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Speaker 1: Ah necromancy Sweet, Ah Wizard air udep teach me the

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Speaker 1: skill that I instill, the pain surgeons assuage in vain,

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Speaker 1: nor herb of all the plane can heal.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 3: Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 3: is Robert.

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Speaker 1: Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick. And that poem I

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Speaker 1: just read was from Emily Dickinson. And some of the

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Speaker 1: numbering systems, that's her poem, number one seventy seven. I

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Speaker 1: would say, not one of her greatest efforts. But you know,

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Speaker 1: some of those poems in her collections seem like something

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Speaker 1: she just jotted on the back of a notepad real quick.

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Speaker 1: I think that's more one of those. But I still

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Speaker 1: like the forced rhyme of sweet with erudite, and I

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Speaker 1: don't know, wizard feels more right than wizard.

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Speaker 3: I like reading yes and yeah. This was not a

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Speaker 3: poem of Emily Dickinson's that I was familiar with. Sometimes

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Speaker 3: just it's given the title ah necromancy Sweet, it is

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Speaker 3: a note that like, basically I was gonna just bust

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Speaker 3: out another Clark Ashton Smith poem for this episode, but

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Speaker 3: then I was like, who else has some poems about

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Speaker 3: necromancy and necromancers? And lo and behold, Emily Dickinson has

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Speaker 3: not one, but two, which may surprise some of you,

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Speaker 3: may not surprise some of you who are more familiar

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Speaker 3: with her work.

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Speaker 1: I would say I'm an Emily Dickinson fan, though I

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Speaker 1: would not have been able to tell you that she

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Speaker 1: had poems that use the word necromancy, though I know

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Speaker 1: a number of her poems are concerned with death.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, she saw the skull beneath the skin, that's for sure.

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Speaker 1: Oh skull of skulls. Well, anyway, we are back with

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Speaker 1: part two in our series on necromancy. Now, if you've

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Speaker 1: been listening to the podcast for a while, you probably

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Speaker 1: know that every year, for the whole month of October,

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Speaker 1: we focus our tension on topics of the beastly, ghostly,

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Speaker 1: devilish or uncanny sort. And also, as we often do,

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Speaker 1: we got started a little bit early this year, So

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Speaker 1: we got started last week, even though it was still

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Speaker 1: technically September, with the first part in a series on necromancy,

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Speaker 1: the practice of communicating with the dead, usually for the

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Speaker 1: purpose of divination, of gaining access to hidden information, or truth.

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Speaker 1: And in that episode we talked about accounts of necromancy

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Speaker 1: or pseudo necromantic legends from ancient China, as well as

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Speaker 1: methods of both speaking to and exercising ghosts in the

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Speaker 1: first millennium BCE in Mesopotamia. And today we are going

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Speaker 1: to continue our journey into the nether world talking about

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Speaker 1: necromancy practices and legends from ancient Greece and Rome.

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Speaker 3: That's right, We're going to be talking about Greek accounts

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Speaker 3: of necromancy or things like necromancy to some extent in

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Speaker 3: this episode, and who knows where we'll end up in

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Speaker 3: a third episode on necromancy. So one of the sources

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Speaker 3: that I mentioned in the last episode is a paper

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Speaker 3: by Czech academic Andres CapCar titled the Origins of Necromancy

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Speaker 3: or how we Learn to Speak to the Dead great title,

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Speaker 3: and according to CapCar, the earliest mentions of necromancy they

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Speaker 3: don't require a lot of inference and interpretation, can be

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Speaker 3: found in ancient Greece. In this we're dealing with nekia,

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Speaker 3: which is the practice of calling forth ghosts and asking

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Speaker 3: them about the future or as we'll get into things

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Speaker 3: that are maybe not the future, But are that are

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Speaker 3: concerned with knowledge beyond what an individual has at their disposal.

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Speaker 3: You know, the dead by virtue of being dead, they

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Speaker 3: can tell you things. They can tell you things from

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Speaker 3: their life, from their place of origin, and so forth.

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Speaker 3: The primary example that he deals with, and indeed of

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Speaker 3: primary example you've seen a lot of discussions of what

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Speaker 3: is or isn't acromancy in ancient Greek traditions takes us

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Speaker 3: all the way back to book eleven of the Odyssey,

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Speaker 3: in which Odysseus receives instructions about how to question the

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Speaker 3: dead and then does so. Now, Joe correct me if

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Speaker 3: I'm wrong, But I think we've recounted this story before

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Speaker 3: on the podcast.

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Speaker 1: Possibly, but it's been a while, so I think it's

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Speaker 1: worth refreshing on the story.

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Speaker 3: All right, Well, I'll give everyone the basics here concerning

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Speaker 3: this episode. So basically, you know the deal with Odysseus.

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Speaker 3: He's trying to get home, right, He's been off to war,

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Speaker 3: he's seen the Trojan wars, and so forth. Wants to

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Speaker 3: get home, wants to be reunited with his wife. A

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Speaker 3: lot of misadventures occur on the way, So might say

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Speaker 3: he takes the scenic route does he takes the scenic route,

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Speaker 3: and one of the more scenic routes ends up taking.

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Speaker 3: He and his crew wind up on the island of

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Speaker 3: Circe in the care you might say, or under the

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Speaker 3: dominion of the enchantress Circe, and there's you know, there's

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Speaker 3: some misunderstanding, there's some transfiguration involved, there's a good bit

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Speaker 3: of seduction, and they end up staying there for like

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Speaker 3: a year, So they're hanging out on this island for

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Speaker 3: a fair amount of time.

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Speaker 1: I don't know exactly how all of this gets explained

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Speaker 1: Penelope later.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, we there's a possible answer to that

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Speaker 3: here coming up. But essentially, you know, he has time

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Speaker 3: to seek some guidance, get some some advice from Circe,

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Speaker 3: and basically he wants to seek the advice of the

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Speaker 3: prophet Tyrisius, the blind Seer of Thebes, who in one

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Speaker 3: Greek myth is is changing to a woman for several

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Speaker 3: years and then back into a man. But in this story,

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Speaker 3: this seer is dead and that's a problem, and that's

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Speaker 3: why Circe sends Odysseus to the very gates of the

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Speaker 3: land of the Dead in order to seek his advice.

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Speaker 3: So that's what the crew does. That's what the guys do.

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Speaker 3: They go to the very limits of the mortal realm,

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Speaker 3: right up to the border with the Land of the Dead,

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Speaker 3: and per Circe's instructions, they dig a trench, they offer libations,

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Speaker 3: they sacrifice you and a ram. These are the practices

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Speaker 3: of Nekia. So the blood of the sacrifice calls forth ghosts,

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Speaker 3: but it calls forth ghosts by the thousands, so it's

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Speaker 3: just just calls them all out. They all come swarming.

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Speaker 3: Key individuals that Odysseus knew in life they come forward

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Speaker 3: as well. One of them is Odysseus's own mother, and

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Speaker 3: initially he does not let her of her spirit approach

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Speaker 3: the blood, but finally here comes Tyrisius. He drinks the

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Speaker 3: blood and then speaks and tells Odysseus how their journey

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Speaker 3: home is likely to go, and basically he breaks it

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Speaker 3: to him. Look, you you know that stuff with the

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Speaker 3: Cyclops while you offended Poseidon and he's a p pretty

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Speaker 3: powerful guy. You're gonna have to make amends for that.

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Speaker 3: There he outlines some of the other hurdles that are

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Speaker 3: in their path, and then Odysseus asked well, how can

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Speaker 3: I speak to the ghost of my mother who I

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Speaker 3: just ran into And he is told that he must

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Speaker 3: let the spirit drink the blood. If the spirit doesn't

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Speaker 3: drink the blood, then they cannot speak to the living,

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Speaker 3: and so he allows his mother's spirit to do that.

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Speaker 3: He doesn't stand in her way, and he's able to

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Speaker 3: speak with his mother and learn about events at home.

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Speaker 3: There are more details. I may touch on some more

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Speaker 3: here in a minute, but that's the basics here. Odysseus

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Speaker 3: engages in a specific right to attract the spirits of

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Speaker 3: the deceased, appeases them, and gives them the power of

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Speaker 3: speech and their for prophecy.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So I know this passage is of interest to

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Speaker 1: people trying to understand the culture and the ritual practices

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Speaker 1: of ancient Greece because it's often interpreted not just as

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Speaker 1: an isolated story in a fictional narrative, but a reflection

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Speaker 1: of generally how the rituals of necromancy were thought to work,

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Speaker 1: at least to some.

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Speaker 3: Extent, that's right. Yeah, So yeah, we're doing with what

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Speaker 3: an eighth century BCE text that many argue as our

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Speaker 3: earliest clear look at the idea of what would come

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Speaker 3: to be known as necromancy. But at the same time,

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Speaker 3: I do have to highlight that I was looking around

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Speaker 3: not everyone is convinced that it's truly what we'd call necromancy.

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Speaker 3: We kind of get into the semantics game again. I've

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Speaker 3: seen arguments that what takes place here is essentially a

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Speaker 3: standard sacrifice to the spirits of the dead, only observed

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Speaker 3: on the physical threshold of death's own country. So I

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Speaker 3: don't you know again, like perhaps the location is the

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Speaker 3: key thing here, and the right itself is not necromancy itself,

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Speaker 3: but takes on necromantic powers due to proximity to the

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Speaker 3: land of the dead.

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Speaker 1: That'll come back in some stuff I want to get

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Speaker 1: into in a little bit.

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Speaker 3: But on the other hand, plenty of commentators do equate

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Speaker 3: nekia with necromancy. Some things to keep in mind about

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Speaker 3: what we see here in this primary example.

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Speaker 4: So, first of.

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Speaker 3: All, as we were discussing in the first episode, this

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Speaker 3: is one of those ancient accounts that involves speaking to

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Speaker 3: the dead. It does not involved controlling the dead. I mean,

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Speaker 3: aside from just giving them the power of speech by

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Speaker 3: offering them the blood.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. We talked about in the last episode.

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Speaker 1: How if you hear the word necromancer today, especially if

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Speaker 1: you play Dungeons and Dragons or you're familiar with general

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Speaker 1: fantasy horror literature, you're probably thinking of someone who like

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Speaker 1: commands armies of skeletons to do their bidding. And that's

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Speaker 1: not usually what's being discussed with ancient necromancy. It's specifically

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Speaker 1: a divination practice. It's about communicating with the dead, usually

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Speaker 1: to get information.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Now, the other interesting thing about this, and something I

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Speaker 3: rather like about this example, is that Odysseus doesn't summon

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Speaker 3: one dead individual from the realm of the dead. He

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Speaker 3: summons all of them at once, like just a mass

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Speaker 3: of them. Like it's kind of like he replied all

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Speaker 3: or you know how in different organizations, there'll be that

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Speaker 3: one email address where you can you can contact everybody

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Speaker 3: in the organization. It's like, you know, all dead at

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Speaker 3: underworld dot com or something to that effect. That's what

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Speaker 3: Odysseus does here, And they're like, whoa, everybody's in the

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Speaker 3: chat now.

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Speaker 1: And then everybody starts replying and that's the day you

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Speaker 1: get five hundred emails on the same thread and yeah.

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Speaker 3: Exactly, yeah, and then he has to try and figure

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Speaker 3: out who he specifically wants to talk to. Now, aspects

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Speaker 3: of this that that are reflected in later traditions of necromancy.

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Speaker 3: It does entail blood. There is blood and blood sacrifice

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Speaker 3: involved here. It entail it does entail the ability to

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Speaker 3: speak with the dead and.

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Speaker 4: Learn from them.

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Speaker 3: And again this may work mostly due to proximity to

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Speaker 3: the Kingdom of the Dead. And you could also classify

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Speaker 3: this as an example of katabasis or a descent into

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Speaker 3: the underworld. I mean, even if Odysseus is only going

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Speaker 3: to the gates of Hell here, I mean he's essentially

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Speaker 3: he's essentially in the underworld, right, I mean, where do

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Speaker 3: you draw the line between actually going there and just

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Speaker 3: going to the edge of it?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 1: Well, so you could have an example like Orpheus that

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Speaker 1: I think is more a more complete kind of bassis.

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Speaker 1: But this is he's at least going part of the way.

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Speaker 1: And I think it is portrayed from what I recall

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Speaker 1: in the narrative as a as a harrowing journey into

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Speaker 1: a place that, you know, where mortals do not normally

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Speaker 1: tread exactly.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And of course this is a major theme in literature.

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Speaker 3: We see it in Virgil Zania. We see it in

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Speaker 3: Dante's Divine Comedy, and so many other examples, you know,

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Speaker 3: pop culture and otherwise. When people travel into the realm

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Speaker 3: of the dead to get something, to find someone, to

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Speaker 3: get secret knowledge, et cetera, there are often complications. There's

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Speaker 3: often a fair amount of traunta.

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Speaker 1: Now, you know. Another thing I recall from the narrative

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Speaker 1: in the Odyssey is that it presents a vision of

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Speaker 1: the underworld and of the afterlife in which being dead sucks.

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Speaker 1: It is really bad, and it's just it's not something

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Speaker 1: you want, and it's not like heaven where everybody's a

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Speaker 1: nice angel and things are great.

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Speaker 4: Now, you know.

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Speaker 1: It just it depicts the afterlife is a kind of

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Speaker 1: miserable only half kind of pseudo existence.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's it's interesting to think about that. I mean,

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Speaker 3: we could have a larger discussion about various versions of

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Speaker 3: the afterlife, but certainly, very generally, there are plenty of

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Speaker 3: other examples where the afterlife is considered like the destination.

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Speaker 3: It is the thing, and suffering here in the mortal

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Speaker 3: realm is worth it for those treasures in the next realm.

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Speaker 3: And you know, at least on the surface, you seem

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Speaker 3: to see a reversal here in these traditions where like

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Speaker 3: this is the life, this is the the prime existence.

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Speaker 3: What happens next is just kind of a shadow.

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Speaker 4: Now.

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Speaker 3: CapCar also singles out one of the other details of

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Speaker 3: this encounter, and that's and that concerns one of the

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Speaker 3: other dead individuals, the spirits of the dead that approach

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Speaker 3: Odysseus here from the underworld, and that's Elpinor. This was

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Speaker 3: the youngest member of Odysseus's crew who remember that year

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Speaker 3: that they spent on the island of Sirce. Well, during

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Speaker 3: that year, Elpinor becomes drunk and decides, you know what

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Speaker 3: I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go sleep on that roof.

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Speaker 3: So he grips and gets himself a ladder and he

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Speaker 3: starts climbing up that ladder to get on the roof

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Speaker 3: so he can sleep. But he falls off the ladder.

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Speaker 3: He breaks his neck.

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Speaker 4: He dies.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's sad, but even sadder it turns

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Speaker 3: out the boys forgot to give him a proper burial

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Speaker 3: and to grieve for him. So it's kind of embarrassing

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Speaker 3: for Odysseus. He shows up here in the underworld and

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Speaker 3: here comes Elpinor, and he says, hey, you remember me.

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Speaker 3: I was the youngest member of your crew and I

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Speaker 3: got drunk, I fell off that ladder, I broke my neck. Well,

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Speaker 3: you guys didn't bury me or grieve for me. Could

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Speaker 3: you do that? That would be really swell, And so

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Speaker 3: Odysseus says, yes, we'll totally do that. Are bad, we

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Speaker 3: will bury you and grief for you. And so, I

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Speaker 3: don't know, I'm looking at it with a slightly humorous lens.

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Speaker 3: I don't know if that was really intended in the

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Speaker 3: original work, but it is in principle. Another example of

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Speaker 3: the restless Dead, which we referred to in the last episode,

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Speaker 3: the idea that you know, there are different types of ghosts.

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Speaker 3: There are different types of spirits of the dead that

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Speaker 3: might speak to you. They're the ones who were properly

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Speaker 3: buried and are remembered and everything is sort of like

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Speaker 3: squared away with them. And there are those that have

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Speaker 3: some kind of a grudge something, you know, keeping them

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Speaker 3: here in our world, or specifically they were not properly

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Speaker 3: buried and therefore cannot pass on. Now. Necromancy occurs elsewhere

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Speaker 3: in ancient Greece. We'll get into some examples of this

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Speaker 3: as we proceed here, often involving temples devoted to an

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Speaker 3: oracle of the dead. So this is the place where

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Speaker 3: one could specifically go to seek to call up a

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Speaker 3: spirit of the deceased. Various authors wrote about such places,

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Speaker 3: including Plutarch and Herodotus. You'll find details of these oracles

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Speaker 3: in their writings.

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Speaker 1: We're going to talk about some examples of those places

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Speaker 1: in a minute. But I really got to wondering, why

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Speaker 1: do people think that ghosts know anything special, you know,

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Speaker 1: other than answering questions like what's going on in the

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Speaker 1: nether world. I mean that came up in the ancient

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Speaker 1: Mesopotamian poem of Gilgamesh in key Do in the nether world,

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Speaker 1: where remember Gilgamesh, he keeps like his stuff keeps falling

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Speaker 1: into the underworld, into the house of dust, and he's like,

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Speaker 1: I need my stuff back, and then in key Do

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Speaker 1: goes down in there to get it for him. But

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Speaker 1: in key Do screws up. He doesn't follow the rules.

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Speaker 1: He throws throwing sticks at the dead and all that,

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Speaker 1: and then he gets stuck down there, and so he's

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Speaker 1: dead now. And then he comes back up through a

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Speaker 1: Necromantic summoning, and Gilgamesh is like, hey, tell me what

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Speaker 1: the nether world is, like, you know, what are the

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Speaker 1: fates of the dead down there and so forth?

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Speaker 3: That makes sense, yeah, yeah, but otherwise, I mean there

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Speaker 3: are certain situations. So take Odysseus speaking with his mother.

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Speaker 3: If memory serves, the whole situation is like his mother

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Speaker 3: was alive when he last saw her, and so this

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Speaker 3: is he's learning things about home that details about home

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Speaker 3: that he's not privy too, but she experienced before her passing.

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Speaker 3: I think I'm remembering that ride I could be misremembering

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Speaker 3: part of that.

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Speaker 1: That's right, that there are some classes of information that

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Speaker 1: makes sense in a practical way like that, and I'll

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Speaker 1: get into that in a minute. But also like how

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Speaker 1: would a ghost have privileged information, so information about the future.

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Speaker 1: Well I found an interesting article that gets into that

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Speaker 1: somewhat with respect to ancient Greek and Roman necromancy, but

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Speaker 1: also has a lot of other interesting general information about

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Speaker 1: Greco Roman practices of communicating with the dead. So I

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Speaker 1: want to talk about this art. It is called lay

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Speaker 1: that Ghost. Necromancy in Ancient Greece and Rome by Daniel Ogden,

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Speaker 1: was originally published in Archaeology Odyssey back in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and two. I found a republication of it on the

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Speaker 1: magazine of a Biblical archaeology website. But Daniel Ogden is

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Speaker 1: a professor of ancient history at the University of Exeter

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Speaker 1: in England.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a great question because it instantly reminds

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Speaker 3: me of that episode of The Simpsons where Homer eats

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Speaker 3: the pepper and has the.

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Speaker 4: Psychedelic dream journey Johnny Cash.

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Speaker 3: He talks to the space coyote voiced by Johnny Cash

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Speaker 3: and he's asking some advice of it, and he's like,

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Speaker 3: I'm just an hallucination. I don't have any new information.

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Speaker 1: But so sometimes it didn't have to be new information.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes it was like you were saying personal, practically accessible

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Speaker 1: information for the ghost. One common example of this is

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Speaker 1: stories of necromancy from ancient Greece, where the ghost tells

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Speaker 1: you what you need to do to fix your relationship

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Speaker 1: with the ghost with themselves. So if somebody died an

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Speaker 1: untimely death and it was your fault, you could perform

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Speaker 1: necromancy to find out what was needed in order to

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Speaker 1: make amends.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you can almost think of this as some

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Speaker 3: sort of I mean, hopefully you didn't just murder the

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Speaker 3: person in cold blood. But even still, I guess it's

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Speaker 3: like it's almost like some form of therapy, like this

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Speaker 3: is weighing heavily on your conscious Let's summon up the

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Speaker 3: spirit of the dead and see what they want in

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Speaker 3: order for things to move on.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes it was just straight up murder. I'll mention a

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Speaker 1: couple of different examples. So the article here opens with

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Speaker 1: a retelling piece together from Plutarch, Thucydides and a few

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Speaker 1: other sources, of this story of the fifth century BCE

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Speaker 1: Spartan general Pausanius. Now, just to note this, this story

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Speaker 1: is pieced together from a bunch of different accounts, and

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Speaker 1: it is not necessarily all thought to be all historically true.

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Speaker 1: This is like the story of this guy's life. But

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Speaker 1: Pausanias was a Spartan regent and general who famously defended Greece.

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Speaker 1: He defended the Hellenic League against the Persians at the

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Speaker 1: Battle of Platia. So his original fame is as a

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Speaker 1: defender of Greece against Persian invasion. But then later in

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Speaker 1: life he was caught trying to betray Greece and make

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Speaker 1: a secret pact with the Persian kings or Exees the Great.

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Speaker 1: And in the middle of all this, there is a

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Speaker 1: tragic story that Pausanias accidentally killed an innocent young woman

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Speaker 1: named Kleonesi in his bedchambers when he was startled awake

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Speaker 1: in the night. I guess he thought there were assassins

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Speaker 1: coming for him. He reaches for his sword and he

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Speaker 1: accidentally kills this woman, this young woman, and after this

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Speaker 1: he is haunted by the woman's ghost. So he sought

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Speaker 1: the help of a necromancer, or I guess maybe it's

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Speaker 1: debatable whether this should be called a necromancer. But he

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Speaker 1: sought the help of a sort of spirit guide at

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Speaker 1: an oracle of the dead on the southern shore of

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Speaker 1: the Black Sea. So this is a place where you

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Speaker 1: would go to conjure up a ghost. And so he

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Speaker 1: conjures the ghost of Kleonesy so he could learn how

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Speaker 1: to make it right, and according to the legend, the

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Speaker 1: ghost told him all he needed to do to make

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Speaker 1: amends and to stop the haunting would be to return

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Speaker 1: home to Sparta. But this is one of those cruel

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Speaker 1: tricks that ghosts sometimes play, because when he went home

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Speaker 1: to Sparta, his betrayal to the Persians was exposed, so

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Speaker 1: the Spartans found out about him. They tried to seize him,

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Speaker 1: and then he tried to seek sanctuary in the Temple

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Speaker 1: of Athena, where he thought his pursuers would be unable

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Speaker 1: to capture and execute him for fear of impiety. You know,

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Speaker 1: he's taking sanctuary in a temple. But the story goes

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Speaker 1: that they found a way around this. The Spartans bricked

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Speaker 1: up the entrance and sealed him inside until he starved

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Speaker 1: to death.

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Speaker 4: Oh wow.

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Speaker 1: After this, however, there was a there was an all

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Speaker 1: new problem. Now the ghost of Pausanius was haunting the

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Speaker 1: Temple of Athena. So the Spartans had to ask the

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Speaker 1: oracle of Delphi what to do, and then the oracle

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Speaker 1: advised them that they needed to bring in some exorcists.

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Speaker 1: These professional Ogden calls them evocators. He says, the Greek

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Speaker 1: term is sucha go gooy, which means soul conductors. And

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Speaker 1: they came in and they checked the situation out and

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Speaker 1: told them how to get rid of the ghost of Pausanius,

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Speaker 1: and they succeeded. They exercised him effectively. Busted right, bustin

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Speaker 1: must make them feel good. Because they came all the

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Speaker 1: way from Italy to Sparta to do this. And this

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Speaker 1: story illustrates what Ogden claims is probably the most common

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Speaker 1: piece of information sought from the dead in Greek and

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Speaker 1: Roman necromancy, and that is what does the ghost need?

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Speaker 1: What will make the ghost go away or stop plunting me,

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Speaker 1: or allow the ghost to achieve rest? And I thought

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Speaker 1: this was interesting in that it combines two different traditions

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Speaker 1: that we talked about separately in the last part in

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Speaker 1: this series. So one is necromancy seeking information from the dead,

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Speaker 1: and the other is exorcism, which is the removal of

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Speaker 1: a ghost or a spirit from an unwonted place or context.

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Speaker 1: So if Ogden is correct here, the most common aim

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Speaker 1: of the former is actually the achievement of the latter.

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Speaker 1: The most common reason ancient Greek and Roman people would

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Speaker 1: go to a necromancer was to figure out how to

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Speaker 1: get a ghost to stop bothering them.

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Speaker 3: You know, these series of steps there were, I mean,

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Speaker 3: there's some they're echoed throughout our supernatural fiction today, but

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Speaker 3: one example that instantly comes to mind is the accounts

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Speaker 3: of at least some versions of the Ring. I guess

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Speaker 3: I'm mainly thinking about the first American remake of it.

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Speaker 3: But in that film alone, you see sort of the

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Speaker 3: three step approach where they're like, okay, there's some sort

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Speaker 3: of sort of the realization that there's a ghost involved,

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Speaker 3: some sort of a spirit. Okay, what does the ghost want?

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Speaker 3: They try and answer that question, They try even to

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Speaker 3: get in on the whole, like let's, uh, let's make

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Speaker 3: things right with the ghosts remains. But then the big reveal,

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Speaker 3: of course, is that the ghost isn't going to be

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Speaker 3: satisfied with any of those things. This is one of

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Speaker 3: that second classification of ghosts, that all it wants is vengeance.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe less a ghost and more a demon.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: The only thing that we'll make it right is to

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Speaker 3: just move on from VHS to some other format. And

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Speaker 3: I think that's the only way that that's issue was

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Speaker 3: ever defeated.

433
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 1: So, speaking of classifications of ghosts, another interesting point that

434
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:52,439
Speaker 1: Ogden raises in this article is the claim that in

435
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:55,480
Speaker 1: most Greek and Roman sources there were sort of two

436
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 1: different modes in which ghosts could appear. And he does

437
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:01,480
Speaker 1: not use the terms. I just made these up to

438
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:04,159
Speaker 1: kind of help us sort through what he's saying. I'm

439
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,639
Speaker 1: gonna call these categories the wild ghost and the dial

440
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 1: a ghost. So a wild ghost is off leash. It

441
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:16,080
Speaker 1: is a dangerous, terrifying, and uncontrollable entity that cannot be

442
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 1: reasoned with. This is the ghost that haunts someone by

443
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 1: coming into their life or by haunting a place unbidden

444
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 1: and attacking a person repeatedly. This is a ghost you

445
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:31,280
Speaker 1: cannot talk to and you can't like bargain with in

446
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:31,879
Speaker 1: this state.

447
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 3: All right, So this is very much like the wrathful

448
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:39,679
Speaker 3: ghost Samara or Sadako from the Rain or from various

449
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:41,040
Speaker 3: other treatments.

450
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, but I think this is also just any

451
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,720
Speaker 1: loose ghost. It's a ghost that's haunting a person and

452
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 1: you have not initiated contact with through an necromantic ritual.

453
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 3: All right, So Swimer also fits this classification.

454
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, that's the wild ghost. Meanwhile, what I would

455
00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:00,359
Speaker 1: call the dial a ghost is a ghost call up

456
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: through the rituals of necromancy. And so this might be

457
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 1: somebody who's just otherwise resting comfortably in the underworld. You

458
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:11,960
Speaker 1: call them up through necromancy to get some information from them,

459
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 1: or it could be one and the same as the

460
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: wild ghost, but when you contact them through necromancy. Apparently

461
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 1: the interaction is of a different sort. An entity called

462
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:28,240
Speaker 1: up through necromantic rituals is open to conversation and exchange.

463
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:31,919
Speaker 1: And I thought that it's interesting that these ghosts that

464
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,920
Speaker 1: there can be overlaps, So the same exact ghost, depending

465
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 1: on circumstances, might be a wild, uncontrollable force that visits

466
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:42,399
Speaker 1: you in the night in your nightmares, or you know,

467
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: haunts your home or haunts a place and terrifies people

468
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:47,760
Speaker 1: and just keeps attacking and there's nothing you can do.

469
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,680
Speaker 1: But you talk to the exact same ghost, same soul

470
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 1: through an oracle of the dead, or by going to

471
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:55,919
Speaker 1: a tomb and raising them up or whatever, then you

472
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 1: can talk to the ghost to figure out what's going

473
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: on and figure out what can be done to to

474
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 1: make it go away.

475
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 3: Interesting. So now this makes me wonder if if if

476
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:10,360
Speaker 3: the ring tape, uh, the VHS tape is actually could

477
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:11,960
Speaker 3: if you could actually think of it as sort of

478
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:16,720
Speaker 3: automated and automated necromatic, right, it is a necromatic artifact

479
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 3: that does all of the ritual but in a way

480
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:23,439
Speaker 3: that requires less effort on the part of the person

481
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:24,000
Speaker 3: using it.

482
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,920
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm trying to get there with you is can

483
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:30,320
Speaker 1: the can the girl in the ring ever be reasoned

484
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 1: with or bargained with?

485
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 3: Et? No, I don't think so, not in any version I've seen.

486
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 3: You can try. And in terms of what kind of

487
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 3: information she has to relay, I don't know. Maybe it

488
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 3: is relayed through the tape. You know, these these visions.

489
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 3: Just because a ghost is going to tell you stuff

490
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 3: doesn't mean it has to make sense, right, I mean,

491
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 3: they may speak cryptically, and then of course you get

492
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 3: that phone call which just says that you're going to

493
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 3: die in seven days, which isn't very helpful, but is

494
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:58,119
Speaker 3: a communication, okay.

495
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 1: So often gives an example in this article of the

496
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 1: Roman emperor Nero's mother Agrippina. So, according to this story,

497
00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: he murders his own mother. And by the way, the

498
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 1: stories of her murder are very elaborate and conflicting and

499
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:14,640
Speaker 1: all that. So who knows what really happened in history there?

500
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:16,520
Speaker 1: But this is again, this is how the story is

501
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:19,920
Speaker 1: understood by like Roman historians writing the lives of the emperors.

502
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 1: So the ghost repeatedly starts attacking Nero in the night,

503
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 1: terrifying him with these visions and nightmares. So Nero sought

504
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:32,239
Speaker 1: the help of a Persian magas to call up her

505
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 1: spirit so that he could make peace with it.

506
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 3: Quick note on on magi and magas is of of

507
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:45,879
Speaker 3: of of Persia. I was reading a little bit about this.

508
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:48,880
Speaker 3: There's an episode from the Sasanian Empire where the first

509
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:55,240
Speaker 3: Sasanian emperor we've discussed him before, Adashir the first, upon

510
00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 3: ascending the throne, called on all the respected magi of

511
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 3: the empire to gather and the total was said to

512
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:05,440
Speaker 3: be something like eighty thousand. So I was reading more

513
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:08,160
Speaker 3: about this, and when we talk about the magi, we're

514
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 3: talking about the mas Dan magi, who were a priestly

515
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:17,120
Speaker 3: order of Zoroastrianism, so they were not expressly necromancers. They

516
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 3: were into all sorts of things, you know, looking to

517
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 3: the stars and so forth. But apparently some of their

518
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:26,159
Speaker 3: writings covered communication with the untethered spirits.

519
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:27,680
Speaker 4: Of the dead m okay.

520
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:30,440
Speaker 1: But to come back to this idea of like ghosts

521
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: that haunt people and sort of can't be reasoned with

522
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 1: when they appear for hauntings, But then you can reason

523
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: with them if you do a ritual with like a

524
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 1: megas or some other type of or an oracle of

525
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: the dead, some kind of necromantic ritual, then you can

526
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 1: figure out what they want. It strikes me that this

527
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 1: duality does still appear in some of the ghost stories

528
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 1: of today. Like you were talking about Rob, I mean,

529
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: I think more generally about you know, a story where

530
00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 1: the ghost is just a purely bad vibe during the hauntings,

531
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,920
Speaker 1: it just appears to scare people, But in the context

532
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:08,960
Speaker 1: of a seance, the same ghost can be intelligibly conversed with.

533
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, in a way, it's almost like, Okay,

534
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 3: this individual ghost or mortal is causing problems. Let's let's

535
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 3: get serious about this. Let's have some legal proceedings, you know,

536
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 3: the seance, the ritual of necromancy, whatever the details are.

537
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 3: It is like, okay, let's bust out some rule based

538
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 3: discussion of what's going on here and get to a solution.

539
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 4: I think that's a good way of thinking about it.

540
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: In a way, this might, you know, these rituals might

541
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 1: be kind of like instituting a court proceeding in which

542
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 1: the ghost must appear.

543
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, or it's it's like an intervention in some respects

544
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 3: as well, Like the ghost shows up and is like

545
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 3: all right, time to like terrify some people, and then

546
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 3: then the ghost really, oh my goodness, this is one

547
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:52,840
Speaker 3: of those again. They're going to try and reason with me,

548
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 3: all right.

549
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 1: So anyway, all that falls into this category of information

550
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: about what could be done to appease or send away

551
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 1: the ghost, a very common aim of Greek and Roman necromancy. Sometimes, though,

552
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 1: necromancy would just as you alluded to earlier, rob would

553
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 1: be used to extract information from a ghost that the

554
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 1: spirit of a person could practically be expected to know

555
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,480
Speaker 1: if consciousness continues after death. For example, somebody hide some

556
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 1: money then dies without telling you where they hit it,

557
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: you might need to call up a necromancer to get

558
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: that information. And there are stories exactly like this. Though

559
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: this one kind of puzzled me because I was thinking

560
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 1: with specific practical information, like the location of a stash

561
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: of silver or something. I wonder how the necromancer dealt

562
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 1: with what I would assume was their general inability to

563
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 1: provide useful, correct answers, you know, like maybe that have

564
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 1: to be very vague or to be fair when we

565
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 1: get to discussing what the actual rituals were in a minute,

566
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 1: maybe it actually wasn't on the necromancer to give the information.

567
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, they would have to have some sort of an

568
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 3: out like that, right, because again assuming that the next

569
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 3: going with the assumption here that the necromancer cannot actually

570
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 3: speak to the dead, and that in some of these

571
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 3: other cases is essentially providing a like a therapeutic service.

572
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 3: You know that they are, you know, guiding the recipient

573
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 3: through some sort of a you know, essentially a religious

574
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 3: ritual to put them at ease to you know, to

575
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 3: help them honor the deceased, or whatever the specifics might be.

576
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 3: But in this case, yeah, if there's an expectation of

577
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 3: hidden treasure at the end of it, you know, the

578
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 3: necromancer would be a fool to put themselves on the

579
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 3: line like that.

580
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 4: Right.

581
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: They won't say it's under the third bush in the garden,

582
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 1: because then you go dig it up and then be like, well,

583
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 1: it's not there. Why'd you tell me that?

584
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, you'd have to put a spin out, Like the

585
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 3: true hidden treasure was your friendship in life with this person,

586
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:49,880
Speaker 3: and that's what they value, and therefore they don't want

587
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:50,959
Speaker 3: to tell you where the money is.

588
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 1: But again, we'll get to something in a minute that

589
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 1: I think might actually shed some light on this and

590
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 1: show how the person who is sort of the guide

591
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: for this process would be off the hook. So but again,

592
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: what would you be looking for from speaking to a ghost?

593
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 1: You would get this practical information the dead person took

594
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: with them to the grave, like you know, where did

595
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 1: you hide something or anything like that. Also, if the

596
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 1: person was a murder victim, they might you might consult

597
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: them to find out who killed you.

598
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 3: Oh, this is a classic one, and this puts a

599
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:25,480
Speaker 3: different kind of pressure on the role of the necromancer here,

600
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 3: or the alleged necromancer, because of course what they say could,

601
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 3: depending on the society and the legal system, be presented

602
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 3: as proof of an individual's guilt in a murder.

603
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 1: But apart from all this stuff, where again, if you

604
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 1: assume that consciousness actually continues after death, you could assume

605
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 1: the person would know all these things. What about this

606
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 1: other stuff like why ghosts would know the future. We've

607
00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 1: looked at multiple examples of necromancy being used to consult

608
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: spirits on what's going to happen in the future. It

609
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 1: turns out Greek Roman necromancers also consulted ghosts for info

610
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: about the future, for example, to predict the outcome of

611
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 1: wars or power struggles a common thing people want to know.

612
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 1: Why would the dead have the ability to predict the future. Well,

613
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:16,600
Speaker 1: Ogden actually does answer this question. He says, we don't

614
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 1: know for sure, but there are a couple of big possibilities.

615
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: Ogden writes, quote, One possibility is that some ancients believed

616
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 1: the future was prepared in the realm of the dead.

617
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: When Aeneas descends into the underworld in Virgil's Aeneid, he

618
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 1: witnesses the marshaling of the souls of Rome's future heroes,

619
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,840
Speaker 1: even though they had not yet been born. Okay, so

620
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 1: that's one. Ogden goes on quote Another possibility, many ancients,

621
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 1: Plato among them, believed that a pure soul, one separated

622
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 1: from the dull matter of the body, had great powers

623
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 1: of perception and could understand the hidden processes of the universe. Okay,

624
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 1: so that sort of helps answer my question if Ogden's

625
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: correct about these two explanations. Here, the dead know the

626
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:10,799
Speaker 1: future because one of two things. Either the future is

627
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 1: written in advance, so we are faded for certain things

628
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 1: to happen to us, And the writing of the future

629
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: takes place in the nether world, so dead people in

630
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:24,360
Speaker 1: hades are essentially hanging out in the writer's room for

631
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 1: the upcoming season of the show. Or the second explanation is,

632
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: if you subscribe to something like platonism, soul's rule and

633
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 1: body's drool, and your current knowledge of the future is

634
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:42,200
Speaker 1: limited by the extent to which your body drools. Liberated souls,

635
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 1: no longer attached to flesh, are sort of like gods

636
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:50,400
Speaker 1: in a way. They have extra powers of knowledge and perception,

637
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 1: and we would all have these powers if we were

638
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 1: liberated from the confines of our bodies.

639
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 3: That one's in a really interesting because it also brings

640
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:01,560
Speaker 3: up some of the other examples of ancestor veneration and

641
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 3: ancestor worship, you know, where it's like this was a

642
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 3: real person in a given society or a given family,

643
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 3: what have you. They have died and now they are

644
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:15,720
Speaker 3: still real, but in a different way and perhaps held

645
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 3: to a like a put on a pedestal. You know,

646
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 3: they're they're they they're they're they're given over to certain

647
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:25,879
Speaker 3: divine characteristics, even if they are not thought of expressly

648
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 3: as a guy.

649
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:40,040
Speaker 1: All right, So that's Ogden's opinion about why ghosts would

650
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 1: be expected to know the future and be able to

651
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 1: answer your questions about it. But another interesting thing brought

652
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: up in this article is he talks about location where

653
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: would Greco Roman necromancy take place? And it seems there

654
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 1: are two main answers for this. One is at at

655
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:01,319
Speaker 1: the Tomb of the East. And now that one makes

656
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 1: sense if you're trying to call up a ghost of

657
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 1: a dead person, where better to go than to their

658
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 1: grave and do some.

659
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:10,760
Speaker 4: Kind of ritual there makes sense.

660
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:13,560
Speaker 1: But the second, and I got really interested in this,

661
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:20,400
Speaker 1: was that there were essentially some geographically identified special places

662
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:24,319
Speaker 1: where you could communicate with the dead. These were known

663
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:27,680
Speaker 1: as oracles of the dead. Now where would those be? Well,

664
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:30,759
Speaker 1: Ogden says, ancient sources tell us about four of them.

665
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,720
Speaker 1: There are two in modern day Greece, one in Italy

666
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:38,240
Speaker 1: and one in Turkey. And I did some additional digging

667
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 1: for background information about a couple of these. So the

668
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 1: first one he mentions is in northwest Greece, and this

669
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:48,279
Speaker 1: is what's known as the Acharusian Lake. So this is

670
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:51,280
Speaker 1: a lake, or perhaps I've seen in some sources mentioned

671
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:53,839
Speaker 1: as a swamp, a lake or a series of light

672
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 1: lakes or swamp connected to the river Akron, which that

673
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:02,919
Speaker 1: river itself is very important in Greek visions of the afterlife.

674
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: So there's a motif present in Greek and Roman mythology

675
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:09,439
Speaker 1: that the dead have to be carried across a river

676
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: by a ghastly ferryman in order to reach Haiti's or

677
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:16,359
Speaker 1: the underworld. And in some sources this river is named

678
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: as Styx, but in others it is the Akron.

679
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,359
Speaker 3: If memory serves both names, as separate rivers are used

680
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:24,440
Speaker 3: in Dante's Inferno.

681
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 1: Oh that may be right, I don't recall, but interestingly

682
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 1: I wanted to note this, so Akron. The Akron is

683
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 1: at least one definite real river in northwest Greece, so

684
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 1: there's just the Akron. You can go to that river now,

685
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 1: whereas the Styx at core seems to be a mythological

686
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: river in the underworld, but at some point it was

687
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,719
Speaker 1: also associated I think, with various real waterways as well,

688
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 1: such as like a stream in Arcadia, but the Akron

689
00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:59,480
Speaker 1: seems more concretely geographically located on this world. But anyway,

690
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:02,319
Speaker 1: the story goes. So at one of these lakes or

691
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 1: swamps connected to the Akron, known as Acarusia, there was

692
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 1: a lakeside district in which you could call up the

693
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 1: spirits of the dead, and this was possible because of

694
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:15,800
Speaker 1: the way that the river and the lake were somehow

695
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 1: physically connected to Hades and Rob. I've attached a couple

696
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 1: of pictures I found online of the Akron River for

697
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 1: you to look at here. You know, it's weird. I

698
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:27,960
Speaker 1: wonder if it's just an example of psychological priming, because

699
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,800
Speaker 1: I was expecting these to be associated with the underworld,

700
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:32,360
Speaker 1: but they do look kind of spooky to me.

701
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, same. I'm not sure how much of this

702
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:37,400
Speaker 3: is just me going into it with the expectation here,

703
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,320
Speaker 3: but yeah, in the first shot, there's this impression of narrowing,

704
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:43,440
Speaker 3: and I don't know, I'm kind of reminded of, you know,

705
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 3: the classic painting The Island of the Dead there a

706
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 3: little bit, but I could be reading too much into it.

707
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:52,760
Speaker 3: I mean, a river at the at the very least

708
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 3: a river. This is a moving thing that goes somewhere else,

709
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 3: so it's easy to approach it and think think of

710
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 3: it as this thing that connects to some distant land,

711
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 3: because it literally does.

712
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 1: That's a good point. Okay, So second place for the

713
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 1: Oracle of the Dead, this is way over on the

714
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:14,279
Speaker 1: western coast of the Italian Peninsula. This is Lake Avernus

715
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 1: in Campagna. So once again this is a body of

716
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 1: water associated with the entrance to the underworld. In this case,

717
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: I thought it was geologically interesting because Avernus is the

718
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:30,319
Speaker 1: flooded crater of an extinct volcano, so this is in

719
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 1: a region somewhat close to Naples. Allegedly, Lake of Vernas

720
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 1: emitted fumes of sulfur sometimes, which could be why it

721
00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 1: was thought of as the entrance to the realm of

722
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: the dead. And contrary to what you might expect. You know,

723
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:46,840
Speaker 1: you might think, Okay, so this lake is associated with

724
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: the underworld, then maybe it's just this creepy abandoned place

725
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:53,360
Speaker 1: with nothing going on. But no, no, no, The area around

726
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:56,799
Speaker 1: Avernus was developed. It had temples and bathhouses and all

727
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff. In fact, in his article, Ogden tell

728
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:02,440
Speaker 1: what I thought was a very funny story about a

729
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 1: British archaeologist who thought he had identified the ruins of

730
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:11,359
Speaker 1: the Avernus Oracle of the Dead in a Roman era

731
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 1: tunnel near the lake. Came up with this whole scenario

732
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: about how the oracle worked. Ogden Wright's quote, he speculated

733
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:22,960
Speaker 1: that visitors to the oracle were led through dark tunnels

734
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: and across a hot, sulfurous spring that doubled as the

735
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 1: river sticks Priestly assistants, he suggested, used lamps and wooden

736
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: shadow puppets to project ghostly figures onto a wall in

737
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:39,440
Speaker 1: a kind of ancient vision of a Disneyland haunted house. So, okay,

738
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 1: that sounds very interesting, but it turns out no, this

739
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 1: tunnel was actually a service tunnel for a Roman bathhouse.

740
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: And then there are a couple of other sites of

741
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:53,839
Speaker 1: oracles of the dead that were less well known. One

742
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:57,400
Speaker 1: is heracle A Pontica. That's the one on the south

743
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: coast of the Black Sea, up on the north of

744
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 1: what is today Turkey, or at the time would have

745
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: been Anatolia. This is the place that Pausanias went to

746
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 1: in that legend. And then the other one, the fourth

747
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 1: one is Cape Tynern, which is down at the southern

748
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:18,360
Speaker 1: tip of the Peloponnesis. And I'm not sure about the

749
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 1: Black Sea location, but I was looking up Cape Tynern

750
00:41:21,280 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 1: and this one was also, according to some ancient sources,

751
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 1: a gateway to the underworld. So it seems what a

752
00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:29,359
Speaker 1: lot of these oracle of the dead. Locations have in

753
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:34,239
Speaker 1: common is they are thought to be in some sense

754
00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:36,839
Speaker 1: of physical entryway into the underworld.

755
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's not just a matter of having the

756
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:43,959
Speaker 3: rituals or the expertise. It's like, are you in close

757
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:48,840
Speaker 3: enough proximity to the underworld for that signal to reach them?

758
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:49,239
Speaker 4: Now.

759
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:52,160
Speaker 1: In the last episode, we talked about those ancient Mesopotamian

760
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 1: tablets that shared specifics of their necromancy rituals, which involved incantations,

761
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 1: so you had special words to say and appeals to

762
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 1: specific gods who would sort of oversee the proceedings. Like

763
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:09,520
Speaker 1: one of the tablets specified that you know, this ritual

764
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:12,280
Speaker 1: is taking place under the auspices of the god Shamash.

765
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:16,720
Speaker 1: And then they also had recipes for potions and concoctions

766
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 1: to make out of all kinds of stuff, you know,

767
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:22,839
Speaker 1: dust from across roads, the end of a frog's intestines,

768
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 1: crab tallow, hair of a dog, and a bunch of

769
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:29,520
Speaker 1: other stuff. And in one case, I guess my favorite

770
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 1: thing was the ritual that involved a skull that you

771
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 1: would address as oh skull of skulls, and the implication

772
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:38,960
Speaker 1: is that the ghost would come into the skull and

773
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:42,440
Speaker 1: speak out of it somehow. In this case, I wonder

774
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 1: what literally happened during these rituals, by the way, like

775
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 1: did I think we don't really know, but I have

776
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: to wonder, like did the skull somehow quote speak? If so,

777
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:54,239
Speaker 1: how was that accomplished?

778
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, because on one hand, you could have a scenario

779
00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 3: where some manner of puppetry was even but I guess

780
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:05,360
Speaker 3: perhaps more believable, at least by modern standards, would be

781
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 3: just sort of a physical focus of what's happening. So

782
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 3: perhaps the necromancer is listening to the skull, and you

783
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 3: know that becomes the object of focus during the proceedings.

784
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 4: Right.

785
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:22,440
Speaker 1: So a question is do we have physical descriptions of

786
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:25,919
Speaker 1: what would happen during these rituals, during the ghost interactions

787
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:29,200
Speaker 1: for Greco Roman necromancy, And the answer is yes, we

788
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 1: do have some descriptions. One example Ogden gives that I

789
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:36,839
Speaker 1: thought was interesting is the Greek playwright Escalus, in a

790
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 1: fragment of an otherwise lost work, describes a scene at

791
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: a lakeside oracle of the dead where blood from a

792
00:43:44,600 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 1: black sheep is poured into the water, and the implication

793
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:50,880
Speaker 1: is that the ghosts would come up from the underworld

794
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:54,360
Speaker 1: through the waters of the lake and drink the sheep's blood.

795
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 1: And this is interesting in that it connects to that

796
00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 1: scene in Homer where it's implied that or not even implied,

797
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 1: it's explicitly stated that giving a ghost sheep's blood or

798
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:09,879
Speaker 1: ram's blood to drink would make it sort of temporarily

799
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 1: beefed up enough to party, Like now it can talk.

800
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:16,279
Speaker 1: And I think this is really interesting, this idea that

801
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 1: you had to feed blood to a ghost so that

802
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 1: it could, i don't know, become substantial or empowered enough

803
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 1: to interact with you.

804
00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's the dead or lacking blood, and

805
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 3: give them blood and they can they can do living

806
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:33,319
Speaker 3: things again, at least for a very short period of time.

807
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 1: But finally coming back to that issue of like what

808
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:39,040
Speaker 1: form does the delivery of information from the dead take

809
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:43,799
Speaker 1: in these Greco Roman rituals, like how does the necromancer

810
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:46,759
Speaker 1: have to deliver the information? And in that case, how

811
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:50,920
Speaker 1: do they deal with like the information when you know,

812
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 1: not being specific or accurate. Well, Ogden says that the

813
00:44:56,360 --> 00:44:58,760
Speaker 1: contact with the ghost at an oracle of the Dead

814
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:04,839
Speaker 1: was done through dream incubation. Oh, this makes sense of things, right,

815
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,800
Speaker 1: So this is similar to what was done at multiple

816
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 1: kinds of temples and shrines in the ancient world. One

817
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 1: example we've talked about in the show before was the

818
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 1: shrines of the healing god Asclepias, where you would want

819
00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:21,400
Speaker 1: to get healed from a disease or something troubling your body,

820
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 1: and you would to seek a cure. You might go

821
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 1: to a shrine of Asclepias and you would do some

822
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 1: kind of ritual, probably make a sacrifice or pay a

823
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:32,720
Speaker 1: fee or something, and then you would go to sleep,

824
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:35,719
Speaker 1: and then you would have a dream there where Asclepias

825
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:40,319
Speaker 1: would deliver to you information in the dream about what

826
00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:40,880
Speaker 1: you could.

827
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:43,680
Speaker 4: Do to cure your disease. Yeah, okay.

828
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 1: In the case of the necromancer oracles, you would do

829
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: the prescribed rituals. You probably make some kind of sacrifice.

830
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 1: It seems very likely it might involve like a spilling

831
00:45:52,680 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 1: of some kind of animal blood to feed to the ghost,

832
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 1: and then you would go to sleep in the designated area,

833
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 1: and then the ghost would come to you in a

834
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 1: dream and tell you what you needed to know. And

835
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: this is interesting in multiple ways. Number One, it highlights

836
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: this thing in ancient Greek thinking, where sleep was sort

837
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:15,000
Speaker 1: of a state thought of as in some ways analogous

838
00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 1: to or halfway to death. So you're sort of going

839
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:24,320
Speaker 1: out of the land of the living into this half

840
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:27,640
Speaker 1: dead state of sleep in order to meet the ghost,

841
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:31,000
Speaker 1: you know, as it comes out to deliver you information.

842
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 1: But then also in a practical sense, I could see

843
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,279
Speaker 1: how this would mean that the priest or whatever the

844
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 1: professional working at the Oracle of the Dead is doing

845
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 1: like they're not personally on the hook for like giving

846
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: you the information you need. And it might be in

847
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: some cases they did provide information, but it seems like

848
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:50,920
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases they use dream incubation where

849
00:46:51,160 --> 00:46:52,680
Speaker 1: it's all internal to you.

850
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:56,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like they're just helping to facilitate the conversation

851
00:46:57,080 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 3: and then the conversation is left to you and your

852
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:02,520
Speaker 3: dream state. And I guess in a more like you know,

853
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:08,360
Speaker 3: skeptical approach here, Yeah, they're simply priming your brain for

854
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 3: some sort of a dream that could be either in

855
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:15,360
Speaker 3: and of itself seemingly meaningful, or could be picked apart

856
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:19,280
Speaker 3: in made meaningful due to the priming. So it's interesting

857
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 3: how we kind of end up at the end of

858
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:26,239
Speaker 3: this episode in similar territory to our previous look at

859
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 3: different cultures and times in which the dream world was

860
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:34,520
Speaker 3: given special significance. You know, I mean, I'm not sure

861
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:36,799
Speaker 3: you could necessarily make the case here, because again this

862
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:41,040
Speaker 3: could be maybe thought of as an important right, but

863
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:45,480
Speaker 3: not like a prime motivator in the trajectory of a

864
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:48,279
Speaker 3: given culture. But still, you see, like the importance of

865
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 3: the dream space to individuals and trying to figure out

866
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 3: their problems.

867
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:57,240
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and it makes me see another parallel between

868
00:47:57,520 --> 00:47:59,759
Speaker 1: sleep and death here is that it seems like they're

869
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:06,319
Speaker 1: both states in which people's capacities are to some extent diminished,

870
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:10,319
Speaker 1: but in other ways magnified. You know that, like like

871
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:13,799
Speaker 1: during sleep you are closer to death, and so of

872
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 1: course you know your your your consciousness is diminished in

873
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:21,799
Speaker 1: a way your of course, your your physical potency, like

874
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,000
Speaker 1: you're not moving around while you're asleep, you're prone and

875
00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: all that, So you are diminished or reduced in one extent.

876
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:31,120
Speaker 1: But also it is the place where you have access

877
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 1: to wisdom beyond what's available to your mortal mind.

878
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, and now, of course I can't help but be

879
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:41,480
Speaker 3: reminded of Freddy Krueger and all this. It's easy to

880
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 3: think of Freddy Krueger as a monster, but and you know,

881
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:47,439
Speaker 3: he's a monster in the general sense of the word,

882
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:50,880
Speaker 3: but he is a ghosts. He has a vngul ghost

883
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:54,839
Speaker 3: that then appears in your dreams. And I guess by

884
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 3: virtue of having access to dreams, he has privileged information

885
00:48:58,120 --> 00:49:00,839
Speaker 3: about individuals. I don't know that anyone ever really ask

886
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:02,960
Speaker 3: him for advice on anything, though, I.

887
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:04,239
Speaker 4: Mean it would be funny if you did.

888
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:05,919
Speaker 1: I don't know what kind of advice he would give.

889
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:08,439
Speaker 3: I mean, that could be a whole sequel right there

890
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 3: where somebody or some group or like, look, we need

891
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:15,800
Speaker 3: we need the help of someone with access to dreams.

892
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 3: I guess specifically teenager dreams. I guess maybe this would

893
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:21,920
Speaker 3: make sense for if you were designing a product to

894
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:24,839
Speaker 3: appeal to teenagers, they're like, who knows teenagers?

895
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:27,640
Speaker 4: Freddy Krueger, you know what's cool? Yeah?

896
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh, to get advice on sweaters, it'd be like,

897
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:34,440
Speaker 1: Freddy Krueger, is this sweater cool? Is this what's going

898
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 1: to be hip this season? And he's always just like

899
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 1: green and red, that's what's going to be in.

900
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:41,880
Speaker 3: He knows it's a classic look and it'll eventually, you know,

901
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:44,520
Speaker 3: eventually the trends will come back around to it.

902
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:47,040
Speaker 1: Okay, but in a cap part two right there.

903
00:49:47,239 --> 00:49:47,720
Speaker 4: I believe.

904
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 3: So yeah, we'll be back for at least a third

905
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 3: episode on necromancy, and in the meantime reach out to us.

906
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 3: We'd love to hear your thoughts on these various and

907
00:49:56,320 --> 00:50:01,640
Speaker 3: ancient accounts of necromancy or things that could described as

908
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 3: a necromantic and scope also if you have thoughts in

909
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 3: some of the more pop culture things that we've mentioned here,

910
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:12,160
Speaker 3: if you have thoughts on Freddy Krueger, Slimer or The Ring,

911
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 3: certainly write in. I mean, there's ultimately a lot you

912
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 3: could dissect in the original Ghostbusters, where you have ghosts

913
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 3: that resemble the people as they were in life, and

914
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:26,799
Speaker 3: then ghosts that no longer look like human beings. You

915
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 3: also have what ancient Mesopotamian gods entering into the picture

916
00:50:31,520 --> 00:50:35,319
Speaker 3: with their beast like servants. So there's a lot to

917
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 3: unwrap there.

918
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:38,320
Speaker 1: Many knew what it was to roast in the belly

919
00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:39,879
Speaker 1: of a slore that day.

920
00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 3: Indeed, all right, a reminder that's stuff to blow your mind.

921
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:47,359
Speaker 3: Is primarily a science podcast, though of course we get

922
00:50:47,360 --> 00:50:51,960
Speaker 3: into into culture and history as well as especially obvious

923
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:55,240
Speaker 3: in these episodes. We do listener mail episodes. On Mondays,

924
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:58,320
Speaker 3: we do a short form Monster Factor or Artifact episode

925
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 3: on Wednesdays, and on Fridays we set aside most serious

926
00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:03,000
Speaker 3: concerns to just talk about a weird movie on Weird

927
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:06,799
Speaker 3: House Cinema. Oh and one more thing. If you use

928
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:09,960
Speaker 3: any of the various social media accounts and you follow us,

929
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:12,280
Speaker 3: you may notice that there's a little more life than those. Recently,

930
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:16,280
Speaker 3: we have some people managing those for us once again.

931
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:21,719
Speaker 3: And you also might notice some updated photos of me

932
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:24,840
Speaker 3: and Joe. Well, that's because we visited the Museum of

933
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:28,520
Speaker 3: Illusions in Atlanta. We were there what Thursday, September twenty first,

934
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:32,960
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three. We have some great new photos and

935
00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:36,200
Speaker 3: I recommend that place to anyone who is in Atlanta

936
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:38,680
Speaker 3: looking to engage with some illusions. It's a very fun place.

937
00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:42,400
Speaker 1: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If

938
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:44,040
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

939
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:47,160
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

940
00:51:47,200 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

941
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

942
00:51:52,480 --> 00:52:00,680
Speaker 1: Mind dot com.

943
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:03,759
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

944
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:07,680
Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

945
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:24,120
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.