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CLASSIC: When People Thought They Were Made of Glass · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in, fellow ridiculous historians. We're
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: taking a week for the end of the year. I'm
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: going to have a little vacation and go on some adventures.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: We didn't want to leave you hanging, so we're coming
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: to you with some of our favorite classic episodes of Noel.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: You mentioned it earlier this week. We uh, we had
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: some episodes from back in seventeen. How long have we
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: been doing with this? I guess since about right it was.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I think it was the first year. These all feel
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: like you're one kind of kind of Epps Max is
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: waving or he's saying five years. He said, Ben, damn it,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: five years. Time flies when you're being dumb. That's right. Well, okay,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: now I'm glad you brought that up because this classic episode. Uh,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: when you first hear about it, you might think we're
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: talking about dumb people, but keep in mind, everybody throughout
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  Speaker 1: the span of history is about it, just as or
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: as people born in two right or people in the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: modern day. I think that's very charitable. Ben Um, I
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: would somewhat disagree, but we can agree to somewhat disagree
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: on this. I think we're all gifted with the same equipment,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Can we put it that way? But then you know,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: it always is a combination of nature and nurture, and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the nurture aspect in olden times was often a little
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: bit on the ignorant side. Let's just say, yeah, that's fair,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: how about we do it this way. People are great
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: at working with the information they're given. That's right, And
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: innovation comes from folks that think outside of the information
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  Speaker 1: they're given and contribute to new information being available for others. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes they're burned at mistakes, which is and sometimes they
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: spend their entire lives increasingly convinced that they are made
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of glass and will shatter if anyone touches them. That
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: checks out ridiculous history as a production. Know. I heart radio. Yeah, welcome, Welcome, Welcome,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ben, and I am
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: about to ask a massive favor of my co host,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: who doesn't know what I'm about to ask, but is
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: so super cool one of my best friends, and hopefully
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: isn't mad at me for putting them on this. I'm
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: mad at you, like in advance. I also just banged
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: my knee on the desk here, so I'm super cranky,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: but go ahead, alright, okay, ladies, gentlemen. Uh Noel Brown. Uh,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Noel is a very talented multi instrumentalist and has pipes
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: for the Angels. So, Noel, I was going to ask you,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: uh if you could do uh just a small rendition
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  Speaker 1: of that Heart of Glass song? Absolutely not all right,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: damn David d I did find out a swattered town,
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  Speaker 1: a piano, a dude bell, leave it up down that one. Yeah,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: thank you. I don't know that I'm see. I may
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  Speaker 1: have pipes of the Angels, but unlike my my dear
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: friend Frank, who hopefully is listening, I don't remember lyrics
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: quite well. Well, the melody was important there, That's exactly.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: And you might ask, then why are you putting why
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: are you putting this poor guy on? I'd like to know.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: You can feel the attention in the room here. Our
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: super producer, Casey Pegram is uh raising up the yellow
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: card for me. That means I'm not oh oh wow,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: he had one. He did. I was, I was making
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: that up. Oh gosh, okay, I'll teach you, Yeah, I'll
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: teach me. You guys are amazing. We are talking about
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: a very very very very strange phenomenon in European history today.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: And I guess we'll just set it up this way.
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  Speaker 1: In fourteen two, King Charles the sixth died after ruling
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  Speaker 1: France for more than four decades forty years. He had
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: a couple of different nicknames. One of them was Charles
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the Mad, the Mad King, the Mad King, Charles the Mad?
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Is he the one who set everyone on fire? And
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's that's that's not real, that's Game of Thrones.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: But man, what a great show. Just while we're at
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: a pretty pretty dope show. I feel like Winds of
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Winter that next book is never gonna come out. George R. Martin,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: if you're listening to do whatever you want, man, Yeah,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: it's fine. You don't owe anything. Come on, HBO will
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: finish it for you. It's fine. Oh that it probably
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: is true. Charles the Mad, although did not burn an
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  Speaker 1: entire palace's worth of people, was still uh, kind of
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  Speaker 1: wonky and we touched a little touched, Yeah, yeah, but
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  Speaker 1: a bit different. And he may have been the first
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  Speaker 1: person to exhibit what is known as the glass delusion.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think about this one, Noel, Yeah, I
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, it's it's sure as specific, like
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  Speaker 1: how would you arrive at this particular conclusion that you
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  Speaker 1: are made of glass and would break? So this delusion
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: for our boy Charles was brought on by melancholy, which
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: is a fabulous film from from Lars von Trier. And
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I thought it was a made up word, but it's
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: actually what they used to refer to depression as um.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: And this continued to pop up weirdly because, like I said,
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  Speaker 1: it seem like such a specific malady tied to a
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: particular person and a very you know, particular kind of delusion.
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  Speaker 1: But it kept popping up throughout history. Even Hippocrates, um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, used the term melancolia in his book of Aphorisms,
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  Speaker 1: called it a long lasting fright or despondency and a
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  Speaker 1: profound depression. Again, the term over time became depression, right right. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: The condition of melancholia affected people who are isolated, who
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  Speaker 1: are generally around a lot of people, and ding ding
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  Speaker 1: ding ding ding. That sounds like something that could easily
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  Speaker 1: happen to a queen or a king, especially just being
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  Speaker 1: surrounded by you know, sycophants who just tell you what
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  Speaker 1: you want to hear, and being completely isolated from any
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  Speaker 1: real meaningful let's say, human contact, maybe even not knowing
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  Speaker 1: enough to differentiate to right. Scary, Yeah, it's super scary.
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  Speaker 1: So some of these folks with melancholia in this time, uh,
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  Speaker 1: this condition produced this glass delusion, which was also m
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: accompanied by something called photophobia, which is sensitivity to light. Yes, yeah, oh,
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  Speaker 1: and we should mention just for background for the time here.
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  Speaker 1: Charles was born in thirteen sixty eight in December and
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: died in October fourteen two. The mad wasn't his only nickname.
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  Speaker 1: He was also called the beloved man. That's too two
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: extremes there. That's very wise. You can be mad and
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  Speaker 1: and beloved. Yeah, sure, I mean maybe the madness was
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  Speaker 1: sort of like cookie and then it didn't like he
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: didn't like, you know, murder his his people in droves.
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  Speaker 1: He just was a little a little touched and maybe
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  Speaker 1: some people found it charming. And he was convinced. He
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  Speaker 1: was convinced that he was physically made of glass. He
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: did some He had some very specific request or demands
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  Speaker 1: from everyone in court, so he needed to have special clothes.
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  Speaker 1: He demanded they have special clothes made for his person
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  Speaker 1: to protect him from the possibility of shattering like reinforced
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  Speaker 1: with iron and on the inside I can picture is
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  Speaker 1: almost like a strange kind of exoskeleton, right. And he
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  Speaker 1: would not allow people to touch him, um, because he
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  Speaker 1: was afraid that they would break him into tiny smithereens.
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  Speaker 1: And this is not something that was just a passing
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  Speaker 1: fancy for him. It followed him throughout his entire life, right.
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  Speaker 1: And he was not the only member of the royalty
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  Speaker 1: with this same delusion. There was also Princess Alexandra Omily
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  Speaker 1: of Bavaria, and she believed that because she had swallowed
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  Speaker 1: a glass grand piano as a child, that it is
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: somehow turned her into fragile class. That's a bit of
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: a jump, yes, yeah, And you can hear this case
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  Speaker 1: discussed the Princess Alexandrew's case discussed in detail in stuff
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: you missed in history class. Yeah, that you don't have
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  Speaker 1: a so called the princess who swallowed a glass piano.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: It's a very appropriate title. Let's just a backtrack here
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  Speaker 1: one second. How does one acquire a tiny glass grand piano?
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  Speaker 1: A and and how do you accidentally swallow it? Well,
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  Speaker 1: obviously you are trying to play it with your mouth,
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  Speaker 1: you know. I once thought that I swallowed an entire
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: wrapped cough drop, and it turns out that I didn't
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  Speaker 1: and actually do that. But I spent a whole day
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  Speaker 1: convinced that I had swallowed a cough drop that was
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: a reco lock that was wrapped, and then I found
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  Speaker 1: it later in my pocket, and um, I felt very foolish.
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  Speaker 1: But I spent that day kind of probably feeling a
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  Speaker 1: little bit how this princess might have felt. Um, you know,
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  Speaker 1: maybe a little bit less extreme, but you know, I
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  Speaker 1: definitely felt something was off. I didn't feel like I
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  Speaker 1: was made of reco luck, but you know, I was spooked.
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  Speaker 1: And sometimes obsessive thoughts can haunt us. You know, imagine
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  Speaker 1: if you've ever had I'm not equivocating these things entirely,
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  Speaker 1: but just by way of comparison, to imagine if you
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  Speaker 1: ever had a song stuck in your head to the
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  Speaker 1: point that it becomes tortuous. Right, Oh, it's not that bad.
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  Speaker 1: That song is not gonna get second because it's not
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  Speaker 1: gonna happen. What doesn't happen to me? You and I
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  Speaker 1: can't live ever, No, no, okay, no, I'm gonna get you.
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  Speaker 1: You could try I forget you, well, hopefully you will
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  Speaker 1: have it. We have a long, long future ahead of that.
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  Speaker 1: Uh of you trying to get songs stuck in my head? Okay,
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  Speaker 1: And uh, the thing is that when you have a
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  Speaker 1: song stuck in your head and uh, this thought that
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  Speaker 1: will not leave. This unwelcome visitor. Yeah, it's unwelcome visitor
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  Speaker 1: that shows up in the house of your mind, that
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  Speaker 1: makes itself at home and begins altering the interior decoration. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: Compulsive thoughts, thoughts that you don't want to have but
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  Speaker 1: you cannot escape, can occur for very long periods of time.
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  Speaker 1: So this isn't just guess from saying this, because this
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  Speaker 1: is not just restricted to the glass delusion, which by
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  Speaker 1: the way, was one of the most prevalent delusions of
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  Speaker 1: its time. That's the whole point here that's so interesting,
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  Speaker 1: And a lot of that is tied to the actual
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  Speaker 1: technology of glass. Yeah, so it's spread to anything that
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  Speaker 1: contained glass as well. There's a history of psychiatry paper
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  Speaker 1: from that dives into this type of melancholy and shows
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  Speaker 1: that other people had delusions where they thought they were
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  Speaker 1: specifically flasked or what you and I would refer to
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  Speaker 1: as urinals in the modern day, or oil lamps or
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: like any number of other glass receptacles totally. But it
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  Speaker 1: was also the new invention of clear glass that is
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  Speaker 1: largely blamed for the this delusion because people just had
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  Speaker 1: not seen this before and it appeared as magic, It
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  Speaker 1: appeared as something utterly mystical, and you know, you could
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  Speaker 1: probably we see how something like that might play into
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: the delusions of people that are possibly predisposed to those
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: cyclical thoughts that you're talking about right exactly, because according
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  Speaker 1: to the author of this paper, Gil Speak the melancholiacs
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  Speaker 1: whose delusions manifested this way. It was manifesting because it
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  Speaker 1: was a need to protect the body, and they were
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  Speaker 1: often also preoccupied with protecting their souls. So in a
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  Speaker 1: layered way, in a layer Kate kind of way, this
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  Speaker 1: delusion might have been a side effect or symptom consequence
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  Speaker 1: of the internal struggle dealing with the metaphysical reality of death,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: and of course the overwhelming desire to avoid death at
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  Speaker 1: all costs, which is still very understandable in yeah, I'm
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: into it as well, and these issues have not disappeared.
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  Speaker 1: You know, if you're isolated from people today and you're
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: you're suffering from mental illness, you can see how it
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  Speaker 1: would make sense to imagine yourself as a material that's
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  Speaker 1: easily breakable, largely invisible, incredibly fragile. I mean, we're all
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  Speaker 1: living in a material world, and I'm a material girl
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  Speaker 1: made of material. In Speaks paper in this review, they
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  Speaker 1: address this concept of mortality, and there's a there's a
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  Speaker 1: fantastic quote here that builds after speak is placing this concept,
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  Speaker 1: this delusion in the context of theologians reacting to the
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  Speaker 1: world of free thinkers versus the strict boundaries of orthodoxy, right, like,
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  Speaker 1: is it is it heretical to think that you were
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  Speaker 1: made of glass in a world that is governed by
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  Speaker 1: a strict religious monotheistic dogma, where there is absolute God
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  Speaker 1: with an absolute plan. So people tried to people tried
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: to address this both as a social conundru man and
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: internal struggle. And I'll just read the quote here, and
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: I want to see what you think. For those whose
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  Speaker 1: faith was strong enough to shoulder the church's advocation to
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  Speaker 1: prepare one's self for dying, and there was prolific literature
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  Speaker 1: on this topic, the melancholic delusions manifests itself in a
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  Speaker 1: fervent wish to be released from this earthly form. James
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  Speaker 1: Howell as an example of this is reflections as he
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: languished imprisoned embody the manifestations of the glass delusion. The
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  Speaker 1: soul is a spark of immortality. She is a divine light,
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  Speaker 1: and the body is but a socket of clay that
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: holds it in. Some this light goes out with an
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: ill favored stench, but others have a save all to
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: preserve it from making any snuff at all. So this
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: idea of like dying a good death, choosing the way
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  Speaker 1: in which you die seems central to this class delusion
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: because now you're you know, if you know you're going
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to die right, and you have a spiritual belief that
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: something happens after you die, and you live in a
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: society that tells you more or less an if then scenario.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: You know, if you are a good person, if you
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: follow the rules of the church, then you will go
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: to a paradise. You know. It's it's an action of
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: retaining control. Like I'm not gonna I'm the king of France.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna accidentally shatter because I shook someone's hand.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not done yet. Build me a suit of I
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I see what you're saying, because at first I was
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: sort of like, it seems like you'd be very out
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: of control. But we've given those powers to guard against
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: a something that you could more or less control than.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Maybe that is a form of that. It's interesting and actually,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: as it turns out, the delusion carried on into the
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: into the present even um there are quite a few
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: cases of glass delusion up into the eighteen eighties. In
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the footnotes of a Servantes uh home called the Glass
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Graduate um talking about contemporary cases uh in an a
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Parisian asylum and doesn't have too much too much else
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: on that, but it does discuss it. Um. Do you
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: do you do you know of any other case has
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: been Yeah? Actually, uh so. Tchaikovsky Peter Eliot Tchaikovsky has
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  Speaker 1: some of his actions, some of his neurotic behavior, had
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: led people to think that he was suffering something similar
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: to the class delusion, at least in terms of his
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: perception of his fragility. He had this deep, set, dead
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: certain belief that if he did not oldest Chin while
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: he was conducting that his head would fall off, physically
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: just fall off. And you know, people debate over whether
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: this legend is exaggerated, but it seems to have a basis.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: In fact, he had said himself that he felt his
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: head would fall sideways unless he constantly fought to keep
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: it upright. So he's scared to conduct. And he said
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that he also had a tremendous insecurity about conducting because
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: he was aware that his condition might make him look weird,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: if that makes sense. This was an eighteen sixties In
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighties six, he said that he was haunted by
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: this idea of conducting, but it followed him for quite
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: a while in his life. In that servant's story I
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: was talking about earlier, the Glass Graduate is actually a
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: short story. Um. The circumstances were that the hero of
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the story eats a poisonous fruit, a quince, and it's
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: meant to be an aphrodisiac, but it actually triggers the delusion,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: which I would I would think was probably inspired by
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the glass Piano story, that of like ingesting something and
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: then having it, you know, having some kind of overpowering
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: effect on in your mind, you know, the actual composition
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: of your body. And here's another interesting thing. So we said,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Tchaikovsky is uh suffering from something similar to this, But
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: it's not specifically glass. The weird thing is we have
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: to ask ourselves, well, what happened? What happened to this
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: delusion that was once relatively well known such that authors
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: like Servants were writing about it. The general assumption for
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: a long time was that around the eighteen thirties, cases
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: of glass delusion disappear from the literature, from the medical records,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: and at first glance, it would be easy to assume
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: that society and culture had changed so extremely over time
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: such that people who are suffering from mental illness would
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: no longer manifest this particular delusion. Going back to the
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: earlier point about new technology, maybe it's a case where
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: someone believes they are made of a different new substance. Right,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: just for the sake of argument, carbon fiber. You know,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: we don't know if there's an actual case, but the
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: point is like a newer material might have launched the
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: same thing. However, a psychiatrist named Andy Lemaine at Leaden
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: in the Netherlands uncovered more cases and he felt that
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: he was finding an authentic case of genuine class delusion,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: and his research in this field at the Psychiatric Hospital
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: in Leyden, where he was serving as director led him
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: to discover lost cases were corded after that eighteen thirties
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: disappearance day. Uh he found a lecture in eighty three
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: from an Edinburgh mental hospital that cited the symptoms of
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: three female patients, and one of them was convinced that
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: her legs and her back, part of her back, all
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: of her back, we don't know, but her legs in
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: her back were made of glass. She had such a
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: fear of this, of this condition that just like Charles
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the sixth, she would not allow people to touch her.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Nurses could not get near her to change her clothes
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: or help her. And this, you know, this is an
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: interesting thing. I don't think we mentioned people who have
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the glass delusion. I think that what's interesting is that
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the glass they imagine comprising their body is much more
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: fragile than actual real world class because you could touch
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: a class were we hold glasses and drink out of them. Yeah,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a it's a it's more durable
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: than you give it credit for. I mean, most of
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the drinking glasses at my house or were Mason jars,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: and I dropped those all the time, and they over
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: time do develop little cracks, but they don't usually just
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: explode what if? What if these people were made of pyrex? Though?
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: You know what happens in pyrex, drops everywhere, explodes everywhere.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Pretty wild. But then this guy Lemaine, and we was,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know, we're being a little bit liberal with
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: this pronunciation. It's l A M E I J. And
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming this soft J. I couldn't find anyone speaking
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: it online, but we are doing our best. Um. He
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: later discovered a young man at a clinic in Letten,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the university clinic where he worked, who specifically said he
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: was made out of glass. He was so jazzed about
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to talk to only like modern day case
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of this that had been found for decades. Uh, and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: was incredibly excited. So he dropped everything he was doing,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: he says, and he you know, high tailed it and
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and made this happened. So he hung out with this
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: gentleman for sometime, hours and hours, and he did, in
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: fact confirm that the guy believe that he was made
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: of glass. There's a fabulous quote from this this patient.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: They're having a conversation and the patient points to a
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: window in the room where they're meeting, and he asked
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the professor, what could you see? What can you see?
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: This positively cinematic, but it really, as a man of
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: that should be a it should be a moment. So uh,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Lemaine says, well, he gives it the old college go,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: you know, Gold College. Try. He says, I see a street,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I see some cars, I see some more buildings, and
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I see people walking past. And then a moment of
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: silence filled the room. Ah, you missed the glass in
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: the window. You didn't see it, but it is there.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: That's me. I'm there and I'm not there, like the
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: glass in the window. Spooky. Yeah, yes, spooky, and you
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: know what. Not to pat ourselves on the back too much,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: but well done, right, well I think we said that. Thanks. Thanks,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I can't take all the credit. He didn't want to.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: He wanted to be very careful when he was speaking
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: with this patient. He didn't want to accidentally, let's say,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: go too far, too fast, and distort the conversation by
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: right out opening up with well maybe you have ideas
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: of fragility and transparency and they're manifesting in this way,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: you know. And this led to the glass in the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: window conversation, which again is I can see it, you know,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: I can see that film. So Lemaine continued his conversation
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and ultimately he he came to the belief that, based
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: on some of the life events the patient told him about,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: including a recent accident, he believed that the class delusion
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: was in a way and a tempt to regain privacy.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: What's interesting about this patient is that he felt that
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: he could switch it on and off, so he wasn't
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: stuck forever like glass That's cool. He felt like he
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: could become it. So that that kind of goes back
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: to what you're saying earlier about how you know, in
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: the early cases of glass illusion, it almost manifested itself
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: as in some as some strange form of control, kind
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: of like to be able to control your circumstances um
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: or control the manner of your own death or something
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: like that. I think that's really interesting, and maybe then
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: this means in some ways, this this feeling is something
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: that comes from the extreme end of the social anxiety scale,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: because we've all had social anxiety at some point, right like,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm assuming I don't want to put you on
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the spot again based on the top of our show,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: but having it right now, buddy, you're having it right now,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be okay now, of course, of course, you know,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: but you got you gotta kind of like you play
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: little little tricks with yourself if you have it to
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: kind of like, um, get rid of it. And I
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: don't know, like this is this seems like a very
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: extreme case, but I could certainly see it as being
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: some sort of deep seated, you know device. And to
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: take a phrase from the Uh Simpsons, one of the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite words they use, we can in
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: big end this phenomenon because you see the glass delusion
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: feels very specific. And I love the point you made
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: about technology because it was new at the time. And
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: so now the next question is are there other things
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: that function in the same way? Is there another example
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: of a new material? Right? I think it used carbon
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: fiber just because spoiler alert, I knew that probably wasn't true. Yeah,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: but why not like like cotton candy or something, you know,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: like where does where? Where does it end? Yeah? In
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, when cement became a popular building material,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: there were people who began to have this belief that
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: they were made of cement. And I wonder if it's
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the same thing as uh, you know, people who believe
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: that their minds are being hacked in the information age.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: And that's a good point, dude, that's a I mean,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: it's a scary point because again we have to be
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: conscious and aware of the fact that just because somebody
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: was born in a different point in time doesn't mean
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: they were in any way less intelligent. You are right,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I got the same equipment for sure. And there's just
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: different contexts and different historical periods that lead people to,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: you know, experience things different and have different anxieties that
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: are tied to their surroundings. And I love the connection
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: with technology and with you know, being hacked or you
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: know being like surveillance, the idea of like being surveilled
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: all the time, with you know, our smartphones and our
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: computers listening to us and such. So, I don't know,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: what do you guys think what would be a modern
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: day glass delusion? Can you guys think of any equivalence?
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: We would love to hear it. And she email us
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I'm made of gack. Yeah, remember gack. I was more
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of a floam guy, your flow. Yeah, like floam And
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: my my kid is really into like kinetic sand and
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. But yeah, what would be a modern
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: equivalent with what do you think about this idea of
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: materials magical seeming materials? Is there even anything that could
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: uh infect our minds or fascinate us in such a
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: way that it could cause a delusion of that magnitude?
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Let us know. Send us an email ridiculous at how
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And we do want to end
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: on a very important note. Although we were talking about
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: a fascinating phenomenon in the past, we are not in
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: any way ridiculing or casting expersion on people who UH
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: find themselves struggling with mental illness to date, if you
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: have concerns about yourself or loved when we are lucky
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: enough to live in a day and age where there
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: are numerous free resources available, and please make use of them.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And I don't want us to end on a down note.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: It's just important to know that you're not alone. And
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: I also want to know gack or floam. I hope
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: this is not the issue that finally divides a surremperable
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: legal flak. Perhaps flak can you combine the tune that's
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: way better than gome? What's gome? I don't even want
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: to know. I don't want to know either, but if
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: you feel like you have a good pitch for what
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: we should identify as go, you can let us know
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: what the same email address. You can also find us
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. As always, we're still vision
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: boarding away for our future Pinterest page, and if you
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: feel like it, um bill compelled to do so, throw
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: us a review on iTunes. It helps us kind of
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: get the show up there and have more people find
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: out about it. So um unless unless you'm still we
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: can stand us, in which case just keep it to yourself.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: But we are glad that you're listening to us just
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: the same, and we hope that you'll join us for
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: the next episode of Ridiculous History. Goodbye everyone. For more
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio at the i heart Radio app,
• 29:01
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