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Mini: Houska Castle · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Why we do what we do Many I'm
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: your host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We are
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and non human animals do, and we also talk about
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: spooky things during the month of October because it's a
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: month of spooky things. This is our last mini about
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: spooky things for twenty twenty five's Halloween, spooky month of October.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: So we are well, we want to do our thing there,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: which is we're going to talk about the origin of
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, Mike Johnson were talking about where
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: they all come from, which is Hell.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: If you didn't know that they come from Hell?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Correct, Yes, sorry, that's what I was looking to, specifically
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: a hole to Hell that is located in the Czech
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Republic in a castle called Castle who'scap But we'll get
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: to all of that or Whoska Castle. We'll get to
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: all of that. We as I said, we're psychology podcast.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: We talk about spooky things in October. If you like
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: we here today, we'd like to support us. You can
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: join us on Patreon, pickups some merch, leave us a
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: rating and review, like subscribe, Tell a friend. I'll talk
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: about those things at the end of this discussion. But
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: minis are these short episodes that we release on Monday's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: our Monday minis nice fifteen minute dive into a thing
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: or less, sometimes more, but usually around that. And as
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I said, we're talking about scary things for October, and
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: scary things include people who do evil things. So let's
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: talk about this castle.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'd hearn about this castle just because I'd
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: like to listen to paranormal and like, you know, strange,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: strange things, and yeah, this one just really grabbed me
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: because it's got like a fun it's got fun.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Lore, so it is interesting. Yeah.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: So Whoska Castle is a castle in blach or maybe Blatchkey,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: which is in My best friend lives in the Czech
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Republic and she's probably gonna give me a lot of
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: flack for this. So this is based in the Czech Republic.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: It's about twenty nine miles from Prague. And according to
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: my best friend, as a general rule, castles are like
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: the McDonald's of Europe. They're just everywhere, just kind of
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: like you can see them all the time. You can
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: get happy meals in some of them. There's some that
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: have like Starbucks built into them, which is like such
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: an overtly gross thing. Wow, But they're everywhere, and some
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: are better than others. And she said specifically Castle Who's
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: go Huska Castle was one of the most difficult ones
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: to get to, and that's actually gonna be really important later.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: It was like very difficult to get to and kind
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: of unassuming, which is also kind of leads to its
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: lore and like a little bit of its scariness.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: And maybe a little bit difficult to get out of
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: as well. Yeah. Yeah, So, because castles are so abundant,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you would think that this castle would not really stand
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: out among the many castles, and I think if you
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: saw it, it probably wouldn't. Aside from being one of
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the oldest, most well preserved castles in Europe, it was
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: built during the Autakurs, during Otgar, the second of Bohemia's reign,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: which was twelve fifty three through twelve seventy eight. It
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: comes with one of the spookiest legends attached to it,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: so though visually it might not look like anything different,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: knowing the lore around it does make it quite unique
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  Speaker 1: among really castles anywhere, let alone here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, most castles are built and this is going
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: to be one of the important features that we talk about.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Most castles are built with their armaments facing outward. They're
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: facing towards threats that are coming in. They're used for
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: defenses to fight against those folks, and that's what castles
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: are generally built for. They're built to defend. They're built
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: to defend a certain amount of people. They're built for security.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: They're built to be like strongholds. And this is what
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: makes Huska Castle a little bit different. The defenses for
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: this castle aren't pointed out towards the outside towards intruders
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: to prevent people from getting in. The majority of the
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: armaments are pointed inward. They're pointed towards the center of
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: the castle.
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  Speaker 1: Oh why would it be? Oh my? All right, So
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: here's where we start to dig into the really interesting
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: lore here. The castle was built atop a large, seemingly
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: bottomless hole. The chapel of the castle was built over
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  Speaker 1: this hole that was aptly described as the gateway to Hell,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: and that's why we know that's where those people come from.
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  Speaker 1: The castle has been linked to some occult activity already,
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  Speaker 1: but it's the gateway to Hell that gets everyone riled
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: up and excited. About it and curious and maybe a
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: little bit mystical feeling.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a story, and this is going to be
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: kind of like, you know, this is really a mini
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: of stories. There's a story where a prisoner, to kind
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: of help get to kind of shave off time from
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: their sentence, had volunteered to be lowered into the hole
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: to try to see the bottom of the hole. And
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: this person lowered in and then they were pulled back up,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: and wh When they were pulled back up, their hair
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: had gone from like a dark brown to a bread
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  Speaker 2: like just like a white, like completely white. They weren't speaking,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: and then three days later they died. So everybody's like, well,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: obviously this is a hole to hell because the person
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: never described what they saw or anything like that, so
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: it's got to be like.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: That they were speechless, speechless.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: So the thing is is is for this castle, because
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: of its strangest, rumors began to swirl that the gateway
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  Speaker 2: to hell. This hole that was bottomless in the middle
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: of the thing was a source of animal hybrids like
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: chimera that people would see kind of wandering around the
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: castle at night or at like sunset, they would roam
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: the countryside things like lions with bat wings and demon
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  Speaker 2: bats that would fly around the castle, a frog human creature,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: this bullfrog human Alex Jones esque creature that came out,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: a headless horse or headless horses that would come out
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  Speaker 2: of there. All these creatures that were reported to have
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: escaped the hole, and they were all kind of like
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: these weird, strange things that shouldn't exist as far as
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: like what we understood of animals at the time.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: There's kind of a unique implication of this that we're
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: not planning on taking on in this discussion because this
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: is a mini but this then refers. This links up
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: with the religious traditions that see hell as a physical
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: place existing with us just below our feet. In this
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: year's suite of Halloween spooky themed episodes, we did in
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: a discussion about the variants of Hell, and there are
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: some of those religious traditions or sort of oral traditions
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: that see Hell is like it's real, it's right there,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Like if you dig down far enough you will get there. Yeah,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: and you will see it. So it's here with us.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: It exists at the same time with us, Like while
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: we're up here having our tea, people are down below us.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Suffering an eternity of things. But all right, so because
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: of course, because this castle is in Europe, the Nazis
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: found a unique interest in this castle. They love evil,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: this castle as a whole to evil. They're like the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: all clicks with us, Sure, Republicans are like streaming out
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: of there and drove so like clearly there's something really
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: evil there that we need to like get in an
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: alliance with anyway. And they also had these like really
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: occult leanings. They wanted to capture spooky, paranormal, occultish things
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: as part of their regime. And there was I mean,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: this is real, Like Nazis really have these mystical leanings
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: like we're actually going to be able to lean on
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: these weapons of hell and be able to do that.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: So they created more new myths than Nazis were harnessing
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the power of Hell to their advantage, which makes sense
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: because they were Nazis who that's the kind of thing
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: that they would do. They might also play ads. Yeah,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: out of the hell whole came crawling the the bloated
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: corpse of advertisements, and that made their way into podcasts.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like you know, you see you see
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: like you know, Donald Trump pop out of this whole,
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: you see, like somebody who went to school to get
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: like an advertising degree pop up out.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Of the whole, Like is like social media ceo.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: There's Mark Zuckerberg. Wild It's it's crazy you crawled out
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: this whole. Yeah, I do think it's fun. Like I
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: say fun because I think this is just one of
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: the more interesting and maybe this is like my age,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Like there's a there's a great stand up that talks
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: about like how as you get older, like you just
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: get really interested in World War two, and this is
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: like one of those weird things that are like interesting
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: about World War two. Was this kind of like subset
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: of like Nazi research that was all about the occult
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: and all about like supernatural things, and like they were
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: specifically looking for things like the Holy Grail and the
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Arc of the Covenant. They were looking for artifacts, yeah,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: that were supposedly supernatural. So like this was it made
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: sense they found this place and tried to harness it
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: for like their power.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: All right, But he always asked the question, but why
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: we want to understand what's going on here? So this
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: is the part that makes the action this actually kind
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: of strange here based on what we understand of castles,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: war and lore. This castle was not built on any
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: kind of strategic location, as many castles were as far
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: from trade routes, there's no nearby water sources. It's kind
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: of a weird anomaly that it exists in the place
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: that it exists at all.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, there's no strategic advantage for it being there. Also,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: like the way it's designed doesn't really make sense for
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: the way that castles are generally designed. The weapons are
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: pointed inward. The thickest walls are built up surrounding the
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: hole inside the castle for the cathedral, not on the
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: outside to prevent intruders. So the most sturdy walls are
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: built directly around the gateway to Hell.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah now, of course, why again, why this thing happens?
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: People love good stories. A rumor can really pass around
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: quite quickly. If it already exists alongside a narrative that
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: they've accept and adopted, then it just helps add to
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the elaborate construct worldview that they have embraced. Sure, and
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: a single stare story that's shared among an already superstitious
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: group of people can create this It just further fuels
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: that mysticism and the legend and it becomes easy to
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: accept difficult to refute.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so so you know, as far as this
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: castle goes, is it strange? Yeah, it's weird. But now
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: you pair this with active imaginations, and you've got a
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: recipe for one of the spookiest places on Earth. What's
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: more likely to have happened? And what more likely what
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: this place was? It was established as either a residence,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: an administrative building, or a political prison when it was
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: originally built, right, it was something that some people described
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: it being like an outpost almost to be able to
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: support and hold, like just so that they get the
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: kings could manage their lands, and so it was a
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: connective place between lands, but they still don't really know
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: what those lands were or any of those connections. And
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: based on what we know, prison might actually make the
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: most sense, even a temporary prison, if you've got people
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: inside the walls and the armament's pointed inside versus outside.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Like it's a location that's hard to get to, it's isolated,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: it's remote. So the remoteness of the location and how
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: the weapons were aimed make it seem like it's probably
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: a good place to hold people just in case. But
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: that doesn't explain the bullfrog man. So it's still a mystery.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's like I think if you were to
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: look if someone were, for whatever reasons, to find like
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: remnants of casts of like prisons far in the future
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: and be like, it seems like this is really designed
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: to keep people in more than it is to keep
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: people out, and be like, Yep, that is exactly what
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: it was designed for. And honestly, like the tradition of
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: throwing people into holes as a part of their punishment,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: that is a thing that people did. Yeah, if they
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: could find a hole they could throw people into, then
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: building a prison around that kind of probably felt like
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: a good idea at the time. Yeah, and it's very possible.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So I think if we take the plausible, reasonable explanations
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: of these Obviously some of the stories they came out
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: of here a purely legend hearsay it best and probably
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: fanciful things dreamed up by people who just wanted to
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: tell stories most of the time. But yeah, I imagine
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: that if you went down there, you probably would find
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: human remains and they'd probably be pretty gross. Yeah, and
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: you might even find a lot of them, which might
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: be particularly distressing. But yeah, that's that's the sort of
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: lore and I think the parsimonious understanding of this that
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: we might bring.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, So going back to my best friend who
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: lives there and went there, she said that it was
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: one of the most boring castles she had ever been to,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: So like, even though it's got all the spooky lore,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: she's like, it was one of the worst ones I've
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: been to. Even though it's well preserved, it's just kind
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: of like a big block and the hole is not
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: even that interesting, and the basement that's supposed to be
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: the most haunted is only feels like it's only kind
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: of haunted. So like she's like, it's there. She basically said,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: they're better castles to go to.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and you know the thing is, like prisons
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: are boring, They are austere. Yeah, they are not ornate.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: They are just kind of blocks that are meant to
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: hold people in place. And if you go to a
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: castle that was designed to host balls and hold royalty
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and be central hubs for trade, then like those are
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: going to be ornate in deck created in large and
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: very fancy, and so like, it kind of makes sense
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: that a prison is going to be sort of a drab, uneventful,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: not particularly visually striking place. So again, I think prisons
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: makes the most sense here and things in terms of
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: thinking about it, and we can ascribe all kinds of
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: fancy ideas to it, and that's really fun and we
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: enjoyed that from a storytelling perspective. But you know, we
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: love to We love to on this show, I think,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: discuss and have fun with stories, and then we also
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: love to crush myths with science and facts and logical reasoning.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, absolutely, so we did that thing. So
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I hope that you enjoyed it, and if you did,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: you can tell us that by emailing us. You can
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: also tell us your thoughts on who'sca Castle or any
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: other castles that have gateways to Hell or any other
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: people who probably crawled out from there in the current administration. Men,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: you can do that by reaching out to us. You
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: can email us directly infowwdwwdpodcast dot com. Oh, rfg Frogman there,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: we just figured it out. R FK Jr. Is the
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: frog Man.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: He's the Frogman.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, we just did it. I mean possibly
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: it was like a split like we had RFK Junior
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: and Alex Jones came out anyway, I just had that
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: opipony you moilst directly infowwdwwdpodcast dot com. You can also
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  Speaker 1: of people writing and fact checking from Shane and myself.
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• 14:57
  Speaker 1: notes for this one and for recording with me today.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Hey, thank you. It was a lot of fun.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Our social media coordinators Emma Wilson, and our audio engineer
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: who makes this sound like a podcast and is just
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the most wonderful person is justin?
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: That's true? He is.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Is there anything that I'm missing here that you'd like
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to add before we wrap up this discussion today.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you get a chance to go visit castles,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: go do that because that's kind.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Of fun, very cool. All right. I think that's what
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: we have to say. I probably miss something, maybe not,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but thank you for listening to this
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: mini and this is the end of our minis for
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Spooky Month. I think that's it. So this is Abraham,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: this is Shane. We're out.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Bye.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to Why We Do what We Do.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: going to WWD WWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: and we hope you have an awesome day.