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The Original · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  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 are
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  Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. For the past two years,
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  Speaker 2: on the second Wednesday of every month, a plate of
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  Speaker 2: fifteen to twenty half peeled bananas has appeared on the
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  Speaker 2: corner of Abbey Road and Wendsor Avenue in Beeston, a
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  Speaker 2: small town in the Midlands of England. Residents have been
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  Speaker 2: baffled as to the reason they keep appearing, and to
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  Speaker 2: many the mystery is less important than the mess the
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  Speaker 2: bananas leave in the street. One such resident, clear Short,
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  Speaker 2: decided to try to reason with the mysterious gifter in
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  Speaker 2: a note left in the banana's usual location, reading please respectfully,
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  Speaker 2: no more bananas. The notes had no effect. The next month,
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  Speaker 2: the bananas were there again, and it brings to mind
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  Speaker 2: another such mystery concerning the final resting place of one
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  Speaker 2: of America's most beloved authors. On October third of eighteen
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  Speaker 2: forty nine, A man in crisis appeared outside of Gunner's Hall,
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  Speaker 2: a busy tavern in Baltimore, Maryland. It was a dreary
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  Speaker 2: day and the place was packed to the gills. At
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  Speaker 2: first glance, the patrons took the man as another drunkard
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  Speaker 2: due to his rumpled appearance and his day's demeanor. He
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  Speaker 2: was clearly unwell and was brought to the hospital, where
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  Speaker 2: he died four days later. He was buried in an
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  Speaker 2: unmarked grave at Westminster Presbyterian Church. After a modest funeral.
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  Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy five, his grave was moved and the
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  Speaker 1: citizens of Baltimore gathered funds for a headstone. After all,
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  Speaker 1: he was one of Baltimore's favorite sons, One Edgar Allen Poe.
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  Speaker 1: One hundred years later, in nineteen forty nine, a shadowy
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  Speaker 1: figure was noticed entering the graveyard. He was dressed in
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  Speaker 1: black with a white scarf, his visage hidden by a
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  Speaker 1: wide brimmed black hat. It was late on the nineteenth
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  Speaker 1: of January, which happened to be Poe's birthday. The figure
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  Speaker 1: was seen to kneel and place three roses on the grave,
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  Speaker 1: after which he poured himself a glass of cognac to
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  Speaker 1: toast the dead author. Once he had drained it, he
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  Speaker 1: left the open bottle beside the flowers and disappeared into
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  Speaker 1: the night. When a balto Our Sun reporter came inquiring,
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  Speaker 1: the Reverend, Bruce McDonald suggested that the visits had been
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  Speaker 1: occurring for years. The reporter noted, the anonymous citizen who
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  Speaker 1: creeps in annually to place an empty bottle of excellent
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  Speaker 1: label against the tomb of Poe on the anniversary of
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  Speaker 1: his death is a jokester, mister McDonald figures, and so
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  Speaker 1: the Poe toaster made his way into the public consciousness.
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  Speaker 1: He returned each year, and each year performed the same ritual,
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  Speaker 1: three roses the grave, a kgnak toast the remainder of
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  Speaker 1: the bottle left for Poe. As the tradition continued, small
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  Speaker 1: crowds began to gather to catch sight of the mysterious toaster.
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  Speaker 1: The man never gave up his identity, and though there
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  Speaker 1: has been much speculation, there has never been an explanation
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  Speaker 1: for the yearly pilgrimage. But he remained faithful to Edgar
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  Speaker 1: for decades, and then in nineteen ninety three he left
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  Speaker 1: a note, perhaps as much for onlookers as for the author.
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  Speaker 1: It read, the torch will be passed. A few short
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  Speaker 1: years later, in nineteen ninety nine, another note was left
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  Speaker 1: to confirm this. The original toaster had died the previous year,
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  Speaker 1: but his successor continued the tradition for many years in
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  Speaker 1: his stead, with modest crowds standing by to bear witness,
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  Speaker 1: and then as inexplicably as it began, it ended Onlookers
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  Speaker 1: in twenty ten found themselves quite disappointed when, for the
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  Speaker 1: first time in over sixty years, the mysterious man failed
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  Speaker 1: to appear. When he didn't show up the following year,
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  Speaker 1: it became clear that the toaster would visit the grave
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  Speaker 1: side nevermore. Although there has been a lot of speculation
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  Speaker 1: around the identity of the original toaster, it remains uncertain
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  Speaker 1: to this day who really was visiting Poe's grave, and
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  Speaker 1: while there were other visitors who left tokens on the
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  Speaker 1: grave as well, these were not seen as serious successors.
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  Speaker 1: In twenty fifteen, the Maryland Historical Society declared that it
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  Speaker 1: was searching for a new toaster. The following January, a
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  Speaker 1: large crowd once again gathered outside the Westminster Graveyard for
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  Speaker 1: a ceremony with food insider provided the audience was treated
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  Speaker 1: to a reading of pose the cask of Amontiado. And then,
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  Speaker 1: for the first time in half a decade, it happened
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  Speaker 1: Poe's toaster entered the burial ground. He placed the three
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  Speaker 1: roses on the grave and poured himself a glass of cognac.
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  Speaker 1: And when he'd finished the tipple, he placed the bottle
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  Speaker 1: beside the flowers, and then, to the delight of everyone there,
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  Speaker 1: pulled out a violin and played Camille Sainssan's dance macab
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  Speaker 1: And then he took his leave, identity still a secret,
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  Speaker 1: and thus the tradition continues onward, bolstered by the passion
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  Speaker 1: of its fans, who are bound together by the shared
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  Speaker 1: love of a good old fashioned mystery. The abbey was
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  Speaker 1: a peaceful place, nestled in the remote French countryside, many
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  Speaker 1: miles from the east of Paris. There was a small
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  Speaker 1: village nearby, but the monks largely kept to themselves. But
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  Speaker 1: on this day they had a visitor. He was one
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  Speaker 1: of the most famous philosophers of the Enlightenment, come to
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  Speaker 1: stay in their village. He was eager to peruse the
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  Speaker 1: extensive library kept within their walls. The priest came out
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  Speaker 1: to greet him and welcome him. The visitor's name was Voltaire,
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  Speaker 1: but this story isn't about him. It's about the priest
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  Speaker 1: who welcomed him to Sunna be in seventeen fifty four.
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  Speaker 1: His name was dom Augustine Calmet, and for someone who
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  Speaker 1: lived a life as a monk, he left an indelible
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  Speaker 1: mark on history. He was born in sixteen seventy two,
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  Speaker 1: the son of a blacksmith. Without much in the way
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  Speaker 1: of prospects for life, he began studying to become a
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  Speaker 1: Benedictine monk at the age of fifteen. A student of rhetoric, philosophy,
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  Speaker 1: and theology, he was an intelligent and capable learner. Even
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  Speaker 1: as a priest, he was frequently engaged in scholarly work.
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  Speaker 1: Dom Calmet's first published work was printed in seventeen oh seven,
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  Speaker 1: and it was called a Literal Commentary on All the
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  Speaker 1: Books of the Old and New Testaments. An extremely popular
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  Speaker 1: work among Catholic thinkers, it would be printed and reprinted
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  Speaker 1: several times over the following decades, during which Calmet also
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  Speaker 1: worked on several other works of Christian and popular histories.
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  Speaker 1: He wrote one called a Dissertation on the Highways of Lorraine,
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  Speaker 1: and another called History of the Famous Men of Lorraine,
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  Speaker 1: as well as a Tome of Universal History published beginning
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  Speaker 1: in seventeen thirty five. As varied and specific as these
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  Speaker 1: topics are, they would not be the topic that would
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  Speaker 1: make him famous. That would be a little niche topic
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  Speaker 1: that he turned his attention to. In the seventeen thirties, Europe,
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  Speaker 1: you see, was in the middle of a strange period.
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  Speaker 1: An epidemic of weird, superstitious stories had started popping up
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  Speaker 1: throughout the countryside. They were mostly focused on Eastern Europe,
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  Speaker 1: but some occurred in various other countries as well as
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  Speaker 1: far south as the coast of Italy. And the stories
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  Speaker 1: were about vampires. No two vampire stories were identical, but
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  Speaker 1: all included elements of resurrection after death. And we know
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  Speaker 1: that these were caused by a collision between the folk
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  Speaker 1: beliefs of the people and Christianity as a religion. Peasants
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  Speaker 1: who were used to burning their dead had to adopt
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  Speaker 1: a religion that said that the body was necessary for
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  Speaker 1: resurrection during the end times. It's a paradox that helped
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  Speaker 1: create a monster. Meanwhile, dom Calmet knew none of this.
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  Speaker 1: What he knew was that the people across Europe claimed
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  Speaker 1: to have encountered men who came back from the dead,
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  Speaker 1: a belief that was as heretical as it was impossible.
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  Speaker 1: With the eye of both a historian and a Christian theologian,
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  Speaker 1: he set out to write a study of these various
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  Speaker 1: accounts and see what he could find. The majority of
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  Speaker 1: vampire accounts at the time were written by Hungarian army
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  Speaker 1: doctors sent to study the vampire panics by Empress Maria Theresa.
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  Speaker 1: Calmet's Studies of Vampires gathered these altogether, as well as
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  Speaker 1: several other stories from across the continent, to create a
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  Speaker 1: study of what he saw as a modern phenomenon. His
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  Speaker 1: resulting study was published in seventeen forty six as Dissertations
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  Speaker 1: on the Apparitions of Angels, Demons and Spirits and on
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  Speaker 1: the Revenants and Vampires of Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia and Cilicia.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm sure that you won't be surprised to hear
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  Speaker 1: that it was a best seller. It seems that everyone
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  Speaker 1: had an opinion on the monk who wrote about the occult,
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  Speaker 1: but much of the popular opinion was not a positive one.
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  Speaker 1: Calmet's peers thought that he had succumbed to superstition writing
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  Speaker 1: about the ravings of peasants far Afield. Even Voltaire, who
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  Speaker 1: had greatly admired Calmet's theological writings, publicly decried this work.
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  Speaker 1: But of course the book was also not without its
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  Speaker 1: many admirers, and the subsequent attention was enough for Calmet
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  Speaker 1: to expand it in seventeen forty eight, and the result
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  Speaker 1: of his genuine curiosity was a much stronger foundation for
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  Speaker 1: what this creature would become. Before his writing, vampire stories
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  Speaker 1: vary greatly from region to region, but Calmet's efforts ensured
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  Speaker 1: that the monster would become a specific thing in the
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  Speaker 1: minds of the public. It's a curious story the few
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  Speaker 1: people today remember. While bram Stoker gets all the credit
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  Speaker 1: for the modern vampire, none of what he did would
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  Speaker 1: have been possible at all without the efforts of a
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  Speaker 1: Benedictine monk who lived a century earlier. Augustine Calmets would
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  Speaker 1: never know it, but through his religious writings he left
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  Speaker 1: a faint fingerprint on an entire genre of popular which
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  Speaker 1: in a way has helped him live on long after
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  Speaker 1: his death. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
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  Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
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  Speaker 1: over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious.