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Speaker 1: My Heart is made a necromancer's glass, where homeless forms

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Speaker 1: and exile Phantom's team, where faces of forgotten sorrows gleam

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Speaker 1: and dead despairs, archaic peer and pass gray longings of

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Speaker 1: some weary heart that was possessed me, and the multiple supreme,

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Speaker 1: unwildered hope and star emblazoned dream of questing armies, ancient

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Speaker 1: queen and lass risen vampire alike. From out the wormy mold,

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Speaker 1: deep in the magic mirror of my Heart, behold their

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Speaker 1: parish beauty and depart And now from black Ophelia, far

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Speaker 1: and cold, swimming in deathly light on Charnal skies, the

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Speaker 1: enormous ghosts of bygone worlds arise.

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

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

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Speaker 1: name is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And to continue a

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Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind tradition, we are disregarding the

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Speaker 3: traditional Gregorian calendar, and we have decided that October begins

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Speaker 3: in late September. It often does for us. If you

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Speaker 3: don't know, we do spooky content all October, and today

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Speaker 3: is the first day of that month. Long festival.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: and fantasy writer Clark Ashton Smith.

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Speaker 3: Now, I actually suggested this topic because I became interested

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Speaker 3: in it when we were doing an episode a while back.

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Speaker 3: I think it was our series on oil and Water.

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Speaker 3: We were mainly focusing there on legends about how if

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Speaker 3: you pour oil and water it will settle the waves,

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Speaker 3: and how to some extent that is actually scientifically true.

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Speaker 3: So if you haven't heard that series, go back and

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Speaker 3: listen to it. It'll be a treat. But in that series,

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Speaker 3: I did end up going on a large digression about

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Speaker 3: necromancy in the Hebrew Bible, and it got me thinking

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Speaker 3: about the idea that necromancy, when people use that word today,

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Speaker 3: they're almost always talking about a sort of dungeons and

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Speaker 3: Dragons sorcerer that raises the dead and commands them as

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Speaker 3: a sort of shambling thrall of some sort, whereas in

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Speaker 3: the traditional understanding, necromancy means something different and is usually

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Speaker 3: a reference to the practice of divination with the help

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Speaker 3: of the dead, consulting the dead for information. And that

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Speaker 3: sort of gap in meanings between the popular understanding and

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Speaker 3: the original understanding I thought was very interesting and maybe

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Speaker 3: worth plowing into the history a bit.

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: so things like animate Dead, finger of deav chill Touch,

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: and sci fi properties over the years, so there's this

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

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Speaker 3: Now, I think, aligning with the traditional understanding of necromancy,

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Speaker 3: you do have a spell in Dungeons and Dragons which

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Speaker 3: is Speak with Dead, which is almost always used for

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Speaker 3: necromancy purposes. It's like, you need to get some information

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Speaker 3: out of this corpse. And despite the evil connotations of

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Speaker 3: necromancy in general, I think anybody can use this spell.

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Speaker 3: Like in Balder's Gate, I have my very lawful, good

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Speaker 3: wizard speaking with dead most of the time.

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: against this sort of thing that kind of cast a

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: including that of Clark Ashton Smith, whose poem started off

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Speaker 1: this episode. For instance, he had a story titled The

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Speaker 1: Empire of the Necromancers from nineteen thirty two that involved

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Speaker 1: a pair of kind of like rogue necromancers who get

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

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

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Speaker 1: up people to serve as their servants, and of course

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Speaker 1: they end up rising against them. That sort of thing.

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Speaker 3: Is it kind of a buddy comedy?

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: satisfying when they do. It's also worth noting that JR.

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: Eye as to what sort of literal necromancy he might

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Speaker 1: be up to. In Mirkwood. I don't. I don't know

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Speaker 1: that we have a clear answer on that.

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Speaker 3: That's a good question. I don't know if Sauron would

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Speaker 3: be raising the dead to obtain information or for divinatory purposes.

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Speaker 3: I think he mainly does go more in the D

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Speaker 3: and D direction of like he raises what are they called,

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Speaker 3: you know, the ring rates. I guess those are undead

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Speaker 3: wraiths or revenants of some sort of. They are dead

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Speaker 3: kings who are brought back to do his bidding.

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: With him except like, yeah, do as I command, you,

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Speaker 3: kneel before zod.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So we're going to be talking about several different

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: ultimate root necromancy can be found in the socioeconomic impact

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: necromancy obviously, and even you know, to seek their guidance,

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: This is interesting. It gets into something I think I'm

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Speaker 3: going to talk about more in Part two than in

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Speaker 3: this part, but about how some ancient descriptions of alleged

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Speaker 3: necromancy practices might actually be sort of external misunderstandings of

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Speaker 3: essentially ancestor cult practices that what is actually sort of

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Speaker 3: the care of one's dead ancestors as a sort of

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Speaker 3: god of sorts is misinterpreted by people who don't practice

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Speaker 3: the same thing with regard to their own ancestors as

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Speaker 3: an attempt to get information or power from the dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: times because you'll see the word necromancer, but they're not

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Speaker 1: really talking about anything regarding necromancy specifically. And yeah, and

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: in which the idea of speaking to the dead was

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

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

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Speaker 1: amount of dread.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think another important thing to understand is that

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Speaker 3: especially in the Christian context, but really I think any

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Speaker 3: religious context that enforces a kind of priesthood based orthodoxy,

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Speaker 3: there is usually going to be more restrictions on individual

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Speaker 3: practice of magic, and necromancy would be one form of that.

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Speaker 3: And you know, there are other cultural contexts where it's

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Speaker 3: more of a kind of magical ritual free for all,

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Speaker 3: and people engage in all different kinds of practices to

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Speaker 3: gain information or blessing, and it's not condemned by the

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Speaker 3: religious institutions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's my understanding too, especially how it's used in

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Speaker 3: the academic literature as opposed to the the popular fantasy.

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: word necro mancia, which means black magic, which comes from

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: divination of the dead.

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Speaker 3: And that's why you can see the same suffix mancy

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Speaker 3: used in other forms of divination like silenomancy, you know,

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Speaker 3: divination by looking at the moon and so forth.

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: Simon the Magus by means of ineffable a duration. I

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: the faculty of for knowledge. Whence it is called forth

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

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Speaker 1: and it looks like it's from this is mentioned in

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Speaker 1: a book that he cites from nineteen ninety five by

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Speaker 1: Robertson Donaldson. Okay, but I guess what it's important to

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: the word necromancy or necromancer? How far back can you

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

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Speaker 1: prerequisites for necromancy? And then ultimately, and we'll maybe get

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Speaker 1: into this lag or like what are some things in

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: or wisdom from the dead. Ah.

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Speaker 3: Yes, because there are a lot of artifacts that without

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Speaker 3: literary sources to really explain what was done with them,

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Speaker 3: you can't be sure, but they're suggestive of possible practices

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Speaker 3: having to do with consulting the dead.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Now, in this series, we're going to talk about examples

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Speaker 3: of necromancy or alleged necromancy in different times and places

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Speaker 3: throughout history. Let's see, I had some stuff today about

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Speaker 3: necromancy and ancient Mesopotamia, and Rob, I know you had

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Speaker 3: some stuff about in China. Do you want to do

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Speaker 3: China first?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: the afterlife.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, while you're emphasizing the multiple ideas that can

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Speaker 3: exist within a single person, of course, it's even more

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Speaker 3: true of a populace across time. Like you know, asking

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Speaker 3: like what did ancient Chinese people or what did ancient

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Speaker 3: Mesopotamian people think about what happens after death? Is kind

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Speaker 3: of like asking what do Americans think about what happens

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Speaker 3: after death? I mean, you could represent, you can explain

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Speaker 3: views that are commonly found, that some views are going

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Speaker 3: to be much more frequently believed than others, But there's

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Speaker 3: no single answer to that. There are a range of beliefs,

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Speaker 3: and so if you talk in generalities, you can only

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Speaker 3: talk based on the sources you have, and even then

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Speaker 3: that's probably only going to be talking at best about

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Speaker 3: like majorities of people or some commonly held ideas, not

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Speaker 3: about what everyone believed all the time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: to communicate with or facilitate communication with the dead, and

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: that is necromantic.

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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and to people who listen to us often

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Speaker 3: this should be obvious. But maybe it's worth saying that

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Speaker 3: when we use the term necromancer, we are not applying

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Speaker 3: any more attaching any moral ideas to that. It just

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Speaker 3: means literally somebody who's getting information from the dead, not

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Speaker 3: that that's good or bad. Whatever older sources might be

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Speaker 3: likely to I don't know, has some kind of stink

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Speaker 3: on the idea.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: any of your strong necromantic needs would be a fung she,

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: this is the elegant variation in play here, though again

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: is going to take us through the Handai. So second

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: that he was, you know, leaning into the talents of

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Speaker 1: magicians to help protect him, he also was very much

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Speaker 1: supporting witchcraft, persecution of the day and harsh penalties against

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Speaker 1: alleged magic users. But for instance, one of the fun

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Speaker 1: she's that worked for him was leschau Yun, who claimed

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Speaker 1: to be a seventy year old immortal and preached in

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Speaker 1: more mertality via diet and commitment to the Kitchen God.

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Speaker 1: Though he did die, so maybe there were some holes

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Speaker 1: in the plan. But then there was another individual, a

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Speaker 1: funk she known as Chao Wing, and this apparently can

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Speaker 1: be translated as young geezer. It basically means like young

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Speaker 1: old person.

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Speaker 3: Wait does that mean he was like an old person

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Speaker 3: who was young at heart or a young person who

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Speaker 3: is old at heart.

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Speaker 1: That's a good question because the other guy, Le Shao

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

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

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Speaker 1: at me, Look how young I look. This is because

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: a lot of sources that discuss his alleged use of

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

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Speaker 3: Oh you mean, not separately but together together.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: discussion here necromantic.

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Speaker 3: Okay, give me that controversial story.

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Speaker 1: All right. So the story here that is often ruminated

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Speaker 1: on is that Emperor Wu had had a favorite consort

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Speaker 1: or concubine by the name of Lady Lee. She was

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Speaker 1: his absolute favorite, and she she began to grow rather

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Speaker 1: ill and eventually died. Towards the ends of her life,

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Speaker 1: she began to prohibit him from seeing her face and

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Speaker 1: then ultimately from hearing her voice, and then she dies,

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Speaker 1: and Schao Wing offers the Emperor a chance to speak

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Speaker 1: with her again, to be in her presence again. The

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Speaker 1: story is that he brings the Emperor into this kind

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Speaker 1: of chamber and there's this fabulous silk screen offerings or

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Speaker 1: place for the spirits. There's incense burning, you know, there's

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Speaker 1: a you know, manipulation of light and shadow, and he

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Speaker 1: is able to summon her spirit on the other side

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Speaker 1: of the screen. And there is something shade like or

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Speaker 1: shadow like in her appearance.

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Speaker 3: Ah, that's interesting because I wonder if that kind of

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Speaker 3: thing should meet our death. A mission of necromancy or

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Speaker 3: not is just wanting to see and interact with someone

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Speaker 3: again because you miss them. A form of necromancy is

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Speaker 3: that getting information from them, not in the way I

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Speaker 3: would normally think of.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: and Women Warriors by Fan Pinlee Chin, and the author

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: concubine like that, that just seems like quite a stunt

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Speaker 1: to pull off, even if you're a particular daring and

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Speaker 1: charismatic wizard.

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Speaker 3: I mean, on one hand, yes, but then I don't

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Speaker 3: know by modern analogy. I mean, I think that there

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Speaker 3: are people who claim to have spirit medium powers and

401
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Speaker 3: stuff who perform tricks like this on people in the

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Speaker 3: modern world all the time.

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

404
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Speaker 1: keep in mind. So yeah, first of all, we should

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

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

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Speaker 1: something going on here. And Chen also points out some

408
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Speaker 1: other facts that I think helped us sort of circle

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: of it. Because he feels like he has been duped,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: apparently submitted that Chao Wing used something other than traditional

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Speaker 1: three dimensional puppets or two dimensional shadow puppets, and that

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

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

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Speaker 1: arguing in favor of magic stone per se, but that

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Speaker 1: makes you think of something perhaps a little bit different,

427
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Speaker 1: maybe you know, higher production values or out of the

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Speaker 1: ordinary compared with what you know. They might have been

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Speaker 1: used to some sort of like pre existing shadow play

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Speaker 1: shadow puppetry performance. While the author is doubtful that any

431
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:33,639
Speaker 1: of this suggests a shamanistic origin for shadow puppetry, so

432
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: any idea that like shadow puppetry originates as kind of

433
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: a you know, shamanistic or religious rite of some sort.

434
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:45,159
Speaker 1: Authors the author sites the importance of hun period belief

435
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: that certain fung shei could summon the souls or shadows

436
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: of the deceased through special rights, which again, you know,

437
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:55,879
Speaker 1: a pre existing script, a pre existing idea that this

438
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 1: is the kind of thing that certain magicians can do.

439
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: And the story also seems to have been somewhat corrupted

440
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 1: in Western retellings, forging a link between seance and shadow puppetry,

441
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:09,720
Speaker 1: when if I'm understanding Chen correctly on this, it's more

442
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:11,439
Speaker 1: proper to think of this as a tale of a

443
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:15,200
Speaker 1: would be necromancer using shadow effects to dupe the emperor

444
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:17,399
Speaker 1: into thinking he has been visited by the spirits of

445
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: the dead. You know, this is kind of a familiar

446
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: trope throughout the world, the idea of like the dangerous

447
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:27,879
Speaker 1: position held by a king's magical advisors. You know, you

448
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:31,120
Speaker 1: have to walk that fine line because if you were,

449
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,439
Speaker 1: if they see through what you're doing, you're obviously not

450
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: going to stick around court very long.

451
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I don't know, thinking more about the idea

452
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 3: that could a clever magician really trick a king like this,

453
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 3: I think maybe that also assumes that the king would

454
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:52,120
Speaker 3: be more likely suspicious or skeptical than a person might

455
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 3: naturally be if they do desperately want to see someone again.

456
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:57,919
Speaker 3: I mean, if someone you love has died and you

457
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 3: want to see them again, you might not be, you know,

458
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 3: looking for holes to pick in the experience of seeing

459
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 3: them once again. You might be quite ready to believe.

460
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's important to keep in mind,

461
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: and I think it's it's also interesting to contemplate this account,

462
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:17,880
Speaker 1: especially given that, you know, first of all, it's occurrence

463
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:19,919
Speaker 1: in a culture that is traditionally more aligned with the

464
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 1: idea of communication with spirits of the deceased again, as

465
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: opposed to Christian European culture, in which the idea of

466
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 1: speaking with the dead is seen as impossible and dangerous.

467
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:31,439
Speaker 1: You know, you're just going to get a demon on

468
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: the other line anyway, so don't even attempt it. And

469
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps it also speaks to a sort of

470
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:40,360
Speaker 1: communion with the dead that goes beyond anything achievable via

471
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:43,439
Speaker 1: veneration rights and even medium traditions. You know, the idea

472
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 1: that it's not just about like honoring her and knowing

473
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: that she's out there somewhere but it's like here she

474
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: is almost, if not quite physically here, just on the

475
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: other side. And I think that also kind of matches

476
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: up with this idea that you see in other accounts

477
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: of her kind of fading away from life towards the end,

478
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 1: like he can't see her anymore, now he can't speak

479
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: with her anymore, and now she's dead. And maybe there's

480
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 1: there's some of that sprinkled in there as well. And

481
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 1: I also kind of like this whole this idea of

482
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:18,199
Speaker 1: the screen, this kind of like thin veil that is

483
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: separating him from this possibly you know, resurrected spirit. It's

484
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:27,719
Speaker 1: such a slight barrier, right, as slight as the barrier

485
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:30,960
Speaker 1: between life and death may seem at times. And there's

486
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: also something fitting and that ending to tellings of the

487
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 1: story in which he like finally can't have he can't

488
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: have it. He's like, I have to pull this out

489
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: of the way and see her for real. And then

490
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 1: when he looks behind the screen, what does he see.

491
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: He sees his court magician doing, you know, something with

492
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: the shadow puppetry or statues, and now the illusion is

493
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 1: completely destroyed.

494
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, but before the illusion is destroyed, just the idea

495
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 3: that she is existing as a shadow on a silk screen.

496
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 3: It suggests something very delicate and fragile in a kind

497
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 3: of emotionally charged way about the memory of her.

498
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so I feel like, you know, there's a

499
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on in this example, and perhaps

500
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: it brings up some ideas about necromancy and what necromancy

501
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 1: could be and what it's not that we can take

502
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 1: with us into other examples here.

503
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 3: All right, Rob, are you ready to talk to some

504
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 3: ghosts in ancient Mesopotamia?

505
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:37,479
Speaker 1: Oh?

506
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 3: Yes, So we're going to look at evidence for necromancy

507
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 3: in the ancient land between the rivers. This would be

508
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 3: Mesopotamia refers to the civilizations based on the river system

509
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 3: of the Tigris and Euphrates, so mostly centered in what

510
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 3: is modern day Iraq. And these civilizations would include, but

511
00:29:56,720 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 3: not be limited to, the Sumerians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians. Now,

512
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 3: the main source I was looking at here is an

513
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 3: article from nineteen eighty three by Irving L. Finkel called

514
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 3: Necromancy in Ancient Mesopotamia, published in a journal called Arkiev

515
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 3: fur Orientforschung. And this author, Irving Finkel, is a British

516
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:24,160
Speaker 3: seriologist and language scholar affiliated with the British Museum. It

517
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 3: seems like he specializes in cuneiform inscriptions, but he also

518
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 3: seems to have a range of interests, including everything from

519
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 3: Mesopotamian ghosts and magic to ancient board games like the

520
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 3: Royal Game of Or, which I think we I think

521
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 3: we discussed his work in particular in our Invention series

522
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 3: on board games.

523
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I remember that episode.

524
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 3: So I was looking for some general information about Finkel

525
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 3: in his background, and I found an absolutely delightful video

526
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 3: interview with Finkel from about five years ago that seems

527
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 3: to be part of a series the British Museum does

528
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 3: called Curator's Corner, and this video is called a Mesopotamian

529
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 3: Ghost Busting with Irving Finkel. It's on topic and I

530
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 3: found it very interesting, so I thought i'd go ahead

531
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 3: and summarize this before getting back into the paper. In

532
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 3: this interview, Finkel talks about some of his best guesses

533
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 3: as to what ancient Mesopotamians broadly believed about ghosts, the dead,

534
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 3: and the undead, based on literary and archaeological evidence available

535
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 3: to us. So to be clear, I think this involves

536
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 3: some speculation, but it is well informed speculation, and also

537
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 3: our same caveat from earlier. You know, not everybody believed

538
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 3: the same thing in certain times and places in history,

539
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 3: so you can only talk about what seems to be

540
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 3: common based on the sources we have. So Finkel says

541
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 3: in ancient Mesopotamia, there was widespread belief that when someone died,

542
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 3: it was very important that they were given a proper

543
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 3: burial in the earth, with specified rituals to seal the grave.

544
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 3: In Finkel's words quote, so they were jolly well locked

545
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 3: in and couldn't come back to cause trouble. So people

546
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 3: who for whatever reason do not receive a proper burial

547
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 3: and do not receive the correct rituals observed at their

548
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 3: burial would be expected to come back from beyond the

549
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 3: grave and haunt the living. And some examples given here

550
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 3: would be people who die on the battlefield, or people

551
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 3: who die out in the wilderness alone, people who just

552
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 3: vanish and are assumed dead. And he also mentions people

553
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 3: who die in childbirth, which I thought was an interesting

554
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 3: example because I'm not sure in this case what would

555
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 3: prevent someone who dies in childbirth from receiving a proper burial,

556
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 3: But I thought that was interesting, and this comes back

557
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:46,320
Speaker 3: to something that we've discussed a little bit on the

558
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 3: show before. But I am frequently struck by the belief

559
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 3: in what seems like many ancient cultures that it is

560
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 3: extremely important to receive a proper burial or at least

561
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 3: proper funeral rights according to your local customs. And I

562
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:07,960
Speaker 3: don't know that it's always because of the kind of

563
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 3: ghost security concerns that Finkel is going to raise with

564
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 3: respect to ancient Mesopotamia, but it really does seem like

565
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:18,000
Speaker 3: lots of ancient peoples that we read about seem truly

566
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 3: horrified by the idea of dying without receiving the appropriate

567
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 3: funerary customs or not, or without having their body dealt

568
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 3: with in the way that their culture deems is proper.

569
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 3: And it's not that I think people today just don't

570
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 3: care at all what happens to their bodies after death.

571
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 3: We care somewhat, but I sense way less sensitivity to

572
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 3: this on average in American culture today than is implied

573
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 3: in many ancient sources from different cultures around the world.

574
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 3: And I don't know exactly what to make of that,

575
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 3: but it seems significant to me. I feel like I

576
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 3: would like to understand more about it.

577
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, well, we've distanced ourselves from death and

578
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:02,959
Speaker 1: physical death so much, and you know, we have an

579
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 1: entire industry obviously built up around it. So on one level,

580
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 1: it's kind of like we can just leave it to

581
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:12,360
Speaker 1: the professionals. We can choose from like the menu items

582
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: of what we can and can't do with or have

583
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:17,840
Speaker 1: done with our remains. And yeah, I think for a

584
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:21,320
Speaker 1: lot of us too, like the actual form that takes

585
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 1: is less connected to our ideas of like what happens

586
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: to us or all of us beyond our body after

587
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 1: death be the answer, you know, nothing, or a whole lot.

588
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:36,759
Speaker 1: It's it's I think, oftentimes thought to be rather disconnected

589
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: from the physical.

590
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 3: There's an interesting other example of a connection between the

591
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 3: belief in what happens to your sort of soular spirit

592
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:47,280
Speaker 3: in the afterlife and what happens to your physical body

593
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 3: in a text that I'm going to get into in

594
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 3: a bit. But to come back to what Finkel talks

595
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 3: about in this interview, he says, you know, as best

596
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 3: we can tell from our sources, everybody we know of

597
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 3: in ancient Mesopotamia believed in ghosts. There is no evidence

598
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:04,359
Speaker 3: of anyone saying that ghosts don't exist or you don't

599
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:06,520
Speaker 3: have to worry about them. Seems like it was just

600
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 3: taken for granted that ghosts existed and were part of life. However,

601
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 3: and I thought this point was really interesting. Finkel says

602
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 3: that it is not universal that people regarded ghosts with

603
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:25,400
Speaker 3: fear or terror. People were not always necessarily frightened of them. Instead,

604
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:28,400
Speaker 3: he says, the more common attitude seems to be one

605
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 3: of sympathy for ghosts. Kind like, if there is a

606
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 3: ghost haunting you, that is a problem, but it's not

607
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 3: something that is terrifying, at least not necessarily. It could

608
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 3: be in some circumstances. So a ghost is somebody, usually

609
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 3: a family member of yours, who is like now having

610
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 3: a hard time after death. It's almost like somebody in

611
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,840
Speaker 3: your family has a disease or something and because of

612
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:57,799
Speaker 3: their condition, they are unable to find rest in the underworld,

613
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 3: that they can't settle down in another world, and they

614
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:04,520
Speaker 3: need the help of the living. So while they may

615
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,640
Speaker 3: not be frightening, they are in trouble, and they often

616
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 3: cause trouble, all right.

617
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 1: So that second part is very familiar than it to

618
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:14,160
Speaker 1: anyone who's ever seen a TV show that has an

619
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:16,640
Speaker 1: episode about a ghost? Why did you deal with that ghost?

620
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: You got to like do that thing that makes them

621
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: go away, that makes them content and lets them move on.

622
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:24,919
Speaker 1: But the first part about it, like it not being

623
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 1: a frightful scenario but more of a sympathetic scenario. You know,

624
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 1: it kind of makes me think again. It's like what

625
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:34,360
Speaker 1: happens when there is not room for a particular type

626
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:40,000
Speaker 1: of supernatural belief or paranormal experience within a given like

627
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 1: rule system or worldview. For instance, if your say religious

628
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: worldview is like, hey, there are no such thing as ghosts,

629
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: those don't exist, Well, then when something makes you think

630
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 1: about ghosts or or raises the specter of ghosts, or

631
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 1: you have some sort of a hallucination experience that is

632
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 1: interpreted as ghosts, well then that power structure cannot help

633
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 1: you because they're like, well out of our hands because

634
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: we already told you that stuff's not real. And then likewise,

635
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 1: I think if with a certain you know, certain scientific positions,

636
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:14,440
Speaker 1: you could take on everything you know it's like you

637
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 1: don't believe in the supernatural. And if then if something

638
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:20,720
Speaker 1: like this were to present itself, then suddenly it seems

639
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: it may seem like science can't help you. I think

640
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 1: we would argue something different. We discussed that before. There

641
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 1: are various thoroughly logical, rational scientific explanations for various supernatural experiences.

642
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 1: But I can imagine the attitude of being like, well,

643
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 1: something has now occurred and it is outside the framework

644
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:44,879
Speaker 1: that is supporting me. Therefore I am afraid.

645
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 3: Yes, I think that is very interesting, and I think

646
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:50,279
Speaker 3: that might be a good explanation for this difference, for

647
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,520
Speaker 3: why our primary emotional reaction to ghosts in the modern

648
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:56,280
Speaker 3: world or even in I don't know, say like medieval

649
00:37:56,360 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 3: Christian Europe would be fear, just like it doesn't fit

650
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 3: as a reality within your orthodoxy. Yeah, and so anyway,

651
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,480
Speaker 3: in the context of ancient Mesopotamia, Finkle says, there were

652
00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:12,279
Speaker 3: people we know of who specialized in magic and rituals

653
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:16,480
Speaker 3: designed to appease wandering ghosts and send them back to

654
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:19,239
Speaker 3: their rightful place among the dead, send them back to

655
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:22,720
Speaker 3: the nether world where they belong. And I think normally

656
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 3: in the in the literature, these would be referred to

657
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 3: as exorcists, which again can be confusing because of like

658
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:32,319
Speaker 3: the Christian Catholic context of an exorcist being somebody who

659
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:36,000
Speaker 3: like casts out demons from a person who is demon possessed.

660
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 3: And in the case it's used in these academic works,

661
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 3: it would just be referred to it's somebody whose job

662
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 3: it is to like get the ghost out of the

663
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 3: place it's not supposed to be and help it you

664
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:49,319
Speaker 3: back to where it is supposed to be. Yeah, And

665
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:53,839
Speaker 3: he describes one particular example based on a tablet in

666
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:57,959
Speaker 3: the British Museum's collection, and this is pretty interesting, he says.

667
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:02,239
Speaker 3: This tablet depicts a porto walking in profile holding a

668
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 3: male figure by a lead which I think attaches around

669
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 3: the male figure's neck. And Finkel says he believes that

670
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:13,400
Speaker 3: the woman shown in this illustration is a ghost, probably

671
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 3: the ghost of someone's great aunt, who for some reason

672
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:20,320
Speaker 3: is wandering the world of the living and causing trouble.

673
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 3: And the exorcist, called to deal with this problem, decides

674
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 3: that what this ghost needs is a lover. So the

675
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 3: exorcist makes one clay model of the ghost woman and

676
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 3: another clay model that is a sexy man, a young, muscular,

677
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:40,640
Speaker 3: handsome man with a large beard, and these two clay

678
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:44,320
Speaker 3: effigies are buried together in a pit with an assortment

679
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 3: of grave goods, and then the idea is that this

680
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 3: burial would allow the ghost to settle down into the

681
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 3: underworld and stop causing distress for the living.

682
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 1: Hmm. That's interesting. It reminds me a little bit of

683
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: the topic of ghost marriage and Chinese tradition that I

684
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 1: think Christian and I did an episode on years and

685
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 1: years back, but you know, basically involves sort of a

686
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:09,759
Speaker 1: similar principle, like something is out of whack. There's a

687
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:14,919
Speaker 1: structural incompleteness that is involved with the family unit, and

688
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 1: it needs to be supernaturally and or symbolically fixed in

689
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:25,760
Speaker 1: order for these you know, now ancestors to completely pass

690
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: on and sort of be properly organized in the afterlife

691
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: or what have you.

692
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:35,359
Speaker 3: Right, I think that's a good comparison. But to come

693
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 3: back to the illustration on the tablet, he says, it

694
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 3: seems to show this ghost woman holding on to I

695
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 3: guess her new lover by this like lead. So there's

696
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 3: like no chance he gets away there together forever. Now,

697
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 3: coming back to this idea from a minute ago, that

698
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 3: the ghosts were not necessarily thought of as frightening in

699
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 3: ancient Mesopotamia, Finkle says that there were some ghosts who

700
00:40:57,239 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 3: were who actually were frightening and danger and he offers

701
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 3: his opinion that these were probably understood to be the

702
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 3: ghosts of people who were themselves frightening and dangerous when

703
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:14,279
Speaker 3: they were alive. So, you know, regular person with a

704
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:18,439
Speaker 3: proper without proper burial means a you know, a sort

705
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 3: of sympathetic but troublesome ghost. Somebody is a problem you

706
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 3: need to deal with, or a ghost you need to help,

707
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:28,840
Speaker 3: not necessarily scary, whereas a wicked person without a proper

708
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:30,760
Speaker 3: burial that could be a scary ghost.

709
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 1: Okay, it makes sense.

710
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 3: And he says these malevolent ghosts were thought to slip

711
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 3: in through a person's ear while the victim was asleep,

712
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 3: and if the ghost gets in through your ear canal,

713
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 3: it could bring on extreme headaches like migraines, or it

714
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:49,840
Speaker 3: could even cause madness. And Finkel describes a couple of

715
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 3: other types of effigies that would be crafted by ancient

716
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:58,200
Speaker 3: Mesopotamian exorcists in order to drive away malevolent ghosts. First,

717
00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 3: there's a kind of king figure who would be placed

718
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 3: near a bed to project authority and general warding magic.

719
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 3: And then second would be a model of a Vizier

720
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:12,600
Speaker 3: figure that would be placed on top of a pole

721
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 3: in a way that it could rotate around the pole

722
00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 3: like a kind of spin around it like a propeller,

723
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 3: and this would, he suggests, sort of fan the air

724
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:25,879
Speaker 3: around and drive spirits away. Okay, And finally he makes

725
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 3: the point that these elaborate rituals with like paid exorcists

726
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 3: were these almost certainly would have been the things that

727
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 3: were available to the elite, to the richest people in society,

728
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 3: and we have way less insight, maybe no insight really

729
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 3: into how regular people dealt with ghosts if they did

730
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 3: it all. And then he sort of humorously suggests that

731
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 3: regular people might not have had time to see ghosts,

732
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:52,960
Speaker 3: or if they did, perhaps they just sort of like

733
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 3: waved at them and went about their business. But we

734
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 3: don't really know. But I do think that's kind of

735
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 3: funny to imagine that, Like, I don't know if this

736
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 3: is true, but I mean, I wonder if like ghosts

737
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 3: are more likely to be a problem that you're dealing

738
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:10,880
Speaker 3: with if you have excess like time and leisure and

739
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 3: riches and stuff.

740
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 1: Maybe I could see that argument. But yeah, it also

741
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 1: seems kind of to his point as well equally as

742
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:23,480
Speaker 1: possible that the people, regular people had their own traditions

743
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 1: and their own experts, but we just have no surviving

744
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:36,320
Speaker 1: mention of it.

745
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:40,880
Speaker 3: Now, to come back to Finkle's nineteen eighty three paper

746
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 3: on necromancy in Ancient Mesopotamia, all of that I was

747
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 3: just talking about was ghostbusting or exorcism. Back to necromancy specifically,

748
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:52,359
Speaker 3: I want to note quickly that this article I'm talking about,

749
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 3: I think it was very interesting, so I do want

750
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 3: to talk about it, but it was not written for

751
00:43:56,120 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 3: a popular audience. This is for Mesopotamian specialists, and several

752
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:03,239
Speaker 3: parts kind of assume familiarity with ancient languages, which I

753
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 3: certainly do not have. I think I was able to

754
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 3: make sense of all the main points by doing some

755
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 3: secondary research, but please just know I'm doing my best here.

756
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 3: I'm outside my area of expertise. So he starts off

757
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:18,479
Speaker 3: this paper by saying, you know, our sources from ancient

758
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 3: Mesopotamia don't contain a lot of references to necromancy, but

759
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 3: there is some evidence of its practice. And here he

760
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 3: defines necromancy as quote, the delicate art of summoning the

761
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 3: spirits of the dead, in order to learn the future

762
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 3: from them. So this is the definition you'll find more

763
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 3: often in academic works, not about you know, summoning skeleton

764
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 3: soldiers or something, but again for divination purposes. He specifically

765
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 3: says to learn the future. But I think some of

766
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 3: the examples he mentions are not really so much about

767
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 3: the future. They're just more generally the getting information thing.

768
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 3: And so Finkel writes that some of the clearest evidence

769
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:01,720
Speaker 3: of necromancy is actually lexical, meaning really related to vocabulary.

770
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:07,719
Speaker 3: There are these ancient cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia known as

771
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 3: lexical lists, and they go way back. There are tons

772
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:15,760
Speaker 3: of these tablets you can find in the archaeological record.

773
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 3: There are lots of them to to translate and interpret,

774
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:24,239
Speaker 3: and they are essentially ancient glossaries that just list collections

775
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 3: of words, often with translations of the terms between different languages.

776
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:34,880
Speaker 3: And these could include lists of names or lists of gods,

777
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 3: or lists of different categories of natural objects like lists

778
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 3: of plants or lists of birds, or simply lists of

779
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 3: nouns or words. And one of the most famous Cuneiform

780
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:51,440
Speaker 3: lexical text traditions is the professions list known as lou

781
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 3: and so in this list, it names a bunch of

782
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:57,879
Speaker 3: jobs jobs people can have there, and so there are

783
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:01,719
Speaker 3: words for professions in this list that we can tell

784
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 3: refer to necromancers because of the way the words are constructed.

785
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 3: And this is one of those sections where, because this

786
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 3: is for specialists, I wasn't able to tell exactly what

787
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 3: the terms here cash out to in English. But I

788
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 3: think what this means is there are sort of listed

789
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 3: professions that are called something like dead spirit, razor or something.

790
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:26,279
Speaker 3: And Finkel says there are male and female versions of

791
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:30,800
Speaker 3: these professional names, but unfortunately we don't have connected literary

792
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 3: texts that show how these terms were used. However, Finkel

793
00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:40,719
Speaker 3: says there are several passages in Mesopotamian texts that were

794
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:43,440
Speaker 3: already widely known at the time this paper was published

795
00:46:43,840 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 3: which do describe forms of necromancy in practice, and one

796
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:51,759
Speaker 3: of the most interesting ones is found in the Sumerian

797
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:56,120
Speaker 3: narrative known as Gilgamesh in key Do and the nether World.

798
00:46:57,440 --> 00:46:58,480
Speaker 1: Good Old Gilgamesh.

799
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 3: Yes, now, this is a story of the two characters

800
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 3: Gilgamesh and in key Do, who are the heroes of

801
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 3: the famous Gilgamesh epic. You know they they have that

802
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:10,920
Speaker 3: I mean that's a buddy cop story for you. You know.

803
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:15,520
Speaker 3: They they go slay the demon Humbaba together in the

804
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:17,920
Speaker 3: Cedar forest, and they get up to all kinds of mischief,

805
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:21,200
Speaker 3: but then tragically in key Do dies, and then that

806
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 3: that sends Gilgamesh on his quest for immortality. I think

807
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 3: that Gilgamesh in key Do in the Nether World is,

808
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 3: from what I understand best thought of as a separate

809
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 3: story that is out of continuity with the rest of

810
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 3: the Gilgamesh epic, even though it is sometimes tacked on

811
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 3: at the end of the larger epic as a kind

812
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:46,480
Speaker 3: of discontinuous chapter, because like in key Do dies earlier

813
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:48,480
Speaker 3: in the story, and then here he is suddenly alive

814
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 3: again at the beginning of this story. But here are

815
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:54,840
Speaker 3: the broad strokes of Gilgamesh in key Do and the

816
00:47:54,880 --> 00:48:00,320
Speaker 3: Nether World. So Gilgamesh's stuff keeps falling into the underworld world,

817
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:05,120
Speaker 3: like he has this stuff called I don't know exactly

818
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 3: what these possessions of Gilgamesh's are supposed to be. There's

819
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:13,439
Speaker 3: one thing called an LaGG written in English elag that like, oh,

820
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 3: it fell into the underworld, you know, So his stuff

821
00:48:17,080 --> 00:48:20,160
Speaker 3: is like tumbling out of this world into the infamous

822
00:48:20,200 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 3: House of Dust, where the dead go to dwell, and

823
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:27,520
Speaker 3: so Gilgamesh's friend and or servant in key Do offers

824
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:30,319
Speaker 3: to go into the underworld to get his stuff back

825
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:34,160
Speaker 3: for him. Unfortunately, once he goes down there, he breaks

826
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:36,960
Speaker 3: all the rules and is thus not allowed to return

827
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 3: to the world of the living now he is dead.

828
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 3: And in the version that Finkel sites, there is a

829
00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:46,319
Speaker 3: scene in which a demon named Nrgal conjures up the

830
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 3: ghost of bing ky Do at Gilgamesh's bidding, and the

831
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 3: ghost of inky Do is said to rise up through

832
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:54,880
Speaker 3: a hole or a crack in the ground like the wind,

833
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 3: in order to have a conversation with Gilgamesh about what

834
00:48:58,440 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 3: the underworld is like.

835
00:49:00,160 --> 00:49:00,319
Speaker 1: Now.

836
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:03,000
Speaker 3: I went looking for a full translation of this story

837
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:05,800
Speaker 3: so I could zero in on a few sections. The

838
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:09,240
Speaker 3: one version of this text that I found online, which

839
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 3: I should note has a few small differences from exactly

840
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:16,600
Speaker 3: what Finkel describes, was on an Oxford hosted website called

841
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 3: the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. So I want

842
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 3: to look at a few different things. First of all,

843
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:27,640
Speaker 3: the list of things that Gilgamesh tells in key Do

844
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:30,520
Speaker 3: not to do in order to survive his trip to

845
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:33,160
Speaker 3: the nether World, there's like a oh, I don't know,

846
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:35,120
Speaker 3: like the you know, the rules in how to survive

847
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 3: a slasher movie in Key Do gets one of those

848
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:40,719
Speaker 3: for the nether World. So he says, you're definitely not

849
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 3: supposed to wear clean garments, because if you wear clean garments,

850
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 3: they're going to know you're not dead, you're not one

851
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 3: of them, that they'll get really mad. You should not

852
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:52,680
Speaker 3: anoint yourself with fine oil from a bowl because then

853
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 3: they will surround you because they will smell that you

854
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:57,439
Speaker 3: smell nice, and you're not supposed to smell nice down there.

855
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:01,840
Speaker 3: Very sensible, exactly, Yes, he says, don't start hurling throw

856
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:04,839
Speaker 3: sticks in another world. Those struck down by the throw

857
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:07,359
Speaker 3: sticks are going to get mad at you and surround you.

858
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:09,960
Speaker 1: Okay. Also sensible, he.

859
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 3: Says, don't hold a cornell wood stick in your hand.

860
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 3: He says that the spirits will feel insulted by this

861
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:17,200
Speaker 3: for some reason.

862
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means, but good advice. You

863
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 1: wouldn't think of it, and therefore is even more important

864
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:23,320
Speaker 1: that you'd be warned.

865
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 3: Exactly. He says, you shouldn't put sandals on your feet.

866
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:31,200
Speaker 3: You should not shout in another world. I guess maybe

867
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 3: in key Dou's wife had died, he says you should

868
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:37,879
Speaker 3: neither kiss nor hit your wife. And then in key

869
00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 3: Dou's child had died, and you said you should neither

870
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 3: kiss nor hit your child.

871
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:48,000
Speaker 1: Okay, So basically like you're supposed to be like these

872
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 1: shades of the dead, you're not showing any emotion. You're

873
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 1: not you're not either good or bad, like you're doing

874
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 1: nothing but just being there hanging out like a shade.

875
00:50:57,680 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I guess getting the lag in the other

876
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:03,720
Speaker 3: stuff back to bring that back. But in key Do fails.

877
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:06,840
Speaker 3: He does literally everything Gilgamesh warns him not to do

878
00:51:06,920 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 3: in the underworld, every single one of the things, and

879
00:51:09,800 --> 00:51:12,120
Speaker 3: he is seized and trapped there forever.

880
00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:13,879
Speaker 1: Oh that went south.

881
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:17,320
Speaker 3: So in this version I was reading, Gilgamesh gets somebody.

882
00:51:17,440 --> 00:51:19,919
Speaker 3: It's not the demon Nergal. In this version he gets

883
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:23,120
Speaker 3: somebody named Utu to open a hole in the underworld

884
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:25,440
Speaker 3: to allow in Kedu to come up and share information

885
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:28,480
Speaker 3: with him. And so I want to describe this scene

886
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 3: where in Kydu's ghost is called up. It reads as follows.

887
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 3: They hugged and kissed, they wearied each other with questions,

888
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:39,960
Speaker 3: did you see the order of the nether world? If

889
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:42,239
Speaker 3: only you would tell me, my friend, if only you

890
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:45,080
Speaker 3: would tell me? And then in Key Dou responds, if

891
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:47,319
Speaker 3: I tell you the order of the nether world, sit

892
00:51:47,440 --> 00:51:51,120
Speaker 3: down and weep, And in Key Dou tells him that

893
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:54,520
Speaker 3: the nether world is like a garment infested with worms,

894
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:58,040
Speaker 3: and it is like a crevice filled with dust. And

895
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:01,040
Speaker 3: then they end up talking at link about the fates

896
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,239
Speaker 3: of the dead. So there are all these different things

897
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:06,919
Speaker 3: that sort of reflect I guess, ancient Mesopotamian views about

898
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:09,120
Speaker 3: what the good life is like. It seems that in

899
00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:11,600
Speaker 3: Key Doo thinks the dead who have a lot of

900
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:14,360
Speaker 3: airs are pretty happy, and the ones that have fewer

901
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:17,800
Speaker 3: airrors are unhappy. But then a bunch of other different

902
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:21,759
Speaker 3: kinds of fates people can have are described. They say,

903
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:24,040
Speaker 3: for example, did you see the spirit of him who

904
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:27,799
Speaker 3: has no funerary offerings? In Key who says I saw him?

905
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:31,000
Speaker 3: Gilgemesh says, how does he fare? In Key who says

906
00:52:31,080 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 3: he eats the scraps and the crumbs tossed out in

907
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:38,759
Speaker 3: the street. And again, bad things when funeral rites are

908
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 3: not observed. But I wondered about that. Does he mean

909
00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:43,880
Speaker 3: the scraps and crumbs tossed out in the street in

910
00:52:43,960 --> 00:52:47,120
Speaker 3: the nether world or on Earth in the cities of

911
00:52:47,160 --> 00:52:49,480
Speaker 3: the living. I took it maybe more to be the second.

912
00:52:50,239 --> 00:52:52,279
Speaker 1: Hmm, Yeah, I mean I could see it going either way.

913
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:55,799
Speaker 1: I mean, basically, you did not symbolically offer food to them,

914
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:58,680
Speaker 1: and so they have no sustenance in the afterlife.

915
00:52:58,800 --> 00:53:01,320
Speaker 3: But then there's one thing here that has some interesting

916
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:05,840
Speaker 3: metaphysical information. Gilgamesh says, did you see him who was

917
00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:10,319
Speaker 3: set on fire? And in Kidu says, I did not

918
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 3: see him. His spirit is not about His smoke went

919
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:19,200
Speaker 3: up to the sky. So the person who is burned

920
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:22,759
Speaker 3: is not in the nether world at all. They go

921
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:26,600
Speaker 3: wherever their smoke goes up in the sky. What happens

922
00:53:26,600 --> 00:53:27,200
Speaker 3: to them there?

923
00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:28,920
Speaker 1: It kind of sounds like they end up in the

924
00:53:28,920 --> 00:53:31,880
Speaker 1: wrong place. It's like, yeah, it seems to be the message,

925
00:53:31,920 --> 00:53:34,799
Speaker 1: like you don't go cremating the dead, because then how

926
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:38,000
Speaker 1: are they going to get to this wonderful it's wonderful

927
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:39,680
Speaker 1: afterlife that is being presented here.

928
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:42,319
Speaker 3: I mean, to be clear, it seems okay for people

929
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:46,600
Speaker 3: who had a bunch of errors. He says they are

930
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:50,320
Speaker 3: like gods, they sit in judgment of everyone else. But anyway,

931
00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:53,399
Speaker 3: I thought this was interesting because this is depicting an

932
00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:57,360
Speaker 3: example of necromancy. I think that does meet the strict definition.

933
00:53:57,640 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 3: Like Gilgamesh is trying to get hidden in from but

934
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:06,040
Speaker 3: it's not so much like personal future fortune telling type stuff. Instead,

935
00:54:06,080 --> 00:54:09,920
Speaker 3: he is using this consultation with the dead to get

936
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:13,520
Speaker 3: information about what happens to different people after they die.

937
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:16,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also sort of reconnect with an old friend like, so, hey,

938
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:18,800
Speaker 1: where you live in these days?

939
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:19,719
Speaker 3: Yeah?

940
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:21,799
Speaker 1: After life? Well what's it? What's it like?

941
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:26,960
Speaker 3: Well, it's hashy, it's it's like dust and a crevis,

942
00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:30,120
Speaker 3: you know. Yeah, that's what you should say next time

943
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:32,320
Speaker 3: you reconnect with an old friend. Well, you know, garment,

944
00:54:32,440 --> 00:54:36,840
Speaker 3: garment eaten by worms, crabs full of dust. But anyway,

945
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:38,919
Speaker 3: coming back to Finkle's paper, so he mentioned a couple

946
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 3: of other sources pre existing at the time of this

947
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:45,440
Speaker 3: paper that mentioned necromancy, or at least potentially mention it

948
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:48,840
Speaker 3: in a more prosaic context. One is an old Assyrian

949
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 3: letter from Cultepe which contains the lines quote here, we

950
00:54:53,719 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 3: asked the female oracle givers, the female diviners and the

951
00:54:57,120 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 3: spirits colon assure repeated upbraids you, and so I interpret

952
00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:05,640
Speaker 3: this to be a reference to a person who consults

953
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:08,640
Speaker 3: the spirits of the dead to get information. Possibly the

954
00:55:08,680 --> 00:55:11,360
Speaker 3: information they're getting is about the fact that the god

955
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:14,080
Speaker 3: a sewer, who is like a god of Assyria, is

956
00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:15,120
Speaker 3: angry with someone.

957
00:55:15,880 --> 00:55:17,320
Speaker 1: Okay, they have inside information.

958
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:21,080
Speaker 3: Another is also a letter, this one Neo Assyrian, which

959
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:24,799
Speaker 3: exists in damaged form and has been interpreted and translated

960
00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:29,080
Speaker 3: different ways. One of those interpretations implies that necromancers have

961
00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:33,000
Speaker 3: asked the spirits to predict whether a certain person will

962
00:55:33,040 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 3: become a king, but this interpretation of the letter is

963
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:39,360
Speaker 3: not certain, but anyway. After these examples, Finkel goes on

964
00:55:39,400 --> 00:55:44,759
Speaker 3: to describe two previously unpublished Babylonian tablets from the first

965
00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 3: millennium BCE, held by the British Museum that he says,

966
00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:53,239
Speaker 3: deal in totally unambiguous terms with necromancy, and boy, these

967
00:55:53,280 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 3: are a trip. Are you ready?

968
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:55,960
Speaker 1: I'm ready?

969
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:59,040
Speaker 3: The first one is called b M three six seven

970
00:55:59,080 --> 00:56:02,279
Speaker 3: O three. It is a late Babylonian text and it

971
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:06,640
Speaker 3: includes instructions for a necromantic ritual. It says, you call

972
00:56:06,719 --> 00:56:09,680
Speaker 3: upon the ghost and he will answer you, And then

973
00:56:09,719 --> 00:56:13,360
Speaker 3: there's an incantation where the necromancer says who are you?

974
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:17,760
Speaker 3: Who are you? It then lists the names of known

975
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:21,759
Speaker 3: malevolent spirits and demons that we know are supposed to

976
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:24,960
Speaker 3: be evil spirits and demons because they appear in other

977
00:56:25,000 --> 00:56:29,320
Speaker 3: texts about exorcism, and Finkel says that this part of

978
00:56:29,360 --> 00:56:31,880
Speaker 3: the ritual seems to be a kind of safety precaution,

979
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:35,880
Speaker 3: trying to protect against the possibility that in summoning the

980
00:56:35,960 --> 00:56:41,360
Speaker 3: dead for divination you accidentally summon a vicious, evil monster. Instead,

981
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:44,560
Speaker 3: it's like a security step to prevent you dialing the

982
00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:47,760
Speaker 3: wrong number and accidentally calling Freddy Krueger or whatever.

983
00:56:48,360 --> 00:56:52,520
Speaker 1: Oh wow. Yeah, And we'll eventually see reverberations of this

984
00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:56,160
Speaker 1: on up into like medieval Christian traditions, you know, again,

985
00:56:56,200 --> 00:56:58,239
Speaker 1: where it's more like you will always get a wrong

986
00:56:58,320 --> 00:57:01,560
Speaker 1: number because this number cannot posssibly connect to who you

987
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:02,280
Speaker 1: want to reach.

988
00:57:02,960 --> 00:57:04,960
Speaker 3: Right, But that's not the context here. They think you

989
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:07,240
Speaker 3: can dial the right number. You just got to be careful,

990
00:57:07,280 --> 00:57:10,919
Speaker 3: You got to do the right incantations and warding magic. Now,

991
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:13,600
Speaker 3: next in this tablet, there's a part that is damaged,

992
00:57:13,680 --> 00:57:16,640
Speaker 3: but it appears based on context to be steps for

993
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:19,840
Speaker 3: what to do if the ritual doesn't work. I do

994
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:22,360
Speaker 3: wish we could know what it's said here. Then it

995
00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:25,160
Speaker 3: goes on to the ritual itself. Here I'm gonna read

996
00:57:25,200 --> 00:57:29,560
Speaker 3: from Finkel, and the context is that this is an

997
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:33,600
Speaker 3: Akkadian incantation that is addressed to the god Shamash, and

998
00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:36,840
Speaker 3: it is asking for the help of the god Shamash

999
00:57:36,880 --> 00:57:42,120
Speaker 3: to summon a ghost literally of the darkness. And so

1000
00:57:42,280 --> 00:57:46,160
Speaker 3: then reading from Finkel, now quote, this ghost, once brought

1001
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:48,560
Speaker 3: up from its place of rest, is then supposed to

1002
00:57:48,840 --> 00:57:52,520
Speaker 3: enter into a skull a placed there for that purpose.

1003
00:57:53,040 --> 00:57:57,200
Speaker 3: The reciter of the incantation says, quote, I call upon you,

1004
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:01,000
Speaker 3: o skull of skulls. May he who is within the

1005
00:58:01,000 --> 00:58:05,040
Speaker 3: skull answer me. Then there follows in line seven to ten,

1006
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:09,360
Speaker 3: a magical ritual that involves an oily preparation of animal

1007
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:14,280
Speaker 3: parts being mixed up and left to stand overnight. Do

1008
00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:17,120
Speaker 3: you want to know what is in this necromancer cocktail route?

1009
00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:18,480
Speaker 1: Oh? I suppose we should know.

1010
00:58:18,760 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 3: Okay, So it says you crush up a male and

1011
00:58:22,280 --> 00:58:28,600
Speaker 3: female partridge, dust from a crossroads, dust of a jumping cricket,

1012
00:58:28,720 --> 00:58:34,080
Speaker 3: of the step, and an upturned potshard from a crossroads

1013
00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:37,680
Speaker 3: in puru oil. Then you mix all that together, you

1014
00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:41,160
Speaker 3: leave it to stand overnight, and in the morning you

1015
00:58:41,240 --> 00:58:43,400
Speaker 3: will Then there are a number of things you can

1016
00:58:43,440 --> 00:58:46,280
Speaker 3: actually do. So A Finkle goes on to explain that

1017
00:58:46,400 --> 00:58:51,240
Speaker 3: you either use this mixture to anoint the skull itself

1018
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:55,160
Speaker 3: or the ghost. And I'm not sure exactly how you

1019
00:58:55,200 --> 00:58:58,800
Speaker 3: anoint the ghost with it, and then or the And

1020
00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:02,800
Speaker 3: then it's a word that's represented as na m and

1021
00:59:03,600 --> 00:59:07,440
Speaker 3: I think the meaning of that is ambiguous. Finkal says

1022
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:09,960
Speaker 3: it might refer to it might be referring to someone

1023
00:59:10,040 --> 00:59:13,600
Speaker 3: called the man, but it's unclear in the context of

1024
00:59:13,640 --> 00:59:17,440
Speaker 3: the tablet who this would refer to, unless maybe he

1025
00:59:17,480 --> 00:59:20,640
Speaker 3: says it means like a figurine of the dead person

1026
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 3: who you're trying to summon, like we saw with the

1027
00:59:23,720 --> 00:59:27,720
Speaker 3: other ritual, that would make sense. And then to pick

1028
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:31,640
Speaker 3: up again, reading from Finkle's description of the ritual, quote

1029
00:59:31,920 --> 00:59:34,320
Speaker 3: at this point you call upon him and he will

1030
00:59:34,360 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 3: answer you. In the context, the word elemou, no doubt

1031
00:59:39,080 --> 00:59:42,880
Speaker 3: refers to a representation of the ghost, and the ritual

1032
00:59:42,880 --> 00:59:46,000
Speaker 3: would have the same effect whether applied to this representation

1033
00:59:46,440 --> 00:59:49,920
Speaker 3: to the nam or to the skull itself. It's not

1034
00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:53,640
Speaker 3: quite certain whether all three elements were necessary. The idea, however,

1035
00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:57,280
Speaker 3: is quite clear. It is quite appropriately Shamash who has

1036
00:59:57,360 --> 01:00:00,520
Speaker 3: the power and authority to bring up a ghost from

1037
01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:04,480
Speaker 3: the underworld, and the whole operation is put under his auspices.

1038
01:00:04,840 --> 01:00:08,240
Speaker 3: Somehow the ghost will enter into the skull and answer

1039
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:09,600
Speaker 3: the questions put to him.

1040
01:00:10,000 --> 01:00:12,000
Speaker 1: I love that no skull of skulls indeed.

1041
01:00:12,480 --> 01:00:15,160
Speaker 3: Okay, So that's the first tablet. There's a second tablet,

1042
01:00:15,400 --> 01:00:19,000
Speaker 3: another previously unknown text being published, I guess at the

1043
01:00:19,040 --> 01:00:21,760
Speaker 3: time of this article that is known as K two

1044
01:00:21,760 --> 01:00:25,479
Speaker 3: seven seventy nine, which is a neo Babylonian tablet which

1045
01:00:25,520 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 3: contains some of the same material as the previous text,

1046
01:00:29,200 --> 01:00:33,160
Speaker 3: but also some original stuff. And this text, interestingly also

1047
01:00:33,280 --> 01:00:37,840
Speaker 3: contains what appear to be security precautions. For example, there

1048
01:00:37,920 --> 01:00:41,400
Speaker 3: is a ritual and incantation that is to quote, avert

1049
01:00:41,480 --> 01:00:44,760
Speaker 3: the evil in the crying of the ghost or the

1050
01:00:44,800 --> 01:00:48,920
Speaker 3: crying of a ghost. Sorry and Finkel notes from the

1051
01:00:48,960 --> 01:00:52,960
Speaker 3: contemporary texts that it was believed that personal contact with

1052
01:00:53,000 --> 01:00:56,880
Speaker 3: a ghost usually led to really bad consequences for a

1053
01:00:56,880 --> 01:01:00,760
Speaker 3: living person, often death. So if you are an necromancer.

1054
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:04,560
Speaker 3: You could be doing something really dangerous. You are attempting

1055
01:01:04,720 --> 01:01:08,480
Speaker 3: personal contact with a ghost in order to get privileged information,

1056
01:01:09,120 --> 01:01:12,200
Speaker 3: but this contact comes with a high likelihood of a

1057
01:01:12,280 --> 01:01:15,960
Speaker 3: death curse, so you have to employ protective magic to

1058
01:01:16,200 --> 01:01:20,200
Speaker 3: counteract that danger. Now, I was kind of wondering how

1059
01:01:20,240 --> 01:01:23,320
Speaker 3: to square this with Finkel's own characterization that that was

1060
01:01:23,320 --> 01:01:28,120
Speaker 3: from an interview decades later of ghosts not for the

1061
01:01:28,160 --> 01:01:31,880
Speaker 3: most part incurring a reaction of fear in the ancient Mesopotamians,

1062
01:01:31,920 --> 01:01:34,480
Speaker 3: but rather of kind of like sympathy. I don't know

1063
01:01:34,560 --> 01:01:36,600
Speaker 3: exactly how to square that, but it makes me wonder

1064
01:01:36,640 --> 01:01:40,400
Speaker 3: if maybe most of the ghost encounters people thought they

1065
01:01:40,400 --> 01:01:44,320
Speaker 3: were having weren't actually like personal face to face contact

1066
01:01:44,440 --> 01:01:47,120
Speaker 3: or talking to a ghost or hearing the cry of

1067
01:01:47,160 --> 01:01:51,080
Speaker 3: a ghost, but more like indirect indications that a spirit

1068
01:01:51,160 --> 01:01:54,320
Speaker 3: is restless and wandering, or seeing what appears to be

1069
01:01:54,360 --> 01:01:57,680
Speaker 3: evidence of a dead family member from Afar. I don't know,

1070
01:01:57,800 --> 01:01:58,400
Speaker 3: but I wonder.

1071
01:01:59,320 --> 01:02:01,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind it reminds me of some of these traditions

1072
01:02:01,680 --> 01:02:02,400
Speaker 1: involving like.

1073
01:02:02,360 --> 01:02:03,240
Speaker 3: The evil eye.

1074
01:02:04,080 --> 01:02:06,400
Speaker 1: You know, the idea that it is out there, it

1075
01:02:06,520 --> 01:02:10,520
Speaker 1: is aware, but it's not necessarily honing in on you

1076
01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:14,040
Speaker 1: unless you give it reason to and so you know, similarly,

1077
01:02:14,080 --> 01:02:15,720
Speaker 1: you could you could live in a world of ghosts.

1078
01:02:15,720 --> 01:02:18,200
Speaker 1: But have you done anything personally to attract the ghost

1079
01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:20,400
Speaker 1: or to encourage the coast, Well, then you're probably fine.

1080
01:02:20,680 --> 01:02:23,800
Speaker 3: Finkel also says it's notable that K two seven seventy

1081
01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:27,280
Speaker 3: nine is a is a type of text called a nimburbie,

1082
01:02:27,760 --> 01:02:31,240
Speaker 3: the primary purpose of which is describing ways to avert

1083
01:02:31,400 --> 01:02:35,320
Speaker 3: evil and unexplained phenomena. So it's kind of surprising that

1084
01:02:35,560 --> 01:02:39,800
Speaker 3: rituals for intentionally summoning up a ghost and prying information

1085
01:02:39,960 --> 01:02:43,200
Speaker 3: out of it under the auspices of Shamash or whoever

1086
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:46,280
Speaker 3: would be included, because the rest of the text is

1087
01:02:46,360 --> 01:02:50,000
Speaker 3: basically like a ghostbusting manual. It is how to keep ghosts, demons,

1088
01:02:50,040 --> 01:02:51,880
Speaker 3: and any other weirdness away from you.

1089
01:02:52,560 --> 01:02:56,400
Speaker 1: M yeah. It raises all sorts of questions about like

1090
01:02:56,440 --> 01:02:58,560
Speaker 1: what is sort of what is the day to day

1091
01:02:58,600 --> 01:03:04,200
Speaker 1: activity in the ghost busting and necromancer professional world of

1092
01:03:04,280 --> 01:03:05,120
Speaker 1: this time period.

1093
01:03:05,360 --> 01:03:07,480
Speaker 3: Okay, but I think I promised you there was another

1094
01:03:07,600 --> 01:03:11,960
Speaker 3: necromancer cocktail coming. This one is from let's see, Well,

1095
01:03:11,960 --> 01:03:15,640
Speaker 3: I think this actually is derived from both both texts,

1096
01:03:16,080 --> 01:03:18,320
Speaker 3: and this is a concoction you would put together that

1097
01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:20,800
Speaker 3: is part of an incantation to enable a man to

1098
01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:26,000
Speaker 3: see a ghost. So the text says, you crush moldy wood,

1099
01:03:26,440 --> 01:03:31,600
Speaker 3: fresh leaves of euphrates, poplar, in water, oil, beer, and wine.

1100
01:03:32,160 --> 01:03:39,000
Speaker 3: You dry, crush and sieve snake, tallow, lion, tallow, crab, tallow,

1101
01:03:39,560 --> 01:03:44,440
Speaker 3: white honey, a frog that lives among the pebbles, hair

1102
01:03:44,480 --> 01:03:47,880
Speaker 3: of a dog, hair of a cat, hair of a fox,

1103
01:03:48,480 --> 01:03:52,280
Speaker 3: bristle of a chameleon, and bristle of a red lizard,

1104
01:03:52,840 --> 01:03:56,800
Speaker 3: claws of a frog, end of intestines of a frog,

1105
01:03:57,320 --> 01:04:00,880
Speaker 3: the left wing of a grasshopper, and marrow from the

1106
01:04:00,920 --> 01:04:02,320
Speaker 3: long bone of a goose.

1107
01:04:02,880 --> 01:04:03,480
Speaker 1: Oh wow.

1108
01:04:03,720 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 3: You mix all this in wine, water and milk with

1109
01:04:07,560 --> 01:04:12,040
Speaker 3: amhara plant, and then you recite the incantation three times,

1110
01:04:12,320 --> 01:04:14,680
Speaker 3: and you anoint your eyes with it, and you will

1111
01:04:14,720 --> 01:04:17,440
Speaker 3: see the ghost and he will speak with you. You can

1112
01:04:17,480 --> 01:04:20,200
Speaker 3: look at the ghost, he will talk with you. And yes,

1113
01:04:20,320 --> 01:04:22,560
Speaker 3: I said that twice because the text says it twice.

1114
01:04:24,440 --> 01:04:27,800
Speaker 3: So any mixologists out there who want to take these

1115
01:04:27,840 --> 01:04:30,480
Speaker 3: as an inspiration for a Halloween themed drink, I don't

1116
01:04:30,480 --> 01:04:34,160
Speaker 3: know how exactly you make a safe version of that,

1117
01:04:34,320 --> 01:04:36,920
Speaker 3: but take it. Take it as an inspiration. You know,

1118
01:04:36,960 --> 01:04:37,800
Speaker 3: it's a challenge.

1119
01:04:38,880 --> 01:04:42,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't actually do that, but but yeah, I do

1120
01:04:42,320 --> 01:04:46,760
Speaker 1: love instructions like this for magic potions or homunculi or

1121
01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:51,320
Speaker 1: whatever you happen to be concocting in olden times. Though,

1122
01:04:51,320 --> 01:04:53,640
Speaker 1: the moldy wood gave me pause, Like it makes me.

1123
01:04:53,720 --> 01:04:57,680
Speaker 1: It reminds me of other examples I believe from Chinese traditions,

1124
01:04:58,080 --> 01:05:01,520
Speaker 1: where the idea that you had, like a rotten broom handle,

1125
01:05:01,640 --> 01:05:04,600
Speaker 1: it might have some sort of ghostly possession about it,

1126
01:05:04,840 --> 01:05:08,440
Speaker 1: and there might be some even something going on with

1127
01:05:09,000 --> 01:05:12,960
Speaker 1: illuminated micro organisms in the soft wood, you know.

1128
01:05:13,400 --> 01:05:16,040
Speaker 3: Oh yes, yeah, it might make it kind of glow

1129
01:05:16,080 --> 01:05:16,600
Speaker 3: in the dark.

1130
01:05:17,080 --> 01:05:19,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. But I mean as for like the hair of

1131
01:05:19,080 --> 01:05:21,040
Speaker 1: the cat and the dog and so forth, I mean,

1132
01:05:21,040 --> 01:05:23,520
Speaker 1: I don't know, imagine that you're just getting into symbolic

1133
01:05:23,600 --> 01:05:24,560
Speaker 1: territory at that point.

1134
01:05:25,080 --> 01:05:27,560
Speaker 3: Once you've used your end of intestines of a frog

1135
01:05:27,640 --> 01:05:29,120
Speaker 3: in this though, what do you do with the start

1136
01:05:29,120 --> 01:05:31,040
Speaker 3: of intestines of the frog you've got left over?

1137
01:05:31,560 --> 01:05:35,200
Speaker 1: Well, you got to say that for later. That's another recipe, right, Yeah, Well,

1138
01:05:35,240 --> 01:05:42,000
Speaker 1: this has been fascinating snapshots into worlds where necromancy worlds

1139
01:05:42,000 --> 01:05:46,120
Speaker 1: in places, in particular places where necromancy is more common

1140
01:05:46,320 --> 01:05:48,760
Speaker 1: necromancy of one form or the other, and in some

1141
01:05:48,840 --> 01:05:53,560
Speaker 1: cases there are rules, there are laws in place spelling

1142
01:05:53,600 --> 01:05:57,400
Speaker 1: out exactly how one professional is supposed to carry all

1143
01:05:57,480 --> 01:05:57,880
Speaker 1: this out.

1144
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:01,160
Speaker 3: Again, I do think it's interesting and significant that both

1145
01:06:01,200 --> 01:06:07,439
Speaker 3: of these instruction manuals for necromancers have these safety precautions,

1146
01:06:07,560 --> 01:06:09,200
Speaker 3: like you've got to go through, you've got to like

1147
01:06:09,280 --> 01:06:12,400
Speaker 3: put on the safety goggles and stuff in a magical

1148
01:06:12,680 --> 01:06:17,560
Speaker 3: metaphorical sense. And I wonder if that's always true about

1149
01:06:17,600 --> 01:06:20,440
Speaker 3: necromancy everywhere, or is there anywhere where it's just kind

1150
01:06:20,480 --> 01:06:24,160
Speaker 3: of more like loosely regulated, fly by the seat of

1151
01:06:24,160 --> 01:06:26,320
Speaker 3: your pants, nothing to worry about kind of stuff.

1152
01:06:26,560 --> 01:06:28,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. There are different ways to slice it, right,

1153
01:06:28,520 --> 01:06:30,280
Speaker 1: Because on one hand, if you're looking at it like

1154
01:06:30,360 --> 01:06:34,440
Speaker 1: completely skeptically, you can say, well, of course a professional

1155
01:06:34,480 --> 01:06:37,480
Speaker 1: necromancer is going to outline the extreme risks that they

1156
01:06:37,480 --> 01:06:40,880
Speaker 1: are taking when they carry out their nechromatic acts. You

1157
01:06:40,880 --> 01:06:44,120
Speaker 1: don't want. It's not necromancy for the masses, it's necromancy

1158
01:06:44,440 --> 01:06:48,320
Speaker 1: for me, and you're going to pay me to do it. Therefore,

1159
01:06:48,360 --> 01:06:51,040
Speaker 1: there need to be certain skills involved that the ordinary

1160
01:06:51,080 --> 01:06:52,440
Speaker 1: people are not going to attempt to do.

1161
01:06:52,880 --> 01:06:55,160
Speaker 3: That's a good point. Yeah, I wonder if this is

1162
01:06:55,240 --> 01:06:57,880
Speaker 3: in some way justifying of economic incentives.

1163
01:06:58,360 --> 01:06:59,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, But then on the other hand, I mean just

1164
01:07:00,520 --> 01:07:04,880
Speaker 1: magic systems in general, other models of the afterlife in general.

1165
01:07:04,960 --> 01:07:07,320
Speaker 1: You see in various cultures, like it is often a

1166
01:07:07,360 --> 01:07:10,480
Speaker 1: realm in which there are various dangers and there are

1167
01:07:10,560 --> 01:07:13,440
Speaker 1: rules that need to be followed to the letter if

1168
01:07:13,440 --> 01:07:17,200
Speaker 1: you were to survive, like the journey, or survive you know,

1169
01:07:17,280 --> 01:07:20,560
Speaker 1: the dipping into this world a little bit to gain

1170
01:07:20,600 --> 01:07:21,680
Speaker 1: knowledge and so forth.

1171
01:07:22,240 --> 01:07:24,880
Speaker 3: You want to talk about necromancy some more on Tuesday.

1172
01:07:24,880 --> 01:07:26,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I think we have a lot more we

1173
01:07:26,560 --> 01:07:28,840
Speaker 1: can we can chat about. So join us on Tuesday

1174
01:07:28,840 --> 01:07:32,800
Speaker 1: as we come back for our second helping of necromancy.

1175
01:07:33,880 --> 01:07:36,240
Speaker 1: Not I think we'll get into Greek necromancy a little bit.

1176
01:07:36,240 --> 01:07:38,720
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what else we'll get into, but I'm

1177
01:07:38,760 --> 01:07:41,520
Speaker 1: sure it will be a good seasonal time, and we'll

1178
01:07:41,560 --> 01:07:45,080
Speaker 1: be we'll definitely be in October at that point. All Right,

1179
01:07:45,120 --> 01:07:47,160
Speaker 1: We're gonna remind you once more that stuff to Blow

1180
01:07:47,160 --> 01:07:50,120
Speaker 1: your Mind is primarily a science podcast, but you know,

1181
01:07:50,120 --> 01:07:53,800
Speaker 1: we do get into other topics like this one, especially

1182
01:07:53,840 --> 01:07:57,360
Speaker 1: during the month of October. Obviously we get into some

1183
01:07:57,360 --> 01:07:59,880
Speaker 1: some Halloween content for sure, so stay with us the

1184
01:08:00,200 --> 01:08:05,240
Speaker 1: entire month of October as we explore other topics of

1185
01:08:05,280 --> 01:08:08,280
Speaker 1: a spooky nature. Also join us for our Weird House

1186
01:08:08,280 --> 01:08:11,200
Speaker 1: Cinema episodes on Fridays. Weird House Cinema is our time

1187
01:08:11,200 --> 01:08:13,200
Speaker 1: to set aside most serious concerns and just talk about

1188
01:08:13,200 --> 01:08:15,320
Speaker 1: a weird film. And you know, we're going to be

1189
01:08:15,320 --> 01:08:18,000
Speaker 1: watching some horror movies this month, so you can watch

1190
01:08:18,040 --> 01:08:20,200
Speaker 1: along with us, or you can just tune in and

1191
01:08:20,240 --> 01:08:22,200
Speaker 1: listen to our discussions of these films if you're a

1192
01:08:22,200 --> 01:08:25,720
Speaker 1: little too creeped out to view them for yourself. And

1193
01:08:25,760 --> 01:08:28,360
Speaker 1: then on Mondays we do listener mail and on Wednesdays

1194
01:08:28,360 --> 01:08:29,839
Speaker 1: we do a short form monster fact.

1195
01:08:29,760 --> 01:08:33,879
Speaker 3: Or artifact Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1196
01:08:34,200 --> 01:08:35,800
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1197
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:38,400
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1198
01:08:38,520 --> 01:08:40,640
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

1199
01:08:40,680 --> 01:08:43,600
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

1200
01:08:43,640 --> 01:08:52,240
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.

1201
01:08:52,320 --> 01:08:55,280
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1202
01:08:55,360 --> 01:08:58,120
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio, app,

1203
01:08:58,320 --> 01:09:15,040
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