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So Bad, It's Good · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
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  Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 2: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 2: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. In Boston, Massachusetts, there's a
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  Speaker 2: museum dedicated to showcasing paintings that all have one thing
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  Speaker 2: in common.
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  Speaker 1: They're terrible. The Museum of Bad Art exists to house
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  Speaker 1: works that are so poorly executed and so aesthetically disastrous
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  Speaker 1: that it's actually kind of impressive. The ugliness of the
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  Speaker 1: art becomes its charm. It's so bad it's good. The
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  Speaker 1: same he said for one aspiring actor who lived in
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  Speaker 1: Regency England. His name was Robert Coates, although he had
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  Speaker 1: many nicknames, including Diamond Cockadoodle Doo, and Romeo, and each
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  Speaker 1: of his monikers came with a backstory. First up, Diamond,
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  Speaker 1: as you might imagine, this name referred to Robert's riches.
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  Speaker 1: Born in Antigua in seventeen seventy two, he was the
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  Speaker 1: son of a wealthy plantation owner. His family had the
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  Speaker 1: resources to send him to England for school, and he
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  Speaker 1: continued living in the UK as a young adult. When
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  Speaker 1: his father died in eighteen oh seven, Robert was the
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  Speaker 1: only next of kin, making him the heir to a
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  Speaker 1: massive fortune, and he wanted everyone to know about it.
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  Speaker 1: One contemporary describe Robert's appearance as follows, and I quote
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  Speaker 1: his dress was remarkable. In the daytime, he was covered
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  Speaker 1: at all seasons with enormous quantities of fur. But the
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  Speaker 1: evening costume in which he went to balls made a
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  Speaker 1: great impression from its gaudy appearance. For his buttons as
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  Speaker 1: well as his knee buckles were of diamonds. Now, listen,
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  Speaker 1: I don't even have knee buckles, let alone ones made
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  Speaker 1: of diamonds. But Robert, well, he lived for attention. He
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  Speaker 1: flaunted his wealth constantly. He wanted to be recognized everywhere
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  Speaker 1: he went, even while riding in his carriage, so he
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  Speaker 1: had a totally obnoxious vehicle custom built. The carriage itself
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  Speaker 1: was shaped like a seashell, the wheels were all different colors,
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  Speaker 1: and the sides were painted with images of roosters crowing.
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  Speaker 1: And that's where Robert got his second nickname. When people
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  Speaker 1: saw his carriage rolling down the street. They would shout
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  Speaker 1: out cockadoodle. Do I have to assume that they were
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  Speaker 1: mocking him, But Robert didn't see it that way. To him,
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  Speaker 1: all attention was good attention, which brings me to his
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  Speaker 1: third nickname, Romeo. While Robert's already had a fortune, he
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  Speaker 1: dreamt of fame. He wanted to become known as a
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  Speaker 1: great actor. In eighteen ten, when he was thirty eight
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  Speaker 1: years old, he volunteered to take part in a charity
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  Speaker 1: theater production in Bath, England. The organization was putting on
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  Speaker 1: a performance of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and I'm sure
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  Speaker 1: you can guess which role Robert asked to play now.
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  Speaker 1: Audience members did not arrive expecting Broadway level talent. It
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  Speaker 1: was a charity performance after all, just a bit of
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  Speaker 1: light entertainment. But nobody, and I mean nobody, could have
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  Speaker 1: anticipated just how horrible Robert Coates version of Romeo would be.
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  Speaker 1: To start, his costume didn't fit. Robert, who had enough
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  Speaker 1: money to buy whatever clothes he wanted, chose to wear
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  Speaker 1: pants that were so tight they split in the middle
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  Speaker 1: of the show. During the famous balcony scene, he paused
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  Speaker 1: in the middle of his delivering his lines to start
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  Speaker 1: chewing tobacco. After Juliet died, he tried to pry open
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  Speaker 1: her tomb with an actual crowbar. A reviewer had this
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  Speaker 1: to say about Robert's performance, quote, his delivery was uncouth,
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  Speaker 1: his attitude most awkward, and his emphasis uniformly misplaced. At
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  Speaker 1: the beginning of the fourth act, the curtain was dropped.
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  Speaker 1: In other words, Ibert's performance was so disgraceful that the
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  Speaker 1: show had to be ended early. However, even as the
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  Speaker 1: curtain closed, he ran out to the front of the
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  Speaker 1: stage and kept trying to act. He had to be
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  Speaker 1: carried away from the theater by force. As for the audience,
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  Speaker 1: if you can believe it, they were kind of sad
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  Speaker 1: to see Romeo go. His performance might have been awful,
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  Speaker 1: but it was also entertaining. This production of Romeo and
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  Speaker 1: Juliet didn't ruin Robert's acting career, It actually kickstarted it.
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  Speaker 1: Over the following years, he continued to appear on stage,
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  Speaker 1: each time delivering performances that were described by some as quote,
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  Speaker 1: irrational and disgusting. But at the same time, Robert gained
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  Speaker 1: a cult following. He was ridiculous, melodramatic, and pompous. He
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  Speaker 1: lacked any kind of artfulness or refinement. He was so
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  Speaker 1: bad he was good in a way. Robert Romeo Coates
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  Speaker 1: got his wish. He became a famous actor. Even after
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  Speaker 1: he passed away in eighteen forty eight, his name lived on,
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  Speaker 1: although it was used as an insult. Calling an actor
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  Speaker 1: a mister Romeo Coates was a way of calling them
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  Speaker 1: absolutely awful. But hey, Robert believed that all attention was
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  Speaker 1: good attention, so he would probably be happy that we're
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  Speaker 1: talking about him at all. In two thousand and two,
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  Speaker 1: a ninety two year old Brazilian man named Francisco Xavier Candito,
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  Speaker 1: better known as Chico, passed away. Chico was so beloved
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  Speaker 1: that his funeral became a national event. His wake lasted
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  Speaker 1: two full days. During that time, people waited in line
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  Speaker 1: that stretched over two and a half miles to stay
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  Speaker 1: their goodbyes. About twenty five hundred mourners passed by his
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  Speaker 1: coffin every hour. When his casket was finally taken to
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  Speaker 1: the cemetery, a police helicopter showered his grave with rose petals.
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  Speaker 1: The governor of Chico's home state announced that his burial
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  Speaker 1: would be followed by three official days of Mourning. So
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure you're asking now what made people love Chico
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  Speaker 1: so much? Well, he was an author. He had written
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  Speaker 1: approximately four hundred and ninety books during his lifetime. But
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  Speaker 1: that's absolutely prolific output. Wasn't what made him special, is e.
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  Speaker 1: Chico was a self identified psychic medium. He claimed that
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  Speaker 1: the vast majority of his books weren't actually written by him.
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  Speaker 1: They had been dictated to him by ghosts. This is
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  Speaker 1: a practice known as psychography, and it didn't originate with Chico.
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  Speaker 1: As early as the eighteen hundreds, spiritualists in the United
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  Speaker 1: States claimed that they could receive messages from the dead.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes these mediums would fall into a trance while holding
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  Speaker 1: a pencil and paper. When they regained consciousness, the paper
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  Speaker 1: would be covered in sentences that, according to them, were
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  Speaker 1: written by ghosts. Over time, the words came through tools
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  Speaker 1: like the Ouiji board, which spirits could supposedly use to
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  Speaker 1: communicate with the living. Some of these messages ended up
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  Speaker 1: being long and dare I say, quite artful. In the
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  Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds, one ghost author actually gained commercial popularity.
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  Speaker 1: Her name was Patience Worth. I've covered her here on
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  Speaker 1: this show before, but as a reminder. Patience reportedly lived
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  Speaker 1: in the seventeen hundreds, but managed to pen three novels
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  Speaker 1: over two hundred years after her death. As for who
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  Speaker 1: held the paper and pencil, that was Pearl Curran, a
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  Speaker 1: housewife from Saint Louis, who claimed that patient's spirit moved
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  Speaker 1: through her. Pearl serving as the conduit for patients became
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  Speaker 1: a literary sensation, and the saying was true of Chico.
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  Speaker 1: Although his story was far stranger than Pearls. He didn't
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  Speaker 1: need a pencil, paper, or a Ouiji board to talk
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  Speaker 1: to spirits. They simply came to him. In nineteen fourteen,
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  Speaker 1: when he was four years old, Chico started hearing voices
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  Speaker 1: and having visions. His parents were scared. They thought that
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  Speaker 1: he was possessed by the devil. A local priest gave
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  Speaker 1: advice for how to get the demon out, too, like
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  Speaker 1: having Chico repeat thousands of prayers a day, but it
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  Speaker 1: didn't work. The boy's connection to the spirit world seemed unbreakable.
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  Speaker 1: As a teenager, Chico began reading about spiritualism. He realized
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  Speaker 1: that he had a gift, and he resolved to use
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  Speaker 1: his abilities to help other people. He first began using
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  Speaker 1: psychography to comfort parents whose children had died. He would
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  Speaker 1: connect with these children's spirits and allow them to write
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  Speaker 1: letters through him. Most often they told their parents that
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  Speaker 1: they missed them, they loved them, and their spirits lived on. Eventually, though,
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  Speaker 1: Chico moved on from using psychography to write letters to
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  Speaker 1: write books. He published his first work in nineteen thirty two.
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  Speaker 1: It was called Poetry from Beyond the Grave and featured
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  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty nine poems that had been quotes unquote,
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  Speaker 1: revealed to him by the spirits of fifty six dead poets.
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  Speaker 1: And the book was a commercial success, and Chico continued
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  Speaker 1: to write at a breakneck pace. Between nineteen thirty two
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  Speaker 1: and two thousand and two, he wrote nearly five hundred books,
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  Speaker 1: which sold over twenty five million copies. Many contained over
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  Speaker 1: religious messages, establishing him as one of Brazil's foremost spiritual leaders.
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  Speaker 1: At the same time, Chico made a point of engaging
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  Speaker 1: in humanitarian work and donating all of his profits to charity.
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  Speaker 1: He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice, in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one and nineteen eighty two. So whether you
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  Speaker 1: believe in psychics or not, it's impossible to deny that
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  Speaker 1: Chico brought people comfort and hope, and that's why his
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  Speaker 1: funeral was such a massive event. Still, not everyone was
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  Speaker 1: convinced of his power. Plenty of people tried to prove
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  Speaker 1: that he was a fraud, but none were successful. At
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  Speaker 1: one point, a woman brought him to court over a
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  Speaker 1: book of poetry. Chico claimed the book had been dictated
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  Speaker 1: to him by the ghost of a famous Brazilian poet,
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  Speaker 1: Umberto de compos So. Umberto's widow sued Chico for a
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  Speaker 1: share of the prophets. However, the judge ruled in Chico's favor,
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  Speaker 1: citing the fact that Umberto was dead and dead people
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  Speaker 1: have no property rights. These days, Chico is remembered as
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  Speaker 1: one of the most important religious figures in Brazilian history,
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  Speaker 1: and while he died over twenty years ago, it's possible
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  Speaker 1: he still has more stories to tell. This time, maybe
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  Speaker 1: he'll be the one sending the messages from the great beyond.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works, I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television
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  Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
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  Speaker 1: the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.