Latest / Ridiculous History / Books You Can't Read -- By Design!

Transcript

Books You Can't Read -- By Design! · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
0:27
Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
0:31
Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear from the man, the myth
0:33
Speaker 1: legend super producer, mister Max Williams.
0:36
Speaker 2: Max, and there was Max Max Max Max Max.
0:40
Speaker 1: I am Ben Bullen. You are Noel Brown and this
0:44
Speaker 1: is ah. This is a fun one for us because
0:46
Speaker 1: I think in over the years we've both been fascinated
0:51
Speaker 1: with this weird idea, this very particular kind of book.
0:55
Speaker 3: Well, shout out to Stuff you Missed in History Class,
0:58
Speaker 3: a show that I long was the producer for when
1:01
Speaker 3: I first started at how Stuff Works back in the day,
1:03
Speaker 3: and they were the first ones that ever mentioned the
1:07
Speaker 3: Voyage manuscript and this codek Seraphonia and things like the
1:12
Speaker 3: anti Kisthera mechanism. You know a lot of these sort
1:15
Speaker 3: of like is it isn't it real?
1:18
Speaker 2: Kind of things you know.
1:19
Speaker 3: Throughout history that are is it an elaborate prank? Was
1:23
Speaker 3: it just drummed up by some really creative individual and
1:26
Speaker 3: then thrown out there into the world for people to
1:27
Speaker 3: figure it out for themselves.
1:29
Speaker 2: We're gonna talk about all of those things today.
1:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is something that we've always found fascinating and strange.
1:36
Speaker 1: As you said, Nola, a number of shows. The best
1:39
Speaker 1: way to start with this is just books. Books are
1:42
Speaker 1: so cool. If you think about it, they're like a
1:45
Speaker 1: kind of time machine. They're almost like necromancy because a
1:49
Speaker 1: dead author is speaking directly to you. If you could
1:52
Speaker 1: understand a book, you're traveling into a distant place and time.
1:58
Speaker 1: And I think, honestly, I was talking about this with
2:01
Speaker 1: our friends at Daily Seitgeist. I think hearing an audiobook
2:04
Speaker 1: is just as valid as reading one. I think it's
2:07
Speaker 1: the same thing.
2:08
Speaker 3: Well, I think some people just have different modalities of
2:11
Speaker 3: learning and absorbing information that work for them. Like our
2:15
Speaker 3: dear friend of the show, Lauren Vogelbaum, says, audio just
2:18
Speaker 3: does not grab them. When I say grab, I don't
2:22
Speaker 3: mean like, oh that this isn't like interesting. It literally
2:25
Speaker 3: doesn't retain that. She doesn't retain the information. It doesn't connect,
2:29
Speaker 3: whereas me, I listen to almost all of my research,
2:33
Speaker 3: you know, whether it be I like to do YouTube.
2:35
Speaker 3: I have this app called Speechify where you can copy
2:38
Speaker 3: and paste text or type text and it'll kind of
2:40
Speaker 3: read it to you. That way, I can like go
2:42
Speaker 3: through it five or six times while I'm also kind
2:45
Speaker 3: of reading other stuff, and I just find it to
2:47
Speaker 3: be a really good bang for the bucks. So while
2:49
Speaker 3: I have not physically read a book, and I'm not
2:52
Speaker 3: going to lie a couple of years, I consume so
2:54
Speaker 3: much text in literature, probably more than I ever have
2:57
Speaker 3: in my life.
2:58
Speaker 1: And this is the This is all well and good, folks,
3:03
Speaker 1: as long as you can understand what's being said. I
3:05
Speaker 1: think that's a good point about modalities. This is where
3:08
Speaker 1: we get to the ridiculous history for today. It turns
3:12
Speaker 1: out there are some books you literally cannot read, and
3:16
Speaker 1: that is by design.
3:18
Speaker 2: This is where we uh.
3:19
Speaker 1: This is where we introduce something you had just mentioned
3:22
Speaker 1: the Kodex. Is Sarah Finanius or am I saying that correctly?
3:26
Speaker 2: It's weird copy of it? Sarah Sarah Fininan.
3:31
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I've kind of got an anus there
3:33
Speaker 3: at the end. Sarah Faninianus, Yes, there we go that
3:38
Speaker 3: literally try to pronounce Sarah Phineus too, And I think
3:40
Speaker 3: I've been saying it wrong for lo these many years.
3:43
Speaker 3: I think with this book especially, we have a little
3:46
Speaker 3: bit of latitude.
3:47
Speaker 2: I think it would appreciate us. Yeah, it's like it.
3:50
Speaker 3: Because when you say books you can't read, we're not
3:53
Speaker 3: talking because they've been banned or they've been taken out
3:56
Speaker 3: of the spot, you know, right, No, it is because
4:00
Speaker 3: by design they are incomprehensible.
4:09
Speaker 1: The name of the codex literally translates to Seraphini's book.
4:13
Speaker 1: It's named after the really interesting author, Luigi Serafini. All right,
4:19
Speaker 1: it is a really recent book. It was published in
4:21
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one.
4:22
Speaker 2: He got a copy here.
4:25
Speaker 1: It is an encyclopedia about a world that doesn't exist.
4:32
Speaker 1: You can find it on archive dot org if you
4:35
Speaker 1: want to read an electronic version. But it's just it's
4:40
Speaker 1: neat and it looks like an actual dictionary or encyclopedia.
4:44
Speaker 1: It has a consistent script. The author, Luigi Seraphina, he
4:50
Speaker 1: drew everything, he made up the alphabet, He wrote the
4:53
Speaker 1: whole thing, if you could call it writing. It took
4:58
Speaker 1: him years to complete the project, and it is it
5:03
Speaker 1: appears completely nonsensical.
5:06
Speaker 2: I'll tell you. It reminds me a lot.
5:08
Speaker 3: If there are any gamers out there, I need to get
5:11
Speaker 3: back into it. But I started to kind of diping
5:13
Speaker 3: my toe in a game called No Man's Sky. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,
5:17
Speaker 3: that has this world, these worlds you kind of you know,
5:20
Speaker 3: it's basically like a you could call it an RPG,
5:23
Speaker 3: but it's a little light on the you know, the
5:26
Speaker 3: story aspects of it. It's more about just interacting with
5:29
Speaker 3: the world and kind of like mining for materials and
5:32
Speaker 3: even that, it's it's a very meditative and beautiful and
5:35
Speaker 3: Brian you know esque ambient music. But there are all
5:38
Speaker 3: of these plants and animals and and all kinds of
5:41
Speaker 3: other things that exist within this, like you know, biome
5:43
Speaker 3: of the game that very much have similar vibes to
5:46
Speaker 3: the type of imagery found in the Codex. And also
5:50
Speaker 3: there are alien languages that you have to scan and
5:53
Speaker 3: kind of like interpret and all of this stuff. And
5:55
Speaker 3: I just love this level of world building, and I
5:59
Speaker 3: know that we all do. But I think what Luigi
6:03
Speaker 3: has accomplished here as an artist and designer is obviously
6:08
Speaker 3: so good that it freaked some people out a little bit.
6:11
Speaker 3: And then this has been in among discussions around like
6:15
Speaker 3: lost homes or the lost worlds like Atlantis or something
6:19
Speaker 3: like that, you know exactly.
6:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this mystery is completely created on purpose by Luigi.
6:30
Speaker 1: He is not trying to pull the wool over anybody's eyes.
6:33
Speaker 1: He strikes me actually is a really cool kind of
6:36
Speaker 1: counterculture dude.
6:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
6:38
Speaker 1: He was born in Rome, Italy, in nineteen forty nine.
6:41
Speaker 1: He's still alive today. And one thing that I think
6:45
Speaker 1: cracks this dude up is you'll still find conspiratorial allegations
6:50
Speaker 1: about the codex, and then he'll in any interview he'll say,
6:55
Speaker 1: you know, I'm here, you can just ask me. I'm
6:59
Speaker 1: not like, you know, some secretive Illuminati skull and bones
7:03
Speaker 1: type guy.
7:04
Speaker 3: He's kind of very hippie. I'm sure you found this
7:07
Speaker 3: as well, Ben, But there's a real cool interview on
7:09
Speaker 3: Wired Yes with him. And again, when you look at
7:12
Speaker 3: the thing, it just feels like this sort of weirdly
7:16
Speaker 3: sacred almost kind of text that's like not It's like
7:19
Speaker 3: you're looking at something you're not supposed to be looking at,
7:22
Speaker 3: you know, right, And to have the creator of this
7:24
Speaker 3: like answering questions on a blog just feels very strange
7:29
Speaker 3: and wonderful.
7:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's he.
7:32
Speaker 1: Seems like a delightful guy. He does a lot of
7:34
Speaker 1: other stuff. He's one of those you know, we all
7:37
Speaker 1: have friends like this, and I think the three of
7:40
Speaker 1: us are similar to a degree with Luigi. He doesn't
7:44
Speaker 1: just write books. He also is a sculptor and architect.
7:48
Speaker 1: He has made costumes for the ballet. And there's this always,
7:53
Speaker 1: there's this consistent fascination with what we call meta language
7:57
Speaker 1: language about language, and the codex just sort of an
8:01
Speaker 1: extension of this. Nobody can read it, including Luigi, including
8:05
Speaker 1: the author. He has said multiple times on record, Yes,
8:10
Speaker 1: I wanted it to appear like a consistent alphabet, like
8:13
Speaker 1: a real language, but it has no real meaning, which
8:17
Speaker 1: is where we learned the fancy word for language without meaning,
8:20
Speaker 1: a semic absence of semantic meaning.
8:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think, you know, maybe I'm overstating the case,
8:27
Speaker 3: and I don't know, maybe you'll you'll have more of
8:29
Speaker 3: a recollection of this than me. But that there was
8:31
Speaker 3: a time where some people, I'm sure anytime someone's presented
8:34
Speaker 3: with something fascinating and bizarre like this, there will be
8:37
Speaker 3: some that might not do their homework and be like.
8:39
Speaker 2: What is this mystical historical tome?
8:42
Speaker 3: But was there kind of a little microculture of folks
8:46
Speaker 3: that believed in this to some agree or thought this
8:49
Speaker 3: was an artifact. Okay, maybe I don't know, tell us
8:51
Speaker 3: a little bit about what you've come up with on
8:54
Speaker 3: that front.
8:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, especially in the pre internet days, people we
9:01
Speaker 1: have to realize people would encounter this book, which was
9:04
Speaker 1: very rare before it had reprints. Only five thousand were
9:08
Speaker 1: made in the first edition in nineteen eighty one, and
9:12
Speaker 1: they were super They were like uber expensive, very pricey.
9:17
Speaker 1: So if you happened upon one of these rare books,
9:20
Speaker 1: you would naturally have a lot of questions. And even
9:23
Speaker 1: the you know RESOLDI the publisher is the publishing company
9:29
Speaker 1: is run by Well when he was alive. He's very strange,
9:35
Speaker 1: singular Italian aristocrat who is pretty mysterious. His other great
9:40
Speaker 1: achievement instead of in addition to publishing crazy fancy books,
9:45
Speaker 1: was having the world's largest hedge maze on his estate
9:49
Speaker 1: that tracks it's both Nola Amax looked at the camera
9:55
Speaker 1: and just nodded like, yeah, that makes sense, hedge mays.
9:58
Speaker 2: The weird books.
9:59
Speaker 1: But yeah, so it was not infrequent that there would
10:04
Speaker 1: be people, especially again the day's pre Internet was tougher,
10:08
Speaker 1: when it was a little more difficult to fact check.
10:10
Speaker 1: There would be people who just found this book and
10:13
Speaker 1: were convinced that it was a real language. They just
10:16
Speaker 1: happened not to know the language. There were even people
10:19
Speaker 1: who got more fanciful and said, you know, I've tried
10:23
Speaker 1: figuring out where this book came from, and I can't
10:26
Speaker 1: find it. It must be from another world, despite the
10:30
Speaker 1: fact that it is clearly a book printed in Italy.
10:34
Speaker 2: I gotta wonder too.
10:35
Speaker 3: But I mean, you know, typically the more working class
10:39
Speaker 3: amongst us, I guess don't really have hedge mazes. I
10:42
Speaker 3: also don't see this as being a particularly big money
10:46
Speaker 3: making endeavor, with how few copies were in print, and
10:49
Speaker 3: it seemed to be more of an art project than
10:52
Speaker 3: some kind of get rich quick scheme. Obviously a lot
10:54
Speaker 3: of love and attention. One of this where is this
10:56
Speaker 3: guy's money coming from? Yeah?
10:59
Speaker 1: The publisher Franco Maria Ricci or Ricci like Christina Ricci is. Yeah,
11:08
Speaker 1: he he definitely comes from. I got the sense he
11:14
Speaker 1: comes from a sort of blue blood backgrounds. He also
11:19
Speaker 1: published this incredibly fancy magazine called fm R, which are
11:25
Speaker 1: his initials, But he was definitely an upper end kind
11:29
Speaker 1: of dude. It's you know, as you said, a working
11:31
Speaker 1: class person doesn't usually decide to publish encyclopedia about a
11:35
Speaker 1: made up world.
11:36
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting too, because you know, this doesn't This
11:39
Speaker 3: strikes me as the kind of thing that is much
11:41
Speaker 3: more of like a passion project than it is even
11:45
Speaker 3: really being that concerned with making sure. You don't usually
11:47
Speaker 3: get to do that kind of stuff unless you're already
11:50
Speaker 3: kind of set. You know, this is not a Harry
11:53
Speaker 3: Potter book world. This is meant to be head scratchy
11:58
Speaker 3: and to create many more questions than answer absolutely.
12:02
Speaker 1: And one of the questions that we kind of ask
12:05
Speaker 1: or we can get to at the end is as
12:08
Speaker 1: more people learned the true story of the codex, which
12:12
Speaker 1: again Luigi had never tried to hide, more people said, hmmm,
12:16
Speaker 1: is this guy on drugs? And when you look at
12:19
Speaker 1: the when you look at the illustrations, you can see
12:22
Speaker 1: why people would ask that these are very weird. It
12:25
Speaker 1: looks like they're drawn in colored pencil, an incredibly beautiful tale,
12:29
Speaker 1: very vibrant. Yeah, vibrant, that's a great word for it.
12:32
Speaker 1: But they're like biomechanical devices, it seems to it's the
12:37
Speaker 1: book seems to exhaustively detail the various elements of this
12:41
Speaker 1: different world like and it mimics the old school illustrated
12:47
Speaker 1: manuscripts of old right.
12:48
Speaker 3: Who would have the exhibits almost yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
12:53
Speaker 3: botanical illustrations in depth stuff about animals.
12:58
Speaker 1: There's a lovely little section on tools that are just
13:03
Speaker 1: cartoonishly impractical. One of the most iconic images of this
13:09
Speaker 1: was I think it was on the cover or the
13:11
Speaker 1: slipcase of the first edition. It's a couple in bed
13:16
Speaker 1: in an intimate position. They are making making love, you
13:20
Speaker 1: know things some of.
13:22
Speaker 2: The most cringe dated sounding thig. I don't know why.
13:24
Speaker 2: It makes my skin crawl a little bit.
13:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, as they engage, they fuse and meld and transform
13:33
Speaker 1: into a crocodile.
13:35
Speaker 3: Bro you know what it reminds me of if you
13:37
Speaker 3: see it's become a meme. But there's a series of
13:40
Speaker 3: like teen kind of between books you get it like
13:43
Speaker 3: Scholastic called Animorphs, where it show the trajectory of like
13:48
Speaker 3: the kid and like all the little in between stages,
13:50
Speaker 3: and then they'd be like an animal. They've become meme
13:53
Speaker 3: fodder and people have been making like different kind of
13:55
Speaker 3: image macros with those. But this is very sort of
13:58
Speaker 3: a sexy after dark animorphs type situation. And just to
14:02
Speaker 3: be clear, all of the text is in this what
14:05
Speaker 3: was the term you used, been.
14:06
Speaker 2: A Semitic, Yeah, a Semitic script.
14:09
Speaker 3: I guess it has the vibe of almost Arabic, a
14:14
Speaker 3: very flowy kind of pictographic kind of quality to it,
14:19
Speaker 3: or like cyrillic maybe, or something like an ancient That's
14:22
Speaker 3: why I think that's what really adds to the whole ancientness.
14:25
Speaker 1: Of one hundred percent. Yeah, it looks like an ancient language.
14:29
Speaker 1: And apologies, folks, that's a Semic I was. Yeah, I said,
14:33
Speaker 1: a Semitic, which is probably very different.
14:37
Speaker 2: So he like, this.
14:39
Speaker 1: Book earns this aura of mystery. It's a rare prize.
14:45
Speaker 1: It's grail like to certain collectors. And eventually, as of now,
14:51
Speaker 1: there have been multiple reprints, I think at least five reprints,
14:54
Speaker 1: gradually making the book more accessible to the general public.
14:58
Speaker 1: You know, the non head may ze owning aristocrats.
15:01
Speaker 3: And accessible and that you can get your hands on it, right,
15:04
Speaker 3: nothing that would make it maybe more accessible to wrap
15:08
Speaker 3: your head around kind of add really quickly. Think the
15:09
Speaker 3: crocodile image is a whole other page. Where so it's
15:13
Speaker 3: like these exhibits where the first one it's the humans,
15:15
Speaker 3: and they gradually, you know, exhibit by exhibit turned into
15:18
Speaker 3: the crocodile. There's a whole other page where it's just
15:20
Speaker 3: the crocodile on the bed, then one additional image where
15:23
Speaker 3: it's just sort of looking around deciding to leave, then
15:26
Speaker 3: one where it slids it is off the bed, and
15:28
Speaker 3: then one where it's just an empty bed. I mean,
15:30
Speaker 3: this is taking the piss in the best possible.
15:33
Speaker 1: Way, you know, I like a sequential almost like comic
15:36
Speaker 1: books panel. But yeah, yeah, So the book is more
15:39
Speaker 1: accessible to people in that they can obtain a copy. Really,
15:44
Speaker 1: if you think about it, this just means there are
15:46
Speaker 1: more people who now also cannot read this book, which
15:50
Speaker 1: is it's weird and like to the point about conspiracy
15:55
Speaker 1: and trying to solve the mystery of the Codex. Numerous
15:59
Speaker 1: people have tried to decipher the script, and this makes
16:04
Speaker 1: Sarah Fiini just tickle tickled pink. He talks about it
16:08
Speaker 1: pretty openly in his interview with Wired.
16:11
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:12
Speaker 3: He says in the interview that he describes a gentleman
16:14
Speaker 3: who put who copyrighted a system that translates arbitrarily the
16:19
Speaker 3: signs of the Codex into meaningful texts written with the
16:21
Speaker 3: Latin alphabet. It doesn't matter much to me it's an
16:25
Speaker 3: obsession related to the persistent fascination with mystery. I always
16:29
Speaker 3: said that there is no meaning behind the script. It's
16:32
Speaker 3: just a game. But here's the thing, guys, whenever someone
16:35
Speaker 3: says something like that, you just assume that they're just
16:39
Speaker 3: trolling you and that they're, you know, wanting you to
16:42
Speaker 3: do better and figure it out. Like it's remember on
16:45
Speaker 3: the puzzler Ben I can't remember if it was when
16:48
Speaker 3: we were on it together, if it was when when
16:50
Speaker 3: one of us were on individually. But there's that crazy
16:54
Speaker 3: uh what's the word like cipher piece of art that's.
16:58
Speaker 2: In Langley, virgin and you know that in the middle
17:01
Speaker 2: of the of this like.
17:02
Speaker 3: Courtyard, you know, for the CIA, and uh, it's got
17:06
Speaker 3: these ciphers and like some of them have been decoded,
17:09
Speaker 3: but there's a handful that haven't. And the artists actually
17:13
Speaker 3: will tell you if your decoding is correct. But he
17:18
Speaker 3: gets so many requests from that that I think he
17:20
Speaker 3: charges by, you know, by the answer these days like
17:24
Speaker 3: twenty five fifty bucks.
17:26
Speaker 1: Name is zach Aj told us about it in one
17:28
Speaker 1: of his episodes with Us A Ridiculous History.
17:31
Speaker 2: Y's right.
17:32
Speaker 1: Check it out, folks, and also check out his episode
17:34
Speaker 1: coming up in the future, because we're going to have
17:37
Speaker 1: that guy back on. We've actually we've got some guests
17:40
Speaker 1: we're really excited about. Maybe we could ask Luigi to
17:42
Speaker 1: come on. Oh, it sounds like he'd be game. I
17:45
Speaker 1: also think my episodes of The Puzzler are live. If not,
17:49
Speaker 1: if they haven't been already, they will be very soon.
17:52
Speaker 1: So keep an eye out.
17:53
Speaker 2: Ben.
17:53
Speaker 3: You did some bad little ways back and then we
17:56
Speaker 3: had him on uh and then my my episodes are
17:59
Speaker 3: coming up, if not out in the world right now.
18:01
Speaker 2: We love that guy.
18:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to those. And you can
18:05
Speaker 1: also hear other guests of ours on AJ's show The Puzzler.
18:10
Speaker 1: I think Morocca went on there. Our friend o Fira
18:14
Speaker 1: Eisenberg has been on there.
18:16
Speaker 3: And Ben from a Badass of the Week Ben Thompson, Yes,
18:20
Speaker 3: Chus who is on an episode earlier this week.
18:23
Speaker 1: Anyway, Saraphini, if you're listening to this big fans, check
18:28
Speaker 1: out our show and let us know if you want
18:29
Speaker 1: to come on. So this book has all sorts of strange.
18:35
Speaker 1: It's kind of tough to describe it other than pulling
18:40
Speaker 1: out some of these iconic things that we like there's
18:49
Speaker 1: also cultural exploration. These different groups shown with their traditional dress,
18:55
Speaker 1: the way they interact with their children, important rituals. It
18:59
Speaker 1: dives into you bacteria, which doesn't make any sense. But
19:04
Speaker 1: he let's go back to this Wired interview. It's a
19:06
Speaker 1: great source, he says. The codex is to him kind
19:11
Speaker 1: of like a blog. He said, quote, I was trying
19:14
Speaker 1: to reach out to my fellow people, just like bloggers do.
19:17
Speaker 1: There's a connection between codex and digital culture. I was
19:21
Speaker 1: somehow anticipating the Internet by sharing my work with as
19:24
Speaker 1: many people as possible. I wanted the Codecs to be
19:27
Speaker 1: published as a book because I wanted to step out
19:30
Speaker 1: of the closed circle of art galleries.
19:32
Speaker 2: And here's the key quote.
19:34
Speaker 1: What I want my alphabet to convey to the reader
19:38
Speaker 1: is the sensation that children feel in front of books
19:41
Speaker 1: they cannot yet understand.
19:43
Speaker 2: And he nailed it.
19:44
Speaker 3: That's mission accomplished. I mean, seriously, it's just it's a
19:47
Speaker 3: really neat thing. And you know, I could see how
19:49
Speaker 3: for some people it might be like vexing or like
19:52
Speaker 3: there's that need to figure it out. But for me,
19:55
Speaker 3: and I think I think you certainly get it too,
19:57
Speaker 3: Ben is that's the whole appeal is like I don't
20:02
Speaker 3: need to solve the mystery or answer you know, the question,
20:05
Speaker 3: or like, you know, have the key code for the cipher.
20:09
Speaker 3: It's really just about kind of experiencing it. And it
20:11
Speaker 3: really takes you back to that feeling of wonder that
20:14
Speaker 3: you get when you are a little kid. In the
20:15
Speaker 3: world is a lot more incomprehensible because it's so easy
20:18
Speaker 3: to get to a place where everything's kind of old
20:21
Speaker 3: hat and a little stale and boring.
20:23
Speaker 2: And that's why we like art so much.
20:25
Speaker 3: And this is a great example of like how art
20:27
Speaker 3: can really bring back that childlike wonder.
20:30
Speaker 1: Before we go to our next book that no one
20:32
Speaker 1: can read, we will answer the question we set up
20:34
Speaker 1: earlier was Luigian drugs. He says, I did mescaline, the
20:40
Speaker 1: drug that was used to expand the boundaries of your mind.
20:43
Speaker 1: I'm talking about a real mind transfer forming tool. It
20:46
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with today's recreational use. At the
20:50
Speaker 1: time in the US, Native Americans were allowed to use
20:52
Speaker 1: it for religious purposes, but it didn't help me in
20:56
Speaker 1: the creative process. And then he goes on about how
21:00
Speaker 1: if you're under the influence of mescaline, you think everything
21:03
Speaker 1: you're doing is amazing, and then when you sober up,
21:06
Speaker 1: you're like, I don't know if this.
21:08
Speaker 2: Is the flag.
21:10
Speaker 3: I think he's not wrong, but I will say that
21:12
Speaker 3: I think there's a bit of a misconception where people
21:14
Speaker 3: think that artists are doing are while high, and I
21:19
Speaker 3: think that's usually not the case. Most oftentimes what happens
21:23
Speaker 3: is a psychedelic experience like this will shift their thinking
21:28
Speaker 3: in some way, and it'll inspire them and it'll give
21:32
Speaker 3: them maybe a key into a new process or something.
21:35
Speaker 3: But I think for the most part, you know, probably
21:38
Speaker 3: best to wait until the after globe before you start
21:41
Speaker 3: trying to do any.
21:43
Speaker 2: Of this stuff and feel like it's going to be meaningful, yeah, or.
21:46
Speaker 1: You know, get your thumbnail sketch in or write the
21:50
Speaker 1: idea or the thing down, knowing that you have to
21:53
Speaker 1: come back in a more baseline state.
21:56
Speaker 2: I think it was I think it was Maynard.
21:59
Speaker 1: From two who had a great quote about that, because
22:02
Speaker 1: he was super into meditation and he said, yeah, you
22:05
Speaker 1: do drugs right, and they can inspire you and get
22:08
Speaker 1: you to a point. I think he was talking about hallucinogens, yeah,
22:11
Speaker 1: And he said, but the real thing, the real creative
22:13
Speaker 1: act is arriving at the ability to reach that mental
22:20
Speaker 1: point again without drugs.
22:22
Speaker 3: One hundred percent or if you look. I mean a
22:23
Speaker 3: lot of this stuff too reminds me of the work
22:25
Speaker 3: of David Lynch, who is a huge proponent of transcendental meditation.
22:30
Speaker 3: He always talks about catching the big fish's actually I
22:33
Speaker 3: think a book that he wrote, but the idea of
22:35
Speaker 3: your mind and your consciousness or this like vast sea
22:38
Speaker 3: of inspiration and ideas. You just have to know how
22:42
Speaker 3: to calm those waters enough to be able to kind
22:44
Speaker 3: of penetrate them and pluck out those ideas and then
22:48
Speaker 3: write them down, you know, whether that's like the actual
22:50
Speaker 3: fully fleshed out idea or just the seed or the
22:53
Speaker 3: germ of an idea.
22:55
Speaker 2: You know.
22:55
Speaker 3: That's a big proponent. He always says too, They're like,
22:57
Speaker 3: always write them down. If you forget an idea, Yeah,
23:00
Speaker 3: y'all want to commit so side.
23:02
Speaker 2: He says that every time.
23:04
Speaker 3: But I really do think in a lot of ways
23:06
Speaker 3: what people are achieving with transcendental meditation is getting their
23:10
Speaker 3: mind to a controlled state of this kind of openness
23:14
Speaker 3: that I think maybe often comes from can come from
23:17
Speaker 3: doing hallucinogens, whether medically prescribed or you know, quote unquote recreational.
23:23
Speaker 3: But I think sometimes the term recreational can be a
23:26
Speaker 3: little bit flippant because I know a lot of people.
23:28
Speaker 2: They aren't taking these things to party. They're taking these
23:30
Speaker 2: things to.
23:31
Speaker 3: Like have an experience there to be just like being therapeutic.
23:34
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah.
23:35
Speaker 1: And this brings us to whatever we mentioned the Codex.
23:39
Speaker 1: We also will also have people inevitably mention the Voyage Manuscript, No,
23:46
Speaker 1: what the heck is this thing?
23:48
Speaker 3: So I think in my mind I get these things
23:51
Speaker 3: twisted a little bit, because to me, it was more
23:54
Speaker 3: much more clear that the Codex outside of some of
23:57
Speaker 3: these little niche pre internet kind of communities, or even
24:00
Speaker 3: the ones that continue to look for meaning or maybe
24:02
Speaker 3: there is none. The Voyage Manuscript is an often debated
24:08
Speaker 3: text that similarly has some indecipherable texts and images that
24:15
Speaker 3: are describing a world that maybe is just off the
24:18
Speaker 3: off the map kind of you, but really was believed
24:22
Speaker 3: to have been authentic or representative of some undiscovered country.
24:27
Speaker 1: Right.
24:28
Speaker 3: It's an illustrated manuscript written in an unknown language and
24:31
Speaker 3: thoughts who have been created in the fifteenth or sixteenth century.
24:34
Speaker 3: It's got age on its in its favor too, because
24:37
Speaker 3: a lot more questions come with something that is legitimately
24:40
Speaker 3: old and can be confirmed to be so.
24:43
Speaker 1: Right, like even you know, even knowing that the Shroud
24:46
Speaker 1: of Touring and many relics of saints were proven to
24:52
Speaker 1: be hoaxes, a lot of them were frauds, manufactured centuries
24:57
Speaker 1: and centuries. They're still very old and appear to be
25:00
Speaker 1: the case with this manuscript. It's not named after the
25:03
Speaker 1: original author. The author is unknown. We don't know when
25:07
Speaker 1: it was created exactly. Instead, it's named after a bookseller
25:13
Speaker 1: named Wilfrid voy or Wilfrid Voyage excuse me, because he
25:18
Speaker 1: purchased it in nineteen twelve. Then ever since that moment,
25:23
Speaker 1: people have been trying their darndest to decipher this text.
25:28
Speaker 1: A lot of people spoiler over the years, they think
25:32
Speaker 1: they've figured it out, but the problem is no one
25:35
Speaker 1: agrees with each other that's right.
25:37
Speaker 3: And a lot of real research and then scientific study
25:42
Speaker 3: has gone into this, whether it be through dating it
25:44
Speaker 3: or trying to find some sort of key to the
25:46
Speaker 3: indecipherable language in there. Extensive research has suggested that it
25:50
Speaker 3: was manufacturer or created somewhere in Central Europe, and through
25:55
Speaker 3: that carbon dating radio carbon dating, it's been determined who
26:00
Speaker 3: have been somewhere in the early fifteenth century. And a
26:03
Speaker 3: particularly long standing theory that was debunked by radiocarbon dating
26:07
Speaker 3: conducted in two thousand and nine was that it was
26:09
Speaker 3: written by thirteenth century English scientist Roger Bacon okay, inventor of.
26:16
Speaker 2: Bacon yes, yes, and the inventor of Roger exactly.
26:24
Speaker 1: He invented both of those. There is also this idea.
26:28
Speaker 1: Another origin story is that perhaps the first owner of
26:32
Speaker 1: the book is the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph the Second.
26:36
Speaker 1: That guy was in play from fifteen seventy six to
26:39
Speaker 1: sixteen eleven. If he did own it, then there are
26:43
Speaker 1: some scholars who will say he purchased it from the
26:47
Speaker 1: mathematician and occultist John Dee, also spymaster John d.
26:52
Speaker 2: I still want to see his calendar. I still want
26:54
Speaker 2: to see what his calendar is about. Perfect.
26:57
Speaker 1: I mean, what we see also here is that they're
26:59
Speaker 1: trying to tie it to notable mysterious historical figures right well.
27:04
Speaker 3: And can we just say it's pretty clear that these
27:07
Speaker 3: Codex Seraphina and the Nonos was inspired by this, Like
27:12
Speaker 3: I mean, no, if you look so just to a
27:15
Speaker 3: lot of the things that we've been describing about the codex,
27:18
Speaker 3: you're going to see a lot of very similar type
27:20
Speaker 3: of drawings and renderings here of strange alien beings interacting
27:26
Speaker 3: with weird you know, tentacle dare i say, phallic type plants.
27:31
Speaker 3: You know, there's some kind of weird sexy undertones as well,
27:36
Speaker 3: like a very strange kind of pod people type birthing scenarios. Again,
27:42
Speaker 3: exhibited forms of flora and fauna, laid out as though
27:46
Speaker 3: it were some kind of encyclopedia, and all kind of
27:50
Speaker 3: contained within these beautifully bordered pages, with all of this
27:53
Speaker 3: handwritten text that is a language that is indecipherable and
27:58
Speaker 3: has been puzzled over for a long long time.
28:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
28:02
Speaker 2: Yeah.
28:02
Speaker 1: And this notion that the book was purchased by the
28:08
Speaker 1: Holy Roman Emperor, it comes from a letter written in
28:11
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty five by a scientist in Prague, and when
28:16
Speaker 1: Voyage purchases the book in nineteen twelve, he finds the
28:20
Speaker 1: letter tucked into the pages of the manuscript. So, without
28:25
Speaker 1: getting too far into the weeds, Voyage gets this from
28:29
Speaker 1: a Jesuit college near Rome in Italy, and the bookseller
28:34
Speaker 1: then coordinated a bunch of different exhibitions for lack of
28:39
Speaker 1: a better word, like old school salons to show off
28:41
Speaker 1: this book. He would take it to universities. He took
28:44
Speaker 1: it to the Art Institute in Chicago at nineteen fifteen,
28:47
Speaker 1: and I think ever since nineteen sixty nine it's been
28:51
Speaker 1: in the library at Yale University. So you can go
28:56
Speaker 1: see this. I don't know if they take walk INDs.
28:59
Speaker 1: I think you have to, you know, emails.
29:01
Speaker 3: By Yeah, I'm pasting an image into the chat for
29:05
Speaker 3: you guys, if you don't mind.
29:07
Speaker 2: There's one panel in particular that I think is so
29:10
Speaker 2: cool and bizarre.
29:11
Speaker 3: It's like a horse with a palm palm on its
29:16
Speaker 3: head and its backside looks like a weird bejeweled.
29:22
Speaker 4: Worm or larval co. Yeah, it is a really bedazzled
29:29
Speaker 4: flug and it's.
29:30
Speaker 3: Got wheels on it, and then in the margins there
29:33
Speaker 3: are these little diagrams I guess on how to construct
29:36
Speaker 3: the wheels or what they're made, treads and so on. Yeah,
29:41
Speaker 3: it's like a little weird tank treads, and then hanging
29:43
Speaker 3: from its muzzle or its little bridle is another weird,
29:46
Speaker 3: little dangly piece of this bedazzled cocoon stuff.
29:50
Speaker 1: Oh, and you know what, I think I recognize this image.
29:54
Speaker 1: I think it's from the Codex.
29:55
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, you're totally right.
29:57
Speaker 3: And I think I was taken because they really do
30:00
Speaker 3: have a very similar art style. But now that I'm
30:02
Speaker 3: looking at this one, it is much more detailed. The
30:04
Speaker 3: stuff in the Voytage Manuscript is a lot more lo
30:07
Speaker 3: fi and almost childlike, kind of in its naive style.
30:11
Speaker 3: I guess, oh, oh, yeah, but they have a lot
30:14
Speaker 3: in common, they really do.
30:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.
30:16
Speaker 1: I think you're right on the money there. And in
30:18
Speaker 1: the story of the Voyage Manuscript, we also see a
30:21
Speaker 1: lot of similarities of people trying to figure out this
30:24
Speaker 1: thing over the years, because it's more than a century now,
30:30
Speaker 1: some of the smartest people in the world have tried
30:33
Speaker 1: to crack the code of the Voyage Manuscript and failed.
30:36
Speaker 1: We're talking about scholars of chemistry, law, intelligence agency types,
30:42
Speaker 1: professional cryptologists from World War two. I almost said professional
30:47
Speaker 1: cryptozoologists from World War two, which would be even cooler.
30:50
Speaker 3: Would be cooler, And honestly, if some of the images
30:54
Speaker 3: we're seeing in this are meant to be taken as fact,
30:57
Speaker 3: there's some cryptids in the mix that we have yet
31:00
Speaker 3: to discover, you know, like least of which is that
31:03
Speaker 3: weird horse thing, which again is from the Codex, but
31:06
Speaker 3: in the Voytage manuscript there's a lot of weird animals
31:10
Speaker 3: depicted as well.
31:11
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, And let's talk about the book itself.
31:21
Speaker 1: It's not quite the same as what you would consider
31:24
Speaker 1: a modern book today, right. It's got a bunch of
31:27
Speaker 1: folios and they're very heavily illustrated. There are one hundred
31:31
Speaker 1: and two of them, so it's about two hundred and
31:33
Speaker 1: thirty four pages. It's divided into six sections Botany, astronomy, astrology, biology, cosmology,
31:42
Speaker 1: some kind of pharmaceutical thing, and maybe a section on recipes.
31:48
Speaker 2: People think maybe there's a lot. God, dude, it's so fascinating.
31:53
Speaker 2: There's a lot of, I believe.
31:54
Speaker 3: In the biology section, a lot of depictions of these
31:56
Speaker 3: weird little naked people kind of coming out of what
32:00
Speaker 3: looked like Mario World, like plumber tubes kind of, and
32:04
Speaker 3: they're holding these strange plants and creatures in their little
32:08
Speaker 3: tiny naked fists. And again the birth of them is
32:12
Speaker 3: sort of depicted as this like primordial soup sort of
32:16
Speaker 3: situation where they're coming out of this like these slime baths.
32:19
Speaker 3: It's really really bizarre, fascinating stuff.
32:23
Speaker 1: And then the women who are connected by tubes. There
32:27
Speaker 1: are drids of nude women who are intertwined with these
32:31
Speaker 1: various tubes. The longest section, I believe, is the botanical section.
32:36
Speaker 1: Lots of herbs and plants that just don't exist.
32:42
Speaker 2: They're they're not real.
32:43
Speaker 1: And then the astrology or very man Drake looking thing
32:47
Speaker 1: exactly so you know what I mean. But they're like
32:49
Speaker 1: really twisty, weird, kind of human like roots. But when
32:54
Speaker 1: you look at them and cross reference and with the
32:56
Speaker 1: real stuff, there are things that are just not quite
32:59
Speaker 1: right about them. Yeah, but if you didn't have the
33:03
Speaker 1: comparisons to make you would think, oh, yeah, that makes sense, right.
33:09
Speaker 1: I like the you point it that way, there's something
33:11
Speaker 1: that's just sort of off, and we we know. The
33:16
Speaker 1: The fourth section, skipping around a little bit, has this
33:20
Speaker 1: thing with a weird drawing of or drawings of these
33:24
Speaker 1: nine medallions that are filled with stars and other shapes.
33:28
Speaker 1: And then just as you have enough time to WTF
33:32
Speaker 1: your way through that, you get to the pharmaceutical section.
33:35
Speaker 1: It appears that they are telling you which plants can
33:38
Speaker 1: be used to do certain things, and then drawings of
33:41
Speaker 1: jars and bottles, et cetera.
33:43
Speaker 3: It's pretty cool, you guys. If you go to collections
33:46
Speaker 3: dot library, dot Yale dot eedu slash catalog, I was
33:49
Speaker 3: gonna give you the whole thing. That's actually pretty succst
33:51
Speaker 3: slash two zero zero two zero four six h. There
33:55
Speaker 3: is a fully scanned physical scan of this thing, including
34:00
Speaker 3: the edges and the way it looks from the side,
34:03
Speaker 3: the tail, the fore edge and all of that and
34:06
Speaker 3: all of the extra little pieces. It is really cool.
34:09
Speaker 3: You're not just seeing like some sort of like lifted
34:12
Speaker 3: you know, text or scan to text kind of things.
34:15
Speaker 3: This is like all of the texture and the wear
34:17
Speaker 3: and all of that stuff in the front and back covers.
34:20
Speaker 3: And you can really see those folios you mentioned, Ben,
34:22
Speaker 3: because when you look at it folded from the side,
34:25
Speaker 3: there are kind of these little tracts that are almost
34:28
Speaker 3: tucked in there, you know, kind of with their own
34:30
Speaker 3: little self contained sections, rather than being bound like you
34:33
Speaker 3: were saying, like a traditional book.
34:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a weird pile of notebooks they got put
34:39
Speaker 1: together or journals.
34:40
Speaker 2: This.
34:41
Speaker 1: You can also buy a copy or reprints of this
34:44
Speaker 1: facimile copies of it on at your favorite bookstore or
34:49
Speaker 1: even Amazon today. If you want to help Jeff get
34:52
Speaker 1: back to the moon. Yeah, we got to help Jeff
34:55
Speaker 1: get this space. But yes you can. You can find
34:59
Speaker 1: not just voy but also Codex. You can find them
35:01
Speaker 1: available online, and it's worth it if you're interested in this.
35:06
Speaker 1: Another thing that's fascinating about this book, man, is that
35:11
Speaker 1: people because people wanted to solve the mystery so much,
35:17
Speaker 1: they had some crazy pitches. One of the earliest efforts
35:23
Speaker 1: was in the early nineteen hundreds a guy named William
35:25
Speaker 1: Romaine Newbold, very very smart at the University of Pennsylvania,
35:31
Speaker 1: and he said, this just this is the only example
35:34
Speaker 1: we nique is so weird. He said, look, the visible
35:36
Speaker 1: text is meaningless. But each of those things that looks
35:40
Speaker 1: like a letter, if you zoom in, I kid you
35:43
Speaker 1: not with a microscope, then you will see tiny markings.
35:48
Speaker 1: And I think it's Greek, and then I think it's
35:50
Speaker 1: based on Greek, and I think there's a code that
35:52
Speaker 1: I have figured out that will tell you what's really
35:55
Speaker 1: going on. And people said, all right, well, try give
36:00
Speaker 1: it a shot. And it turned out he really believed
36:03
Speaker 1: he had solved it, but most other people disagreed. There's
36:08
Speaker 1: a lot of work on Hebrew interpretations of it or
36:12
Speaker 1: different like two steps ciphers. But right now we still
36:16
Speaker 1: see a pattern of people saying, yes, I've figured it out,
36:19
Speaker 1: and then other people coming along maybe after, as you said,
36:22
Speaker 1: the glow wears off, and saying you hadn't really though,
36:27
Speaker 1: because this seems like a roar shack almost you see
36:30
Speaker 1: what you want to see.
36:31
Speaker 3: A million percent, And that's the beauty of this kind
36:34
Speaker 3: of stuff, you know, where it feels like it's begging
36:37
Speaker 3: to be solved. But really the whole idea might be
36:40
Speaker 3: that it's just an elaborate kind of troll. But maybe
36:43
Speaker 3: troll is a little unfair or a little unkind because
36:46
Speaker 3: to me, what would be the goal of a t
36:50
Speaker 3: want to be two rhymey, but what would be the
36:52
Speaker 3: goal of someone trying to perpetrate like a fraud by
36:55
Speaker 3: unleashing this end of the world? What would be the
36:57
Speaker 3: nefarious intent behind it? I don't see it. The trill goal, yeah,
37:01
Speaker 3: the troll goal, and pay the troll toll to execute
37:05
Speaker 3: that troll goal.
37:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
37:08
Speaker 1: It is interesting. There are Luigi Serafini actually had something
37:12
Speaker 1: to say about this because his argument was it was
37:17
Speaker 1: created as a fake, meant to entirely meant to be
37:22
Speaker 1: sold to that emperor Rudolph too, because that guy likes books.
37:27
Speaker 1: And then other people say it was a fake by
37:30
Speaker 1: Voyage himself somehow entirely meant to increase his own reputation.
37:37
Speaker 1: Neither of those things have been conclusively.
37:41
Speaker 2: Wouldn't that be risky to do that?
37:43
Speaker 3: Like, you know, I just mean to perpetrate a fraud
37:45
Speaker 3: like that on such a powerful person who might not
37:48
Speaker 3: take kindly to being tricked in that way.
37:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, that's what That's what I'm thinking, you know, anyway,
37:57
Speaker 1: that there is one thing on the we see this
38:01
Speaker 1: pattern of you know, discoveries, claim discoveries and refutations continue today,
38:06
Speaker 1: and there's even some recent attempts to use large language
38:11
Speaker 1: models or AI to try to crack it, but people
38:15
Speaker 1: just keep again kind of seeing what they want to see,
38:17
Speaker 1: and nobody agrees that the code's been cracked yet. And
38:21
Speaker 1: I got, you know, maybe this is where we end
38:23
Speaker 1: because NOL at this point, I feel like actually solving
38:27
Speaker 1: the riddle the code might be anti climactic.
38:31
Speaker 3: We talk about that a lot on our other show
38:32
Speaker 3: stuff that I want you to know. With our buddy
38:34
Speaker 3: Matt Frederick, like, sometimes depending on what the mystery is,
38:38
Speaker 3: like if it's you know, obviously a search for justice
38:41
Speaker 3: or someone that's done something horrible, or a crime or
38:44
Speaker 3: fraud being perpetrated, you know, on the American people or
38:47
Speaker 3: whoever it might be. Sure you want to get to
38:49
Speaker 3: the heart of that, you want to see who's to blame.
38:51
Speaker 3: But sometimes you know, these oddities or like things like
38:55
Speaker 3: the Georgia guidestones for example, where there's this, oh gosh,
38:59
Speaker 3: what's the various plot behind it? And based on everything
39:03
Speaker 3: we know about that, the whole point of it was
39:06
Speaker 3: to not know someone went to a lot of trouble
39:09
Speaker 3: to make their personality not be part of it. It
39:13
Speaker 3: was more about like, what what does the journey that
39:15
Speaker 3: this art or this piece of work or this information
39:18
Speaker 3: takes you on. So to answer your question, yeah, big
39:21
Speaker 3: time anticlimactive for things like this. You know, I think
39:25
Speaker 3: almost one hundred percent of the time for me anyway.
39:28
Speaker 1: And we say that because we, like the rest of
39:32
Speaker 1: the world, don't know what's in the book. Perhaps it
39:35
Speaker 1: is revelatory, or perhaps it's like that thing that seeing
39:38
Speaker 1: in a Christmas tale or a Christmas story where the
39:41
Speaker 1: kid finally gets the decoder ring and the big code
39:45
Speaker 1: that he learns is spoiler, folks, three to one. It's
39:49
Speaker 1: an advertisement for Oval Team.
39:51
Speaker 3: I know, which is a banger of a drink. By
39:53
Speaker 3: the way, It's got mintal minerals in it. It's got
39:55
Speaker 3: that multi flavor really good in a coffee. If you
39:58
Speaker 3: want like a little bit of a moke situation, a
40:01
Speaker 3: tablespoon of of the Oval scene in there, we'll get
40:04
Speaker 3: you right where you want to be.
40:07
Speaker 2: I hope not. You know, that would be even worse.
40:10
Speaker 3: Of an anti climax to find out that it was
40:12
Speaker 3: actually meant to sell us widgets or something like that.
40:15
Speaker 2: You know.
40:16
Speaker 4: And to jump in here real quick, I have to
40:18
Speaker 4: bring up the Elder Scrolls unreadable book the Agma and Finium,
40:23
Speaker 4: which you might be sitting there saying you can read
40:25
Speaker 4: that one, yes, but you will lose your mind if
40:28
Speaker 4: you read it is the digric artifact of hermeus Mora.
40:31
Speaker 2: Then you know that one quite well.
40:34
Speaker 3: Lose your mind as in because it will infect you
40:36
Speaker 3: as some sort of demonic force.
40:39
Speaker 4: No, so look with hermeas Mora.
40:41
Speaker 2: You know he's the day.
40:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, why did you ask he's like he's the dadrich
40:45
Speaker 4: uh Dadrek god of knowledge and basically he has so
40:49
Speaker 4: much knowledge that you will lose your mind just ever
40:51
Speaker 4: chasing knowledge.
40:52
Speaker 2: Okay, well that's sort of life, ain't it.
40:54
Speaker 1: The daj are one of the most fun parts of
40:56
Speaker 1: the game.
40:58
Speaker 3: They're they're nefarious though right there, not necessarily, I.
41:02
Speaker 1: Would say mostly, but it's also it's an elder god argument,
41:06
Speaker 1: like so different as to be incomprehensible to mortals.
41:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, some some like you know, like uh, mullleg ball,
41:14
Speaker 4: he's evil, that's simple. His weapons is great though, he is,
41:18
Speaker 4: but we can't even describe what he is the god
41:21
Speaker 4: of on air because it's so offensive.
41:23
Speaker 2: That's right.
41:24
Speaker 4: Uh but uh but then there's like a zero. We're like,
41:27
Speaker 4: Yahara is not evil, but there is evil. I would
41:29
Speaker 4: argue with Bofi is not evil, but that's just me.
41:32
Speaker 3: Who's the one I'm messing with right now? In the
41:35
Speaker 3: DNC that's still okay. Yeah, every time I read The
41:38
Speaker 3: Dark the Black Books or whatever, I end up in
41:40
Speaker 3: the the.
41:42
Speaker 2: Tentacle e world handed to me man asque.
41:46
Speaker 3: It's cool, but I feel like, am I not powerful
41:49
Speaker 3: enough to be messing with that world?
41:50
Speaker 2: Yet?
41:50
Speaker 3: I keep kind of putting it off because every time
41:52
Speaker 3: I go, I I can't.
41:54
Speaker 2: I can't make.
41:55
Speaker 4: Cancer tales of it. It's high level game, yeah it is.
41:57
Speaker 4: It was originally designed to play after you have already been.
42:01
Speaker 2: The main Then I'm gonna keep it.
42:03
Speaker 3: I'm gonna keep it in in my back pocket until
42:05
Speaker 3: I get a little bit more.
42:06
Speaker 2: I do have a full set of dragon Bone armor, though.
42:10
Speaker 3: That's pretty badass, so I feel a little overpowered.
42:12
Speaker 4: How well are you wearing it?
42:13
Speaker 2: Though?
42:13
Speaker 4: That's always the question. I don't know what that means
42:16
Speaker 4: heavy armor level? How well are you wearing heavy armor?
42:19
Speaker 2: Guys.
42:20
Speaker 1: Okay, we're gonna talk about this off air yet. I
42:23
Speaker 1: hope everybody enjoys skyline.
42:24
Speaker 2: Everyone, We're gonna get out of here. We'll see if
42:28
Speaker 2: that makes it to the final edit.
42:30
Speaker 1: In the meantime, we can't wait to hear more of
42:33
Speaker 1: your favorite UH strange books. There are other, you know,
42:39
Speaker 1: other innovations in the world of bookery, like A House
42:42
Speaker 1: of Leaves is a famous, famous UH form breaking book.
42:47
Speaker 1: You can tell us about our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians.
42:49
Speaker 1: Thank you as always to our super producer, UH mister
42:54
Speaker 1: Max Williams, big fan of daydre.
42:58
Speaker 2: Man.
42:59
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to you Ben for being the research to
43:01
Speaker 3: associate on this particular episode.
43:04
Speaker 2: I always love talking about these these two volumes, and
43:06
Speaker 2: you can I.
43:07
Speaker 3: Don't remember exactly what episode you would look for, but
43:10
Speaker 3: on stuff they don't want you to know. We definitely
43:12
Speaker 3: have further discussions of this kind of thing, specifically these books,
43:16
Speaker 3: but also you know, just in general, the idea of
43:20
Speaker 3: historical frauds and kind of doomsday conspiracies that maybe we're
43:24
Speaker 3: more of someone trying to get people under their control
43:27
Speaker 3: than an actual facts, legitimate prediction, So.
43:31
Speaker 2: Do check that out.
43:32
Speaker 1: Thanks also to AJ Jacobs, the Puzzler, Jonathan Strickland aka
43:36
Speaker 1: the quizt, Let's See Eaves, Jeff.
43:38
Speaker 3: Goat, Gris Rasiotis, and all of you ridiculous historians out
43:44
Speaker 3: there in Ridiculous history Land.
43:46
Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks.
43:54
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
43:58
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite IT shows