0:00

From UFOs to psychic powers

0:02

and government conspiracies. History

0:04

is riddled with unexplained events. You

0:07

can turn back now or

0:09

learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

0:12

production of I Heart Radio. Hello,

0:24

and welcome back to the show. My

0:27

name is Noel. Our colleague

0:29

Matt is on adventures, but we'll

0:31

be returning soon. They called me

0:33

Ben. We are joined as always with our super

0:35

producer Paul Michion control decond.

0:38

Most importantly, you are you, You

0:40

are here, and that makes this the stuff

0:42

they don't want you to know. It's

0:45

the most wonderful time of the year.

0:47

We've made it, fellow conspiracy realists

0:49

through trial and tribulation to another October.

0:52

As you know, Halloween's our favorite holiday,

0:55

so we thought what better way to celebrate

0:57

than to kick off this month with an

1:00

episode on monsters. Not just one,

1:02

but two episodes. Uh. This

1:04

may not be the sort of exploration you

1:06

were expecting, and it's taking us

1:08

across the planet from ancient

1:10

times to the modern day. I never

1:13

thought we'd have to say it. No old, but this might be

1:15

familiar, uh to some

1:17

of our fellow listeners who play

1:19

Fortnite at least part of it. Oh

1:22

yeah, yeah, please don't don't

1:24

rag on us too hard. We did our best. We

1:26

meta Versus a very interesting

1:29

place, rife with yeah

1:32

kids that are mean to you, but now I was

1:34

super fun. There's actually an expanded version of

1:37

what we did there. We sort of just

1:39

hit the high points and the this episode

1:41

is actually going to be uh

1:44

some extra stuff for even folks that did managed

1:46

to catch that that metaverse Um

1:49

exclusive piece of content. So,

1:51

without further ado, here

1:53

are the facts. Now, this

1:55

is something uh know that you and I have talked

1:58

about at times in

2:00

another show. We do ridiculous history. For

2:03

a lot of human history,

2:05

for the span of human civilization, belief

2:07

in what we would call monsters was

2:10

not controversial, was an accepted part

2:12

of existence. You know. Uh, these

2:15

days, things like vampires

2:17

and you know, zombies or evil spirits

2:19

are consigned a myth and legend and

2:22

rumor. But once upon a time they

2:24

were considered very real, genuine

2:26

environmental threats, Like you were really

2:28

warning people not to go

2:30

in the woods. That's true, and you know, in certain

2:33

um cultures and religions, they

2:35

sort of take on more of the feeling

2:37

of allegory or myth or sort

2:40

of cautionary tale, But you're absolutely

2:42

right. There are definitely cultures that still to this

2:44

day to some degree, treat

2:46

them with the same urgency as you might,

2:49

you know, like you said, been like a wild animal

2:51

attack or something like that, you know, or they're the

2:53

idea of, uh, some sort

2:55

of dangerous human stalking the

2:57

night. The power of belief remains

3:00

very, very strong um in certain

3:02

parts of the world, and I think you could be you probably wouldn't

3:04

be too hard pressed to find a

3:06

person in America that to some

3:09

degree believes in supernatural

3:11

forces, whether they call them monsters

3:14

or whether they call them, you know, hauntings

3:16

or or or specters of some kind.

3:19

I think that belief still certainly exists.

3:23

So in the first part of

3:25

this two part series, we're going

3:27

to look at some examples

3:29

of this, and we're gonna ask for your help at

3:32

the end, because again there are examples

3:34

of plenty, so much so that we are

3:36

making this a two part episode. Look,

3:38

when we're when we're exploring the lives

3:40

of people in communities in the past, we always

3:43

want to take pains to say those

3:45

beliefs do not in any way indicate

3:48

these people or the communities in

3:50

which they lived were foolish at

3:52

all. Instead, again, they were working with

3:54

the information they had, so there would be diseases.

3:57

You couldn't explain maladies straight

4:00

being atmospheric phenomenon, and

4:02

so people would approach this through their

4:04

own cultural framework. And they were just

4:06

as intelligent as people today,

4:08

so they wanted to explain things, to recognize

4:11

patterns. A curse could also

4:13

be another explanation. And

4:15

these entities weren't always sinister. I

4:18

mean, there are a lot of helpful supernatural

4:20

spirits in folklore, and you're

4:23

student of anthropology or folklore

4:25

history, none of this is particularly

4:27

surprising. But there is one thing that

4:29

might startle a lot of us listening

4:31

today today

4:34

October, all across the planet.

4:36

They're not thousands, not hundreds

4:38

of thousands, but millions upon millions

4:40

of people who believe at least some of

4:43

those monsters of old, those creatures,

4:45

curses, spirits and ghoules,

4:48

anything that goes bump in the night, some

4:50

people still believe they're real. Here's

4:53

where it gets crazy.

4:56

So, like you said, Nol, we've talked

4:58

about gen when beliefs

5:01

in monsters and curses and

5:03

even more modern legends that a

5:05

lot of the rest of the world might dismiss one

5:08

of the things that I

5:10

think always amazes Outsiders

5:12

happens in Iceland and full

5:15

disclosure or pal mission Control has

5:17

traveled to Iceland, I think not

5:19

once, but twice. And I had

5:22

asked him off air a long time

5:24

ago whether he encountered

5:26

this. But believe

5:28

it or not. Uh, there is a strong

5:30

contention of people in Iceland who believe

5:32

in something very much like Elves.

5:35

Yeah, there's a bunch of its. A movie that

5:37

came out maybe last Halloween.

5:39

I think it's called Elves and

5:41

it's basically like an Icelandic gremlin's

5:44

movie. Um, they're mischievous

5:46

little bastards in this, and

5:48

I think it's not no spoilers, it's not a particularly

5:51

great movie, but there is sort of like a the precocious

5:53

kids go out of the woods and discover like

5:56

a tiny cute elfling and

5:58

then of course, by the fact that they have

6:00

taken ens you now into shelter, the

6:02

bigger, meaner, scarier Elves come

6:05

after it. Um. But yeah, I know it's very much

6:07

true. And this is a a belief also

6:09

that kind of ties into

6:13

I believe it was icelandic we did

6:15

this on ridiculous history too, about like

6:17

the Yule Lads. Remember the Yule

6:19

Lads like spoon liquor and

6:22

candles, sniffer knee,

6:24

slapper humper or whatever

6:26

they were. Is that isn't

6:29

isn't that Icelandic as well? The

6:31

Yule Lads are sort of

6:33

the Yeah, they occur

6:35

in Iceland, uh, and a couple of other

6:37

countries there. The belief is like the

6:41

gritty, disturbing origin story

6:43

of Santa's Helpers kind

6:45

of. They they are

6:47

the children of a

6:50

demonic, monstrous figure.

6:53

Uh. They are associated with

6:56

mischief nowadays, but back

6:58

in the day they were associated with dangerous

7:00

things like stealing children. You

7:03

know. Uh. I love they bring up

7:05

the old lads because they have a lot in common

7:07

with the the alfar

7:09

or the the elves,

7:12

the hidden folk in Iceland.

7:14

But yeah, this was this

7:16

wasn't always just a story you

7:18

told children to guide

7:20

their behavior. People did believe

7:22

in this stuff and even now you

7:25

might. I was surprised to find in seventeen,

7:28

National Geographic did

7:30

a piece on this belief, and they found

7:32

that more than fifty percent of people in

7:35

Iceland claimed to have some degree

7:37

of belief in elves.

7:40

Uh. There not

7:42

super evil uh

7:45

and they're really closely associated

7:47

with the bizarre and unique

7:50

environment of the country. I mean,

7:52

it's got lava fields. It it

7:55

feels to me like if you're looking at Iceland

7:57

from Afar, you immediately think,

8:00

hey, I'm either freezing right

8:02

down the wrong side of the volcano and

8:04

I'm burning. So like, how do

8:06

you explain if you're in early um,

8:09

if you're a person living early in early Icelandic

8:11

history, how do you explain all this weird stuff? It's

8:14

interesting too, because I mean, Iceland is does It's

8:16

a good point that you make. It does tend to be a land

8:18

of cultural extremes. I mean,

8:21

you know, you've got the most

8:23

gorgeous kind of like lilting

8:25

um, you know, ambient music

8:28

like by the likes of Seagar Roast

8:30

and Bark and stuff like that. And then

8:32

you have this whole like Icelandic

8:34

death metal movement that is just

8:37

the absolute most extreme kind of harshest

8:39

of music you can imagine. And I think the

8:42

land and the landscape there and just the kind

8:44

of isolation tends to kind

8:46

of create those kinds of responses and and

8:48

and folks that live there. Um, it's

8:51

also very isolated, very expensive

8:53

to live there just by virtue of how disconnected

8:56

from everything is. I mean, it just must be like people

8:59

just getting an absolutely reamed with with

9:01

import taxes and such. And

9:04

you know, if you were to ask most

9:07

people in Iceland this question, or many people,

9:09

if you were to say do believe in elves, you'll

9:11

find that a lot of people sit on the fence.

9:14

Some people think it's a little bit

9:16

childish, but you know, they'll also say,

9:19

hey, we've got a rich folklore here.

9:21

This is a big part of our culture. So

9:24

a lot of people won't apparently

9:26

won't feel completely

9:29

comfortable dismissing the idea

9:31

out of hand. In general, it

9:34

helps that these creatures are not seen

9:36

as super aggressive, so long as you

9:38

treat them with respect. They're one big

9:40

sticking point is that they're very

9:43

very territorial, and that

9:45

that means construction can be a problem. I

9:48

love this idea that you know, I mean, you know,

9:50

they're keebler elves of course that we know

9:52

and love or whatever. Maybe we're

9:54

terrified by when we were kids in America, the

9:56

little spokes things of cookie

9:59

fame. They live in trees, you

10:01

know, with like doors in them, in like little tree

10:03

house as well apparently in Iceland,

10:06

large boulders are thought to be

10:09

the homes of of the elven kind,

10:12

which could be a real problem if you're

10:14

clearing out you know, um fields

10:17

of of of stone to make room

10:19

for new developments. Uh, this kind

10:22

of disruption could really

10:24

rile up the the the elves.

10:27

Um. And there are certainly folks who believe

10:30

that elves have kind of you know, taken

10:32

on sort of a Luddite role and uh in

10:35

in smashing industrial equipment

10:37

like bulldozers and and making off

10:39

with tools to slow down production. Yeah.

10:43

And elves also get blamed when machines

10:45

break or just stop operating

10:48

with no apparent explanation. Gremlin

10:51

type stuff. Really, I mean the gremlins

10:53

in America. They were I think commonly

10:56

kind of thought of as as as um

10:58

hijacking or sabotaging

11:01

planes, you know in the Wars. Yeah,

11:04

and uh, this is sort of a

11:06

elf sabotage operation here.

11:09

It also goes to personal injury, like

11:11

a worker may sprain an ankle

11:14

or break a leg, And at times

11:17

the actions of elves

11:19

were blamed rather than human error

11:21

or you know, taking a misstep. In

11:24

older stories, it gets a little

11:26

bit rougher you can see livestock

11:29

being afflicted with a disease or

11:31

an infection, or even people

11:33

falling ill or dying unexpectedly.

11:36

However, you find yourself on the

11:38

skeptic slash true believer spectrum,

11:42

you will see that a lot of people in Iceland still

11:44

do seem to take this seriously. Now,

11:46

whether that's part of just respecting

11:49

an ancient culture, or whether that's genuine

11:51

fear of harm, whatever the case may

11:54

be, You'll see that it's

11:56

not crazy uncommon for

11:59

people were in construction or

12:01

building a road to divert

12:03

a road kind of in an arc around

12:05

a big boulder, instead of disturbing it

12:08

or blasting through it. It's funny, man,

12:10

And I think I think you have played breadth

12:12

of the wild to some degree right on the switch.

12:15

You know, those little corock guys that

12:17

like give you the seeds that allow

12:19

you to expand your inventory. They

12:22

always live underneath boulders

12:25

and like tree stumps and things like that.

12:27

And there's a little bit of elvishness

12:29

about those guys too. Um. And

12:31

also you know gremlin's by the way, um,

12:34

you know, are very much kind of an American

12:37

creation during the World Wars and

12:39

and seem to really jump off of a lot of this

12:42

folklore that you're talking about, and these ones, you

12:44

know, are specifically I

12:46

don't even think you have to piss them off. I think

12:48

that they're they're they're just inherently kind of you

12:50

know, chaos, magic wielders. Yeah,

12:53

yeah, they're just agency chaos. And

12:56

in the case of elves in Iceland, lest

12:58

we be casting this version

13:00

upon their reputation here in the world of podcasting,

13:03

supporting a note, they're not all bad. As a matter

13:05

of fact, I found one former member of

13:07

Icelandic parliament even swears

13:10

that a family of elves saved

13:12

his life when he was in a car accident.

13:15

Now is that just something you say during campaign

13:18

or is that something he truly believes? Story

13:20

for another day. Also, I mean, I mean

13:22

depending, I guess, I guess you're speaking to your

13:25

base they're right. I mean the fact that someone

13:27

would even be comfortable enough to

13:29

even say that out loud with a level

13:31

of belief that wouldn't go over super well with politicians

13:34

in the United States unless it's just like,

13:36

you know, speaking to evangelical Christian

13:38

kind of beliefs. But the idea of being well,

13:41

actually what am I talking about. There's

13:43

plenty of folks on that side of the aisle that

13:45

would absolutely say they've spoken to angels

13:47

or that they have, you know, had encounters

13:50

you know, of the third kind with things

13:52

more out of scripture, Yeah,

13:55

superstition or folklore. Yeah, there's

13:57

a there's a widespread

13:59

belief system in the interventions

14:02

of the divine and the infernal. It

14:04

goes across I would say, Eddie, almost

14:07

any imaginable political spectrum,

14:10

but this, yeah, it's true. Like if you if

14:13

you were ever thinking, wow, the people

14:15

of some other country must be so silly

14:17

to believe in these things that I think are malarkey.

14:20

You gotta remember you're in a glasshouse as

14:23

well, because a lot of people in your country have

14:25

beliefs, uh, have beliefs in things

14:28

that would be considered supernatural. I mean,

14:31

in the case of Iceland, there's even an elf

14:33

school where you can take

14:36

a day course that earns

14:38

you a diploma in I imagine

14:40

Elfrey. But with that,

14:43

we've we've shown you one, uh,

14:46

one belief that is at least partially

14:48

genuinely practiced by people in

14:50

a country. So let's pause

14:52

for a moment and will return

14:55

with another even more popular

14:59

supernatural leaf. Okay,

15:07

here's one. We won't spend too much time on

15:09

this one because we did an entire episode

15:12

on it, The Jin when

15:14

I love your point earlier and all about the idea

15:17

of many people in the US believing in angels

15:20

and demons. Uh. Many many

15:22

people, especially of the Islamic

15:24

faith, but not necessarily always Islamic,

15:28

believe in the Jin. Uh.

15:30

You know, the idea that the Creator made

15:34

angels, made human beings, and made

15:36

a third intelligent

15:39

life form called the Jin, crafted

15:41

out of smokeless green fire. It's

15:45

nuts because I think I

15:47

don't know growing up until

15:50

I saw, until I started

15:53

finding the right books in the library, was about

15:55

seven or eight. All I knew about

15:58

the Jin was is uh Western

16:02

depictions, you know, Robin Williams in a Latin

16:04

or kause am slash m

16:07

shout out no

16:09

one knows actually has a quick cursory

16:11

Google search will tell you that it was in

16:13

fact kausam right, Yes,

16:16

it's kazam. Chasm with sindbad

16:18

is another thing that is apparently not. It

16:21

only exists in like our collective unconscious

16:23

for some reason. Right. Um, there's

16:25

actually a speaking of movies that do

16:28

exist about Jin. There is

16:30

a relative a new movie from George Miller,

16:32

who did the Mad Max movies and of course

16:34

like weirdly the Babe movies and the Happy Face

16:36

movies. It is called Three Thousand Years

16:38

of Longing Uh and it starts Tilda

16:41

Swinton and Interest Elba, and Interest

16:43

Elba plays a gin uh and Um,

16:46

I have it's actually based on a short story

16:48

called The Jin in the Nightingales I

16:50

by A s By It. I have not seen

16:52

it yet, but it looks pretty interesting and uh and very

16:55

elaborate and obviously kind of got you

16:57

know, a blank check to do whatever you wanted after

16:59

that Mad Max Fury Road just

17:01

you know, completely blew the doors

17:04

off everything. So um, looking

17:06

forward to checking it out. Um, But yeah,

17:08

ginn er interesting. There's really another good depiction

17:11

or a fun silly depiction in

17:13

the show, which I think you're also a fan of, been what We Do

17:15

in the Shadows In the new season,

17:18

Um, one of the vampires finds

17:20

a genie lamp or a gin lamp

17:23

and rubs it and has this gin that

17:25

appears to him. But the kind of the characters

17:27

portrayed as more of like an accountant kind

17:30

of not a lot of like you know,

17:32

fire and bluster and all this kind of stuff is

17:34

just much more kind of like procedural about it and

17:37

very put upon by being in this

17:39

guy's service and trying desperately

17:42

to trick him into making dumb

17:44

wishes or you know, to to lose

17:46

you know, wishes. Yeah, what dungeons

17:49

and dragons we call lawful evil.

17:51

Uh. Yeah, there's always there's always kind

17:53

of this associated monkeys Paul

17:56

with the idea of wishes and gin

17:58

in the western uh, in

18:00

the western framework. But if

18:03

you delve into the actual folklore

18:05

like pre Islamic and Islamic beliefs,

18:08

you'll see it goes much deeper than

18:10

that. And as much as I love Robin

18:13

Williams riffing in Aladdin,

18:16

it is not a super accurate definition,

18:18

So check out our earlier episode on

18:21

that. But before you check out that episode,

18:23

let's talk about a monster many people have

18:26

not have heard of. Oh and also side

18:28

note, the Jin are not inherently

18:31

monstrous or evil, They're

18:34

just different. Uh. We want

18:36

to thank everybody who took the time to write to us

18:38

with their own Jin stories after hearing

18:41

that episode all those years

18:43

ago. If if you have a jin story

18:45

yourself. We would love to hear it, so please

18:47

contact us with it. We'll tell you how to get in touch

18:50

with us at the end of the show. But let's

18:52

travel to South Africa.

18:55

Riddle me this, noal, have you ever

18:57

heard of this one, the toko Loche?

19:00

No, I have not. Um it's

19:02

fun to say, though I can already tell you that right.

19:05

This was unfamiliar to me, and I think

19:07

a lot of the a lot of

19:09

things will find over these two episodes are

19:12

going to be unfamiliar to a lot of people

19:14

in the West, like you and myself. So the

19:16

Tokoloshe, also known as the Tikoloh,

19:19

is this diminutive, like

19:21

really short, hairy South African

19:24

demon that apparently can

19:26

function as a kind of hit man. You

19:28

contact a an

19:30

evil practitioner the spiritual

19:33

arts, which might be called the witch doctor, and

19:36

then they will build this thing

19:38

to take revenge on your enemies. It's

19:40

like it's a water sprite. It's

19:43

tough to catch because it be can be invisible.

19:45

It renders itself invisible by drinking

19:48

water or by swallowing a stone

19:50

and h we actually in

19:53

our research found maybe more

19:55

of a mundane explanation for

19:57

them that comes from banded to folklore

20:01

as a way of explaining why people

20:03

seem to inexplicably

20:05

die while sleeping at night. Correct.

20:08

Um, that's because traditionally folks

20:10

in this part of the world live

20:13

in kind of stone

20:15

yurts, I guess like you might

20:17

think of in a state park for you know,

20:20

glamping. Um. Traditionally, folks

20:22

there would sleep on the floor on these woven

20:24

grass mats that would circle

20:27

a wooden fire pit in the center of the

20:29

of the yurt that would of course warmed them

20:31

during the very very very cold winter

20:34

nights. In this terrain, this just this

20:36

part of the country, you can get quite cold at night.

20:39

Um. So for a long time folks didn't

20:41

realize that the fire was

20:43

in fact, um messing

20:46

with the levels of oxygen and

20:49

causing carbon monoxide. Think of it as

20:51

like running a car in a in a garage,

20:53

you know, or something like that, or just what can

20:55

happen if a fire happens in

20:58

your home. And that's why we have carbon monoxide

21:00

detectors, because it literally does replace

21:02

the breathable oxygen with

21:05

carbon monoxide, and you can you can

21:07

breathe that and you won't really know the difference

21:10

until you kind of your body just shuts down. I

21:12

mean, it's not exactly the same as like suffocating

21:15

or drowning, because I think it's easier

21:17

to not realize what's going on right then, Yeah,

21:19

exactly, because you are unconscious,

21:22

so you may simply go to

21:25

sleep and not wake up. It's a very

21:27

scary thing, but it's also a very real

21:29

thing. So again, people wanted to

21:31

explain what was happening. Eventually

21:34

they realized that if you happen to fall

21:36

asleep in an elevated position,

21:39

you wouldn't be in danger from

21:41

this curse or these attacks because you

21:44

know, as as we know, as you explained, when

21:46

you are prone on

21:48

the ground, your your head is

21:51

in that that like layer of

21:54

carbon monoxide. But when you're sleeping

21:56

in say a sitting position of some sort,

21:59

then you're still breathing oxygen. So

22:02

this story came about saying that

22:04

there was a short supernatural

22:07

entity about yea

22:09

hi. I mean, we're an audio podcast right now, so

22:12

just picture me pointing to my hip about

22:14

as high as an average person's hip, and

22:16

uh, it couldn't get you if

22:19

you're bed or you're sleeping.

22:21

Area was elevated high enough.

22:24

There was, by the way, one silly, kind

22:26

of silly, not not safe for work detail

22:29

that I had found, which was some

22:32

rumors said that the tokolo shape

22:34

was pretty well

22:36

endowed for its size and

22:39

one way it would take revenge on people is

22:43

targeting their wives and h

22:45

then the wife would become or the spouse

22:47

or significant other would become embroiled

22:50

in a ah yeah, and an adulterous

22:53

relationship, and that that would

22:56

be the biggest revenge. But usually

22:58

the idea was that the tokolosha

23:01

would be set upon someone to kill

23:04

them. And we're not zulu Jo speakers,

23:06

so forgive our pronunciation here, but

23:09

we found some grizzly details about

23:11

how these creatures are created or summoned.

23:13

Yeah, and I will also say that quick

23:15

google of of tokoosha, there

23:18

are quite a few what appeared

23:20

to be pretty b or sea

23:22

level movies about the toko.

23:25

Well, there's one from the sixties that's

23:27

g rated and looks like a kind of like more

23:30

of like a like a children's film. Uh, it looks

23:32

pretty key with this one called Toko Loch

23:35

the Calling, and just like you can tell

23:37

by the cover alone that it's absolute

23:39

trash. And then another one that's just called

23:41

the Toko Loch and the tagline

23:44

is where she goes, it

23:46

follows and then it's got like a little

23:48

girl in a hallway and some spooky fingers

23:51

reaching out. But it just looks like the worst kind of

23:53

c G I I've ever seen. Um,

23:56

But yeah, you know, the whole well

23:59

endowed bit as a interesting too. There's H'm

24:01

sorry I keep going in the pop cultural rabbit

24:03

holes, but there's so I'm realizing so

24:06

much of this stuff is fodder for like

24:08

science fiction and like you know, fantasy

24:11

horror as well. Of course, there is a uh it's

24:14

not I mean it's not Miyazaki, but it's the Studio Ghibli

24:16

movie called Pom Poco and it's about

24:18

these yeah, these yeah,

24:21

they're these like um, what do you call it? Shape

24:23

shape shifting tanukis, And they

24:26

all have giant testicles that

24:28

they do not shy away from at all in

24:30

the kids animated movie, and I think they even

24:33

use it as a superpower in some parts

24:35

to kind of generate like a net, or they

24:38

use it to catch the wind and they can like wind

24:40

surf on their giant testicles. Uh

24:43

So, I wonder if that's any you know,

24:45

commonalities between these two creatures and these

24:47

these guys and these guys also we're actually

24:49

now I'm getting caught back up in the elves.

24:51

But the tanuki in pomp Poco they

24:54

also sabotaged construction

24:56

sites forest

24:59

to protect their forests in their habitat

25:01

um. Yes, some of these details about the summoning

25:04

or you know, calling of the

25:06

tokos are are a little a little

25:09

chilling. Um, we've got

25:11

someone kind of contacting

25:13

a witch doctor, and then

25:15

you know that is a loaded

25:18

term. We of course think of the Alvin

25:20

and the Chipmunk song. You know, I called

25:22

the witch doctor and like you uh

25:24

ting tang, walla walla bing bang, all very

25:27

broad, borderline

25:29

offensive caricatures

25:32

of you know, island kind

25:35

of folks and in this sort of idea of

25:37

this sort of form of Santa Ria and all

25:39

of that stuff and very you

25:41

know, cartoonishly rendered.

25:44

So let's just the the term witch doctor

25:46

in and of itself. I'm sure there's a better name, like in

25:48

uh, I believe that like a breuja,

25:51

this is one name for them, Like yeahs

25:54

a ton of different ones. So witch doctor is

25:57

in and of itself a little weird. Um so what

25:59

we are talking a little bit in general terms. Um,

26:02

So they are contacted, they are hired.

26:04

Also, this idea of them being like inherently

26:07

evil somehow plays into a lot

26:09

of these these depictions which I don't

26:11

know. I don't want to hire anybody evil. It's

26:13

gonna be a monkey's pot on a scenario. Well,

26:15

yes, sometimes, and they're very much

26:18

is one here. Like sometimes you know, if you're

26:20

thinking of a spiritual practitioner in

26:22

this tradition, there will be healers,

26:25

right, people who banish evil

26:28

spirits and bad vibes, and then on the other

26:30

side there will be more of a left hand path

26:32

they would call it in some European

26:35

magical belief systems, And that's very

26:37

much the sith lord stuff.

26:40

So yeah, not all these practitioners are

26:42

the same by any means. But in the stories,

26:44

you reach out to this bad

26:47

actor spiritual practitioner, and

26:50

you, as the clients are seeking

26:52

revenge, you pay them maybe

26:55

with maybe with money, maybe with some

26:58

other things, right, some other things

27:00

of value, But the main thing you have to

27:02

pay in the story is the

27:04

promise of the soul of a loved

27:06

one with a very important caveat. You

27:09

do not get to choose which

27:11

loved one will be taken. The Tokoloche

27:14

itself decides when and how

27:17

it will take that soul, and they decide

27:19

who they're gonna get. Yeah, these are all again

27:22

like these are very devil's bargain

27:24

kind of situations where it's

27:26

it's set up for you to fail. You know, you go

27:29

to one of these things like as a last resort

27:31

because maybe you heard that they could like really

27:33

do crazy stuff and they could get you your

27:35

revenge, and you're so blinded by the

27:38

need to to enact whatever this revenge

27:40

or to solve this problem might be, that

27:42

you don't think about the fact that this

27:45

is ultimately going to come back on you. I mean, it really

27:47

is like the ultimate kind of monkeys Pass situation,

27:50

and it's pretty grizzly. The creation

27:53

process. According to the lore, this

27:55

practitioner, once the deal is

27:57

made and you have your covenant, will

28:00

procure from somewhere a dead body,

28:02

a dead human body, piercing the eye

28:04

sockets in the brain with a hot iron

28:07

rod. The logic here being this

28:09

removes the ability of the

28:11

human spirit to think for itself.

28:14

They'll then they'll sprinkle the corpse

28:16

with a magic powder that

28:18

causes the thing to shrink. The

28:21

tokoloshe will then possess

28:23

the body. It will enact revenge

28:25

against the target, and you will never

28:27

know when you're part of the bargain

28:30

comes due. The tokoloshi maybe

28:32

take its payment a few weeks later,

28:35

or a few months later, or even years

28:37

after the fact. It will take

28:39

the soul of a loved one. So it's heavy stuff

28:41

to mess with. I guess you really have to

28:44

want that revenge, but it is something

28:46

that is still reportedly believed

28:49

in some communities in this part

28:51

of the world, although I should say again with

28:54

with many of these stories that we're talking about, a

28:56

lot of these beliefs are kind

28:58

of on the decline, sort of on their way

29:00

out. Demographically. You'll see

29:03

that a lot of younger folks, um

29:05

don't don't really buy into these

29:08

concepts, but a lot of older folks genuinely

29:11

do still believe in them. And um,

29:14

I'm saying that to set us up for for our

29:16

next one, which we talked about in our metaverse

29:19

stuff which is not so

29:21

much an entity as it is in action

29:24

and intention, and the protection from

29:27

that action or intention. It can be

29:29

a little confusing to people, but you've definitely

29:31

heard of it before. Nauseair the

29:34

evil, that's right. It's

29:36

interesting because you know, if anyone's ever

29:38

been to say, like a Latin kind

29:40

of market or um,

29:43

you know, even like an Asian Asian market, or

29:45

like a bizarre like in another country. If you're traveling

29:47

UM, you are likely to see

29:50

trinkets or amulets or rings

29:53

or you know, pendants or whatever depicting

29:55

this like blue kind of crystalline

29:58

you know, flat circle with an

30:01

eye drawn to the middle of it. And in fact,

30:03

it is now an emoji. If

30:05

you type in evil eye on your iPhone

30:07

you will get the exact image that I'm

30:09

talking about. And there's another one that comes

30:12

a little more from I believe Islam. That's

30:14

sort of a hand with some fingers folded

30:16

and like the eye kind of in the center of the hand. That

30:18

one also comes up, and it is this concept

30:21

of protecting

30:23

yourself against someone

30:26

who is looking upon you with a

30:28

covetous nature, you

30:31

know, maybe not necessarily cursing you or

30:33

wishing you death

30:35

or misfortune, but just the very

30:37

act of like people if if you're in a position

30:40

of success or prominence.

30:43

You can elicit a

30:45

lot of this kind of negative energy,

30:48

and the evil Eye or the nizarre

30:51

Um is in fact a

30:55

a medallion or you know, a kind of an item

30:57

that protects against that. So

31:00

even though you said times are here, the thing itself, the

31:02

image, the icon referred to as the evil eye,

31:04

it's actually a protective

31:07

artifact or a proprotective symbol. It

31:10

is not the the evil i itself.

31:12

It's just sort of a term that's sort of used

31:14

to describe the thing by the

31:17

thing that it protects against. M Yeah,

31:19

and what what you'll see about this one. What I

31:22

think is so fascinating about the idea of this curse

31:24

is that it is so very

31:27

widespread and very old. I

31:29

believe the the first documented

31:32

evidence of the Evil Eye comes

31:34

from ugarrit Uh, an

31:37

ancient city in modern day Syria. It

31:39

was around until it was destroyed in twelve

31:41

fifty b c E during the Bronze

31:43

Age collapse. Check out our episode on that. So

31:46

we know that this is even older. You'll

31:48

find versions of it in Turkey

31:50

and Greece and the Arab world, even

31:52

in Japan. It occurs in

31:55

Uh. Some Jewish literature it's an

31:57

italy. It's it's

32:00

nuts. What we can learn from this

32:02

is that people have been hating on each other

32:05

and concerned about haters since

32:07

before people learn to write things down. Yeah,

32:10

I mean, it really is a kind of part of the human condition is

32:12

someone gets something, inevitably

32:15

another person is going to look at it and want what that

32:17

person has. Uh. And back in the day,

32:19

you know, you might well get

32:22

murdered for that thing, you know, um,

32:24

have it taken from you, um, you know,

32:26

right there on the street because it just wasn't there weren't you

32:28

know, systems in place to protect people from from

32:30

stuff like that. It really was kind of like the

32:33

survival of the fittest. This image,

32:36

though specifically even with the blue

32:38

pigmentation, goes back to

32:41

ancient Egypt. Uh. The eye of

32:43

Horace is a symbol that we we all may

32:45

be well familiar with. It's got this kind of

32:47

eye with like a really dope kind

32:50

of like brow thing protruding

32:52

from the top. And then this like awesome

32:54

little kind of curly queue kind of goal and

32:56

ratio thing popping off the bottom, and

32:58

that was buried Pharaoh's to

33:01

protect them um in the

33:04

afterlife. And then we even have. It's

33:06

a really great article on BBC dot

33:08

com um about the history of

33:10

this thing by a guy named

33:13

Quinn Hargetie, and

33:15

he goes through kind of the history of the thing,

33:17

and the thing that's a fascinating is it's just it's like parallel

33:20

thinking across these cultures that you're

33:22

talking about. It's not like one necessarily borrowed

33:25

it from another, just sort of kind of seemed

33:27

to pop up, you know, separated

33:29

by oceans. And you know, in the similar

33:32

way that there are certain gods in different

33:34

pantheons that kind of mimic each other's

33:36

functions because you know, everyone

33:38

needs to grow crops, everyone needs to survive,

33:41

everyone needs to be fertile or

33:43

whatever. So it makes sense that there would be a stand

33:46

in deity with similar

33:48

abilities, you know, even if

33:51

you know, folks had never heard of Horace

33:53

or or heard of you know, Zeus or

33:56

Hephaestus. Yeah, I

33:58

mean, and I think that's understanding well, because

34:01

people tend to have the same concerns.

34:03

The fancy word for what the evil

34:06

Eye as a protective sigil

34:08

is is apotropaic

34:11

magic. Protective magic,

34:13

the type of stuff that's meant to turn away harm

34:16

or evil influences. And

34:18

it also makes sense that people

34:20

are speaking through their cultural framework

34:23

to their uh you know, really common

34:25

experiences. Everybody has the same hardware.

34:28

You communicate a lot with your eyes, you

34:30

know, so of course people would

34:32

be preoccupied with things

34:35

like hands, things like eyes, you

34:37

know what I mean. There's way less emphasis on

34:40

things you don't think about as much like the elbow.

34:43

Um. Also, you know, of course known

34:45

in scientific circles as the weakness, super

34:48

scientific term. No one's ever going to

34:50

question that, or has ever questioned it. Uh.

34:53

The thing that's so interesting too, is that if I had forgot about

34:55

this. The blue pigment or the blue color I

34:58

think may date back

35:00

to the Greeks, um

35:03

the idea that, um,

35:05

those with blue eyes were better

35:07

at transmitting these uh curses.

35:11

Yea, it was a rarer i

35:13

pigment at the time and in that part of the world.

35:16

Yeah. And blue eyes in general, as we recognize

35:19

them today, come from like an ancient mutation

35:21

in Estonia or something. It's

35:24

it's fascinating. I think green eyes were there too,

35:26

but they were sort of the pepsi to the coke. Blue

35:29

eyes were the way to go, And you

35:31

know, you might you shouldn't be surprised if you

35:33

see stuff like this, like you were describing

35:36

all, if you see stuff like this in the

35:39

modern day. And I remember we're

35:41

talking about this previously. Uh.

35:44

One of the folks were working with was asking

35:46

us how we would how

35:50

we would rock this charm. And my idea

35:52

was that if I, if I was convinced I

35:54

needed uh some apotropeic

35:57

magic and I needed an evil eye.

36:00

Knew it would be like my first tattoo, one

36:02

big evil eye on the chest, and then my second tattoo

36:04

another one on the back. Yeah,

36:07

cover the basis exactly. Uh.

36:09

It really is is a fascinating subject just because

36:12

of a lot of the you know, the way we see it kind

36:14

of spreading throughout cultures. Plutarch,

36:17

who was a very you know, learned

36:20

man and in ancient Greek culture,

36:23

was a philosopher and you know historian

36:26

as well, I mean too to a degree. Um. He wrote

36:28

the Symposiacs, in

36:30

which he, you know, would espouse kind

36:32

of the best equivalent

36:35

of science that they could kind of muster at the time. And

36:37

one of them was the one that makes sense. We talked

36:40

about this at the at the thing that we did um

36:42

the idea that the eyes

36:44

are such an important part of of the

36:47

of the human body, both functionally but

36:49

also spiritually. That you know, they say things like the

36:51

eyes of the windows of the soul, and if

36:53

you can look in a window, can't

36:56

you also put stuff out

36:58

of a window? And the idea

37:00

that the eyes are where these

37:02

evil kind of energies

37:05

can be transmitted. Plutarch literally believed

37:07

that they were like invisible rays,

37:10

like of energy that could if

37:12

if if made potent enough for harnessed, harnessed

37:16

correctly. Actually this is

37:18

coming from this article in BBC killed children

37:21

or small animals. Yeah, yeah,

37:23

Basically Plutarch argued that

37:25

some people are like Cyclops from the X

37:27

Men and they had laser eyes, are

37:29

superman, you know what I mean. It's true

37:32

we see and superpowers or or or

37:34

demons or you know, folks with kind

37:36

of other worldly abilities to be able to shoot

37:38

fire lasers out of your eyes, you

37:40

know. And uh, the it's

37:44

important to say Plutarch was not alone in this, of

37:46

course, Plato, plenty

37:48

of the Elder, many many people believed

37:51

in this and continued to do so today.

37:53

So if you see somebody

37:56

doing that, uh, then don't

37:58

give them a hard time risk back their beliefs.

38:01

And honestly, I'm always of

38:03

the mind that if someone is doing something that they

38:05

see as a protective measure and

38:07

it's not hurting you or impacting you in any

38:09

way, then you know, don't yuck

38:12

there, yum, if it's important to them,

38:14

be respectful. I do think it's funny to have

38:16

something like a pentagram or a pentacle,

38:19

you know, is meant to be a protective

38:21

sigil, but it's often incorrectly

38:24

associated with like devil worship,

38:27

or it's seen as the opposite,

38:29

as though it's trying to cast a spell to hurt

38:31

somebody or represent the malice,

38:35

the malicious kind of intent that the evil

38:37

I might um, But what it actually has been to do

38:39

is to protect you from these kind of negative,

38:42

you know, energies. And

38:44

of course there's the evil eye hand sign.

38:47

You'll have to check that out if we're on YouTube

38:49

for this part. Uh, you know, no,

38:51

I think at this point we've talked about

38:53

some things that could be genuinely frightening

38:56

for people, and we've talked about ancient

38:58

practices in the modern day. But what

39:00

if we end today's episode by

39:03

taking a taking a little break to toss some

39:05

evil eye protections up and looking into

39:07

a more modern thing that goes bump in the

39:09

night, and

39:17

we have returned. Okay, So what if one

39:19

thing that went bump in the night wasn't

39:22

a creature at all? As strange as

39:24

it may sound, for um, for

39:27

a pretty significant number of years, a

39:29

lot of people in parts

39:31

of Asia were convinced that standing

39:33

fans were a one way ticket to an early

39:36

grave. You might recognize this urban

39:38

legend as something called fan

39:40

death. And the idea is that if

39:43

you leave of electric

39:45

fan on running in your home at

39:47

night, or running in your room, and you don't

39:49

have a door open or a window cracked,

39:52

then you will die. And uh

39:55

we talked about this previously, actually checked

39:57

off air to see if our power Mission

39:59

Control it her of it, and Paul you confirmed

40:01

that you had. What might surprise people

40:04

is this belief was prevalent in

40:06

the early two thousands, which wasn't

40:08

too long ago. I mean, you know, twenty

40:11

years ago now, but not too too long ago. It

40:14

was really it really got a lot

40:16

of attention in South Korea as well

40:18

as parts of Japan. And

40:20

we talked a bit about why

40:24

people thought this would be dangerous. To be clear,

40:26

they didn't think it was demonic possession. They

40:28

didn't think, you know, it was some sort of curse.

40:31

They thought there was a scientific explanation

40:34

for why leaving a fan on at

40:36

night would kill you. Yeah, it's weird, man.

40:39

There's a couple. Ye.

40:41

What I think is uh my favorite one

40:43

I think is is slicing the

40:45

molecules, chopping chopping

40:49

them, chopping them up like you know, too

40:51

small to be functional. I guess,

40:53

I I don't know, but no, it is.

40:57

I think perhaps a combination of sort of like

41:00

new technology, or maybe not new technology,

41:02

but like there's sort of like a fear of change, um,

41:05

you know in a part of the country where things I think, or maybe we're

41:07

had been typically a little more analog in terms

41:09

of this kind of stuff. Although it is funny that you

41:11

know, you don't hear about this fear

41:14

associated with ceiling fans as much,

41:16

specifically these like portable

41:18

plug in standing fans. And when you

41:21

first brought this topic up and I hear standing

41:23

fans, I immediately thinking of, like, are those

41:25

like standing stones or these some

41:28

sort of like weird marker of druidic

41:31

ritual or what are we talking here, but now

41:33

we're literally talking about like a tripod

41:36

kind of like caged fan.

41:39

Yeah yeah, and I agree the

41:41

role of new technology had

41:44

to play a sociological

41:46

part here. Let's talk through some of the other theories.

41:49

One concern was found

41:51

in hypothermia. So, long story

41:53

short, if you're a human being, when you go

41:55

to sleep, your metabolism naturally

41:57

slows down a bit. So people

42:00

would argue that because the

42:02

air blowing on a sleeping person could

42:05

ostensibly cool them a little, that

42:08

combined with a slower metabolism, could

42:10

lower your body temperature to the point

42:12

that your organs fail. Before

42:15

we do a little myth busting with that, when the next

42:17

one is carbon dioxide poisoning, right,

42:20

similar to what was actually

42:23

happening with with people

42:25

in South Africa. The idea here

42:27

was that the fan admits uh these

42:30

chemicals while the motor runs in a closed

42:32

room, and it's the the

42:34

carbon slowly asphyxiates

42:36

anybody asleep there. So

42:39

those are the big explanations. I also think

42:41

the one about a fan mutilating oxygen

42:44

molecules is the most interesting

42:47

because we live in a southern

42:49

part of the United States, where it gets very hot.

42:51

And I've never had a standing fan that

42:55

that effective, you know, Uh

42:57

this, so if there was one, I would

42:59

buy it, is what I'm saying. Uh, this urban

43:01

legend, like it's strange. The

43:04

first reports date back to the nineteen

43:06

twenties, but they don't really take off till the seventies,

43:09

and there may have

43:11

even been a little bit of a conspiracy of foot

43:13

which we'll get to at the end. But we know that people

43:16

are so concerned whether or not you

43:18

agree with this idea. People were so concerned

43:21

that a government agency, the Korean Consumer

43:23

Protection Board, issued a safety

43:25

alert about it in two thousand and six,

43:28

and they said, if you're exposed to fans

43:30

or air conditioners for too long, you

43:32

will lose water, you will begin to have hypothermia,

43:36

you could die from this carbon

43:39

dioxide saturation. And

43:42

it claimed that from two thousand three to two

43:44

thousand five, at least twenty people died

43:46

as a result of this. But

43:49

there's more to this story. I mean, we have to we

43:52

have to first off, say again, living

43:54

in the South, we know this all too well. An

43:57

electric fan doesn't really chill the air,

44:00

just moves it around. That's why if you've

44:02

ever had a job in like a hot kitchen

44:04

or a warehouse, you've just been in a place

44:07

without a c you eventually

44:09

noticed the fan is just kind of making a breeze,

44:12

But if the air is still really hot, that

44:15

breeze is gonna be hot too. It doesn't

44:17

do that much. Uh. Also

44:20

hypothermia, if you

44:22

um, if you look at the temperature

44:25

that's required for oregon failure

44:27

to come in, there's no way that

44:31

a fan is going to get your body

44:33

to that level. You have to drop your internal

44:36

temperature, has to drop it below eighty

44:38

six degrees fahrenheit or thirty degrees

44:40

celsius. And I think the

44:42

main thing, one thing that's stuck with all

44:45

of us, Matt as well, from a production standpoint

44:48

is most homes are not airtight like

44:50

across the world, They're not certainly

44:52

not enough to cause suffocation. Can

44:55

you imagine how expensive it is to build just

44:57

one room like that, let alone an entire

44:59

house. What kind of doors do you have? Do you

45:01

have to have an airlock at that point? Right?

45:03

I mean, we know, you know, I mean how difficult did

45:06

it just from like doing stuff in studios

45:08

to you know, seal a room?

45:10

So that sound doesn't an escape and sound

45:13

travels on air, So in order

45:15

for room to be completely like hermetically

45:18

sealed like that would not come with

45:20

just like standard you know, construction,

45:24

especially maybe in a part of the country where

45:26

things are even less tightly

45:28

sealed to a degree, like certain

45:31

homes and maybe more rural parts of Asian

45:33

countries might have more traditional

45:35

kind of like old school um features

45:38

like um, you know, would more

45:41

would design or like wood paneling

45:43

or perhaps rice paper for

45:45

for windows and panels and things like that. Yeah,

45:48

I mean, I I don't know about you guys, but the only fans

45:51

that I've ever been really

45:53

really concerned about have been the um

45:56

like old industrial style,

45:59

uh, the old blade fans if they

46:01

don't have that wire cover and then I'll

46:03

be honest, you know, they have a paranoid

46:06

dude Jankee ceiling fans

46:09

that like that's a pit in the pendulum kind

46:11

of thing. When as a matter of fact, look

46:13

and make sure minds off. You know, everybody's

46:16

seen those in the house, the ones that kind of swing

46:19

on their own little rhythm and vibe, and you have to wonder

46:21

how long it is before they decide to take off

46:23

for the ground. The good news

46:25

is, uh, nowadays

46:28

most people don't believe this myth, but

46:31

for some it remains a better safe

46:33

than sorry situation. You could

46:35

say, look, I'm not a crazy paranoid

46:38

person, but just in case, let me leave

46:40

the door Ajar. And this

46:43

is where we get to the conspiracy, where I think we end

46:45

our episode today. We found

46:48

in our research that there

46:50

are some pretty i won't say airtight

46:52

ha ha. There's some pretty campelling

46:55

theories that the government of South

46:57

Korea at least may have helped spread the myth

46:59

a little bit as a way of combating

47:01

skyrocketing energy use during

47:04

the very hot, humid summers in that

47:06

country, in that part of the world. So there

47:09

we have it. There's no proof of anyone

47:11

actually experiencing fan death, but

47:13

it's easy to understand why some people decided

47:16

to play it safe and maybe to

47:18

this day won't trust a fan at

47:20

night. And no, here, we have

47:23

to here, we have to call it a day. We'll be back

47:26

in just a few with part two of this, but

47:28

we're gonna have even more modern

47:31

weird examples. We had one that

47:33

Matt's really into called the Ahul No

47:36

spoilers. Yeah, that's

47:39

a fun one. Uh and uh

47:41

the Night Dancers. Of course we've

47:43

got to go to the Philippines with the as Swang

47:46

and of course the White Lady. But

47:49

in the meantime, you know what I think we should do. I

47:51

think we should ask our fellow conspiracy

47:53

realists if there are any

47:56

genuine beliefs in monsters in

47:59

their neck of the Obal Woods. Absolutely,

48:01

I would love to hear what some

48:04

of the the myths and stories

48:06

around where you live might be, or if, in fact there

48:08

are ones that people genuinely

48:11

steer clear of certain parts of the woods to

48:13

avoid because they think there's some truth

48:15

to them. Uh, let us know. You can reach

48:18

out to us via social media where we are conspiracy

48:20

Stuff on Twitter and

48:23

YouTube, and Facebook, where we also have a

48:25

Facebook group called Here's where It Gets Crazy, or

48:27

conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram.

48:29

And hey, while you're on the internet, why don't you go and reserve

48:32

yourself a copy pre order a copy of our

48:34

book stuff. They don't want you to know. The

48:36

book um available soon

48:38

October eleventh, In fact, any day

48:40

now. It might be out as this episode

48:43

comes out as a matter of fact, but

48:45

either way, yes, get the to the your

48:48

favorite book store. Or

48:50

platform of choice. We can't wait to hear your

48:52

thoughts. You can also call us directly.

48:55

We have a phone number that's right. Say it with me

48:57

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49:00

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49:12

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