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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. Joe,

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Speaker 1: what do you think of when I say the word triedent? Uh? Gum?

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Speaker 1: Is that the wrong answer? No? Wait, give me another shot.

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Speaker 1: All right? Okay? I think of Ariel's father in The

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Speaker 1: Little Mermaid. I think he's got one. He does. Yes,

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Speaker 1: he has some form of trident, as I recall. Wait, No,

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Speaker 1: that's not a good answer either, is it. No? Wait,

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Speaker 1: let's see. How about I think of the devil, right,

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Speaker 1: the devil's got a trident? He does? He has that

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Speaker 1: that pitchfork, which is essentially a trident, a a three

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Speaker 1: pronged spear for you know, stabbing sinners in the backside.

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Speaker 1: I imagine, why are you asking me about a particular

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Speaker 1: three tipped spear weapon, Robert, because that is what we

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Speaker 1: were talking about today here on Stuff to Blow Your

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Speaker 1: Mind Now, Robert, when you said let's do an episode

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Speaker 1: about tridents, Originally I admit I have a skeptical I

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Speaker 1: was like, what is there to say about tridents? But okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm glad I trusted you because we found some weird

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Speaker 1: stuff about tridents. This is a topic that I think

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Speaker 1: it's been brewing for a while for me, because like

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Speaker 1: I grew up seeing these images of you know, Neptune

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Speaker 1: or Poseidon with a trident, certainly at the Devil and

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Speaker 1: the Pitchfork, and I never really thought about it that

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Speaker 1: much because on one level, it didn't look like a

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Speaker 1: very good weapon, Like I just I couldn't imagine like

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Speaker 1: really cool fighting scenarios with it. I was kind of awkward.

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Speaker 1: It looks awkward. Yeah, And then when you see it

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Speaker 1: used in gladiatorial combat, which we'll we'll discuss in this episode,

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Speaker 1: that too looks awkward in force, like that poor guy,

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Speaker 1: uh forced to fight for his life and he's given

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Speaker 1: such a stupid weapon to do it with. You know,

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Speaker 1: it looks like it would be much better if you

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Speaker 1: were trying to accurately spear of fish and if you're

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Speaker 1: trying to like fight a gladiator in the arena. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and and indeed that is one of the practical uses

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Speaker 1: of the trident, which will will also discuss here. But

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Speaker 1: I think the thing is, I just I kept encountering

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Speaker 1: the trident in various places. You know, different symbols of

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Speaker 1: the trident. Um. You know, I went with my family

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Speaker 1: to Barbados and the flag. Uh, there has this this

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Speaker 1: really cool trident image if you start looking for it.

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Speaker 1: The trident seems to be everywhere and just cultures around

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Speaker 1: the world. You know where the trident is not is

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Speaker 1: in nature. That's right. You look around for trident shapes

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Speaker 1: in nature. Now there are branching tree shapes everywhere in nature. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And you know, you can maybe argue that I guess

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Speaker 1: there's some sort of trident things. They're like plants with

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Speaker 1: three leaf structures. There's like clover and stuff. But I

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Speaker 1: try to think of like a three legged animals, say,

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Speaker 1: that would be a good analogy in nature for the trident.

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Speaker 1: But there's no such thing. There is no three legged

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Speaker 1: animal in nature, not a naturally occurring one. I mean,

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Speaker 1: do you do find dogs with three legs? Of course

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Speaker 1: there's one of the office. Oh yeah, yeah, Oh, I

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Speaker 1: mean three legged dogs are great, But yeah, there are

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Speaker 1: not animals that are supposed to have three legs. And

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Speaker 1: that's kind of odd, isn't it. Like wouldn't you expect

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Speaker 1: there'd be at least one animal out there that has

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Speaker 1: three legs. But no, this does not occur. This is

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Speaker 1: just not something that d NA on Earth makes molecules do. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and now you mentioned trees and streams and things of

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Speaker 1: this nature, and I do think that is probably part

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Speaker 1: of the appeal of of the trident symbol. It implies

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Speaker 1: movement into vision. It's also a three in one image,

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Speaker 1: three points obeying the thrust of a single combatant, a

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Speaker 1: natural visual expression too, of power, both in the power

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Speaker 1: of of tool use and in the power of of

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Speaker 1: one commanding others to follow their command. So it's no

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Speaker 1: wonder that we see see various trident weapons in the

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Speaker 1: clutch of gods and demons or other beingings that are

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Speaker 1: that are that that we uh that that we embody

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Speaker 1: with power. Okay, So it sounds like you're setting up

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Speaker 1: the trident as a kind of a divine tool or

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Speaker 1: divine weapon by virtue of its three prongs. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: that's where we see it all over the place. And

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Speaker 1: we'll get to those wonderful examples of the trident as

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Speaker 1: the divine weapons. Is the some sort of of holy

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Speaker 1: instrument that the gods use to u, you know, to

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Speaker 1: inflict damage on the earth. Poor mortals and rival demons,

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Speaker 1: and the stemming from that, we also get various holy

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Speaker 1: weapons and sacred items that are used by by warriors

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Speaker 1: and rulers in various cultures. But then we also have

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Speaker 1: these just ancient tools that we also find around the world.

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Speaker 1: Three pronged fishing spears. Now, why would three prongs be

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Speaker 1: especially useful in a fishing spear as opposed to any

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Speaker 1: other kind of spear, like say, a hunting spear. I

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Speaker 1: was thinking about this, and it seems to me correct

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Speaker 1: me if you disagree. The advantage of a three pronged

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Speaker 1: spear might have to do with the properties of how

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Speaker 1: water interacts with light and the refraction of light as

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Speaker 1: it passes through the surface of a body of water. Oh, yes,

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Speaker 1: we've talked about this, and you can, of course. The

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Speaker 1: easiest way to experience this is to have like a glass,

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Speaker 1: a clear glass for half filled with water, and then

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Speaker 1: you stick a pencil in it and look at the

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Speaker 1: glass from the side and and and there's an optical

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Speaker 1: illusion that throws you off there. Yeah. So, if there

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Speaker 1: if there is difficulty in seeing exactly where you need

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Speaker 1: to stab to hit something in the water, especially if

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Speaker 1: it's something like a fish, not like a whale or

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Speaker 1: something that's like a big easy target to him. But

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Speaker 1: if it's like a fish, I can imagine it being

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Speaker 1: sometimes difficult to aim correctly to hit the fish with

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Speaker 1: a single pronged spear. But if you've got more sort

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Speaker 1: of a range of attack points that you can aim

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Speaker 1: roughly perpendicular to the fish, then you might have a

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Speaker 1: better chance of getting it with somewhat approximate aim. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I like this hypothesis. This, Uh, this, this sounds reasonable.

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Speaker 1: Now for whatever reason, uh, people have been using spears

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Speaker 1: to fish with since very ancient times. Their fifteenth century

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Speaker 1: b c. Egyptian depictions of it. The Book of Job

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Speaker 1: refers to spear fishing as well. And today you can

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Speaker 1: still you can go online and you can shop for

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Speaker 1: fishing spears. You'll find quite a quite quite a few

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Speaker 1: different types. You can get your two pronged or bident

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Speaker 1: style spears. You can get four or five pronged spheres.

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Speaker 1: You can get your three pronged tridents, which I see

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Speaker 1: referred to as frog spears. I don't know white white

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Speaker 1: three is particularly good for for frogs versus these other models. Um,

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Speaker 1: but I was looking around about it, and I actually

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Speaker 1: looked up a Gizmoto article titled so you want to

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Speaker 1: go spear fishing for the very first time? And the

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Speaker 1: author shares the following quote spear tips. We used both J. B.

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Speaker 1: L's three pronged barbed paralyzer thirty four dollars and basic

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Speaker 1: single point spear tip with fold out barbed. The paralyzer

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Speaker 1: reduced the need for pinpoint accuracy, but wasn't quite as

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Speaker 1: good as the single point at retaining fish once they

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Speaker 1: were speared. The compromises of life, Yes, now, I have

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Speaker 1: to admit, for the longest, like basically up until this week,

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Speaker 1: I just always assumed that the tridents that you see

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Speaker 1: held by various gods and beings and in these various

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Speaker 1: myths and artistic depictions, I just assumed that they were

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Speaker 1: all fishing spears that had been you know, transformed from

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Speaker 1: a mundane tool to a divine object. Because we see

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Speaker 1: this kind of movement a lot, right, We see God's

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Speaker 1: wielding things like hammers. Oh yeah, Thor's hammer. It's what's

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Speaker 1: it called mule near? That sounds right, mule dear? Okay,

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Speaker 1: so mule dear um. But you know it, it makes sense, right,

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Speaker 1: you have these these these these objects, these tools, and

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Speaker 1: then when we we we create these gods, we give

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Speaker 1: them things signify various powers and acts. Um. There's a

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Speaker 1: there's one curious case two of the Chinese. He's a ruyee,

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Speaker 1: which is a scepter, a royal scepter, so a symbol

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Speaker 1: of divine power, right, you know, you just one with

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Speaker 1: power would brandish it. It identifies that they have the

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Speaker 1: power to command people around. And then you can, if

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Speaker 1: you want, you can point it at various things and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: you give me that. Right, That's basically the function of

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Speaker 1: a scepter, except this particular scepter has also clearly been

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Speaker 1: used as a backscratcher. So there there's kind of you see,

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Speaker 1: different theories about this, whether it began as a backscratcher

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Speaker 1: or it is just a you know, just a symbol

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Speaker 1: of power that was then used as a backscratcher later on.

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Speaker 1: So divine emperor's itch too. Yeah. But but it's it's

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Speaker 1: interesting because which which direction is the movement going. Is

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Speaker 1: the object going from mundane, practical object to something that

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Speaker 1: is merely symbolic, or is the movement going in the

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Speaker 1: other direction, something that has no practical purpose. But then

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Speaker 1: a practical purpose emerges for it. Well, that's a really

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Speaker 1: good question. I would tend to assume that it could

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Speaker 1: go both ways, right, But which which did it go

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Speaker 1: in this case? Because obviously, yeah, practical tools take on divine,

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Speaker 1: divine aspects, especially when they become you know, embedded in

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Speaker 1: our consciousness, like if we use them a lot, the

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Speaker 1: tool sort of becomes an extension of the body. So

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Speaker 1: in the same way that the body has a counterpart

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Speaker 1: in heaven. Of course, the tool is an extension of

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Speaker 1: the body has a counterpart in heaven. I mean, there

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Speaker 1: is no actual Thor's hammer, But if you have a

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Speaker 1: king or an emperor with a divine scepter, you know

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Speaker 1: they've got it around. They might as well use it

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Speaker 1: for things that they need. A big stick for scratching

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Speaker 1: backs might be one of those things. There might be

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Speaker 1: other things too. Now, coming back to tried dent's before

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Speaker 1: we proceed with some mythological examples, we should probably touch

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Speaker 1: on the the etymology of the word uh tri dent

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Speaker 1: comes from the Latin tried dentists or three toothed as

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Speaker 1: opposed to buy dent, which we also have have referred to.

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Speaker 1: And we'll referred to, which would be a two toothed

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Speaker 1: weapon which has enjoyed avoid arguably less symbolic success that

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Speaker 1: you do see it pop up in artistic depictions. Now,

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Speaker 1: I just thought of a great superhero superhero who fights

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Speaker 1: with the tuning fork, be like a musical superhero. It

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Speaker 1: would be called like the tuner. The tuner, yeah, tuner

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Speaker 1: is Yeah, that's essentially a bident. All right, So let's

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Speaker 1: talk about some some mythic examples of trident use, or

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Speaker 1: things that at least appear to be tridents and have

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Speaker 1: been treated as tridents by in various interpretations. Robert, please

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Speaker 1: please tell me you're gonna take me to ancient Babylon.

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Speaker 1: Of course, we always go to ancient Babylon. It's the

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Speaker 1: best place to go all the best gods. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna actually check in with our old friend mar

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Speaker 1: Duke here. Um. Mar Duke is often seen with an

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Speaker 1: odd looking three toothed weapon, uh that is sometimes interpreted

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Speaker 1: as a form of trident. Now, mar Duke was a

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Speaker 1: Babylonian thunder god who eventually rose up in the pantheon

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Speaker 1: to the point that he became considered the prime god

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Speaker 1: of Babylon and was apparently described with fifty different names,

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Speaker 1: and he's also the slayer of the primordial Tiamat uh.

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Speaker 1: And there's actually a wonderful uh image depicting this where

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Speaker 1: you see this uh, this winged of like lion, dragon

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Speaker 1: like monster and here comes mar Duke with these with

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Speaker 1: one of these weapons in each hand. Why would he

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Speaker 1: have a trident? Why would he have a phishing spear?

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Speaker 1: Because there are plenty of other Babylonian gods that are

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Speaker 1: that are associated with the ocean, they would be the

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Speaker 1: ones to have the trident, right. Uh. So I was

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Speaker 1: reading about this, I found a book by Derek m

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Speaker 1: Elsom titled Lightning, Nature and Culture, which has a lot

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Speaker 1: of info in it about various thunder and lightning gods.

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Speaker 1: So if that's if that's your jam, I highly recommend

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Speaker 1: picking that up. But the author makes a connection between

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Speaker 1: the trident weapon of mar Duke and not fishing, but lightning. Lightning,

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Speaker 1: of course, is a traditional weapon of mighty gods, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean that's the weapon of Zeus, and Zeus is

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Speaker 1: sometimes depicted holding three thunderbolts in his hand. Elsa writes

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Speaker 1: the images of successive storm gods in Mesopotamia depicted on

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Speaker 1: monuments and cylinder seals reveal developments in the depiction of lightning.

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Speaker 1: Lightning was originally shown by two or three wavy or

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Speaker 1: zigzag lines representing the celestial flames of its flashes or bolts.

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Speaker 1: They were later joined together at the bottom by a

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Speaker 1: short stem handle or sometimes a longer staff that the

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Speaker 1: storm god would hold and throw. The two pronged bident

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Speaker 1: and and three pronged trident thunder weapon should not be

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Speaker 1: confused with Poseidon's trident, which usually has barbs on the

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Speaker 1: prongs like a fishing spear. He continues. An alternative development

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Speaker 1: and imagery along with the addition of a short stem

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Speaker 1: or staff to the lightning flashes, was that two or

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Speaker 1: three of the wavy lines were placed together to form

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Speaker 1: a bundle of lightning flashes. The middle of this bundle

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Speaker 1: was later modified and molded together to create a hand grip,

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Speaker 1: and the single underbolt or karania was formed with two

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Speaker 1: active ends. So what we're seeing here isn't a double

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Speaker 1: bladed trident sword as much as a clutch of three thunderbolts.

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Speaker 1: With the style drifting over the years. You know, I

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Speaker 1: think I misspoke a minute ago when I said Zeus

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Speaker 1: is holding the three thunderbolts. Zeus is sometimes depicted holding

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Speaker 1: something that looks like a bundle of thunderbolts or something

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Speaker 1: like that. But specifically, what I was thinking of was

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Speaker 1: the god a DoD or hadd, another ancient Near Eastern

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Speaker 1: storm god who clutched three thunderbolts exactly like you're talking

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Speaker 1: about it. It also reminds me of another odd weapon

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Speaker 1: slash symbol that one comes across in a Hindu iconography,

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Speaker 1: and one that has also intrigued me in the past,

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Speaker 1: the vadra. One finds the vadra either as an embellishment

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Speaker 1: on the pommel of a sword or on both ends

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Speaker 1: of a hilt in the same manner as this. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this this symbol that Marduke is holding, and also points

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Speaker 1: out that this too is a highly hillis thunderbolt quote

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Speaker 1: shaped like a double ended flower bulb or club. That

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Speaker 1: is a wicked sword. I mean it looks like it

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Speaker 1: looks like a good old sword hat made out of

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Speaker 1: gold fire. Yeah. Yeah. If you if you want to

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Speaker 1: see this for yourself, just do an image search for

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Speaker 1: vadra that's v A j r A and then sword

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Speaker 1: and you'll see some wonderful examples of this, But there

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Speaker 1: are also straight up tridents in the in the Hindu pantheon, right,

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Speaker 1: that's right. Shiva has a weapon that is known as

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Speaker 1: the trishula, which we'll get to in a minute. But

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Speaker 1: before we get to Ta Shiva, we should probably talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about Poseidon or Neptune or well, first

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Speaker 1: we should take a break, and then when we come back,

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Speaker 1: we will get into the Greek god of the sea.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, thank alright, we're back. Sorry to keep Poseidon

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Speaker 1: waiting like that, but but he's patient, right, he's not

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Speaker 1: so patient, right the Sidon, because Sidon holds the grudges,

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Speaker 1: doesn't Hey, he does. He's the enemy of Odysseus, that's right. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and reaks a lot of havoc u in Odysseus's direction

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Speaker 1: with that try that symbolic divine weapon that he uses

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Speaker 1: to just pretty much what make anybody's life miserable that

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Speaker 1: gets in his way? Now what I can't remember. How

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Speaker 1: does Poseidon use his his trident against Odysseus. Well, in general,

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Speaker 1: he uses it to basically just to stir things up,

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Speaker 1: quite literally, to to to stir up storms, devatating, devastating waves,

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Speaker 1: to create new sources of water, just general geologic chaos.

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Speaker 1: I don't is that the best use of tool physics?

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Speaker 1: If you're using a trident to stir things up, wouldn't

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Speaker 1: it be better if he had a powerful magic spoon

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Speaker 1: or something with a large flat surface to really get

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Speaker 1: the waters churning like an or Yeah, it seems like

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Speaker 1: a tried. It might be better if you wanted to,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what, like dissolve some sugar into the water.

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Speaker 1: This is a great question though, because it gets down

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Speaker 1: to the heart of why does Poseidon have this weapon?

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Speaker 1: Like I've having just grown up seeing images of Poseidon

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Speaker 1: my whole life, I just I never really questioned it,

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Speaker 1: like that's the weapon he has? And then when I

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Speaker 1: thought about it, I'm like, Oh, it's a fishing spear, right,

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Speaker 1: That's all there is to it. Well, yeah, he's got

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Speaker 1: of the sea. There's some fish in the sea, I think, right,

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Speaker 1: aren't there fish in the sea? That's what I'm told

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Speaker 1: makes sense now. The mythic origins of the weapon very

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Speaker 1: is one might expect with with myth and mythic traditions. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It was perhaps the work of of the master crafts

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Speaker 1: people or giants who were known as the Telconese who

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Speaker 1: also created Chronus's sickle, or it was the gift of

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Speaker 1: the cyclothes that's plural for Cyclops. Now, didn't Poseidon have

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Speaker 1: a son who was a cyclops? He did? He did it?

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Speaker 1: Gets it gets complicated, um, But this is what Apollodorus

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Speaker 1: had to say in the library, as translated by Fraser Okay.

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Speaker 1: And the cyclothes then gave Zeus thunder and lightning and

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Speaker 1: a thunderbolt, and on Pluto they bestowed a helmet, and

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Speaker 1: on Poseidon a trident. Armed with these weapons, the gods

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Speaker 1: overcame the Titans shut them up in Tartarus and appointed

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Speaker 1: the hundred handers their guards. But they themselves cast lots

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Speaker 1: for the sovereignty. And to Zeus was a lot to

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Speaker 1: the dominion of the sky, and to Poseidon the dominion

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Speaker 1: of the sea, and to Pluto the dominion in Hades.

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Speaker 1: So is it better to get the sea or to

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Speaker 1: get Hades. I always thought that, like Poseidon came in

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Speaker 1: second I was kind of my read. But that's that's

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Speaker 1: like kind of a land locked way of looking at it, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I was that's me as a child in

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Speaker 1: Tennessee thinking about about the ocean. But if you were

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Speaker 1: a Greek, it might well be the opposite, or it

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Speaker 1: might well be the case that that Zeus and Poseidon

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Speaker 1: are on equal footing. Yeah, if you're a seafaring culture,

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Speaker 1: say a lot of your economy is based on trade

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Speaker 1: across the oceans or on fishing. Uh, you've got to

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Speaker 1: think that a god of the sea is much more

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Speaker 1: consequential than we would normally consider a god of the

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Speaker 1: sea living in you know, some kind of landlocked area.

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Speaker 1: Like you say, I mean the whims of the sea

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Speaker 1: decide your fortunes and then Hades. I mean certainly that

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Speaker 1: had is. It's everybody right, there's no whims of Hades.

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Speaker 1: Hades is just it's like death and taxes. So maybe

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Speaker 1: they all maybe they're these they are truly equal, uh,

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Speaker 1: portions of the cosmos. But this actually ties into some

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Speaker 1: of the research I was looking at. HB. Walters wrote

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Speaker 1: a paper in that was published in the Journal of

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Speaker 1: Hellenistic Studies. So we got we got an archaic but

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Speaker 1: scholarship here. Yeah, this is this is this one's a

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Speaker 1: bit old, but but it actually reads really really well.

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Speaker 1: It's a very nicely written paper. But he discusses the

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Speaker 1: artistic evolution of the trident and discusses that that, you know,

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Speaker 1: the writing of the trident predates any artistic depiction that

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Speaker 1: was then known. But if you look at the Iliad,

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Speaker 1: there's nothing to indicate the shape of the trident. There's

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Speaker 1: there's merely the suggestion, based on the word choice, that

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Speaker 1: it's composed of three parts in some key way. So

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Speaker 1: it could be like three sticks bound in the middle

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Speaker 1: or something, I guess. I mean, if it's if you're

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Speaker 1: just looking at the word and there's some room for interpretation,

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Speaker 1: they're interesting. So Walters looked at various early artistic examples

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Speaker 1: and he traced an interesting evolution for the depiction of tridents. Uh,

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Speaker 1: not from like a fishing spear to more elaborate uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, three pronged weapons or symbols, but from a

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Speaker 1: lotus bud to this barbed, three pronged spear that we

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Speaker 1: associate with with the side and the neptin. Now, what's

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Speaker 1: the significance of the lotus bud? Well, this is interesting.

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Speaker 1: This gets back to what was something we're talking about earlier.

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Speaker 1: The trident. The proper trident may not appear in nature,

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Speaker 1: but something like a lotus bud does, and has this

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Speaker 1: trifold design and instantly speaks to us with various you know,

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Speaker 1: symbology related to uh to you know, units of three.

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Speaker 1: I want to come back to the significance of that

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Speaker 1: symbology in a little bit. This lotus sceptor is apparently

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Speaker 1: pretty common in Greek art and is typically held by

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Speaker 1: a god or goddess, and Zeus himself is seen in

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Speaker 1: in various depictions with a with a very similar scepter.

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Speaker 1: So the idea is that this lotus bud scepter eventually

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Speaker 1: somehow morphed into the three pronged weapon. Yes, the idea

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Speaker 1: here is that the lotus staff was the emblem of Zeus,

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Speaker 1: and that there might have been just less distinction between

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Speaker 1: Zeus and Poseidon among early Greeks, and the Poseidon might

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Speaker 1: have been nothing short of Zeus's marine form. I've read

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Speaker 1: the exact same thing, that Poseidon was in some sense

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Speaker 1: the Zeus of the sea. Yeah, and uh, and so

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Speaker 1: they simply had the same scepter. But then as time

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Speaker 1: goes by, as we as we have different artistic depictions

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Speaker 1: a roll one after the other. You see this, uh,

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Speaker 1: this evolution, you see this uh, this distinction made and

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Speaker 1: this this thing. This scepter, the symbol that Poseidon is

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Speaker 1: holding gradually comes to resemble a phishing spear rather than

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Speaker 1: the lotus scepter of Zeus. Oh. If this is a

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Speaker 1: correct explanation, this is fantastic because it matches up some

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Speaker 1: stuff we've talked about on the show before that I

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Speaker 1: always really like where there there's a way of interpreting

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Speaker 1: an artistic tradition as deriving from a misunderstanding of previous art.

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Speaker 1: One explanation for the origin of the unicorn tradition is

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Speaker 1: that possibly there were ancient depictions on say, uh, cylinder

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Speaker 1: seals or something like that, of natural animals naturally occurring

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Speaker 1: two horned animals like the Arx or the ibex, but

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Speaker 1: they're depicted in profile, so it looks like they've only

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Speaker 1: got one horn shooting up out of their head because

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Speaker 1: the horns are lined up with each other as the

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Speaker 1: animals in profile. And so people saw that misunderstood it,

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Speaker 1: thought that there was this one horned animal out there,

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Speaker 1: and started the unicorn tradition. We don't know that's what happened,

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Speaker 1: but that's highly possible. Uh, And so maybe what's going

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Speaker 1: on here is a similar like misinterpretation of previous generations

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Speaker 1: of artists depicting a god holding something. Yeah, it reminds

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Speaker 1: me of the line from member to echo about books

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Speaker 1: speaking to other books. But of course art works of

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Speaker 1: art speak to other works of art. Yeah, so that's correct.

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Speaker 1: That's really interesting, so Walter also. Walters also references the

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Speaker 1: work of John O'Neill, who argued that the Hindu through

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Speaker 1: shula which we're about to talk about, may have also

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Speaker 1: begun as a lotus, and the same origin might might

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Speaker 1: be placed on the floor de les as well, this

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Speaker 1: of course being the the symbol of what the New

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Speaker 1: Orleans saints. I think that's what it is. Let the

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Speaker 1: good times are all but but he let the good

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Speaker 1: trident are all but but but. Walters doesn't completely agree

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Speaker 1: with O'Neill on this. He said, quote with these theories,

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Speaker 1: I am not altogether inclined to agree, as explanation by

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Speaker 1: means of symbolism is always, though fascinating, a dangerous course

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Speaker 1: to pursue. Besides, my point is this that the lotus,

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Speaker 1: scepter and trident are not parallel forms, but that the

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Speaker 1: one grew out of the other, and that since the

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Speaker 1: lotus sceptor as an attribute of Poseidon is only found

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Speaker 1: in these examples of early date, whereas the trident form

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Speaker 1: belongs to all periods, the lotus must be the earlier

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Speaker 1: form from which the other has been evolved by a

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Speaker 1: process of differentiation. And he stressed that he was far

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Speaker 1: from certain on the matter. So he is saying his

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Speaker 1: opinion is they're not just parallels, but that the low

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Speaker 1: des scepter came first and that turned into the trident. Correct, yes, now.

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Speaker 1: Writer and classicist Robert Graves also had something to say

422
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:22,720
Speaker 1: about this in his work Greek Myths uh the Greek

423
00:23:22,760 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 1: Myths Pardon. He wrote, Poseidon's trident and zeus thunderbolt were

424
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:30,320
Speaker 1: originally the same weapon weapon the sacred lab rates or

425
00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:34,320
Speaker 1: double acts, but distinguished from other when Poseidon became god

426
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:36,679
Speaker 1: of the Sea and Zeus claimed the right of the thunderbolt.

427
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:38,600
Speaker 1: So this is the kind of acts you'd imagine like

428
00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:41,120
Speaker 1: an orc holding or I don't know, maybe a dwarf too,

429
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:43,920
Speaker 1: in your fantasy that it's the acts with the blade

430
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:48,439
Speaker 1: on both sides. So Graves seem to be presenting like

431
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:51,280
Speaker 1: a different type of evolution from a from a different

432
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:55,040
Speaker 1: sort of primordial symbol. But still he's talking about the

433
00:23:55,119 --> 00:23:59,879
Speaker 1: same sort of uh evolution of form Alright, so this

434
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: brings us back to Shiva. In Hindu traditions, Shiva is

435
00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 1: is the destroyer of evil and also also the transformer,

436
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 1: not the robot kind, but a transformer of things and

437
00:24:10,560 --> 00:24:13,480
Speaker 1: states of affairs. Correct, yes, so so Shiva is one

438
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:17,200
Speaker 1: of the Trimurty, the three gods of the cosmic lifespan

439
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:20,880
Speaker 1: Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the sustainer, and Shiva

440
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:24,480
Speaker 1: is the destroyer of worlds now. Shiva is often seen

441
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 1: to brandish this trishula, which means three toothed or three

442
00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: pronged uh and it. It is definitely a weapon as

443
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:36,879
Speaker 1: well as a symbol of power and uh. It's again

444
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 1: also attributed to possible lightning or lotus bud origins, and

445
00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:43,680
Speaker 1: there's a lot of symbolism wrapped in it to empire

446
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:47,639
Speaker 1: and transcendental reality, the power of the tri murdy and

447
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:51,919
Speaker 1: the three shaktas of will, action and wisdom. And you

448
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:54,920
Speaker 1: also see other Hindu deities that seemed to brandish such

449
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 1: a weapon, such as the goddess Durga who slays a

450
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:01,440
Speaker 1: demon with it, as well as Parvati, the goddess of love,

451
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:06,480
Speaker 1: fertility and devotion. There's even this origin story for Ganesha,

452
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 1: the elephant headed Remover of Obstacles, in which Parvati creates

453
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: a child out of tumoric paste and brings it to

454
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 1: life to guard her house while she's bathing. And but

455
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:19,880
Speaker 1: then this boy that she creates tries to start stop Shiva.

456
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:24,640
Speaker 1: Upon Shiva's arrival, and enraged, Shiva beheads the boy with

457
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 1: the trishula, and angered by this, uh, Parvati demands that

458
00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 1: Shiva restore the boy, and he does so by placing

459
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:34,280
Speaker 1: an elephant's head upon the body. WHOA, wait, how do

460
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 1: you seems like beheading with a trishula would be difficult. Well,

461
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,639
Speaker 1: it's not like a bladed In some depictions, though, the

462
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 1: outer the outer barbs take on a blade like appearance,

463
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 1: kind of that Flora Lee's kind of appearance. So that's

464
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 1: that's the weird thing about the trident is that you

465
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 1: have your sort of basic pitchfork designs, but then sometimes

466
00:25:56,800 --> 00:26:01,080
Speaker 1: they're barbs, sometimes they're not barbs. Sometimes all three barbs

467
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: are the same length. Sometimes the ones in the outside

468
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 1: are longer, sometimes the central ones longer. Sometimes the ones

469
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:09,920
Speaker 1: on the outside have have kind of like outer blades

470
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 1: to them. I can see that if the outside edges

471
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 1: of the outer barbs are sharp, it's sort of like

472
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:16,960
Speaker 1: a cross between a spear and an ax. So I

473
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 1: guess it's a polarm, you know, general pull on, Yeah,

474
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:20,919
Speaker 1: I mean this is this is a This is a

475
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 1: great point. Yeah. You see these trident like forms with

476
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 1: pole arms because range and leverage make them good weapons

477
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 1: to use against mounted soldiers, as well as the ease

478
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: of their construction and adaptability from farm tools. So if

479
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:37,399
Speaker 1: you had this, um, this, this three pronged blade, and

480
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:38,880
Speaker 1: you have blades in the edge, you can you can

481
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 1: you can really wave it back and forth as need be,

482
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 1: as well as stab with it. And the length of

483
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 1: it gives it not only reach but also power because

484
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: it's got a lot of weight, so you can essentially

485
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 1: just sort of drop it on your enemy. Yeah. Now

486
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 1: here's the question I had when I was looking into

487
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 1: all this. It just suddenly dawned on me. I'm reading

488
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 1: about Poseidon and Neptune and Shiva, but there is another

489
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: pretty popular of their figure, and at least more modern

490
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: Western traditions. Uh, and that is Satan the devil who

491
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: has a pitchfork, Yes, which is you know, a pitchfork

492
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: being something you used to to move hay around. But

493
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 1: you look at it, it's clearly a trident. It is.

494
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 1: Sometimes there may be I guess more or fewer prongs, um,

495
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 1: depending on who's illustrating the devil or devil's but very

496
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:28,320
Speaker 1: often you see a three pronged spear, you see a trident.

497
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:30,959
Speaker 1: Where did the devil get a trident? That is a

498
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: good question. I wondered about that because I am quite

499
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 1: sure the Bible does not say the devil has a pitchfork. Yeah,

500
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 1: I don't remember any mention of a pitchfork. So as

501
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:45,119
Speaker 1: always I I love to get into some history of

502
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,399
Speaker 1: the devil um. So one answer I came across was

503
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:51,919
Speaker 1: in an academic work on the development of the idea

504
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 1: of the Christian devil concept, and it was a book

505
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 1: called Devil, A Mask Without a Face by Luther Link,

506
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 1: published by the Universe Dave Chicago Press in two thousand four.

507
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: I think I want to read this whole book because

508
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:06,199
Speaker 1: it was really interesting the part I read, and the

509
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: part I read about the trident was just early on,

510
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 1: so it seems like he gets into a lot of

511
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 1: interesting ideas. But Link writes about the how the idea

512
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 1: of the devil that we have today like the devil

513
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: you see in cartoons, the w C in popular representations.

514
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:25,440
Speaker 1: It's got three major influences. One of them is early

515
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 1: readings of the New Testament. That's the most straightforward one,

516
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:32,199
Speaker 1: because though there is a Satan in the Hebrew Bible,

517
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 1: it is not really the same character that you see represented,

518
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 1: say in the Christian literature. For example, in the Book

519
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 1: of Job, the Satan character that appears is does not

520
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 1: seem to be like an evil adversary of God, but

521
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: seems to be more sort of a prosecutor figure who

522
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: is skeptical of the virtues of the created humankind and

523
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:57,240
Speaker 1: wants to sort of like test our metal and and

524
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 1: expose us as frauds before our creator. He's he was,

525
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 1: He's just part of the court doing his job, which

526
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:06,040
Speaker 1: is to bring up the counter argument to the ruler.

527
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: He's a nark. He's narking on humanity. Uh So, so

528
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 1: that's sort of the Satan character and Joe. But then

529
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 1: later on you see this development in the Christian tradition

530
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: where where Satan takes on aspects of being an adversary

531
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 1: of God himself. Satan is more this evil figure representing Uh,

532
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 1: there's still some sort of prosecutor type elements that the

533
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 1: devil plays in the New Testament. For example in the

534
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: Gospels when when Satan tempts Christ in the wilderness. Right.

535
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: So there again you see sort of like this prosecutor mindset.

536
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: It wants to show how weak you are, it wants

537
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: to make you fail. But then also there there's just

538
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 1: this devil as a personification of sin or evil, and

539
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 1: this definitely comes through and works like revelation. But then again,

540
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: there is a whole lot that people believe about the

541
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: devil that has nothing to do with the Bible. It's

542
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 1: not in the Bible at all. It comes from things

543
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: like Link points out the rebel angel character created by

544
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 1: John Milton in Paradise Lost and continued in Romantic literature

545
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 1: traditions and with poets like Blake and Badelaire, that this

546
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:13,719
Speaker 1: rebel angel character is not really a feature of the Bible.

547
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 1: It's more a feature of Milton and these other poets.

548
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: And then of course you've got the images created and

549
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: associated with the notion of Satanic cults and black Sabbats. Yeah,

550
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 1: and this is where you see all this uh, this

551
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: pagan b steel imagery of of Satan as this uh this,

552
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 1: this shaggy uh you know, lord of Hell that engages

553
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: in all of these uh these crude acts with various

554
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: uh witches. Yeah, exactly, And we'll get more into where

555
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 1: those depictions come from in a minute. But with the

556
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 1: exception link says of one ninth century old Saxon manuscript,

557
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 1: all known literary descriptions of Satan were pretty closely based

558
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: on the text of the New Testament until about fifteen

559
00:30:56,480 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: eighty nine when Christopher Marlowe wrote Dr Faustus, And of

560
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 1: course that was a play he you know, early modern

561
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 1: play based on the faust legend, the idea of a

562
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 1: an alchemist or a secret of knowledge, someone who is

563
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: egotistical and wants to wants more power than he really

564
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: has coming to him, and does a deal with the

565
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 1: devil to get that power, but then of course realizes

566
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: only too late that the deal you make with the

567
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: devil is always a bad deal. And this is such

568
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: a staple of our of our Satanic literature. I guess

569
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: you would say in storytelling that it we often we

570
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 1: often forget that it wasn't always baked into the pie, right,

571
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 1: But outside of literature. Now that that's when he was

572
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 1: talking about literature outside of literature. In the more popular folklore,

573
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 1: the image of the devil was informed by fantasies about heretics,

574
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 1: and which is first appearing around the twelfth century and

575
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: developing more as time went on. And he says images

576
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 1: of the devil are really scarce in early Christian history,

577
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 1: that we have images of Satan as early as the

578
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: ninth century, It really wasn't until about the thirteen hundreds

579
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 1: that the images of Satan took on the visual characteristics

580
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 1: we now associate with Satan and link rights. Indeed, mirroring

581
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: what we were talking about earlier, that the image of

582
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 1: the devil's pronged weapon or pitchfork is almost definitely derived

583
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: from the trident of Poseidon, so directly from this imagery

584
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 1: of the gods of classical antiquity, which itself was probably

585
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 1: derived from these three bolts of lightning shown in the

586
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: grip of the ancient Babylonian storm god a DoD or Haddad,

587
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 1: which I mentioned earlier, and so Hadad. If you look

588
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: up pictures of him, there there will be these carvings,

589
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: and he'll be in profile, walking kind of like an

590
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 1: Egyptian hieroglyphic character walking or something like that, and a

591
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: DoD will have his hand out and he'll be holding

592
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: what looks like lightning bolts, but he'll be clutching them

593
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 1: like they're stalks of wheat, which is interesting, Yeah, like

594
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,959
Speaker 1: a harvest of lightning. But so you might be wondering, now,

595
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: wait a minute, why would the god Poseidon's weapons show

596
00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 1: up in the hands of the Christian devil. That doesn't

597
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: make any sense. But this is actually part of a

598
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: very common motif in Christian history, not just Christian history,

599
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: but especially in Christian history, of adapting characteristics of another

600
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 1: person's religion or another religions god to serve as characteristics

601
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 1: of your religions, devils and demons, and so. One example

602
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:20,720
Speaker 1: is that many of the names of the Christian and

603
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: Jewish demons are taken from names of gods of other

604
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 1: religions of the ancient Near East. For example, one of

605
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 1: our favorites baelz Abub or bails Able, that's derived from

606
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: the name of a Philistine god. See how Beelzebub contains

607
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 1: Baal meaning lord, which was, you know, a god of

608
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: the ancient Near East. Another one Dagon was a Mesopotamian god,

609
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: later believed to be a Christian demon, and then became

610
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: part of the Lovecraftian mythost. Of course, the much reviled

611
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 1: evil demon Malok is believed to be a god of

612
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 1: some of the Canaanites, that the god of a child,

613
00:33:56,480 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 1: sacrifice and destruction, not to be confused with Mammon, who

614
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 1: represents just Greek right forever stooped over looking looking for

615
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:08,520
Speaker 1: gold embedded in the roads of heaven. But yeah, so,

616
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 1: so you've got those kind of things. And then I

617
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:14,359
Speaker 1: found another interesting entry in a more encyclopedic work called

618
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: the Classical Tradition from Harvard University Press, in they're right

619
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:23,279
Speaker 1: that some medieval Christian artists relied on traditional representations of

620
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 1: the Greek god Pan as a source for images of

621
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:28,840
Speaker 1: the devil. So yet again taking gods from another religion

622
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 1: making them your devil, and so Pan being a god

623
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: of shepherd's hunters, the wilderness, the rural areas had these

624
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:40,399
Speaker 1: goat like qualities of horns and hoofs, and its part

625
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 1: of the more general tradition of satyr's and sylvans and fawns.

626
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:47,759
Speaker 1: It's almost like this idea of human religion, having to

627
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 1: work with like a prop closet of existing motifs, and

628
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:53,319
Speaker 1: they're like, we have this character, dress him up. Well,

629
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 1: what do we got? What we got this goat costume

630
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 1: from Pan. Oh, yeah, we have this uh this tride

631
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:00,879
Speaker 1: end here that would along to the side. Uh roll

632
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,800
Speaker 1: those out. Let's let's let's let's get those on a character. Yeah,

633
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,839
Speaker 1: it's totally true. It's like fifties monster movies seeing if

634
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 1: they can like rework a costume or a prop from

635
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 1: last week's shoot into a new prop for this movie. Yeah,

636
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 1: what do we have. We have a guerrilla costume in

637
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: a robot head. Let's make it work. Robot monster. Here

638
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,799
Speaker 1: you go. So anyway, the authors of this jury say

639
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:25,239
Speaker 1: that the devil's horns, hoofs ears, tail, hairy lower body,

640
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 1: all of these aspects are derived from the pan and

641
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 1: the fawn tradition of classical antiquity. And people notice this.

642
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: The romantic poet Percy Shelley, who wrote Ozzymandias, look on

643
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 1: my works, you mighty in despair, he thought it was

644
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:41,360
Speaker 1: pretty weird that people would give the attributes of fawns

645
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:45,760
Speaker 1: to the devil, as he found fawns quote quite poetical personages.

646
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:51,040
Speaker 1: But the author's right that another major way the depiction

647
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:53,799
Speaker 1: of the devil was influenced by classical art is the

648
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:59,360
Speaker 1: devil's nakedness reflecting the naked heroes of classical art, like Hercules,

649
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 1: and that most Christian medieval art tried to avoid nudity

650
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:05,760
Speaker 1: when possible, it would cover people up, but the devil

651
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,359
Speaker 1: was often depicted as less covered, as more naked, more

652
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: like one of these heroes of ancient Greece. Huh yeah,

653
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:15,480
Speaker 1: I mean it also reminds me of these various paintings

654
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,759
Speaker 1: of Poseidon or Poseidon, or just depictions of Poside where

655
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 1: Poseidon is nude or nearly nude. Uh. Just this, you know,

656
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 1: bearded man in the water with the trident. Yeah, exactly.

657
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:30,240
Speaker 1: So granting the trident of Poseidon to the devil seems

658
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:33,279
Speaker 1: to be part of a larger medieval Christian project of

659
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 1: associating Satan with the gods and the style of classical

660
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 1: antiquity of ancient Mesopotamia and of Greece and Rome. And

661
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:43,759
Speaker 1: so I think that's pretty persuasive. But link makes it

662
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:46,799
Speaker 1: clear that there are no literary sources that will tell

663
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:49,279
Speaker 1: us where Satan got his trident. Like you can't go

664
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:51,879
Speaker 1: into the texts of the time where they will say, hey,

665
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:55,200
Speaker 1: I'm putting a trident in Satan's hands because I want

666
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 1: to make this comparison to Poseidon. It's all just inference

667
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:01,400
Speaker 1: we have to make through the artistic traditions. Suddenly he

668
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: just has a trident in the same way that these

669
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:06,880
Speaker 1: these depictions of the actual trident of Poseidon like, suddenly

670
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:08,839
Speaker 1: it looks a little more like a fork and a

671
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 1: little less like lightning bolts or a lotus, depending on

672
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:16,799
Speaker 1: which interpretation one relies on. Right, but Link says, you know,

673
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:20,280
Speaker 1: the devil and his demons are really first shown carrying trident,

674
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 1: says I mentioned earlier in some ninth century art. And

675
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: one good example of this I've got a picture of

676
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:27,839
Speaker 1: for us here in the notes Robert. It's from the

677
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 1: Utrecht Psalter, which is a widely recognized work of medieval art.

678
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:35,239
Speaker 1: It's a collection of the psalms from the Bible illustrated

679
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 1: with pen and ink drawings, which are called illuminations. And

680
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 1: so I've got a drawing here that a company's Psalm

681
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: thirty eight. Of course, Psalm thirty eight, like a lot

682
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:45,719
Speaker 1: of the Psalms has a lot of woe is Me

683
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 1: stuff in it, so it says, Oh Lord, rebuke me,

684
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: not in thy wrath, neither chasen me in thy hot displeasure,

685
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,240
Speaker 1: for thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand

686
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: presseth me sore. Who you didn't even get to the

687
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:00,400
Speaker 1: stinking wounds. Oh no, do it, Robert right, I'm just

688
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:03,239
Speaker 1: gonna cut to that part. My wound stink and are

689
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:06,799
Speaker 1: corrupt because of my foolishness. So you know there's that

690
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: there's a T shirt design. I mean, a lot of

691
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:10,920
Speaker 1: the psalms take this form. You know, it's like my

692
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: wound stink. Everything's bad, but I can rely on the

693
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: Lord and they will feature a call for mercy. So

694
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:19,840
Speaker 1: the illumination of Psalm thirty eight here shows the Psalmist

695
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 1: surrounded by three devils that are closing in on him.

696
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 1: One is counting with his fingers, one of the devils

697
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 1: has a measuring tape that's kind of creepy, and the

698
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 1: third has a trident. He's just sort of holding this.

699
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:34,839
Speaker 1: It's got the prongs coming out of the side. It's

700
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 1: sort of right angles, and it looks very pointy and unpleasant. Yeah,

701
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: the prongs are really spread out there. I think you'd

702
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:41,919
Speaker 1: have to you have to have a really wide set

703
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 1: of buttocks to stab with that. I mean, it emphasizes

704
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 1: what what you're saying, emphasizes that. A lot of times

705
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 1: when you see the devil with the pitchfork, now it's cute,

706
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:55,120
Speaker 1: it's in cartoons because is for poking your button, you know,

707
00:38:55,239 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 1: poking you with a little like ow ow ow. Clearly,

708
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 1: these ancient depictions are are supposed to be more graphic

709
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: and horrifically violent in in their suggestion because after the

710
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 1: ninth century, actually, Link writes that the trident almost completely

711
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 1: disappears from representations of Satan until the Renaissance, when it

712
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:16,759
Speaker 1: shows up again in the devil's hands in the art

713
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 1: of the time. And so what happened in between the like,

714
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:22,440
Speaker 1: how come in the ninth century eight you've got devils

715
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 1: with tridents? H you didn't have it before that? You've

716
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:27,800
Speaker 1: got it. Then then it pretty much goes away throughout

717
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: most of the medieval period, and then it comes back

718
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 1: again in the Renaissance. Link writes that during this medieval

719
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 1: period where you don't see much trident, the devil is

720
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 1: more often depicted when he's holding a tool or a weapon.

721
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 1: It seems to be a grapnell, which is a forked hook.

722
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:46,960
Speaker 1: Not very nice. So why, yeah, why this shift? It's

723
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 1: hard to be certain, but Links suggests there are a

724
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 1: couple of answers. One of them is the relative influence

725
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: of classical art, which would have depicted Poseidon or Neptune

726
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: with a trident. And so Link writes that classical art

727
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 1: fell out of favor with p bowl uh, and people

728
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:04,879
Speaker 1: mostly lost access to it during the Medieval period. Then

729
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:08,879
Speaker 1: interest in classical art reignited in the Renaissance. Thus the

730
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: Poseidon sea god Neptune tried and came back and was

731
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 1: put into Satan's hands again when people started paying attention

732
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:18,280
Speaker 1: to classical art again. Uh. And another thing is more practical.

733
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 1: During the medieval period in Europe, the use of the

734
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 1: grapnel was common for torturing criminals and heretics, and it

735
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:28,160
Speaker 1: became more widespread. And so if the goal of the

736
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: devil is to punish in torture sinners, and this was

737
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:33,760
Speaker 1: very often how the devil was represented in the Middle Ages,

738
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 1: sort of as God's accomplice in your punishment, uh, it

739
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 1: makes sense that he would he would have access to

740
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: the weapons and torture devices that people were more familiar

741
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: with at the time. Yeah, that does. It makes sense

742
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 1: that he would use an instrument of torture rather than

743
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:52,200
Speaker 1: something that resembles either an implement for fishing or moving

744
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 1: hay around or a polearm weapon that would often be

745
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 1: used as a way of rising up against authority. No,

746
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:03,080
Speaker 1: Satan is kind of a part of the cosmic authority

747
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 1: that is that is bearing down on you. Right, Yeah, exactly.

748
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:08,799
Speaker 1: But I do want to point out at the end

749
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:12,360
Speaker 1: here this discontinuity between the weapons or implements is actually

750
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:16,279
Speaker 1: a pretty minor discrepancy compared to the huge differences in

751
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 1: the way the Devil overall is described and depicted, Like,

752
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 1: the Devil is both a raging, hideous monster with animal

753
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:27,440
Speaker 1: qualities and at the same time I subtle, attractive, persuasive tempter.

754
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:29,880
Speaker 1: And this is actually where links the title of his

755
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:32,279
Speaker 1: book comes from, the mask without a face, that there's

756
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 1: sort of this infinitely elastic quality to the character of

757
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:38,399
Speaker 1: the devil. All right, on that note, we're gonna take

758
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:41,680
Speaker 1: one more break, but we'll be right back with more trident.

759
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 1: Thank thank thank Alright, we're back. So just a few

760
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:50,200
Speaker 1: other mythical examples. I want to roll through here mythical

761
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:54,200
Speaker 1: religious examples. Uh. You have Dallas trident bells, which are

762
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 1: bells with a decorative trident like motif on top that

763
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: represents the three divine teachers. And then you have this

764
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 1: is they found this really interesting. You have offering forks

765
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 1: in ancient Judaism and these are actually mentioned in First

766
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 1: Samuel chapter two. Uh. So this is a little bit

767
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: just one more Bible reading here. This is from the

768
00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: King James version, and the priest's custom with the people

769
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:22,760
Speaker 1: was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant

770
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:26,280
Speaker 1: came while the flesh was in seething with a flesh

771
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 1: hook of three teeth in his hand, and he struck

772
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,800
Speaker 1: it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot.

773
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:35,959
Speaker 1: All that the flesh hook brought up the priest took

774
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:39,880
Speaker 1: for himself. So they did in shiloh unto all the

775
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:43,479
Speaker 1: israel Lights that came thither. I did not remember that part,

776
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 1: Yeah I don't. Yeah, you never remember, like the the

777
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 1: meat pot skewering scene from from Second Samuel. But there

778
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:54,160
Speaker 1: you have it. You have a three toothed uh flesh

779
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 1: hook there, but not in the hands of the devil. No,

780
00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 1: just in the hands of people working officially or the priests.

781
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 1: Now another trident that came up for us, Uh, is

782
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 1: a bit more mysterious, might be fittingly mysterious, because in

783
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: all of this there's this quest to figure you know,

784
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:13,319
Speaker 1: figure out like what is the trident and what does

785
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 1: it represent? What is it stem for? And you you

786
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:19,800
Speaker 1: kind of when you try and grasp it, it seeps

787
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 1: through your your fingers. Uh, tell us Joe about the

788
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:27,479
Speaker 1: trident of Paracelsus. All right, we're about to venture into

789
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:30,400
Speaker 1: some sketchy territory. So there is a lot of weird

790
00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 1: looking work out there you can find about this supposedly

791
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:38,840
Speaker 1: magical instrument known as the trident of Paracelsus. Paracelsus was,

792
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 1: of course the by name of Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus bombast

793
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 1: Us von Hohenheim, a sixteenth century Germans with Renaissance physician

794
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: and alchemist, and Paracelsus is. He's an interesting kind of

795
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: dual figure in history. On one hand, he was a

796
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:59,640
Speaker 1: physician and did make some real medical observations and real

797
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 1: con ttributions to medical science, such as writing a clinical

798
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:06,279
Speaker 1: description of the symptoms of syphilis. But he was also

799
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: an alchemist. He wanted to turn lead into gold, and

800
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 1: he was a prolific fount of ideas that would later

801
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 1: be the basis or similar to the basis for a

802
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 1: lot of quack medicine in the centuries to come. Just

803
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: one example, he wrote that in small enough doses quote

804
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:26,800
Speaker 1: similia similibus curantur or what makes a man ill also

805
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:29,399
Speaker 1: cures him, which is, of course, if you know anything

806
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 1: about quack medicine um. He of course, he wasn't the

807
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:34,800
Speaker 1: only physician in history to suggest this, but if you

808
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 1: know anything about quack medicine, this helped contribute to the

809
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 1: strain of thinking that gives us the modern scourge of homeopathy,

810
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:43,720
Speaker 1: the idea that like cures like, and that by taking

811
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:49,320
Speaker 1: super deluded versions of a drug that would give you

812
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 1: some kind of symptom, you can cure that symptom. Homeopathy

813
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:55,200
Speaker 1: is not a part of modern medical science. It is

814
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: not science based medicine and uh and it can actually

815
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 1: be really dangerous if people, in thinking that they get

816
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 1: tricked into some kind of homeopathy cure scheme and use

817
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 1: that instead of more proven methods. But as far as

818
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: the trident goes uh. The provenance of this concept was

819
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 1: difficult for me to figure out, but I think it

820
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:18,439
Speaker 1: is likely not actually from Paracelsis. So several sources point

821
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: to the origin of this idea in the Archidoxies Magica

822
00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:25,279
Speaker 1: or the Supreme Mysteries of Nature, which is an early

823
00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:29,440
Speaker 1: modern grimoire about alchemy and the creation of magical talisman's.

824
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:34,800
Speaker 1: It's attributed to Paracelsis, probably falsely, possibly by another author

825
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: or later editor of the works of Paracelsus. And I've

826
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:42,480
Speaker 1: been scouring a seventeenth century English translation of this volume

827
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:45,840
Speaker 1: in a slow loading PDF from the Library of Congress,

828
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:48,880
Speaker 1: but I cannot find the reference to the trident in

829
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: this piece. Maybe it's in there, but if it is,

830
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 1: I I just went right over it and was never

831
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: able to find this thing. But I'm frustrated because I

832
00:45:56,719 --> 00:45:58,719
Speaker 1: spent forever trying to get these pages to load, and

833
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:02,320
Speaker 1: I can't find the darn trident in there. But so

834
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:06,480
Speaker 1: maybe it's in there. Supposedly, according to later writers, it

835
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:10,120
Speaker 1: is a magic three pronged silver lemon used to cure

836
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 1: impotence and diseases of all of the generative organs, of course,

837
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:17,279
Speaker 1: meaning generative organs are the genitals. I don't know if

838
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:20,839
Speaker 1: I want to trident near my genitals, to be honest, Well,

839
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:23,279
Speaker 1: it's complicated how you're supposed to use it. According to

840
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 1: these later sources, I'm not sure if it needs to

841
00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:28,080
Speaker 1: to be near your genitals. It might, it might not.

842
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:34,000
Speaker 1: The instructions unclear. But the French magician and occult writer

843
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 1: Eliphas Levy, who lived eighteen ten to eighteen seventy five,

844
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,720
Speaker 1: had plenty of thoughts about the profundity of the Trident

845
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:44,960
Speaker 1: of Paracelsus, assuming that it really existed. Levy writes, quote,

846
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 1: herein is the power of the trident. It's halften foundation.

847
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:52,400
Speaker 1: It is the universal law of nature. It is the

848
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:55,840
Speaker 1: very essence of the word, realized and demonstrated by the

849
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:59,759
Speaker 1: triad of human life, the Archaeus or mind, the oh

850
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:04,320
Speaker 1: or plastic mediator, and the salt or visible matter. We

851
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: have given separately the explanation of this figure because it

852
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:10,719
Speaker 1: is of the highest importance and denotes the compass of

853
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 1: the highest genius of occult sciences. I feel more and

854
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 1: more like like the trident is one of these symbols

855
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: that you can you can place it into any kind

856
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:24,759
Speaker 1: of system of belief or philosophy, or even into the

857
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 1: various sciences, or or even just business, I guess. And

858
00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:33,920
Speaker 1: the the symbol the the one becoming three or three

859
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 1: things embodied with one thrust. It kind of leaches ideas

860
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 1: out of whatever you you you place it in. Yeah,

861
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 1: and it I mean so, I I admit that when

862
00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 1: I read that um that Levy passage is just dribble

863
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:49,719
Speaker 1: to me, like it's just you could It's almost like

864
00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:52,839
Speaker 1: you could substitute any words for any other words. Right,

865
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: But but but you can you can see where it's

866
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 1: like if you if you take the trident and you

867
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:01,520
Speaker 1: stick it within alchemy or or or magic, it you

868
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 1: can explain things that are alchemical or magical through the

869
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:07,840
Speaker 1: trident in the same way that you could use the

870
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 1: trident as a metaphor in various other fields. Well, I've

871
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:14,680
Speaker 1: got a I've got a very loose general hypothesis about

872
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:17,239
Speaker 1: what I think might be going on here, And so

873
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:19,239
Speaker 1: see what you think about this. And I would love

874
00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: to see if there's a way to test this against

875
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 1: other evidence from psychology, neuroscience, anthropology and all that. But

876
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 1: here here's my very rough hypothesis about why we have

877
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:33,360
Speaker 1: a magical obsession with the trident and magical beliefs about

878
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 1: three bodied things, you know, like you've got a trinity

879
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 1: and religions there there are many like there are so

880
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 1: many holy threes. Uh. My non magical speculation is we're

881
00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 1: obsessed with the magic power of threes because three, in

882
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,239
Speaker 1: a way is really a magic number for reality. In

883
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:57,360
Speaker 1: our minds, three is the number of a pattern. So

884
00:48:57,480 --> 00:49:00,520
Speaker 1: a correlation happens once. Say you are in your car

885
00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:03,120
Speaker 1: and you honk your car horn and a dog down

886
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 1: the street howls. So, first time that happens, that's just

887
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:09,360
Speaker 1: an event. Then say it happens again, you hank a

888
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:12,360
Speaker 1: second time, and the dog howls again, And now the

889
00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 1: pattern detection software and your brain sort of goes on

890
00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 1: high alert. You're like, oh, is something going on here?

891
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 1: And say if you do it a third time, you

892
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:24,520
Speaker 1: hank again, dog howls again. You have established a pattern.

893
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:26,759
Speaker 1: Now you know, you kind of know your brain works

894
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: this way. If something is correlated three times, you have

895
00:49:30,920 --> 00:49:35,919
Speaker 1: discovered a meaningful pattern. You've discovered a law. This is true,

896
00:49:36,120 --> 00:49:38,440
Speaker 1: and this pattern of threes is exactly what the pattern

897
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 1: of threes and jokes takes advantage of you know how

898
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:43,239
Speaker 1: there's always a pattern of three and jokes. You tell, like,

899
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:45,360
Speaker 1: if there's a you know, three men walk into a

900
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:47,279
Speaker 1: bar joke, all three of them are going to say

901
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:49,799
Speaker 1: something and have a you know something. A pattern will

902
00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 1: be established with what happens to the first two men,

903
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:55,480
Speaker 1: and then something weird will happen with what the third

904
00:49:55,560 --> 00:49:58,400
Speaker 1: one says or what happens to them. And what's happening

905
00:49:58,480 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 1: there is because there's a similarity with the first two things,

906
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:04,360
Speaker 1: you're expecting the third one to match the pattern of

907
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:08,160
Speaker 1: the first two. And by subverting your expectations, when we

908
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,080
Speaker 1: see what happens to the third guy in the bar,

909
00:50:10,520 --> 00:50:12,920
Speaker 1: it's almost like you're violating a taboo. You know, you're

910
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:16,320
Speaker 1: subverting somebody's expectation that they are going to discover a

911
00:50:16,440 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 1: pattern of correlations or a law. Huh yeah. And of

912
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 1: course we see this in so many different tales as well.

913
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:24,560
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the it's you see what the three

914
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:28,359
Speaker 1: billy goats gruff exactly in Goldilocks, coming in and trying

915
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:32,040
Speaker 1: the three porridge bowls, the three beds, etcetera. Totally exactly.

916
00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:36,080
Speaker 1: So three is the number of times something happens where

917
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 1: anecdote and then repeated anecdote become phenomena. And so I

918
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 1: suspect since one of the highest functions of our brain

919
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:47,360
Speaker 1: is pattern recognition, and three occurrences of an event or

920
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:50,399
Speaker 1: correlation is what it usually takes for us to feel

921
00:50:50,480 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 1: like we have confidently established a pattern. The number three

922
00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 1: is in some sense kind of hard coded into us.

923
00:50:56,480 --> 00:51:00,560
Speaker 1: It's like a powerful indicator of significance and red gularity

924
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 1: in nature and in our minds, three becomes the number

925
00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 1: of law. So anyway, that that's my guess. I wonder

926
00:51:07,280 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 1: if we're we're you know, we're suckers for three pronged instruments,

927
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:13,759
Speaker 1: which seems like such a mundane and kind of dumb

928
00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 1: thing to be obsessed with the magical powers of because

929
00:51:18,200 --> 00:51:22,840
Speaker 1: threes are inherently holy and powerful in our minds because

930
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:25,840
Speaker 1: of our pattern seeking nature. Yeah, and and I like

931
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:28,680
Speaker 1: this idea too, of of of power of being positioned

932
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:30,919
Speaker 1: in the three and three, Like, if you have three

933
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:34,800
Speaker 1: individuals voting on something, then there is an ability for

934
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:37,800
Speaker 1: for two of them to agree and want to disagree,

935
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:40,320
Speaker 1: and that there still is a decision. If you have

936
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:44,239
Speaker 1: three individuals in a yoga class, then everyone has plausible deniability.

937
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 1: If someone farts safety and numbers, once you have three,

938
00:51:48,320 --> 00:51:51,640
Speaker 1: you have a group. Yes, but anyway, maybe maybe we

939
00:51:51,680 --> 00:51:56,000
Speaker 1: should leave depart the realm of of religion and magic

940
00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 1: and psychology and go back to the gritty reality of

941
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 1: tools and weapons. Because when I think of tridents in

942
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:05,960
Speaker 1: the real world and not as clutched by God's I

943
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:09,279
Speaker 1: definitely think of gladiatorial combat. Yes, you think of the

944
00:52:09,520 --> 00:52:12,880
Speaker 1: rotarius or net fighter, one of the key types of

945
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:18,000
Speaker 1: gladiators who fought with the trident, a net, a weighted net,

946
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:21,240
Speaker 1: and a dagger. Now, of course, there were various different

947
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:25,200
Speaker 1: types of gladiators that that that the Romans would use

948
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:28,759
Speaker 1: in these gladiatorial sports, right they were. Each one was

949
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:33,720
Speaker 1: a character armed with with some some array of weapons

950
00:52:33,760 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 1: and armor, and then they would engage in in combat.

951
00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:43,040
Speaker 1: I am continually astonished every time I really think about

952
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:49,359
Speaker 1: the idea of gladiatorial games, and uh astonished when I realized, okay,

953
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:52,160
Speaker 1: so this was real fighting to the death. In many

954
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:54,840
Speaker 1: cases like that, they were actually fighting and trying to

955
00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:59,280
Speaker 1: injure and kill each other. Why hadn't they yet discovered

956
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 1: that you could achieve the same kind of dramatic entertainment

957
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:09,080
Speaker 1: value simply by simulating dramatic fighting without actually hurting anyone. Well,

958
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:12,360
Speaker 1: you might well ask the same question of of of today.

959
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:15,880
Speaker 1: I mean, because look look around we have We certainly

960
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: have um, we have such dramatic fair as say professional wrestling,

961
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:23,840
Speaker 1: But then we also have we still have professional boxing

962
00:53:24,080 --> 00:53:27,200
Speaker 1: and uh in mixed martial arts in which individuals are

963
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 1: are still engaging in actual intentional violence against each other.

964
00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:35,439
Speaker 1: Though granted with with with rules in place, but even

965
00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 1: with with gladiate gladiator sport, there were rules there, There

966
00:53:39,080 --> 00:53:41,320
Speaker 1: were there were there were quite a few rules to

967
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:44,680
Speaker 1: to maintain a sense of order to everything. I mean,

968
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:47,600
Speaker 1: I guess that's kind of the appeal of making people,

969
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:51,080
Speaker 1: you know, engage in uh in violent acts against each other,

970
00:53:51,160 --> 00:53:53,759
Speaker 1: as that they're obeying these these set of rules that

971
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:56,640
Speaker 1: you've established for them. Yeah, I mean, whether or not

972
00:53:56,760 --> 00:53:59,319
Speaker 1: you have rules, I mean, I understand why it can

973
00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:02,800
Speaker 1: be excited fighting to to watch people fight. We do

974
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:04,960
Speaker 1: that in our fiction all the time, Like we've got

975
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:07,680
Speaker 1: you know, you've got violent movies and TV shows where

976
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:11,320
Speaker 1: there's mortal conflict between characters and you can get invested

977
00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: in it and it gets you wrapped up in the narrative.

978
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:16,320
Speaker 1: But it seems like that's so easy to do with

979
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: just like a play. You know, you don't have to

980
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:20,480
Speaker 1: actually be hurting each other, and you can you can

981
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:22,839
Speaker 1: have with a fake fight, you can have a better fight.

982
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:27,480
Speaker 1: It tells a better story that and and also one

983
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:31,839
Speaker 1: in which the right individual, the correct individual, wins. That's

984
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 1: very often the problem with a legit fight for entertainment

985
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:39,560
Speaker 1: purposes is that it is either not a good contest

986
00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:43,200
Speaker 1: or the wrong individual wins. Like there's a there's an

987
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:45,319
Speaker 1: individual that if they were to win, that would tell

988
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:48,360
Speaker 1: the best story, and instead they're the one staring up

989
00:54:48,360 --> 00:54:50,359
Speaker 1: at the lights. Yeah, yeah, I guess I didn't mean

990
00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 1: to get all sanctimonious and moralize here, but I don't know.

991
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:54,680
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna stand by it. I don't know.

992
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:58,520
Speaker 1: Making people actually hurt each other for entertainment, it just

993
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:00,719
Speaker 1: doesn't seem great to me. I'm against it as well.

994
00:55:01,040 --> 00:55:03,320
Speaker 1: Uh it is. It is. When you look at the

995
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:07,719
Speaker 1: Roman gladiatorial sport, it is both ridiculous and barbaric at

996
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:11,520
Speaker 1: the same time. For instance, the Ritarius here fighting with

997
00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:15,480
Speaker 1: this trident, which was sometimes barbed but typically smooth. Generally

998
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:18,560
Speaker 1: five semi centimeters between the spikes, and each cone spike

999
00:55:18,719 --> 00:55:21,960
Speaker 1: is about twelve to fifteen millimeters, and they were, in

1000
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:25,239
Speaker 1: essence a sea themed gladiator. You know, they're fighting with

1001
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 1: a fishing net and a fishing spear, and sometimes they're

1002
00:55:28,120 --> 00:55:31,680
Speaker 1: even fighting in flooded conditions, and they were often they

1003
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:35,080
Speaker 1: often seem to embody more feminine elements as well, compared

1004
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: to the more armored masculine gladiator types such as the

1005
00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:44,640
Speaker 1: Mermillio or the Secretur, which was essentially a fish had

1006
00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:47,200
Speaker 1: a fish like helm, So you had a fisherman battling

1007
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:50,520
Speaker 1: a fish, someone dressed up as a fisherman battling someone

1008
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:53,359
Speaker 1: dressed up as a fish, and it might beat the death.

1009
00:55:53,760 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 1: This prefigures the Mortal Kombat and the third act of Jaws. Now,

1010
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:01,880
Speaker 1: obviously this is a this is a violent Roman spectacle,

1011
00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:04,880
Speaker 1: and and there are very they were very strict combat

1012
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:07,360
Speaker 1: rules set in place, so it's not it's not like

1013
00:56:07,440 --> 00:56:10,440
Speaker 1: a real world example of of a trident. It's a

1014
00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:15,279
Speaker 1: it's an artificial but potentially lethal combat scenario, right. But

1015
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:17,400
Speaker 1: I was wondering, like, to what extent is it? Is

1016
00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:20,240
Speaker 1: it a practical weapon at all? Because it never seemed

1017
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:23,080
Speaker 1: practical to me. I would see these images of Zeus

1018
00:56:23,239 --> 00:56:25,279
Speaker 1: or the Devil with a trident and it just did

1019
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:28,000
Speaker 1: not look like a good weapon choice. No. Yet again,

1020
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:30,480
Speaker 1: it looks kind of cartoony. It's like in those early cartoons.

1021
00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:32,919
Speaker 1: It looks like it's for one cartoon character to poke

1022
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:35,080
Speaker 1: another one in the butt. Yeah, and so you wonder

1023
00:56:35,160 --> 00:56:36,920
Speaker 1: we'll do do these gladiators with a tried and to

1024
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:39,759
Speaker 1: they trident? Are they? Are they to disadvantage? I mean

1025
00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:42,279
Speaker 1: certainly they have a reach advantage, but then they don't

1026
00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:44,719
Speaker 1: have much armor on uh, and all they can do

1027
00:56:44,920 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 1: is if the if their opponent gets into close, they

1028
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:50,520
Speaker 1: would have to I guess, drop the trident and use

1029
00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:53,719
Speaker 1: their dagger as a last resort weapon. So I was

1030
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 1: looking into this just to see like did anyone did

1031
00:56:56,040 --> 00:56:58,960
Speaker 1: they actually ever kill anyone with a trident? And I

1032
00:56:59,080 --> 00:57:02,640
Speaker 1: found a paper was published in Forensic Science International from

1033
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:07,520
Speaker 1: two thousand five by Favian cons and Carl Groschmidt titled

1034
00:57:07,760 --> 00:57:12,319
Speaker 1: head Injuries of Roman Gladiators What Yeah, whoa And they

1035
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 1: point out that there's a lot of forensic evidence on

1036
00:57:14,760 --> 00:57:19,520
Speaker 1: gladiator combat. Quote. The gladiator weaponry is well known through

1037
00:57:19,600 --> 00:57:23,080
Speaker 1: historical sources at least one injury per known type of

1038
00:57:23,160 --> 00:57:26,320
Speaker 1: offensive weapon could be identified, as well as evidence for

1039
00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:29,720
Speaker 1: the most popular the gladiator trident, which was found to

1040
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:34,080
Speaker 1: be represented by one paramortem that means at the at

1041
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:37,360
Speaker 1: or near the time of death and to anti mortem

1042
00:57:37,560 --> 00:57:41,880
Speaker 1: or before death injuries. Overall, the reportedly very strict nature

1043
00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:46,160
Speaker 1: of combat rules for gladiator fights could be confirmed by

1044
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 1: the absence of multiple paramortal traumatized individuals showing a lack

1045
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:56,200
Speaker 1: of the excessive violence commonly observed on medieval battleground victims.

1046
00:57:56,560 --> 00:57:58,280
Speaker 1: So they were looking at human skulls here from a

1047
00:57:58,320 --> 00:58:02,880
Speaker 1: gladiator cemetery in ancient Ephesus, which is a modern day Turkey.

1048
00:58:03,520 --> 00:58:07,480
Speaker 1: This was originally unearthed in so Here's what they had

1049
00:58:07,480 --> 00:58:10,920
Speaker 1: to say about their findings. Quote. Eleven individuals exhibited a

1050
00:58:11,000 --> 00:58:15,920
Speaker 1: total of sixteen well healed uh anti mortal cranial traumata.

1051
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:21,160
Speaker 1: Five of the eleven individuals showed multiple trauma. Ten individuals

1052
00:58:21,200 --> 00:58:25,160
Speaker 1: exhibited a total of ten paramortal cranial traumata. This is

1053
00:58:25,240 --> 00:58:28,840
Speaker 1: a surprisingly high frequency of deadly head injuries, taking into

1054
00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:32,080
Speaker 1: account that most of the gladiator types wore helmets. A

1055
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 1: possible explanation could be the frequently reported death blow technique

1056
00:58:36,520 --> 00:58:40,720
Speaker 1: used by the hammer carrying death god Dispater. Yikes, what

1057
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:43,000
Speaker 1: is going on there? Okay, so this was this was

1058
00:58:43,080 --> 00:58:45,360
Speaker 1: new to me. I I'm not that well versed in

1059
00:58:45,640 --> 00:58:51,440
Speaker 1: gladiator gladiatorial combat, but Dispater was a costumed arena servant

1060
00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:54,960
Speaker 1: in character as a death god that would finish a

1061
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:58,840
Speaker 1: sufficiently wounded gladiator off with a hammer. That's horrible. Now,

1062
00:58:58,920 --> 00:59:01,240
Speaker 1: they wrote quote, it is not known exactly how this

1063
00:59:01,360 --> 00:59:04,960
Speaker 1: execution was performed, but um, I have to say I

1064
00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:08,040
Speaker 1: have a powerfully strong guess about how they might have

1065
00:59:08,080 --> 00:59:11,400
Speaker 1: carried this out. But as for trident wounds to the skull,

1066
00:59:11,960 --> 00:59:15,360
Speaker 1: they all seem to have involved two, but not three wounds.

1067
00:59:15,440 --> 00:59:18,840
Speaker 1: And that makes sense, right, because even with a reasonably

1068
00:59:19,080 --> 00:59:21,600
Speaker 1: narrow trident, Uh, you know, how are you going to

1069
00:59:21,720 --> 00:59:25,480
Speaker 1: land all three um teeth of that thing on the

1070
00:59:25,600 --> 00:59:29,360
Speaker 1: human skull. I'm just trying to think how there are

1071
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 1: these head wounds that are there in the evidence from

1072
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:36,000
Speaker 1: people's bones, but they appear to have survived also, like

1073
00:59:36,520 --> 00:59:40,200
Speaker 1: some people died with apparently healed overhead wounds from from

1074
00:59:40,240 --> 00:59:44,280
Speaker 1: the combat. Yeah. I mean, this is a this is

1075
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:47,400
Speaker 1: a brutal, brutal time and place as long as you're

1076
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:50,200
Speaker 1: able to continue and they don't have to call disspader

1077
00:59:50,280 --> 00:59:52,320
Speaker 1: over there to to deal with you. Now, as for

1078
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 1: other functional tridents and like military and combat history, where

1079
00:59:57,040 --> 00:59:59,920
Speaker 1: you talked about pol arms a little bit, but I'll

1080
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:02,120
Speaker 1: I want to throw in that in that older book

1081
01:00:02,160 --> 01:00:04,560
Speaker 1: of the Night of the Gods by John O'Neill that

1082
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:09,000
Speaker 1: have referenced earlier, um, he describes an imperial Chinese trident

1083
01:00:09,400 --> 01:00:13,200
Speaker 1: with the third blade turned back toward the wheelder, So

1084
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:15,960
Speaker 1: it's going to you know, uh, slicked back if you will.

1085
01:00:16,400 --> 01:00:19,320
Speaker 1: So the first blade is for slicing, it's kind of

1086
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:22,400
Speaker 1: you know, very blade like the middle one is longer

1087
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:24,800
Speaker 1: and it's for stabbing, and then this other one comes

1088
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:27,600
Speaker 1: back for slicing as well. So it was just an

1089
01:00:27,640 --> 01:00:30,320
Speaker 1: interesting take on the trident design that I've never seen before.

1090
01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:33,160
Speaker 1: So what kind of tried and does Aquaman have? This

1091
01:00:33,360 --> 01:00:36,160
Speaker 1: is I'm glad you brought this up, Joe, because if

1092
01:00:36,200 --> 01:00:37,640
Speaker 1: you if you look at some of these comic book

1093
01:00:37,640 --> 01:00:40,600
Speaker 1: images of Aquaman, he does have a trident, and very

1094
01:00:40,680 --> 01:00:43,360
Speaker 1: often it is depicted as just a trident, but other

1095
01:00:43,480 --> 01:00:47,360
Speaker 1: times there are extra barbs. So he ironically no longer

1096
01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:51,520
Speaker 1: has a trident, he has uh tented dent or something,

1097
01:00:51,840 --> 01:00:54,240
Speaker 1: And a lot of people pointed out with the new

1098
01:00:54,360 --> 01:00:58,760
Speaker 1: DC Cinematic Universe version of Aquaman, but you also see

1099
01:00:58,800 --> 01:01:00,720
Speaker 1: this in the comics. You see, uh, you see these

1100
01:01:00,760 --> 01:01:04,400
Speaker 1: images of Aquaman with this ridiculous non trident in his hands.

1101
01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:06,919
Speaker 1: Why do they do that? Do they not even? Wait?

1102
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:10,680
Speaker 1: Is is Aquaman related to Poseidon or Neptune? Or is

1103
01:01:11,640 --> 01:01:15,120
Speaker 1: I don't know my Aquaman or I'm not superversed in

1104
01:01:15,120 --> 01:01:16,800
Speaker 1: the comic either, but I understand there is a lot

1105
01:01:16,920 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 1: they have injected a lot of of of like Greek

1106
01:01:19,760 --> 01:01:23,680
Speaker 1: undersea mythology into the property. Yeah, yeah, is he played

1107
01:01:23,720 --> 01:01:28,520
Speaker 1: by cal Drogo, Yeah, Jason Momoa very striking as Aquaman. Well,

1108
01:01:28,600 --> 01:01:31,520
Speaker 1: I say, give him three prongs. You know what they

1109
01:01:31,560 --> 01:01:35,600
Speaker 1: should really do with Aquaman is give him the impossible trident. Oh. Yes.

1110
01:01:35,720 --> 01:01:39,760
Speaker 1: This is the twentieth century optical illusion, which is, if

1111
01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:42,960
Speaker 1: you start at first glance, you see a trident, you

1112
01:01:43,040 --> 01:01:46,400
Speaker 1: see three prongs, like essentially a tuning fork with three prongs.

1113
01:01:46,720 --> 01:01:48,960
Speaker 1: But then when you start, when you really look at it,

1114
01:01:49,000 --> 01:01:51,640
Speaker 1: you realize there is no middle prong. It's it's it's

1115
01:01:51,720 --> 01:01:54,760
Speaker 1: just a bid dent as opposed to a trident. Yeah,

1116
01:01:54,800 --> 01:01:57,400
Speaker 1: it's an optical illusion. Well, actually there, I don't know

1117
01:01:57,480 --> 01:02:00,920
Speaker 1: if there even are the two prongs on the side,

1118
01:02:00,960 --> 01:02:04,160
Speaker 1: because the three dimensional representation of them doesn't line up.

1119
01:02:04,280 --> 01:02:08,680
Speaker 1: So you're just given this repeatedly false perspective where one

1120
01:02:08,880 --> 01:02:11,160
Speaker 1: edge bleeds into another. The more you look at it,

1121
01:02:11,240 --> 01:02:13,720
Speaker 1: the more it hurts your brain because you really want

1122
01:02:13,760 --> 01:02:15,640
Speaker 1: to form a three D image out of it, and

1123
01:02:16,160 --> 01:02:19,600
Speaker 1: it's increasingly difficult to do. So this was not mc

1124
01:02:19,880 --> 01:02:22,120
Speaker 1: escher was it seems like it should be. It wasn't,

1125
01:02:22,520 --> 01:02:25,520
Speaker 1: but but it's it's the very type of optical illusion

1126
01:02:25,680 --> 01:02:28,240
Speaker 1: that he often played with. But see, that's perfect for

1127
01:02:28,520 --> 01:02:30,320
Speaker 1: for a god to have his weapons. So if you've

1128
01:02:30,320 --> 01:02:33,880
Speaker 1: got Aquaman and he's somehow like he's like the Thor

1129
01:02:34,120 --> 01:02:37,800
Speaker 1: of d c uh, he's like a traditional Greek god character,

1130
01:02:37,960 --> 01:02:40,560
Speaker 1: he must have access to some kind of forbidden geometry.

1131
01:02:41,000 --> 01:02:44,360
Speaker 1: Here you would get the forbidden geometry combined with the

1132
01:02:44,440 --> 01:02:46,680
Speaker 1: traditional trident of the sea god. I feel like this

1133
01:02:46,840 --> 01:02:48,960
Speaker 1: is the very kind of thing that surely Grant Morrison

1134
01:02:49,040 --> 01:02:51,440
Speaker 1: did this at some point, had a character with an

1135
01:02:51,480 --> 01:02:55,000
Speaker 1: impossible trident. Oh yeah, that seems perfect, all right, So

1136
01:02:55,080 --> 01:02:57,360
Speaker 1: there you have it, the Trident. If you want to

1137
01:02:57,400 --> 01:02:59,480
Speaker 1: check out more episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind,

1138
01:02:59,600 --> 01:03:02,440
Speaker 1: past episodes even on Mythic Weapons, head on over to

1139
01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:04,120
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That is where

1140
01:03:04,120 --> 01:03:05,600
Speaker 1: you will find them, as well as links out to

1141
01:03:05,600 --> 01:03:07,560
Speaker 1: our various social media accounts. And if you want to

1142
01:03:07,560 --> 01:03:10,200
Speaker 1: support the show, just rate and review us wherever you

1143
01:03:10,320 --> 01:03:13,560
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Big thanks as always to our wonderful

1144
01:03:13,560 --> 01:03:16,959
Speaker 1: audio producers Alex Williams and Tarry Harrison. If you would

1145
01:03:17,000 --> 01:03:18,480
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us to let us

1146
01:03:18,520 --> 01:03:21,000
Speaker 1: know your feedback about this episode or any other, to

1147
01:03:21,240 --> 01:03:24,000
Speaker 1: request a topic for the future, to just say hi,

1148
01:03:24,200 --> 01:03:25,800
Speaker 1: let us know where you listen from how you found

1149
01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:28,120
Speaker 1: out about the show, You can email us at blow

1150
01:03:28,200 --> 01:03:32,160
Speaker 1: the Mind at how stuff works dot com. And now, Robert,

1151
01:03:32,280 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 1: I am to understand you wanted to feature a bracing

1152
01:03:34,560 --> 01:03:37,680
Speaker 1: industrial easter egg for this show. Yeah, yeah, we've We've

1153
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:40,360
Speaker 1: never featured any industrial music on the show before, but

1154
01:03:40,440 --> 01:03:43,040
Speaker 1: this is a perfect track to close out with. Yeah,

1155
01:03:43,120 --> 01:03:45,560
Speaker 1: this is a band you've interviewed before on our website,

1156
01:03:45,600 --> 01:03:49,040
Speaker 1: I think, right, Robert, Yeah, so the band is three Teeth.

1157
01:03:49,320 --> 01:03:53,280
Speaker 1: They actually get their name from the trident tri dent

1158
01:03:53,360 --> 01:03:55,520
Speaker 1: three teeth, it seems appropriate that yeah, and this is

1159
01:03:55,760 --> 01:03:57,960
Speaker 1: this is the track Divine Weapon off the two thousand

1160
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:01,080
Speaker 1: seventeen album shut Down Dot exc Yeah. I chatted with

1161
01:04:01,200 --> 01:04:04,320
Speaker 1: the frontman, Alexi Mencola about the band's name and the

1162
01:04:04,400 --> 01:04:06,880
Speaker 1: use of trident symbolism a couple of years back, and

1163
01:04:06,960 --> 01:04:08,880
Speaker 1: when I reached out to them about using the track

1164
01:04:08,920 --> 01:04:11,960
Speaker 1: on this episode. Uh Lex also pointed out that the

1165
01:04:12,000 --> 01:04:15,680
Speaker 1: Shutdown Dot e x C vinyl actually has a gatefold

1166
01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:19,240
Speaker 1: trident when you open it that maps the trident of

1167
01:04:19,800 --> 01:04:22,600
Speaker 1: of Paracelsus that we talked about earlier. And you can

1168
01:04:22,640 --> 01:04:24,680
Speaker 1: find out more about that release and the band at

1169
01:04:24,840 --> 01:04:28,160
Speaker 1: three Teeth that's with a numeral three teeth dot org

1170
01:04:28,400 --> 01:04:30,600
Speaker 1: or look them up wherever you get your music. So

1171
01:04:30,680 --> 01:04:33,040
Speaker 1: if you have an appetite for some industrial metal, here

1172
01:04:33,120 --> 01:06:11,080
Speaker 1: you go. S S S S y A. Try now

1173
01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:21,520
Speaker 1: wid how that called j our wa God where I

1174
01:06:21,760 --> 01:06:37,520
Speaker 1: jake b while by ain't I ain't will