WEBVTT - My Body is Made of Glass 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.560 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:15.920 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:19.280 we're a little late getting into the recording studio today 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:23.000 because we just had in an office wide meeting with 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:28.200 cheap How Stuff Work legal consultant Richard W. Glazer. Uh. 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:32.400 Great guy, excellent lawyer. But anytime we have these in 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:36.159 person meetings with him, it's always a little bit te. Well. Yeah, 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.160 part of the problem is that you can't approach him physically, 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.320 and if you do, he will immediately start wheeling away 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.000 because he cannot be touched, right, and he's not gonna 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:47.680 find a wheelchair or anything. He is. He just remains 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:51.239 on a wheeled platform that's covered with throw pillows and 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.840 stuff with with hay. Yeah, it's basically a wooden palette 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.760 with with little roll the office chair wheels on the bottom. 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:00.880 Yeah yeah, And I mean you need that when you 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.680 suffer from the glass delusion. That's right, because there's nothing 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.440 actually wrong with him that he doesn't suffer from brittle 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.800 bone disorder anything of that matter. He's the guy from Unbreakable. 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:12.399 He's not the villain from Unbreakable. He's just he just 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.600 has this psychiatric delusion that his body is made out 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.640 of glass, which makes it all the more horrifying when 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.319 you roll through a pont city market here because everything's 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:25.240 under construction, Right, He's constantly afraid that the construction workers 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.679 on site are going to grab him and turn him 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:30.360 into a glass window. Yeah, but the meeting is over, 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:33.240 the meeting is done with glass or has rolled off 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:37.039 back to his the padded chamber of his offices, And 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.800 we're here to talk about glass delusion itself, the real 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:44.680 glass delusion that is largely a product of the past, 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.680 but as we'll discuss, has popped up with some contemporary 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:52.000 cases as well. Right, so you're not likely to meet 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:55.440 or have met somebody suffering from the glass delusion, but 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:58.600 there are times and places in history where this was 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:04.920 an extremely common psychological ailment. Yes, they're certainly common enough 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:08.440 that it pops up in the literature and well, as 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.919 we discussed that, uh, that raises some questions at times. 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.880 But let's let's start by just looking to the literature 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.120 and looking at some of the key cases that pop 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:19.720 up in history, and then we'll start teasing us a 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.880 part of it, sure well. One early case that we 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:25.960 have in the literature is the story of King Charles 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:29.560 the sixth of France. So Charles the sixth had a 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.880 sort of troubled reign. He inherited the throne of France 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.280 when he was eleven years old. He didn't immediately get 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.360 to wield power because some of his older relatives were 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:42.359 sort of ruling as regions for him. Eventually he came 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.679 of age and sort of took the throne in actual practice. 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:49.639 But Charles suffered from mental illness throughout his life, and 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.400 some of his episodes are described as basically paranoid in nature. 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:56.840 One of the earliest in our histories is that Charles 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.880 was out on a minor military campaign with a group 0:02:59.919 --> 0:03:02.320 of knights and soldiers going out to I think fight 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:06.840 some near do well duke and a stranger approached the 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.960 procession that Charles was in and warned him that he 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:13.840 was going to suffer a great betrayal. And after this warning, 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:18.040 one of Charles's soldiers happened to make the mistake of 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.399 making a metal clanking noise with his helmet or armor, 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.040 and Charles freaked out. He started attacking his own men, 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.000 and he allegedly killed one of his own nights in 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:32.120 the ensuing confusion. But this is not the most topically 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.920 relevant of Charles's delusions because, according to accounts recorded by 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:40.120 Pope Pious, the second, one of the other common delusions 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.960 that Charles would suffer from was the belief that his 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:47.280 body was made of glass, and so he during these 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.720 times he allegedly refused to let people touch him, and 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.280 he would sort of like sit still and try to 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:58.480 cushion and protect himself from being shattered. He even demanded 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.640 some form of reinforce clothing is a sort of like 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.440 armor to protect his fragile body. Huh. You know, it's 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.640 it's it's fascinating to to think of this in connection 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:10.920 with his his place in life, you know, ascending to 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:13.640 the throne so early. Um, you know, even if he 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:19.360 didn't have even if his power was more symbolic early on. Um, 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.719 because it will we'll discuss the two things that keep 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:26.479 coming up with with the glass delusion is that of 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:30.159 the body is a vessel, breakable vessel and uh and 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.799 and fragility and uh and the impermanence of life. Because 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:35.919 here's a guy who you know, he's he's essentially a 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.440 vessel for blood, right he has. It's his blood that 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:41.080 has the claim to the throne, and he is just 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.320 kind of the the fragile container for that blood and 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.880 for that that right to rule. And uh and he 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.919 and he's probably throughout his life he has you know, 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:55.120 has a very clear view of just how um, how 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.680 slight that grasp of power and that position really is. Yeah, 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:00.599 it's got to be, especially the case when you are 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.040 a child king, Like if you inherit the throne at 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.720 a very early age, it's quite clear that you are 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.800 not capable of ruling yet, and that is made clear 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:11.839 to you by the fact that there are some older 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.520 regions actually pulling all the strings. Um. So it's not 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.280 really your merit that you can believe makes you king. 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.920 I mean, not that merit makes any king king. But yeah, 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:26.160 you're definitely just waiting your turn because of who your 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.719 parents were. Yeah. And it seems like the common tropes 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.159 that you see in in historical accounts and reenactments and 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.000 of course in our fiction, is you either you're going 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.800 at fragile direction. I'm who I'm this glass thing. I'm 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.880 just this child at the center of this huge wheel 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:44.039 that's turning or you go in the megalomaniac direction of like, 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:45.760 of course I'm in charge. I know on eleven, but 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.920 I know everything and I'm fully, fully capable of ruling 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:52.960 this kingdom right now. That's not the not the only 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.200 case we see in history, but that again, that was 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.240 that's the earliest glass delusion case on record that we 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.480 could find. Also, there's a sixteen fourteen case, So this 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.200 is some of the centuries later recorded by the physician 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.360 to fill up the second of Spain Alfonso Ponce descenta 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:13.479 cruz Uh. The patient is actually unknown. We don't know 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.039 who this individual was, but it was possibly a French 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.160 prince as he was also described by French King Henry 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:23.760 the fourth Chief Physician. So this is another case where 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.560 you have an individual who's just languishing on straw beds, 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:32.479 avoiding being broken by any kind of physical contact. Um, 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:35.000 there's a there's a large sense of melancholy in all 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.799 these cases as well. You know, it's like I can't 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.039 move because if I move, I might I'm I'm gonna die. 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.280 I'm gonna shatter. Sure, And we don't just mean melancholy 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.440 in in the modern sense. We would use it like 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:50.480 melancholy in the infinite sadness, but the actual sort of 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:54.839 medieval bodily humors based theory of melancholy, which was a 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:59.120 somewhat different thing. Yeah, and also far more debilitating and 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.000 and seen as is rooted in these these key these 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:06.360 four key biological principles, right, the four key humors. So 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.240 the treatment, of course was interesting for this and it 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.080 seems a bit tongue in cheak. I don't know to 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:14.160 what extent we can we actually believe it, uh, But 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.320 supposedly that the treatment for this individuals class solution was 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.000 to set fire to the straw in the bed, which 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:21.880 immediately cured him because he jumps out of the bed 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.560 for fear of the fire. And well, he doesn't shatter, 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:26.880 he doesn't break. And you see this kind of sink 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.640 or swim treatment in a in a number of the accounts. Yeah, 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.080 there was another account I was reading about in one 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.960 of the main sources we used for this episode, where 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:37.920 and I believe it was suspected that this is an 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.640 embellished or made up account, but the story goes that 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.400 there was a man who believed his buttocks were made 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.240 of glass, and the doctor cured him by beating him ye, 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.960 beating him like basically spanking him with a cane and saying, look, 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.360 your buttocks are not shattering, and the pain you're feeling 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.800 is purely organic in nature. And I think in that 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:01.160 in that account or story, the the individual with glass 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.680 delusion was himself a glass artisan, so you had that 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:09.360 level of complexity to it. Another example from history would 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:13.720 be the Flemish poet philosopher Guests bar van borel From 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.840 who lived from four to sixteen forty eight, also known 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:22.560 as bar Lais. Yeah, this is another individual who reportedly 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.400 suffered melancholy throughout his life and may have suffered a 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:30.360 mirror delusion, or it's possible he was just waxing poetic 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.240 and philosophic when he said the following. But how often 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:37.559 the fantasy wants to act absurdly and ridiculously in melancholics 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.080 of how much does it convince the unhappy fellows? This 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.640 one thinks he's made of glass and terrified, is fearful 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.600 of people standing close to him. And and and in this 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:48.560 we kind of get into one of the problems that 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:50.480 it emerges when you look back on the glass delusion 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:54.240 literature is that how many of these cases are actual 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:58.640 cases where someone was suffering from, you know, psychiatric delusion 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.760 about the nature of their body, and to what extented 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:05.240 they the embellish stories, are they just outright uh, you 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:09.079 know literary devices uses of the metaphor of the body 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.200 is glass. Yeah. One of the things about the glass 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:15.520 delusion is that it's so it's so imagistic, and it's 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:19.240 so evocative, and it makes a great story. And whenever 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:21.719 there is a condition that makes a great story, you've 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.559 got to be suspicious of some of these historical accounts 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.480 because they make such great stories. Yeah, it reminds me 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:30.240 of the you know, the old not even that old, 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.000 but the the the sort of urban legends about the 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.600 you know, somebody took so much LSD that they thought 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.599 they were a bug and climbed inside a keyhole, or 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:40.360 I thought they were a key and climbed inside a keyhole, 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.760 something like of that nature. Um, which it sounds wonderful 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.600 because it's so ridiculous and so ridiculous that it's actually 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.200 kind of horrifying. But then when you start teasing an 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.200 apart and saying, well did this really happen? Was that 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.080 actually a delusion or is it just make for some 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:57.720 compelling bit of fiction. Yes, So one of our main 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:01.360 sources for this episode was an essay by someone going 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.360 by the name gil Speak published in the History of 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.320 Psychiatry in nine and it was called an Odd Kind 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:11.520 of Melancholy Reflections on the Glass Delusion in Europe fourteen 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:15.160 forty to sixteen eighty. And the author of this essay 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:19.720 makes some really interesting general observations about when you see 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.280 this delusion popping up, and one of the most interesting 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:25.959 to me was that the author says it is an 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.800 affliction of the man of letters in Europe. Yeah, this 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:32.400 is interesting because because again we already touched on the 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.600 literary history of glass delusion that we see it in 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:40.280 medical accounts, published studies essentially of the day, as well 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:43.319 as as fiction outright fiction as well, and and that 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.199 sort of space between where you don't know of if 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:48.680 a have a poet or philosopher is talking about something 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.080 that actually happened or just you know, trying to make 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.319 a prove a point about the human condition. But any rate, 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.160 you have certain individuals who are perhaps saying already a 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:01.600 little um more inclined toward bouts of melancholy, and they're 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.400 reading all this stuff there of a class where they 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.000 have both the time and the ability to consume all 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.079 of these materials and uh, and so they're they're feeding 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:14.720 their mind with the idea of glass delusion and perhaps 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:19.800 allowing then their mind to to generate the delusion. Right, 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.600 So the prevalence of glass delusions could be kind of 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:27.719 self reinforcing. The people who are the most in temperament 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:30.120 susceptible to it are also the people who are being 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.800 fed stories about it, right. Yeah, It's kind of like 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.000 if if today somebody was watching a bunch of zombie 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.920 uh TV and reading zombie fiction and zombie comics and 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:43.640 then suddenly started believing that they themselves were undead or 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.440 but we're getting to have a very real fear of 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:49.839 of the undead. And likewise, if individual centuries from now 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:52.520 looked back on media from today and said, oh, there 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.280 were a lot of these zombie stories going on, where 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.120 any of these accounts actual happenings, where they were just 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.640 a fiction people were obsessed with in the day. Yeah, 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:05.800 is it life imitating art or the undead imitating life? Yeah. 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.959 Like one of the big examples that comes up comes 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.720 from Servants the Lawyer of Glass, which of course we 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:16.760 reference in our introduction here, which which tells the story 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.920 of of a lawyer who is essentially poisoned. Um did 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:24.199 you want to you want to break into into his story? Well, 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:28.000 of course yeah. So the the young lawyer is a prodigy. 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:32.760 He is very gifted and witty and skillful, and he 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:36.000 graduates from law school. And there is a young lady 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:38.680 who falls in love with him and wants him to 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:41.240 fall in love with her. So she comes up with 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:45.360 a love potion that is supposed to get the job done, 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:49.400 but instead it goes haywire. She slips the love potion 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.280 into a fruit that he eats, and instead of falling 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.319 in love with her, he falls into a coma. And 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.199 then when he wakes from his coma, he suffers from 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.000 the delusion that his body is made of glass. He 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:05.079 has contracted the glass delusion. Nevertheless, he goes on to 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.480 have a pretty famous and interesting career. So he becomes 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.760 known all over the place for being the glass lawyer, 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.960 the lawyer who has to travel around and a coach 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.240 filled with straw to you know, blunt all the corners 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:20.600 and make sure he doesn't get chattered. They say. He 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.440 walks in the center of the street to avoid roof 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:27.520 tiles falling down on him and shattering him. And then 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:31.600 eventually he wakes up from his delusion. He says, oh, no, 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.280 you know what, I'm not made of glass, but now 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:36.480 this is what he's famous for. So I have to 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:37.839 keep that. I have to keep it going. I have 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.520 to keep images of that, right. Um. So yeah, this 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:44.000 becomes a you know, a fertile meme for literate Europeans. 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.839 And you see glass buttocks showing up in a lot 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:53.840 of these accounts. They are all kinds of glass body parts, arms, legs, heads, hearts, chests, 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.120 but it seems like the most common one is buttocks. Yeah, 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.120 because it's also the most humorous. And I think, I 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.320 guess that's the That's the thing is that if if 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:04.800 you're going to tell a story about somebody with a 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:06.839 body part made out of glass, that the buttocks are 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.160 perfect well to mention. Another literary example in the English 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.920 play Lingua from sixteen o seven by the playwright Thomas 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.480 thom Kiss. There is a glass man in this play 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.960 named Tactus, who says to a character named ol fact Us, quote, 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:26.320 I am a urinal I dare not stir for fear 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.120 of cracking in the bottom and so in this we 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.120 get into the subset of glass man, in which the 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.480 glass man is not only a glass vessel, he is 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.560 a glass vessel full of urine in the delusion. Right, 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.440 So the author of that essay I mentioned tells us 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:45.200 that actually, at the time urinal was a synonym. It 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:48.680 just meant like a glass flask, a small flask, but 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:51.200 that it certainly had the connotation of something you would 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.600 fill up with urine. But sitting around the study and 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.000 you need, you need to go, you just grab whatever 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.760 kind of glass apparatus is the handy, right. Yeah. And 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:02.720 as just one of the uh, the connections here when 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.680 you start looking at the what glass delusion meant to 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:12.240 contemporary UH readers and anyone hearing any of these stories. Yes, 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.760 so the glass delusion isn't just about the physical fragility 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:19.160 of the body that the breakable nous. It takes on 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:22.400 other significant dimensions as well. Indeed, I mean at the 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:26.000 time we see fortune is often described as a goddess, 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.040 a fickle goddess that's made of glass. You know, it's 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:34.800 it's fragile, it's it's fickle. Um. Likewise, chastity sometimes explained 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:38.800 UH with the metaphor of glass. Uh, the particularly the 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:42.960 French bishop Saint Francis to sales who compared to the 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:45.720 human body to glass. And and then you have these 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.600 different human bodies going around uh, and they should not 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:53.680 be carried together without danger of collision and break it um. 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.800 And then there's this rich tradition in the Bible describing 0:15:56.880 --> 0:16:00.320 the human condition as that of a vessel. And now 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.440 there's not a number of these these descriptions that that 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:07.400 appear in the Biblical tradition are conflicting and there's not 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.160 a definite thread throughout them, but one of the basic 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:15.080 ones is the human body as a vessel in which, 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.480 like the Holy Spirit is invested right right, if you 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.720 cracked this vessel, the pure element that's being poured in 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:24.600 can spill out. It's a bad thing. So sort of 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:26.840 the body is a temple type thing, right, Yeah. Yeah, 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:31.240 there's this idea that one wants to preserve his purity 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.400 and goodness, and but you do that by remaining intact 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:37.200 to not let it spill out onto the ground and 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:39.560 be wasted. Which makes me instantly think of the kool 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.560 aid man. Really is our our our generation's glass man. 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.880 He is he is a vessel of glass and uh 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.360 God or you know, the Kulai corporation, whoever has invested 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.120 him with this red power. You know. One of the 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:56.360 things I immediately think of then, is that if the 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.160 kool Aid Man were to lose his kool aid, to 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:01.680 be cracked and leak all of his red power out 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.560 onto the ground, he would not only be fragile and breakable, 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.800 but he would be transparent. You could see straight through 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.000 the kool Aid Man. And that seems significant also in 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.399 the history of the glass delusion. That's right. Uh, photophobia 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:16.760 factors into a number of these So not only are 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.880 you afraid that you're going to to shatter on impact 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:22.119 with any other kind of physical object. Not only are you, 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:25.400 you know, keeping yourself confined, you're you're super soft, bad, 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:28.360 but you're also closing the shutters because you don't want 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.879 light to shine through you. Yeah, because that would be 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:34.919 kind of horrifying, right, because they're the light is shining 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.960 through your glass body, revealing the emptiness of your form 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.920 in addition to the ephemeral nature of your form. Yeah, 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.359 it's like the ultimate privacy. Weird out. You're not only exposed, 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:50.080 but you're actually transparent. People can not only see your nakedness, 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.520 but see beyond you. Yeah. At the time when as 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:57.480 as optics, uh, you know, makes its way into everyday life, 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.760 especially for you know, learned individuals. Yeah, you know, you're 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.840 you're putting a looking glasses, spectacles on your nose, on 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:07.040 your nose so you can read, etcetera. By the early 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:11.000 seventeenth century, you actually see numerous books with titles that 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:14.280 refer to the looking glass to imply a means of 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:18.480 self discovery. So, as gil speak argues in his work, 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:24.240 you see a melancholic photophobia representing the fear of self discovery, 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:26.760 a kind of techno metaphor for the old adage the 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:30.000 light that sets me free, you can also blind me. Yeah, 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.280 So it's not just the fear of being seen through 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.520 by others, but the fear of seeing through oneself. Another 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.200 thing about the kool aid Man, he's made out of glass. 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.320 He seems like the perfect candidate for glass delusion. And 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.440 yet what is the other thing that coolant kulaid man 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.840 does all the time. He busts through cinder block. So 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:50.680 how does that? How does that work? How I've never 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.440 really really questioned it. I was just, you know, I 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.199 just completely trusted the media that I was presented with. 0:18:57.440 --> 0:18:59.280 Of course, kool Aid Man can bust through a wall, 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:03.000 but he's a glass vessel. What's what's going on here? Well, 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:06.240 he could be some of that special reinforced glass that 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.040 you know they use in the in the army vehicles 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.160 for windshields and stuff. It doesn't break so easily. I'm 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:14.840 not quite sure why they would invest that technology in 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:16.920 the kool Aid Man. Or maybe it's all about the 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:20.119 Koolaid itself, Like he should break like without the kool 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.200 Aid in him, he would have no power. He would 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:24.720 be just that fragile vessel. But Koolaid is so good 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:28.800 and so potent that it can make even the kool 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:33.080 Aid Man of a creature of glass breakthrough that wall. Yeah, 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:35.320 Or it's just that the cinder blocks in the wall 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.080 have been made with sand and thus are very very soft. 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.480 Maybe that's true. That's true. So another aspect of the 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:43.920 glass delusion that might be interesting to talk about would 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:49.200 be the significance of glass as a technology, because the 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:54.159 bodily fragility delusion is not It did not begin with 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.080 the glass delusion. In fact, gil Speak tells us that 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:00.960 there are classical and medieval accounts of earthen where men. 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.880 So this is sort of older glass style. The ceramics, 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.040 the glazed ceramics that are not quite the type of 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:12.120 clear glass we think about emerging is the windows stuff 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.680 of more recent history. But back in the olden days, 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:18.159 you might think you were a clay pot and you 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:21.080 could crack just as easily as a clay pot. Yeah, 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.359 and the techno metaphor here, uh, you know it just 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.199 it makes perfect sense. You can imagine some you know, 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:29.960 member of an ancient culture and they have this ceramic 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.520 pot that they've created, a lot of work has gone 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:34.359 into it, a lot of artistry, and it's a it's 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.920 a useful item, but it's also so easily easily shattered, 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:42.000 so that that seems an irresistible metaphor for the human experience. 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.720 And as we discussed in our recent episodes on techno religion, 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:47.639 that we can't help but look to our technology and 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:51.520 our man made devices and systems and try to use 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.280 those to define ourselves, whether you're talking about you know, 0:20:55.440 --> 0:21:01.240 metaphors for you know, agricultural technology or or construction technology 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:05.440 and ancient texts or modern interpretations where we we think 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:07.639 of our mind as a computer or we, you know, 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:12.280 illogically think of our memories as videotapes. Yeah, and very much. 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.399 I think there is the same kind of thing we 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:19.280 talked about in techno religion, where ancient metaphors, ancient technological 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:23.760 metaphors are very acceptable to us. Talking about the turning 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:28.680 of a wheel that feels sufficiently ancient and and deep 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:31.760 enough in the human experience to be a metaphor for 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:36.680 something magical and and related to God. But talking about 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:40.760 computers and cell phones that feels crass in the context 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.640 of religion. And I think the same thing could could 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:47.520 possibly apply when talking about what delusions are likely to 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:50.640 take hold. Things that are I don't know, have more 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.640 of an ancient pedigree seem to be more plausible to us. 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:57.560 Of course, then again, you do hear people saying they 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:00.399 put microchips in my brain. I mean that is modern 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.320 delusion some people suffer from. Uh do you know what 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:05.800 I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean we when we 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:08.320 take that that understanding of it and when and we 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:11.600 can easily apply it to uh uh you know, to 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:16.240 the fourteenth century, because this is a time when we 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:22.040