WEBVTT - Demogorgon 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:11.559 At length. The universal hubbub, wild of stunning sounds and voices, 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:16.000 all confused, borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:20.560 with loudest vehemence. Thither he plies, undaunted to meet there 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:24.759 whatever power or spirit of the nethermost abyss might in 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:29.080 that noise reside of whom to ask which way the 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:34.040 nearest coast of darkness lies bordering on light. When straight 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.519 behold the throne of Chaos and his dark pavilion spread 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:43.440 wide on the wasteful deep, with him enthroned, sat sable, 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:47.560 vested night, eldest of things, the consort of his reign, 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:51.479 And by them stood orcas and eighties and the dreaded 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:57.760 name of dim Rumor next, and chants and tumults and confusion, 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:07.880 all embroil'd and dis gourd with a thousand various mouths. 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:09.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, A production of 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:18.919 I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, Welcome to Stuff 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:21.120 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:24.039 I'm Joe McCormick, and I'm so excited. It's my favorite 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.560 time of the year. It's October, which is my favorite 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:28.600 month of the year anyway, but it's also my favorite 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:30.959 time of the year at work, because it's Monster Month 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:33.320 here on stuff to blow your mind. That's right, when 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:35.959 we devote the entire month of October and sometimes a 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:41.040 little change two topics that are either obsessed with monsters 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.520 or or darkness or horror or terror. Is there anything 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:49.280 even remotely HALLOWEENI We just fully embrace it. It's the 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.040 most wonderful time of the year. And so and you know, 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:54.520 as we were coming up with episodes to record this year, 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:57.120 where we you know, our minds turned to things we've 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:00.560 covered in the past. So on one hand, there's an 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.800 old episode of the show about the mind flares of 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:08.000 Dungeons and Dragons, uh, and it's led various folks to 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.679 request another episode dealing with something from the world of 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.280 Dungeons and Dragons. And likewise, last year we did an 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.519 episode on the Great Basilisk where we talk about this 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.440 concept of not only the monstrous Basilist, but this kind 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:27.680 of uh, you know, tech world futuristic vision of an 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:32.679 all powerful, malevolent AI. And so we decided we we'd 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.760 up the Anti this year and discuss uh an entity 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.720 that kind of combines both of these themes. And so 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.960 we're going to talk about the demogorgan. Now, I would 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:44.240 not be surprised for the largest portion of you out 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.600 there are familiar with the idea of a dem ogorgan, 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:50.600 primarily from the recent Netflix show Stranger Things. I guess 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.919 it's mainly the first season of that, right, Yeah, I 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.520 mean the creature it keeps popping up as well, but 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.640 it's mainly that that first excellent season of Stranger Things. 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.080 And uh, and think that's a good place to start. 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.920 Like the most recent pop culture incarnation of the democ organ, 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.280 it's probably one of the best new cinematic monsters that 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.760 we've encountered in recent years. Uh, you know, this category 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.600 confusion entity that's at once humanoid and be steal but 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.400 at times these bipedal and other times it's crawling around 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:21.839 on all fours. It's like a venus flytrap minotaur. Yeah, 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:23.959 that's the other cool aspect of it. It's it's it's 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.760 head at times looks like a featureless mask of flesh, 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.560 but then it opens up in these these flower petals, 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:35.120 these kind of uh you know, razor toothed flower petals 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:38.360 around this gaping maw. But I also like that it's 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.560 a dimension hopper, right, which kind of means it's always 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.520 it could pop up anywhere. Yeah, it travels through dimensions, though, 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.640 though I'm uncertain if that's part of its natural abilities, 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.000 because we see it feeding on an egg in its 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.120 own dimension at one point. Uh. And perhaps it takes 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:55.760 to hunting in our world due to the weakening of 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.480 the connection between the two. Uh, you know, due to 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.480 mad science of course. Um. But if this is the case, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.760 it's still quite proficient a traveling between the worlds through 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:08.160 those rips and tears to acquire food. Right, So it 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.160 could actually be a rather mundane predator in its own world. 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:15.880 It's just that Matthew Modine and his psychic projects unleashed 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.000 this predator into it made it an invasive species in 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.919 our world. Right. Yeah, yeah, like it, like it. It 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:23.719 does pretty well in its own world, but here it 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:25.920 can really go at it, you know, like a Superman 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.520 with the yellow sun. Yeah. But of course, in Stranger Things, 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.880 we also learned that the kids in the in the story, 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.520 they name this creature the democ Organ because they are 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:38.560 actively playing Dungeons and Dragons and they and they are 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:42.320 playing a campaign that involves the democ Organ. Uh. This, 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.240 this Prince of Demons is mighty demon lord of just 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.839 immense power. Now, Robert, I know that you have a 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.200 reputation as a quite cruel dungeon master yourself. So do 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.920 you subject to your adventuring travelers to a democ Organ 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.640 every now and then? No? Not not no, not yet. 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:00.760 And it's not the kind of thing would you would 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:05.080 inflict on your adventures in a haphazard fashion. It is 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.680 one of the most powerful entities in the game, So 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:10.800 it's it's the kind of thing you cap off an 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.200 entire campaign with that you would only throw at, you know, 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:18.240 a higher level, like really high level characters. Um. I mean, 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.159 I guess you could throw it in haphazardly if you 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.200 have just kind of a very casual game where people 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.160 have like just immensely powerful characters. In each week you 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.080 just battle some things that are tremendously powerful to just 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.919 see how it all shakes out. But um, for instance, 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.320 in the campaign Out of the Abyss, which is a 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.080 campaign that I've been playing in my group that I've 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.000 been a dungeon mastering for about four years now, we 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.040 are almost at the point where the dem Ogorgan may 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.960 be encountered. Yeah, so we've been building up to it. 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.640 Do you have Demogorgon que music ready to go when 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:51.320 it happens. Basically, I mean, it's a it's a big deal. 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:54.599 It's uh, you know, we have an enormous figuring that 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:57.880 we've been putting together. It's a it's huge. Okay, Well, 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:02.080 in the Dungeons and Dragons world, what is this demogorgon creature? 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.200 It's obviously nothing like what's in Stranger things like that. 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.760 It's not a venus fly trap minotaur, right, So in 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:13.039 Dungeons and Dragons, the Demogorgon dates back to nineteen seventy six. 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:17.440 That's when this entity um originated in a supplement titled 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:22.520 Eldric Wizards by Gary Gygax himself and Brian Bloom. And 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:24.400 if you look around online you can find this in 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:28.400 PDF form and it has some you know, some adorably 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.080 kind of crude illustrations of what the various creatures would 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.440 look like. Those those those the illustrations, and Dungeons Dragons 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:38.200 have come a long way, like the most like the 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.720 earliest version of the Demogorgon that is illustrated in this 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.080 book is just crude sketch of this, uh, this kind 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:50.479 of two headed, tentacle armed, chicken footed thing with baboon heads, right, yeah, 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.039 with baboon heads. But the like it's cute. I mean, 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.680 it's like, it's kind of like the monsters in the 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.919 Ranking and Bass Middle Earth, and and of course, you know, 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:02.960 part most the big thing Abou Dungeons and Dragons is 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.240 that it does take place in the mind, and especially 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:07.680 early on they did, they didn't have elaborate illustrations. You're 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:11.080 supposed to, you know, come up with it yourself. Today 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.600 we have elaborate illustrations. The most recent fifth edition illustrations 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:18.320 of the democ Organ are just absolutely beautiful, where it 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:21.800 seems like there's like a burning sun inside of the creature. 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:24.960 But I want to read just a quick description from 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:29.160 that original nineteen seventy six supplement to to properly describe 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.520 what the creature looks like, because the basic description has 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:36.440 not changed. Okay, melt my mind with terror. Okay, quoth 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:41.040 Guy GaX and bloom here. Uh. It is contended by 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.720 some that this demon lord is supreme and in any event, 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:48.520 he is awesome in his power. This gigantic demon is 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:52.600 eighteen tall and reptilian. His skin is plated with snake 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.200 like scales. His body and legs are those of a 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:59.280 giant lizard. His twin necks resemble snakes, and his thick 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:03.360 tail is fort Dimcgorgan has two heads which bear the 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:08.200 visages of evil baboons or perhaps mandrils. Rather than having arms, 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:12.280 he has great tentacles. His appearance testifies to his command 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:17.480 of cold blooded things such as serpents, reptiles and octopi. 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.120 And Robert, you brought in a glorious figurine that I 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.400 now hold in my hand. It's uh, it's very nice. Yeah, 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:25.520 this is a small one. The big one I couldn't 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:27.840 even bring in because it's just it's it's too enormous. 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.400 It would alarm people. Uh and they would they would 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.760 wonder what was about to befall them. So so yeah, basically, 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.840 this description, though, holds up. It's been tweaked a little bit. 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:38.840 I think at one point the heads were more hyena 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.480 like because, as I mentioned earlier, we've had various editions 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.320 of dungeons and dragons were on addition five at this point. 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.160 Uh and uh and in each edition has brought about 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.640 various changes to the rules, the mechanic, to the lore. 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:52.480 And we'll get into some of that in a minute. 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:56.080 As it relates to de mcgorgan um and then the 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.559 art who has mostly gotten just tremendously better over the years. 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.440 And again the most recent fifth edition art is absolutely 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.640 splendid to behold. But of course, another thing to keep 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.400 in mind is that the democ organ is a demon, 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:12.959 a demon lord. And given the moral panics surrounding supposed 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.480 Satanists and the the the quote unquote dangers of D 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.320 and D back in the nineteen eighties, the various demons 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.400 and devils in the game Lore lost their titles at 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.440 one point. UM. So when I originally started playing back 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.839 in the nineties, Uh, these various devils and demons were 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:33.520 known as uh the tanari uh instead of actually referring 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:37.480 to them as demons. So it's a rebrand. Yeah, it 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:42.679 was a rebrand because everyone was freaking out about imagined Satanist, 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.439 which I think we've discussed on the show before. The 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:52.200 Satanism as presented in the Satanic Panic of the eighties, 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:56.959 Uh did not exist, no one, No one has actually 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:03.080 no ritual um you know, sacrificial uh worship of Satan 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.920 has has occurred in human history. Uh, certainly not on 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:12.160 the organized scale that uh that you see described in 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:16.120 some of these moral panics. But but anyway, Yeah, then 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.800 the demonic edge was taken off the game for a while, 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:21.800 and if you wish to invoke such entities you had 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.480 to you had to bust out an older monster manual. Thankfully, 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:27.520 the Demons of the Abyss and the Devils of the 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.000 Nine Hells have made the return, and Demcgregan himself is 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:33.800 is not only back, but he's a he's a cover batty, 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.080 you know, he's he's there on the cover of Out 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.000 of the Abyss and is the uh the creature that 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.880 you battle at the very end, and you know he's 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:46.520 he's not only fearsome physically, he's also a highly intelligent entity. 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:50.440 He has an intelligent score of twenty, which is you know, 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:53.520 like like top of the d Twentykay, how high does 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.200 it go? Is twenty the most intelligent? Yeah, twenty is 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:01.360 is is tremendously impressive. So a John von Neumann kind 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:03.800 of thing, Like it's I think like a ten is 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:06.560 is more in keeping with like, you know, sort of 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.920 average human intelligence. This thing is beyond that, Like eighteen 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:15.160 is is like really high for a starting character in 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.400 in Dungen'son Dragons starting mortal character. But the dem o 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.960 Gorgon does not use this intelligence for the good of humankind. 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:24.520 The de m Ocgorgan is gonna, what is gonna design 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:28.520 the most nefarious financial instruments that have ever been uh imagined? 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:32.280 Oh yeah, I mean he's he's completely chaotically evil. Um. 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:35.440 He's also known as the Sibilant Beast and the Master 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:38.800 of the Spiraling depths. And uh. But in those two heads, 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:41.680 each one has a name in dungeons and dragon's lore, 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:46.880 one is Annual and the other is Hathoradia. Uh. I 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.560 guess I don't know that anyone ever actually speaks to 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:51.200 one head or the other. You just kind of speak 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.079 to the de m Ocgorgon. Maybe that's the way to 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:55.520 beat it. You get them fighting each other. Maybe, I 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:59.120 don't know. I mean it basically, he's this wonderful embodiment 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.920 of like chao us and disorder, and I you know, 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.200 I think he wonderfully you know, embodies the sense of 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:10.120 maddening division. Kind of a perfect demon for modern times especially. 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:11.839 And I also like to think of the two heads 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.880 is representing like the different hemispheres of the brain. Okay, 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.000 so maybe only one of them can do a complex language. 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.240 Maybe so. Yeah, But but also I like the idea 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:24.840 that the demon lords like are these mighty things, but 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:29.360 perhaps they exist because they're they're like the accumulated runoff 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.280 of all like human inequity, you know. And of course 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:35.280 there are other demon lords as well, and they all 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.800 plot against each other and war eternally. They represent different 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:43.680 depths of moral sin. So Demogorgan's most prominent rivals are Orcus, 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:46.559 the demon Lord of undeath, as well as the demon 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:50.040 Lord of perversion gras It, and the Master of Lies 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:54.080 fraz are Blue. But he's also opposed by Bahamat, you know, 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:57.240 Gou and then of course Jubilex and Zuktimi, who we've 0:12:57.400 --> 0:12:59.839 mentioned in passing on the show before. Wait, so one 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.040 of the rivals as Orcus, and now we began this 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.120 episode with a reading from John Milton's Paradise Lost, in 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.319 which the name Orcus is invoked. They don't really explain. 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.280 Milton doesn't go into who Orcus is there, but uh 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.200 so I didn't expect Orcas to come back. Also in 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:18.040 the D and D lawre here, Yeah, I mean Orcus 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.200 was a Roman god of the underworld who punished oathbreakers. 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:24.640 And oh and by the way, he also has his 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:30.079 own designated trans Newtonian object in zero four a two Orcas. 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.160 Not all demon lords can make that claim that they 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:37.480 actually have some sort of cosmic body named after them. 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:40.400 But this gets to the point that that d n 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:44.240 D is this wonderful mix of influences, fusing various twentieth 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.840 century fantasy and sci fi works with the mythology and 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.400 flow in folklore to create its worlds. So that's so 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:54.920 Orcus obviously comes from Roman mythology. Uh, there are other 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.839 creatures we mentioned Bahammed. Bahama is the entity that the 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:01.680 Knights Templars were accused of shipping in the fourteenth century 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.520 and we're subsequently eradicated for uh. So you know that's 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.640 where that name comes from. But then there's dem Ogregan 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.240 to consider, and uh and obviously the name predates dungeons 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.880 and Dragons because it pops up in Paradise Lost. Yeah, 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:21.120 so you would I think, obviously expect given the word demogorgon, 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.520 that this is something from Greek mythology, right, just sounds 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.760 like something straight out of Greeks were of course, like 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.040 like Medusa, So you might think, oh, well, this is 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.120 some this is some Greek monster that gets turned into 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.840 a god at some point. But despite what you would 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.160 think from the name, you will not find the Demogorgon 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.480 in ancient Greek mythology. You flipped through the works of Homer, 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.680 labors of Hercules, myths of Antalympus, cults of Athena or Apollo, 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:50.920 you're gonna find no Demogorgon anywhere. So where does this 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:55.440 beast come from? Well, we've we've considered pop culture, and 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.880 we've considered, uh, you know, a current twenty first century 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:03.080 Netflix show. We've considered a twentieth century role playing game. 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:04.960 So what we're gonna do is we're gonna dive deeper 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.880 and we're gonna go into the literary world and continue 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:12.440 to follow follow the shadow of Demogorgan through the spiraling depths. 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:18.480 But first we're going to take a break. Alright, we're back, 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:20.560 all right. So we've been talking about the monster, the 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.400 demon lord, the dem o organ as it is represented 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.760 in Dungeons and Dragons, and Robert has some experience with that. 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.440 But we now have said that we need to go 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:31.760 deeper because we're trying to figure out where this monster 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.400 came from. If it doesn't come from what you would 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:37.160 guess based on its name Greek mythology, right, and our 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.160 next step is to look at its very the way 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.920 its name is invoked in various works of literature. So 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.200 one of the books I was looking at on this 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.840 count was a book called Dangerous Games. What the Moral 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:52.720 Panic over role Playing Games says about play, religion, and 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:56.600 imagined worlds, by Joseph P. Lacock, And uh, this is 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:58.600 this is an interesting looking book that I really want 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.200 to read more from. Uh. But the author mentions that 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:05.040 Demcgorgan pops up in a number of early modern and 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:09.880 Romantic works. Uh. Interestingly enough, Leacock also highlights an author 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.600 and RPG named that I've brought up on the show before. 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:16.480 You may are Barker, Um, you know the this is 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.400 this guy who is known for creating these books and 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:24.520 this role playing world of Tucamel, which is this fantasy. 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:28.680 It's the sci fi fantasy world that depends less, far 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.680 less on Western models of of history and religion and 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:37.960 uh and myth and more on East Asian models. So uh, there, 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.440 if you're into fantasy, I recommend picking up those books. 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:42.520 There are a little old fashioned in some respects, like 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:44.600 they're very much in the mold of like kind of 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:49.080 a swashbuckling, uh you know, male centered adventure. But the 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:53.760 world that he created is really something to behold. But anyway, 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.640 he he points out quote, the prominence of original fantasy 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.400 religions in D and D as opposed to adaptations of 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.640 Christian saints and demons can be attributed largely to the 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:07.760 influence of M. A. R. Barker. Uh, because of Barker 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.880 was was very active in that whole scene at the time, 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.440 these various individuals like Gygax and others who were creating 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.400 these role playing worlds. But as should be clear from 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.480 us talking about John Milton, the demo organ is not 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.720 something that is a purely created, uh you know, fantasy 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.520 religion creature. It actually does have more of a history. 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.879 It goes back into Christian mythology in some way. So again, 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:36.199 whence the demo organ? Can we trace it back through literature? Yeah, well, 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.880 let's look at some of the key examples of literary 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:44.320 demogorgon that pop up. Well, let's start with Milton's Paradise Lost. 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.080 We read that fantastic quote from it in our cold 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.720 open Uh. Paradise Losses, of course, the masterpiece of John Milton, 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.679 who lives sixteen o eight through sixteen seventy four, and 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:57.560 which he sets no higher goal than to quote justify 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:01.040 the ways of God demand which I I always love that, 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:05.119 like they just just really going for it with this work, 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:09.239 you know. Um. And to achieve this lofty goal, he 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.840 retells the creation and the angelic fall and the fall 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.600 of man, and in doing so creates a Satan that 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:22.680 is uh, in some people's eyes, problematically uh, sympathetic and tragic. Now, 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:25.640 I think you can easily say that Milton was not 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:30.399 like sympathetic towards Satan. He was a devout, devoted Protestant Christian. 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:33.680 But I've seen I've seen that criticism leveled at him, 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:38.080 particularly in when I was growing up reading some particularly 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.600 various like Christian fundamentalists of views of demonology and the 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:46.280 treatment of demons and angels, and literature that would charge 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.240 another like, oh Milton made uh, he made Satan way 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:51.480 too likable. Yeah. I mean, I think if you've got 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:56.000 no tolerance at all, uh, then then yeah, might might 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:58.040 go too far for you. But I think one thing 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.159 he sets up to achieve and does impaired. I was 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:05.239 lost as he shows sin as as going astray, you know, 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:09.760 as folly as like following, uh, following a misguided path 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.880 and not always just kind of this like uh indefinable 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:17.760 miasma of horrible nous. People often like to think of 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.000 the devil is like something you can't even look at. 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.280 But Milton's devil. I mean the kind of scary thing 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.399 about the devil in classic conceptions of it is that 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:31.760 he's seductive and that he makes good arguments. Yeah again, 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:34.000 I mean de mcgregan and dn D has that intelligence 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.120 of twenty wisdom of seventeen. Uh, you'd expect as much 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.359 at least from Satan. Yeah. Now, in Paradise lost, of course, 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.359 Satan ultimately he loses a war in Heaven. He falls 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:46.959 down with his demons. They get cast into Hell. They 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:48.919 have a big debate about what to do about this. 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.960 Some demons counsel that they should, you know, take up arms. 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:55.120 I think Malok says, let's go fight again. Some say, 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.240 you know, we're down here, we can just let's make 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:59.320 the best of it. You know, Hell's not so bad. 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.840 And but but Satan gets to this idea He's going 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:07.720 to get revenge by by corrupting God's favorite creation, the human. 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:13.200 And spoiler, he pulls it off. But yeah, this epic poem, 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:14.840 you can see, you can almost think of it as 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:18.000 kind of a reboot or kind of like an amazing 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:22.479 piece of of biblical fan fiction where he fleshes out 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:24.960 this idea of a war in heaven and he adds 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:28.359 in all sorts of dramatic and gnarly details. One I 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:30.760 always liked is that he forges a sword for the 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:35.920 Archangeel Michael, uh, that is powerful enough to cut through anything, 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.880 including the flesh of other angels. God forges the sword, 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.720 you mean? Yeah? Yeah, who did I say forged it? Oh? 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:44.480 I thought it sounded like you're saying Satan did. Okay, Well, 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.560 I say, I'm probably thinking Saranto because we just did that, right, 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:50.840 But to be clear, God made the sword. Yeah that's good. Well, 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:52.679 I mean, I feel like there's so much stuff in 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:56.400 Paradise Lost. And we were talking before we came into 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.240 the studio here about Dante as well, where there are 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:04.000 these great of literature within the Christian literary tradition that 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:08.920 get incorporated into people's theology, like they forget that stuff 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:13.000 that's just in Paradise Lost isn't actually in the Bible, right, Yeah, 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:15.719 And and we can thank Dante for the pretty much 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:19.240 the whole concept of of purgatory becoming so prominent in 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:23.240 when in Western traditions. But but yeah, so so in 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.040 creating Paradise Lost, Milton he drags in a number of 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:29.400 names and develops a more demon names that do pop 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:33.040 up in the Bible, like the Elzeba, Belial, Mammon, Moloc. 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:37.000 But then he also drags in Orcus and dim Ogorgon, 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:41.160 and then there are seemingly new creations like most must 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:44.640 saber Uh, the architect of Pandemonium, the capital of Hell. 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.240 So dim mcgorgan is mentioned in book two and we 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:51.000 heard it at the start of this episode described and 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.920 this is a section of Paradise Lost that describes Satan's 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:58.000 voyage out of Hell with sin and death. So the 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:01.760 dem Ogregan is basically a back ound player. It's texture. Yeah, 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:03.800 just add a little texture to the scene as Satan 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:06.600 crosses the wilds of chaos and night that spanned the 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.960 void between Heaven and Hell. And there are other literary 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:12.720 invocations of the Demogorgon that I would say are basically 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:16.159 the same. They use the demogorgan not as a major 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:19.679 figure of significance, but something is sort of texture to 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:24.200 establish that a place is sort of ultimately abandoned by 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:27.760 God and and wretched, you know, like it's just really horrible. 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:29.920 And another great example of this is the way the 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:34.159 demogorgan is invoked in Edmund Spencer's The Fairy Queen. Uh So, 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:36.440 if you've never read it, The Fairy Queen is also 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.960 it's like Paradise Lost an English epic poem. It's from 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:43.520 the sixteenth century, so it's earlier than Paradise Lost, and 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:47.280 it's this really long poem about virtues and the adventures 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:50.439 of chivalrous nights. It's one of those that's, uh, you know, 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:52.840 to modern readers. I think it has a whole lot 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:55.400 of interest in it, and there is some great poetry 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:57.800 in it, but also it can be very long and 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:00.840 ponderous and kind of stuffy in some ways, because I mean, 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:04.800 you can only read so much about piety and shipp um. 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:07.399 But it's long been interpreted as containing a lot of 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:12.120 allegorical representations of present figures and politics from the Elizabethan era. 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:14.040 When it was written, I think I was reading about 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:18.480 how Spencer um he secured himself a really nice pension 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:21.920 from the Elizabethan court. By presenting the poem to Queen Elizabeth. 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:24.920 But again, the Demogorgon here does not appear as a 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:27.960 main character, but sort of as a bit of character 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:31.919 for the landscape. So just to read one stanza in 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:35.160 which it is invoked. Therefore desirous the end of all 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:38.480 their days to know and them to enlarge with long 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:42.520 extent by wondrous skill and many hidden ways to the 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:47.160 three fatal sisters house. She went far underground from tract 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:50.560 of living, went down in the bottom of the deep abyss, 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:54.560 where dim Ogorgan, in dull darkness, pent far from the 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:58.719 view of God's in Heaven's bliss. This hideous chaos keeps 0:23:58.800 --> 0:24:02.760 their dreadful dwelling. Is so this character is going She's 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:06.359 going down into a into a dark, godforsaken place. And 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:09.080 how do you signal places dark and god forsaken? How 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:11.480 do you show places evil and far from God? Well, 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:14.600 you mentioned it's where the demogorgan hangs out. So if 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:17.679 the Red Cross Night stands for piety and holiness, the 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:22.359 Demogorgon stands for unholiness and satanic chaos. Now another work 0:24:22.400 --> 0:24:26.719 that's uh that's often invoked that mentions the demogorgan is 0:24:26.960 --> 0:24:31.200 another sixteenth century work. It's an Italian epic poem by 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:39.159 uh Lodovico Ariosto, a titled Orlando Furioso, which is a 0:24:39.280 --> 0:24:42.520 poem that concerns the night Orlando, who is known in 0:24:42.560 --> 0:24:46.280 French traditions as Roland Uh. Now, at least in some 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:51.520 versions and translations, it does mention Demogorgon quote the ruler 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:54.920 of fates. But as far as I could tell, again, 0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:58.000 he's just background. He's just texture that's added to this, 0:24:58.280 --> 0:25:00.800 to a particular scene. All right. So this gets us 0:25:00.800 --> 0:25:05.159 back to the fifteenth sixteenth century UM. And so we 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:08.199 see by then that the democ organ is being invoked 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:12.439 in UH literature written by Christians as some kind of 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:15.399 infernal demons, some bad thing. Maybe it has something to 0:25:15.400 --> 0:25:18.080 do with fate, maybe it has something to do with chaos. 0:25:18.520 --> 0:25:21.200 And there's an earlier source that came across that's a 0:25:21.280 --> 0:25:25.000 hundred years or so before this UH, the fourteenth century 0:25:25.080 --> 0:25:29.960 Latin encyclopedia of pagan gods and their relationships, known as 0:25:30.040 --> 0:25:34.879 Boccaccio's Gena Loggia deorum Gentilium or the Genealogy of the 0:25:34.920 --> 0:25:38.359 Gods of the Gentiles. This was written by the Italian 0:25:38.400 --> 0:25:43.040 poet Giovanni Boccaccio, and Boccaccio apparently was commissioned to sort 0:25:43.040 --> 0:25:45.639 of like put together this, this compendium of all the 0:25:45.680 --> 0:25:49.200 bad old gods, you know, the pagan stuff back then, 0:25:49.240 --> 0:25:51.320 and show the relationships to each other to make a 0:25:51.359 --> 0:25:55.440 family tree. I found an addition and analysis by Ernest Hatch. 0:25:55.480 --> 0:25:59.240 Wilkins actually could not find an English translation of this. 0:25:59.400 --> 0:26:01.200 I think there might be one out there somewhere, but 0:26:01.240 --> 0:26:05.720 maybe it's not available online. Um but but anyway, Wilkins, 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:09.159 in this nineteen edition from the University of Chicago Press, 0:26:09.240 --> 0:26:13.919 was discussing what is covered in this book and apparently 0:26:14.080 --> 0:26:18.880 in attempting to create a family tree of all pagan gods. 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:24.480 Boccaccio regards the dem o organ as the original pagan deity, 0:26:24.640 --> 0:26:28.199 like the great great grandfather of Jupiter or Zeus, from 0:26:28.240 --> 0:26:32.479 which all other pagan deities are descended. So the family 0:26:32.520 --> 0:26:36.760 tree just starts right at the top Demogorgon. Alright, So 0:26:36.800 --> 0:26:40.440 if you're if you're looking at various pagan gods from 0:26:40.440 --> 0:26:43.960 a from this Christian standpoint, where pagan gods are a 0:26:44.000 --> 0:26:47.600 bad thing and perhaps are actually demons, then later that's 0:26:47.600 --> 0:26:50.119 where we getting the idea that the demogorgan is something 0:26:50.520 --> 0:26:56.520 primal and perhaps uh vile in nature, the very first God. 0:26:56.640 --> 0:26:59.879 How strange. Now, it turns out this isn't the first 0:27:00.240 --> 0:27:03.600 reference to a demogorgan and Christian literature, and we will 0:27:03.800 --> 0:27:07.520 find an earlier mention of it later on. But before 0:27:07.560 --> 0:27:09.879 we move on to that, I wanted to talk about 0:27:09.880 --> 0:27:12.160 what I think is one of the most interesting literary 0:27:12.200 --> 0:27:15.600 depictions of the Demogorgon, definitely the most interesting I've come across, 0:27:16.080 --> 0:27:20.800 and it's in Percy bish Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. This is, 0:27:20.800 --> 0:27:24.159 of course Mary's husband, Yes, yes, the husband of the 0:27:24.200 --> 0:27:29.119 author of Frankenstein. Percy Bis Shelley was an English Romantic poet. 0:27:29.720 --> 0:27:31.800 This is a lyric drama, so it's a drama sort 0:27:31.800 --> 0:27:35.600 of written in verse. The play is a response to 0:27:35.720 --> 0:27:39.119 the Greek myth of Prometheus, and Shelly first published it 0:27:39.160 --> 0:27:43.239 in eighteen twenty and he explicitly presented it as this 0:27:43.520 --> 0:27:48.240 as a response to the play Prometheus Bound by the 0:27:48.320 --> 0:27:52.159 ancient Greek playwright Escalus. So the myth of Prometheus you 0:27:52.240 --> 0:27:54.440 might know it well, but just to refresh, it goes 0:27:54.480 --> 0:27:58.159 something like this, Prometheus was one of a race of 0:27:58.200 --> 0:28:02.000 deities in ancient Greek legion known as the Titans, and 0:28:02.040 --> 0:28:06.200 the Titans came before the gods of Olympus. The Titans 0:28:06.280 --> 0:28:10.159 were offspring from the union of Uranus the heavens and 0:28:10.240 --> 0:28:13.919 Gaea the earth, and they ruled the earth until Chronus, 0:28:14.000 --> 0:28:17.280 the king of the Titans, was dethroned and his allies 0:28:17.280 --> 0:28:21.080 were defeated by his son Zeus and the Olympian gods. 0:28:21.480 --> 0:28:23.879 This is the War of the Titans, or the titanum 0:28:23.880 --> 0:28:27.720 achi um. So Prometheus was one of the Titans, the 0:28:27.800 --> 0:28:31.080 son of the Titan Yapidus, but he took the side 0:28:31.080 --> 0:28:33.840 of Zeus in the war between the Olympians and the Titans, 0:28:33.920 --> 0:28:37.840 so he's still around among the Olympian gods. And Zeus, 0:28:37.880 --> 0:28:40.160 of course, is a creep. As a place Zeus is, 0:28:40.400 --> 0:28:42.560 you just set your watch to it. He's going to 0:28:42.640 --> 0:28:46.120 be a creep in a jerk. Zeus doesn't want mortal 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:49.800 humans down on earth like us, to have power and 0:28:49.960 --> 0:28:54.120 knowledge like the gods, so he takes this crucial step 0:28:54.160 --> 0:28:57.120 in this myth of hiding fire from the humans. He 0:28:57.160 --> 0:28:59.480 takes fire from the earth. He hides it a Mount Olympus. 0:28:59.480 --> 0:29:03.400 He says human can't have it, and Prometheus, the Titan 0:29:03.600 --> 0:29:06.400 instead is sympathetic to humans, and so what he does 0:29:06.480 --> 0:29:09.800 is he steals fire from where Zeus had hidden it 0:29:09.840 --> 0:29:12.440 on Olympus, and he takes it down to share with 0:29:12.480 --> 0:29:16.040 the mortals below. And this is a trope that we 0:29:16.080 --> 0:29:19.240 see in various mythologies. So, for instance, there's a there's 0:29:19.280 --> 0:29:23.240 a nearly identical role in Chinese myth of the fire driller, 0:29:23.680 --> 0:29:25.560 who essentially does the same thing. And then we see 0:29:25.560 --> 0:29:28.000 this again in so many stories. There's some sort of 0:29:28.120 --> 0:29:31.840 knowledge of you know, some sort of generally, it's basically 0:29:32.080 --> 0:29:36.280 technological in nature, and it is taken from the gods 0:29:36.280 --> 0:29:40.000 one way or the other, borrowed from the gods, and 0:29:40.040 --> 0:29:45.640 bestowed either bestowed to humans by some benevolent identity like Prometheus, 0:29:46.000 --> 0:29:48.840 or it is just straight up stolen from the gods 0:29:48.840 --> 0:29:51.280 by mortals. Well, I think I like the Chinese version 0:29:51.320 --> 0:29:54.200 even better because in that the god who brings the 0:29:54.840 --> 0:29:59.160 fire doesn't it explicitly brings the technological means to make fire, 0:29:59.320 --> 0:30:01.520 not just the fire itself. So the fire drill. Of course, 0:30:01.600 --> 0:30:03.800 you know, if you ever used a bow drill, it's 0:30:03.840 --> 0:30:06.480 not so easy, but you can make fire that way. 0:30:06.520 --> 0:30:09.640 I think Prometheus is usually depicted as bringing like a 0:30:09.760 --> 0:30:12.200 burning branch or something that. Yeah, something like that, And 0:30:12.240 --> 0:30:15.080 granted that makes for a much better sculpture of painting, 0:30:15.200 --> 0:30:18.840 right this naked Titan with the with with this highly 0:30:18.880 --> 0:30:22.960 symbolic you know, a flaming torture branch. But through the 0:30:23.040 --> 0:30:26.920 years Prometheus's gift to the humans, I think it is 0:30:26.960 --> 0:30:29.760 more often interpreted along the lines of the fire Driller, 0:30:29.800 --> 0:30:34.520 where he's it's not just fire. Prometheus symbolizes the power 0:30:34.800 --> 0:30:39.360 from the heavens who betrays the leader God and brings 0:30:39.440 --> 0:30:43.120 down general technology and knowledge and power and succor to 0:30:43.160 --> 0:30:47.360 the humans, which which it's interesting that I mean Prometheus 0:30:47.440 --> 0:30:50.120 and the figure of Prometheus and the figure of of 0:30:50.160 --> 0:30:53.760 Satan have a lot in common, right, oh kind of yeah, 0:30:53.800 --> 0:30:56.000 because I mean, yes, Satan. One of the things that's 0:30:56.000 --> 0:30:58.000 interesting about the story of Satan in the Garden of 0:30:58.120 --> 0:31:00.800 Eden is that Satan does not lie to the humans. 0:31:01.520 --> 0:31:03.959 You know, he's presented as doing bad, but he he 0:31:04.080 --> 0:31:07.760 encourages them to uh to violate God's law in the 0:31:07.800 --> 0:31:10.000 garden and eat from the tree that is forbidden to them. 0:31:10.040 --> 0:31:11.959 But he says, you can eat from this tree and 0:31:12.000 --> 0:31:14.280 you will not die as you've been told you will 0:31:14.320 --> 0:31:16.320 and it It turns out it's true. They eat and 0:31:16.360 --> 0:31:18.719 it doesn't kill them, except you could make the argument 0:31:18.760 --> 0:31:21.080 that maybe, well maybe it makes them mortal in the 0:31:21.160 --> 0:31:23.720 long run. But I mean, basically, he's a disruptor, to 0:31:23.760 --> 0:31:26.320 put it in like Silicon Valley terms, right, Like he's 0:31:26.400 --> 0:31:31.920 he's trying to disrupt creation. Um. But so in the 0:31:31.960 --> 0:31:34.880 Greek myth, of course, Prometheus being nice to the humans 0:31:34.880 --> 0:31:38.200 and betraying Zeus, both the mortals and Prometheus are punished 0:31:38.200 --> 0:31:41.440 for this. The punishment for humans is a sequence of 0:31:41.480 --> 0:31:44.360 events that leads to the opening of Pandora's Box, out 0:31:44.360 --> 0:31:47.240 of which flow all the hardships and frailty of human life. 0:31:47.240 --> 0:31:51.120 You get plague, you get toiled to survive all that stuff, 0:31:51.440 --> 0:31:53.800 and a little bit of hope left over. I guess yeah. 0:31:54.400 --> 0:31:58.440 In the bottom uh, Prometheus is punished in a more 0:31:58.440 --> 0:32:01.480 explicit way. He is bound to a rock in the 0:32:01.520 --> 0:32:04.440 Caucasus Mountains, and not only has he chained up, but 0:32:04.560 --> 0:32:08.360 Zeus sends a nasty eagle to peck out his liver 0:32:08.440 --> 0:32:12.120 each day, and unfortunately Prometheus is immortal, so his liver, 0:32:12.520 --> 0:32:16.040 as an immortal liver, just keeps regenerating and the eagle 0:32:16.120 --> 0:32:17.960 can fly back and peck it out and eat it 0:32:17.960 --> 0:32:21.200 again the next day. It sounds like a bad deal. Yeah, 0:32:21.240 --> 0:32:23.360 it's a bad deal, But I don't know as far as, like, 0:32:24.120 --> 0:32:26.200 you know, offending Zeus goes. I guess it could have 0:32:26.240 --> 0:32:29.200 been worse. I guess. So. Now, in response to this myth, 0:32:29.560 --> 0:32:33.040 Shelly Percy Bis Shelley in his play takes up the 0:32:33.040 --> 0:32:36.360 banner of Prometheus, and he makes him a heroic figure 0:32:36.360 --> 0:32:38.640 in the play. And I would say this is not surprising, 0:32:39.120 --> 0:32:42.680 because you could definitely say that Percy Shelley was of 0:32:42.720 --> 0:32:47.960 a revolutionary temperament theologically, politically, and in literature. He was 0:32:48.160 --> 0:32:51.480 very against the old ways and the old powers and 0:32:51.520 --> 0:32:55.200 the authorities, and for sort of disruption and revolution and 0:32:55.240 --> 0:32:58.000 doing things in a new way. Now, the plot of 0:32:58.000 --> 0:33:00.960 Shelley's play is kind of abstract and of loaded with 0:33:01.080 --> 0:33:05.680 characters and images of ponderous meaningfulness. So, uh so I'm 0:33:05.680 --> 0:33:08.280 gonna try to do a short summary, leaving aside all 0:33:08.320 --> 0:33:11.080 the stuff that takes us in other directions and focusing 0:33:11.120 --> 0:33:14.280 on how the democ organ comes in. So Prometheus is 0:33:14.400 --> 0:33:16.600 we find him in this state where he's bound up 0:33:16.640 --> 0:33:19.960 by Zeus. It's Jupiter in this play, but this is 0:33:19.960 --> 0:33:22.760 the same figure the King of the Gods, bound up 0:33:22.760 --> 0:33:26.160 and tortured by Jupiter for bringing knowledge to the mortals, 0:33:26.200 --> 0:33:29.000 and in Shelley's version it is explicitly not just fire 0:33:29.000 --> 0:33:31.920 but general knowledge and aid. And there are two other 0:33:32.000 --> 0:33:35.200 deities who are sympathetic to Prometheus and they want to 0:33:35.200 --> 0:33:38.640 help him. These are the sisters Asia and Panthea, and 0:33:38.760 --> 0:33:42.040 they attempt to free Prometheus from his bondage. Asia is 0:33:42.080 --> 0:33:45.160 a c nymph who is actually the beloved of Prometheus, 0:33:45.200 --> 0:33:49.239 and Panthea is her sister. Led by a dream, the 0:33:49.280 --> 0:33:52.480 two of them venture into the underworld and they meet 0:33:52.520 --> 0:33:56.320 a character called the democ Organ, who is portrayed as 0:33:56.360 --> 0:34:00.160 a kind of supremely powerful but also strangely pass of 0:34:00.320 --> 0:34:05.000 and kind of inert force of fate and nothingness, who 0:34:05.160 --> 0:34:08.120 is also the son of Jupiter. Now, when they first 0:34:08.200 --> 0:34:11.480 come across uh the dem o Organ, the character of 0:34:11.560 --> 0:34:15.480 Panthea describes him this way. She says, I see a 0:34:15.560 --> 0:34:18.960 mighty darkness filling the seat of power, and rays of 0:34:19.080 --> 0:34:23.320 gloom dart round as light from the meridian sun, ungazed 0:34:23.400 --> 0:34:27.600 upon and shapeless, neither limb nor form nor outline. Yet 0:34:27.640 --> 0:34:30.680 we feel it is a living spirit. This is very 0:34:30.719 --> 0:34:33.640 different from the D and D demigorgan, right, Yeah, this 0:34:33.719 --> 0:34:38.000 is more like a primordial soup of the deity. Yeah. 0:34:38.320 --> 0:34:40.600 So they say that they since there is a living 0:34:40.640 --> 0:34:43.400 presence down in the abyss with them, and there's a 0:34:43.480 --> 0:34:46.040 mighty darkness, there's something in the gloom, but they can't 0:34:46.120 --> 0:34:48.520 see that it has any kind of shape or body. 0:34:49.040 --> 0:34:53.080 And then Panthea and Asia have a consultation with the Demogorgon. 0:34:53.520 --> 0:34:56.560 They asked him questions and the demogorgan reveals to them 0:34:56.840 --> 0:34:59.840 that Jupiter created the world with all the good and 0:35:00.120 --> 0:35:03.840 the bad that it entails, and also that even Jupiter 0:35:04.000 --> 0:35:07.480 himself is not all powerful, because, in the words of 0:35:07.480 --> 0:35:12.640 the demogorgan quote, all spirits are enslaved, which serve things evil. 0:35:13.000 --> 0:35:16.080 And he says to Asia, thou knowest if Jupiter be 0:35:16.200 --> 0:35:19.080 such or No. Of course, Asia knows that even though 0:35:19.160 --> 0:35:23.040 Jupiter is the chief god, Jupiter still does things that 0:35:23.080 --> 0:35:26.200 are evil. He serves evil, So there must be some 0:35:26.280 --> 0:35:28.759 kind of power over him, because all things that serve 0:35:28.840 --> 0:35:31.799 evil have some power over them. So what is even 0:35:31.880 --> 0:35:36.480 Jupiter subject to? Well, the demo organ answer is that too, quote, 0:35:36.520 --> 0:35:39.920 if the abyssum could vomit forth its secrets, but a 0:35:40.000 --> 0:35:43.919 voice is wanting the deep truth is imageless. For what 0:35:43.960 --> 0:35:47.240 would it avail to bid the gaze on the revolving world? 0:35:47.640 --> 0:35:51.799 What to bid? Speak fate, time, occasion, chance, and change? 0:35:52.200 --> 0:35:57.080 To these all things are subject but eternal love. Love. 0:35:57.239 --> 0:36:01.160 That's the fifth element. I guess it is. So even Jupiter, 0:36:01.280 --> 0:36:03.880 the ultimate god of everything, is subject to the power 0:36:03.920 --> 0:36:07.239 of love. Uh, sounds kind of cheesy. But then but 0:36:07.360 --> 0:36:10.319 then Asia is like, Okay, well, I love Prometheus, so 0:36:10.440 --> 0:36:14.040 when will he be freed? Like wind? Shall the destined 0:36:14.040 --> 0:36:17.200 hour arrive for Prometheus to be to be freed? And 0:36:17.239 --> 0:36:21.080 the de m o organ just says, behold exclamation point. 0:36:21.440 --> 0:36:25.080 So then immediately the Demogorgon travels to heaven where Jupiter 0:36:25.320 --> 0:36:27.280 is the Jupiter, the chief god, is in the middle 0:36:27.320 --> 0:36:30.120 of a big speech about how awesome he is, and 0:36:30.200 --> 0:36:33.600 the dem ogorgan appears and then he just he just 0:36:33.719 --> 0:36:37.480 messes up Jupiter. He casts him down, He destroys the 0:36:37.480 --> 0:36:40.799 tyrant creator god, and then Prometheus can be freed by 0:36:40.800 --> 0:36:44.560 Hercules and reunited with Asia. That's quite a climax. Well, 0:36:44.560 --> 0:36:46.799 but it's not the climax. Somehow, this is not the 0:36:46.880 --> 0:36:48.759 end of the play. This is like act three of 0:36:48.760 --> 0:36:51.719 a five act play. After this, it seems I've never 0:36:51.719 --> 0:36:54.440 read the thing in full. I admit I've read some passages. 0:36:54.760 --> 0:36:56.919 It seems like after this there is a lot of 0:36:56.960 --> 0:37:01.520 like sort of um windy pontificateing about love and virtues 0:37:01.719 --> 0:37:04.520 and what is good and right. But anyway, I think 0:37:04.520 --> 0:37:09.160 the Demogorgon's role in this story is very interesting. He's well, so, 0:37:09.280 --> 0:37:12.160 I kept saying he, but the Demogorgan. Actually, one thing 0:37:12.200 --> 0:37:14.480 that's been pointed out by scholars is that the democ 0:37:14.560 --> 0:37:18.560 organ has never given a gender uh in in Percy's 0:37:18.600 --> 0:37:21.920 play uh In. In other sources it is, I think, 0:37:21.920 --> 0:37:24.359 assumed to be a he, but there's no there's no 0:37:24.440 --> 0:37:28.239 gender in Prometheus Unbound. So the Demogorgan, whoever they are, 0:37:28.320 --> 0:37:31.319 whatever they are, is depicted as in some kind of 0:37:31.400 --> 0:37:35.320 infernal phantom of the underworld, but also a liberating force 0:37:35.440 --> 0:37:40.040 for positive good, overthrowing the tyrannical order of creation at 0:37:40.080 --> 0:37:43.360 the appointed hour uh Though interestingly, I would say the 0:37:43.400 --> 0:37:46.640 demogorgan doesn't really seem to act out of their own volition. 0:37:46.760 --> 0:37:50.520 It's almost as if, um they are somehow triggered into 0:37:50.600 --> 0:37:53.719 this act by the visit from Asia and Panthea, like 0:37:53.800 --> 0:37:57.960 it's the love for Prometheus from Asia that was faded 0:37:58.000 --> 0:38:01.600 to proceed the appointed hour of Jupiter's destruction and the 0:38:01.640 --> 0:38:05.279 liberation of the world. Another thing that's interesting here about 0:38:05.320 --> 0:38:08.879 Shelley's work, So we talked about how the Demogorgon does 0:38:08.920 --> 0:38:11.839 not actually come from Greek mythology, even though he's being 0:38:11.920 --> 0:38:15.600 retro insurgent into like classical mythology here Greek and Roman 0:38:15.800 --> 0:38:19.640 kind of blended mythology here. Um, what would the word 0:38:19.719 --> 0:38:23.160 DeMorgan mean if it actually were a Greek word. Well, 0:38:23.200 --> 0:38:26.839 you've got the apparent roots demos and gorgon, like the 0:38:26.880 --> 0:38:31.320 people's gorgon, like democracy, and then gorgon again, the monster 0:38:31.800 --> 0:38:35.520 the of which Medusa is a member of the species. 0:38:35.600 --> 0:38:39.759 But actually the gorgon name for Medusa that has a 0:38:39.840 --> 0:38:42.520 root in Greek too. It's from the word gorgos, which 0:38:42.560 --> 0:38:46.080 means something like terrible or grim, you know, terror inducing. 0:38:46.480 --> 0:38:50.240 So the demogorgan could literally be translated as the people's terror, 0:38:50.840 --> 0:38:53.400 like the terror of the masses of people, which is 0:38:53.440 --> 0:38:55.880 a very interesting intersection with the idea of like a 0:38:55.960 --> 0:39:00.200 long faded revolution to dethrone tyrant kings and unword the 0:39:00.280 --> 0:39:03.560 gods and of course we know, uh, Percy Shelley was 0:39:03.600 --> 0:39:07.040 a supporter of the French Revolution. He believed in atheism, 0:39:07.120 --> 0:39:09.840 he believed in republicanism, not to be confused with like 0:39:09.960 --> 0:39:12.560 the Republican Party of today, like in the context of 0:39:12.640 --> 0:39:17.560 the time, that was representative government as opposed to monarchy. Um. 0:39:17.640 --> 0:39:19.560 And so I think it could be tempting to think 0:39:19.600 --> 0:39:24.320 of like the French Revolution as Shelley's demigorgon the people's terror, 0:39:24.440 --> 0:39:28.920 like this inevitable swell of justice that washes tyrants from 0:39:28.960 --> 0:39:31.840 their thrones, but at the same time contains a terrifying 0:39:31.920 --> 0:39:35.600 and mighty darkness that can't really be seen or understood. 0:39:36.440 --> 0:39:42.120 I like that the people's terror. I mean, yeah, I 0:39:42.160 --> 0:39:44.560 don't know. I don't know if if Shelley himself would 0:39:44.560 --> 0:39:47.719 have seen that, uh seen that comparison, because I think 0:39:47.760 --> 0:39:50.239 he may have had a more, I don't know, a 0:39:50.320 --> 0:39:53.560 less nuanced view of the guillotine saying. And of course 0:39:53.600 --> 0:39:57.040 this introduces the idea of the devic organ as as 0:39:57.080 --> 0:40:02.000 being like potential like political candidate, perhaps in in our 0:40:02.080 --> 0:40:05.759 upcoming elections. If if you're if you're inclined to use 0:40:05.760 --> 0:40:09.520 a right in candidate, go demogorgan the just rage of 0:40:09.560 --> 0:40:13.879 the people, that is without form or shape. Now one 0:40:13.920 --> 0:40:18.600 more example of demogorgan popping up in uh in in 0:40:18.600 --> 0:40:22.640 in a work of literature. Uh is is a story 0:40:22.760 --> 0:40:27.080 essentially a short story from Voltaire Voltaire Live through seventeen 0:40:27.120 --> 0:40:30.120 seventy eight. And I've never read this one before I'd 0:40:30.160 --> 0:40:32.600 read I'd read some works of Voltaire in the past, 0:40:34.040 --> 0:40:37.759 but at anyway, this one is titled Plato's Dream, in 0:40:37.800 --> 0:40:41.440 which the Demogorgon is presented as a genie who witnesses 0:40:41.440 --> 0:40:47.080 the initial creation um of the world by this primordial 0:40:47.160 --> 0:40:52.360 force called the demi urge, and along with its fellow genies. Uh. 0:40:52.400 --> 0:40:55.399 The dem Ogregan is granted a portion of the creation too, 0:40:55.400 --> 0:41:00.360 then uh you know, to then finish into a functioning world. 0:41:00.800 --> 0:41:04.560 The demogorgan is given the task of creating Earth and 0:41:04.760 --> 0:41:07.720 uh and is then critiqued and criticized by his fellow 0:41:07.800 --> 0:41:11.520 genies for making such a mixed up planet. And so 0:41:11.640 --> 0:41:13.960 there's a part here I want to quote where the 0:41:13.960 --> 0:41:17.800 demogorgan responds to his critics and says, quote, it is 0:41:17.840 --> 0:41:21.240 an easy matter to find fault, good folks, said the genie. 0:41:21.600 --> 0:41:23.839 But do you imagine it is so easy to form 0:41:23.880 --> 0:41:26.680 an animal who, having the gift of reason and free will, 0:41:26.719 --> 0:41:30.080 shall not sometimes abuse his liberty. Do you think that, 0:41:30.160 --> 0:41:33.840 in rearing between nine and ten thousand different plants, it 0:41:33.960 --> 0:41:37.759 is so easy to prevent some few from having noxious qualities? 0:41:38.239 --> 0:41:41.680 Do you suppose that with a certain quantity of water, sand, 0:41:41.760 --> 0:41:44.080 and mud, you could make a globe that should have 0:41:44.200 --> 0:41:48.000 neither seas nor deserts. As for you, my sneering friend, 0:41:48.280 --> 0:41:51.600 I think you have just finished the planet Jupiter. Let 0:41:51.640 --> 0:41:54.560 us see now what figure you make with your great 0:41:54.600 --> 0:41:58.719 belts and your long nights with four moons to enlighten them. 0:41:59.040 --> 0:42:01.360 Let us examine you or world and see whether the 0:42:01.360 --> 0:42:04.960 inhabitants you have made or exempt from follies or diseases. 0:42:05.440 --> 0:42:07.160 I guess we'll just have to wait for the Europa 0:42:07.200 --> 0:42:11.719 Probe to form us to resolve this one. Right, So, 0:42:12.400 --> 0:42:14.840 there's not much to really I feel like uncover in 0:42:14.880 --> 0:42:19.000 this one, but there are there's at least one detail 0:42:19.040 --> 0:42:21.799 in this that will become critical. Uh. In our next 0:42:21.880 --> 0:42:24.680 section of of the podcast, after we come back from 0:42:24.680 --> 0:42:28.759 a break, we will get into the true abyssal origins 0:42:28.800 --> 0:42:36.160 of the demogorgan than. Alright, we're back, So we've charted 0:42:36.160 --> 0:42:40.280 the path of the demogorgan through much literature throughout especially 0:42:40.400 --> 0:42:43.799 the Christian world, and its role in some interesting sort 0:42:43.800 --> 0:42:48.520 of revolutionary sentiments as expressed through literature like Prometheus Unbound 0:42:48.600 --> 0:42:52.040 or in Voltaire story. But we're trying to find the 0:42:52.120 --> 0:42:54.879 origin of this. Where does the Demogorgon actually come from? 0:42:55.080 --> 0:42:59.000 If it doesn't come from classic Greek mythology. Well, the 0:42:59.040 --> 0:43:03.760 origin is discussed in a nineteen sixty four book titled 0:43:03.880 --> 0:43:08.320 The Discarded Image and Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, 0:43:08.320 --> 0:43:12.040 written by none other than C. S. Lewis. In fact, 0:43:12.080 --> 0:43:14.560 it was C. S. Lewis's last book before he died, 0:43:14.600 --> 0:43:18.520 and it deals with medieval cosmology. He turns our attention 0:43:18.520 --> 0:43:21.400 to the fourth book of the thebe A by Stadius 0:43:21.400 --> 0:43:26.919 the First. Stadius lived uh CE forty five through and 0:43:27.120 --> 0:43:30.160 this is an epic poem written in Latin about the 0:43:30.160 --> 0:43:34.080 Theban cycle. And here the author alludes to a deity 0:43:34.160 --> 0:43:37.839 that shall not be named, a quote sovereign of the 0:43:37.840 --> 0:43:42.960 threefold world. And then early Christian author Lactantius, who lived 0:43:42.960 --> 0:43:47.279 two fifty through wrote a commentary on this work and 0:43:47.360 --> 0:43:51.400 stated that Stadius was referring in in fact to the 0:43:51.440 --> 0:43:58.200 Greek Uh, demi organ this or creator quote the god 0:43:58.239 --> 0:44:02.120 whose name and is unlawful to know. So we're talking 0:44:02.400 --> 0:44:07.920 so demi organ from which we get Demogorgon and h. 0:44:07.960 --> 0:44:11.040 And then Lewis writes the following to sum this up. Quote, 0:44:11.080 --> 0:44:13.839 this is plain sailing the demi urge or workman being 0:44:13.840 --> 0:44:17.280 the creator in the Timaeus. But there are two variants 0:44:17.280 --> 0:44:23.640 in the manuscripts. One is Demogorgona, the other Demogorgon. From 0:44:23.640 --> 0:44:27.799 the later of these corruptions, later ages evolved a completely 0:44:27.960 --> 0:44:32.719 new deity, Demogorgon, who was to enjoy a distinguished literary 0:44:32.800 --> 0:44:37.480 career in Boccaccio's Genealogy of the Gods, in Spencer, in 0:44:37.600 --> 0:44:41.320 Milton and in Shelley. This is perhaps the only time 0:44:41.719 --> 0:44:47.080 a scribal blunder underwent an apotheosis. Oh that's amazing, uh 0:44:47.080 --> 0:44:50.520 and just so. In a mythological context, of course, Apotheosis 0:44:50.640 --> 0:44:53.879 here reversed to the process of a human being being 0:44:54.040 --> 0:44:57.680 deified or something being made into a higher being, like 0:44:57.719 --> 0:45:00.479 a god or a star or heavenly object being taken 0:45:00.560 --> 0:45:04.200 up into heaven. Ancient kings were sometimes made into gods, 0:45:04.239 --> 0:45:07.759 and legendary heroes like Hercules, sometimes lived lives that were 0:45:07.760 --> 0:45:10.759 so worthy or so notable, they were assumed into the 0:45:10.800 --> 0:45:13.160 pantheon and became God. So I think that's what he's 0:45:13.160 --> 0:45:17.200 saying here, is that somebody made a blunder in copying 0:45:17.200 --> 0:45:21.280 a manuscript or in translating, in understanding what a word 0:45:21.440 --> 0:45:26.160 meant in an older book, and through that scribal error, 0:45:26.239 --> 0:45:30.200 we got a brand new deity such that, you know, 0:45:30.239 --> 0:45:33.840 a thousand years later, Boccaccio would say, this deity is 0:45:33.920 --> 0:45:38.600 the original macdaddy deity, like the number, like the Pagan 0:45:38.680 --> 0:45:42.080 God before all the other ones, and it just comes 0:45:42.160 --> 0:45:46.279 from a mistranslation or misreading of a word. And the 0:45:46.600 --> 0:45:51.360 word that was misread or a mistranslated is the dimmy Urge, 0:45:51.800 --> 0:45:56.319 which which curiously enough is cited in that Voltaire short story. Right, 0:45:56.480 --> 0:45:58.200 So it seems like Voltaire was kind of on the 0:45:58.280 --> 0:46:01.359 right track with the association here. Uh And and this 0:46:01.400 --> 0:46:03.480 is great because the demi Urge is one of my 0:46:03.600 --> 0:46:07.520 favorite characters from any mythology in the world. But but 0:46:07.840 --> 0:46:12.480 its role is complicated and varies across different traditions, including 0:46:12.520 --> 0:46:16.719 like Platonic schools of philosophy and religion in the you know, 0:46:16.800 --> 0:46:21.000 in the centuries following Plato's actual teachings and in various 0:46:21.080 --> 0:46:24.520 Gnostic religions. I'll try to give a general summary that 0:46:24.520 --> 0:46:27.239 applies to multiple lines of tradition that have sort of 0:46:27.239 --> 0:46:29.400 similar attributes, but just be aware that there are a 0:46:29.440 --> 0:46:31.880 lot of different things that are all sort of versions 0:46:31.920 --> 0:46:35.640 of the demi urge. The word demi urge, as uh 0:46:35.760 --> 0:46:38.760 As Lewis mentioned, comes from the Greek. In its original form, 0:46:39.160 --> 0:46:41.879 is just a common noun that means something like craftsmen. 0:46:42.600 --> 0:46:46.320 You know, it's somebody who makes things, sculptor, maker, producer. 0:46:47.080 --> 0:46:49.920 But within these religious points of view or in in 0:46:49.960 --> 0:46:54.040 these philosophies and cosmologies, the demi urge is a figure 0:46:54.120 --> 0:46:59.000 that creates the material world, is the creator. But apart 0:46:59.080 --> 0:47:02.520 from many other religions, this does not mean that he 0:47:02.680 --> 0:47:06.080 is the ultimate creator God or that he is good. 0:47:06.520 --> 0:47:09.720 He is, i would say, variously portrayed as is everything, 0:47:09.840 --> 0:47:14.440 ranging from kind of neutral and bumbling to actively malevolent. 0:47:14.840 --> 0:47:17.759 And to give an example from one strain of gnosticism, 0:47:17.760 --> 0:47:21.080 in the Gnostic text known as the Apocryphon of John, 0:47:21.920 --> 0:47:25.960 the dimmi urge figure is this foolish, arrogant, wicked deity 0:47:26.120 --> 0:47:31.000 called yelled Both who creates the material bodies of humans. 0:47:31.040 --> 0:47:33.520 I think he also maybe creates the material world or 0:47:33.600 --> 0:47:37.040 some aspects of it um and humans. The humans that 0:47:37.080 --> 0:47:41.160 he created end up with souls when they are inadvertently 0:47:41.239 --> 0:47:44.800 contaminated by a spark or a light from the higher 0:47:45.160 --> 0:47:48.520 nobler plane of being known as the play roma, which 0:47:48.560 --> 0:47:52.360 means something like fullness. And so you've got the ple roma, 0:47:52.440 --> 0:47:56.239 the fullness, the real world, the real greater place, which 0:47:56.320 --> 0:47:59.080 is is immaterial in nature, and then you've got the 0:47:59.080 --> 0:48:03.480 the crappy material world that Yaldaboath made. And now we're 0:48:03.560 --> 0:48:07.080 stuck in that thing. And Yaldaboath resents the fact that 0:48:07.160 --> 0:48:10.759 humans have this spark from the Pleroma and tries to 0:48:10.760 --> 0:48:13.160 fight against it. So to do so, he tries to 0:48:13.239 --> 0:48:16.360 keep humans confused and in the dark, so we're always 0:48:16.400 --> 0:48:20.520 fumbling around in this kind of baffling material hell, which 0:48:20.600 --> 0:48:24.080 is our everyday world. And the Gnostics within this tradition 0:48:24.480 --> 0:48:27.080 believe that you can only escape the horrors of the 0:48:27.120 --> 0:48:31.360 material world by becoming privy to secret knowledge. That knowledge 0:48:31.400 --> 0:48:35.680 is the noses, the secret knowledge that explains the real world. 0:48:35.760 --> 0:48:39.160 And this is this is how you transcend the secret mythology, 0:48:39.239 --> 0:48:42.879 the secret rituals that give you access to the true, 0:48:42.920 --> 0:48:47.840 fuller reality behind this material illusion that controls our lives. 0:48:48.160 --> 0:48:51.000 And you can actually see a connection to Platonic philosophy. 0:48:51.040 --> 0:48:52.840 Even if this sounds like a very kind of strange, 0:48:52.960 --> 0:48:56.360 complicated theological take on on the creation of the world, 0:48:56.760 --> 0:48:59.200 it sounds a lot like Plato's cave, right, Yeah, yeah, 0:48:59.200 --> 0:49:01.799 it does. I mean also that the basic spirit of 0:49:01.800 --> 0:49:04.800 this is also reflected in other faiths. I mean, the 0:49:05.120 --> 0:49:07.440 idea of there being a secret reality of their of 0:49:07.480 --> 0:49:09.160 there being some sort of cycle that we need to 0:49:09.200 --> 0:49:12.000 break free from. I mean you see that in say, 0:49:12.200 --> 0:49:15.680 you know, Hindu and Buddhist traditions, and this idea of 0:49:15.719 --> 0:49:19.920 the spark of something more divine being like trapped in 0:49:19.960 --> 0:49:22.520 the mud of our bodies. How you see that also 0:49:22.600 --> 0:49:26.640 reflected in even more recent creations like scientology. Oh totally, 0:49:26.719 --> 0:49:31.160 I think, yeah, absolutely. I would say gnostic theology reflects 0:49:31.239 --> 0:49:34.640 something that is a very common belief among humans, and 0:49:34.680 --> 0:49:37.200 you can see how often it appears, not just in 0:49:37.239 --> 0:49:39.719 other religions, but in all kinds of pop culture. I mean, 0:49:39.920 --> 0:49:43.319 echoes of the gnostic worldview bounce around constantly even through 0:49:43.360 --> 0:49:46.400 contemporary culture, whether we're conscious of it or not, and 0:49:46.440 --> 0:49:49.160 whether the creators of these pieces of culture, or conscious 0:49:49.160 --> 0:49:50.839 of it or not. If I mean, if you've seen 0:49:50.880 --> 0:49:54.920 the matrix, you already have a sort of baseline understanding 0:49:54.920 --> 0:49:58.960 of gnostic cosmology. You just replace the evil computers and 0:49:58.960 --> 0:50:02.680 the agents with cosmic realms and wicked ar cons like 0:50:02.800 --> 0:50:05.840 the demi Urge. The demmy Urge sort of created a 0:50:05.960 --> 0:50:09.640 material matrix for us to live in, when in reality 0:50:09.760 --> 0:50:12.920 we are beings from this better immaterial world and we 0:50:12.960 --> 0:50:15.560 have to find ways to escape and get back to it. 0:50:15.719 --> 0:50:18.280 So you're saying we are star dust, we are golden, 0:50:18.360 --> 0:50:20.960 we are billion year old carbon, and we have to 0:50:21.000 --> 0:50:23.160 find our way back to the garden. Yes, but you 0:50:23.160 --> 0:50:25.200 can only get back to the garden if you teach 0:50:25.239 --> 0:50:28.520 your children well, because it is the secret knowledge that 0:50:28.640 --> 0:50:31.560 is required to get you there. And most people are 0:50:31.600 --> 0:50:33.479 never going to be let in on the secret. They're 0:50:33.480 --> 0:50:36.920 just sort of going about there, you know, their everyday life, 0:50:36.920 --> 0:50:40.920 toiling after material things without understanding that the material world 0:50:41.040 --> 0:50:44.000 is bad and fake. But I love this idea that 0:50:44.080 --> 0:50:48.000 the demmy Urge being this creator of the material world 0:50:48.040 --> 0:50:51.440 who's at the at the very least bumbling and at 0:50:51.480 --> 0:50:54.480 worst some kind of devilish thing that that hates us 0:50:54.480 --> 0:50:57.520 and wants to trick us into living bad, wrong lives. 0:50:58.120 --> 0:51:01.520 I could see this mistrans lation leading to the creation 0:51:01.560 --> 0:51:05.239 of the demo organ figure being an excellent modern reworking 0:51:05.280 --> 0:51:07.440 of the Gnostic theology and being a part of that 0:51:07.480 --> 0:51:11.319 demi Urge's plan, like the demi Urge hides the true 0:51:11.360 --> 0:51:14.800 nosis about its wicked role in creating the material world 0:51:14.800 --> 0:51:18.480 and these filthy bodies of ours by causing a scribal 0:51:18.600 --> 0:51:22.000 error that hides its existence, and instead it gets everybody 0:51:22.000 --> 0:51:26.680 focused on this fake illusory demon or primordial god, the Demogorgon, 0:51:27.120 --> 0:51:29.359 And then you're scared of the Demogorgon or you're in 0:51:29.440 --> 0:51:32.440 all of its primeval darkness and shapeless presence, so you 0:51:32.560 --> 0:51:34.680 forget that you need to be seeking the nosis to 0:51:34.840 --> 0:51:38.880 escape this wretched unreality. Uh and uh yeah, yeah, I 0:51:38.920 --> 0:51:42.200 mean if you're ultimately if you're trying to envision the 0:51:42.320 --> 0:51:46.240 ultimate evil power in a in a in a fantasy world. 0:51:46.680 --> 0:51:48.719 Uh yeah, this this sounds like the This is the 0:51:48.960 --> 0:51:52.640 Prince of Demons right here. You know. I weirdly kept 0:51:52.680 --> 0:51:55.160 thinking about the demi urriage when we were recently talking 0:51:55.160 --> 0:51:58.160 about that book I read by Philip Ball about quantum 0:51:58.160 --> 0:52:03.080 mechanics that it's called Beyond Weird. It's a great book. 0:52:03.160 --> 0:52:05.760 It's a new book from this year last year about 0:52:06.520 --> 0:52:08.480 quantum mechanics. And one of the things that I think 0:52:08.560 --> 0:52:10.480 is really great about the book is it doesn't let 0:52:10.520 --> 0:52:12.640 you off the hook. It doesn't just let you say, wow, 0:52:12.760 --> 0:52:15.120 quantum mechanics sure does seem weird and then kind of 0:52:15.120 --> 0:52:17.479 shake your head and move on. Like it. It tries 0:52:17.520 --> 0:52:19.600 to force you to look at it. It does the 0:52:20.080 --> 0:52:23.560 thing from like Clockwork Orange where it holds your eyelids 0:52:23.640 --> 0:52:26.880 open and says, no, look at this and pay attention. 0:52:27.440 --> 0:52:29.120 And you know, one of the things that you walk 0:52:29.160 --> 0:52:32.120 away from that with is that, Okay, you know, I'm 0:52:32.160 --> 0:52:37.160 not saying that physical reality isn't real, but it it 0:52:37.239 --> 0:52:40.480 makes you think that whatever way we're interacting with the 0:52:40.520 --> 0:52:42.400 world on a day to day basis, you know, the 0:52:43.080 --> 0:52:45.680 kind of reality we perceive with like objects you can 0:52:45.760 --> 0:52:49.319 touch and and see and know their place and all that, 0:52:49.320 --> 0:52:53.480 that is not the ultimate like arbiter of what reality is. 0:52:53.640 --> 0:52:57.600 Like your perception of reality is not necessarily the most 0:52:57.640 --> 0:53:00.719 accurate way of understanding reality, even though it, you know, 0:53:00.800 --> 0:53:02.880 it seems to work good enough to get you through life, 0:53:02.880 --> 0:53:05.440 So how could it be wrong? But yet we you know, 0:53:05.680 --> 0:53:09.360 we do experiments in physics all the time. Now that 0:53:09.360 --> 0:53:12.080 that just show you over and over again that the 0:53:12.160 --> 0:53:14.319 way you have of making sense of the world is 0:53:14.360 --> 0:53:19.400 some kind of derivative, second order kind of grasp of physics, 0:53:19.480 --> 0:53:23.240 or you have no intuitive way of understanding quantum reality, 0:53:23.280 --> 0:53:26.880 you know what happens before decoherence and everything, so that 0:53:27.040 --> 0:53:29.880 ultimately there is this there is this deeper truth in 0:53:29.920 --> 0:53:33.960 the universe that that we are not inherently privy to. 0:53:34.440 --> 0:53:38.800 We're only privy to it via uh technology, via science. 0:53:39.440 --> 0:53:44.200 Uh these are essentially gnostic tools of elevation. That that's 0:53:44.239 --> 0:53:45.919 how you get the noses as you do a double 0:53:45.960 --> 0:53:50.440 slit experiment. Well, I've enjoyed this, uh, this journey that 0:53:50.480 --> 0:53:54.719 we've taken, you know, because it feels, i mean, part 0:53:54.760 --> 0:53:57.719 of it seems like the natural destination for an exploration 0:53:57.719 --> 0:53:59.719 of the Demock organ that it would tie back to 0:53:59.800 --> 0:54:04.360 this primordial being that's wrapped in gnostic mystery. But on 0:54:04.400 --> 0:54:07.399 the other hand, I love that it also hinges incredibly 0:54:07.760 --> 0:54:10.920 upon just a scribal blunder. You know that it's a 0:54:11.480 --> 0:54:13.839 it's it's this thing that was actually you know, it's 0:54:14.080 --> 0:54:17.040 never really real in the way that we uh we 0:54:17.200 --> 0:54:20.120 might you know, attribute it as having been. It was 0:54:20.200 --> 0:54:24.919 never actually UH an entity that was worshiped or even 0:54:25.000 --> 0:54:28.600 factored into any actual myth cycle. No, it is wholly 0:54:28.640 --> 0:54:30.840 without shape and out of the darkness. It is the 0:54:30.880 --> 0:54:34.279 figure that Asia and Panthea go to visit, and you know, 0:54:34.360 --> 0:54:38.480 it just waits there until it's hour comes round at last. Yeah. Yeah, 0:54:38.680 --> 0:54:41.000 And I also love how we got to let's see 0:54:41.000 --> 0:54:44.120 if we got to to turn to Joni Mitchell, Crosby 0:54:44.160 --> 0:54:48.000 Stills and Nash uh C s Lewis, Um Milton and 0:54:48.040 --> 0:54:51.960 of course Gary Gygax to understand it all a wonderful 0:54:52.000 --> 0:54:56.640 motley crew for those wooden ships on the water. All right, well, 0:54:56.640 --> 0:54:59.400 we're gonna close it out right there. But obviously I 0:54:59.360 --> 0:55:01.719 imagined in am of you have thoughts about the demogorgan, 0:55:01.840 --> 0:55:05.120 either the Netflix version or the Dungeons and Dragons incarnation, 0:55:05.239 --> 0:55:09.520 or perhaps some of the literary UH incarnations that we've 0:55:09.560 --> 0:55:11.640 discussed here as well, and of course we would love 0:55:11.680 --> 0:55:15.279 to hear from you. But stay tuned, because again this 0:55:15.440 --> 0:55:19.279 entire month of October, he's going to be UH Halloween 0:55:19.400 --> 0:55:22.719 themed as it has been in the past. Uh, We're 0:55:22.719 --> 0:55:27.000 gonna have all new monstrosities to consider. Uh, tying in 0:55:27.120 --> 0:55:30.040 as much science as we possibly can. Have we ever 0:55:30.080 --> 0:55:33.480 done an episode on the science of Medusa? Snakes for hair? 0:55:33.640 --> 0:55:35.960 Is there something there? Something I don't know? I mean, 0:55:36.000 --> 0:55:39.560 I've I've covered at least blogged about Medusa back in 0:55:39.600 --> 0:55:41.080 the day, and I think I did maybe a monster 0:55:41.160 --> 0:55:44.800 science video about Medusa. But that would be an interesting 0:55:44.840 --> 0:55:48.480 one to to to explore again, because the Medusa is 0:55:48.520 --> 0:55:51.400 a is a fascinating monster, and then some of the 0:55:51.400 --> 0:55:54.920 things we've done with the Medusa are kind of monstrous. 0:55:55.640 --> 0:55:57.880 Uh yeah, I could. I would be up for a 0:55:57.920 --> 0:56:01.600 Medusa exploration. Bring it all right. In the meantime, if 0:56:01.640 --> 0:56:03.120 you want to support the show, the best thing you 0:56:03.120 --> 0:56:05.520 can do is make sure you have subscribed, and then 0:56:05.600 --> 0:56:07.319 rate and review us wherever you have the power to 0:56:07.360 --> 0:56:10.360 do so. And don't forget about invention. Monsters are great, 0:56:10.440 --> 0:56:15.160 but the real monster is always human endeavor and human invention. 0:56:15.200 --> 0:56:18.919 And that's what we explore. Invention is a journey through 0:56:19.000 --> 0:56:22.880 human techno history. Really, it's a it's a celebration, or 0:56:22.880 --> 0:56:25.560 at least a contemplation in some in many cases of 0:56:25.960 --> 0:56:29.759 the fire of Prometheus. Yeah, the things we made, how 0:56:29.800 --> 0:56:33.279 they made us, where they came from. Yeah, So make 0:56:33.320 --> 0:56:35.680 sure you have checked that show out as well, and 0:56:35.719 --> 0:56:39.320 make sure you subscribe. 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