WEBVTT - The Electric Ark 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.400 And Nate ab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:07.160 either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:11.320 put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:14.840 which he commanded them not. And there went out fire 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.240 from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.319 the Lord. Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.280 death of the two sons of Aaron, when they had 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.720 approached the presence of the Lord and died, the Lord 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:30.920 said to Moses, tell your brother Aaron that he shall 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.600 not enter at any time into the holy place inside 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.839 the Vale before the mercy seat, which is on the Ark, 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:40.760 or he will die, for I will appear in the 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:49.400 cloud over the mercy Seat. Welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:58.320 your Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.000 to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Rob 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.360 Land and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back for Arc two. 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:07.760 Electric Boogaloo, our second exploration of a bunch of weird 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.679 sort of bronze punk takes on the stories of the 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.520 Ark of the Covenant from the Hebrew Bible. Right. It's 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:16.840 it's kind of perfect because this is a kind of 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.640 this is kind of Hanaka content for stuff to blow 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:22.280 your mind. Oh, I didn't think about the timing. Yeah, 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.720 we're publishing these episodes the week of Hanaka almost entirely 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.240 by by by accident, but but a pleasant accident, I 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.039 would say. So. Last time we talked about the stories about, say, 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.760 the Philistine captivity of the Ark of the Covenant and 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.240 the m Roads and what all that meant. But there 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:41.200 is another aspect to the Ark of God's story that 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.560 tends to tempt people into the techno mythology realm. Not 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:49.240 only was the Arc said to bring vast destructions and 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:52.720 plagues of m rods, there are also these Bible stories 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.880 that tell of the Arc lashing out with blasts of 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:59.240 power that kill offenders in an instant. Uh. And so 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:01.520 there are a couple of examples. One is the story 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.160 we just told about Erin's two sons. We don't get 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.760 a whole lot of details, but it seems like Erin's 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.040 two sons entered the presence of the Arc with some 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:12.880 kind of strange fire. Essentially that it sounds like they 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:16.640 were not doing the rituals of the Tabernacle as they 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:21.079 had been commanded. They were doing something incorrect. Fun fact, 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.919 I actually traveled home and attended a Sunday School class 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:29.200 at my mom's church recently, and this was the passage 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:31.960 they were discussing really well in the last episode. I 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.119 thought we were talking about how they almost never bring 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:37.200 these stories up in Sunday school, at least when we 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:39.600 were kiding. I saw a great example of why, because 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.120 it's it's kind of difficult for folks to have a 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:47.320 like a casual, real life oriented conversation about a passage 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:49.639 like this about the strange fire of the Lord, which 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.320 apparently sometimes translated is alien fire. Yeah, alien fire. They 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:55.959 brought alien fire and the sensors before the Lord, and 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:58.079 the Lord did not like it, and he lashed out 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.359 and struck them dead. Can assumed them with fire from 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:05.160 the mercy seat. Now, before we get into the bronze 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.040 punk discussions today, we should tell at least one more 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:11.160 story of this kind. How about the story of Uza. 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:14.040 So remember how the arc was taken to the land 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:15.960 of the Philistines. That's one of the stories in the 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.959 Bible about it. The Philistines. Uh, there's a battle and 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:21.480 Philistines take the arc and they put it in the 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.880 temple of Dagon until the arc messes them up, and 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:29.080 it topples the statue of the god Dagon, and eventually 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.160 the Philistines repenteth and the Israelites get the arc back. 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:36.000 So when the Israelites under King David are they're bringing 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.320 the arc back to their land, that we get to 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.840 this passage quote. They placed the Ark of God on 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:44.040 a new cart that they might bring it from the 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:46.760 house of a Ben a Dab, which was on the hill. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:49.920 And Usa and Ahio, the sons of a Ben a Dab, 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:52.840 were leading the new cart. So they brought it with 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:54.839 the Ark of God from the house of a Ben 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.000 a Dab which was on the hill, and Ahio was 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.160 walking ahead of the arc. Meanwhile, David and all the 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.040 house of Israel, we're celebrating before the Lord with all 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:08.920 kinds of instruments made of fir wood, with liars, harps, tambourines, castanets, 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.880 and symbols. But when they came to the threshing floor 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.720 of Nakon, Usa reached out toward the Ark of God 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:18.839 and took hold of it. For the oxen nearly upset it, 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.000 and the anger of the Lord burned against Usa, and 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:25.240 God struck him down there. For this irreverence, and he 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:28.160 died there by the ark of God. And then there's 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:30.560 a story that apparently this place comes to be named 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:35.000 h what roughly translates to the breakthrough of USA or 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.640 the bursting out at Usa, as we discussed at length 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.880 in the last episode. Uh, if you look at any 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:43.680 of these stories of the Ark of the Covenant, or 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.520 if you look at, of course, in the classic film 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.440 Raiders of the Lost Arc, you see great depictions of 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:51.800 this general fact that the Ark of the Covenant is 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.200 considered a dangerous item in the stories about it. It 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.360 is it is a thing that that manifests the presence 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:01.000 and the voice of God, and and therefore there are 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:05.600 a lot of dangers associated with misuse um even even 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.920 touching it, well, even even well meaning touching. Like the 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.720 idea here is that Usa wasn't trying to do, you know, 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.000 a blasphemy to the ark. He just reached out to 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.440 keep it from falling over because the oxen we're getting 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.159 all tipped around and so the arc might have fallen 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.360 on the ground. He reached out to steady it, and 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:25.440 that was enough that got him struck dead. So anyway, 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.360 I think, as with the Arc stories that we discussed 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:31.839 last time. The most fruitful way of understanding these stories 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.080 is that they are legendary narratives, not based on actual events, 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.520 but rather to communicate values by telling a story. And 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.000 in this case, I think one of the values that's 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:44.560 primary here is that the commands of the Lord are 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.240 to be taken very seriously, and that even deviating from 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.800 God's commands in an accidental or well meaning way can 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:55.880 be met with extremely harsh consequences. Like Aaron's sons they 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.080 screw up the rights of the tabernacle by offering alien fire. 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.080 They burned some thing in the sensor in a way 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.160 they weren't supposed to, and they get burned up themselves. 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.279 USA touches the arc even meaning well, just to prevent 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:09.680 it from falling over, and he gets blasted dead. I 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.400 think the lesson is pretty clear, right, Yeah, It's like 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:14.960 it's a basic Dungeons and Dragons lesson as well. If 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.000 there is a high level magical item in your presence, 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.440 don't touch it, don't, don't, don't, don't do anything until 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.320 you've at least cast a few, you know, provisional spells 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.080 just to see what's happening. Right, is be very careful 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.640 with the commands of God, do do everything you're told. 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.040 But in the last episode we discussed the concept of 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:38.160 this historical hermoneutic we were calling bronze punk, the desire 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.640 to UH for of modern interpreters with a little knowledge 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.680 about science and technology under their belt to look back 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:48.320 at legends like this assume that maybe they're based on 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:52.160 some kind of actual event, whether directly or in some 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.320 exaggerated form, and instead of assuming a magical explanation for 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.800 the event behind, the story, postulates some kind of lost 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.760 world of advanced technology hidden in the dust storms of history, 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:06.919 which again is of course risky because this is the 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:11.160 place where history and mythology can converge. So it's difficult 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:15.040 to really lean too heavily on anything that is described 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.280 in these stories. But at the same time we can't 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.280 help but do it right with the great example from 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.320 the last episode was was looking at the the plague 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:26.320 of mice and UH and tumors or emads and trying 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:28.720 to figure out, well, as this bubonic plague is that, 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:30.880 what is that? What's being described here? That's one of 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:35.080 the ways in which the bronze punk hermeneutic, while not 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:39.520 usually a good method of explaining the origins of these 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:43.560 legendary tales and myths does open up some interesting things 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:45.600 to consider about the ancient world. Like one of the 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:47.840 things we talked about in the last episode was, Okay, 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.360 it probably does not make sense to say that the 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.720 legends of the arc are caused by it actually being 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:58.720 some ancient bioweapon, But could there have been bioweapons in 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:02.120 the ancient world? Was the germ warfare before people had 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:05.520 a germ theory of disease? And we decided, you know, 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:07.520 it does seem like it's possible that that happened, and 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.120 there's even some evidence of specific cases where it looks 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.400 like it happened. Maybe not in this case, and for 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:14.320 our purposes here on the show, it's also just a 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.960 great excuse to talk about some of these things at 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:18.920 the end of the episode, and at the end of 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:21.200 this episode as well, we're probably gonna say, you know, 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.400 I don't think we should really um put a lot 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.239 of faith in this particular idea, but it does forces 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:31.120 to ask questions about about the inner workings of the 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:34.280 world in ancient times, applying what we know about science 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.520 today and sort of unwrapping it through an analysis of 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.000 the past. Well, there's an interesting question that's going to 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:44.480 come out of today's episode about what what causes major 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.160 breakthroughs in the progress of science and history. So we'll 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:48.920 get back to that towards the end of the episode. 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:50.760 So last time, we talked about the idea that it 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.840 could have been a weapon of germ warfare. That's unlikely, 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:56.840 but it's fun to consider. Um, we talked about the 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.080 pretty much impossible idea that it was a bearer of 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.560 some sort of radiation hazard. I know this has been 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.280 popular with people like Eric von Danikin and I don't 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:06.800 know about him specifically, but some of those ancient aliens. Yeah, 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:08.880 anytime where you're like, oh, there's some sort of of 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.880 of crazy piece of technology. It's a nuclear reactor or something. Uh. 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.720 And then we of course talked about the psychology of artifacts, 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.000 like the arc being a focal point for worship and 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:20.880 how that affects the altered states of consciousness, the mind 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.880 and so forth. But today we wanted to explore another 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:28.000 very strange bronze punk rabbit trail that many many authors 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.800 have taken over the years to explain stories like Erin's 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.880 two sons in the Story of Uza. These people who 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.040 are struck dead in the presence of the arc, and 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:40.160 that is the idea of the electric arc. Yes, this 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:42.839 is this is a pretty fabulous notion because it doesn't 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.880 really it doesn't depend on aliens, It doesn't depend on 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.240 any um, you know, the alternative view of the evolution 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.880 of consciousness or anything. It basically just depends. It basically 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.520 asked questions about like what were the what was the 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:00.960 knowledge of electricity at the time, and what were the 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:05.200 capabilities and material capabilities in many cases to construct a 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:09.280 primitive device. I would like to read with some abridgements, 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:14.120 from an article published in the Chicago Daily Tribune March five, 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:19.600 ninety three by the Reverend John Evans, called Scientists says 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:23.240 Sacred Box was a condenser. Robert, will you help me 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.199 read some sections from this? Certainly, would you like to 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.280 take the beginning here? I shall. It was a charge 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.560 of some ten thousand volts of static electricity, and not 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.280 the wrath of God that killed Uza when he touched 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.040 the ark of the Covenant. Such, at least is the 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:42.240 scientific conjecture of Dean Frederick Rogers of the Department of 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:46.480 Engineering at Lewis Institute of Technology concerning the mysterious powers 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:48.760 of the Arc, which was not only an object of 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:53.959 reverence to the Israelites but also a troublesome possession. Right. 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.040 So the article then goes on to tell the story 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:59.200 of Usa. As we told before, the arc goes unsteady 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:01.560 oxen or out to knock it over, he touches it, 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.360 he gets struck dead. Uh and evans rights quote. Professor 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.360 Rodgers made a study of the construction of the Arc 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:12.840 and discovered its design called for a perfectly constructed simple 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:17.520 electric condenser or lighten jar. And then the article also 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.120 goes on to tell the story of the construction of 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:21.760 the Ark of the Covenant. We talked about that in 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.880 the last episode. But basically the design specifications are it's 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.600 a big wooden box with gold on the inside and 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:31.280 the outside, not just any wood at shipham would right, Yeah, 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.680 it's which I believe is supposed to be the Acacia 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.080 tree Acacia would. Uh. They called it ship him would 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.200 And it's got gold on the inside, gold on the outside, 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.720 and then these gold representative figures of Cherubim on the top. 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.760 So going back to the article, the scientific interest in 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.920 the construction pointed out by Professor Rogers was that the 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.640 Acacia would box about forty inches long and slightly less 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.559 than thirty inches in width and depth, not only was 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.200 lined with gold leaf on the inside, but over aid 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.840 with the same metal without. This, according to Professor Rodgers, 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.319 is the first step that any modern boy with a 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.480 flare for electrical experimentation will take to create a lid 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.480 in jar. And girls don't be discouraged there. You can 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:16.160 create light in jars too. Also, I don't I never 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.320 created a light in jar. I did the potato battery, 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:21.480 and that's about as far as I went towards creating 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:23.720 the arc. I never even made a potato battery. Oh 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:25.679 but I should also say, boys and girls alike, if 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:27.880 you are actually constructing a light in jar, do some 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.800 with with proper safety precautions and adult supervision because they 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:35.120 can actually be dangerous depending on their capacity. But anyway, 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:37.640 moving on, except that in a light in jar a 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:41.679 glass receptacle, he's coated on the inside and the outside 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.400 with tinfoil instead of gold. Then with the aid of 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.120 a rod and a small knob at the top and 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:50.760 a short chain at the bottom which is inserted through 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.640 the cork so that the chain may make contact with 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:56.199 the bottom of the jar, A young experiment er is 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:00.560 ready to collect small charges of bottled lightning, Robert, would 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:02.880 you like to take over? In the section subtitled a 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.800 condenser of electricity, but the Ark of the Covenant was 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.240 a much larger condenser and thought by Professor Rogers to 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:13.120 have been capable of collecting death dealing charges. The divine 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.200 erections called for the creation of two chairubim of pure 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.320 gold to be placed on a gold slab or mercy 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:23.679 seat atop the arc. These chairubim, Professor Rodgers explained what 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.000 he believes to have been the positive pole of the circuit, 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:29.760 similar to the knob on the top of the light 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:32.559 in jar. When he was asked how the static charge 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.880 of electricity got into the arc, Professor Rogers admitted that 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.400 there was very little accepted authority among scientists concerning the 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.839 action and control of atmospheric electricity. He explained, however, that 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.880 it is known among physicists that a difference of potential 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:49.760 exists between the Earth and the air, which may be 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:54.400 collected in electrical charges under certain favorable conditions. The design 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.760 of the arc, at least as described in Exodus. Undoubtedly 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.520 I love this certainty of people where about these kinds 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:05.440 of kind of hair brained interpretations. Clearly, there's no room 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.599 for for discussion here. That's what it was. Yeah. So 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:11.319 the article goes on to state that Rogers believes the 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.960 arc could have been electrically charged by air currents created 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:19.200 by smoke from the burning of incense and sacrifices, which 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.720 the Bible says often happened close to the arc. He 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.320 also says this could charge the light in arc enough 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.800 to allow it to deal fatal bolts of electricity, and 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.200 he cites a Hebrew commentary tradition that states that quote, 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.560 the wings of the golden Cherubim not only emitted fire, 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:38.680 but also an aura known among electricians as brush glow. 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:41.640 The fire emitted by the Cherubim could have been well 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:46.200 known electrical arc resulting from overcharge. Professor Rogers beliefs that 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.200 a number of accounts of destruction attributed by the scriptures 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:52.200 to the arc might be explained as being results of 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:56.560 purely natural phenomena, and he gives some examples that, like 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:59.160 we talked about last time, the destruction of the Philistine 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.200 Idol of day Gone quote, a divinity supposed to be 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:06.040 half fish and half man and just a side note, apparently, 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:10.320 that association of the Canaanite god Dagon with fish that 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:13.320 I think that is supposed to be exonymic in origin, 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.200 meaning that the the ancient Hebrews related the name of 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:20.640 this god to the Hebrew word for fish. The original 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.320 Philistine Dagon appears to be more likely some kind of 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.600 grain and fertility god. Sorry Lovecraft fans, Oh, yeah, that 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:28.800 is kind of disappointment, because Dagon, of course is a 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:32.600 part of the Lovecraft mythos and uh and and then 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:34.560 it's one of those cool gods where you read about 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:36.040 it there, then you read about it in the Bible. 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:38.360 And if you, like I was, if you were a 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.800 you know, a high schooler who's who suddenly discovered Lovecraft 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.360 and then found one of these deities in the Bible 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:46.480 as well, it was a pretty awesome moment. Oh, I 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:48.960 can't help but think of the creatures of the sea 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.040 as the children of Dagon. I'm always going to go there, 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.440 even knowing what I know now that he probably wasn't 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:56.720 actually a fish god. Right, But at the same time, 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.280 we do have a lot of We've discussed some tremendous 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.840 ancient fish gods on the show before, right, But anyway, 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.000 So they tell the story in the article of this 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:09.160 philistine idol repeatedly getting knocked over or off of the arc, 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.239 and Roger says, quote, if the idol had been constructed 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.080 out of some poorer metal in combination with wood, an 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:18.240 electrical charge far below the capacity of the ARC would 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.920 have been enough to have accomplished the destruction. So I 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.640 think they're saying that the arc could have knocked over 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.680 the the idol just by discharging electricity. I'm I'm not 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.280 sure about that, but okay, Yeah, I'm gonna try to 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.400 include some art that I found on the landing page 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:35.880 for this episode is stuff to blow your mind dot 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:37.920 com because there are a number of wonderful depictions of 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:42.840 like the glowing arc and a top old uh statue 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:46.520 of the deity Dagon sometimes with a fish tail uh 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:48.640 that of course is now broken because it fell over 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:51.480 and uh and of course this is uh. This kind 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.400 of thing was was also referenced in Rages of the 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:56.800 Lost Arc. Again, that's scene where the Ark of the 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.880 Covenant burns through the swastika on the crate that can 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:04.560 haines it. Yeah, like like destroying another false idols. Yeah. Uh. 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:06.800 So to continue and we're getting close to the end 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.280 of this article, but there's some other good stuff here. 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.880 So Evans talks about how all these kinds of miracles 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.960 could be attributed to electricity, and he talks about the 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:19.639 tendency of people to attribute, you know, processes they don't understand, 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.560 to divine intervention. And then he says, thus, if Moses 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.720 accidentally stumbled upon the principle of the leidon jar, the 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:30.240 device would instantly be accepted as the conveying medium of 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:34.239 divine favor or disfavor. Sounds again like a little bit 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.760 too much certainty in this interpretation here, But the author 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:39.639 tells a bunch more stories of the arc and then 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:41.720 also points out that the Ark of the Covenant was 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.840 not the only arc given sacred significance in the ancient world, 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:50.200 and he discusses ancient Egyptian arcs, speculating that Moses could 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.600 have learned about the creation of electrical arcs from the 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.639 Egyptians when he was growing up in the pharaoh's court. Again, 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:58.560 that's that's a nice story, but I think once again 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.480 the problem is just that it's making the biblical source 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:03.680 at face value. And what's more likely is that the 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:07.400 biography of Moses is a legend. But but yeah, there 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:09.679 there he does point out that there are other arc 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:13.320 like things in other cultures around the ancient Near Eastern 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.480 and and the Egyptian arcs are a great example. Right. 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:19.679 But then again we have to come back to perhaps 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:24.520 the simpler explanation that an arc like thing is a box. Yeah, 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:29.119 and and therefore, yes, the technology of box making was 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:32.600 very much in effect at the time, right. Uh. And 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:34.879 so finally, Robert, do you want to read this very 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:39.080 last paragraph here? Certainly, while no historian would engage in 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.720 such speculation, yet it is the right of any man 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.320 to fancy that it was in Egypt that the properties 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:48.080 of the gold coated box were discovered by some hapless craftsman. 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.280 He paid for his discovery with his life, but gave 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:55.359 his kinsmen a home for a new and powerful god. Okay, 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:59.639 so they've got a theory here. Some Egyptian craftsman accidentally 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.520 discus heard how to build a lidon jar by building 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:06.680 boxes and covering them with gold, and then that information 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.040 was transmitted to Moses, and then Moses carried the secret 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:12.240 of how to build alidon jar, and that became the 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.360 ark of the Covenant, and thus it gives us all 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:18.000 these stories of like people touching it and getting struck dead. Now, 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:21.040 I think it would be ridiculous to say that if 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:24.360 the arc actually existed, we're assuming something like it may 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.639 have if it existed, that it was best explained in 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:30.399 these terms. But well, I don't think we need to 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.800 resort to this to explain the arc legend. I don't 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.119 find it implausible at all that someone in the ancient 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.080 world and someone in the ancient Mediterranean could have at 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.959 some point accidentally created a capacitor, which is what aliden 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:47.240 jar is, and that it could have injured or killed people. 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.879 And that is a really interesting thing to consider, right 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:52.800 because not I mean not only, of course, the the 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.160 accidental creation of such a thing, but then the recreation 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:57.280 such a thing and the utilization of such a thing, 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.080 either as essentially a tool of of a nation, like 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.320 what's going to happen when I touch it? Like a 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.800 fatal shock, as a no, not dying, as yes, you 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:08.720 know that that sort of thing, which which a lot 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.680 of ancient practices of religion and even modern practices of 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:14.399 religion really boiled down to. That give me something to 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.920 provide an answer for some question I have or or 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.359 provide some sort of a random answer to something that 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:25.440 I am incapable of generating my own random answer to. Yeah, 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:28.240 and again, I think it's not hard to believe that 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.960 that someone could have accidentally discovered how to build something 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.560 like this. Again, like the discovery of the actual liden 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:40.600 Jar was also accidental somewhat and frightening someone. Maybe we 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:46.080 should explore that after a break. Thank thank Alright, we're back. Okay, 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.040 So we mentioned before the break that, in fact, the 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.800 discovery of the liden Jar itself, we've got these people 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:54.400 saying that the Ark of the Covenant was some kind 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:57.679 of ancient liden Jar, some kind of capacitor or condenser 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.480 that would store up electric charge and then charge it 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:02.920 all at once, maybe killing somebody who touched it in 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:07.240 the wrong way. Uh So, in seventy there was this 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.840 German Lutheran bishop named you alled Georg von Klist. I've 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.399 also seen his name represented as you won Jurgen von Klist. 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:17.360 I don't know if those are variations on the same 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:20.720 name or if that's discrepancy. I don't know, but either way, 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:25.120 whatever his middle name was, von Kleist was performing experiments 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.280 with an electrostatic generator. At the time, this would have 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:33.280 been something like the spinning globe generator of Francis Howkesby 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.520 or of Benjamin Franklin, which was essentially like a glass 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:41.679 sphere that you would rotate rapidly against a wool cloth 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:46.000 by turning a crank, charging the sphere by friction, essentially 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.520 gathering up electrons from the cloth. Now, once this principle 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:53.040 had been demonstrated, uh, lots of people were messing around 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.960 with them. And von Kleist had a glass medicine bottle 0:21:57.040 --> 0:21:59.880 that was filled with liquid. It was water or alcohol, 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.359 with a cork top and a nail driven through the 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.960 cork poking down into the liquid inside. And while he 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.080 was doing his experiments, von Kleist held the outside of 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:13.000 the bottle with his hand and he touched the nail 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:16.400 to the generator that was, you know, the friction generator. 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:19.879 And after charging the inside of the bottle, he found 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:21.600 that when he held the bottle with one hand and 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:24.840 touched the nail with his other hand, he received a shock. 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:27.760 Why because he just used his body to complete a 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.480 circuit and thus the spark the shock. Yes, uh. And 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:35.040 then there's another guy around the same time Peter van 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:39.320 mussen Brook of Leiden, Holland, who discovered the same principle 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:42.400 the following year, which is where the Lyden jar gets 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:44.800 its name. It's it's spelled like l e y d 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:47.520 e N, but I think Leiden Holland is with like 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.439 an ei. So I'm saying Lyden. I've heard people say Leyden. 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:52.439 I think I read it in my mind is laden 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:54.520 for years and years. I may have said Laden in 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:57.440 the past. Whichever way it is, I'm gonna be saying Lyden. 0:22:57.520 --> 0:22:59.960 If you don't like that, you can email and complain. 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:05.080 H So von Musson Breck was able to charge up 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:08.680 a glass jar full of water with a metal rod 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:11.159 plunging inside it, and he also discovered that when you 0:23:11.280 --> 0:23:13.400 touch the rod while holding the outside of the jar, 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:17.040 you got this terrific shock. So the principle here is 0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:20.680 the one of creating this electrical potential difference. You know, 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:23.159 by charging it up in this way and having the 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:26.760 insulator of the glass there between the inside and the outside, 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:30.600 you're creating this difference potential where one side is positively charged, 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:33.800 one side is negatively charged, and they desperately want to equalize. 0:23:33.840 --> 0:23:37.520 And whenever you complete that circuit circuit, they will equalize, 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:40.040 and if you are the thing that completes that circuit, 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:42.560 that equalization can be unpleasant for you. It can be 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:44.880 bad for your body. Now, let's talk about how unpleasant 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:47.960 because uh, we we experienced static shock all the time, 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:50.520 especially during the winter in our modern world. My son 0:23:50.600 --> 0:23:52.280 and I when we go to a playground, we always 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:54.960 do this thing called electric high five where if there's 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:57.359 if there's you know, static electricity is generated when he 0:23:57.400 --> 0:24:01.280 goes down the slide because because the friction, I wait 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:03.040 at the bottom and he gives me a high five, 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:06.080 and sometimes there is an alarming shock to it, like 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:09.240 it's it's it's pretty intense, but it's fun, right, It's 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:12.440 not something that I would attribute to the to the 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:15.600 wrath of of of an ancient god. When he goes 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:19.720 down that slide, he's becoming an electrostatic generator. And you, 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:23.360 you are the you are the ground terminal. So yeah, 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:26.679 the question though, is could that high five be dangerous 0:24:26.840 --> 0:24:30.440 or fatal? You bet? Actually, well, not on the slide, 0:24:30.560 --> 0:24:33.600 but given given how much charge you could store up 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:38.120 under various circumstances, yeah, it's entirely possible. Van Musson Brook 0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:41.399 reportedly said I would not take a second shock for 0:24:41.520 --> 0:24:45.280 the Kingdom of France. And Benjamin Franklin. We've talked about 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:47.800 this on the show before, but the year old American 0:24:47.920 --> 0:24:52.320 hero Benjamin Franklin, hanging out in Philadelphia loved experimenting with 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:56.600 Lydon jars. He began to get more power by chaining 0:24:56.680 --> 0:24:59.959 them together in a circuit so that they're combined capacit 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:02.120 that he could be discharged all at the same time, 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:05.640 giving even more power, And Franklin kind of turned into 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:09.240 a mad scientist in this regard. He became temporarily enthralled 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:12.480 with the idea of using the powerful shock from this 0:25:12.720 --> 0:25:17.440 parade of jars to deal lethal shocks to animals. And 0:25:17.520 --> 0:25:20.119 he compared this row of Lyden jars all strung together 0:25:20.240 --> 0:25:24.199 to a battery of cannons or military artillery, giving us 0:25:24.280 --> 0:25:26.800 the term we still used today for a slightly different 0:25:26.880 --> 0:25:29.960 form of storage for electrical potential. The battery is like 0:25:30.040 --> 0:25:33.080 a you know, it's a battery. In the seventeen forties, 0:25:33.119 --> 0:25:35.280 Benjamin Franklin told a friend of his that he had 0:25:35.320 --> 0:25:38.600 figured out that the discharge of two Lden jars was 0:25:38.720 --> 0:25:42.760 quote sufficient to kill common hens outright. He even said 0:25:42.800 --> 0:25:45.880 that since the electric shock killed so quickly, it might 0:25:46.000 --> 0:25:50.000 become a more humane way of slaughter for butchers, so 0:25:50.160 --> 0:25:52.639 that the birds that they butchered suffered less. And he 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:56.480 proposed that a butcher could kill a turkey by stringing 0:25:56.560 --> 0:25:59.920 together six Liden jars into a battery and then tie 0:26:00.200 --> 0:26:02.879 the chain, which was one terminal, around the turkey's legs 0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:05.720 and then lift the turkey so that its head touched 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:08.520 the other terminal. Whether or not this was actually more 0:26:08.640 --> 0:26:11.920 humane as a method of butchery, it probably wasn't the 0:26:12.000 --> 0:26:15.840 safest method for butchers to use, because when Franklin himself 0:26:16.240 --> 0:26:18.359 was trying to perform experiments like this, like there was 0:26:18.400 --> 0:26:20.760 a time he wanted to have a turkey barbecue where 0:26:20.800 --> 0:26:24.480 he was trying to kill turkeys with Lidon jars, he 0:26:24.720 --> 0:26:27.680 ended up accidentally shocking himself horribly and he was like 0:26:27.800 --> 0:26:30.800 knocked back and he felt bruised for days. Uh he 0:26:30.960 --> 0:26:33.280 And he explicitly said that he was afraid that a 0:26:33.320 --> 0:26:36.239 blow like that could easily kill a man. Yeah, I mean, 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:38.840 Benjamin Franklin here is really sounding like a man who 0:26:38.880 --> 0:26:42.960 has never observed, who has never watched someone who knows 0:26:43.040 --> 0:26:46.200 what they're doing kill a chicken or a duck, because 0:26:46.280 --> 0:26:49.960 generally it is just I've seen like food documentaries where 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:54.280 you see like a loving, caring a duck farmer just 0:26:54.880 --> 0:26:56.679 you know, one second they're holding the duck and then 0:26:56.720 --> 0:26:59.159 it's like just a quick twist of the wrist and 0:26:59.200 --> 0:27:02.040 they've rung its net and it's dead. Yes, far better 0:27:02.119 --> 0:27:05.240 than risking your own death. And it's like burning the 0:27:05.320 --> 0:27:07.320 house down in the process. Well, and then it didn't 0:27:07.359 --> 0:27:09.480 even always work because he said, so he's trying to 0:27:09.720 --> 0:27:12.360 instantly and humanely kill turkeys this way, but he would 0:27:12.400 --> 0:27:15.200 like knock them unconscious and sometimes they'd come back, they'd 0:27:15.240 --> 0:27:18.639 be kind of woozy. Uh. It just sounds horrible, what 0:27:18.840 --> 0:27:22.639 are you doing, Ben? But anyway, so eventually people figured 0:27:22.640 --> 0:27:25.240 out that there are multiple ways of constructing alidon jar. 0:27:25.359 --> 0:27:28.440 You can make one with a simple conductive foil on 0:27:28.560 --> 0:27:31.840 the inside and the outside of a glass jar, or 0:27:31.960 --> 0:27:34.399 you can make one with water on the inside. In 0:27:34.560 --> 0:27:37.200 the eighteenth century, it became common to cram the inside 0:27:37.240 --> 0:27:39.840 of the jar with gold leaf, and they're just a 0:27:39.880 --> 0:27:41.480 bunch of ways to do it. But essentially what you 0:27:41.560 --> 0:27:43.480 need is a thin layer of what's known as a 0:27:43.520 --> 0:27:48.080 dielectric which is an insulating, non conductive material like glass, 0:27:48.600 --> 0:27:51.399 with a way of charging up the potential difference between 0:27:51.400 --> 0:27:55.240 the conductors on each side of that dielectric layer. You've 0:27:55.240 --> 0:27:57.520 got the negative charge on the inside and the positive 0:27:57.560 --> 0:28:01.320 charge on the outside. And so back to the idea 0:28:01.440 --> 0:28:04.560 of of our friend, Professor Frederick Rogers, he was saying, Okay, 0:28:05.080 --> 0:28:08.280 that's how the ARC is working. Right. You've got die electric, 0:28:08.400 --> 0:28:11.880 which is the wood, and then you've got the gold layering, 0:28:12.000 --> 0:28:14.320 the gold plating on the inside and on the outside, 0:28:14.359 --> 0:28:17.360 and those are forming the conductive foils like in aliden Jar. 0:28:17.720 --> 0:28:19.760 All you really need is like a way of charging 0:28:19.880 --> 0:28:23.160 up the inside and having that potential difference. And it's 0:28:23.280 --> 0:28:27.800 very possible that you have a lethal electro static discharge 0:28:28.000 --> 0:28:31.240 machine capable of killing people who touch it the wrong way. Now, 0:28:31.320 --> 0:28:35.320 our friend, professor Frederick Rodgers, who oh, I just realized 0:28:35.359 --> 0:28:39.680 he's Fred Rogers, this is Mr Rogers. Well, it's a 0:28:39.720 --> 0:28:43.040 beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for electrocution. 0:28:44.280 --> 0:28:47.440 Uh So, Mr Rogers wasn't the first person to propose 0:28:47.520 --> 0:28:50.280 that the ARC was a capacitor or aliden Jar. Actually 0:28:50.320 --> 0:28:54.320 found earlier evidence of different versions of this theory, including 0:28:54.360 --> 0:28:57.280 one from one of my favorite discourse communities of all time, 0:28:57.800 --> 0:29:02.840 late nineteenth century American spirit ritualism. Remember our old friend 0:29:03.040 --> 0:29:07.240 John Murray Spear, of course, Yes, yeah, the spiritualist agitator 0:29:07.320 --> 0:29:10.640 for the spirit land building that tremendous contraption that was 0:29:10.720 --> 0:29:13.800 going to was was that a radio for speaking to God? Yes, essentially, 0:29:13.920 --> 0:29:16.800 I mean it was very complicated his theology about that. 0:29:16.920 --> 0:29:19.920 But John Murray Spear was a spiritualist who thought he 0:29:20.040 --> 0:29:23.280 was getting messages from the spirits of the dead telling 0:29:23.440 --> 0:29:26.840 him how to build an electro mechanical messiah called the 0:29:27.200 --> 0:29:29.600 New Motor, which would be a channel for the new 0:29:29.680 --> 0:29:34.040 motive power, which was God's energy poured into the universe 0:29:34.120 --> 0:29:36.720 through the lens of the Sun, which would be enlightening 0:29:36.840 --> 0:29:40.280 and would cause wisdom and a new human that would 0:29:40.280 --> 0:29:42.800 be created by Essentially, what this machine was was like 0:29:42.880 --> 0:29:45.200 a coffee table with like a bunch of metal stuff 0:29:45.240 --> 0:29:47.440 on top of it. Yeah. I remember looking at illustrations 0:29:47.480 --> 0:29:49.920 of this, and it was no arc that's for certain. 0:29:50.000 --> 0:29:52.360 I remember exactly what you said about it, which is 0:29:52.480 --> 0:29:55.000 that you said it looked like if a coffee table 0:29:55.240 --> 0:29:59.040 mate it with a dalek. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty much 0:29:59.040 --> 0:30:01.719 what it looked like. No chair of you. But anyway, 0:30:01.880 --> 0:30:05.560 I think we should explore some spiritualist bronze punk. So 0:30:05.720 --> 0:30:08.920 I wasn't able to find an original version of this article, 0:30:09.040 --> 0:30:11.600 but I want to talk about an article that's reproduced 0:30:11.840 --> 0:30:16.400 in a book by the spiritualist author Moses Hull. Hull 0:30:16.480 --> 0:30:19.520 quotes the entirety of this article, which was published sometime 0:30:19.600 --> 0:30:22.760 in the eighteen nineties and a spiritualist periodical called The 0:30:22.880 --> 0:30:26.480 Progressive Thinker, which has a great little subtitle it's science 0:30:26.600 --> 0:30:30.280 supplemented by an exalted morality, the Bible of the future. 0:30:31.280 --> 0:30:34.880 And so you've got all these strange currents in nineteenth 0:30:34.920 --> 0:30:38.760 century American spiritualism, which as in this case, often featured 0:30:38.840 --> 0:30:42.320 like a combination of belief in the existence of spirits 0:30:42.480 --> 0:30:45.640 and our ability to receive communications from them, but then 0:30:45.720 --> 0:30:50.040 also like progressive politics, often abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, 0:30:50.120 --> 0:30:53.480 that kind of thing, a kind of futuristic embrace of 0:30:53.600 --> 0:30:59.040 scientific and technological progress, skepticism about some traditional doctrines of 0:30:59.120 --> 0:31:04.080 religion while still embracing others. Given all this kind of stuff, 0:31:04.200 --> 0:31:07.040 it's not surprising to me that spiritualist authors would be 0:31:07.080 --> 0:31:10.680 embracing an electrical theory of the arc legend. They sometimes 0:31:10.760 --> 0:31:14.880 had this sort of rationalism supernaturalism hybrid that made them 0:31:14.920 --> 0:31:17.720 want to read the Bible as in some ways literally 0:31:17.800 --> 0:31:21.400 true and in other ways like revealing hints of technologies 0:31:21.440 --> 0:31:25.000 that we would later discover, maybe through the revelations of spirits. 0:31:25.040 --> 0:31:28.240 Like remember John murray spears belief that he was getting 0:31:28.240 --> 0:31:32.080 messages from the Association of Electrizers. Who were these people 0:31:32.160 --> 0:31:34.680 like Benjamin Franklin and all these dead people who were 0:31:34.960 --> 0:31:38.480 giving him technological messages from beyond the grave. But anyway, 0:31:38.600 --> 0:31:40.880 let's look at this article from the Progressive Thinker. So 0:31:41.360 --> 0:31:44.120 the the author of this article says, there is nothing 0:31:44.200 --> 0:31:46.240 new on the face of the earth, and there is 0:31:46.320 --> 0:31:49.400 no doubt that electricity was well known to the Israelites 0:31:49.440 --> 0:31:52.480 and probably to the Phoenicians. Again no doubt. Why why 0:31:52.560 --> 0:31:55.840 is it always no doubt uncertainty? Yeah, well, we'll come 0:31:55.880 --> 0:31:58.280 back to that particular question, because on one hand, yes, 0:31:59.240 --> 0:32:03.000 there was some no uch of electricity, but was it working. 0:32:03.120 --> 0:32:04.720 I don't know if we know that it was known 0:32:04.800 --> 0:32:08.600 to the Israelites. Yeah, because I mean, I have to 0:32:08.640 --> 0:32:11.600 admit I don't really know what the what the weather, 0:32:11.760 --> 0:32:15.360 weather patterns are necessarily like uh in the Middle Middle East, 0:32:15.400 --> 0:32:19.560 like to what extent lightning is observed, But the observation 0:32:19.640 --> 0:32:23.640 of lightning would be one slight level of knowledge of 0:32:23.680 --> 0:32:27.160 electricity not necessarily, I mean, not a working knowledge. You 0:32:27.240 --> 0:32:29.520 can look at at a lightning storm and you can 0:32:29.560 --> 0:32:31.720 be impressed by it and have no idea what it is. 0:32:32.000 --> 0:32:35.360 Sure given a broad definition, okay, yeah, uh, And there's 0:32:35.360 --> 0:32:37.840 certainly what the Greeks knew, which we'll get to a 0:32:37.880 --> 0:32:40.480 little bit. So the author explains the story of the 0:32:40.880 --> 0:32:43.360 construction of the arc, points out that the special type 0:32:43.400 --> 0:32:45.920 of wood that was that was used to build the arc. 0:32:46.280 --> 0:32:49.800 They say, quote, was this choice accidental on account of 0:32:49.880 --> 0:32:52.520 the great value of the resinous would? Or was it 0:32:52.680 --> 0:32:55.840 in the choice of the best known nonconductor among the 0:32:55.920 --> 0:32:59.640 great number of various timbers. I don't know if that 0:32:59.840 --> 0:33:03.200 is correct. I sort of doubt that premise, but you 0:33:03.280 --> 0:33:06.400 know who knows. Um. I was wondering, is would a 0:33:06.440 --> 0:33:09.640 good insulator? And I looked this up. It basically depends 0:33:09.680 --> 0:33:12.160 on factors about the wood itself, such as the type 0:33:12.200 --> 0:33:14.960 of wood and the moisture content. So, of course, the 0:33:15.000 --> 0:33:17.800 author points out correctly that it is said that the 0:33:17.880 --> 0:33:20.680 inside and outside of the arc were covered in beaten gold, 0:33:21.040 --> 0:33:23.280 and that this is a good conductor of electricity. It 0:33:23.440 --> 0:33:26.560 is true that gold is a good conductor of electricity. Quote. 0:33:26.800 --> 0:33:29.600 So much is certain that if Edison or Tesla had 0:33:29.680 --> 0:33:32.640 lived in those days, they could not have improved upon 0:33:32.720 --> 0:33:35.720 the choice of material, and the result was a powerful 0:33:35.800 --> 0:33:38.560 lidon jar. I think they actually could have improved on it. 0:33:38.720 --> 0:33:42.080 For instance, silver is an even better conductor than gold. Also, 0:33:42.200 --> 0:33:44.960 Sarah the them a higher rank of angel, just saying 0:33:45.160 --> 0:33:49.960 they could go from oh touche. So the author also 0:33:50.040 --> 0:33:52.400 claims that the arc was charged by the smoke of 0:33:52.480 --> 0:33:55.640 burnt offerings, which is the same thing Roger said. Uh. 0:33:55.720 --> 0:33:59.000 The author says that after Moses died, others improved upon 0:33:59.080 --> 0:34:01.440 the design of the electrical arc by placing it in 0:34:01.520 --> 0:34:04.560 a temple surrounded by a hundred and fifty foot poles 0:34:04.680 --> 0:34:07.800 covered in gold to charge the arc with electrical storms. 0:34:08.160 --> 0:34:09.960 And then we get to my favorite part, which is 0:34:10.040 --> 0:34:13.920 that the author says that he essentially implies that Aaron 0:34:14.120 --> 0:34:18.240 in the Bible stories used the arc as a murder weapon. Robert, 0:34:18.280 --> 0:34:20.080 would you like to read this passage? I've got here, 0:34:20.320 --> 0:34:22.920 certainly and and we'll just pretend that we threw in 0:34:22.960 --> 0:34:25.799 the law and order sound effect right here. Maybe maybe 0:34:25.880 --> 0:34:28.960 we can do that. I don't know. We'll see any 0:34:29.040 --> 0:34:32.320 coroner's jury of today if it were to sit on 0:34:32.440 --> 0:34:36.120 an inquest over the bodies of Aaron's sons, would it 0:34:36.239 --> 0:34:39.719 once bring a verdict of death by discharge of electricity? 0:34:40.760 --> 0:34:44.120 Aaron knew this power, and to make it effective, all 0:34:44.280 --> 0:34:47.640 he had to do to deal death from this apparatus 0:34:47.800 --> 0:34:51.040 was to remove the costly camel's hair carpet, which are 0:34:51.200 --> 0:34:55.200 almost perfect non conductors of electricity, and make the culprit 0:34:55.320 --> 0:34:59.440 stand on terra FIRMA death would result instantly by fire 0:34:59.560 --> 0:35:02.800 breaking out and leave no wounds or burns to account 0:35:02.880 --> 0:35:06.440 for his death. That several members of revolting tribes of 0:35:06.560 --> 0:35:10.480 Israelites were thus electrocuted is also a matter of record 0:35:10.640 --> 0:35:14.279 in the Bible. I wouldn't call them revolting necessarily. That 0:35:14.400 --> 0:35:18.480 seems a little harsh. Oh he means rebel. Yes, that 0:35:18.840 --> 0:35:23.719 is again matter of record. Is just a certainty. What 0:35:23.960 --> 0:35:25.960 what is with this? Well, I mean there's probably a 0:35:26.000 --> 0:35:28.319 lot to unpack their in turn, I mean we haven't 0:35:28.360 --> 0:35:31.560 packed this to a certain extent. Uh, For instance, looking 0:35:31.600 --> 0:35:34.719 at the uh, the Great flood and the idea of 0:35:34.760 --> 0:35:37.360 a biblical great flood and its effect on the study 0:35:37.400 --> 0:35:39.680 of geology for so long, you know, I mean, the 0:35:40.239 --> 0:35:44.520 the Biblical record as it was, uh, certainly influenced even 0:35:44.600 --> 0:35:48.080 scientific understanding of the world for for quite a while. Well, 0:35:48.160 --> 0:35:50.239 I just think it's so interesting that you've got this 0:35:50.480 --> 0:35:53.560 weird hybrid approach of looking at the Bible here where 0:35:53.640 --> 0:35:57.000 the person is saying, I'm going to question and interrogate 0:35:57.120 --> 0:35:59.879 the source of this power, but I'm going to absolutely 0:36:00.040 --> 0:36:02.520 take the story at face value except where it sort 0:36:02.560 --> 0:36:05.319 of doesn't really match what I'm saying. But also I'm 0:36:05.360 --> 0:36:07.719 going to take God completely out of the equation or 0:36:07.760 --> 0:36:10.239 replace it with a device. But I'm also going to 0:36:10.360 --> 0:36:14.759 treat the text this uh, this translated text as if 0:36:14.880 --> 0:36:18.279 it is a complete historical record, as if it's just 0:36:18.400 --> 0:36:21.399 a security camp footage of the Ark of the Covenant. Yeah, 0:36:21.440 --> 0:36:24.520 that is exactly what I was, maybe inarticulately trying to say. 0:36:24.920 --> 0:36:27.400 And then they in the article by saying Franklin the 0:36:27.480 --> 0:36:29.520 electric chair in the state of New York and the 0:36:29.600 --> 0:36:31.800 discovery of the light in jar itself in light in 0:36:31.880 --> 0:36:35.560 Germany or all back numbers. History only repeats itself, whether 0:36:35.640 --> 0:36:38.279 recorded or not, And then here's a here's an even 0:36:38.320 --> 0:36:41.920 crazier one. It seems that none other than Nicola Tesla 0:36:42.440 --> 0:36:46.040 toyed with this idea as well. In a nineteen fifteen 0:36:46.200 --> 0:36:49.560 essay called the Wonder World to Be Created by Electricity, 0:36:50.080 --> 0:36:53.800 Tesla wrote, the superstitious belief of the ancients, if it 0:36:53.920 --> 0:36:56.800 existed at all, can therefore not be taken as a 0:36:56.880 --> 0:37:00.200 reliable proof of their ignorance. But just how much they 0:37:00.280 --> 0:37:04.240 knew about electricity can only be conjectured. A curious fact 0:37:04.400 --> 0:37:07.319 is that the ray or torpedo fish was used by 0:37:07.360 --> 0:37:12.440 them in electrotherapy. Some old coins show twin stars or sparks, 0:37:12.840 --> 0:37:16.600 such as might be produced by a galvanic battery. The records, 0:37:16.680 --> 0:37:18.880 though scanty, are of a nature to fill us with 0:37:19.040 --> 0:37:22.240 conviction that a few initiated at least had a deeper 0:37:22.360 --> 0:37:27.120 knowledge of amber phenomena. To mention one, Moses was undoubtedly 0:37:27.200 --> 0:37:30.919 a practical and skillful electrician, far in advance of his time. 0:37:31.080 --> 0:37:36.719 Undoubtedly the Bible describes precisely and minutely arrangements constituting a 0:37:36.880 --> 0:37:40.879 machine in which electricity was generated by friction of air 0:37:41.320 --> 0:37:45.239 against silk curtains and stored in a box constructed like 0:37:45.360 --> 0:37:48.600 a condenser. It is very plausible to assume that the 0:37:48.719 --> 0:37:52.480 sons of Aaron were killed by a high tension discharge, 0:37:52.760 --> 0:37:55.640 and that the vestal fires of the Romans were electrical. 0:37:56.120 --> 0:37:58.719 The belt drive must have been known to engineers of 0:37:58.840 --> 0:38:01.200 that epoch, and it is difficult to see how the 0:38:01.239 --> 0:38:05.400 abundant evolution of static electricity could have escaped their notice. 0:38:05.680 --> 0:38:08.239 The words of Nicola Tesla impressive, I had no idea 0:38:08.280 --> 0:38:12.000 that he ever commented on this again is certainly undoubtedly, 0:38:12.560 --> 0:38:14.480 and then more recently, of course, the idea of the 0:38:14.560 --> 0:38:17.440 electric arc as. I think we've mentioned this at the beginning. 0:38:17.480 --> 0:38:19.640 If not, you will not be surprised to learn that 0:38:19.800 --> 0:38:22.680 it seems popular with people operating in the ancient alien 0:38:22.800 --> 0:38:26.640 cinematic universe. Eric von dani Can claimed this, while also 0:38:26.760 --> 0:38:29.120 claiming that it was as part of his whole ancient 0:38:29.200 --> 0:38:32.800 alien technology thing. It was. It was alien gift motif. 0:38:33.320 --> 0:38:35.320 I think he said that it was like a radio. 0:38:35.560 --> 0:38:39.560 Somebody said that it was a nuclear reactor. I know Rile, 0:38:39.719 --> 0:38:42.239 the founder of the Aliens, had some idea that it 0:38:42.360 --> 0:38:44.719 was a nuclear reactor or something like that, but to 0:38:44.800 --> 0:38:46.640 what end? What good does it do to have a 0:38:46.760 --> 0:38:50.640 nuclear reactor and just trotted about the desert. I'm not 0:38:50.760 --> 0:38:53.759 sure that it does, because really the whole point what 0:38:54.040 --> 0:38:57.920 makes this subject actually interesting is that building a form 0:38:58.000 --> 0:39:02.320 of a capacitor is technically possible for the ancients without 0:39:02.400 --> 0:39:05.960 supposing any kind of alien nonsense or intervention. That's true, 0:39:06.000 --> 0:39:09.080 and then ultimately the use of it as religious technology 0:39:09.400 --> 0:39:11.720 is also reasonable as well. I mean, we've discussed religious 0:39:11.719 --> 0:39:13.400 technology on the show before, in the way that various 0:39:13.440 --> 0:39:17.080 religions throughout history have used some sort of new technology 0:39:18.080 --> 0:39:20.560 as ritual. All Right, let's take one more quick break, 0:39:20.600 --> 0:39:25.560 and then when we come back, we'll finish up our discussion. Alright, 0:39:25.600 --> 0:39:28.000 we're back. So there are all these ideas people have had, 0:39:28.120 --> 0:39:29.840 as we've been talking about about the Ark of the 0:39:29.920 --> 0:39:34.440 Covenant as a capacitor or some form of electrical device. 0:39:34.960 --> 0:39:37.040 And while I think you don't need to go to 0:39:37.440 --> 0:39:41.000 these kind of bronze punk explanations to explain the origin 0:39:41.080 --> 0:39:43.920 of these legends, it is really interesting to think about 0:39:44.000 --> 0:39:48.239 the idea and the possibilities for electrical technology in the 0:39:48.400 --> 0:39:52.240 ancient world. Now, there isn't really much or any evidence 0:39:52.320 --> 0:39:55.080 of electrical technology in the ancient world. But there is 0:39:55.200 --> 0:39:59.080 some indication that there were the beginnings of understanding of 0:39:59.160 --> 0:40:04.080 electricity the ancient world. Yeah, I mean there again. Obviously, 0:40:04.280 --> 0:40:08.040 aspects of our electrical world that are unmistakable. Lightning is 0:40:08.080 --> 0:40:11.960 probably the strongest, clearest overt sign of electricity in our world. 0:40:12.480 --> 0:40:14.839 But of course, merely observing lightning is a far cry 0:40:14.880 --> 0:40:18.480 from having a decent understanding of what it is. Likewise, 0:40:18.560 --> 0:40:22.239 certain circumstances can cause us to produce our own electrostatic discharge, 0:40:22.640 --> 0:40:25.600 and the ancient Greeks knew about some of this. They 0:40:25.640 --> 0:40:29.719 knew about the triboelectric effect. For instance, This occurs when 0:40:29.840 --> 0:40:34.240 materials become electrically charged after they come into frictional contact 0:40:34.400 --> 0:40:37.000 with a different material. This is the concept behind the 0:40:37.040 --> 0:40:40.680 electrostatic generator reflection generator. Yeah again, Rub a balloon on 0:40:40.800 --> 0:40:44.120 someone's hair and you can witness this holy power. Uh, 0:40:44.640 --> 0:40:46.799 do the electric high five with a six year old, 0:40:46.840 --> 0:40:50.640 and you can also feel the divine spark. They may 0:40:50.719 --> 0:40:53.719 not have had our level of advanced playground equipment in 0:40:53.760 --> 0:40:56.879 ancient Greece, but they've probably had some stuff you could 0:40:56.960 --> 0:40:59.439 rub your butt on that would give you static discharge. Yeah, 0:40:59.440 --> 0:41:01.920 because there's a whole list of materials that can, under 0:41:01.960 --> 0:41:05.359 the right circumstances, produced this effect on the positive charge 0:41:05.440 --> 0:41:09.200 side of things. The list includes human skin, hair, leather, 0:41:09.719 --> 0:41:12.920 rabbit fur, cat fur, and wool. Uh. You know, think 0:41:12.960 --> 0:41:16.520 of all those electric cats in ancient Esic, right. And 0:41:16.600 --> 0:41:18.719 then on the other side of the equation you have 0:41:18.960 --> 0:41:23.480 would gold, balloons, and of course amber. We alluded to 0:41:23.560 --> 0:41:26.320 the amber effect earlier in one of the quotes that 0:41:26.480 --> 0:41:28.560 that I believe you were reading, and amber is a big, 0:41:28.840 --> 0:41:32.560 big issue here. Yeah, the ancient Greeks certainly knew about 0:41:32.680 --> 0:41:37.520 the amber wool combination. Bailey's of Melitis reported on this. 0:41:37.800 --> 0:41:40.640 Uh He was a mathematician and astronomer from the Greek 0:41:40.680 --> 0:41:45.040 city of Militis in uh Ionia, which is modern day Turkey, 0:41:45.200 --> 0:41:48.480 and he lived from six four through five six b C. 0:41:49.360 --> 0:41:52.920 He discovered that static electricity could be generated by rubbing 0:41:53.000 --> 0:41:55.800 fur on a piece of amber, and the Greeks noted 0:41:55.840 --> 0:41:59.319 that the this through a charged amber buttons as well 0:41:59.400 --> 0:42:02.760 a special because these could attract you know, light objects 0:42:02.800 --> 0:42:04.759 such as hair. And I think this is this is 0:42:04.840 --> 0:42:09.080 key to thinking about what ancient people's knew about electricity. 0:42:09.360 --> 0:42:12.320 Is the materials they used and sort of the everyday 0:42:12.360 --> 0:42:16.200 circumstances in which they would, through continual usage, have the 0:42:16.520 --> 0:42:20.640 uh encounter the chance of creating that spark. Yeah, and 0:42:20.840 --> 0:42:23.040 it's still there in the language we used to discuss 0:42:23.080 --> 0:42:27.319 electricity today, like the word electron and electricity comes from 0:42:27.360 --> 0:42:31.040 the Greek word electron, which means amber. Yeah, so you 0:42:31.120 --> 0:42:34.719 know some level of understanding regarding static discharge as a 0:42:34.800 --> 0:42:37.560 property of material interaction in the ancient world, even three 0:42:37.640 --> 0:42:41.040 thousand BC, is certainly not crazy. It would seem just 0:42:41.160 --> 0:42:43.960 a natural result of again, of working with those materials 0:42:44.000 --> 0:42:48.759 of human invention and toolmaking exactly. Yeah. So the principles 0:42:48.840 --> 0:42:52.759 of friction generators for electricity, much like Franklin's and Hawksby's 0:42:52.800 --> 0:42:57.560 friction generators had had basically already been discovered in ancient 0:42:57.680 --> 0:43:02.040 times and didn't require any modern materials or technology to produce. 0:43:02.480 --> 0:43:04.840 And then you've also come you compound that with the 0:43:04.880 --> 0:43:07.000 rest of our discussion, which makes it seem that while 0:43:07.080 --> 0:43:10.120 these stories of the arc probably have nothing to do 0:43:10.239 --> 0:43:13.000 with this, the storage of electricity and some kind of 0:43:13.080 --> 0:43:16.080 crude capacitor could also have been managed in the ancient 0:43:16.160 --> 0:43:19.120 world via basic types of liden jars. You've got to 0:43:19.280 --> 0:43:22.040 you know, dielectric insulator, and you've got some kind of 0:43:22.080 --> 0:43:24.520 like gold or something on either side of it. It 0:43:24.680 --> 0:43:27.279 might have even been built by accident at some point. 0:43:27.680 --> 0:43:31.200 This also doesn't require any kind of great crazy bronze 0:43:31.239 --> 0:43:34.480 punk sci fi. So this kind of leads us to 0:43:34.560 --> 0:43:38.399 a big question. If the ancients had pretty much all 0:43:38.520 --> 0:43:41.680 they needed to generate and store electricity, at least in 0:43:41.719 --> 0:43:45.839 the crudest sense, why didn't they harness these earlier? Why 0:43:45.880 --> 0:43:48.600 didn't this lead them to to perform the step up 0:43:48.719 --> 0:43:51.840 in in the next experiments, in the next experiments like 0:43:52.080 --> 0:43:55.400 it did in say, the eighteenth century. Uh that that 0:43:55.480 --> 0:43:59.399 would lead to the subsequent development of electrically based technologies 0:43:59.480 --> 0:44:02.280 in the ancient a world. What if by the time 0:44:02.360 --> 0:44:06.279 of the Roman Empire the world had electric power? How 0:44:06.400 --> 0:44:08.759 different would the world be? Well? That is at once 0:44:08.960 --> 0:44:13.360 a tantalizing question and a frightening question knowing knowing what 0:44:13.520 --> 0:44:18.600 inevitably occurs as humans make new technological breakthroughs. I don't 0:44:18.640 --> 0:44:22.560 know that I would have trusted the Romans with electricity. 0:44:22.640 --> 0:44:26.520 I got I scarcely trust um any modern day cultures 0:44:26.640 --> 0:44:29.799 with electricity. Well as Carl Sagan said, humanity has become 0:44:29.880 --> 0:44:33.759 powerful before humanity has become wise. And you know this 0:44:33.920 --> 0:44:36.600 is true even today. I'd say I'd venture a guess 0:44:36.640 --> 0:44:39.040 we were even less wise in the times of the Romans, 0:44:39.160 --> 0:44:41.759 or at least the Roman Empire was less wise. How 0:44:41.880 --> 0:44:45.640 many chickens would have been fried by by by by 0:44:45.800 --> 0:44:50.680 Roman Benjamin Franklin's at the time. One can only imagine. Yeah, 0:44:50.760 --> 0:44:53.200 so there must be some kind of answer to this question, 0:44:53.280 --> 0:44:56.759 Like it's not like there's some kind of magical ingredient 0:44:56.960 --> 0:44:59.360 they did not possess that would not allow them to 0:44:59.440 --> 0:45:02.600 start this chain of research to gain power over the 0:45:02.680 --> 0:45:06.279 electrical world. I have to guess that the main impediment. 0:45:06.600 --> 0:45:08.520 Maybe there's something I'm not thinking of here. I have 0:45:08.600 --> 0:45:11.400 to think the main impediment is just like they didn't 0:45:11.480 --> 0:45:16.520 have the proper ecosystem of scientific investigation, like all these 0:45:16.560 --> 0:45:19.880 different people in different places doing their independent experiments and 0:45:19.920 --> 0:45:22.800 then all coming together to compare notes. You know, this 0:45:22.880 --> 0:45:25.799 reminds me of a discussion that we had for our 0:45:25.960 --> 0:45:28.840 new show, our new podcast that is launching I believe 0:45:28.960 --> 0:45:33.440 next week, UH Invention podcast all about inventions where they 0:45:33.480 --> 0:45:36.000 come from, and Uh, we're talking about the x ray, 0:45:36.080 --> 0:45:39.080 I believe, and we were talking about, Okay, you have 0:45:39.600 --> 0:45:42.959 the materials and the parts that were necessary to create 0:45:43.000 --> 0:45:46.359 the X ray the understanding limited as it was at 0:45:46.400 --> 0:45:51.200 the time, uh, to create this machine. And yet there 0:45:51.239 --> 0:45:54.279 were a few decades there before somebody actually really did, 0:45:54.400 --> 0:45:57.680 before they really cracked the mystery of what was going on. 0:45:58.040 --> 0:46:00.600 And kind of like the leiden jard the discovery was 0:46:00.719 --> 0:46:04.440 partially an accident. I mean, somebody was, uh, the discoverer 0:46:04.680 --> 0:46:07.800 of the X ray machine was messing around with with 0:46:07.880 --> 0:46:09.920 electrical equipment. So it wasn't like they were just like 0:46:10.320 --> 0:46:12.800 you know, cleaning their garage and they discovered the X 0:46:12.880 --> 0:46:15.360 ray machine, but they weren't setting out to discover a 0:46:15.440 --> 0:46:17.520 way to look inside the body, right. And part of 0:46:17.560 --> 0:46:20.000 it too was like was also very literally where were 0:46:20.040 --> 0:46:22.279 they looking and there when they were creating some sort 0:46:22.280 --> 0:46:25.759 of an effect? What how are they trying to understand it? 0:46:26.160 --> 0:46:28.319 And so I think there might be an answer there 0:46:28.480 --> 0:46:30.680 if and again we're making a few different leaps here, 0:46:31.239 --> 0:46:34.239 but if assuming for a second that the arc of 0:46:34.320 --> 0:46:37.920 the Covenant was indeed a light in jar and uh, 0:46:38.000 --> 0:46:41.080 and then this was an electrostatic discharge that people were 0:46:41.160 --> 0:46:46.440 observing and experiencing what were they observing, how were they 0:46:46.520 --> 0:46:48.719 trying to observe it, and what were they looking for? 0:46:48.960 --> 0:46:53.560 What answers were they looking for in playing with this technology. Well, 0:46:53.640 --> 0:46:56.239 one of the things that the people who were doing 0:46:56.320 --> 0:46:58.880 this kind of like pseudohistory about the ARC do is 0:46:58.960 --> 0:47:02.759 they say, well, okay, a clearly aaron started using the 0:47:02.920 --> 0:47:05.080 ARC as a murder weapon, and they were using it 0:47:05.200 --> 0:47:07.880 as a weapon of war or something like that. I 0:47:07.920 --> 0:47:10.239 would tend to think if it actually were the case 0:47:10.360 --> 0:47:13.120 that there was an ARC and the ARC was actually 0:47:13.160 --> 0:47:14.960 a light and joy. Again, I am not at all 0:47:15.040 --> 0:47:18.320 saying I think this is likely, but just suppose, I 0:47:18.320 --> 0:47:20.520 would think the most likely used for it would be 0:47:20.680 --> 0:47:24.160 a piece of religious technology. The purpose of it is 0:47:24.239 --> 0:47:28.440 to demonstrate some sort of supernatural power by letting off 0:47:28.560 --> 0:47:32.040 this discharge or whatever. It is indication that something you 0:47:32.120 --> 0:47:35.960 don't understand that is powerful and is unexplained is happening. 0:47:36.040 --> 0:47:38.239 And this gives you a kind of like peek behind 0:47:38.320 --> 0:47:41.000 the curtain of reality and you can see the powers 0:47:41.080 --> 0:47:43.399 that lie beyond. And really that would be the most 0:47:43.480 --> 0:47:46.560 powerful application of the technology at the time, because no 0:47:46.640 --> 0:47:49.160 matter what the stories are about the arc um, you 0:47:49.160 --> 0:47:51.720 wouldn't be able to bring down the walls of Jericho 0:47:51.880 --> 0:47:53.960 with this thing. You wouldn't be able to stop the 0:47:54.000 --> 0:47:58.360 flow of the river Jordan's. Maybe you could murder your nephew. Maybe, 0:47:58.719 --> 0:48:01.400 but that's kind of small, patay, it is compared to 0:48:02.280 --> 0:48:06.200 giving yourself some some powerful force that not only was 0:48:06.239 --> 0:48:08.840 able to help like shore up your religion, but also 0:48:09.600 --> 0:48:12.520 convince those that needed convincing that you were privy to 0:48:12.680 --> 0:48:15.600 the divine word of God through this device. Well. In fact, 0:48:15.800 --> 0:48:18.640 think about the primary ways that lad in jars were 0:48:18.920 --> 0:48:22.680 used when people first started making them. They became like 0:48:22.920 --> 0:48:26.400 a parlor game, entertainer thing. Yes, it was entertainment. In 0:48:26.560 --> 0:48:29.480 in fact, it was almost a form of religious technology. 0:48:29.800 --> 0:48:31.680 There would be these stories of people they get a 0:48:31.719 --> 0:48:33.560 bunch of light in jars together, or I don't know 0:48:33.640 --> 0:48:36.080 about a bunch, maybe just one. They'd have some kind 0:48:36.120 --> 0:48:38.200 of capacitor and then they would get a bunch of 0:48:38.320 --> 0:48:40.799 monks to hold hands, and then they'd shock them all 0:48:40.880 --> 0:48:43.040 at the same time in a chain so that they 0:48:43.120 --> 0:48:44.840 all felt it at once. It was almost like a 0:48:44.960 --> 0:48:49.279 strange ritual. Yeah, you get into the power of the performance, right, 0:48:49.320 --> 0:48:50.920 and it's it's it's a part of religion. It's a 0:48:50.960 --> 0:48:53.560 part of entertainment. It's just a part of the human experience. 0:48:53.600 --> 0:48:57.040 It was primarily useful, not for work it would do 0:48:57.320 --> 0:48:59.600 in the material world, before the work it would do 0:48:59.719 --> 0:49:02.360 on the minds of the people taking part and observing. 0:49:02.800 --> 0:49:05.560 It was performative. Yeah, all right, so there you have it. Um. 0:49:05.719 --> 0:49:08.160 I hope everyone leaves these episodes like maybe a little 0:49:08.200 --> 0:49:10.680 more interested and a little more enthralled by the Arc, 0:49:11.360 --> 0:49:15.279 you know, because ultimately we can't explain what it actually was, 0:49:15.520 --> 0:49:18.040 if it was a thing. I mean, it's just again, 0:49:18.080 --> 0:49:21.600 this is a place where history and mythology converge. Yeah, 0:49:21.640 --> 0:49:23.640 but I do love it as a jumping off point. 0:49:23.719 --> 0:49:26.480 It's almost like it's the way station to all these strange, 0:49:26.719 --> 0:49:29.839 uh bronze punk planets you can visit that that are 0:49:30.000 --> 0:49:32.680 revealing once you start thinking about them. Indeed, and we 0:49:32.719 --> 0:49:36.480 would love to hear everyone else's thoughts on on the Arc. Yeah, 0:49:36.480 --> 0:49:38.719 people who learned about it from Raiders of the Lost 0:49:38.880 --> 0:49:41.719 Arc first of all, and and from people who learned 0:49:41.719 --> 0:49:44.760 about it in uh you know, uh their history class 0:49:44.840 --> 0:49:47.360 or their Bible class, or uh, whatever kind of a 0:49:47.480 --> 0:49:50.880 religious study they were involved in. Um, perhaps you have 0:49:50.920 --> 0:49:53.359 a particular favorite theory. Perhaps you have your own brand 0:49:53.440 --> 0:49:56.000 new theory that we haven't thought of. Maybe it contained 0:49:56.000 --> 0:49:58.160 a giant squid. I don't know. I will leave it 0:49:58.239 --> 0:50:01.560 to you to provide us with those new theories. But 0:50:02.160 --> 0:50:03.800 in the meantime, be sure to check out Stuff to 0:50:03.840 --> 0:50:05.839 Blow your Mind dot com. That is the mothership. That's 0:50:05.840 --> 0:50:09.000 where we'll find all the episodes of the podcast. 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