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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from coast to coast am on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Heather Lynn back with us. She was last on

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Speaker 1: with Me back in October of twenty fifteen. She's an author, historian,

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Speaker 1: a renegade archaeologist, definitely on a quest to uncover the

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Speaker 1: truth behind ancient mystery. She holds numerous degrees and certificates

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Speaker 1: in both history and archaeology. A member of the professional

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Speaker 1: organizations including the American Historical Association, the Society for Historical Archaeology,

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Speaker 1: Association of Ancient Historians, and World Archaeological Congress, she has

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Speaker 1: left the life in academia to pursue this fascination with

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Speaker 1: the unexplained and investigates ancient mysteries, lost civilizations, hidden history,

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Speaker 1: ancient aliens, and the occult. Heather, Welcome back, Hi George,

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Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. Good job with Evil Archaeology. By

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Speaker 1: the way, thanks, I appreciate it. Hey explain the little

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Speaker 1: statuette on the cover that is Pozuzio, that is an

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Speaker 1: ancient Mesopotamian demon. I put him on the cover because

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Speaker 1: it was sort of this demon that inspired me, I

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Speaker 1: sort of sort of inspired I editate to use that word,

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Speaker 1: all right, I mean, that's sort of what I look

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Speaker 1: at in the book, is this question of inspiration. Is

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Speaker 1: that enough to constitute a step towards possession? But it

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Speaker 1: was actually the movie The Exorcist that the beginning scene

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Speaker 1: of both the book and the movie is set in

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Speaker 1: Iraq at an archaeological excavation. At the site, a priest

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Speaker 1: archaeologist feels a strong wind blow and it's foreshadowing the

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Speaker 1: arrival of this demon, Puzuzu, which is the demon of

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Speaker 1: the southwestern wind and bearer of storms and drought in

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Speaker 1: Assyrian and Babylonian mythology. And so this is the demon

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Speaker 1: that's on the cover. As an archaeologist, that sort of

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Speaker 1: piqued my interest and spurred me to question the relationship

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Speaker 1: between demons of ancient Mesopotamia and now, because it wasn't

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Speaker 1: long after seeing the movie play on cable reruns that

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Speaker 1: I saw a news story that caused me to pause

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Speaker 1: for a moment. On October fifth, two and fourteen, sheriff's

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Speaker 1: deputies in Clemens, North Carolina, rated a suburban home and

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Speaker 1: discovered the remains of two men who had been missing

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Speaker 1: since about two thousand and nine. At first, it seemed

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Speaker 1: sort of sadly as a run of the mill news

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Speaker 1: story until I heard the name of the killer was Puzzuzu.

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Speaker 1: So before legally changing his name from John Lawson. This, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he grew up in a picturesque suburb. He had a

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Speaker 1: seemingly normal life, but he clearly struggled with what his

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Speaker 1: mother said were mental health issues. And so he went

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Speaker 1: on to recruit a brotherhood of other disenfranchised people that

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Speaker 1: would go on to help him torture, murder, and then

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Speaker 1: cannibalize local strangers and then bury them in the backyard

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Speaker 1: of his home. And so, according to the psychiatric reports,

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Speaker 1: the killer said he practiced to Sumerian religion that involved

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Speaker 1: a monthly blood sacrifice, usually of a small animal at

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Speaker 1: least to begin with. He said he'd have to perform

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Speaker 1: this ritual during what he called the Black moon in

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Speaker 1: order to appease the Sumerian demons and to honor Pazuzu.

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Speaker 1: So this really just stuck out at me. I thought, so,

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Speaker 1: maybe Mesopotamian demons could sort of still be dwelling among

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Speaker 1: us in some way, you know. To be clear, the

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Speaker 1: killer the one hundred percent to blame for his actions.

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Speaker 1: I just started thinking about you know what does it

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Speaker 1: mean to be inspired? The word inspire comes from Latin

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Speaker 1: in spirare, meaning to breathe or blow into, and the

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Speaker 1: word originally described when specifically a supernatural being imparted an

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Speaker 1: idea to somebody. So this related then to the concept

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Speaker 1: of doing something in the spirit of or in spirit.

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Speaker 1: So it may be splitting hairs over the semantics, but

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Speaker 1: it was enough to sort of then, I guess, inspire

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Speaker 1: me to investigate the possible connections between the world of

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Speaker 1: ancient Mesopotamian demons, the history of demons, and what their

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Speaker 1: role is now in our current modern society. Well, this

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Speaker 1: individual was obviously whacked out, nuts and insane, but he

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Speaker 1: understood his ancient archaeology, didn't He To an extent, he

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Speaker 1: was very much interested in it. He did flourish and

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Speaker 1: embellish the sort of religious aspect of the Sumerian belief system.

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Speaker 1: They didn't really have that practice in the way that

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Speaker 1: he claimed, But he didn't really claim that it was

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Speaker 1: historically accurate. He believed he was a prophet for bet

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Speaker 1: lack of better word, that he was able to fill

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Speaker 1: in those gaps for people and go on to make

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Speaker 1: this religion or at least try to start this mode

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Speaker 1: of practice, and yes he was clearly he had psychiatric problems.

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Speaker 1: He ended up killing himself, or at least they found

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Speaker 1: him in a pool of his own blood in the

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Speaker 1: prison where he was being held. He said that he

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Speaker 1: needed to do this black Moon sacrifice otherwise he was

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Speaker 1: afraid that this demon because Zoo would kill him and

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Speaker 1: they obviously nobody was going to let him do something

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Speaker 1: so heinous and ridiculous, but he insisted that his life

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Speaker 1: was in danger. Well sure enough that the next day

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Speaker 1: they find him in a pool of his own blood,

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Speaker 1: with broken ribs, scratches all over his body, and he

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Speaker 1: had basically bled out after having a scratch so deep

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Speaker 1: that it perforated his braiculartery. So they ruled it a suicide.

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Speaker 1: But hey, what are you tragic? What do you think

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Speaker 1: might have happened during the ancient days way back in

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Speaker 1: terms of demonology and events? They did something supernatural occur?

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Speaker 1: In your opinion, I think something strange occurred. I guess

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Speaker 1: we could call it supernatural or maybe super unnatural. I

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Speaker 1: think when you look back at history, specifically prehistory, it's

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Speaker 1: difficult to obviously pinpoint it. But scientists do agree that

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Speaker 1: there was something that happened in the brain. They call

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Speaker 1: it a big brain bang, or sometimes just the leap.

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Speaker 1: So something happened in our consciousness that sparked some sort

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Speaker 1: of different way of thinking, some sort of religious thoughts,

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Speaker 1: and people have all sorts of theories on what this was.

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Speaker 1: Some believe it has to do with access to psychedelic mushrooms.

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Speaker 1: Some people believe that it has more to do with

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Speaker 1: how we started cooking food and releasing certain substances and whatnot.

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Speaker 1: So there's many different theories, but we do know that

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Speaker 1: at least scientifically, structurally physically, something happened, and that something

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Speaker 1: correlates with the religious experience and some of these stranger

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Speaker 1: aspects of the religious experience. It's as demons. Hell, let's

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Speaker 1: talk about your life as a renegade archaeologist. What is that?

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Speaker 1: Well that I can guess? Well, I think, for one,

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Speaker 1: I was willing to come on this so after Alex Jones,

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Speaker 1: even though I've received nasty emails all day about it.

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Speaker 1: But I left the mainstream to pursue a fascination with

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Speaker 1: these subjects that some people call fringe. Most of the

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Speaker 1: topics you discuss every night here and Coast as a renegade.

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Speaker 1: I didn't. I did not continue to follow the vocational

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Speaker 1: path I was on in traditional academia. So I started out,

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Speaker 1: you know, just the typical way, and then I started

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Speaker 1: seeing things I just didn't agree with, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I ended up reaching out to Michael Cremo, author you

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Speaker 1: got great, great, and he gave me some really helpful

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Speaker 1: advice and inspired me to, you know, continue on and

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Speaker 1: take all the tools that I could get from the

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Speaker 1: Ivory Tower and bring them out and apply them to

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Speaker 1: something a little more interesting. I guess you should say,

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Speaker 1: but you know, so I just basically don't blindly accept

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Speaker 1: the word of academics and nor al turned over independent researchers.

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Speaker 1: I think the called of personality is threatening the validity

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Speaker 1: of alternative research. I think researchers of all backgrounds shouldn't

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Speaker 1: position themselves as gurus rather than a scholar, because guru

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Speaker 1: seek followers and scholars seek challenges. So I think that

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Speaker 1: through the respectful challenging of ideas, we can arrive at

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Speaker 1: a more complete picture of the truth. And so, you know,

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Speaker 1: a true scholar, in my opinion, welcomes the challenge because

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Speaker 1: they see it not as a threat but as an

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Speaker 1: opportunity to grow closer to the truth, especially today. Sure

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Speaker 1: you need, you know, to work to create a strong

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Speaker 1: public discourse about these sorts of issues, and especially when

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Speaker 1: it comes to history, it's so important. One of my

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Speaker 1: favorite quotes that really sums it up is from Orwell's

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. It's who controls the past controls the future.

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Speaker 1: Who controls the present controls the past? You know that said,

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Speaker 1: I believe the landscape of history is where the battle

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Speaker 1: for our future is taking place right now. One of

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Speaker 1: the keys to your book, Evil Archeology is the underlining

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Speaker 1: the title Demons, Possessions and Sinister Relics. In your opinion,

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Speaker 1: what are demons? Well, it's there's a couple of different things.

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Speaker 1: There's the material aspect of demons, which I look at

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Speaker 1: in the book. So I trace the artifacts of the

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Speaker 1: material culture. And so you have these figurines like the

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Speaker 1: one on the cover or any others, and you can

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Speaker 1: trace sort of their evolution through time with events like

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Speaker 1: religious syncretism, where people started to adopt these figures, rename them,

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Speaker 1: put them with other ones, make amalgamations of them, and

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Speaker 1: so on. And so you have these deities that generally

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Speaker 1: look like horrible little creatures or the devil, cloven hooves,

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Speaker 1: this sort of thing, and that idea emerged years after

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Speaker 1: the Church was literally demonizing pagan demons. You can see

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Speaker 1: this clearly in the case of Pan. The ancient Greek

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Speaker 1: figure represented nature, fertility, music, and all sorts of fun.

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Speaker 1: But eventually the Church used the figure of Pan to

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Speaker 1: illustrate what would happen to sexually, immoral or uncivilized people.

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Speaker 1: So pans horns and cloven hooves and this sort of

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Speaker 1: thing proved to be the archetypal figure now of the devil.

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Speaker 1: And so you can look at demons in that sense,

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Speaker 1: and that's a lot of how people look at it.

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Speaker 1: If you were to say demon, most people will conjure

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Speaker 1: up an image of one of these chimera like creatures

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Speaker 1: with talons or sharp teeth. So that's one way of

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Speaker 1: looking at it. But then there's another way of looking

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Speaker 1: at it that goes beyond the material sense, and that's

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Speaker 1: this idea of spirits and what does it mean to

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Speaker 1: be inspired and something that's unseen and possibly can take

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Speaker 1: alternate shapes and this sort of thing. So I think

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Speaker 1: there's two things at play, and I think the underlying

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Speaker 1: thing is a very real phenomenon that people share. And

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Speaker 1: I was speaking with Whitley Streeper last week about these

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Speaker 1: sorts of things on his show, and he is a

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Speaker 1: very unique we qualified to speak about this because of

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Speaker 1: his experience. He's been there and and it's it's not

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Speaker 1: one of those things where it's like, oh, these are

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Speaker 1: little devils, or these are clearly just you know, aliens,

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Speaker 1: or these are this is this is something far deeper

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Speaker 1: and far more entrenched in the human experience that you know,

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Speaker 1: something as simple as saying a devil or whatever can

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Speaker 1: can explain. So I think what we're looking at here

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Speaker 1: is a very unique but real experience that humans have

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Speaker 1: had since the very beginning. And when we see these

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Speaker 1: manifestations in the cultural and physical sense, like statues or

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Speaker 1: paintings or drawings or whatnot, I believe these are the

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Speaker 1: humans attempt to give face or you know, give a

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Speaker 1: figure to these things that they are experiencing. And there's

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Speaker 1: many different ways they can experience them. And I think

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Speaker 1: that when we look at some of these cultural artifacts,

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Speaker 1: while they're intriguing and interesting, sometimes they can distract from

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Speaker 1: the underlying truth that is in the myths and so

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Speaker 1: I try to look at those truths and I think

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Speaker 1: that they're definitely something true there, and we need to

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Speaker 1: sort of look at that more seriously. And in terms

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Speaker 1: of possessions, who's doing the possessing anyway? Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's that's the great question. And those are things that

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Speaker 1: if you look at history, you'll find accounts of possession

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Speaker 1: going back to the Neolithic era, not necessarily accounts, you know, prehistory,

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Speaker 1: but you there's evidence to suggest that these people in

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Speaker 1: prehistory believed that they were being possessed due to some

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Speaker 1: of their surgical procedures they would have on their head,

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Speaker 1: one of which was trepe nation. They would drill a

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Speaker 1: hole in their head to sort of release these demons

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Speaker 1: from their head. They did it for other reasons as well,

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Speaker 1: to reduce inner cranial pressure, and you know a lot

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Speaker 1: of things that we can sort of get. I hope

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Speaker 1: they didn't drill too deep. They did well, sometimes they did.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes they may have. So it was a very dangerous

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Speaker 1: procedure and no one was guaranteed to live past it,

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Speaker 1: but surprisingly a lot of people did. And so you know,

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Speaker 1: there's this idea that that demons and if you look

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Speaker 1: at these chimera like figures again painted on cave walls. Um,

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Speaker 1: they could very well be demons or beings that are

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Speaker 1: experienced in sort of a shamanistic trance, and so I

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Speaker 1: think you could call those demons, you know, and if

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Speaker 1: you wanted to. We don't know their their intent or

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Speaker 1: their manevolence, but we can definitely say that there was

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Speaker 1: something that the shamans were seeing that were supernatural in

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Speaker 1: some sense. So you have those prehistoric accounts, and then

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Speaker 1: you know, you can actually find accounts as far back

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Speaker 1: in written history as four thousand years with the Sumerian

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Speaker 1: texts that discuss exorcism, and in great detail. A lot

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Speaker 1: of them really really a reminiscent of the exorcisms that

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Speaker 1: we see now in popular culture. So they go back

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Speaker 1: that far, they go back that far. Yeah, In the

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Speaker 1: British Museum they have medical text books from Sumerum, a

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Speaker 1: collection of about a thousand, and out of the one

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Speaker 1: thousand that they have, six hundred and sixty of them

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Speaker 1: reference exorcism. So they looked at it as a medical

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Speaker 1: procedure and a spiritual procedure, and they had all sorts

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Speaker 1: of different ways of conducting this, but it went really

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Speaker 1: far back, and you know, I cover all this in

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Speaker 1: the in the book. But yeah, it's it's it's pretty

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Speaker 1: amazing that it's been something that we've sort of had

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Speaker 1: with us this whole time. And so looking at that,

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Speaker 1: I thought, well, you know what about now. You know,

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Speaker 1: I was brought up Catholic, and so my vision of

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Speaker 1: an exorcist is, you know, a priest holding the crucifix

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Speaker 1: and some holy water and in this sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: And so I challenged myself to look beyond that trope,

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Speaker 1: and I actually found a modern day exorcist and interviewed

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Speaker 1: him in the book, Bill Bean. Oh, Bill's going to

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Speaker 1: join us, by the way in a few minutes. That's great. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's he's he's really great. He was very helpful and

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Speaker 1: and getting me to sort of see the modern context

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Speaker 1: of exorcism and what exorcists go through and and that

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Speaker 1: sort of thing. And so it's very interesting. It's it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's started in prehistory and we're still doing it today.

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Speaker 1: What did the Samians do to perform their exorcisms that

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Speaker 1: it would be so different from let's say, what the

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Speaker 1: Catholic Church does today. One method is actually maybe a

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Speaker 1: little bit funny. It was the act of modeling clay

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Speaker 1: figures of the demons so that they could have a battle.

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Speaker 1: So they sort of like a rock'em sock'em robots thing happening.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it was. The priest would instruct the patient to

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Speaker 1: make a figurine of the demon, and then the patient

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Speaker 1: would raise his hand and say that unknown ghost, I

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Speaker 1: have made a figurine of him. So again it's this

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Speaker 1: idea of taking these supernatural or unseen forces and materializing

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Speaker 1: them somehow in this figure. And so then the priest

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Speaker 1: would purify a clay pit. He'd put wheat flour into it,

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Speaker 1: and the next morning would say, I will buy clay

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Speaker 1: from the potter's pit for a representation of what is evil.

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Speaker 1: You pinch off clay and make figurines as a male

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Speaker 1: and female witch. And the patient would present those figures

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Speaker 1: and pray that the demon takes the clay figure as

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Speaker 1: a substitute. Yeah. Yeah, And then he would leave his body,

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Speaker 1: and so that he would leave the humans body and

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Speaker 1: go into this clay figure because like attracts like, and

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Speaker 1: so the ancient texts actually describe how to make these

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Speaker 1: clay scapegoat figures, and so they'd be mixed with clay,

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Speaker 1: tallow and wax, and so you'd have to say a

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Speaker 1: little thing three times so that the evil spirits would

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Speaker 1: go into it. And yeah, so it's a little superstitious,

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Speaker 1: but very interesting and it was an ordeal sort of work.

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Speaker 1: It's well they believe, so they really do you see this? Now?

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Speaker 1: Let me say, you know the Sumerians we all know

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Speaker 1: by now, they were very meticulous in their record keeping

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Speaker 1: and completely on the cutting of cutting edge of all

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Speaker 1: science and technology. I mean, they they knew so much.

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Speaker 1: So these these weren't sort of backwards people. They were

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Speaker 1: highly advanced. And when you find these exorcist texts, they're

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Speaker 1: not in a religious context. Again, they're in literal medical textbooks,

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Speaker 1: and so they're treated within the body of scientific research

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Speaker 1: and they're treated very seriously. So they believed this was

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Speaker 1: a valid method, and their experience and their belief set

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Speaker 1: it was. It worked enough that they would put it

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Speaker 1: in their textbooks that they would go on to use

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Speaker 1: to instruct the scribe scholars on how to perform these

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Speaker 1: exorcisms and heal patients. So I think it could be

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Speaker 1: argue that it worked. Listen to more coast to coast

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Speaker 1: AM every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and go

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Speaker 1: to coast to coast am dot com for more