Speaker 1: At length. The universal hubbub, wild of stunning sounds and voices,
Speaker 1: all confused, borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear
Speaker 1: with loudest vehemence. Thither he plies, undaunted to meet there
Speaker 1: whatever power or spirit of the nethermost abyss might in
Speaker 1: that noise reside of whom to ask which way the
Speaker 1: nearest coast of darkness lies bordering on light. When straight
Speaker 1: behold the throne of Chaos and his dark pavilion spread
Speaker 1: wide on the wasteful deep, with him enthroned, sat sable,
Speaker 1: vested night, eldest of things, the consort of his reign,
Speaker 1: And by them stood orcas and eighties and the dreaded
Speaker 1: name of dim Rumor next, and chants and tumults and confusion,
Speaker 1: all embroil'd and dis gourd with a thousand various mouths.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, A production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and I'm so excited. It's my favorite
Speaker 1: time of the year. It's October, which is my favorite
Speaker 1: month of the year anyway, but it's also my favorite
Speaker 1: time of the year at work, because it's Monster Month
Speaker 1: here on stuff to blow your mind. That's right, when
Speaker 1: we devote the entire month of October and sometimes a
Speaker 1: little change two topics that are either obsessed with monsters
Speaker 1: or or darkness or horror or terror. Is there anything
Speaker 1: even remotely HALLOWEENI We just fully embrace it. It's the
Speaker 1: most wonderful time of the year. And so and you know,
Speaker 1: as we were coming up with episodes to record this year,
Speaker 1: where we you know, our minds turned to things we've
Speaker 1: covered in the past. So on one hand, there's an
Speaker 1: old episode of the show about the mind flares of
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons, uh, and it's led various folks to
Speaker 1: request another episode dealing with something from the world of
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons. And likewise, last year we did an
Speaker 1: episode on the Great Basilisk where we talk about this
Speaker 1: concept of not only the monstrous Basilist, but this kind
Speaker 1: of uh, you know, tech world futuristic vision of an
Speaker 1: all powerful, malevolent AI. And so we decided we we'd
Speaker 1: up the Anti this year and discuss uh an entity
Speaker 1: that kind of combines both of these themes. And so
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the demogorgan. Now, I would
Speaker 1: not be surprised for the largest portion of you out
Speaker 1: there are familiar with the idea of a dem ogorgan,
Speaker 1: primarily from the recent Netflix show Stranger Things. I guess
Speaker 1: it's mainly the first season of that, right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the creature it keeps popping up as well, but
Speaker 1: it's mainly that that first excellent season of Stranger Things.
Speaker 1: And uh, and think that's a good place to start.
Speaker 1: Like the most recent pop culture incarnation of the democ organ,
Speaker 1: it's probably one of the best new cinematic monsters that
Speaker 1: we've encountered in recent years. Uh, you know, this category
Speaker 1: confusion entity that's at once humanoid and be steal but
Speaker 1: at times these bipedal and other times it's crawling around
Speaker 1: on all fours. It's like a venus flytrap minotaur. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the other cool aspect of it. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: head at times looks like a featureless mask of flesh,
Speaker 1: but then it opens up in these these flower petals,
Speaker 1: these kind of uh you know, razor toothed flower petals
Speaker 1: around this gaping maw. But I also like that it's
Speaker 1: a dimension hopper, right, which kind of means it's always
Speaker 1: it could pop up anywhere. Yeah, it travels through dimensions, though,
Speaker 1: though I'm uncertain if that's part of its natural abilities,
Speaker 1: because we see it feeding on an egg in its
Speaker 1: own dimension at one point. Uh. And perhaps it takes
Speaker 1: to hunting in our world due to the weakening of
Speaker 1: the connection between the two. Uh, you know, due to
Speaker 1: mad science of course. Um. But if this is the case,
Speaker 1: it's still quite proficient a traveling between the worlds through
Speaker 1: those rips and tears to acquire food. Right, So it
Speaker 1: could actually be a rather mundane predator in its own world.
Speaker 1: It's just that Matthew Modine and his psychic projects unleashed
Speaker 1: this predator into it made it an invasive species in
Speaker 1: our world. Right. Yeah, yeah, like it, like it. It
Speaker 1: does pretty well in its own world, but here it
Speaker 1: can really go at it, you know, like a Superman
Speaker 1: with the yellow sun. Yeah. But of course, in Stranger Things,
Speaker 1: we also learned that the kids in the in the story,
Speaker 1: they name this creature the democ Organ because they are
Speaker 1: actively playing Dungeons and Dragons and they and they are
Speaker 1: playing a campaign that involves the democ Organ. Uh. This,
Speaker 1: this Prince of Demons is mighty demon lord of just
Speaker 1: immense power. Now, Robert, I know that you have a
Speaker 1: reputation as a quite cruel dungeon master yourself. So do
Speaker 1: you subject to your adventuring travelers to a democ Organ
Speaker 1: every now and then? No? Not not no, not yet.
Speaker 1: And it's not the kind of thing would you would
Speaker 1: inflict on your adventures in a haphazard fashion. It is
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful entities in the game, So
Speaker 1: it's it's the kind of thing you cap off an
Speaker 1: entire campaign with that you would only throw at, you know,
Speaker 1: a higher level, like really high level characters. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess you could throw it in haphazardly if you
Speaker 1: have just kind of a very casual game where people
Speaker 1: have like just immensely powerful characters. In each week you
Speaker 1: just battle some things that are tremendously powerful to just
Speaker 1: see how it all shakes out. But um, for instance,
Speaker 1: in the campaign Out of the Abyss, which is a
Speaker 1: campaign that I've been playing in my group that I've
Speaker 1: been a dungeon mastering for about four years now, we
Speaker 1: are almost at the point where the dem Ogorgan may
Speaker 1: be encountered. Yeah, so we've been building up to it.
Speaker 1: Do you have Demogorgon que music ready to go when
Speaker 1: it happens. Basically, I mean, it's a it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: It's uh, you know, we have an enormous figuring that
Speaker 1: we've been putting together. It's a it's huge. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: in the Dungeons and Dragons world, what is this demogorgon creature?
Speaker 1: It's obviously nothing like what's in Stranger things like that.
Speaker 1: It's not a venus fly trap minotaur, right, So in
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons, the Demogorgon dates back to nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1: That's when this entity um originated in a supplement titled
Speaker 1: Eldric Wizards by Gary Gygax himself and Brian Bloom. And
Speaker 1: if you look around online you can find this in
Speaker 1: PDF form and it has some you know, some adorably
Speaker 1: kind of crude illustrations of what the various creatures would
Speaker 1: look like. Those those those the illustrations, and Dungeons Dragons
Speaker 1: have come a long way, like the most like the
Speaker 1: earliest version of the Demogorgon that is illustrated in this
Speaker 1: book is just crude sketch of this, uh, this kind
Speaker 1: of two headed, tentacle armed, chicken footed thing with baboon heads, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: with baboon heads. But the like it's cute. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like, it's kind of like the monsters in the
Speaker 1: Ranking and Bass Middle Earth, and and of course, you know,
Speaker 1: part most the big thing Abou Dungeons and Dragons is
Speaker 1: that it does take place in the mind, and especially
Speaker 1: early on they did, they didn't have elaborate illustrations. You're
Speaker 1: supposed to, you know, come up with it yourself. Today
Speaker 1: we have elaborate illustrations. The most recent fifth edition illustrations
Speaker 1: of the democ Organ are just absolutely beautiful, where it
Speaker 1: seems like there's like a burning sun inside of the creature.
Speaker 1: But I want to read just a quick description from
Speaker 1: that original nineteen seventy six supplement to to properly describe
Speaker 1: what the creature looks like, because the basic description has
Speaker 1: not changed. Okay, melt my mind with terror. Okay, quoth
Speaker 1: Guy GaX and bloom here. Uh. It is contended by
Speaker 1: some that this demon lord is supreme and in any event,
Speaker 1: he is awesome in his power. This gigantic demon is
Speaker 1: eighteen tall and reptilian. His skin is plated with snake
Speaker 1: like scales. His body and legs are those of a
Speaker 1: giant lizard. His twin necks resemble snakes, and his thick
Speaker 1: tail is fort Dimcgorgan has two heads which bear the
Speaker 1: visages of evil baboons or perhaps mandrils. Rather than having arms,
Speaker 1: he has great tentacles. His appearance testifies to his command
Speaker 1: of cold blooded things such as serpents, reptiles and octopi.
Speaker 1: And Robert, you brought in a glorious figurine that I
Speaker 1: now hold in my hand. It's uh, it's very nice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a small one. The big one I couldn't
Speaker 1: even bring in because it's just it's it's too enormous.
Speaker 1: It would alarm people. Uh and they would they would
Speaker 1: wonder what was about to befall them. So so yeah, basically,
Speaker 1: this description, though, holds up. It's been tweaked a little bit.
Speaker 1: I think at one point the heads were more hyena
Speaker 1: like because, as I mentioned earlier, we've had various editions
Speaker 1: of dungeons and dragons were on addition five at this point.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh and in each edition has brought about
Speaker 1: various changes to the rules, the mechanic, to the lore.
Speaker 1: And we'll get into some of that in a minute.
Speaker 1: As it relates to de mcgorgan um and then the
Speaker 1: art who has mostly gotten just tremendously better over the years.
Speaker 1: And again the most recent fifth edition art is absolutely
Speaker 1: splendid to behold. But of course, another thing to keep
Speaker 1: in mind is that the democ organ is a demon,
Speaker 1: a demon lord. And given the moral panics surrounding supposed
Speaker 1: Satanists and the the the quote unquote dangers of D
Speaker 1: and D back in the nineteen eighties, the various demons
Speaker 1: and devils in the game Lore lost their titles at
Speaker 1: one point. UM. So when I originally started playing back
Speaker 1: in the nineties, Uh, these various devils and demons were
Speaker 1: known as uh the tanari uh instead of actually referring
Speaker 1: to them as demons. So it's a rebrand. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a rebrand because everyone was freaking out about imagined Satanist,
Speaker 1: which I think we've discussed on the show before. The
Speaker 1: Satanism as presented in the Satanic Panic of the eighties,
Speaker 1: Uh did not exist, no one, No one has actually
Speaker 1: no ritual um you know, sacrificial uh worship of Satan
Speaker 1: has has occurred in human history. Uh, certainly not on
Speaker 1: the organized scale that uh that you see described in
Speaker 1: some of these moral panics. But but anyway, Yeah, then
Speaker 1: the demonic edge was taken off the game for a while,
Speaker 1: and if you wish to invoke such entities you had
Speaker 1: to you had to bust out an older monster manual. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: the Demons of the Abyss and the Devils of the
Speaker 1: Nine Hells have made the return, and Demcgregan himself is
Speaker 1: is not only back, but he's a he's a cover batty,
Speaker 1: you know, he's he's there on the cover of Out
Speaker 1: of the Abyss and is the uh the creature that
Speaker 1: you battle at the very end, and you know he's
Speaker 1: he's not only fearsome physically, he's also a highly intelligent entity.
Speaker 1: He has an intelligent score of twenty, which is you know,
Speaker 1: like like top of the d Twentykay, how high does
Speaker 1: it go? Is twenty the most intelligent? Yeah, twenty is
Speaker 1: is is tremendously impressive. So a John von Neumann kind
Speaker 1: of thing, Like it's I think like a ten is
Speaker 1: is more in keeping with like, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: average human intelligence. This thing is beyond that, Like eighteen
Speaker 1: is is like really high for a starting character in
Speaker 1: in Dungen'son Dragons starting mortal character. But the dem o
Speaker 1: Gorgon does not use this intelligence for the good of humankind.
Speaker 1: The de m Ocgorgan is gonna, what is gonna design
Speaker 1: the most nefarious financial instruments that have ever been uh imagined?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean he's he's completely chaotically evil. Um.
Speaker 1: He's also known as the Sibilant Beast and the Master
Speaker 1: of the Spiraling depths. And uh. But in those two heads,
Speaker 1: each one has a name in dungeons and dragon's lore,
Speaker 1: one is Annual and the other is Hathoradia. Uh. I
Speaker 1: guess I don't know that anyone ever actually speaks to
Speaker 1: one head or the other. You just kind of speak
Speaker 1: to the de m Ocgorgon. Maybe that's the way to
Speaker 1: beat it. You get them fighting each other. Maybe, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean it basically, he's this wonderful embodiment
Speaker 1: of like chao us and disorder, and I you know,
Speaker 1: I think he wonderfully you know, embodies the sense of
Speaker 1: maddening division. Kind of a perfect demon for modern times especially.
Speaker 1: And I also like to think of the two heads
Speaker 1: is representing like the different hemispheres of the brain. Okay,
Speaker 1: so maybe only one of them can do a complex language.
Speaker 1: Maybe so. Yeah, But but also I like the idea
Speaker 1: that the demon lords like are these mighty things, but
Speaker 1: perhaps they exist because they're they're like the accumulated runoff
Speaker 1: of all like human inequity, you know. And of course
Speaker 1: there are other demon lords as well, and they all
Speaker 1: plot against each other and war eternally. They represent different
Speaker 1: depths of moral sin. So Demogorgan's most prominent rivals are Orcus,
Speaker 1: the demon Lord of undeath, as well as the demon
Speaker 1: Lord of perversion gras It, and the Master of Lies
Speaker 1: fraz are Blue. But he's also opposed by Bahamat, you know,
Speaker 1: Gou and then of course Jubilex and Zuktimi, who we've
Speaker 1: mentioned in passing on the show before. Wait, so one
Speaker 1: of the rivals as Orcus, and now we began this
Speaker 1: episode with a reading from John Milton's Paradise Lost, in
Speaker 1: which the name Orcus is invoked. They don't really explain.
Speaker 1: Milton doesn't go into who Orcus is there, but uh
Speaker 1: so I didn't expect Orcas to come back. Also in
Speaker 1: the D and D lawre here, Yeah, I mean Orcus
Speaker 1: was a Roman god of the underworld who punished oathbreakers.
Speaker 1: And oh and by the way, he also has his
Speaker 1: own designated trans Newtonian object in zero four a two Orcas.
Speaker 1: Not all demon lords can make that claim that they
Speaker 1: actually have some sort of cosmic body named after them.
Speaker 1: But this gets to the point that that d n
Speaker 1: D is this wonderful mix of influences, fusing various twentieth
Speaker 1: century fantasy and sci fi works with the mythology and
Speaker 1: flow in folklore to create its worlds. So that's so
Speaker 1: Orcus obviously comes from Roman mythology. Uh, there are other
Speaker 1: creatures we mentioned Bahammed. Bahama is the entity that the
Speaker 1: Knights Templars were accused of shipping in the fourteenth century
Speaker 1: and we're subsequently eradicated for uh. So you know that's
Speaker 1: where that name comes from. But then there's dem Ogregan
Speaker 1: to consider, and uh and obviously the name predates dungeons
Speaker 1: and Dragons because it pops up in Paradise Lost. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you would I think, obviously expect given the word demogorgon,
Speaker 1: that this is something from Greek mythology, right, just sounds
Speaker 1: like something straight out of Greeks were of course, like
Speaker 1: like Medusa, So you might think, oh, well, this is
Speaker 1: some this is some Greek monster that gets turned into
Speaker 1: a god at some point. But despite what you would
Speaker 1: think from the name, you will not find the Demogorgon
Speaker 1: in ancient Greek mythology. You flipped through the works of Homer,
Speaker 1: labors of Hercules, myths of Antalympus, cults of Athena or Apollo,
Speaker 1: you're gonna find no Demogorgon anywhere. So where does this
Speaker 1: beast come from? Well, we've we've considered pop culture, and
Speaker 1: we've considered, uh, you know, a current twenty first century
Speaker 1: Netflix show. We've considered a twentieth century role playing game.
Speaker 1: So what we're gonna do is we're gonna dive deeper
Speaker 1: and we're gonna go into the literary world and continue
Speaker 1: to follow follow the shadow of Demogorgan through the spiraling depths.
Speaker 1: But first we're going to take a break. Alright, we're back,
Speaker 1: all right. So we've been talking about the monster, the
Speaker 1: demon lord, the dem o organ as it is represented
Speaker 1: in Dungeons and Dragons, and Robert has some experience with that.
Speaker 1: But we now have said that we need to go
Speaker 1: deeper because we're trying to figure out where this monster
Speaker 1: came from. If it doesn't come from what you would
Speaker 1: guess based on its name Greek mythology, right, and our
Speaker 1: next step is to look at its very the way
Speaker 1: its name is invoked in various works of literature. So
Speaker 1: one of the books I was looking at on this
Speaker 1: count was a book called Dangerous Games. What the Moral
Speaker 1: Panic over role Playing Games says about play, religion, and
Speaker 1: imagined worlds, by Joseph P. Lacock, And uh, this is
Speaker 1: this is an interesting looking book that I really want
Speaker 1: to read more from. Uh. But the author mentions that
Speaker 1: Demcgorgan pops up in a number of early modern and
Speaker 1: Romantic works. Uh. Interestingly enough, Leacock also highlights an author
Speaker 1: and RPG named that I've brought up on the show before.
Speaker 1: You may are Barker, Um, you know the this is
Speaker 1: this guy who is known for creating these books and
Speaker 1: this role playing world of Tucamel, which is this fantasy.
Speaker 1: It's the sci fi fantasy world that depends less, far
Speaker 1: less on Western models of of history and religion and
Speaker 1: uh and myth and more on East Asian models. So uh, there,
Speaker 1: if you're into fantasy, I recommend picking up those books.
Speaker 1: There are a little old fashioned in some respects, like
Speaker 1: they're very much in the mold of like kind of
Speaker 1: a swashbuckling, uh you know, male centered adventure. But the
Speaker 1: world that he created is really something to behold. But anyway,
Speaker 1: he he points out quote, the prominence of original fantasy
Speaker 1: religions in D and D as opposed to adaptations of
Speaker 1: Christian saints and demons can be attributed largely to the
Speaker 1: influence of M. A. R. Barker. Uh, because of Barker
Speaker 1: was was very active in that whole scene at the time,
Speaker 1: these various individuals like Gygax and others who were creating
Speaker 1: these role playing worlds. But as should be clear from
Speaker 1: us talking about John Milton, the demo organ is not
Speaker 1: something that is a purely created, uh you know, fantasy
Speaker 1: religion creature. It actually does have more of a history.
Speaker 1: It goes back into Christian mythology in some way. So again,
Speaker 1: whence the demo organ? Can we trace it back through literature? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: let's look at some of the key examples of literary
Speaker 1: demogorgon that pop up. Well, let's start with Milton's Paradise Lost.
Speaker 1: We read that fantastic quote from it in our cold
Speaker 1: open Uh. Paradise Losses, of course, the masterpiece of John Milton,
Speaker 1: who lives sixteen o eight through sixteen seventy four, and
Speaker 1: which he sets no higher goal than to quote justify
Speaker 1: the ways of God demand which I I always love that,
Speaker 1: like they just just really going for it with this work,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. And to achieve this lofty goal, he
Speaker 1: retells the creation and the angelic fall and the fall
Speaker 1: of man, and in doing so creates a Satan that
Speaker 1: is uh, in some people's eyes, problematically uh, sympathetic and tragic. Now,
Speaker 1: I think you can easily say that Milton was not
Speaker 1: like sympathetic towards Satan. He was a devout, devoted Protestant Christian.
Speaker 1: But I've seen I've seen that criticism leveled at him,
Speaker 1: particularly in when I was growing up reading some particularly
Speaker 1: various like Christian fundamentalists of views of demonology and the
Speaker 1: treatment of demons and angels, and literature that would charge
Speaker 1: another like, oh Milton made uh, he made Satan way
Speaker 1: too likable. Yeah. I mean, I think if you've got
Speaker 1: no tolerance at all, uh, then then yeah, might might
Speaker 1: go too far for you. But I think one thing
Speaker 1: he sets up to achieve and does impaired. I was
Speaker 1: lost as he shows sin as as going astray, you know,
Speaker 1: as folly as like following, uh, following a misguided path
Speaker 1: and not always just kind of this like uh indefinable
Speaker 1: miasma of horrible nous. People often like to think of
Speaker 1: the devil is like something you can't even look at.
Speaker 1: But Milton's devil. I mean the kind of scary thing
Speaker 1: about the devil in classic conceptions of it is that
Speaker 1: he's seductive and that he makes good arguments. Yeah again,
Speaker 1: I mean de mcgregan and dn D has that intelligence
Speaker 1: of twenty wisdom of seventeen. Uh, you'd expect as much
Speaker 1: at least from Satan. Yeah. Now, in Paradise lost, of course,
Speaker 1: Satan ultimately he loses a war in Heaven. He falls
Speaker 1: down with his demons. They get cast into Hell. They
Speaker 1: have a big debate about what to do about this.
Speaker 1: Some demons counsel that they should, you know, take up arms.
Speaker 1: I think Malok says, let's go fight again. Some say,
Speaker 1: you know, we're down here, we can just let's make
Speaker 1: the best of it. You know, Hell's not so bad.
Speaker 1: And but but Satan gets to this idea He's going
Speaker 1: to get revenge by by corrupting God's favorite creation, the human.
Speaker 1: And spoiler, he pulls it off. But yeah, this epic poem,
Speaker 1: you can see, you can almost think of it as
Speaker 1: kind of a reboot or kind of like an amazing
Speaker 1: piece of of biblical fan fiction where he fleshes out
Speaker 1: this idea of a war in heaven and he adds
Speaker 1: in all sorts of dramatic and gnarly details. One I
Speaker 1: always liked is that he forges a sword for the
Speaker 1: Archangeel Michael, uh, that is powerful enough to cut through anything,
Speaker 1: including the flesh of other angels. God forges the sword,
Speaker 1: you mean? Yeah? Yeah, who did I say forged it? Oh?
Speaker 1: I thought it sounded like you're saying Satan did. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I say, I'm probably thinking Saranto because we just did that, right,
Speaker 1: But to be clear, God made the sword. Yeah that's good. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like there's so much stuff in
Speaker 1: Paradise Lost. And we were talking before we came into
Speaker 1: the studio here about Dante as well, where there are
Speaker 1: these great of literature within the Christian literary tradition that
Speaker 1: get incorporated into people's theology, like they forget that stuff
Speaker 1: that's just in Paradise Lost isn't actually in the Bible, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and we can thank Dante for the pretty much
Speaker 1: the whole concept of of purgatory becoming so prominent in
Speaker 1: when in Western traditions. But but yeah, so so in
Speaker 1: creating Paradise Lost, Milton he drags in a number of
Speaker 1: names and develops a more demon names that do pop
Speaker 1: up in the Bible, like the Elzeba, Belial, Mammon, Moloc.
Speaker 1: But then he also drags in Orcus and dim Ogorgon,
Speaker 1: and then there are seemingly new creations like most must
Speaker 1: saber Uh, the architect of Pandemonium, the capital of Hell.
Speaker 1: So dim mcgorgan is mentioned in book two and we
Speaker 1: heard it at the start of this episode described and
Speaker 1: this is a section of Paradise Lost that describes Satan's
Speaker 1: voyage out of Hell with sin and death. So the
Speaker 1: dem Ogregan is basically a back ound player. It's texture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just add a little texture to the scene as Satan
Speaker 1: crosses the wilds of chaos and night that spanned the
Speaker 1: void between Heaven and Hell. And there are other literary
Speaker 1: invocations of the Demogorgon that I would say are basically
Speaker 1: the same. They use the demogorgan not as a major
Speaker 1: figure of significance, but something is sort of texture to
Speaker 1: establish that a place is sort of ultimately abandoned by
Speaker 1: God and and wretched, you know, like it's just really horrible.
Speaker 1: And another great example of this is the way the
Speaker 1: demogorgan is invoked in Edmund Spencer's The Fairy Queen. Uh So,
Speaker 1: if you've never read it, The Fairy Queen is also
Speaker 1: it's like Paradise Lost an English epic poem. It's from
Speaker 1: the sixteenth century, so it's earlier than Paradise Lost, and
Speaker 1: it's this really long poem about virtues and the adventures
Speaker 1: of chivalrous nights. It's one of those that's, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: to modern readers. I think it has a whole lot
Speaker 1: of interest in it, and there is some great poetry
Speaker 1: in it, but also it can be very long and
Speaker 1: ponderous and kind of stuffy in some ways, because I mean,
Speaker 1: you can only read so much about piety and shipp um.
Speaker 1: But it's long been interpreted as containing a lot of
Speaker 1: allegorical representations of present figures and politics from the Elizabethan era.
Speaker 1: When it was written, I think I was reading about
Speaker 1: how Spencer um he secured himself a really nice pension
Speaker 1: from the Elizabethan court. By presenting the poem to Queen Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: But again, the Demogorgon here does not appear as a
Speaker 1: main character, but sort of as a bit of character
Speaker 1: for the landscape. So just to read one stanza in
Speaker 1: which it is invoked. Therefore desirous the end of all
Speaker 1: their days to know and them to enlarge with long
Speaker 1: extent by wondrous skill and many hidden ways to the
Speaker 1: three fatal sisters house. She went far underground from tract
Speaker 1: of living, went down in the bottom of the deep abyss,
Speaker 1: where dim Ogorgan, in dull darkness, pent far from the
Speaker 1: view of God's in Heaven's bliss. This hideous chaos keeps
Speaker 1: their dreadful dwelling. Is so this character is going She's
Speaker 1: going down into a into a dark, godforsaken place. And
Speaker 1: how do you signal places dark and god forsaken? How
Speaker 1: do you show places evil and far from God? Well,
Speaker 1: you mentioned it's where the demogorgan hangs out. So if
Speaker 1: the Red Cross Night stands for piety and holiness, the
Speaker 1: Demogorgon stands for unholiness and satanic chaos. Now another work
Speaker 1: that's uh that's often invoked that mentions the demogorgan is
Speaker 1: another sixteenth century work. It's an Italian epic poem by
Speaker 1: uh Lodovico Ariosto, a titled Orlando Furioso, which is a
Speaker 1: poem that concerns the night Orlando, who is known in
Speaker 1: French traditions as Roland Uh. Now, at least in some
Speaker 1: versions and translations, it does mention Demogorgon quote the ruler
Speaker 1: of fates. But as far as I could tell, again,
Speaker 1: he's just background. He's just texture that's added to this,
Speaker 1: to a particular scene. All right. So this gets us
Speaker 1: back to the fifteenth sixteenth century UM. And so we
Speaker 1: see by then that the democ organ is being invoked
Speaker 1: in UH literature written by Christians as some kind of
Speaker 1: infernal demons, some bad thing. Maybe it has something to
Speaker 1: do with fate, maybe it has something to do with chaos.
Speaker 1: And there's an earlier source that came across that's a
Speaker 1: hundred years or so before this UH, the fourteenth century
Speaker 1: Latin encyclopedia of pagan gods and their relationships, known as
Speaker 1: Boccaccio's Gena Loggia deorum Gentilium or the Genealogy of the
Speaker 1: Gods of the Gentiles. This was written by the Italian
Speaker 1: poet Giovanni Boccaccio, and Boccaccio apparently was commissioned to sort
Speaker 1: of like put together this, this compendium of all the
Speaker 1: bad old gods, you know, the pagan stuff back then,
Speaker 1: and show the relationships to each other to make a
Speaker 1: family tree. I found an addition and analysis by Ernest Hatch.
Speaker 1: Wilkins actually could not find an English translation of this.
Speaker 1: I think there might be one out there somewhere, but
Speaker 1: maybe it's not available online. Um but but anyway, Wilkins,
Speaker 1: in this nineteen edition from the University of Chicago Press,
Speaker 1: was discussing what is covered in this book and apparently
Speaker 1: in attempting to create a family tree of all pagan gods.
Speaker 1: Boccaccio regards the dem o organ as the original pagan deity,
Speaker 1: like the great great grandfather of Jupiter or Zeus, from
Speaker 1: which all other pagan deities are descended. So the family
Speaker 1: tree just starts right at the top Demogorgon. Alright, So
Speaker 1: if you're if you're looking at various pagan gods from
Speaker 1: a from this Christian standpoint, where pagan gods are a
Speaker 1: bad thing and perhaps are actually demons, then later that's
Speaker 1: where we getting the idea that the demogorgan is something
Speaker 1: primal and perhaps uh vile in nature, the very first God.
Speaker 1: How strange. Now, it turns out this isn't the first
Speaker 1: reference to a demogorgan and Christian literature, and we will
Speaker 1: find an earlier mention of it later on. But before
Speaker 1: we move on to that, I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: what I think is one of the most interesting literary
Speaker 1: depictions of the Demogorgon, definitely the most interesting I've come across,
Speaker 1: and it's in Percy bish Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. This is,
Speaker 1: of course Mary's husband, Yes, yes, the husband of the
Speaker 1: author of Frankenstein. Percy Bis Shelley was an English Romantic poet.
Speaker 1: This is a lyric drama, so it's a drama sort
Speaker 1: of written in verse. The play is a response to
Speaker 1: the Greek myth of Prometheus, and Shelly first published it
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty and he explicitly presented it as this
Speaker 1: as a response to the play Prometheus Bound by the
Speaker 1: ancient Greek playwright Escalus. So the myth of Prometheus you
Speaker 1: might know it well, but just to refresh, it goes
Speaker 1: something like this, Prometheus was one of a race of
Speaker 1: deities in ancient Greek legion known as the Titans, and
Speaker 1: the Titans came before the gods of Olympus. The Titans
Speaker 1: were offspring from the union of Uranus the heavens and
Speaker 1: Gaea the earth, and they ruled the earth until Chronus,
Speaker 1: the king of the Titans, was dethroned and his allies
Speaker 1: were defeated by his son Zeus and the Olympian gods.
Speaker 1: This is the War of the Titans, or the titanum
Speaker 1: achi um. So Prometheus was one of the Titans, the
Speaker 1: son of the Titan Yapidus, but he took the side
Speaker 1: of Zeus in the war between the Olympians and the Titans,
Speaker 1: so he's still around among the Olympian gods. And Zeus,
Speaker 1: of course, is a creep. As a place Zeus is,
Speaker 1: you just set your watch to it. He's going to
Speaker 1: be a creep in a jerk. Zeus doesn't want mortal
Speaker 1: humans down on earth like us, to have power and
Speaker 1: knowledge like the gods, so he takes this crucial step
Speaker 1: in this myth of hiding fire from the humans. He
Speaker 1: takes fire from the earth. He hides it a Mount Olympus.
Speaker 1: He says human can't have it, and Prometheus, the Titan
Speaker 1: instead is sympathetic to humans, and so what he does
Speaker 1: is he steals fire from where Zeus had hidden it
Speaker 1: on Olympus, and he takes it down to share with
Speaker 1: the mortals below. And this is a trope that we
Speaker 1: see in various mythologies. So, for instance, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a nearly identical role in Chinese myth of the fire driller,
Speaker 1: who essentially does the same thing. And then we see
Speaker 1: this again in so many stories. There's some sort of
Speaker 1: knowledge of you know, some sort of generally, it's basically
Speaker 1: technological in nature, and it is taken from the gods
Speaker 1: one way or the other, borrowed from the gods, and
Speaker 1: bestowed either bestowed to humans by some benevolent identity like Prometheus,
Speaker 1: or it is just straight up stolen from the gods
Speaker 1: by mortals. Well, I think I like the Chinese version
Speaker 1: even better because in that the god who brings the
Speaker 1: fire doesn't it explicitly brings the technological means to make fire,
Speaker 1: not just the fire itself. So the fire drill. Of course,
Speaker 1: you know, if you ever used a bow drill, it's
Speaker 1: not so easy, but you can make fire that way.
Speaker 1: I think Prometheus is usually depicted as bringing like a
Speaker 1: burning branch or something that. Yeah, something like that, And
Speaker 1: granted that makes for a much better sculpture of painting,
Speaker 1: right this naked Titan with the with with this highly
Speaker 1: symbolic you know, a flaming torture branch. But through the
Speaker 1: years Prometheus's gift to the humans, I think it is
Speaker 1: more often interpreted along the lines of the fire Driller,
Speaker 1: where he's it's not just fire. Prometheus symbolizes the power
Speaker 1: from the heavens who betrays the leader God and brings
Speaker 1: down general technology and knowledge and power and succor to
Speaker 1: the humans, which which it's interesting that I mean Prometheus
Speaker 1: and the figure of Prometheus and the figure of of
Speaker 1: Satan have a lot in common, right, oh kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean, yes, Satan. One of the things that's
Speaker 1: interesting about the story of Satan in the Garden of
Speaker 1: Eden is that Satan does not lie to the humans.
Speaker 1: You know, he's presented as doing bad, but he he
Speaker 1: encourages them to uh to violate God's law in the
Speaker 1: garden and eat from the tree that is forbidden to them.
Speaker 1: But he says, you can eat from this tree and
Speaker 1: you will not die as you've been told you will
Speaker 1: and it It turns out it's true. They eat and
Speaker 1: it doesn't kill them, except you could make the argument
Speaker 1: that maybe, well maybe it makes them mortal in the
Speaker 1: long run. But I mean, basically, he's a disruptor, to
Speaker 1: put it in like Silicon Valley terms, right, Like he's
Speaker 1: he's trying to disrupt creation. Um. But so in the
Speaker 1: Greek myth, of course, Prometheus being nice to the humans
Speaker 1: and betraying Zeus, both the mortals and Prometheus are punished
Speaker 1: for this. The punishment for humans is a sequence of
Speaker 1: events that leads to the opening of Pandora's Box, out
Speaker 1: of which flow all the hardships and frailty of human life.
Speaker 1: You get plague, you get toiled to survive all that stuff,
Speaker 1: and a little bit of hope left over. I guess yeah.
Speaker 1: In the bottom uh, Prometheus is punished in a more
Speaker 1: explicit way. He is bound to a rock in the
Speaker 1: Caucasus Mountains, and not only has he chained up, but
Speaker 1: Zeus sends a nasty eagle to peck out his liver
Speaker 1: each day, and unfortunately Prometheus is immortal, so his liver,
Speaker 1: as an immortal liver, just keeps regenerating and the eagle
Speaker 1: can fly back and peck it out and eat it
Speaker 1: again the next day. It sounds like a bad deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a bad deal, But I don't know as far as, like,
Speaker 1: you know, offending Zeus goes. I guess it could have
Speaker 1: been worse. I guess. So. Now, in response to this myth,
Speaker 1: Shelly Percy Bis Shelley in his play takes up the
Speaker 1: banner of Prometheus, and he makes him a heroic figure
Speaker 1: in the play. And I would say this is not surprising,
Speaker 1: because you could definitely say that Percy Shelley was of
Speaker 1: a revolutionary temperament theologically, politically, and in literature. He was
Speaker 1: very against the old ways and the old powers and
Speaker 1: the authorities, and for sort of disruption and revolution and
Speaker 1: doing things in a new way. Now, the plot of
Speaker 1: Shelley's play is kind of abstract and of loaded with
Speaker 1: characters and images of ponderous meaningfulness. So, uh so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try to do a short summary, leaving aside all
Speaker 1: the stuff that takes us in other directions and focusing
Speaker 1: on how the democ organ comes in. So Prometheus is
Speaker 1: we find him in this state where he's bound up
Speaker 1: by Zeus. It's Jupiter in this play, but this is
Speaker 1: the same figure the King of the Gods, bound up
Speaker 1: and tortured by Jupiter for bringing knowledge to the mortals,
Speaker 1: and in Shelley's version it is explicitly not just fire
Speaker 1: but general knowledge and aid. And there are two other
Speaker 1: deities who are sympathetic to Prometheus and they want to
Speaker 1: help him. These are the sisters Asia and Panthea, and
Speaker 1: they attempt to free Prometheus from his bondage. Asia is
Speaker 1: a c nymph who is actually the beloved of Prometheus,
Speaker 1: and Panthea is her sister. Led by a dream, the
Speaker 1: two of them venture into the underworld and they meet
Speaker 1: a character called the democ Organ, who is portrayed as
Speaker 1: a kind of supremely powerful but also strangely pass of
Speaker 1: and kind of inert force of fate and nothingness, who
Speaker 1: is also the son of Jupiter. Now, when they first
Speaker 1: come across uh the dem o Organ, the character of
Speaker 1: Panthea describes him this way. She says, I see a
Speaker 1: mighty darkness filling the seat of power, and rays of
Speaker 1: gloom dart round as light from the meridian sun, ungazed
Speaker 1: upon and shapeless, neither limb nor form nor outline. Yet
Speaker 1: we feel it is a living spirit. This is very
Speaker 1: different from the D and D demigorgan, right, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is more like a primordial soup of the deity. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they say that they since there is a living
Speaker 1: presence down in the abyss with them, and there's a
Speaker 1: mighty darkness, there's something in the gloom, but they can't
Speaker 1: see that it has any kind of shape or body.
Speaker 1: And then Panthea and Asia have a consultation with the Demogorgon.
Speaker 1: They asked him questions and the demogorgan reveals to them
Speaker 1: that Jupiter created the world with all the good and
Speaker 1: the bad that it entails, and also that even Jupiter
Speaker 1: himself is not all powerful, because, in the words of
Speaker 1: the demogorgan quote, all spirits are enslaved, which serve things evil.
Speaker 1: And he says to Asia, thou knowest if Jupiter be
Speaker 1: such or No. Of course, Asia knows that even though
Speaker 1: Jupiter is the chief god, Jupiter still does things that
Speaker 1: are evil. He serves evil, So there must be some
Speaker 1: kind of power over him, because all things that serve
Speaker 1: evil have some power over them. So what is even
Speaker 1: Jupiter subject to? Well, the demo organ answer is that too, quote,
Speaker 1: if the abyssum could vomit forth its secrets, but a
Speaker 1: voice is wanting the deep truth is imageless. For what
Speaker 1: would it avail to bid the gaze on the revolving world?
Speaker 1: What to bid? Speak fate, time, occasion, chance, and change?
Speaker 1: To these all things are subject but eternal love. Love.
Speaker 1: That's the fifth element. I guess it is. So even Jupiter,
Speaker 1: the ultimate god of everything, is subject to the power
Speaker 1: of love. Uh, sounds kind of cheesy. But then but
Speaker 1: then Asia is like, Okay, well, I love Prometheus, so
Speaker 1: when will he be freed? Like wind? Shall the destined
Speaker 1: hour arrive for Prometheus to be to be freed? And
Speaker 1: the de m o organ just says, behold exclamation point.
Speaker 1: So then immediately the Demogorgon travels to heaven where Jupiter
Speaker 1: is the Jupiter, the chief god, is in the middle
Speaker 1: of a big speech about how awesome he is, and
Speaker 1: the dem ogorgan appears and then he just he just
Speaker 1: messes up Jupiter. He casts him down, He destroys the
Speaker 1: tyrant creator god, and then Prometheus can be freed by
Speaker 1: Hercules and reunited with Asia. That's quite a climax. Well,
Speaker 1: but it's not the climax. Somehow, this is not the
Speaker 1: end of the play. This is like act three of
Speaker 1: a five act play. After this, it seems I've never
Speaker 1: read the thing in full. I admit I've read some passages.
Speaker 1: It seems like after this there is a lot of
Speaker 1: like sort of um windy pontificateing about love and virtues
Speaker 1: and what is good and right. But anyway, I think
Speaker 1: the Demogorgon's role in this story is very interesting. He's well, so,
Speaker 1: I kept saying he, but the Demogorgan. Actually, one thing
Speaker 1: that's been pointed out by scholars is that the democ
Speaker 1: organ has never given a gender uh in in Percy's
Speaker 1: play uh In. In other sources it is, I think,
Speaker 1: assumed to be a he, but there's no there's no
Speaker 1: gender in Prometheus Unbound. So the Demogorgan, whoever they are,
Speaker 1: whatever they are, is depicted as in some kind of
Speaker 1: infernal phantom of the underworld, but also a liberating force
Speaker 1: for positive good, overthrowing the tyrannical order of creation at
Speaker 1: the appointed hour uh Though interestingly, I would say the
Speaker 1: demogorgan doesn't really seem to act out of their own volition.
Speaker 1: It's almost as if, um they are somehow triggered into
Speaker 1: this act by the visit from Asia and Panthea, like
Speaker 1: it's the love for Prometheus from Asia that was faded
Speaker 1: to proceed the appointed hour of Jupiter's destruction and the
Speaker 1: liberation of the world. Another thing that's interesting here about
Speaker 1: Shelley's work, So we talked about how the Demogorgon does
Speaker 1: not actually come from Greek mythology, even though he's being
Speaker 1: retro insurgent into like classical mythology here Greek and Roman
Speaker 1: kind of blended mythology here. Um, what would the word
Speaker 1: DeMorgan mean if it actually were a Greek word. Well,
Speaker 1: you've got the apparent roots demos and gorgon, like the
Speaker 1: people's gorgon, like democracy, and then gorgon again, the monster
Speaker 1: the of which Medusa is a member of the species.
Speaker 1: But actually the gorgon name for Medusa that has a
Speaker 1: root in Greek too. It's from the word gorgos, which
Speaker 1: means something like terrible or grim, you know, terror inducing.
Speaker 1: So the demogorgan could literally be translated as the people's terror,
Speaker 1: like the terror of the masses of people, which is
Speaker 1: a very interesting intersection with the idea of like a
Speaker 1: long faded revolution to dethrone tyrant kings and unword the
Speaker 1: gods and of course we know, uh, Percy Shelley was
Speaker 1: a supporter of the French Revolution. He believed in atheism,
Speaker 1: he believed in republicanism, not to be confused with like
Speaker 1: the Republican Party of today, like in the context of
Speaker 1: the time, that was representative government as opposed to monarchy. Um.
Speaker 1: And so I think it could be tempting to think
Speaker 1: of like the French Revolution as Shelley's demigorgon the people's terror,
Speaker 1: like this inevitable swell of justice that washes tyrants from
Speaker 1: their thrones, but at the same time contains a terrifying
Speaker 1: and mighty darkness that can't really be seen or understood.
Speaker 1: I like that the people's terror. I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if if Shelley himself would
Speaker 1: have seen that, uh seen that comparison, because I think
Speaker 1: he may have had a more, I don't know, a
Speaker 1: less nuanced view of the guillotine saying. And of course
Speaker 1: this introduces the idea of the devic organ as as
Speaker 1: being like potential like political candidate, perhaps in in our
Speaker 1: upcoming elections. If if you're if you're inclined to use
Speaker 1: a right in candidate, go demogorgan the just rage of
Speaker 1: the people, that is without form or shape. Now one
Speaker 1: more example of demogorgan popping up in uh in in
Speaker 1: in a work of literature. Uh is is a story
Speaker 1: essentially a short story from Voltaire Voltaire Live through seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy eight. And I've never read this one before I'd
Speaker 1: read I'd read some works of Voltaire in the past,
Speaker 1: but at anyway, this one is titled Plato's Dream, in
Speaker 1: which the Demogorgon is presented as a genie who witnesses
Speaker 1: the initial creation um of the world by this primordial
Speaker 1: force called the demi urge, and along with its fellow genies. Uh.
Speaker 1: The dem Ogregan is granted a portion of the creation too,
Speaker 1: then uh you know, to then finish into a functioning world.
Speaker 1: The demogorgan is given the task of creating Earth and
Speaker 1: uh and is then critiqued and criticized by his fellow
Speaker 1: genies for making such a mixed up planet. And so
Speaker 1: there's a part here I want to quote where the
Speaker 1: demogorgan responds to his critics and says, quote, it is
Speaker 1: an easy matter to find fault, good folks, said the genie.
Speaker 1: But do you imagine it is so easy to form
Speaker 1: an animal who, having the gift of reason and free will,
Speaker 1: shall not sometimes abuse his liberty. Do you think that,
Speaker 1: in rearing between nine and ten thousand different plants, it
Speaker 1: is so easy to prevent some few from having noxious qualities?
Speaker 1: Do you suppose that with a certain quantity of water, sand,
Speaker 1: and mud, you could make a globe that should have
Speaker 1: neither seas nor deserts. As for you, my sneering friend,
Speaker 1: I think you have just finished the planet Jupiter. Let
Speaker 1: us see now what figure you make with your great
Speaker 1: belts and your long nights with four moons to enlighten them.
Speaker 1: Let us examine you or world and see whether the
Speaker 1: inhabitants you have made or exempt from follies or diseases.
Speaker 1: I guess we'll just have to wait for the Europa
Speaker 1: Probe to form us to resolve this one. Right, So,
Speaker 1: there's not much to really I feel like uncover in
Speaker 1: this one, but there are there's at least one detail
Speaker 1: in this that will become critical. Uh. In our next
Speaker 1: section of of the podcast, after we come back from
Speaker 1: a break, we will get into the true abyssal origins
Speaker 1: of the demogorgan than. Alright, we're back, So we've charted
Speaker 1: the path of the demogorgan through much literature throughout especially
Speaker 1: the Christian world, and its role in some interesting sort
Speaker 1: of revolutionary sentiments as expressed through literature like Prometheus Unbound
Speaker 1: or in Voltaire story. But we're trying to find the
Speaker 1: origin of this. Where does the Demogorgon actually come from?
Speaker 1: If it doesn't come from classic Greek mythology. Well, the
Speaker 1: origin is discussed in a nineteen sixty four book titled
Speaker 1: The Discarded Image and Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature,
Speaker 1: written by none other than C. S. Lewis. In fact,
Speaker 1: it was C. S. Lewis's last book before he died,
Speaker 1: and it deals with medieval cosmology. He turns our attention
Speaker 1: to the fourth book of the thebe A by Stadius
Speaker 1: the First. Stadius lived uh CE forty five through and
Speaker 1: this is an epic poem written in Latin about the
Speaker 1: Theban cycle. And here the author alludes to a deity
Speaker 1: that shall not be named, a quote sovereign of the
Speaker 1: threefold world. And then early Christian author Lactantius, who lived
Speaker 1: two fifty through wrote a commentary on this work and
Speaker 1: stated that Stadius was referring in in fact to the
Speaker 1: Greek Uh, demi organ this or creator quote the god
Speaker 1: whose name and is unlawful to know. So we're talking
Speaker 1: so demi organ from which we get Demogorgon and h.
Speaker 1: And then Lewis writes the following to sum this up. Quote,
Speaker 1: this is plain sailing the demi urge or workman being
Speaker 1: the creator in the Timaeus. But there are two variants
Speaker 1: in the manuscripts. One is Demogorgona, the other Demogorgon. From
Speaker 1: the later of these corruptions, later ages evolved a completely
Speaker 1: new deity, Demogorgon, who was to enjoy a distinguished literary
Speaker 1: career in Boccaccio's Genealogy of the Gods, in Spencer, in
Speaker 1: Milton and in Shelley. This is perhaps the only time
Speaker 1: a scribal blunder underwent an apotheosis. Oh that's amazing, uh
Speaker 1: and just so. In a mythological context, of course, Apotheosis
Speaker 1: here reversed to the process of a human being being
Speaker 1: deified or something being made into a higher being, like
Speaker 1: a god or a star or heavenly object being taken
Speaker 1: up into heaven. Ancient kings were sometimes made into gods,
Speaker 1: and legendary heroes like Hercules, sometimes lived lives that were
Speaker 1: so worthy or so notable, they were assumed into the
Speaker 1: pantheon and became God. So I think that's what he's
Speaker 1: saying here, is that somebody made a blunder in copying
Speaker 1: a manuscript or in translating, in understanding what a word
Speaker 1: meant in an older book, and through that scribal error,
Speaker 1: we got a brand new deity such that, you know,
Speaker 1: a thousand years later, Boccaccio would say, this deity is
Speaker 1: the original macdaddy deity, like the number, like the Pagan
Speaker 1: God before all the other ones, and it just comes
Speaker 1: from a mistranslation or misreading of a word. And the
Speaker 1: word that was misread or a mistranslated is the dimmy Urge,
Speaker 1: which which curiously enough is cited in that Voltaire short story. Right,
Speaker 1: So it seems like Voltaire was kind of on the
Speaker 1: right track with the association here. Uh And and this
Speaker 1: is great because the demi Urge is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite characters from any mythology in the world. But but
Speaker 1: its role is complicated and varies across different traditions, including
Speaker 1: like Platonic schools of philosophy and religion in the you know,
Speaker 1: in the centuries following Plato's actual teachings and in various
Speaker 1: Gnostic religions. I'll try to give a general summary that
Speaker 1: applies to multiple lines of tradition that have sort of
Speaker 1: similar attributes, but just be aware that there are a
Speaker 1: lot of different things that are all sort of versions
Speaker 1: of the demi urge. The word demi urge, as uh
Speaker 1: As Lewis mentioned, comes from the Greek. In its original form,
Speaker 1: is just a common noun that means something like craftsmen.
Speaker 1: You know, it's somebody who makes things, sculptor, maker, producer.
Speaker 1: But within these religious points of view or in in
Speaker 1: these philosophies and cosmologies, the demi urge is a figure
Speaker 1: that creates the material world, is the creator. But apart
Speaker 1: from many other religions, this does not mean that he
Speaker 1: is the ultimate creator God or that he is good.
Speaker 1: He is, i would say, variously portrayed as is everything,
Speaker 1: ranging from kind of neutral and bumbling to actively malevolent.
Speaker 1: And to give an example from one strain of gnosticism,
Speaker 1: in the Gnostic text known as the Apocryphon of John,
Speaker 1: the dimmi urge figure is this foolish, arrogant, wicked deity
Speaker 1: called yelled Both who creates the material bodies of humans.
Speaker 1: I think he also maybe creates the material world or
Speaker 1: some aspects of it um and humans. The humans that
Speaker 1: he created end up with souls when they are inadvertently
Speaker 1: contaminated by a spark or a light from the higher
Speaker 1: nobler plane of being known as the play roma, which
Speaker 1: means something like fullness. And so you've got the ple roma,
Speaker 1: the fullness, the real world, the real greater place, which
Speaker 1: is is immaterial in nature, and then you've got the
Speaker 1: the crappy material world that Yaldaboath made. And now we're
Speaker 1: stuck in that thing. And Yaldaboath resents the fact that
Speaker 1: humans have this spark from the Pleroma and tries to
Speaker 1: fight against it. So to do so, he tries to
Speaker 1: keep humans confused and in the dark, so we're always
Speaker 1: fumbling around in this kind of baffling material hell, which
Speaker 1: is our everyday world. And the Gnostics within this tradition
Speaker 1: believe that you can only escape the horrors of the
Speaker 1: material world by becoming privy to secret knowledge. That knowledge
Speaker 1: is the noses, the secret knowledge that explains the real world.
Speaker 1: And this is this is how you transcend the secret mythology,
Speaker 1: the secret rituals that give you access to the true,
Speaker 1: fuller reality behind this material illusion that controls our lives.
Speaker 1: And you can actually see a connection to Platonic philosophy.
Speaker 1: Even if this sounds like a very kind of strange,
Speaker 1: complicated theological take on on the creation of the world,
Speaker 1: it sounds a lot like Plato's cave, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. I mean also that the basic spirit of
Speaker 1: this is also reflected in other faiths. I mean, the
Speaker 1: idea of there being a secret reality of their of
Speaker 1: there being some sort of cycle that we need to
Speaker 1: break free from. I mean you see that in say,
Speaker 1: you know, Hindu and Buddhist traditions, and this idea of
Speaker 1: the spark of something more divine being like trapped in
Speaker 1: the mud of our bodies. How you see that also
Speaker 1: reflected in even more recent creations like scientology. Oh totally,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, absolutely. I would say gnostic theology reflects
Speaker 1: something that is a very common belief among humans, and
Speaker 1: you can see how often it appears, not just in
Speaker 1: other religions, but in all kinds of pop culture. I mean,
Speaker 1: echoes of the gnostic worldview bounce around constantly even through
Speaker 1: contemporary culture, whether we're conscious of it or not, and
Speaker 1: whether the creators of these pieces of culture, or conscious
Speaker 1: of it or not. If I mean, if you've seen
Speaker 1: the matrix, you already have a sort of baseline understanding
Speaker 1: of gnostic cosmology. You just replace the evil computers and
Speaker 1: the agents with cosmic realms and wicked ar cons like
Speaker 1: the demi Urge. The demmy Urge sort of created a
Speaker 1: material matrix for us to live in, when in reality
Speaker 1: we are beings from this better immaterial world and we
Speaker 1: have to find ways to escape and get back to it.
Speaker 1: So you're saying we are star dust, we are golden,
Speaker 1: we are billion year old carbon, and we have to
Speaker 1: find our way back to the garden. Yes, but you
Speaker 1: can only get back to the garden if you teach
Speaker 1: your children well, because it is the secret knowledge that
Speaker 1: is required to get you there. And most people are
Speaker 1: never going to be let in on the secret. They're
Speaker 1: just sort of going about there, you know, their everyday life,
Speaker 1: toiling after material things without understanding that the material world
Speaker 1: is bad and fake. But I love this idea that
Speaker 1: the demmy Urge being this creator of the material world
Speaker 1: who's at the at the very least bumbling and at
Speaker 1: worst some kind of devilish thing that that hates us
Speaker 1: and wants to trick us into living bad, wrong lives.
Speaker 1: I could see this mistrans lation leading to the creation
Speaker 1: of the demo organ figure being an excellent modern reworking
Speaker 1: of the Gnostic theology and being a part of that
Speaker 1: demi Urge's plan, like the demi Urge hides the true
Speaker 1: nosis about its wicked role in creating the material world
Speaker 1: and these filthy bodies of ours by causing a scribal
Speaker 1: error that hides its existence, and instead it gets everybody
Speaker 1: focused on this fake illusory demon or primordial god, the Demogorgon,
Speaker 1: And then you're scared of the Demogorgon or you're in
Speaker 1: all of its primeval darkness and shapeless presence, so you
Speaker 1: forget that you need to be seeking the nosis to
Speaker 1: escape this wretched unreality. Uh and uh yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean if you're ultimately if you're trying to envision the
Speaker 1: ultimate evil power in a in a in a fantasy world.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, this this sounds like the This is the
Speaker 1: Prince of Demons right here. You know. I weirdly kept
Speaker 1: thinking about the demi urriage when we were recently talking
Speaker 1: about that book I read by Philip Ball about quantum
Speaker 1: mechanics that it's called Beyond Weird. It's a great book.
Speaker 1: It's a new book from this year last year about
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics. And one of the things that I think
Speaker 1: is really great about the book is it doesn't let
Speaker 1: you off the hook. It doesn't just let you say, wow,
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics sure does seem weird and then kind of
Speaker 1: shake your head and move on. Like it. It tries
Speaker 1: to force you to look at it. It does the
Speaker 1: thing from like Clockwork Orange where it holds your eyelids
Speaker 1: open and says, no, look at this and pay attention.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things that you walk
Speaker 1: away from that with is that, Okay, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that physical reality isn't real, but it it
Speaker 1: makes you think that whatever way we're interacting with the
Speaker 1: world on a day to day basis, you know, the
Speaker 1: kind of reality we perceive with like objects you can
Speaker 1: touch and and see and know their place and all that,
Speaker 1: that is not the ultimate like arbiter of what reality is.
Speaker 1: Like your perception of reality is not necessarily the most
Speaker 1: accurate way of understanding reality, even though it, you know,
Speaker 1: it seems to work good enough to get you through life,
Speaker 1: So how could it be wrong? But yet we you know,
Speaker 1: we do experiments in physics all the time. Now that
Speaker 1: that just show you over and over again that the
Speaker 1: way you have of making sense of the world is
Speaker 1: some kind of derivative, second order kind of grasp of physics,
Speaker 1: or you have no intuitive way of understanding quantum reality,
Speaker 1: you know what happens before decoherence and everything, so that
Speaker 1: ultimately there is this there is this deeper truth in
Speaker 1: the universe that that we are not inherently privy to.
Speaker 1: We're only privy to it via uh technology, via science.
Speaker 1: Uh these are essentially gnostic tools of elevation. That that's
Speaker 1: how you get the noses as you do a double
Speaker 1: slit experiment. Well, I've enjoyed this, uh, this journey that
Speaker 1: we've taken, you know, because it feels, i mean, part
Speaker 1: of it seems like the natural destination for an exploration
Speaker 1: of the Demock organ that it would tie back to
Speaker 1: this primordial being that's wrapped in gnostic mystery. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, I love that it also hinges incredibly
Speaker 1: upon just a scribal blunder. You know that it's a
Speaker 1: it's it's this thing that was actually you know, it's
Speaker 1: never really real in the way that we uh we
Speaker 1: might you know, attribute it as having been. It was
Speaker 1: never actually UH an entity that was worshiped or even
Speaker 1: factored into any actual myth cycle. No, it is wholly
Speaker 1: without shape and out of the darkness. It is the
Speaker 1: figure that Asia and Panthea go to visit, and you know,
Speaker 1: it just waits there until it's hour comes round at last. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I also love how we got to let's see
Speaker 1: if we got to to turn to Joni Mitchell, Crosby
Speaker 1: Stills and Nash uh C s Lewis, Um Milton and
Speaker 1: of course Gary Gygax to understand it all a wonderful
Speaker 1: motley crew for those wooden ships on the water. All right, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna close it out right there. But obviously I
Speaker 1: imagined in am of you have thoughts about the demogorgan,
Speaker 1: either the Netflix version or the Dungeons and Dragons incarnation,
Speaker 1: or perhaps some of the literary UH incarnations that we've
Speaker 1: discussed here as well, and of course we would love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. But stay tuned, because again this
Speaker 1: entire month of October, he's going to be UH Halloween
Speaker 1: themed as it has been in the past. Uh, We're
Speaker 1: gonna have all new monstrosities to consider. Uh, tying in
Speaker 1: as much science as we possibly can. Have we ever
Speaker 1: done an episode on the science of Medusa? Snakes for hair?
Speaker 1: Is there something there? Something I don't know? I mean,
Speaker 1: I've I've covered at least blogged about Medusa back in
Speaker 1: the day, and I think I did maybe a monster
Speaker 1: science video about Medusa. But that would be an interesting
Speaker 1: one to to to explore again, because the Medusa is
Speaker 1: a is a fascinating monster, and then some of the
Speaker 1: things we've done with the Medusa are kind of monstrous.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I could. I would be up for a
Speaker 1: Medusa exploration. Bring it all right. In the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you want to support the show, the best thing you
Speaker 1: can do is make sure you have subscribed, and then
Speaker 1: rate and review us wherever you have the power to
Speaker 1: do so. And don't forget about invention. Monsters are great,
Speaker 1: but the real monster is always human endeavor and human invention.
Speaker 1: And that's what we explore. Invention is a journey through
Speaker 1: human techno history. Really, it's a it's a celebration, or
Speaker 1: at least a contemplation in some in many cases of
Speaker 1: the fire of Prometheus. Yeah, the things we made, how
Speaker 1: they made us, where they came from. Yeah, So make
Speaker 1: sure you have checked that show out as well, and
Speaker 1: make sure you subscribe. Rate and review helps us out huge,
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you have any feedback on this episode and we'd
Speaker 1: like to share it with us, If you'd like to
Speaker 1: get in touch just to say hi or suggest a
Speaker 1: topic for the future, you can email us at contact
Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.