia. Uh. I

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Speaker 1: guess I don't know that anyone ever actually speaks to

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Speaker 1: one head or the other. You just kind of speak

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Speaker 1: to the de m Ocgorgon. Maybe that's the way to

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Speaker 1: beat it. You get them fighting each other. Maybe, I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I mean it basically, he's this wonderful embodiment

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Speaker 1: of like chao us and disorder, and I you know,

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Speaker 1: I think he wonderfully you know, embodies the sense of

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Speaker 1: maddening division. Kind of a perfect demon for modern times especially.

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Speaker 1: And I also like to think of the two heads

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Speaker 1: is representing like the different hemispheres of the brain. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so maybe only one of them can do a complex language.

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Speaker 1: Maybe so. Yeah, But but also I like the idea

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Speaker 1: that the demon lords like are these mighty things, but

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Speaker 1: perhaps they exist because they're they're like the accumulated runoff

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Speaker 1: of all like human inequity, you know. And of course

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Speaker 1: there are other demon lords as well, and they all

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Speaker 1: plot against each other and war eternally. They represent different

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Speaker 1: depths of moral sin. So Demogorgan's most prominent rivals are Orcus,

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Speaker 1: the demon Lord of undeath, as well as the demon

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Speaker 1: Lord of perversion gras It, and the Master of Lies

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Speaker 1: fraz are Blue. But he's also opposed by Bahamat, you know,

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Speaker 1: Gou and then of course Jubilex and Zuktimi, who we've

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Speaker 1: mentioned in passing on the show before. Wait, so one

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Speaker 1: of the rivals as Orcus, and now we began this

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Speaker 1: episode with a reading from John Milton's Paradise Lost, in

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Speaker 1: which the name Orcus is invoked. They don't really explain.

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Speaker 1: Milton doesn't go into who Orcus is there, but uh

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Speaker 1: so I didn't expect Orcas to come back. Also in

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Speaker 1: the D and D lawre here, Yeah, I mean Orcus

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Speaker 1: was a Roman god of the underworld who punished oathbreakers.

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Speaker 1: And oh and by the way, he also has his

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Speaker 1: own designated trans Newtonian object in zero four a two Orcas.

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Speaker 1: Not all demon lords can make that claim that they

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Speaker 1: actually have some sort of cosmic body named after them.

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Speaker 1: But this gets to the point that that d n

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Speaker 1: D is this wonderful mix of influences, fusing various twentieth

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Speaker 1: century fantasy and sci fi works with the mythology and

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Speaker 1: flow in folklore to create its worlds. So that's so

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Speaker 1: Orcus obviously comes from Roman mythology. Uh, there are other

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Speaker 1: creatures we mentioned Bahammed. Bahama is the entity that the

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Speaker 1: Knights Templars were accused of shipping in the fourteenth century

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Speaker 1: and we're subsequently eradicated for uh. So you know that's

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Speaker 1: where that name comes from. But then there's dem Ogregan

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Speaker 1: to consider, and uh and obviously the name predates dungeons

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Speaker 1: and Dragons because it pops up in Paradise Lost. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so you would I think, obviously expect given the word demogorgon,

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Speaker 1: that this is something from Greek mythology, right, just sounds

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Speaker 1: like something straight out of Greeks were of course, like

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Speaker 1: like Medusa, So you might think, oh, well, this is

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Speaker 1: some this is some Greek monster that gets turned into

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Speaker 1: a god at some point. But despite what you would

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Speaker 1: think from the name, you will not find the Demogorgon

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Speaker 1: in ancient Greek mythology. You flipped through the works of Homer,

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Speaker 1: labors of Hercules, myths of Antalympus, cults of Athena or Apollo,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna find no Demogorgon anywhere. So where does this

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Speaker 1: beast come from? Well, we've we've considered pop culture, and

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Speaker 1: we've considered, uh, you know, a current twenty first century

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Speaker 1: Netflix show. We've considered a twentieth century role playing game.

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Speaker 1: So what we're gonna do is we're gonna dive deeper

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Speaker 1: and we're gonna go into the literary world and continue

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Speaker 1: to follow follow the shadow of Demogorgan through the spiraling depths.

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Speaker 1: But first we're going to take a break. Alright, we're back,

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Speaker 1: all right. So we've been talking about the monster, the

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Speaker 1: demon lord, the dem o organ as it is represented

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Speaker 1: in Dungeons and Dragons, and Robert has some experience with that.

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Speaker 1: But we now have said that we need to go

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Speaker 1: deeper because we're trying to figure out where this monster

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Speaker 1: came from. If it doesn't come from what you would

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Speaker 1: guess based on its name Greek mythology, right, and our

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Speaker 1: next step is to look at its very the way

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Speaker 1: its name is invoked in various works of literature. So

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Speaker 1: one of the books I was looking at on this

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Speaker 1: count was a book called Dangerous Games. What the Moral

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Speaker 1: Panic over role Playing Games says about play, religion, and

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Speaker 1: imagined worlds, by Joseph P. Lacock, And uh, this is

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Speaker 1: this is an interesting looking book that I really want

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Speaker 1: to read more from. Uh. But the author mentions that

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Speaker 1: Demcgorgan pops up in a number of early modern and

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Speaker 1: Romantic works. Uh. Interestingly enough, Leacock also highlights an author

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Speaker 1: and RPG named that I've brought up on the show before.

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Speaker 1: You may are Barker, Um, you know the this is

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Speaker 1: this guy who is known for creating these books and

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Speaker 1: this role playing world of Tucamel, which is this fantasy.

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Speaker 1: It's the sci fi fantasy world that depends less, far

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Speaker 1: less on Western models of of history and religion and

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Speaker 1: uh and myth and more on East Asian models. So uh, there,

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Speaker 1: if you're into fantasy, I recommend picking up those books.

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Speaker 1: There are a little old fashioned in some respects, like

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Speaker 1: they're very much in the mold of like kind of

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Speaker 1: a swashbuckling, uh you know, male centered adventure. But the

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Speaker 1: world that he created is really something to behold. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: he he points out quote, the prominence of original fantasy

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Speaker 1: religions in D and D as opposed to adaptations of

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Speaker 1: Christian saints and demons can be attributed largely to the

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Speaker 1: influence of M. A. R. Barker. Uh, because of Barker

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Speaker 1: was was very active in that whole scene at the time,

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Speaker 1: these various individuals like Gygax and others who were creating

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Speaker 1: these role playing worlds. But as should be clear from

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Speaker 1: us talking about John Milton, the demo organ is not

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Speaker 1: something that is a purely created, uh you know, fantasy

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Speaker 1: religion creature. It actually does have more of a history.

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Speaker 1: It goes back into Christian mythology in some way. So again,

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Speaker 1: whence the demo organ? Can we trace it back through literature? Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: let's look at some of the key examples of literary

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Speaker 1: demogorgon that pop up. Well, let's start with Milton's Paradise Lost.

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Speaker 1: We read that fantastic quote from it in our cold

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Speaker 1: open Uh. Paradise Losses, of course, the masterpiece of John Milton,

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Speaker 1: who lives sixteen o eight through sixteen seventy four, and

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Speaker 1: which he sets no higher goal than to quote justify

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Speaker 1: the ways of God demand which I I always love that,

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Speaker 1: like they just just really going for it with this work,

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Speaker 1: you know. Um. And to achieve this lofty goal, he

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Speaker 1: retells the creation and the angelic fall and the fall

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Speaker 1: of man, and in doing so creates a Satan that

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Speaker 1: is uh, in some people's eyes, problematically uh, sympathetic and tragic. Now,

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Speaker 1: I think you can easily say that Milton was not

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Speaker 1: like sympathetic towards Satan. He was a devout, devoted Protestant Christian.

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Speaker 1: But I've seen I've seen that criticism leveled at him,

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Speaker 1: particularly in when I was growing up reading some particularly

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Speaker 1: various like Christian fundamentalists of views of demonology and the

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Speaker 1: treatment of demons and angels, and literature that would charge

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Speaker 1: another like, oh Milton made uh, he made Satan way

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Speaker 1: too likable. Yeah. I mean, I think if you've got

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Speaker 1: no tolerance at all, uh, then then yeah, might might

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Speaker 1: go too far for you. But I think one thing

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Speaker 1: he sets up to achieve and does impaired. I was

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Speaker 1: lost as he shows sin as as going astray, you know,

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Speaker 1: as folly as like following, uh, following a misguided path

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Speaker 1: and not always just kind of this like uh indefinable

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Speaker 1: miasma of horrible nous. People often like to think of

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Speaker 1: the devil is like something you can't even look at.

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Speaker 1: But Milton's devil. I mean the kind of scary thing

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Speaker 1: about the devil in classic conceptions of it is that

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Speaker 1: he's seductive and that he makes good arguments. Yeah again,

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Speaker 1: I mean de mcgregan and dn D has that intelligence

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Speaker 1: of twenty wisdom of seventeen. Uh, you'd expect as much

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Speaker 1: at least from Satan. Yeah. Now, in Paradise lost, of course,

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Speaker 1: Satan ultimately he loses a war in Heaven. He falls

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Speaker 1: down with his demons. They get cast into Hell. They

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Speaker 1: have a big debate about what to do about this.

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Speaker 1: Some demons counsel that they should, you know, take up arms.

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Speaker 1: I think Malok says, let's go fight again. Some say,

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Speaker 1: you know, we're down here, we can just let's make

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Speaker 1: the best of it. You know, Hell's not so bad.

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Speaker 1: And but but Satan gets to this idea He's going

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Speaker 1: to get revenge by by corrupting God's favorite creation, the human.

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Speaker 1: And spoiler, he pulls it off. But yeah, this epic poem,

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Speaker 1: you can see, you can almost think of it as

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Speaker 1: kind of a reboot or kind of like an amazing

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Speaker 1: piece of of biblical fan fiction where he fleshes out

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Speaker 1: this idea of a war in heaven and he adds

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Speaker 1: in all sorts of dramatic and gnarly details. One I

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Speaker 1: always liked is that he forges a sword for the

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Speaker 1: Archangeel Michael, uh, that is powerful enough to cut through anything,

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Speaker 1: including the flesh of other angels. God forges the sword,

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Speaker 1: you mean? Yeah? Yeah, who did I say forged it? Oh?

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Speaker 1: I thought it sounded like you're saying Satan did. Okay, Well,

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Speaker 1: I say, I'm probably thinking Saranto because we just did that, right,

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Speaker 1: But to be clear, God made the sword. Yeah that's good. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like there's so much stuff in

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Speaker 1: Paradise Lost. And we were talking before we came into

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Speaker 1: the studio here about Dante as well, where there are

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Speaker 1: these great of literature within the Christian literary tradition that

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Speaker 1: get incorporated into people's theology, like they forget that stuff

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Speaker 1: that's just in Paradise Lost isn't actually in the Bible, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And and we can thank Dante for the pretty much

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Speaker 1: the whole concept of of purgatory becoming so prominent in

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Speaker 1: when in Western traditions. But but yeah, so so in

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Speaker 1: creating Paradise Lost, Milton he drags in a number of

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Speaker 1: names and develops a more demon names that do pop

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Speaker 1: up in the Bible, like the Elzeba, Belial, Mammon, Moloc.

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Speaker 1: But then he also drags in Orcus and dim Ogorgon,

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Speaker 1: and then there are seemingly new creations like most must

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Speaker 1: saber Uh, the architect of Pandemonium, the capital of Hell.

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Speaker 1: So dim mcgorgan is mentioned in book two and we

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Speaker 1: heard it at the start of this episode described and

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Speaker 1: this is a section of Paradise Lost that describes Satan's

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Speaker 1: voyage out of Hell with sin and death. So the

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Speaker 1: dem Ogregan is basically a back ound player. It's texture. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: just add a little texture to the scene as Satan

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Speaker 1: crosses the wilds of chaos and night that spanned the

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Speaker 1: void between Heaven and Hell. And there are other literary

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Speaker 1: invocations of the Demogorgon that I would say are basically

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Speaker 1: the same. They use the demogorgan not as a major

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Speaker 1: figure of significance, but something is sort of texture to

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Speaker 1: establish that a place is sort of ultimately abandoned by

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Speaker 1: God and and wretched, you know, like it's just really horrible.

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Speaker 1: And another great example of this is the way the

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Speaker 1: demogorgan is invoked in Edmund Spencer's The Fairy Queen. Uh So,

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Speaker 1: if you've never read it, The Fairy Queen is also

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Speaker 1: it's like Paradise Lost an English epic poem. It's from

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Speaker 1: the sixteenth century, so it's earlier than Paradise Lost, and

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Speaker 1: it's this really long poem about virtues and the adventures

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Speaker 1: of chivalrous nights. It's one of those that's, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: to modern readers. I think it has a whole lot

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Speaker 1: of interest in it, and there is some great poetry

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Speaker 1: in it, but also it can be very long and

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Speaker 1: ponderous and kind of stuffy in some ways, because I mean,

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Speaker 1: you can only read so much about piety and shipp um.

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Speaker 1: But it's long been interpreted as containing a lot of

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Speaker 1: allegorical representations of present figures and politics from the Elizabethan era.

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Speaker 1: When it was written, I think I was reading about

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Speaker 1: how Spencer um he secured himself a really nice pension

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Speaker 1: from the Elizabethan court. By presenting the poem to Queen Elizabeth.

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Speaker 1: But again, the Demogorgon here does not appear as a

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Speaker 1: main character, but sort of as a bit of character

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Speaker 1: for the landscape. So just to read one stanza in

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Speaker 1: which it is invoked. Therefore desirous the end of all

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Speaker 1: their days to know and them to enlarge with long

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Speaker 1: extent by wondrous skill and many hidden ways to the

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Speaker 1: three fatal sisters house. She went far underground from tract

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Speaker 1: of living, went down in the bottom of the deep abyss,

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Speaker 1: where dim Ogorgan, in dull darkness, pent far from the

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Speaker 1: view of God's in Heaven's bliss. This hideous chaos keeps

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Speaker 1: their dreadful dwelling. Is so this character is going She's

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Speaker 1: going down into a into a dark, godforsaken place. And

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Speaker 1: how do you signal places dark and god forsaken? How

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00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:11,480
Speaker 1: do you show places evil and far from God? Well,

421
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:14,600
Speaker 1: you mentioned it's where the demogorgan hangs out. So if

422
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:17,679
Speaker 1: the Red Cross Night stands for piety and holiness, the

423
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 1: Demogorgon stands for unholiness and satanic chaos. Now another work

424
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:26,719
Speaker 1: that's uh that's often invoked that mentions the demogorgan is

425
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:31,200
Speaker 1: another sixteenth century work. It's an Italian epic poem by

426
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 1: uh Lodovico Ariosto, a titled Orlando Furioso, which is a

427
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 1: poem that concerns the night Orlando, who is known in

428
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 1: French traditions as Roland Uh. Now, at least in some

429
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 1: versions and translations, it does mention Demogorgon quote the ruler

430
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:54,920
Speaker 1: of fates. But as far as I could tell, again,

431
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 1: he's just background. He's just texture that's added to this,

432
00:24:58,280 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: to a particular scene. All right. So this gets us

433
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:05,159
Speaker 1: back to the fifteenth sixteenth century UM. And so we

434
00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:08,199
Speaker 1: see by then that the democ organ is being invoked

435
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:12,439
Speaker 1: in UH literature written by Christians as some kind of

436
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:15,399
Speaker 1: infernal demons, some bad thing. Maybe it has something to

437
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: do with fate, maybe it has something to do with chaos.

438
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 1: And there's an earlier source that came across that's a

439
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 1: hundred years or so before this UH, the fourteenth century

440
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: Latin encyclopedia of pagan gods and their relationships, known as

441
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:34,879
Speaker 1: Boccaccio's Gena Loggia deorum Gentilium or the Genealogy of the

442
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 1: Gods of the Gentiles. This was written by the Italian

443
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 1: poet Giovanni Boccaccio, and Boccaccio apparently was commissioned to sort

444
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: of like put together this, this compendium of all the

445
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: bad old gods, you know, the pagan stuff back then,

446
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: and show the relationships to each other to make a

447
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:55,440
Speaker 1: family tree. I found an addition and analysis by Ernest Hatch.

448
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,240
Speaker 1: Wilkins actually could not find an English translation of this.

449
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:01,200
Speaker 1: I think there might be one out there somewhere, but

450
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 1: maybe it's not available online. Um but but anyway, Wilkins,

451
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:09,159
Speaker 1: in this nineteen edition from the University of Chicago Press,

452
00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:13,919
Speaker 1: was discussing what is covered in this book and apparently

453
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:18,880
Speaker 1: in attempting to create a family tree of all pagan gods.

454
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: Boccaccio regards the dem o organ as the original pagan deity,

455
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:28,199
Speaker 1: like the great great grandfather of Jupiter or Zeus, from

456
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:32,479
Speaker 1: which all other pagan deities are descended. So the family

457
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 1: tree just starts right at the top Demogorgon. Alright, So

458
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:40,440
Speaker 1: if you're if you're looking at various pagan gods from

459
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:43,960
Speaker 1: a from this Christian standpoint, where pagan gods are a

460
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 1: bad thing and perhaps are actually demons, then later that's

461
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 1: where we getting the idea that the demogorgan is something

462
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: primal and perhaps uh vile in nature, the very first God.

463
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 1: How strange. Now, it turns out this isn't the first

464
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 1: reference to a demogorgan and Christian literature, and we will

465
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: find an earlier mention of it later on. But before

466
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:09,879
Speaker 1: we move on to that, I wanted to talk about

467
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 1: what I think is one of the most interesting literary

468
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 1: depictions of the Demogorgon, definitely the most interesting I've come across,

469
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 1: and it's in Percy bish Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. This is,

470
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:24,159
Speaker 1: of course Mary's husband, Yes, yes, the husband of the

471
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:29,119
Speaker 1: author of Frankenstein. Percy Bis Shelley was an English Romantic poet.

472
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 1: This is a lyric drama, so it's a drama sort

473
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 1: of written in verse. The play is a response to

474
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 1: the Greek myth of Prometheus, and Shelly first published it

475
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:43,239
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty and he explicitly presented it as this

476
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 1: as a response to the play Prometheus Bound by the

477
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:52,159
Speaker 1: ancient Greek playwright Escalus. So the myth of Prometheus you

478
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 1: might know it well, but just to refresh, it goes

479
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,159
Speaker 1: something like this, Prometheus was one of a race of

480
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 1: deities in ancient Greek legion known as the Titans, and

481
00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: the Titans came before the gods of Olympus. The Titans

482
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:10,159
Speaker 1: were offspring from the union of Uranus the heavens and

483
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:13,919
Speaker 1: Gaea the earth, and they ruled the earth until Chronus,

484
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 1: the king of the Titans, was dethroned and his allies

485
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: were defeated by his son Zeus and the Olympian gods.

486
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 1: This is the War of the Titans, or the titanum

487
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 1: achi um. So Prometheus was one of the Titans, the

488
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 1: son of the Titan Yapidus, but he took the side

489
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: of Zeus in the war between the Olympians and the Titans,

490
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: so he's still around among the Olympian gods. And Zeus,

491
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 1: of course, is a creep. As a place Zeus is,

492
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: you just set your watch to it. He's going to

493
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: be a creep in a jerk. Zeus doesn't want mortal

494
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: humans down on earth like us, to have power and

495
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: knowledge like the gods, so he takes this crucial step

496
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 1: in this myth of hiding fire from the humans. He

497
00:28:57,160 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: takes fire from the earth. He hides it a Mount Olympus.

498
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 1: He says human can't have it, and Prometheus, the Titan

499
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 1: instead is sympathetic to humans, and so what he does

500
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 1: is he steals fire from where Zeus had hidden it

501
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: on Olympus, and he takes it down to share with

502
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: the mortals below. And this is a trope that we

503
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 1: see in various mythologies. So, for instance, there's a there's

504
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: a nearly identical role in Chinese myth of the fire driller,

505
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: who essentially does the same thing. And then we see

506
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 1: this again in so many stories. There's some sort of

507
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: knowledge of you know, some sort of generally, it's basically

508
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 1: technological in nature, and it is taken from the gods

509
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: one way or the other, borrowed from the gods, and

510
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 1: bestowed either bestowed to humans by some benevolent identity like Prometheus,

511
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 1: or it is just straight up stolen from the gods

512
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: by mortals. Well, I think I like the Chinese version

513
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: even better because in that the god who brings the

514
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: fire doesn't it explicitly brings the technological means to make fire,

515
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 1: not just the fire itself. So the fire drill. Of course,

516
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 1: you know, if you ever used a bow drill, it's

517
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,480
Speaker 1: not so easy, but you can make fire that way.

518
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: I think Prometheus is usually depicted as bringing like a

519
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: burning branch or something that. Yeah, something like that, And

520
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 1: granted that makes for a much better sculpture of painting,

521
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 1: right this naked Titan with the with with this highly

522
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 1: symbolic you know, a flaming torture branch. But through the

523
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: years Prometheus's gift to the humans, I think it is

524
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 1: more often interpreted along the lines of the fire Driller,

525
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 1: where he's it's not just fire. Prometheus symbolizes the power

526
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 1: from the heavens who betrays the leader God and brings

527
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: down general technology and knowledge and power and succor to

528
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: the humans, which which it's interesting that I mean Prometheus

529
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 1: and the figure of Prometheus and the figure of of

530
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 1: Satan have a lot in common, right, oh kind of yeah,

531
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: because I mean, yes, Satan. One of the things that's

532
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 1: interesting about the story of Satan in the Garden of

533
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: Eden is that Satan does not lie to the humans.

534
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:03,959
Speaker 1: You know, he's presented as doing bad, but he he

535
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: encourages them to uh to violate God's law in the

536
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: garden and eat from the tree that is forbidden to them.

537
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:11,959
Speaker 1: But he says, you can eat from this tree and

538
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: you will not die as you've been told you will

539
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 1: and it It turns out it's true. They eat and

540
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:18,719
Speaker 1: it doesn't kill them, except you could make the argument

541
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: that maybe, well maybe it makes them mortal in the

542
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:23,720
Speaker 1: long run. But I mean, basically, he's a disruptor, to

543
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: put it in like Silicon Valley terms, right, Like he's

544
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: he's trying to disrupt creation. Um. But so in the

545
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: Greek myth, of course, Prometheus being nice to the humans

546
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 1: and betraying Zeus, both the mortals and Prometheus are punished

547
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: for this. The punishment for humans is a sequence of

548
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: events that leads to the opening of Pandora's Box, out

549
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 1: of which flow all the hardships and frailty of human life.

550
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: You get plague, you get toiled to survive all that stuff,

551
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 1: and a little bit of hope left over. I guess yeah.

552
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 1: In the bottom uh, Prometheus is punished in a more

553
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:01,480
Speaker 1: explicit way. He is bound to a rock in the

554
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 1: Caucasus Mountains, and not only has he chained up, but

555
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: Zeus sends a nasty eagle to peck out his liver

556
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 1: each day, and unfortunately Prometheus is immortal, so his liver,

557
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 1: as an immortal liver, just keeps regenerating and the eagle

558
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: can fly back and peck it out and eat it

559
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 1: again the next day. It sounds like a bad deal. Yeah,

560
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 1: it's a bad deal, But I don't know as far as, like,

561
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: you know, offending Zeus goes. I guess it could have

562
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 1: been worse. I guess. So. Now, in response to this myth,

563
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 1: Shelly Percy Bis Shelley in his play takes up the

564
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: banner of Prometheus, and he makes him a heroic figure

565
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 1: in the play. And I would say this is not surprising,

566
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 1: because you could definitely say that Percy Shelley was of

567
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 1: a revolutionary temperament theologically, politically, and in literature. He was

568
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 1: very against the old ways and the old powers and

569
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: the authorities, and for sort of disruption and revolution and

570
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 1: doing things in a new way. Now, the plot of

571
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 1: Shelley's play is kind of abstract and of loaded with

572
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 1: characters and images of ponderous meaningfulness. So, uh so I'm

573
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 1: gonna try to do a short summary, leaving aside all

574
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: the stuff that takes us in other directions and focusing

575
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 1: on how the democ organ comes in. So Prometheus is

576
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:16,600
Speaker 1: we find him in this state where he's bound up

577
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 1: by Zeus. It's Jupiter in this play, but this is

578
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: the same figure the King of the Gods, bound up

579
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 1: and tortured by Jupiter for bringing knowledge to the mortals,

580
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 1: and in Shelley's version it is explicitly not just fire

581
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,920
Speaker 1: but general knowledge and aid. And there are two other

582
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: deities who are sympathetic to Prometheus and they want to

583
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: help him. These are the sisters Asia and Panthea, and

584
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 1: they attempt to free Prometheus from his bondage. Asia is

585
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: a c nymph who is actually the beloved of Prometheus,

586
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:49,239
Speaker 1: and Panthea is her sister. Led by a dream, the

587
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:52,480
Speaker 1: two of them venture into the underworld and they meet

588
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 1: a character called the democ Organ, who is portrayed as

589
00:33:56,360 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 1: a kind of supremely powerful but also strangely pass of

590
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: and kind of inert force of fate and nothingness, who

591
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 1: is also the son of Jupiter. Now, when they first

592
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 1: come across uh the dem o Organ, the character of

593
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: Panthea describes him this way. She says, I see a

594
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:18,960
Speaker 1: mighty darkness filling the seat of power, and rays of

595
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:23,320
Speaker 1: gloom dart round as light from the meridian sun, ungazed

596
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 1: upon and shapeless, neither limb nor form nor outline. Yet

597
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 1: we feel it is a living spirit. This is very

598
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: different from the D and D demigorgan, right, Yeah, this

599
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: is more like a primordial soup of the deity. Yeah.

600
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: So they say that they since there is a living

601
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:43,400
Speaker 1: presence down in the abyss with them, and there's a

602
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 1: mighty darkness, there's something in the gloom, but they can't

603
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 1: see that it has any kind of shape or body.

604
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: And then Panthea and Asia have a consultation with the Demogorgon.

605
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:56,560
Speaker 1: They asked him questions and the demogorgan reveals to them

606
00:34:56,840 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 1: that Jupiter created the world with all the good and

607
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:03,840
Speaker 1: the bad that it entails, and also that even Jupiter

608
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 1: himself is not all powerful, because, in the words of

609
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: the demogorgan quote, all spirits are enslaved, which serve things evil.

610
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 1: And he says to Asia, thou knowest if Jupiter be

611
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: such or No. Of course, Asia knows that even though

612
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 1: Jupiter is the chief god, Jupiter still does things that

613
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 1: are evil. He serves evil, So there must be some

614
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:28,759
Speaker 1: kind of power over him, because all things that serve

615
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:31,799
Speaker 1: evil have some power over them. So what is even

616
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 1: Jupiter subject to? Well, the demo organ answer is that too, quote,

617
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 1: if the abyssum could vomit forth its secrets, but a

618
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:43,919
Speaker 1: voice is wanting the deep truth is imageless. For what

619
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:47,240
Speaker 1: would it avail to bid the gaze on the revolving world?

620
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 1: What to bid? Speak fate, time, occasion, chance, and change?

621
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 1: To these all things are subject but eternal love. Love.

622
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: That's the fifth element. I guess it is. So even Jupiter,

623
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:03,880
Speaker 1: the ultimate god of everything, is subject to the power

624
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:07,239
Speaker 1: of love. Uh, sounds kind of cheesy. But then but

625
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 1: then Asia is like, Okay, well, I love Prometheus, so

626
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: when will he be freed? Like wind? Shall the destined

627
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 1: hour arrive for Prometheus to be to be freed? And

628
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 1: the de m o organ just says, behold exclamation point.

629
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 1: So then immediately the Demogorgon travels to heaven where Jupiter

630
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:27,280
Speaker 1: is the Jupiter, the chief god, is in the middle

631
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 1: of a big speech about how awesome he is, and

632
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 1: the dem ogorgan appears and then he just he just

633
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 1: messes up Jupiter. He casts him down, He destroys the

634
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:40,799
Speaker 1: tyrant creator god, and then Prometheus can be freed by

635
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 1: Hercules and reunited with Asia. That's quite a climax. Well,

636
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:46,799
Speaker 1: but it's not the climax. Somehow, this is not the

637
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 1: end of the play. This is like act three of

638
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 1: a five act play. After this, it seems I've never

639
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 1: read the thing in full. I admit I've read some passages.

640
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:56,919
Speaker 1: It seems like after this there is a lot of

641
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 1: like sort of um windy pontificateing about love and virtues

642
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: and what is good and right. But anyway, I think

643
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 1: the Demogorgon's role in this story is very interesting. He's well, so,

644
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: I kept saying he, but the Demogorgan. Actually, one thing

645
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 1: that's been pointed out by scholars is that the democ

646
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 1: organ has never given a gender uh in in Percy's

647
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 1: play uh In. In other sources it is, I think,

648
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:24,359
Speaker 1: assumed to be a he, but there's no there's no

649
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 1: gender in Prometheus Unbound. So the Demogorgan, whoever they are,

650
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:31,319
Speaker 1: whatever they are, is depicted as in some kind of

651
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:35,320
Speaker 1: infernal phantom of the underworld, but also a liberating force

652
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 1: for positive good, overthrowing the tyrannical order of creation at

653
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:43,360
Speaker 1: the appointed hour uh Though interestingly, I would say the

654
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 1: demogorgan doesn't really seem to act out of their own volition.

655
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: It's almost as if, um they are somehow triggered into

656
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:53,719
Speaker 1: this act by the visit from Asia and Panthea, like

657
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 1: it's the love for Prometheus from Asia that was faded

658
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 1: to proceed the appointed hour of Jupiter's destruction and the

659
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:05,279
Speaker 1: liberation of the world. Another thing that's interesting here about

660
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:08,879
Speaker 1: Shelley's work, So we talked about how the Demogorgon does

661
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:11,839
Speaker 1: not actually come from Greek mythology, even though he's being

662
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 1: retro insurgent into like classical mythology here Greek and Roman

663
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 1: kind of blended mythology here. Um, what would the word

664
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: DeMorgan mean if it actually were a Greek word. Well,

665
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:26,839
Speaker 1: you've got the apparent roots demos and gorgon, like the

666
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:31,320
Speaker 1: people's gorgon, like democracy, and then gorgon again, the monster

667
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: the of which Medusa is a member of the species.

668
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:39,759
Speaker 1: But actually the gorgon name for Medusa that has a

669
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 1: root in Greek too. It's from the word gorgos, which

670
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 1: means something like terrible or grim, you know, terror inducing.

671
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:50,240
Speaker 1: So the demogorgan could literally be translated as the people's terror,

672
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 1: like the terror of the masses of people, which is

673
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: a very interesting intersection with the idea of like a

674
00:38:55,960 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 1: long faded revolution to dethrone tyrant kings and unword the

675
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,560
Speaker 1: gods and of course we know, uh, Percy Shelley was

676
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:07,040
Speaker 1: a supporter of the French Revolution. He believed in atheism,

677
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:09,840
Speaker 1: he believed in republicanism, not to be confused with like

678
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 1: the Republican Party of today, like in the context of

679
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: the time, that was representative government as opposed to monarchy. Um.

680
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 1: And so I think it could be tempting to think

681
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:24,320
Speaker 1: of like the French Revolution as Shelley's demigorgon the people's terror,

682
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 1: like this inevitable swell of justice that washes tyrants from

683
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:31,840
Speaker 1: their thrones, but at the same time contains a terrifying

684
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:35,600
Speaker 1: and mighty darkness that can't really be seen or understood.

685
00:39:36,440 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: I like that the people's terror. I mean, yeah, I

686
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if if Shelley himself would

687
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:47,719
Speaker 1: have seen that, uh seen that comparison, because I think

688
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,239
Speaker 1: he may have had a more, I don't know, a

689
00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 1: less nuanced view of the guillotine saying. And of course

690
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 1: this introduces the idea of the devic organ as as

691
00:39:57,080 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: being like potential like political candidate, perhaps in in our

692
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 1: upcoming elections. If if you're if you're inclined to use

693
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 1: a right in candidate, go demogorgan the just rage of

694
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:13,879
Speaker 1: the people, that is without form or shape. Now one

695
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: more example of demogorgan popping up in uh in in

696
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 1: in a work of literature. Uh is is a story

697
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 1: essentially a short story from Voltaire Voltaire Live through seventeen

698
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 1: seventy eight. And I've never read this one before I'd

699
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: read I'd read some works of Voltaire in the past,

700
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: but at anyway, this one is titled Plato's Dream, in

701
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 1: which the Demogorgon is presented as a genie who witnesses

702
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 1: the initial creation um of the world by this primordial

703
00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 1: force called the demi urge, and along with its fellow genies. Uh.

704
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:55,399
Speaker 1: The dem Ogregan is granted a portion of the creation too,

705
00:40:55,400 --> 00:41:00,360
Speaker 1: then uh you know, to then finish into a functioning world.

706
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: The demogorgan is given the task of creating Earth and

707
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:07,720
Speaker 1: uh and is then critiqued and criticized by his fellow

708
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 1: genies for making such a mixed up planet. And so

709
00:41:11,640 --> 00:41:13,960
Speaker 1: there's a part here I want to quote where the

710
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:17,800
Speaker 1: demogorgan responds to his critics and says, quote, it is

711
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:21,240
Speaker 1: an easy matter to find fault, good folks, said the genie.

712
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:23,839
Speaker 1: But do you imagine it is so easy to form

713
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,680
Speaker 1: an animal who, having the gift of reason and free will,

714
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: shall not sometimes abuse his liberty. Do you think that,

715
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 1: in rearing between nine and ten thousand different plants, it

716
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:37,759
Speaker 1: is so easy to prevent some few from having noxious qualities?

717
00:41:38,239 --> 00:41:41,680
Speaker 1: Do you suppose that with a certain quantity of water, sand,

718
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:44,080
Speaker 1: and mud, you could make a globe that should have

719
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: neither seas nor deserts. As for you, my sneering friend,

720
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: I think you have just finished the planet Jupiter. Let

721
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 1: us see now what figure you make with your great

722
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 1: belts and your long nights with four moons to enlighten them.

723
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 1: Let us examine you or world and see whether the

724
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:04,960
Speaker 1: inhabitants you have made or exempt from follies or diseases.

725
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 1: I guess we'll just have to wait for the Europa

726
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 1: Probe to form us to resolve this one. Right, So,

727
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:14,840
Speaker 1: there's not much to really I feel like uncover in

728
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: this one, but there are there's at least one detail

729
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:21,799
Speaker 1: in this that will become critical. Uh. In our next

730
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 1: section of of the podcast, after we come back from

731
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:28,759
Speaker 1: a break, we will get into the true abyssal origins

732
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 1: of the demogorgan than. Alright, we're back, So we've charted

733
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:40,280
Speaker 1: the path of the demogorgan through much literature throughout especially

734
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,799
Speaker 1: the Christian world, and its role in some interesting sort

735
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 1: of revolutionary sentiments as expressed through literature like Prometheus Unbound

736
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: or in Voltaire story. But we're trying to find the

737
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:54,879
Speaker 1: origin of this. Where does the Demogorgon actually come from?

738
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 1: If it doesn't come from classic Greek mythology. Well, the

739
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:03,760
Speaker 1: origin is discussed in a nineteen sixty four book titled

740
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:08,320
Speaker 1: The Discarded Image and Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature,

741
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 1: written by none other than C. S. Lewis. In fact,

742
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: it was C. S. Lewis's last book before he died,

743
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: and it deals with medieval cosmology. He turns our attention

744
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:21,400
Speaker 1: to the fourth book of the thebe A by Stadius

745
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:26,919
Speaker 1: the First. Stadius lived uh CE forty five through and

746
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: this is an epic poem written in Latin about the

747
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 1: Theban cycle. And here the author alludes to a deity

748
00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:37,839
Speaker 1: that shall not be named, a quote sovereign of the

749
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 1: threefold world. And then early Christian author Lactantius, who lived

750
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:47,279
Speaker 1: two fifty through wrote a commentary on this work and

751
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:51,400
Speaker 1: stated that Stadius was referring in in fact to the

752
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: Greek Uh, demi organ this or creator quote the god

753
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 1: whose name and is unlawful to know. So we're talking

754
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 1: so demi organ from which we get Demogorgon and h.

755
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: And then Lewis writes the following to sum this up. Quote,

756
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:13,839
Speaker 1: this is plain sailing the demi urge or workman being

757
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:17,280
Speaker 1: the creator in the Timaeus. But there are two variants

758
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:23,640
Speaker 1: in the manuscripts. One is Demogorgona, the other Demogorgon. From

759
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 1: the later of these corruptions, later ages evolved a completely

760
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:32,719
Speaker 1: new deity, Demogorgon, who was to enjoy a distinguished literary

761
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 1: career in Boccaccio's Genealogy of the Gods, in Spencer, in

762
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:41,320
Speaker 1: Milton and in Shelley. This is perhaps the only time

763
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:47,080
Speaker 1: a scribal blunder underwent an apotheosis. Oh that's amazing, uh

764
00:44:47,080 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 1: and just so. In a mythological context, of course, Apotheosis

765
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,879
Speaker 1: here reversed to the process of a human being being

766
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: deified or something being made into a higher being, like

767
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:00,479
Speaker 1: a god or a star or heavenly object being taken

768
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 1: up into heaven. Ancient kings were sometimes made into gods,

769
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:07,759
Speaker 1: and legendary heroes like Hercules, sometimes lived lives that were

770
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:10,759
Speaker 1: so worthy or so notable, they were assumed into the

771
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:13,160
Speaker 1: pantheon and became God. So I think that's what he's

772
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:17,200
Speaker 1: saying here, is that somebody made a blunder in copying

773
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:21,280
Speaker 1: a manuscript or in translating, in understanding what a word

774
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 1: meant in an older book, and through that scribal error,

775
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: we got a brand new deity such that, you know,

776
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:33,840
Speaker 1: a thousand years later, Boccaccio would say, this deity is

777
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: the original macdaddy deity, like the number, like the Pagan

778
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 1: God before all the other ones, and it just comes

779
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:46,279
Speaker 1: from a mistranslation or misreading of a word. And the

780
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 1: word that was misread or a mistranslated is the dimmy Urge,

781
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 1: which which curiously enough is cited in that Voltaire short story. Right,

782
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 1: So it seems like Voltaire was kind of on the

783
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:01,359
Speaker 1: right track with the association here. Uh And and this

784
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 1: is great because the demi Urge is one of my

785
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: favorite characters from any mythology in the world. But but

786
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 1: its role is complicated and varies across different traditions, including

787
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:16,719
Speaker 1: like Platonic schools of philosophy and religion in the you know,

788
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 1: in the centuries following Plato's actual teachings and in various

789
00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: Gnostic religions. I'll try to give a general summary that

790
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:27,239
Speaker 1: applies to multiple lines of tradition that have sort of

791
00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:29,400
Speaker 1: similar attributes, but just be aware that there are a

792
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 1: lot of different things that are all sort of versions

793
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 1: of the demi urge. The word demi urge, as uh

794
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:38,760
Speaker 1: As Lewis mentioned, comes from the Greek. In its original form,

795
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:41,879
Speaker 1: is just a common noun that means something like craftsmen.

796
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:46,320
Speaker 1: You know, it's somebody who makes things, sculptor, maker, producer.

797
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: But within these religious points of view or in in

798
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 1: these philosophies and cosmologies, the demi urge is a figure

799
00:46:54,120 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 1: that creates the material world, is the creator. But apart

800
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:02,520
Speaker 1: from many other religions, this does not mean that he

801
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 1: is the ultimate creator God or that he is good.

802
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:09,720
Speaker 1: He is, i would say, variously portrayed as is everything,

803
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:14,440
Speaker 1: ranging from kind of neutral and bumbling to actively malevolent.

804
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:17,759
Speaker 1: And to give an example from one strain of gnosticism,

805
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:21,080
Speaker 1: in the Gnostic text known as the Apocryphon of John,

806
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:25,960
Speaker 1: the dimmi urge figure is this foolish, arrogant, wicked deity

807
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 1: called yelled Both who creates the material bodies of humans.

808
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: I think he also maybe creates the material world or

809
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:37,040
Speaker 1: some aspects of it um and humans. The humans that

810
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 1: he created end up with souls when they are inadvertently

811
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:44,800
Speaker 1: contaminated by a spark or a light from the higher

812
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 1: nobler plane of being known as the play roma, which

813
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:52,360
Speaker 1: means something like fullness. And so you've got the ple roma,

814
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:56,239
Speaker 1: the fullness, the real world, the real greater place, which

815
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 1: is is immaterial in nature, and then you've got the

816
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:03,480
Speaker 1: the crappy material world that Yaldaboath made. And now we're

817
00:48:03,560 --> 00:48:07,080
Speaker 1: stuck in that thing. And Yaldaboath resents the fact that

818
00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 1: humans have this spark from the Pleroma and tries to

819
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:13,160
Speaker 1: fight against it. So to do so, he tries to

820
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:16,360
Speaker 1: keep humans confused and in the dark, so we're always

821
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 1: fumbling around in this kind of baffling material hell, which

822
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 1: is our everyday world. And the Gnostics within this tradition

823
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:27,080
Speaker 1: believe that you can only escape the horrors of the

824
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:31,360
Speaker 1: material world by becoming privy to secret knowledge. That knowledge

825
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:35,680
Speaker 1: is the noses, the secret knowledge that explains the real world.

826
00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 1: And this is this is how you transcend the secret mythology,

827
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:42,879
Speaker 1: the secret rituals that give you access to the true,

828
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:47,840
Speaker 1: fuller reality behind this material illusion that controls our lives.

829
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 1: And you can actually see a connection to Platonic philosophy.

830
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:52,840
Speaker 1: Even if this sounds like a very kind of strange,

831
00:48:52,960 --> 00:48:56,360
Speaker 1: complicated theological take on on the creation of the world,

832
00:48:56,760 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 1: it sounds a lot like Plato's cave, right, Yeah, yeah,

833
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:01,799
Speaker 1: it does. I mean also that the basic spirit of

834
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:04,800
Speaker 1: this is also reflected in other faiths. I mean, the

835
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:07,440
Speaker 1: idea of there being a secret reality of their of

836
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: there being some sort of cycle that we need to

837
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 1: break free from. I mean you see that in say,

838
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: you know, Hindu and Buddhist traditions, and this idea of

839
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:19,920
Speaker 1: the spark of something more divine being like trapped in

840
00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: the mud of our bodies. How you see that also

841
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 1: reflected in even more recent creations like scientology. Oh totally,

842
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, absolutely. I would say gnostic theology reflects

843
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 1: something that is a very common belief among humans, and

844
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 1: you can see how often it appears, not just in

845
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:39,719
Speaker 1: other religions, but in all kinds of pop culture. I mean,

846
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:43,319
Speaker 1: echoes of the gnostic worldview bounce around constantly even through

847
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 1: contemporary culture, whether we're conscious of it or not, and

848
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 1: whether the creators of these pieces of culture, or conscious

849
00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:50,839
Speaker 1: of it or not. If I mean, if you've seen

850
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 1: the matrix, you already have a sort of baseline understanding

851
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:58,960
Speaker 1: of gnostic cosmology. You just replace the evil computers and

852
00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:02,680
Speaker 1: the agents with cosmic realms and wicked ar cons like

853
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 1: the demi Urge. The demmy Urge sort of created a

854
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:09,640
Speaker 1: material matrix for us to live in, when in reality

855
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:12,920
Speaker 1: we are beings from this better immaterial world and we

856
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:15,560
Speaker 1: have to find ways to escape and get back to it.

857
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:18,280
Speaker 1: So you're saying we are star dust, we are golden,

858
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 1: we are billion year old carbon, and we have to

859
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,160
Speaker 1: find our way back to the garden. Yes, but you

860
00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 1: can only get back to the garden if you teach

861
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:28,520
Speaker 1: your children well, because it is the secret knowledge that

862
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 1: is required to get you there. And most people are

863
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:33,479
Speaker 1: never going to be let in on the secret. They're

864
00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:36,920
Speaker 1: just sort of going about there, you know, their everyday life,

865
00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:40,920
Speaker 1: toiling after material things without understanding that the material world

866
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:44,000
Speaker 1: is bad and fake. But I love this idea that

867
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:48,000
Speaker 1: the demmy Urge being this creator of the material world

868
00:50:48,040 --> 00:50:51,440
Speaker 1: who's at the at the very least bumbling and at

869
00:50:51,480 --> 00:50:54,480
Speaker 1: worst some kind of devilish thing that that hates us

870
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 1: and wants to trick us into living bad, wrong lives.

871
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:01,520
Speaker 1: I could see this mistrans lation leading to the creation

872
00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:05,239
Speaker 1: of the demo organ figure being an excellent modern reworking

873
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:07,440
Speaker 1: of the Gnostic theology and being a part of that

874
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:11,319
Speaker 1: demi Urge's plan, like the demi Urge hides the true

875
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:14,800
Speaker 1: nosis about its wicked role in creating the material world

876
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 1: and these filthy bodies of ours by causing a scribal

877
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: error that hides its existence, and instead it gets everybody

878
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:26,680
Speaker 1: focused on this fake illusory demon or primordial god, the Demogorgon,

879
00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:29,359
Speaker 1: And then you're scared of the Demogorgon or you're in

880
00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:32,440
Speaker 1: all of its primeval darkness and shapeless presence, so you

881
00:51:32,560 --> 00:51:34,680
Speaker 1: forget that you need to be seeking the nosis to

882
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:38,880
Speaker 1: escape this wretched unreality. Uh and uh yeah, yeah, I

883
00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:42,200
Speaker 1: mean if you're ultimately if you're trying to envision the

884
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:46,240
Speaker 1: ultimate evil power in a in a in a fantasy world.

885
00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:48,719
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, this this sounds like the This is the

886
00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:52,640
Speaker 1: Prince of Demons right here. You know. I weirdly kept

887
00:51:52,680 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 1: thinking about the demi urriage when we were recently talking

888
00:51:55,160 --> 00:51:58,160
Speaker 1: about that book I read by Philip Ball about quantum

889
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:03,080
Speaker 1: mechanics that it's called Beyond Weird. It's a great book.

890
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:05,760
Speaker 1: It's a new book from this year last year about

891
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:08,480
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics. And one of the things that I think

892
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:10,480
Speaker 1: is really great about the book is it doesn't let

893
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 1: you off the hook. It doesn't just let you say, wow,

894
00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:15,120
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics sure does seem weird and then kind of

895
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:17,479
Speaker 1: shake your head and move on. Like it. It tries

896
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 1: to force you to look at it. It does the

897
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 1: thing from like Clockwork Orange where it holds your eyelids

898
00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:26,880
Speaker 1: open and says, no, look at this and pay attention.

899
00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:29,120
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things that you walk

900
00:52:29,160 --> 00:52:32,120
Speaker 1: away from that with is that, Okay, you know, I'm

901
00:52:32,160 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 1: not saying that physical reality isn't real, but it it

902
00:52:37,239 --> 00:52:40,480
Speaker 1: makes you think that whatever way we're interacting with the

903
00:52:40,520 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 1: world on a day to day basis, you know, the

904
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:45,680
Speaker 1: kind of reality we perceive with like objects you can

905
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:49,319
Speaker 1: touch and and see and know their place and all that,

906
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:53,480
Speaker 1: that is not the ultimate like arbiter of what reality is.

907
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 1: Like your perception of reality is not necessarily the most

908
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:00,719
Speaker 1: accurate way of understanding reality, even though it, you know,

909
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:02,880
Speaker 1: it seems to work good enough to get you through life,

910
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:05,440
Speaker 1: So how could it be wrong? But yet we you know,

911
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:09,360
Speaker 1: we do experiments in physics all the time. Now that

912
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 1: that just show you over and over again that the

913
00:53:12,160 --> 00:53:14,319
Speaker 1: way you have of making sense of the world is

914
00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 1: some kind of derivative, second order kind of grasp of physics,

915
00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:23,240
Speaker 1: or you have no intuitive way of understanding quantum reality,

916
00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:26,880
Speaker 1: you know what happens before decoherence and everything, so that

917
00:53:27,040 --> 00:53:29,880
Speaker 1: ultimately there is this there is this deeper truth in

918
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:33,960
Speaker 1: the universe that that we are not inherently privy to.

919
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:38,800
Speaker 1: We're only privy to it via uh technology, via science.

920
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:44,200
Speaker 1: Uh these are essentially gnostic tools of elevation. That that's

921
00:53:44,239 --> 00:53:45,919
Speaker 1: how you get the noses as you do a double

922
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:50,440
Speaker 1: slit experiment. Well, I've enjoyed this, uh, this journey that

923
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 1: we've taken, you know, because it feels, i mean, part

924
00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:57,719
Speaker 1: of it seems like the natural destination for an exploration

925
00:53:57,719 --> 00:53:59,719
Speaker 1: of the Demock organ that it would tie back to

926
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:04,360
Speaker 1: this primordial being that's wrapped in gnostic mystery. But on

927
00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:07,399
Speaker 1: the other hand, I love that it also hinges incredibly

928
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 1: upon just a scribal blunder. You know that it's a

929
00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 1: it's it's this thing that was actually you know, it's

930
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:17,040
Speaker 1: never really real in the way that we uh we

931
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:20,120
Speaker 1: might you know, attribute it as having been. It was

932
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:24,919
Speaker 1: never actually UH an entity that was worshiped or even

933
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:28,600
Speaker 1: factored into any actual myth cycle. No, it is wholly

934
00:54:28,640 --> 00:54:30,840
Speaker 1: without shape and out of the darkness. It is the

935
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:34,279
Speaker 1: figure that Asia and Panthea go to visit, and you know,

936
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 1: it just waits there until it's hour comes round at last. Yeah. Yeah,

937
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:41,000
Speaker 1: And I also love how we got to let's see

938
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 1: if we got to to turn to Joni Mitchell, Crosby

939
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:48,000
Speaker 1: Stills and Nash uh C s Lewis, Um Milton and

940
00:54:48,040 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 1: of course Gary Gygax to understand it all a wonderful

941
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:56,640
Speaker 1: motley crew for those wooden ships on the water. All right, well,

942
00:54:56,640 --> 00:54:59,400
Speaker 1: we're gonna close it out right there. But obviously I

943
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:01,719
Speaker 1: imagined in am of you have thoughts about the demogorgan,

944
00:55:01,840 --> 00:55:05,120
Speaker 1: either the Netflix version or the Dungeons and Dragons incarnation,

945
00:55:05,239 --> 00:55:09,520
Speaker 1: or perhaps some of the literary UH incarnations that we've

946
00:55:09,560 --> 00:55:11,640
Speaker 1: discussed here as well, and of course we would love

947
00:55:11,680 --> 00:55:15,279
Speaker 1: to hear from you. But stay tuned, because again this

948
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:19,279
Speaker 1: entire month of October, he's going to be UH Halloween

949
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 1: themed as it has been in the past. Uh, We're

950
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:27,000
Speaker 1: gonna have all new monstrosities to consider. Uh, tying in

951
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 1: as much science as we possibly can. Have we ever

952
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 1: done an episode on the science of Medusa? Snakes for hair?

953
00:55:33,640 --> 00:55:35,960
Speaker 1: Is there something there? Something I don't know? I mean,

954
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:39,560
Speaker 1: I've I've covered at least blogged about Medusa back in

955
00:55:39,600 --> 00:55:41,080
Speaker 1: the day, and I think I did maybe a monster

956
00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:44,800
Speaker 1: science video about Medusa. But that would be an interesting

957
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 1: one to to to explore again, because the Medusa is

958
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:51,400
Speaker 1: a is a fascinating monster, and then some of the

959
00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:54,920
Speaker 1: things we've done with the Medusa are kind of monstrous.

960
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:57,880
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I could. I would be up for a

961
00:55:57,920 --> 00:56:01,600
Speaker 1: Medusa exploration. Bring it all right. In the meantime, if

962
00:56:01,640 --> 00:56:03,120
Speaker 1: you want to support the show, the best thing you

963
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:05,520
Speaker 1: can do is make sure you have subscribed, and then

964
00:56:05,600 --> 00:56:07,319
Speaker 1: rate and review us wherever you have the power to

965
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:10,360
Speaker 1: do so. And don't forget about invention. Monsters are great,

966
00:56:10,440 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 1: but the real monster is always human endeavor and human invention.

967
00:56:15,200 --> 00:56:18,919
Speaker 1: And that's what we explore. Invention is a journey through

968
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:22,880
Speaker 1: human techno history. Really, it's a it's a celebration, or

969
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:25,560
Speaker 1: at least a contemplation in some in many cases of

970
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:29,759
Speaker 1: the fire of Prometheus. Yeah, the things we made, how

971
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:33,279
Speaker 1: they made us, where they came from. Yeah, So make

972
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 1: sure you have checked that show out as well, and

973
00:56:35,719 --> 00:56:39,320
Speaker 1: make sure you subscribe. Rate and review helps us out huge,

974
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:43,520
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

975
00:56:43,920 --> 00:56:46,640
Speaker 1: If you have any feedback on this episode and we'd

976
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:48,240
Speaker 1: like to share it with us, If you'd like to

977
00:56:48,400 --> 00:56:50,719
Speaker 1: get in touch just to say hi or suggest a

978
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:54,160
Speaker 1: topic for the future, you can email us at contact

979
00:56:54,280 --> 00:57:05,160
Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to

980
00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's How

981
00:57:07,160 --> 00:57:09,680
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit

982
00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:12,479
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983
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:25,440
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