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Washed Away · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: The rain can be cleansing, washing away everything from the
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  Speaker 1: dirt on our cars to the memories of a bad day.
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  Speaker 1: But a storm can erase a lot more, and if
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  Speaker 1: we're not careful, it can leave our minds even cloudier
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  Speaker 1: than the skies above. It was the summer of eighteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy five in Alberta, Canada, and Sir Cecil Edward Denny
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  Speaker 1: was on his way to a nice little hunting and
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  Speaker 1: fishing spot along the Oldman River. Denny had been a
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  Speaker 1: member of the Northwest Mounted Police, but today he was
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  Speaker 1: manning a small boat looking for a place to unwind.
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  Speaker 1: He noticed in the early afternoon that dark clouds had
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  Speaker 1: started to form in the distance. Normally a thunderstorm wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: be anything to worry about, but in this part of
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  Speaker 1: Canada where Denny was traveling, they could be devastating the farmer,
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  Speaker 1: Mounty just kept pressing forward. By the early afternoon, that
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  Speaker 1: storm that had seemed so far away was suddenly right
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  Speaker 1: above him. According to his own account of the event,
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  Speaker 1: there was a heavy wind with hail, rain, and perpetual lightning,
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  Speaker 1: followed by deafening peals of thunder, seemingly right overhead. As
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  Speaker 1: the elements beat down on him. Filling the boat with water,
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  Speaker 1: he floated a little while longer until he reached a
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  Speaker 1: part of the shoreline where he could find refuge. He
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  Speaker 1: continued to paddle, and as he got closer to land,
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  Speaker 1: the storm began to subside, just for a moment, but
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  Speaker 1: it was a long enough pause for Denny to hear
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  Speaker 1: something from within the nearby woods drums. There was a
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  Speaker 1: Native American encampment close by. He hitched the boat to
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  Speaker 1: some nearby trees and ventured into the forest following the
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  Speaker 1: sound of the drums. Shelter was only feet away, and
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  Speaker 1: good thing too, because the storm had now come back
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  Speaker 1: with a vengeance. He kept walking as the rain beat
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  Speaker 1: down on him. It wasn't long before he came to
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  Speaker 1: a clearing, and there it was a Native American camp
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  Speaker 1: bustling with activity. They had fires to keep them warm,
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  Speaker 1: and people were moving about almost as though the storm
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  Speaker 1: wasn't affecting them at all. Denny was shocked because he
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  Speaker 1: knew that the indigenous tribes didn't like to stay outside
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  Speaker 1: during storms. They would hole up in their homes, avoiding
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  Speaker 1: the thunder, which they saw as the sound of the
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  Speaker 1: gods tossing boulders off the mountain. As Denny inched closer,
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  Speaker 1: he could make out more of the encampment. According to
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  Speaker 1: his ridings, he noticed about twenty lodges and some horses,
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  Speaker 1: aside from the men, women and children also living there. Suddenly,
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  Speaker 1: a crack of lightning struck at his feet, while a
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  Speaker 1: crash of thunder rattled his ears. The combination sent him
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  Speaker 1: flying backward. Lightning struck a tree only feet away. Denny
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  Speaker 1: looked over and saw that it had practically been split
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  Speaker 1: in two. A few minutes later, he slowly got to
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  Speaker 1: his feet. The sound of the thunder still rang in
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  Speaker 1: his ears, and as he stood, he looked out at
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  Speaker 1: the open clearing where the Native American camp had stood,
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  Speaker 1: and much to his amazement, it was gone. The lodges
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  Speaker 1: and fires had disappeared, the horses had vanished, and the
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  Speaker 1: sounds of beating drums had evaporated. Denny darted off in
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  Speaker 1: search of a higher vantage point. After all, the camp
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  Speaker 1: couldn't have just gotten up and walked away. He climbed
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  Speaker 1: to the top of a river bank and looked down.
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  Speaker 1: Sure enough, there was nothing there. Cold and wet from
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  Speaker 1: the storm, Denny kept walking. He traveled another fifteen miles
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  Speaker 1: until he reached a local forts at around midnight. By
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  Speaker 1: then the rain had stopped. The following morning, Denny to
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  Speaker 1: the other men what he had seen. One of them
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  Speaker 1: just laughed at him, but he knew what he had
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  Speaker 1: witnessed was no figment of his imagination. Refusing to accept defeat,
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  Speaker 1: he set out that day with a Blackfoot interpreter to
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  Speaker 1: try and find the encampment. It took some time, but
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  Speaker 1: they eventually reached the location where Denny had first spotted it.
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  Speaker 1: There was nothing there, well, not exactly nothing. There were
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  Speaker 1: some stones covered in grass, and the remnants of an
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  Speaker 1: old camp that had existed a long time ago. The
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  Speaker 1: interpreter told Denny a story about how a group of
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  Speaker 1: Blackfeet had come to this spot and killed an entire
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  Speaker 1: tribe of Cree many years before, and if Denny had
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  Speaker 1: any doubts. The two old skulls in the dirt were
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  Speaker 1: all the evidence he needed. So had the rain washed
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  Speaker 1: everything away? Or had these just been the ghosts of
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  Speaker 1: the cree filling the night air with song. Denny didn't
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  Speaker 1: have the answers. All he had were clouds of confusion
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  Speaker 1: storming in his mind. Frederick had a dilemma. The Church
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  Speaker 1: of England had come to him with a tremendously important task.
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  Speaker 1: They wanted him to dig up the ruins of the
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  Speaker 1: thousand year old Glastonbury Abbey. As an architect and expert
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  Speaker 1: in medieval restoration, Frederick bly Bond certainly was the right
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  Speaker 1: man for the job. But there was one problem. He
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  Speaker 1: couldn't start digging, at least not yet. For centuries, Glastonbury
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  Speaker 1: had been one of the most important Catholic churches in England.
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  Speaker 1: Not only home to hundreds of monks and worshippers, it
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  Speaker 1: also housed the tombs of three kings and a relic
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  Speaker 1: rumored to be a piece of the Cross of Jesus.
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  Speaker 1: In the fifteen hundreds, though, as Protestantism became the power
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  Speaker 1: of the land, Glastonbury became a target. Under the direction
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  Speaker 1: of Henry the eighth troops seized the abbey in fifteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty nine, executing the ababbo and raising the buildings to
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  Speaker 1: the ground. Ever since then, the land and the ruins
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  Speaker 1: had belonged to private owners. Now four hundred years later,
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen oh seven, the Church of England was finally
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  Speaker 1: on the precipice of getting the ruins back to excavate them.
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  Speaker 1: But it would take years of research before they could
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  Speaker 1: break ground. If they started digging just anywhere, they might
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  Speaker 1: damage the ruins, and besides, until the final deed was signed,
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  Speaker 1: poor Frederick would have to sit tight. He, however, was
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  Speaker 1: not of the waiting type. While he made his name
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  Speaker 1: in the practical world of architecture, he had other more
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  Speaker 1: obscure interests. You see, he believed that he knew a
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  Speaker 1: way to start the excavation without ever lifting a single shovel.
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  Speaker 1: This is why on November seventh of nineteen oh seven,
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  Speaker 1: Frederick invited Captain John Allen Bartlett to his office. They
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  Speaker 1: were going to dig up the abbey's past using a
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  Speaker 1: new method automatic writing. Because John wasn't just a good
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  Speaker 1: friend of Frederick's. He was a psychic medium who claimed
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  Speaker 1: that he could speak to ghosts. Automatic writing is a
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  Speaker 1: technique in which a living person channels the words of
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  Speaker 1: the dead. They hold a pen to a piece of
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  Speaker 1: paper and let the spirit take control, using the earthly
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  Speaker 1: arm to write out a message from beyond the grave.
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  Speaker 1: The instant John began writing in Frederick's office. It quickly
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  Speaker 1: became clear that the dead were clamoring to be heard.
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  Speaker 1: Dozens of voices came forward, but one rang through the loudest.
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  Speaker 1: This spirit claimed his name was Johannes Bryant, a Glastonbury
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  Speaker 1: monk who had lived from fourteen ninety seven to fifteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty three. Over dozens of seances, John and Frederick got
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  Speaker 1: to know the boisterous cleric with a love of fishing
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  Speaker 1: and drinking of ale. Johannes told them about his life
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  Speaker 1: at the abbey, describing a detailed plan of the building
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  Speaker 1: that lay just beneath the soil. When Frederick was finally
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  Speaker 1: allowed to break ground at the Ruins in nineteen oh eight,
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  Speaker 1: the ghostly Monk's words proved to be deadly accurate. Every
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  Speaker 1: chapel in Cloister was exactly where Johanns said it would be.
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  Speaker 1: Frederick continued to excavate the abbey over the next decade,
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  Speaker 1: winning praise and fame for his careful excavation. While he
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  Speaker 1: was credited as a shrewd researcher and archaeologist, what he
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  Speaker 1: didn't reveal was the source of his information about the abbey.
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  Speaker 1: He knew both the Church of England and his intellectual
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  Speaker 1: colleagues looked down on the world of spiritualism and the esoteric.
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  Speaker 1: Even so, he couldn't suppress his love for the field.
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  Speaker 1: In a few short years, Frederick joined nearly every psychic
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  Speaker 1: association and secret society he could find. He was a
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  Speaker 1: freemason and a theosophist. He joined the Society for Psychical
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  Speaker 1: Research and even England's first ghost hunting club, and soon
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  Speaker 1: enough he couldn't keep his theories to himself. In nineteen
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  Speaker 1: nineteen he published a book called The Gait of Remembrance
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  Speaker 1: and brought his esoteric beliefs out into the harsh light
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  Speaker 1: of day. The Gates of Remembrance recounted exactly how Frederick
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  Speaker 1: had used seances and ghostly advice to excavate Glastonbury Abbey.
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  Speaker 1: It argued that beyond the grave, collective unconsciousness existed, He
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  Speaker 1: had merely tapped into that unconsciousness in the form of
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  Speaker 1: johannas to learn about the abbey. His colleagues, though, weren't impressed.
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  Speaker 1: Other archaeologists quickly derided Frederick, claiming that he must have
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  Speaker 1: gotten his information about the abbey from ancient records, not
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  Speaker 1: a ghostly month. Some even pointed to the seance transcripts
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  Speaker 1: as proof of the hoax, claiming the rudimentary Old English
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  Speaker 1: in Latin that Johanna spoke sounded more like an English
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  Speaker 1: schoolboy than a contemporary speaker. Because of all of this,
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  Speaker 1: the Church of England fired Frederick in nineteen twenty one,
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  Speaker 1: and by nineteen twenty six he had fled to America
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  Speaker 1: to escape the damage to his reputation. He began a
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  Speaker 1: second career there as a psychic investigator, and dedicated the
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  Speaker 1: rest of his life to proving that ghosts really existed.
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  Speaker 1: Frederick didn't seem to care much that his reputation as
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  Speaker 1: an architect and archaeologist was ruined, because until the day
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  Speaker 1: he died in nineteen forty five, Frederick never won ones
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  Speaker 1: gave up the ghost. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.