1 00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:08,000 Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history 2 00:00:08,039 --> 00:00:11,480 Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right 3 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:16,640 Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome 4 00:00:17,760 --> 00:00:29,400 Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of curiosities. In Greek mythology, Minos was 5 00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:32,440 Speaker 1: born to Zeus and Europa. He became the first king 6 00:00:32,479 --> 00:00:35,279 Speaker 1: of Crete, the largest of the Greek islands, where he 7 00:00:35,479 --> 00:00:39,680 Speaker 1: didn't exactly rule with kindness. Every nine years he would 8 00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:43,000 Speaker 1: demand another ruler to send seven boys and seven girls 9 00:00:43,080 --> 00:00:46,040 Speaker 1: into the labyrinth. The labyrinth was a kind of maze 10 00:00:46,120 --> 00:00:49,640 Speaker 1: created four Minos by the craftsman Dedalus, and within its 11 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:53,240 Speaker 1: elusive center lived the king's son, the Minotaur, a creature 12 00:00:53,280 --> 00:00:55,720 Speaker 1: possessing the body of a man and the head of 13 00:00:55,760 --> 00:01:00,240 Speaker 1: a bull. King Minos, his labyrinth, and his minutes or 14 00:01:00,280 --> 00:01:03,880 Speaker 1: were all just stories, fables about gods and goddesses to 15 00:01:03,960 --> 00:01:07,039 Speaker 1: help explain how Greece had come to be. However, to 16 00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:10,320 Speaker 1: the ancient Greeks, they were more than just stories. They 17 00:01:10,319 --> 00:01:13,440 Speaker 1: were legendary tales of good and evil, about deities that 18 00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:17,000 Speaker 1: were worshiped by the masses. And if you look at 19 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:19,920 Speaker 1: the ruins and remnants left behind by the early Greeks, 20 00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:22,640 Speaker 1: you start to wonder if they ever really were stories 21 00:01:22,680 --> 00:01:26,200 Speaker 1: at all. When English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans found the 22 00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:29,319 Speaker 1: Palace of Canosis, he called upon his knowledge of Greek 23 00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:32,360 Speaker 1: myths to aid in his search. He named the ancient 24 00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:35,720 Speaker 1: people who once lived there Minoans, after King Minos, and 25 00:01:35,800 --> 00:01:38,800 Speaker 1: then worked for several years excavating a large palace at 26 00:01:38,800 --> 00:01:41,839 Speaker 1: the site. By nineteen o five, the work had been completed, 27 00:01:41,920 --> 00:01:44,720 Speaker 1: and through it Sir Arthur had learned much about the 28 00:01:44,720 --> 00:01:47,120 Speaker 1: people who once lived in what he called the Palace 29 00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:51,480 Speaker 1: of Minos. But it wouldn't be until several years later 30 00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:54,760 Speaker 1: in nineteen o eight, when an Italian archaeologist by the 31 00:01:54,840 --> 00:01:57,720 Speaker 1: name of Luigi Parnier would find a new piece of 32 00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:01,279 Speaker 1: a very perplexing puzzle. Louis g had been digging around 33 00:02:01,280 --> 00:02:03,520 Speaker 1: in the basement of one of the buildings set off 34 00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:06,240 Speaker 1: from the main palace, when he found a small disc 35 00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:09,960 Speaker 1: only six inches in diameter. The circular object featured over 36 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:13,480 Speaker 1: two hundred impressions of hyrid glyphs arranged clockwise in a 37 00:02:13,520 --> 00:02:17,880 Speaker 1: spiral pattern. He called it the Face Dose Disc. As 38 00:02:17,919 --> 00:02:22,640 Speaker 1: with many archaeological discoveries concerning ancient cultures, the first inclination 39 00:02:22,760 --> 00:02:25,160 Speaker 1: was to write the face dose disc off as a fake. 40 00:02:25,560 --> 00:02:29,120 Speaker 1: Many historical objects had been revealed as forgeries or hoaxes, 41 00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:31,280 Speaker 1: and there was no reason not to think the same 42 00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:35,880 Speaker 1: about this one. But surprisingly most scholars agreed it was legitimate. 43 00:02:36,360 --> 00:02:38,799 Speaker 1: One reason for that was the later discovery of an 44 00:02:38,800 --> 00:02:43,240 Speaker 1: axe nearby bearing similar glyphs as the disc. The two 45 00:02:43,720 --> 00:02:47,360 Speaker 1: forty two impressions or tokens were comprised of forty five 46 00:02:47,480 --> 00:02:51,280 Speaker 1: numbered symbols, each one unique. These symbols stood for common 47 00:02:51,320 --> 00:02:55,079 Speaker 1: things like person or child or arrow. Yet despite their 48 00:02:55,080 --> 00:02:58,880 Speaker 1: clear pictorial intent, every actual decipherment of the disc had 49 00:02:58,919 --> 00:03:03,600 Speaker 1: been unsuccessful. Amateur archaeologists had tried everything, turning the disc 50 00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:06,880 Speaker 1: as they read it, proposing possible stories it might have told, 51 00:03:07,280 --> 00:03:10,800 Speaker 1: but nothing seemed to work. It was thought for decades 52 00:03:10,840 --> 00:03:13,760 Speaker 1: that the disc might never be translated successfully at all 53 00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:17,520 Speaker 1: if more symbols couldn't be found elsewhere, either increte or 54 00:03:17,560 --> 00:03:21,359 Speaker 1: in the palace itself, or perhaps from where they originated. 55 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:24,200 Speaker 1: Because a scholar back in the nineteen twenties claimed the 56 00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:26,640 Speaker 1: clay that had been used to form the disc hadn't 57 00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:29,079 Speaker 1: come from crete at all, but from somewhere else in 58 00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:32,000 Speaker 1: the a G and C. There may be more out there, 59 00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:35,960 Speaker 1: but we don't know where. However, in two thousand fourteen, 60 00:03:36,120 --> 00:03:39,920 Speaker 1: two linguists claimed they broke the code. Dr Gareth Owens, 61 00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:43,280 Speaker 1: a researcher from Crete, and John Coleman, a professor of 62 00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:47,800 Speaker 1: phonetics at Oxford University, worked together for six years analyzing 63 00:03:47,840 --> 00:03:51,160 Speaker 1: what Owens referred to as the first Minoan c d ram. 64 00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:54,480 Speaker 1: Early theories about the disc proposed that it had been 65 00:03:54,480 --> 00:03:58,400 Speaker 1: a story to entertain readers, declaration of war, a game 66 00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:01,520 Speaker 1: of some kind, or even a math amadical equation, but 67 00:04:01,560 --> 00:04:04,440 Speaker 1: Owens and Coleman figured out the trick to deciphering it. 68 00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:07,680 Speaker 1: They read it in a spiral direction, working their way 69 00:04:07,720 --> 00:04:10,440 Speaker 1: from the outside edge to the center, and compared the 70 00:04:10,480 --> 00:04:14,040 Speaker 1: glyphs to Cretan hieroglyphics as well as ancient Greek writings. 71 00:04:14,360 --> 00:04:17,400 Speaker 1: What they came up with were three words, which translated 72 00:04:17,440 --> 00:04:23,320 Speaker 1: to pregnant mother, shining mother, and goddess. According to Owens 73 00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:26,120 Speaker 1: and Coleman, the face those disc wasn't a story or 74 00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:29,560 Speaker 1: a call to arms, but a prayer to a Minoan goddess. 75 00:04:30,160 --> 00:04:32,520 Speaker 1: It might not be as riveting a conclusion as some 76 00:04:32,640 --> 00:04:34,920 Speaker 1: had hoped for, but Thanks to the work of these 77 00:04:34,920 --> 00:04:38,360 Speaker 1: two language experts, we now have a greater insight into 78 00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:42,680 Speaker 1: an unknown religion of an ancient culture. Just don't ask 79 00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:45,640 Speaker 1: me to try and read the disc it turns out 80 00:04:46,320 --> 00:05:02,520 Speaker 1: it's all Greek to me. Some people are just born 81 00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:06,120 Speaker 1: within eight talent Mozart began composing when he was only 82 00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:10,120 Speaker 1: five years old. Blaze Pascal, the French mathematician, wrote his 83 00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:13,640 Speaker 1: first theorem when he was only eleven, and British philosopher 84 00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:16,680 Speaker 1: John Stuart Mill had already learned to speak several dead 85 00:05:16,760 --> 00:05:21,600 Speaker 1: languages by the time he was eight. Andrew was born 86 00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:24,239 Speaker 1: in blooming Grove, New York, and he took a little 87 00:05:24,279 --> 00:05:27,559 Speaker 1: longer to find his calling. Born in eighteen twenty six, 88 00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:30,960 Speaker 1: he had received only five months of formal classroom education 89 00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:34,280 Speaker 1: by the age of seventeen. His father had been an alcoholic, 90 00:05:34,560 --> 00:05:37,440 Speaker 1: and Andrew, along with his mother and sister, had to 91 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:39,760 Speaker 1: find work wherever they could to keep a roof over 92 00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:43,320 Speaker 1: their heads. The young man was a cobbler's apprentice by trade, 93 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:46,320 Speaker 1: and found other odd jobs around town so his family 94 00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:50,359 Speaker 1: could stay afloat. He'd been in Poughkeepsie, New York in 95 00:05:50,480 --> 00:05:54,120 Speaker 1: eighteen forty three when he attended some lectures on hypnotism 96 00:05:54,200 --> 00:05:58,400 Speaker 1: from mesmerist J. S. Grimes. At the time, mesmerism was 97 00:05:58,440 --> 00:06:02,039 Speaker 1: referred to as animal magnetism, and the prevailing theory was 98 00:06:02,080 --> 00:06:04,599 Speaker 1: that every living thing on earth was born with the 99 00:06:04,640 --> 00:06:08,640 Speaker 1: ability to influence other creatures. Some could even use that 100 00:06:08,760 --> 00:06:13,400 Speaker 1: power to heal. Andrew believed that he possessed special powers, 101 00:06:13,440 --> 00:06:17,720 Speaker 1: specifically the ability to read minds. He explored these possibilities 102 00:06:17,760 --> 00:06:21,080 Speaker 1: for the next three years, calling himself the Poughkeepsie Seer, 103 00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:24,520 Speaker 1: as he practiced his own form of medicine. He used 104 00:06:24,560 --> 00:06:27,839 Speaker 1: his psychic site to diagnose sick people and to speak 105 00:06:27,880 --> 00:06:31,560 Speaker 1: with spirits from beyond the grave. In eighteen forty four, 106 00:06:31,640 --> 00:06:34,560 Speaker 1: Andrew woke up in the Catskills, claiming he'd gone into 107 00:06:34,560 --> 00:06:37,560 Speaker 1: a trance only hours before, where he spoke to Galen, 108 00:06:37,720 --> 00:06:41,080 Speaker 1: the Greek physician considered to be the father of modern medicine. 109 00:06:41,440 --> 00:06:45,200 Speaker 1: Though relatively uneducated himself, that didn't stop Andrew from writing 110 00:06:45,240 --> 00:06:48,720 Speaker 1: books about magnetic healing, many of which dictated to others 111 00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:52,520 Speaker 1: while in a trance. His first book, Principles of Nature, 112 00:06:52,720 --> 00:06:55,560 Speaker 1: sold one thousand copies in the week after its release. 113 00:06:56,120 --> 00:07:00,120 Speaker 1: One reason for its success, Davis wasn't a scholar. He 114 00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:03,400 Speaker 1: was a below average man born with above average skills, 115 00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:06,280 Speaker 1: and that made him appealing to the masses. If he 116 00:07:06,320 --> 00:07:09,600 Speaker 1: could become some kind of mental superhero, and so could 117 00:07:09,640 --> 00:07:14,400 Speaker 1: anyone else. Unfortunately, while his books were financially successful, they 118 00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:18,560 Speaker 1: were a critical flop, especially among the intellectual crowd. Critics 119 00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:22,520 Speaker 1: didn't take his work seriously, often citing factual errors as 120 00:07:22,520 --> 00:07:26,200 Speaker 1: well as jargon filled ramblings better suited towards science fiction 121 00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:31,280 Speaker 1: than credible textbooks. Things weren't looking good for Andrew Jackson Davis. 122 00:07:32,400 --> 00:07:34,480 Speaker 1: He even had to run in with the author Edgar 123 00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:37,760 Speaker 1: Allan Poe, who didn't care much for his brand of Shenanigans. 124 00:07:38,200 --> 00:07:40,880 Speaker 1: Poe wrote a short story just before his death called 125 00:07:40,960 --> 00:07:44,840 Speaker 1: Milanta Tata that featured a character named Martin van Buren 126 00:07:44,960 --> 00:07:48,160 Speaker 1: Mavis the two Keepsie Seer, a nice little dig at 127 00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:51,360 Speaker 1: the man whose trance sessions had influenced another story of his, 128 00:07:51,760 --> 00:07:54,880 Speaker 1: The Facts in the Case of m Valdemar. Poe had 129 00:07:54,880 --> 00:07:57,480 Speaker 1: written that one the very same year he and Davis 130 00:07:57,480 --> 00:08:01,120 Speaker 1: had first met, but Davis and Poe eventually fell out 131 00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:04,320 Speaker 1: of favor with one another. The Poughkeepsie Seer had grown 132 00:08:04,320 --> 00:08:07,960 Speaker 1: too positive for the Baltimore Native Zee. Davis had moved 133 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:11,960 Speaker 1: past seances and spiritual contact. It wasn't just a medium anymore. 134 00:08:12,280 --> 00:08:15,280 Speaker 1: He was a progressive thinker and the founder of a movement, 135 00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:18,840 Speaker 1: one he coined in his magnum opus, The Great Harmonia. 136 00:08:19,880 --> 00:08:22,680 Speaker 1: A concept was called the law of attraction, and it 137 00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:26,119 Speaker 1: was much different from the law of attraction we know today. 138 00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:29,280 Speaker 1: To Davis, the spirits he contacted during a seance would 139 00:08:29,320 --> 00:08:31,960 Speaker 1: only be attracted to his attempts if they shared the 140 00:08:32,040 --> 00:08:36,440 Speaker 1: characteristics and intentions of the other living people present. Later on, 141 00:08:36,559 --> 00:08:39,480 Speaker 1: as mesmerism fell out of fashion, the term evolved to 142 00:08:39,520 --> 00:08:43,079 Speaker 1: be more about earthly prosperity for those with positive attitudes. 143 00:08:44,040 --> 00:08:46,960 Speaker 1: But Andrew Jackson Davis gave us two more things before 144 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:49,720 Speaker 1: his death in nineteen ten, in the form of predictions 145 00:08:50,160 --> 00:08:54,400 Speaker 1: and his book Penetralia, published in eighteen fifty six. Davis wrote, 146 00:08:54,920 --> 00:08:58,880 Speaker 1: look out about these days for carriages and traveling saloons 147 00:08:58,920 --> 00:09:03,320 Speaker 1: on country roads, without horses, without steam, without any visible 148 00:09:03,400 --> 00:09:07,320 Speaker 1: motive power, moving with greater speed and far more safety 149 00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:10,480 Speaker 1: than at present. He said, these machines would move with 150 00:09:10,480 --> 00:09:12,640 Speaker 1: the help of a mixture of gas and liquid that 151 00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:17,360 Speaker 1: ignited safely within their shells. He also mentioned in the 152 00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:20,960 Speaker 1: same book a type of machine that could automatically transcribe 153 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:23,880 Speaker 1: words for him. He called it a soul writer. And 154 00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:27,520 Speaker 1: he said, and I quote, it may be constructed something 155 00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:30,840 Speaker 1: like a piano one brace or scale of keys to 156 00:09:30,920 --> 00:09:34,640 Speaker 1: represent the elementary sounds, so that a person, instead of 157 00:09:34,679 --> 00:09:37,679 Speaker 1: playing a piece of music, may touch off a sermon 158 00:09:37,920 --> 00:09:42,560 Speaker 1: or a poem. In other words, the uneducated cobbler from 159 00:09:42,640 --> 00:09:45,560 Speaker 1: upstate New York didn't just learn how to talk to 160 00:09:45,600 --> 00:09:49,760 Speaker 1: the dead. He predicted the automobile and the typewriter decades 161 00:09:49,840 --> 00:09:52,160 Speaker 1: before they were revealed to the rest of the world. 162 00:09:53,080 --> 00:10:00,840 Speaker 1: Quite the progressive thinker. Indeed, I hope have enjoyed today's 163 00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:04,520 Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free 164 00:10:04,559 --> 00:10:07,240 Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by 165 00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:12,319 Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by 166 00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:15,960 Speaker 1: me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I 167 00:10:16,040 --> 00:10:19,839 Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, 168 00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:22,920 Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all 169 00:10:22,920 --> 00:10:26,480 Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com. 170 00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:28,920 Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.