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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick, and hey, Rob and I

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Speaker 2: are out this week for Fall Break, so we're bringing

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Speaker 2: you a few episodes from the vault. This is part

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Speaker 2: one of our series on necromancy, originally published September twenty eighth,

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 1: All right, let's jump right in. My heart is made

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Speaker 1: a necromancer's glass, where homeless forms and exile phantoms team,

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Speaker 1: Where faces of forgotten sorrows gleam and dead despairs, archaic

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Speaker 1: peer and pass gray longings of some weary heart that

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Speaker 1: was possessed me, and the multiple supreme, unwildered hope and

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Speaker 1: star in blazoned dream of questing armies, ancient queen and

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Speaker 1: lass risen vampire like from out the wormy mold, deep

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Speaker 1: in the magic mirror of my heart, behold their parish beauty,

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Speaker 1: and depart and now from black Ophelia and far and cold,

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Speaker 1: swimming in deathly light on charnal Sky's the enormous ghosts

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Speaker 1: of bygone worlds arise.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert.

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Speaker 2: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And to continue a

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Speaker 2: stuff to blow your mind tradition, we are disregarding the

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Speaker 2: traditional Gregorian calendar and we have decided that October begins

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Speaker 2: in late September. It often does for us, if you

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Speaker 2: don't know, we do spooky content all October, and today

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Speaker 2: is the first day of that month long festival.

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Speaker 1: That's right, I mean, yeah, Halloween has already begun. There's

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Speaker 1: no doubt about it. I'm going to haunt it house

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Speaker 1: tomorrow night. So it's begun. It has begun. And so

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Speaker 1: we kicked off this episode. This is going to be

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Speaker 1: the first of I believe two episodes. We'll see how

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Speaker 1: it goes. Regarding necromancy, that was a reading from the

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Speaker 1: early twentieth century poem Necromancy by the weird fiction, horror

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Speaker 1: and fantasy rider Clark Ashton Smith.

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Speaker 2: Now, I actually suggested this topic because I became interested

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Speaker 2: in it when we were doing an episode a while back.

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Speaker 2: I think it was our series on oil and Water.

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Speaker 2: We were mainly focusing there on legends about how if

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Speaker 2: you pour oil and water it will settle the waves,

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Speaker 2: and how to some extent that is actually scientifically true.

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Speaker 2: So if you haven't heard that series, go back and

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Speaker 2: listen to it. It'll be a treat. But in that

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Speaker 2: series I did end up going on a large digression

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Speaker 2: about necromancy in the Hebrew Bible, and it got me

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Speaker 2: thinking about the idea that necromancy. When people use that

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Speaker 2: word today, they're almost always talking about a sort of

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Speaker 2: Dungeon and Dragons sorcerer that raises the dead and commands

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Speaker 2: them as a sort of shambling thrall of some sort,

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Speaker 2: whereas in the traditional understanding, necromancy means something different, and

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Speaker 2: it's usually a reference to the practice of divination with

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Speaker 2: the help of the dead, consulting the dead for information.

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Speaker 2: And that sort of gap in meanings between the popular

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Speaker 2: understanding and the original understanding I thought was very interesting

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Speaker 2: and maybe worth plowing into the history a bit. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because if you're familiar with Dungeons and Dragons necromancers,

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Speaker 1: you know that within Dungeons and Dragons, this is a

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Speaker 1: magic practitioner who specializes in spells of the necromancy spell class,

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Speaker 1: So things like animate Dead, finger of Death, chill Touch,

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. You know, lots of undead ish

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Speaker 1: magical spells and abilities, and the presentation of necromancers in

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Speaker 1: D and D has of course influenced tons of fantasy

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Speaker 1: and sci fi properties over the years. So there's this

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Speaker 1: strong pop culture echo of the dead raising necromancer.

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Speaker 2: Now, I think, aligning with the traditional understanding of necromancy,

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Speaker 2: you do have a spell in Dungeons and Dragons which

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Speaker 2: is speak with Dead, which is almost always used for

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Speaker 2: necromancy purposes. It's like, you need to get some information

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Speaker 2: out of this corpse. And despite the evil connotations of

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Speaker 2: necromancy in general, I think anybody can use this spell.

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Speaker 2: Like in Balder's Gate, I have my very lawful, good

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Speaker 2: wizard speaking with dead most of the time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I think one of the interesting things to keep

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Speaker 1: in mind about necromancy we'll probably get into this some more,

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Speaker 1: is that this idea of like speaking with the dead.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's like the medieval Christian experience and prohibition

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Speaker 1: against this sort of thing. I kind of cast a

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Speaker 1: long shadow where you know, this idea that you shouldn't

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Speaker 1: attempt to speak with the dead. You don't know what

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Speaker 1: we'll speak back, because speaking with the dead is not

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Speaker 1: possible by the rules of laws of God, as they

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Speaker 1: understood it to be, and therefore you know, it was

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Speaker 1: just dangerous to even think about such a thing. So

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Speaker 1: that'll be worth keeping in mind here. But the Dungis

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Speaker 1: and Dragon's idea of the necromancer, of course, you're all

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Speaker 1: on various traditions as well, including the discussion of necromancers

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Speaker 1: in necromancy and pre existing fantasy and weird fiction, including

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Speaker 1: that of Clark Ashton Smith, whose poem started off this episode.

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Speaker 1: For instance, he had a story titled The Empire of

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Speaker 1: the Necromancers from nineteen thirty two that involved a pair

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Speaker 1: of kind of like rogue necromancers who get exiled from

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Speaker 1: one kingdom, and so they go into this kingdom of

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Speaker 1: this deceased kingdom of tombs and start raising up people

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Speaker 1: to serve as their servants, and of course they end

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Speaker 1: up rising against them. That sort of.

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Speaker 2: Thing is kind of a buddy comedy.

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Speaker 1: No, no, it's it's no, you're not. You don't really

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Speaker 1: sympathize with these necromancers. They're awful and you're rooting for

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Speaker 1: the dead to overcome them the whole time, and so

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Speaker 1: it's satisfying when they do. It's also worth noting that j. R.

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Speaker 1: Tolkens the Hobbit features whispers of the mysterious necromancer in Mirkwood.

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Speaker 1: I think little is made out of this in the text,

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Speaker 1: but I think we're to understand that this is an

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Speaker 1: incarnation of the dark Lord Saarn prior to his return

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Speaker 1: to Mordor, and his final incarnation is the all Seeing Eye.

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Speaker 1: As to what sort of literal necromancy he might be

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Speaker 1: up to in Mirkwood, I don't know that we have

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Speaker 1: a clear answer on that.

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Speaker 2: That's a good question. I don't know if Sauron would

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Speaker 2: be raising the dead to obtain information or for divinatory purposes.

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Speaker 2: I think he mainly does go more in the D

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Speaker 2: and D direction of like he raises what are they called,

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Speaker 2: you know, the ring rays. I guess those are those

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Speaker 2: are undead wraiths or revenants of some sort. They are

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Speaker 2: dead kings who are brought back to do his bidding.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so that's that's necromancy and the raising the

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Speaker 1: dead sense. But in terms of the speaking with the dead,

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Speaker 1: I don't know that he has much to talk about.

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Speaker 2: With him except like, yeah, do as I command, you

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Speaker 2: kneel before Zod.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're going to be talking about several different

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Speaker 1: angles regarding necromancy here. But one article that I found

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Speaker 1: pretty insightful in places was this paper by the Czech

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Speaker 1: academic andre J Kapcar titled the Origins of Necromancy or

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Speaker 1: how we Learned to Speak to the Dead, and I

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Speaker 1: thought this was pretty insightful. He points out that the

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Speaker 1: ultimate roots of necromancy can be found in the socioeconomic

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Speaker 1: impact of human death on individuals and communities, especially small communities.

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Speaker 1: And this is one of those things that I think

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Speaker 1: can seem like an outrageous overstatement of the obvious at first,

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Speaker 1: but as social animals, a great deal depends on the

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Speaker 1: social bonds created and nurtured by individuals within a group,

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Speaker 1: and when an individual dies, it potentially throws all of

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Speaker 1: that into disarray unless the bonds they established in life

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Speaker 1: can be carried on after their death by one or

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Speaker 1: the other. So it becomes important to retain bonds of

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Speaker 1: some sort with one's ancestors, which is not necessarily necromancy obviously,

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Speaker 1: and even you know, to seek their guidance, which is

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Speaker 1: more directly what we might think of as necromancy, but

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Speaker 1: again not necessarily necromancy, which is is going to be

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Speaker 1: a distinction. We'll come back to again and again.

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Speaker 2: This is interesting. It gets into something I think I'm

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Speaker 2: going to talk about more in Part two than in

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Speaker 2: this part, but about how some ancient descriptions of alleged

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Speaker 2: necromancy practices might actually be sort of external misunderstandings of

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Speaker 2: essentially ancestor cult practices, that what is actually sort of

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Speaker 2: the care of one's dead ancestors as a sort of

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Speaker 2: god of sorts is misinterpreted by people who don't practice

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Speaker 2: the same thing with regard to their own ancestors as

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Speaker 2: an attempt to get information or power from the dead.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's a lot of that going on.

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Speaker 1: We'll get into some Chinese sources here in a bit,

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Speaker 1: And like, the word necromancer pops up a lot in

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Speaker 1: translations of Chinese sources, and sometimes, really it seems like

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Speaker 1: a lot of the time necromancer is used sort of

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Speaker 1: interchangeably and elegant variation for just wizard, you know, and

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Speaker 1: which can make searching for information a little bit tricky

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Speaker 1: at times, because you'll see the word necromancer, but they're

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Speaker 1: not really talking about anything regarding necromancy specifically. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: and again, to your point, you end up asking questions like, well,

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Speaker 1: what's the difference between a spirit medium and a necromancer.

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Speaker 1: What's the difference between veneration of ancestors and necromancy. You

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Speaker 1: could say it's just a personal branding issue, or it

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Speaker 1: depends on which side you're standing on. If you are

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Speaker 1: on the outside of that culture, particularly with a European

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Speaker 1: Western European background, again kind of descended from this culture

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Speaker 1: in which the idea of speaking to the dead, you know,

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Speaker 1: was evil or dark in some fashion, then it's easy

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Speaker 1: to level the word necromancer, which you know drips a

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Speaker 1: certain amount of dread.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think another important thing to understand is that

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Speaker 2: especially in the Christian context, but really I think any

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Speaker 2: religious context that enforces a kind of priesthood based orthodoxy,

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Speaker 2: there is usually going to be more restrictions on individual

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Speaker 2: practice of magic, and necromancy would be one form of that.

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Speaker 2: And you know, there are other cultural contexts where it's

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Speaker 2: more of a kind of magical ritual free for all,

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Speaker 2: and people engage in all different kinds of practices to

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Speaker 2: gain information or blessing and it's not condemned by the

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Speaker 2: religious institutions.

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Speaker 1: Right right, Well, anyway, to go back to CapCar here,

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Speaker 1: according to him in broad strokes, necromancy covers anything that

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Speaker 1: involves divination practices that involve the spirits of the dead.

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Speaker 1: And I should also stress that I think he's using

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Speaker 1: the term divination here as well as its textbook definition

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Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean knowledge about the future, but can also

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Speaker 1: refer to the access of hidden knowledge, you know, the

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Speaker 1: interpretation of omens and so forth. So anytime you're trying

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Speaker 1: to find something out by speaking with a spirit of

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Speaker 1: a dead person, then that is broadly speaking, necromancy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my understanding too, especially how it's used in

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Speaker 2: the academic literature as opposed to the popular fantasy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, of course, necromancy is just a word, and

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Speaker 1: he also breaks down the origins of the word as follows.

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Speaker 1: So it's a seventeenth century English derivation of the Italian

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Speaker 1: word necromancia, which means black magic, which comes from the

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Speaker 1: Latin word necro mantia, meaning the same thing. The Latin

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Speaker 1: here borrows from the pre classical Greek word necromantia, and

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Speaker 1: so we have necros meaning dead or corpse, and mantia

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Speaker 1: meaning divination. So we're talking about corpse divination or divination

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Speaker 1: of the dead.

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Speaker 2: And that's why you can see the same suffix mancy

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Speaker 2: used in other forms of divination like silinomancy, you know,

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Speaker 2: divination by looking at the moon and so forth.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and he cites the first use of the word

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Speaker 1: necromancy in this context to Oregon of Alexandria from third

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Speaker 1: century CE. He is saying the following, attributing it to

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Speaker 1: Simon the Magus quote, by means of ineffable a duration,

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Speaker 1: I called up the soul of an immaculate boy who

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Speaker 1: had been put to a violent death, and caused it

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Speaker 1: to stand by me. And by its means, whatever I

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Speaker 1: commanded is affected, and the soul, freed from the body,

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Speaker 1: possesses the faculty of fore knowledge. Whence it is called

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Speaker 1: forth for necromancy. This particular quote, it's from the Recognitions

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Speaker 1: of Clement, and it looks like it's from this is

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Speaker 1: mentioned in a book that he cites from nineteen ninety

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Speaker 1: five by Robertson Donaldson. Okay, but I guess it's important

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Speaker 1: to drive home, like it's kind of like three different

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Speaker 1: levels of talking about necromancy. It's like earliest if you're

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Speaker 1: looking for like the roots of it, Like how far

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Speaker 1: back can you go and find something that is described

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Speaker 1: with the word necromancy or necromancer. How far back can

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Speaker 1: you go to something that is being described that matches

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Speaker 1: these prerequisites for necromancy. And then ultimately, and we'll maybe

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Speaker 1: get into this later, like, what are some things in

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Speaker 1: the archaeological record that you can point to and say, well,

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Speaker 1: that might be something like necromancy, that might be an

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Speaker 1: example of some sort of practice that involved seeking guidance

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Speaker 1: or wisdom from the dead. Ah.

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Speaker 2: Yes, because there are a lot of artifacts that without

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Speaker 2: literary sources to really explain what was done with them,

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Speaker 2: you can't be sure, but they're suggestive of possible practices

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Speaker 2: having to do with consulting the dead.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now, in this series, we're going to talk about examples

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Speaker 2: of necromancy or alleged necromancy in different times and places

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Speaker 2: throughout history. Let's see, I had some stuff today about

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Speaker 2: necromancy and ancient Mesopotamia, and Rob, I know you had

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Speaker 2: some stuff about in China. Do you want to do

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Speaker 2: China first?

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Speaker 1: Sure? Yeah, I mean it is Auto Moon festival and everything,

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Speaker 1: So maybe we'll start with a Chinese example. So I

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Speaker 1: guess the first thing to point out is that we

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Speaker 1: should remind ourselves of the importance of ancestor veneration and

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Speaker 1: Chinese traditions. And this is by no means unique to

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Speaker 1: just Chinese traditions, but it is incredibly important, And I

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Speaker 1: suppose we should also remind ourselves that modern and ancient

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Speaker 1: people alike are capable of having multiple, even conflicting ideas

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Speaker 1: concerning the dead and the possibility of an afterlife. So

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Speaker 1: this may be important later on because again, in the

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Speaker 1: same way that you can have someone who doesn't logically

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Speaker 1: believe in ghest it doesn't logically believe you can contact

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Speaker 1: the spirit world, but that same individual, you know, given

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Speaker 1: certain emotional stresses, may seek out a medium and try

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Speaker 1: and find some solace there that sort of thing, Or

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Speaker 1: we can just sort of casually have multiple ideas about

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Speaker 1: the afterlife.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and well, while you're emphasizing the multiple ideas that

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Speaker 2: can exist within a single person, of course, it's even

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Speaker 2: more true of a populace across time. Like you know,

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Speaker 2: asking like what did ancient Chinese people or what did

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Speaker 2: ancient Mesopotamian people think about what happens after death? Is

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Speaker 2: kind of like asking what do Americans think about what

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Speaker 2: happens after death? I mean, you could represent you can

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Speaker 2: explain views that are commonly found, that some views are

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Speaker 2: going to be much more frequently believed than others. But

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Speaker 2: there's no single answer to that. There are a range

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Speaker 2: of beliefs, and so if you talk in generalities, you

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Speaker 2: can only talk based on the sources you have, and

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Speaker 2: even then that's probably only going to be talking at

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Speaker 2: best about like majorities of people or some commonly held ideas,

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Speaker 2: not about what everyone believed all the time.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, we're dealing with a great deal of geography, culture,

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Speaker 1: and time when talking about like Chinese, even ancient Chinese

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Speaker 1: concepts regarding the dead. But I think it's safe to

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Speaker 1: say a certain amount of guidance by and communication with

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Speaker 1: is baked into the whole concept. Though the degree to

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Speaker 1: which this is this angle is emphasized is going to vary.

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Speaker 1: So veneration of ancestors does not equal necromancy. But that

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean there aren't some comparisons you could make, and

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Speaker 1: more to the point, it doesn't mean that there are

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Speaker 1: not examples of wizards in Chinese mythology and tradition who

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Speaker 1: are more expressly described as experts specialists with an ability

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Speaker 1: to communicate with or facilitate communication with the dead. And

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Speaker 1: by that you could classify them as quote unquote necromancers.

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Speaker 1: So again, that doesn't stop so many texts from described

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Speaker 1: wizards as necromancers, even though they're not necessarily doing anything

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Speaker 1: that is necromantic.

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Speaker 2: Well yeah, and to people who listen to us often,

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Speaker 2: this should be obvious. But maybe it's worth saying that

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Speaker 2: when we use the term necromancer, we are not applying

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Speaker 2: any more attaching any moral ideas to that. It just

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Speaker 2: means literally somebody who's getting information from the dead, not

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Speaker 2: that that's good or bad. Whatever older sources might be

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Speaker 2: likely to I don't know, has some kind of stink

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Speaker 2: on the idea.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Now I want to stress that, as always,

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Speaker 1: my grasp with Mandarin is very limited and depends on

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Speaker 1: various references and tools, But it's my understanding that there

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Speaker 1: is no one word in Mandarin that expressly denotes necromancy

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Speaker 1: in the same way that our word necromancy does. But

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Speaker 1: in Chinese tradition, the specialist you would seek out for

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Speaker 1: any of your strong necromantic needs would be a fang shi,

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Speaker 1: which essentially translates to method master. You'll also see this

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Speaker 1: translated as alchemist, wizard, or basically any specialist magic user

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Speaker 1: terminology you can think of, including but not limited to necromancer. Again,

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Speaker 1: this is the elegant variation in play here. Though again

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Speaker 1: there are some cases where you have one of these

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Speaker 1: method masters, one of these things she who is doing

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Speaker 1: something that is very necromatic in nature, and so I'd

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Speaker 1: like to discuss one in particular. Okay, all right, this

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Speaker 1: is going to take us through the Han dynasty, so

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Speaker 1: second century BCE, this would have been the rule of

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Speaker 1: Emperor Wu of Han. More than one wizard and immortalists

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Speaker 1: served this guy. He, especially later in life, had a

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Speaker 1: fondness for surrounding himself with various magicians and magic users,

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Speaker 1: seeking things from them like immortality, and I have also

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Speaker 1: read that late in life he also became increasingly paranoid

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Speaker 1: about plots against him, and I think some of these

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Speaker 1: were inspired by dreams and so at the same time

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Speaker 1: that he was leaning into the talents of magicians to

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Speaker 1: help protect him, he also was very much supporting witchcraft

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Speaker 1: persecution of the day and harsh penalties against alleged magic users.

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Speaker 1: But for instance, one of the fun she's that worked

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Speaker 1: for him was Lee shao Yun, who claimed to be

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Speaker 1: a seventy year old immortal and preached immortality via diet

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Speaker 1: and commitment to the Kitchen God. Though he did die,

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Speaker 1: so maybe there were some holes in the plan. But

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Speaker 1: then there was another individual, a funk she known as

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Speaker 1: Shao Wing, and this apparently can be translated as young geezer.

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Speaker 1: It basically means like young old person.

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Speaker 2: Wait, does that mean he was like an old person

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Speaker 2: who was young at heart or a young person who

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Speaker 2: was old at heart.

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Speaker 1: That's a good question, because the other guy, Lee shau Jun,

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Speaker 1: like the whole thing is like he was young, but

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Speaker 1: he claimed to be seventy. He was like, look at me,

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Speaker 1: Look how young I look. This is because I have

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Speaker 1: secrets I can I can teach you. So I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure if young geezer here was old at heart or

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Speaker 1: old in body. Maybe he's young at heart and old

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Speaker 1: in body, you know. But where it gets interesting with

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Speaker 1: this particular practitioner, with Shao Wing is that there are

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of sources that discuss his alleged

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Speaker 1: use of some sort of necromancy and potentially shadow puppetry.

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Speaker 2: Oh you mean not separately but together together.

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Speaker 1: Yes, So shadow puppetry has a very long history in

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Speaker 1: China and likely originated there and or in India in

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Speaker 1: the first millennium BCE. I know, there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of a lot of articles out there and sources about

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Speaker 1: like where shadow puppetry came from. And you have some

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Speaker 1: very rich traditions of shadow puppetry and various cultures throughout

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Speaker 1: Asia in the Middle East, so you know, no matter

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Speaker 1: where it began, like, it has very distinct forms all

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Speaker 1: over the place. But one popular but academically controversial story

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Speaker 1: holds that its roots are shamanistic and key to our

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Speaker 1: discussion here necromantic.

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Speaker 2: Okay, give me that controversial story, all right.

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Speaker 1: So the story here that is often ruminated on is

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Speaker 1: that Emperor Wu had a favorite consort or concubine by

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Speaker 1: the name of Lady Lee. She was his absolute favorite,

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Speaker 1: and she began to grow rather ill and eventually died.

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Speaker 1: Towards the end of her life, she began to prohibit

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Speaker 1: him from seeing her face and then ultimately from hearing

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Speaker 1: her voice, and then she dies and Shao Wing offers

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Speaker 1: the emperor a chance to speak with her again, to

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Speaker 1: be in her presence again. The story is that he

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Speaker 1: brings the Emperor into this kind of chamber and there's

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Speaker 1: this fabulous silk screen offerings or placed for the spirits.

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Speaker 1: There's incense burning, you know, there's a you know, manipulation

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Speaker 1: of light and shadow, and he is able to summon

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Speaker 1: her spirit on the other side of the screen, and

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Speaker 1: there is something shade like or shadow like in her appearance.

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Speaker 2: Ah, that's interesting because I wonder if that kind of

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Speaker 2: thing should meet our definition of necromancy or not. Is

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Speaker 2: just wanting to see and interact with someone again because

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Speaker 2: you miss them? A form of necromancy is that getting

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Speaker 2: information from them, not in the way I would normally

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Speaker 2: think of.

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Speaker 1: Well, in some of these tales, apparently like first of all,

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Speaker 1: he's completely won over by this. He's he's like, oh

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Speaker 1: my goodness, it is her, and like he's so just

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Speaker 1: overcome by the sensation that she is there again on

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Speaker 1: the other side of the screen, that he composes a poem.

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Speaker 1: And I believe there are other accounts that say that,

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Speaker 1: like he would sit there for hours talking to her,

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. So in those cases, you could,

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Speaker 1: I guess you could make an argument, well, yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is the necromancer here is allowing for some sort of

390
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Speaker 1: communication with the dead. But not everybody is crazy about

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Speaker 1: this story. And there are a lot of different interpretations

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Speaker 1: and misinterpretations of this, especially apparently when you get into

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Speaker 1: some like Western analysis of it, where you know, things

394
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Speaker 1: get crisscrossed and translation and so forth. I was looking

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Speaker 1: at a book called Chinese Shadow Theater, History, Popular Religion,

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Speaker 1: and Women Warriors by Fan Pin Lee Chin, and the

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Speaker 1: author here points out that many critic critics find it

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Speaker 1: ridiculous to believe that this court magician first of all,

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Speaker 1: invented shadow puppetry and then used it to fool the

400
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Speaker 1: emperor into thinking that this is the ghost of his

401
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Speaker 1: favorite comic cubine Like that, that just seems like quite

402
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Speaker 1: a stunt to pull off, even if you're a particular

403
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Speaker 1: daring and charismatic wizard.

404
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Speaker 2: I mean, on one hand, yes, but then I don't

405
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Speaker 2: know by modern analogy. I mean, I think that there

406
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Speaker 2: are people who claim to have spirit medium powers and

407
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:11,399
Speaker 2: stuff who perform tricks like this on people in the

408
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Speaker 2: modern world all the time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think that's an important thing to

410
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Speaker 1: keep in mind. So, yeah, first of all, we should

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Speaker 1: not think it impossible that even a very powerful and

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Speaker 1: a very intelligent individual could not be convinced that there's

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Speaker 1: something going on here, and Chin also points out some

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Speaker 1: other facts that I think helped sort of circle the

415
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Speaker 1: idea here. So there's the idea that, first of all,

416
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Speaker 1: that Wu eventually finds out about the deception and has

417
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Speaker 1: this would be necromancer quietly executed, kind of out of embarrassment,

418
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Speaker 1: like he doesn't want to make a big deal out

419
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Speaker 1: of it because he feels like he has been duped,

420
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Speaker 1: but he definitely is going to have that wizard killed.

421
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Speaker 1: There's also this tidbit that Shall Wing had convincingly summoned

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Speaker 1: another consort spirit through the use of shadows, and that shadows, screens,

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Speaker 1: and incense were to some extent associated with this sort

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Speaker 1: of work. So there's maybe some sort of pre existing

425
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Speaker 1: formula or script for this, so it's not just coming

426
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Speaker 1: out of nowhere. There's also Lang Dynasty author that apparently

427
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Speaker 1: submitted that Shao Wing used something other than traditional three

428
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Speaker 1: dimensional puppets or two dimensional shadow puppets, and that quote

429
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Speaker 1: the necromancer had a statue carved out of magic stone

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Speaker 1: in the likeness of the consort. Now I'm not arguing

431
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,640
Speaker 1: in favor of magic stone per se, but that makes

432
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 1: you think of something perhaps a little bit different, maybe

433
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:47,480
Speaker 1: you know, higher production values or out of the ordinary

434
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: compared with what you know, they might have been used

435
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:53,360
Speaker 1: to some sort of like pre existing shadow play shadow

436
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 1: puppetry performance. While the author is doubtful that any of

437
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 1: this suggests a shamanistic or for shadow puppetry, so any

438
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 1: idea that like shadow puppetry originates as kind of a

439
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 1: you know, shamanistic or religious ride of some sort. Authors

440
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: The author sites the importance of Han period belief that

441
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 1: certain fung shehi could summon the souls or shadows of

442
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 1: the deceased through special rights, which again, you know, a

443
00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 1: pre existing script, a pre existing idea that this is

444
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:27,640
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that certain magicians can do. And

445
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 1: the story also seems to have been somewhat corrupted in

446
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:34,400
Speaker 1: Western retellings forging a link between seance and shadow puppetry,

447
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: when if I'm understanding Chen correctly on this, it's more

448
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 1: proper to think of this as a tale of a

449
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: would be necromancer using shadow effects to dupe the emperor

450
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: into thinking he has been visited by the spirits of

451
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 1: the dead. You know, this is kind of a familiar

452
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 1: trope throughout the world, the idea of like the dangerous

453
00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:55,679
Speaker 1: position held by a king's magical advisors. You know, you

454
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:58,880
Speaker 1: have to walk that fine line because if you were,

455
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 1: if they see true what you're doing, you're obviously not

456
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: going to stick around court very long.

457
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:06,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know, thinking more about the idea

458
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 2: that could could a clever magician really trick a king

459
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 2: like this, I think maybe that also assumes that the

460
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 2: king would be more likely suspicious or skeptical than a

461
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 2: person might naturally be if they do desperately want to

462
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:24,639
Speaker 2: see someone again. I mean, if you if someone you

463
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:26,640
Speaker 2: love has died and you want to see them again,

464
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:30,959
Speaker 2: you might not be very you know, looking for holes

465
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 2: to pick in the experience of seeing them once again.

466
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:35,399
Speaker 2: You might be quite ready to believe.

467
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's important to keep in mind,

468
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 1: and I think it's it's also interesting to contemplate this account,

469
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:45,680
Speaker 1: especially given that, you know, first of all, it's occurrence

470
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 1: in a culture that is traditionally more aligned with the

471
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: idea of communication with spirits of the deceased, again, as

472
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:54,760
Speaker 1: opposed to Christian European culture, in which the idea of

473
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 1: speaking with the dead is seen as impossible and dangerous.

474
00:27:57,640 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 1: You know, you're just going to get a demon on

475
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:02,440
Speaker 1: the other line anyway, so don't even attempt it. And

476
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps it also speaks to a sort of

477
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:08,119
Speaker 1: communion with the dead that goes beyond anything achievable via

478
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: veneration rights and even medium traditions. You know, the idea

479
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 1: that it's not just about like honoring her and knowing

480
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:17,480
Speaker 1: that she's out there somewhere, but it's like here, she

481
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 1: is almost, if not quite physically here, just on the

482
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: other side. And I think that also kind of matches

483
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: up with this idea that you see in other accounts

484
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 1: of her kind of fading away from his life towards

485
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: the end, like he can't see her anymore, now he

486
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 1: can't speak with her anymore, and now she's dead. And

487
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 1: maybe there's some of that sprinkled in there as well.

488
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:42,080
Speaker 1: And I also kind of like this whole this idea

489
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 1: of the screen, this kind of like thin veil that

490
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 1: is separating him from this possibly you know, resurrected spirit.

491
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 1: It's such a slight barrier, right as slight as the

492
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 1: barrier between life and death may seem at times. And

493
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,680
Speaker 1: there's also something fitting in that ending the tellings of

494
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: the story in which he like finally can't have he

495
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 1: can't have it. He's like, I have to pull this

496
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: out of the way and see her for real. And

497
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: then when he looks behind the screen.

498
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 2: What does he see.

499
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: He sees his court magician doing, you know, something with

500
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: shadow puppetry or statues. And now the illusion is completely destroyed.

501
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, but before the illusion is destroyed, just the idea

502
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:27,280
Speaker 2: that she is existing as a shadow on a silk screen.

503
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:33,640
Speaker 2: It suggests something very delicate and fragile in a kind

504
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 2: of emotionally charged way about the memory of her.

505
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so I feel like, you know, there's a

506
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on in this example, and perhaps

507
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: it brings up some ideas about necromancy and what necromancy

508
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 1: could be and what it's not that we can take

509
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:51,360
Speaker 1: with us into other examples here.

510
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:02,959
Speaker 2: All right, Rob, are you ready to talk to some

511
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 2: ghosts in ancient Mesopotamia?

512
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 1: Oh?

513
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 2: Yes, So we're going to look at evidence for necromancy

514
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 2: in the ancient land between the rivers. This would be

515
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 2: Mesopotamia refers to the civilizations based on the river system

516
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 2: of the Tigris and Euphrates, so mostly centered in what

517
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 2: is modern day Iraq, and these civilizations would include, but

518
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 2: not be limited to, the Sumerians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians.

519
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 2: Now the main source I was looking at here is

520
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 2: an article from nineteen eighty three by Irving L. Finkel,

521
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 2: called Necromancy in Ancient Mesopotamia, published in a journal called

522
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 2: Arkiev fur orient Forschung. And this author, Irving Finkel, is

523
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 2: a British seriologist and language scholar affiliated with the British Museum.

524
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 2: It seems like he specializes in Cuneiform inscriptions, but he

525
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 2: also seems to have a range of interests, including everything

526
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 2: from Mesopotamian ghosts and magic to ancient board games like

527
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 2: the Royal Game of Or, which I think we I

528
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 2: think we discussed his work in particular in our Invention

529
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 2: series on board games.

530
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I remember that episode.

531
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 2: So I was looking for some general information about Finkel

532
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 2: in his background, and I found an absolutely delightful video

533
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 2: interview with Finkel from about five years ago that seems

534
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 2: to be part of a series the British Museum does

535
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 2: called Curator's Corner and this video is called Mesopotamian Ghost

536
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 2: Busting with Irving Finkel. It's on topic and I found

537
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 2: it very interesting, so I thought I'd go ahead and

538
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 2: summarize this before getting back into the paper. In this interview,

539
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 2: Finkel talks about some of his best guesses as to

540
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 2: what ancient Mesopotamians broadly believed about ghosts, the dead, and

541
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 2: the undead, based on literary and archaeological evidence available to us. So,

542
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 2: to be clear, I think this involves some speculation, but

543
00:31:56,800 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 2: it is well informed speculation, and also our same caveat

544
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 2: from earlier. You know, not everybody believed the same thing

545
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:06,360
Speaker 2: in certain times and places in history, so you can

546
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:08,480
Speaker 2: only talk about what seems to be common based on

547
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 2: the sources we have. So Finkel says, in ancient Mesopotamia

548
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 2: there was widespread belief that when someone died, it was

549
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 2: very important that they were given a proper burial in

550
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 2: the earth with specified rituals to seal the grave. In

551
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 2: Finkl's words quote, so they were jolly well locked in

552
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 2: and couldn't come back to cause trouble. So people who

553
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 2: for whatever reason do not receive a proper burial and

554
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 2: do not receive the correct rituals observed at their burial

555
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 2: would be expected to come back from beyond the grave

556
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 2: and haunt the living. And some examples given here would

557
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 2: be people who die on the battlefield, or people who

558
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 2: die out in the wilderness alone, people who just vanish

559
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 2: and are assumed dead. And he also mentions people who

560
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 2: die in childbirth, which I thought was an interesting example

561
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 2: because I'm not sure in this case what would prevent

562
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 2: someone who dies in childbirth from receiving a proper burial,

563
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 2: But I thought that was interesting. And this comes back

564
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 2: to something that we've discussed a little bit on the

565
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 2: show before. But I am frequently struck by the belief

566
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 2: in what seems like many ancient cultures that it is

567
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 2: extremely important to receive a proper burial, or at least

568
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 2: proper funeral rights according to your local customs. And I

569
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 2: don't know that it's always because of the kind of

570
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 2: ghost security concerns that Finkel is going to raise with

571
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 2: respect to ancient Mesopotamia, but it really does seem like

572
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 2: lots of ancient peoples that we read about seem truly

573
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 2: horrified by the idea of dying without receiving the appropriate

574
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 2: funerary customs, or not without having their body dealt with

575
00:33:54,920 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 2: in the way that their culture deems is proper. It's

576
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 2: not that I think people today just don't care at

577
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 2: all what happens to their bodies after death. We care somewhat,

578
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:10,840
Speaker 2: but I sense way less sensitivity to this on average

579
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 2: in American culture today than is implied in many ancient

580
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 2: sources from different cultures around the world. And I don't

581
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 2: know exactly what to make of that, but it seems

582
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:22,120
Speaker 2: significant to me. I feel like I would like to

583
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 2: understand more about it.

584
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, well, we've distanced ourselves from death and

585
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:30,719
Speaker 1: physical death so much, and you know, we have an

586
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:34,359
Speaker 1: entire industry obviously built up around it, so on one level,

587
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:35,799
Speaker 1: it's kind of like we can just leave it to

588
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 1: the professionals. We can choose from like the menu items

589
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,880
Speaker 1: of what we can and can't do with or have

590
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 1: done with our remains. And yeah, I think for a

591
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 1: lot of us too, like the actual form that takes

592
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 1: is less connected to our ideas of like what happens

593
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 1: to us or all of us beyond our body after

594
00:34:55,960 --> 00:35:00,240
Speaker 1: death be the answer, you know, nothing, or a whole lot.

595
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 1: It's I think, oftentimes thought to be rather disconnected from

596
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: the physical.

597
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 2: There's an interesting other example of a connection between the

598
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:11,920
Speaker 2: belief in what happens to your sort of soul or

599
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:14,760
Speaker 2: spirit in the afterlife and what happens to your physical

600
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:16,759
Speaker 2: body in a text that I'm going to get into

601
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 2: in a bit, But to come back to what Finkel

602
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 2: talks about in this interview, he says, you know, as

603
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,840
Speaker 2: best we can tell from our sources, everybody we know

604
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 2: of in ancient Mesopotamia believed in ghosts. There is no

605
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 2: evidence of anyone saying that ghosts don't exist or you

606
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 2: don't have to worry about them. Seems like it was

607
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 2: just taken for granted that ghosts existed and were part

608
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 2: of life. However, and I thought this point was really interesting.

609
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:46,839
Speaker 2: Finkel says that it is not universal that people regarded

610
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 2: ghosts with fear or terror. People were not always necessarily

611
00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 2: frightened of them. Instead, he says, the more common attitude

612
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 2: seems to be one of sympathy for ghosts, kind of like,

613
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 2: if there is a ghost haunting you, that is a problem,

614
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 2: but it's not something that is terrifying, at least not necessarily.

615
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 2: It could be in some circumstances. So a ghost is somebody,

616
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 2: usually a family member of yours, who is like now

617
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 2: having a hard time after death. It's almost like somebody

618
00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:21,520
Speaker 2: in your family has a disease or something and because

619
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:24,799
Speaker 2: of their condition, they are unable to find rest in

620
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:27,680
Speaker 2: the underworld, that they can't settle down in another world,

621
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 2: and they need the help of the living. So while

622
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:34,839
Speaker 2: they may not be frightening, they are in trouble and

623
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 2: they often cause trouble, all right.

624
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 1: So that second part is very familiar with than it

625
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 1: to anyone who's ever seen a TV show that has

626
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 1: an episode about a ghost. Why do you deal with

627
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 1: that ghost? You got to like do that thing. It

628
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:48,839
Speaker 1: makes them go away, that makes them content and lets

629
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,840
Speaker 1: them move on. But the first part about it, like

630
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: it not being a frightful scenario but more of a

631
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: sympathetic scenario. You know, it kind of makes me think again.

632
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 1: It's like what happens when there is no room for

633
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 1: a particular type of supernatural belief or paranormal experience within

634
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 1: a given like rule system or worldview. For instance, if

635
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 1: your say religious worldview is like, hey, there are no

636
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,399
Speaker 1: such thing as ghosts, those don't exist. Well, then when

637
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:20,560
Speaker 1: something makes you think about ghosts or or or or

638
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: raises the specter of ghosts, or you have some sort

639
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:27,399
Speaker 1: of a hallucination experience that is interpreted as ghosts, well

640
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:30,279
Speaker 1: then that power structure cannot help you because they're like,

641
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:32,279
Speaker 1: well out of our hands, because we already told you

642
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:36,359
Speaker 1: that stuff's not real. And then likewise, I think if

643
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: with a certain you know, certain scientific positions, you could

644
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:42,760
Speaker 1: take on everything you know, it's like you don't believe

645
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 1: in the supernatural. And if then if something like this

646
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 1: were to present itself, then suddenly it seems may it

647
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 1: may seem like science can't help you. I think we

648
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 1: would argue something different. We discussed that before. There are

649
00:37:56,040 --> 00:38:03,359
Speaker 1: various thoroughly logical, rational, scientific explanations for various supernatural experiences.

650
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:06,439
Speaker 1: But I can imagine the attitude of being like, well,

651
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:09,880
Speaker 1: something has now occurred, and it is outside the framework

652
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:12,320
Speaker 1: that is supporting me. Therefore I am afraid.

653
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that is very interesting, and I think

654
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 2: that might be a good explanation for this difference, for

655
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:21,320
Speaker 2: why our primary emotional reaction to ghosts in the modern

656
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 2: world or even in I don't know, say like medieval

657
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:28,919
Speaker 2: Christian Europe would be fear, just like it doesn't fit

658
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:33,240
Speaker 2: as a reality within your orthodoxy. Yeah, and so anyway,

659
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 2: in the context of ancient Mesopotamia, Finkle says, there were

660
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 2: people we know of who specialized in magic and rituals

661
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:44,279
Speaker 2: designed to appease wandering ghosts and send them back to

662
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 2: their rightful place among the dead, send them back to

663
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:50,480
Speaker 2: the nether world where they belong. And I think normally

664
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 2: in the literature, these would be referred to as exorcists,

665
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:57,800
Speaker 2: which again can be confusing because of like the Christian

666
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 2: Catholic context of an exorcist being somebody who who casts

667
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 2: out demons from a person who is demon possessed. In

668
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:07,600
Speaker 2: the case it's used in these academic works, it would

669
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:09,799
Speaker 2: just be referred to it's somebody whose job it is

670
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 2: to get the ghost out of the place it's not

671
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:14,799
Speaker 2: supposed to be and help it you back to where

672
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 2: it is supposed to be. Yeah, And he describes one

673
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:23,280
Speaker 2: particular example based on a tablet in the British Museum's collection,

674
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:27,280
Speaker 2: and this is pretty interesting. He says. This tablet depicts

675
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:30,840
Speaker 2: a portly woman walking in profile holding a male figure

676
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 2: by a lead which I think attaches around the male

677
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:37,760
Speaker 2: figure's neck. And Finkel says he believes that the woman

678
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:41,720
Speaker 2: shown in this illustration is a ghost, probably the ghost

679
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:46,120
Speaker 2: of someone's great aunt, who for some reason is wandering

680
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:50,279
Speaker 2: the world of the living and causing trouble, and the exorcist,

681
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 2: called to deal with this problem decides that what this

682
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:57,799
Speaker 2: ghost needs is a lover. So the exorcist makes one

683
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:01,759
Speaker 2: clay model of the ghost woman another clay model that

684
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:05,840
Speaker 2: is a sexy man, a young, muscular, handsome man with

685
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:09,840
Speaker 2: a large beard, and these two clay effigies are buried

686
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 2: together in a pit with an assortment of grave goods,

687
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 2: and then the idea is that this burial would allow

688
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:19,360
Speaker 2: the ghosts to settle down into the underworld and stop

689
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 2: causing distress for the living.

690
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:24,799
Speaker 1: Hmm. That's that's interesting. It reminds me a little bit

691
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 1: of the topic of ghost marriage and Chinese tradition that

692
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: we I think Christian and I did an episode on

693
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:35,440
Speaker 1: years and years back, but you know, basically involves sort

694
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 1: of a similar principle, like something is out of whack.

695
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:41,920
Speaker 1: There's a structural incompleteness that is involved with the family unit,

696
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:47,760
Speaker 1: and it needs to be supernaturally and or symbolically fixed

697
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 1: in order for these you know, now ancestors to completely

698
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 1: pass on and sort of be properly organized in you know,

699
00:40:58,040 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 1: the afterlife or what have you.

700
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 2: Right, I think that's a good comparison. But to come

701
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 2: back to the illustration on the tablet, he says, it

702
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 2: seems to show this ghost woman holding on to I

703
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 2: guess her new lover by this like lead. So there's

704
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:14,879
Speaker 2: like no chance he gets away there together forever. Now,

705
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:17,000
Speaker 2: coming back to this idea from a minute ago, that

706
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:21,200
Speaker 2: the ghosts were not necessarily thought of as frightening in

707
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 2: ancient Mesopotamia, Finkle says that there were some ghosts who

708
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:30,280
Speaker 2: were who actually were frightening and dangerous, and he offers

709
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:34,400
Speaker 2: his opinion that these were probably understood to be the

710
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:39,479
Speaker 2: ghosts of people who were themselves frightening and dangerous when

711
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 2: they were alive. So, you know, regular person with a

712
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 2: proper without proper burial means a you know, a sort

713
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:49,799
Speaker 2: of sympathetic but troublesome ghost. Somebody is a problem you

714
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:52,359
Speaker 2: need to deal with, or a ghost you need to help,

715
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 2: not necessarily scary, whereas a wicked person without a proper

716
00:41:56,640 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 2: burial that could be a scary ghost.

717
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:00,120
Speaker 1: Okay, it makes sense.

718
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:03,360
Speaker 2: And he says these malevolent ghosts were thought to slip

719
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:06,400
Speaker 2: in through a person's ear while the victim was asleep,

720
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 2: and if the ghost gets in through your ear canal,

721
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:13,400
Speaker 2: it could bring on extreme headaches like migraines, or it

722
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 2: could even cause madness. And Finkel describes a couple of

723
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 2: other types of effigies that would be crafted by ancient

724
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 2: Mesopotamian exorcists in order to drive away malevolent ghosts. First,

725
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 2: there's a kind of king figure who would be placed

726
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 2: near a bed to project authority and general warding magic.

727
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:37,440
Speaker 2: And then second would be a model of a vizier

728
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 2: figure that would be placed on top of a pole

729
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 2: in a way that it could rotate around the pole

730
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 2: like a kind of spin around it like a propeller,

731
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:48,879
Speaker 2: and this would, he suggests, sort of fan the air

732
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 2: around and drive spirits away. Okay, And finally he makes

733
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 2: the point that these elaborate rituals with like paid exorcists

734
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:00,719
Speaker 2: were these almost certainly would have been the things that

735
00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 2: were available to the elite, to the richest people in society,

736
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 2: and we have way less insight, maybe no insight really

737
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 2: into how regular people dealt with ghosts if they did

738
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 2: it all. And then he sort of humorously suggests that

739
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 2: regular people might not have had time to see ghosts,

740
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:20,759
Speaker 2: or if they did, perhaps they just sort of like

741
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 2: waived at them and went about their business. But we

742
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:25,760
Speaker 2: don't really know, but I do think that's kind of

743
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 2: funny to imagine that, Like, I don't know if this

744
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:32,240
Speaker 2: is true, but I mean I wonder if like ghosts

745
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 2: are more likely to be a problem that you're dealing

746
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 2: with if you have excess like time and leisure and

747
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:39,800
Speaker 2: riches and stuff.

748
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:43,439
Speaker 1: Maybe I could see that argument. But yeah, it also

749
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 1: seems kind of to his point as well, equally as

750
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:51,279
Speaker 1: possible that the people regular people had their own traditions

751
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:54,920
Speaker 1: and their own experts, but we just have no surviving

752
00:43:55,280 --> 00:44:05,720
Speaker 1: mention of them.

753
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 2: Now, to come back to Finkle's nineteen eighty three paper

754
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 2: on necromancy in Ancient Mesopotamia, all of that I was

755
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:16,839
Speaker 2: just talking about was ghostbusting or exorcism. Back to necromancy specifically,

756
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,160
Speaker 2: I want to note quickly that this article I'm talking about,

757
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 2: I think it was very interesting, so I do want

758
00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:23,840
Speaker 2: to talk about it, but it was not written for

759
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 2: a popular audience. This is for Mesopotamian specialists, and several

760
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 2: parts kind of assume familiarity with ancient languages, which I

761
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 2: certainly do not have. I think I was able to

762
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:35,319
Speaker 2: make sense of all the main points by doing some

763
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 2: secondary research, but please just know I'm doing my best here,

764
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 2: I am outside my area of expertise. So he starts

765
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 2: off this paper by saying, you know, our sources from

766
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 2: ancient Mesopotamia don't contain a lot of references to necromancy,

767
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:55,839
Speaker 2: but there is some evidence of its practice. And here

768
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:59,280
Speaker 2: he defines necromancy as quote, the delicate art of summoning

769
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 2: the spirits of dead in order to learn the future

770
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:05,359
Speaker 2: from them. So this is the definition you'll find more

771
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:08,240
Speaker 2: often in academic works, not about you know, summoning skeleton

772
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:12,239
Speaker 2: soldiers or something, but again for divination purposes. He specifically

773
00:45:12,280 --> 00:45:14,799
Speaker 2: says to learn the future. But I think some of

774
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,800
Speaker 2: the examples he mentions are not really so much about

775
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,399
Speaker 2: the future. They're just more generally the getting information thing.

776
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 2: And so Finkle writes that some of the clearest evidence

777
00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 2: of necromancy is actually lexical, meaning related to vocabulary. There

778
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:37,240
Speaker 2: are these ancient cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia known as lexical lists,

779
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 2: and they go way back. There are tons of these

780
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 2: tablets you can find in the archaeological record, you know,

781
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:48,160
Speaker 2: lots of them to translate and interpret, and they are

782
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 2: essentially ancient glossaries that just list collections of words often

783
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:58,759
Speaker 2: with translations of the terms between different languages, and these

784
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 2: could include lists of names, or lists of gods, or

785
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 2: lists of different categories of natural objects like lists of

786
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:10,360
Speaker 2: plants or lists of birds, or simply lists of nouns

787
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:14,440
Speaker 2: or words. And one of the most famous Cuneiform lexical

788
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:19,480
Speaker 2: text traditions is the professions list known as lou And

789
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 2: so in this list it names a bunch of jobs

790
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:26,240
Speaker 2: jobs people can have there. And so there are words

791
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:30,240
Speaker 2: for professions in this list that we can tell refer

792
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:33,759
Speaker 2: to necromancers because of the way the words are constructed.

793
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 2: And this is one of those sections where, because this

794
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 2: is for specialists, I wasn't able to tell exactly what

795
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:42,719
Speaker 2: the terms here cash out to in English. But I

796
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,320
Speaker 2: think what this means is there are sort of listed

797
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 2: professions that are called something like dead spirit, raiser or something.

798
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 2: And Finkel says there are male and female versions of

799
00:46:54,120 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 2: these professional names, but unfortunately we don't have connected literary

800
00:46:58,680 --> 00:47:02,840
Speaker 2: texts that show how all these terms were used. However,

801
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:08,319
Speaker 2: Finkel says there are several passages in Mesopotamian texts that

802
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:11,239
Speaker 2: were already widely known at the time this paper was published,

803
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:15,719
Speaker 2: which do describe forms of necromancy in practice, and one

804
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 2: of the most interesting ones is found in the Sumerian

805
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:23,920
Speaker 2: narrative known as Gilgamesh in key Do and the Nether World.

806
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:26,400
Speaker 1: Good old Gilgamesh.

807
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 2: Yes, Now, this is a story of the two characters

808
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:33,279
Speaker 2: Gilgamesh and in key Do, who are the heroes of

809
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 2: the famous Gilgamesh epic. You know they they have that.

810
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:38,719
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a buddy cop story for you. You know.

811
00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 2: They they go slay the demon Humbaba together in the

812
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:45,720
Speaker 2: Cedar forest, and they get up to all kinds of mischief,

813
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:49,000
Speaker 2: but then tragically in key Do dies, and then that

814
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 2: sends Gilgamesh on his quest for immortality. I think that

815
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:55,879
Speaker 2: Gilgamesh in key Do in the Nether World is, from

816
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 2: what I understand, best thought of as a separate story

817
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 2: that is out of continuity with the rest of the

818
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:06,759
Speaker 2: Gilgamesh epic, even though it is sometimes tacked on at

819
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:09,480
Speaker 2: the end of the larger epic as a kind of

820
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:14,360
Speaker 2: discontinuous chapter, because like in key Do dies earlier in

821
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:16,520
Speaker 2: the story, and then here he is suddenly alive again

822
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:19,759
Speaker 2: at the beginning of this story. But here are the

823
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:23,160
Speaker 2: broad strokes of Gilgamesh in key Dou and the nether world.

824
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:28,759
Speaker 2: So Gilgamesh's stuff keeps falling into the underworld, like he

825
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:33,399
Speaker 2: has this stuff called I don't know exactly what these

826
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 2: possessions of Gilgamesh's are supposed to be. There's one thing

827
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:41,239
Speaker 2: called an lag written in English e llag that like, oh,

828
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:44,319
Speaker 2: it fell into the underworld, you know. So his his

829
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 2: stuff is like tumbling out of this world into the

830
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:50,040
Speaker 2: infamous house of dust where the dead go to dwell.

831
00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:54,200
Speaker 2: And so Gilgamesh's friend and or servant in Key Dou

832
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:57,840
Speaker 2: offers to go into the underworld to get his stuff

833
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:01,480
Speaker 2: back for him. Unfortunately, once he goes down there, he

834
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 2: breaks all the rules and is thus not allowed to

835
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:06,720
Speaker 2: return to the world of the living now he is dead.

836
00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:09,960
Speaker 2: And in the version that Finkel sites, there is a

837
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 2: scene in which a demon named Nrgal conjures up the

838
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:17,440
Speaker 2: ghost of Inky do at Gilgamesh is bidding, and the

839
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:19,919
Speaker 2: ghost of Inky Doo is said to rise up through

840
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:22,680
Speaker 2: a hole or a crack in the ground like the wind.

841
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:26,120
Speaker 2: In order to have a conversation with Gilgamesh about what

842
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:29,080
Speaker 2: the underworld is like now, I went looking for a

843
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 2: full translation of the story so I could zero in

844
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,120
Speaker 2: on a few sections the One version of this text

845
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:38,239
Speaker 2: that I found online, which I should note has a

846
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:42,520
Speaker 2: few small differences from exactly what Finkel describes, was on

847
00:49:42,560 --> 00:49:46,120
Speaker 2: an Oxford hosted website called the Electronic Text Corpus of

848
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:50,279
Speaker 2: Sumerian Literature. So I want to look at a few

849
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:53,920
Speaker 2: different things. First of all, the list of things that

850
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:57,319
Speaker 2: Gilgamesh tells Inkey do not to do in order to

851
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 2: survive his trip to the nether World. There's like a oh,

852
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 2: I don't know, like the you know, the rules in

853
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 2: how to survive a slasher movie, and keydu gets one

854
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 2: of those for the nether World. So he says, you're

855
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:10,440
Speaker 2: definitely not supposed to wear clean garments because if you

856
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 2: wear clean garments, they're gonna know you're not dead, you're

857
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:16,040
Speaker 2: not one of them. That they'll they'll get really mad.

858
00:50:16,440 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 2: You should not anoint yourself with fine oil from a

859
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:22,080
Speaker 2: bowl because then they will surround you because they will

860
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:24,239
Speaker 2: smell that you smell nice, and you're not supposed to

861
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 2: smell nice down there. Very sensible, exactly, Yes, he says,

862
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:31,840
Speaker 2: don't start hurling throw sticks in another world. Those struck

863
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:34,120
Speaker 2: down by the throw sticks are going to get mad

864
00:50:34,120 --> 00:50:35,440
Speaker 2: at you and surround.

865
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:38,200
Speaker 1: You okay, also sensible, he says.

866
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 2: Don't hold a Cornell wood stick in your hand. He

867
00:50:41,719 --> 00:50:44,360
Speaker 2: says that the spirits will feel insulted by this for

868
00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 2: some reason. I don't know what that means.

869
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:49,360
Speaker 1: But good advice. You wouldn't think of it, and therefore

870
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:52,239
Speaker 1: is even more important that you'd be willing exactly.

871
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:55,799
Speaker 2: He says, you shouldn't put sandals on your feet, you

872
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 2: should not shout in another world. I guess maybe in

873
00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 2: Keydu's wife had he says you should neither kiss nor

874
00:51:02,680 --> 00:51:07,360
Speaker 2: hit your wife. And then in key Dou's child had died,

875
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:11,240
Speaker 2: and you said you should neither kiss nor hit your child.

876
00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:15,759
Speaker 1: Okay, So basically, like you're supposed to be like these

877
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:18,799
Speaker 1: shades of the dead. You're not showing any emotion. You're

878
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 1: not you're not either good or bad, like you're doing

879
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: nothing but just being there, hanging out like a shade. Yeah.

880
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:28,200
Speaker 2: And I guess getting the lag and the other stuff

881
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 2: back to bring that back. But in key Do fails.

882
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:34,640
Speaker 2: He does literally everything Gilgamesh warns him not to do

883
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:37,480
Speaker 2: in the underworld, every single one of the things, and

884
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:39,880
Speaker 2: he is seized and trapped there forever.

885
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:41,680
Speaker 1: Oh that went south.

886
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:45,120
Speaker 2: So in this version, I was reading Gilgamesh gets somebody.

887
00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:47,719
Speaker 2: It's not the demon Naerkal in this version, he gets

888
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:50,840
Speaker 2: somebody named Utu to open a hole in the underworld

889
00:51:50,920 --> 00:51:52,680
Speaker 2: to allow in key Dou to come up and share

890
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:55,800
Speaker 2: information with him. And so I want to describe this

891
00:51:55,920 --> 00:51:59,640
Speaker 2: scene where in Keydu's ghost is called up. It reads

892
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 2: this fall. They hugged and kissed, They wearied each other

893
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:07,160
Speaker 2: with questions, did you see the order of the nether world?

894
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:09,919
Speaker 2: If only you would tell me, my friend, if only

895
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:12,680
Speaker 2: you would tell me? And then in key Do responds,

896
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:14,720
Speaker 2: if I tell you the order of the nether world,

897
00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:18,759
Speaker 2: sit down and weep, and in key Dou tells him

898
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:22,279
Speaker 2: that the nether world is like a garment infested with worms,

899
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:25,839
Speaker 2: and it is like a crevice filled with dust. And

900
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:28,840
Speaker 2: then they end up talking at length about the fates

901
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 2: of the dead. So there are all these different things

902
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:34,719
Speaker 2: that sort of reflect, I guess, ancient Mesopotamian views about

903
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:36,920
Speaker 2: what the good life is like. It seems that in

904
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:39,400
Speaker 2: key Doo thinks the dead who have a lot of

905
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 2: airrors are pretty happy, and the ones that have fewer

906
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:45,600
Speaker 2: airrors are unhappy. But then a bunch of other different

907
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:49,520
Speaker 2: kinds of fates people can have are described. They say,

908
00:52:49,560 --> 00:52:51,839
Speaker 2: for example, did you see the spirit of him who

909
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:55,600
Speaker 2: has no funerary offerings? In Key? Who says I saw him?

910
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:58,800
Speaker 2: Gilgamesh says, how does he fare? In Key? Who says

911
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:01,880
Speaker 2: he eats the scrap and the crumbs tossed out in

912
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:06,560
Speaker 2: the street, And again, bad things when funeral rites are

913
00:53:06,560 --> 00:53:08,920
Speaker 2: not observed. But I wondered about that. Does he mean

914
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:11,680
Speaker 2: the scraps and crumbs tossed out in the street in

915
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:14,880
Speaker 2: the nether world or on Earth in the cities of

916
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:17,280
Speaker 2: the living. I took it maybe more to be the second.

917
00:53:18,040 --> 00:53:20,080
Speaker 1: Mm, yeah, I mean I could see it going either way.

918
00:53:20,200 --> 00:53:23,600
Speaker 1: I mean, basically, you did not symbolically offer food to them,

919
00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:26,480
Speaker 1: and so they have no sustenance in the afterlife.

920
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 2: But then there's one thing here that has some interesting

921
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:33,640
Speaker 2: metaphysical information. Gilgamesh says, did you see him who was

922
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 2: set on fire? And in Kidu says, I did not

923
00:53:38,320 --> 00:53:41,879
Speaker 2: see him. His spirit is not about. His smoke went

924
00:53:41,960 --> 00:53:46,960
Speaker 2: up to the sky. So the person who is burned

925
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 2: is not in the nether world at all. They go

926
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:54,400
Speaker 2: wherever their smoke goes up in the sky. What happens

927
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:55,000
Speaker 2: to them there?

928
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:56,719
Speaker 1: It kind of sounds like they end up in the

929
00:53:56,719 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 1: wrong place. It's like, yeah, it seems to be the message,

930
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:02,440
Speaker 1: Like you, I don't go cremating the dead, because then

931
00:54:02,480 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 1: how are they going to get to this wonderful it's

932
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:07,480
Speaker 1: wonderful afterlife that is being presented here.

933
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:10,080
Speaker 2: I mean to be clear, it seems okay for people

934
00:54:10,120 --> 00:54:14,439
Speaker 2: who had a bunch of errors. He says, they are

935
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:18,080
Speaker 2: like gods. They sit in judgment of everyone else. But anyway,

936
00:54:18,120 --> 00:54:21,160
Speaker 2: I thought this was interesting because this is depicting an

937
00:54:21,200 --> 00:54:25,200
Speaker 2: example of necromancy. I think that does meet the strict definition.

938
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:28,560
Speaker 2: Like Gilgamesh is trying to get hidden information, but it's

939
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:33,800
Speaker 2: not so much like personal future fortune telling type stuff. Instead,

940
00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:37,720
Speaker 2: he is using this consultation with the dead to get

941
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:41,120
Speaker 2: information about what happens to different people after they die.

942
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:44,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also sort of reconnect with an old friend, like, so, hey,

943
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 1: where you live.

944
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:47,520
Speaker 2: In these days? Yeah?

945
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 1: After life? Well what's it? What's it like? Well, it's hashy,

946
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:55,000
Speaker 1: It's like dustin a crevis, you know.

947
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:58,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what you should say next time you reconnect

948
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:00,839
Speaker 2: with an old friend. Well, you know, garment, garment eaten

949
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:05,000
Speaker 2: by worms, credits full of dust. But anyway, coming back

950
00:55:05,040 --> 00:55:07,000
Speaker 2: to Finkle's paper, so he mentioned a couple of other

951
00:55:07,040 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 2: sources pre existing at the time of this paper that

952
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:13,520
Speaker 2: mentioned necromancy, or at least potentially mention it in a

953
00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:17,120
Speaker 2: more prosaic context. One is an old Assyrian letter from

954
00:55:17,239 --> 00:55:21,960
Speaker 2: Cultepe which contains the lines quote here we asked the

955
00:55:22,040 --> 00:55:26,360
Speaker 2: female oracle givers, the female diviners, and the spirits colon

956
00:55:26,640 --> 00:55:31,120
Speaker 2: Assur repeatedly upbraids you, and so I interpret this to

957
00:55:31,160 --> 00:55:34,000
Speaker 2: be a reference to a person who consults the spirits

958
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:37,200
Speaker 2: of the dead to get information. Possibly the information they're

959
00:55:37,239 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 2: getting is about the fact that the god a seer

960
00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:42,920
Speaker 2: who is like a god of Assyria, is angry with someone.

961
00:55:43,680 --> 00:55:45,120
Speaker 1: Okay, they have inside information.

962
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,879
Speaker 2: Another is also a letter, this one Neo Assyrian, which

963
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:52,600
Speaker 2: exists in damaged form and has been interpreted and translated

964
00:55:52,640 --> 00:55:56,880
Speaker 2: different ways. One of those interpretations implies that necromancers have

965
00:55:56,960 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 2: asked the spirits to predict whether a certain person will

966
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:03,880
Speaker 2: become a king, but this interpretation of the letter is

967
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 2: not certain, but anyway. After these examples, Finkel goes on

968
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 2: to describe two previously unpublished Babylonian tablets from the first

969
00:56:12,560 --> 00:56:16,400
Speaker 2: millennium BCE held by the British Museum that he says,

970
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:21,000
Speaker 2: deal in totally unambiguous terms with necromancy, and boy, these

971
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:22,840
Speaker 2: are a trip. Are you ready?

972
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:23,760
Speaker 1: I'm ready.

973
00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:26,799
Speaker 2: The first one is called b M three six seven

974
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 2: O three. It is a late Babylonian text and it

975
00:56:30,160 --> 00:56:34,399
Speaker 2: includes instructions for a necromantic ritual. It says you call

976
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 2: upon the ghost and he will answer you, and then

977
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 2: there's an incantation where the necromancer says who are you?

978
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 2: Who are you? It then lists the names of known

979
00:56:45,880 --> 00:56:49,520
Speaker 2: malevolent spirits and demons that we know are supposed to

980
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:52,719
Speaker 2: be evil spirits and demons because they appear in other

981
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:57,120
Speaker 2: texts about exorcism, and Finkel says that this part of

982
00:56:57,160 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 2: the ritual seems to be a kind of safety precaution,

983
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 2: trying to protect against the possibility that in summoning the

984
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:09,160
Speaker 2: dead for divination you accidentally summon a vicious, evil monster instead.

985
00:57:09,480 --> 00:57:12,360
Speaker 2: It's like a security step to prevent you dialing the

986
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 2: wrong number and accidentally calling Freddy Krueger or whatever.

987
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:20,280
Speaker 1: Oh wow. Yeah, And we'll eventually see reverberations of this

988
00:57:20,560 --> 00:57:23,959
Speaker 1: on up into like medieval Christian traditions, you know again,

989
00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:26,040
Speaker 1: where it's more like you will always get a wrong

990
00:57:26,120 --> 00:57:29,360
Speaker 1: number because this number cannot possibly connect to who you

991
00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:30,080
Speaker 1: want to reach.

992
00:57:30,760 --> 00:57:32,760
Speaker 2: Right, But that's not the context here. They think you

993
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,040
Speaker 2: can dial the right number. You just got to be careful.

994
00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:37,800
Speaker 2: You got to do the right incantations and warding magic.

995
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:41,360
Speaker 2: Now next in this tablet, there's a part that is damaged,

996
00:57:41,480 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 2: but it appears, based on context, to be steps for

997
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:47,600
Speaker 2: what to do if the ritual doesn't work. I do

998
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:50,160
Speaker 2: wish we could know what it's said here. Then it

999
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:52,959
Speaker 2: goes on to the ritual itself. Here I'm gonna read

1000
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:57,360
Speaker 2: from Finkel, and the context is that this is an

1001
00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:01,400
Speaker 2: Akkadian incantation that is addressed to the god Shamash, and

1002
00:58:01,720 --> 00:58:04,640
Speaker 2: it is asking for the help of the god Shamash

1003
00:58:04,680 --> 00:58:09,920
Speaker 2: to summon a ghost literally of the darkness. And so

1004
00:58:10,080 --> 00:58:13,960
Speaker 2: then reading from Finkel, now quote, this ghost, once brought

1005
00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:16,360
Speaker 2: up from its place of rest, is then supposed to

1006
00:58:16,640 --> 00:58:20,920
Speaker 2: enter into a skull placed there for that purpose. The

1007
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:24,960
Speaker 2: reciter of the incantation says, quote, I call upon you,

1008
00:58:25,240 --> 00:58:28,760
Speaker 2: o skull of skulls. May he who is within the

1009
00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:32,840
Speaker 2: skull answer me. Then there follows in line seven to ten,

1010
00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:37,120
Speaker 2: a magical ritual that involves an oily preparation of animal

1011
00:58:37,200 --> 00:58:42,080
Speaker 2: parts being mixed up and left to stand overnight. Do

1012
00:58:42,120 --> 00:58:45,240
Speaker 2: you want to know what is in this necromancer cocktail route? Oh,

1013
00:58:45,280 --> 00:58:48,120
Speaker 2: I suppose we should know, Okay. So it says you

1014
00:58:48,200 --> 00:58:53,800
Speaker 2: crush up a male and female partridge, dust from a crossroads,

1015
00:58:54,320 --> 00:58:58,760
Speaker 2: dust of a jumping cricket, of the step, and an

1016
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:04,120
Speaker 2: upturned potch from a crossroads in puru oil. Then you

1017
00:59:04,320 --> 00:59:06,760
Speaker 2: mix all that together, you leave it to stand overnight,

1018
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:10,320
Speaker 2: and in the morning you will Then there are a

1019
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:12,680
Speaker 2: number of things you can actually do. So Finkle goes

1020
00:59:12,720 --> 00:59:16,320
Speaker 2: on to explain that you either use this mixture to

1021
00:59:16,840 --> 00:59:21,920
Speaker 2: anoint the skull itself or the ghost. And I'm not

1022
00:59:21,920 --> 00:59:24,760
Speaker 2: sure exactly how you anoint the ghost with it, and

1023
00:59:24,800 --> 00:59:28,160
Speaker 2: then or the And then it's a word here that's

1024
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:32,760
Speaker 2: represented as N A M, and I think the meaning

1025
00:59:32,760 --> 00:59:36,200
Speaker 2: of that is ambiguous. Finkle says it might refer to

1026
00:59:36,520 --> 00:59:39,120
Speaker 2: it might be referring to someone called the man, but

1027
00:59:39,480 --> 00:59:42,400
Speaker 2: it's unclear in the context of the tablet who this

1028
00:59:42,440 --> 00:59:46,080
Speaker 2: would refer to, unless maybe he says it means like

1029
00:59:46,080 --> 00:59:50,160
Speaker 2: a figurine of the dead person who you're trying to summon,

1030
00:59:50,360 --> 00:59:53,640
Speaker 2: like like we saw with the other ritual that would

1031
00:59:53,640 --> 00:59:56,560
Speaker 2: make sense. And then to pick up again, reading from

1032
00:59:56,840 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 2: Finkle's description of the ritual, quote, at this point you

1033
01:00:00,640 --> 01:00:04,200
Speaker 2: call upon him and he will answer you. In the context,

1034
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:09,040
Speaker 2: the word elemou, no doubt, refers to a representation of

1035
01:00:09,200 --> 01:00:11,880
Speaker 2: the ghost, and the ritual would have the same effect

1036
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:15,560
Speaker 2: whether applied to this representation, to the nam or to

1037
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:19,200
Speaker 2: the skull itself. It's not quite certain whether all three

1038
01:00:19,200 --> 01:00:22,760
Speaker 2: elements were necessary. The idea, however, is quite clear. It

1039
01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:26,520
Speaker 2: is quite appropriately Shamash who has the power and authority

1040
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:29,520
Speaker 2: to bring up a ghost from the underworld, and the

1041
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:33,600
Speaker 2: whole operation is put under his auspices. Somehow the ghost

1042
01:00:33,640 --> 01:00:37,000
Speaker 2: will enter into the skull and answer the questions put

1043
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:37,400
Speaker 2: to him.

1044
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:39,800
Speaker 1: I love that those skull of skulls indeed.

1045
01:00:40,280 --> 01:00:42,960
Speaker 2: Okay, So that's the first tablet. There's a second tablet,

1046
01:00:43,200 --> 01:00:46,800
Speaker 2: another previously unknown text being published, I guess at the

1047
01:00:46,800 --> 01:00:49,480
Speaker 2: time of this article that is known as K two

1048
01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:53,280
Speaker 2: seven seventy nine, which is a neo Babylonian tablet, which

1049
01:00:53,320 --> 01:00:56,920
Speaker 2: contains some of the same material as the previous text,

1050
01:00:56,960 --> 01:01:00,960
Speaker 2: but also some original stuff. And this text, interestingly also

1051
01:01:01,040 --> 01:01:05,640
Speaker 2: contains what appeared to be security precautions. For example, there

1052
01:01:05,720 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 2: is a ritual and incantation that is to quote, avert

1053
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:12,560
Speaker 2: the evil in the crying of the ghost or the

1054
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:16,720
Speaker 2: crying of a ghost. Sorry, and Finkel notes from the

1055
01:01:16,760 --> 01:01:20,760
Speaker 2: contemporary texts that it was believed that personal contact with

1056
01:01:20,800 --> 01:01:24,640
Speaker 2: a ghost usually led to really bad consequences for a

1057
01:01:24,680 --> 01:01:28,560
Speaker 2: living person, often death. So if you are a necromancer,

1058
01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:32,360
Speaker 2: you could be doing something really dangerous. You are attempting

1059
01:01:32,520 --> 01:01:36,240
Speaker 2: personal contact with a ghost in order to get privileged information,

1060
01:01:36,920 --> 01:01:40,000
Speaker 2: but this contact comes with a high likelihood of a

1061
01:01:40,040 --> 01:01:43,760
Speaker 2: death curse, so you have to employ protective magic to

1062
01:01:44,000 --> 01:01:48,000
Speaker 2: counteract that danger. Now, I was kind of wondering how

1063
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:51,280
Speaker 2: to square this with Finkel's own characterization that was from

1064
01:01:51,280 --> 01:01:56,200
Speaker 2: an interview decades later of ghosts not for the most

1065
01:01:56,240 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 2: part incurring a reaction of fear in the ancient Mesopotamians,

1066
01:01:59,680 --> 01:02:02,280
Speaker 2: but other of kind of like sympathy. I don't know

1067
01:02:02,360 --> 01:02:04,400
Speaker 2: exactly how to square that, but it makes me wonder

1068
01:02:04,440 --> 01:02:08,160
Speaker 2: if maybe most of the ghost encounters people thought they

1069
01:02:08,200 --> 01:02:12,160
Speaker 2: were having weren't actually like personal face to face contact

1070
01:02:12,240 --> 01:02:14,920
Speaker 2: or talking to a ghost or hearing the cry of

1071
01:02:14,960 --> 01:02:18,880
Speaker 2: a ghost, but more like indirect indications that a spirit

1072
01:02:18,960 --> 01:02:22,120
Speaker 2: is restless and wandering or seeing what appears to be

1073
01:02:22,160 --> 01:02:25,480
Speaker 2: evidence of a dead family member from Afar. I don't know,

1074
01:02:25,600 --> 01:02:26,200
Speaker 2: but I wonder.

1075
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of it reminds me of some of these

1076
01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:30,440
Speaker 1: traditions involving.

1077
01:02:30,000 --> 01:02:31,000
Speaker 2: Like the evil Eye.

1078
01:02:31,840 --> 01:02:34,200
Speaker 1: You know, the idea that it is out there, it

1079
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:38,320
Speaker 1: is aware, but it's not necessarily honing in on you

1080
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 1: unless you give it reason to. And so you know, similarly,

1081
01:02:41,880 --> 01:02:43,520
Speaker 1: you could you could live in a world of ghosts,

1082
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:46,040
Speaker 1: but have you done anything personally to attract the ghost

1083
01:02:46,120 --> 01:02:48,200
Speaker 1: or to encourage the coast, Well, then you're probably fine.

1084
01:02:48,480 --> 01:02:51,600
Speaker 2: Finkel also says it's notable that K two seven seventy

1085
01:02:51,680 --> 01:02:55,080
Speaker 2: nine is a is a type of text called anmberbie,

1086
01:02:55,520 --> 01:02:59,040
Speaker 2: the primary purpose of which is describing ways to avert

1087
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:03,080
Speaker 2: evil and unexplained phenomena. So it's kind of surprising that

1088
01:03:03,360 --> 01:03:07,600
Speaker 2: rituals for intentionally summoning up a ghost and prying information

1089
01:03:07,760 --> 01:03:11,000
Speaker 2: out of it under the auspices of Shamash or whoever

1090
01:03:11,320 --> 01:03:14,080
Speaker 2: would be included, because the rest of the text is

1091
01:03:14,120 --> 01:03:17,800
Speaker 2: basically like a ghostbusting manual. It is how to keep ghosts, demons,

1092
01:03:17,800 --> 01:03:19,640
Speaker 2: and any other weirdness away from you.

1093
01:03:22,200 --> 01:03:24,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, it raises all sorts of questions about like what

1094
01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:26,960
Speaker 1: is sort of what is the day to day activity

1095
01:03:27,000 --> 01:03:32,880
Speaker 1: in the ghostbusting and necromancer professional world of this time period.

1096
01:03:33,160 --> 01:03:35,280
Speaker 2: Okay, but I think I promised you there was another

1097
01:03:35,360 --> 01:03:39,720
Speaker 2: necromancer cocktail coming. This one is from Let's see well,

1098
01:03:39,760 --> 01:03:43,440
Speaker 2: I think this actually is derived from both both texts,

1099
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:46,120
Speaker 2: and this is a concoction you would put together that

1100
01:03:46,240 --> 01:03:48,560
Speaker 2: is part of an incantation to enable a man to

1101
01:03:48,720 --> 01:03:53,800
Speaker 2: see a ghost. So the text says, you crush moldy wood,

1102
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:59,360
Speaker 2: fresh leaves of euphrates poplar, in water, oil, beer, and wine.

1103
01:04:00,080 --> 01:04:06,120
Speaker 2: You dry, crush and sieve snake, tallow, lion, tallow crab,

1104
01:04:06,280 --> 01:04:11,320
Speaker 2: tallow white honey, a frog that lives among the pebbles,

1105
01:04:11,960 --> 01:04:15,000
Speaker 2: hair of a dog, hair of a cat, hair of

1106
01:04:15,040 --> 01:04:19,240
Speaker 2: a fox, bristle of a chameleon, and bristle of a

1107
01:04:19,280 --> 01:04:24,080
Speaker 2: red lizard, claws of a frog, end of intestines of

1108
01:04:24,120 --> 01:04:28,240
Speaker 2: a frog, the left wing of a grasshopper, and marrow

1109
01:04:28,280 --> 01:04:30,120
Speaker 2: from the long bone of a goose.

1110
01:04:30,640 --> 01:04:31,280
Speaker 1: Oh wow.

1111
01:04:31,480 --> 01:04:35,120
Speaker 2: You mix all this in wine, water and milk with

1112
01:04:35,320 --> 01:04:39,840
Speaker 2: amhara plant, and then you recite the incantation three times,

1113
01:04:40,120 --> 01:04:42,479
Speaker 2: and you anoint your eyes with it, and you will

1114
01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:45,040
Speaker 2: see the ghost and he will speak with you. You

1115
01:04:45,080 --> 01:04:47,240
Speaker 2: can look at the ghost, he will talk with you.

1116
01:04:47,600 --> 01:04:49,880
Speaker 2: And yes, I said that twice because the text says

1117
01:04:49,880 --> 01:04:55,080
Speaker 2: it twice. So any mixologists out there who want to

1118
01:04:55,160 --> 01:04:57,959
Speaker 2: take these as an inspiration for a Halloween themed drink,

1119
01:04:58,000 --> 01:05:01,080
Speaker 2: I don't know how exactly you make a a safe

1120
01:05:01,200 --> 01:05:04,440
Speaker 2: version of that, but take it. Take it as an inspiration.

1121
01:05:04,560 --> 01:05:05,600
Speaker 2: You know, it's a challenge.

1122
01:05:06,680 --> 01:05:10,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't actually do that, but yes, I do love

1123
01:05:10,280 --> 01:05:14,880
Speaker 1: instructions like this for magic potions or homunculi or whatever

1124
01:05:14,920 --> 01:05:19,200
Speaker 1: you happen to be concocting in olden times. Though the

1125
01:05:19,240 --> 01:05:21,600
Speaker 1: moldy wood gave me pause, like it makes me. It

1126
01:05:21,640 --> 01:05:25,480
Speaker 1: reminds me of other examples I believe from Chinese traditions,

1127
01:05:25,840 --> 01:05:29,320
Speaker 1: where the idea that you had, like a rotten broom handle,

1128
01:05:29,440 --> 01:05:32,360
Speaker 1: it might have some sort of ghostly possession about it,

1129
01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:36,240
Speaker 1: and there might be some even something going on with

1130
01:05:36,800 --> 01:05:40,720
Speaker 1: illuminated micro organisms in the soft wood, you know.

1131
01:05:41,160 --> 01:05:43,840
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yeah, it might make it kind of glow

1132
01:05:43,840 --> 01:05:45,360
Speaker 2: in the dark. Yeah.

1133
01:05:45,400 --> 01:05:46,920
Speaker 1: But I mean as for like the hair of the

1134
01:05:46,960 --> 01:05:48,880
Speaker 1: cat and the dog and so forth, I mean, I

1135
01:05:48,920 --> 01:05:51,800
Speaker 1: don't know, imagine that you're just getting into symbolic territory

1136
01:05:51,840 --> 01:05:52,720
Speaker 1: at that point.

1137
01:05:52,880 --> 01:05:55,360
Speaker 2: Once you've used your end of intestines of a frog

1138
01:05:55,440 --> 01:05:56,880
Speaker 2: in this though, what do you do with the start

1139
01:05:56,920 --> 01:05:58,840
Speaker 2: of intestines of the frog you've got left over?

1140
01:05:59,320 --> 01:06:03,000
Speaker 1: Well, you got to say that for later. That's another recipe, right, Yeah, Well,

1141
01:06:03,040 --> 01:06:09,800
Speaker 1: this has been fascinating snapshots into worlds where necromancy. Worlds

1142
01:06:09,800 --> 01:06:13,920
Speaker 1: in places, in particular places where necromancy is more common

1143
01:06:14,080 --> 01:06:16,560
Speaker 1: necromancy of one form of the other, and in some

1144
01:06:16,600 --> 01:06:19,200
Speaker 1: cases there are there are rules, there are laws in

1145
01:06:19,240 --> 01:06:24,680
Speaker 1: place spelling out exactly how one one professional is supposed

1146
01:06:24,720 --> 01:06:25,640
Speaker 1: to carry all this out.

1147
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:28,960
Speaker 2: Again, I do think it's interesting and significant that both

1148
01:06:29,000 --> 01:06:35,240
Speaker 2: of these instruction manuals for necromancers have have these safety precautions,

1149
01:06:35,360 --> 01:06:37,000
Speaker 2: like you've got to go through you've got to like

1150
01:06:37,080 --> 01:06:40,200
Speaker 2: put on the safety goggles and stuff in a magical

1151
01:06:40,480 --> 01:06:45,360
Speaker 2: metaphorical sense. And I wonder if that's always true about

1152
01:06:45,400 --> 01:06:48,240
Speaker 2: necromancy everywhere, or is there anywhere where it's just kind

1153
01:06:48,280 --> 01:06:51,960
Speaker 2: of more like loosely regulated, fly by the seat of

1154
01:06:51,960 --> 01:06:54,120
Speaker 2: your pants, nothing to worry about kind of stuff.

1155
01:06:54,360 --> 01:06:56,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know. There are different ways to slice it, right,

1156
01:06:56,280 --> 01:06:58,080
Speaker 1: because on one hand, if you're looking at it like

1157
01:06:58,160 --> 01:07:01,600
Speaker 1: completely skeptically, you can say, well, well, of course a

1158
01:07:01,640 --> 01:07:05,120
Speaker 1: professional necromancer is going to outline the extreme risks that

1159
01:07:05,160 --> 01:07:08,600
Speaker 1: they are taking when they carry out their nechromatic acts.

1160
01:07:08,600 --> 01:07:11,200
Speaker 1: You don't want. It's not necromancy for the masses, it's

1161
01:07:11,240 --> 01:07:14,520
Speaker 1: necromancy for me, and you're going to pay me to

1162
01:07:14,560 --> 01:07:18,000
Speaker 1: do it. Therefore, there need to be certain skills involved

1163
01:07:18,000 --> 01:07:20,200
Speaker 1: that the ordinary people are not going to attempt to do.

1164
01:07:20,640 --> 01:07:22,960
Speaker 2: That's a good point. Yeah, I wonder if this is

1165
01:07:23,040 --> 01:07:25,680
Speaker 2: in some way justifying of economic incentives.

1166
01:07:26,120 --> 01:07:27,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, But then on the other hand, I mean, just

1167
01:07:27,800 --> 01:07:32,120
Speaker 1: use magic systems in general, other models of the afterlife

1168
01:07:32,120 --> 01:07:34,680
Speaker 1: in general, you see in various cultures like it is

1169
01:07:34,720 --> 01:07:37,880
Speaker 1: often a realm in which there are various dangers and

1170
01:07:37,920 --> 01:07:40,440
Speaker 1: there are rules that need to be followed to the

1171
01:07:40,520 --> 01:07:44,080
Speaker 1: letter if you were to survive like the journey, or

1172
01:07:44,160 --> 01:07:47,800
Speaker 1: survive you know, the dipping into this world a little

1173
01:07:47,800 --> 01:07:49,480
Speaker 1: bit to gain knowledge and so forth.

1174
01:07:50,040 --> 01:07:52,720
Speaker 2: You want to talk about necromancy some more on Tuesday.

1175
01:07:52,680 --> 01:07:54,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think we have a lot more we

1176
01:07:54,320 --> 01:07:56,640
Speaker 1: can we can chat about. So join us on Tuesday

1177
01:07:56,640 --> 01:08:00,560
Speaker 1: as we come back for our second helping of nec manci.

1178
01:08:01,680 --> 01:08:04,040
Speaker 1: Not I think we'll get into Greek necromancy a little bit.

1179
01:08:04,040 --> 01:08:06,480
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what else we'll get into, but I'm

1180
01:08:06,520 --> 01:08:09,320
Speaker 1: sure it will be a good seasonal time and we'll

1181
01:08:09,320 --> 01:08:12,880
Speaker 1: be we'll definitely be in October at that point. All right,

1182
01:08:12,920 --> 01:08:14,960
Speaker 1: We're gonna remind you once more that Stuff to Blow

1183
01:08:14,960 --> 01:08:17,880
Speaker 1: Your Mind is primarily a science podcast, but you know,

1184
01:08:17,920 --> 01:08:21,559
Speaker 1: we do get into other topics like this one, especially

1185
01:08:21,640 --> 01:08:25,479
Speaker 1: during the month of October. Obviously we get into some

1186
01:08:25,120 --> 01:08:27,800
Speaker 1: some Halloween content for sure, So stay with us this

1187
01:08:27,960 --> 01:08:33,040
Speaker 1: entire month of October as we explore other topics of

1188
01:08:33,080 --> 01:08:36,080
Speaker 1: the spooky nature. Also join us for our Weird House

1189
01:08:36,080 --> 01:08:38,960
Speaker 1: Cinema episodes on Fridays. Weird House Cinema is our time

1190
01:08:39,000 --> 01:08:40,960
Speaker 1: to set aside most serious concerns and just talk about

1191
01:08:41,000 --> 01:08:43,400
Speaker 1: a weird film. And you know, we're gonna be watching

1192
01:08:43,400 --> 01:08:46,120
Speaker 1: some horror movies this month, so you can watch along

1193
01:08:46,160 --> 01:08:48,240
Speaker 1: with us, or you can just tune in and listen

1194
01:08:48,280 --> 01:08:50,240
Speaker 1: to our discussions of these films if you're a little

1195
01:08:50,240 --> 01:08:53,720
Speaker 1: too creeped out to view them for yourself. And then

1196
01:08:53,720 --> 01:08:56,200
Speaker 1: on Mondays we do listener mail and on Wednesdays we

1197
01:08:56,240 --> 01:08:58,160
Speaker 1: do a short form monster fact or artifact.

1198
01:08:58,479 --> 01:09:02,120
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our excellent your producer JJ Posway. If

1199
01:09:02,160 --> 01:09:03,680
Speaker 2: you would like to get in touch with us with

1200
01:09:03,760 --> 01:09:06,599
Speaker 2: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic

1201
01:09:06,640 --> 01:09:08,599
Speaker 2: for the future, or just to say hello, you can

1202
01:09:08,640 --> 01:09:11,679
Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind

1203
01:09:11,840 --> 01:09:20,040
Speaker 2: dot com.

1204
01:09:20,120 --> 01:09:23,080
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1205
01:09:23,160 --> 01:09:25,920
Speaker 3: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1206
01:09:26,080 --> 01:09:43,080
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