Latest / Ridiculous History / Brooms and Witchcraft, Part 1: A Killer in the Rye?

Transcript

Brooms and Witchcraft, Part 1: A Killer in the Rye? · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you so
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. I'm Ben. The quick disclaimer at
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the top before you our opening thing. Uh, this episode
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: there's a little racy, isn't it. No? Yeah, not racist,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: mind you slaceous? Perhaps not for the Littles. You ever
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: heard kids referred to as the Littles? I think that's
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: really cute. I have. I thought there was a children's
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: book called the Little but there was. Are they like
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the Borrowers? Because I know they're sort of like small rodent. No,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: it don't look like with the size of like mice
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and they live in the walls. That might be the Borrowers.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: The Littles is very similar to that, possibly a rip
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: off of the intellectual property. It's a series of children's novels. Uh,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and I'm surely they're little. Well anyway, someone tell us
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: about that later. This is a very different episode from
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: The Littles. Uh. This is this does have some stuff
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: that uh may not be the best for the youngest
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: tykes and tots in the crowd, but we think it's
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: an amazing interesting story and it is very much related
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: to our self imposed Halloween theme and uh, that's our
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: super producer, Casey Pegram Casey. Do we tell you what
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: this one is about or if you just heard us
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: throw the headline around? Yeah, I have no idea what
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: this is about, and I'm very, very interested to see
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: what deliciousness so waits. Yeah, I'm I'm excited to get
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: into it. You're still, though, Ben, if I'm not, even
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: during Halloween, even during these spooky times, you remain Ben.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I'm often called that. Yeah, and you're you're You're still
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: You're still know maybe we should, maybe we should spice
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: up some of our Zoom Recordings costumes one day, I've
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: got Oh, that's a great idea. Or maybe just trade
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: names or give each other spooky nicknames. I like that,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: like the Simpsons, right, they just the guest Trioso Horrors
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: James hell Bro love that. I would want something spookier
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: than my old go to alias, which is Max Powers
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Comma astronaut with a secret us. It's a good one.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: It's mysterious. I don't really understand it. I want to
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: know what your secret is. What is this secret? I
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: don't know. I didn't get that far with the backstory
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I just liked it. There can I sing a little tune.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Let's just sort of sets the tone for today's episode.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: All right, or you really got me? Now you really okay,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: get it? Or got or you really got this's just
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: never okay. Actually I was gonna take it further, but
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: that's as far as I got. But yeah, today's episode
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: is about something called er got or ergottis um, yes,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: a for er gotten part of uh of intense folklore speculation. Uh.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: So we're all familiar in the West with the concept
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of the quintessential, which you know, you've got the peaked hat,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: You've usually got some like black clothing, and you've got
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: like familiars, you've got a cauldron slathered in liquefied baby
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: potentially possibly yes, but one of the main things people
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: remember when they think of the stereotypical, which is, uh,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: someone cackling and riding a broomstick into the night. Uh.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: This is uh, this is our episode where we look
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: at some pretty fascinating speculation about how this image came
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: to be and and maybe to start, we go to
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: bread like a Vintage News had a great article on this.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: There was a real, a real entry point for us
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: in Europe during the Middle Ages and through the Renaissance,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: bread was made from something called rye, and Uh, depending
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: on the conditions that the rye goes through, it can
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: be a host for something. You know, you just mentioned
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: a particular type of fungus called ergot that grows on
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: rye when the weather is damp. That's right. You can
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: also make whiskey out of rye, which is which would
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm gonna have tocase a lot
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: of calories and bread, so I like fre to get
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: my I like to drink my calories. Um, you know
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: what that sounds like. I'm a real lush but I just,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I want to get a little more bang
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: from my buck. I can go with like a lettuce
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: wrap or something instead of a big old rye bread sandwich.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: But it is delicious stuff. And that is the stuff
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: from whence it comes And you're absolutely right, ben Uh.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: It can develop a very specific fungus that has hallucinogenic
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: P parties M very similar to what you would experience
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: with LSD. It actually has one of the components of
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: LSD in this fungus that's known as ergot. Yeah, LSD itself.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: It can be derivative of ergot. So here's the thing.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Here's why you don't see the bad kids and all
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: those uh school p s a s selling ergot. Ergot
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: is not like a fun thing to take the way
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: that the bad kids of p s A. Say marijuana
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: is or something. When you consume ergot orally, you can
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: get hallucinations, of course, but you can also get some
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: really nasty side effects. Your stomach will turn, you'll be
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: vomiting forcibly, you'll get rashes. It's just not a good
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: look and it's not a good time, you know how.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: My favorite after school special was the one where the
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: kid just eight like all the nutmeg and an effort
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: to try to trip on nutmeg, and then you just
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: ended up like choking the death on nutmeg powder. Exactly. No,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I wish they had made that. I want to make
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: that as a sketch. That'd be funny. But no, you're
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: absolutely right, Ben. It was kind of one of those
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: situations where it's like all about the dose, and like
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: you said, it high doses, it could absolutely be fatal,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: but if you took just the right amount, you could
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: experience this more psychotropic effects. And this was actually, you know,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: in the same way. We always talk about who's the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: first person that figured out you could trip on mushrooms
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: or even the mushrooms tasted good in a stew, or
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: like that ate an oyster or something, or how to
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: make heroin. That's crazy, and it is a weird one, man,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: It is a weird way. You got these beautiful flowers
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and then you feel like if you figure out how
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to squeeze this juice from him, cut it and you
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: wait and then you dry it. And not that we
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: know how to do this, but it's true. It takes
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of trial and error someone in vinces spoon,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of refinement to the process. But it all
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: starts with someone realizing that the thing can do a thing,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and then we got to figure out how the best
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: way to extract that good thing from that thing is.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I know that was a lot, but it's true.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: We had these essentially like bootleg pharmacists or these kind
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: of like naturalists that would figure out how to extract
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: these effects from this ergot. Uh. They actually figured out
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: how to make um kind of a solution or or
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: a bomb um. They discovered that the key was letting
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the ergot absorb into your skin on the best parts
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: of the body to you know, absorb things through would
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: be sweat glands and your armpits. Uh. And according to
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: this uh fantastic alice obscure article, your mucus membranes um
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: or your nether regions um. You ever accidentally put icy
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: hot on your butt. It's not a good no, but
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: it's it's a it's an because the we when we
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: think of mucus membranes, we think all of the mouth generally, right,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: and and the nasal passages. But mucus membranes are also
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: in your Australia. It's just part of the basic human
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: design we all come without as a factory sett Are
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: you familiar with the term boofing ben? I am, yeah,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: because of Justice Kavanaugh. So that's right, because he accidentally
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: said it and then he said, oh, that was just
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: a joker. He was referred to drinking beer. But it is,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: it's right. The the what's the word? The tissue I
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: guess in the anus is very porous in the same
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: way and very absorptive. So people actually can take drugs
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: by sticking them up there Australia or drink beer through
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: their Australia, which also figured into an episode we did
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: somewhere on the lines about butt chugging and I think
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: we uh did a Miller Light ad and that's where
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: you came up with the brilliant slogan Miller Light good
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: and have to drink with your mouth to beer so
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: good you can drink it with your mouth, which not
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: just good enough so good a capital days. That was
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: exactly I was that the show that was this show,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: wasn't it? It was a a show that the three
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: of us do a ton of shows, and we we
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: rarely talk about them. Maybe we should talk about the
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: more I know when there's don't want you to know. Oh,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: but one quick, uh strange fact. But we're on the subject. Butts,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: here's another butt fact. That mucus membrane stuff we talked about.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: That's why you can have burning sensations or painful sensations
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: on the other side of eating a lot of spicy food. Ah,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: that does make sense. And it's also wife a little
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: that I see hot migrates a little too far down
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: into Australia. That can be a very unpleasant, uh sensation. Indeed, Okay,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I'm fine, I'm fine, Thank you. For asking. But no,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: this this is the thing that that they really again
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: through trial and error, realizing we're the best places to
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: absorb this psychedelic or goot bomb um, that was certainly
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: added to the list, and these uh poultices, let's say,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: started being labeled as witches bruise. There's one thing that
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: we have to unpack here for anybody who's a fan
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: of the fantastic horror film The Witch, The Witch, however
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: you want to pronounce it. Uh, this is something that's
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: alluded to in the film when the when the crops
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: go bad. Uh, it's not quite accurate because I think
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: it's corn that goes bad, so it would be something
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: different from ergot there. But but you're right, Uh, these
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: witches bruise, these ergot infused salves, poultices or bombs. They
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: they had to be delivered with maximum effectiveness. Again, you
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: couldn't ingest them orally. It would make you. It will
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: probably make you sick, you might convulse. It was just unpleasant.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So you had to find a way to hopefully with
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the least amount of mess, get the drugs into your system.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And that's why a lot of people think the broom
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: came into play, which is a little bit of foreshadow.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, so like they would use the broom,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: just put the drugs in their butts. That's I mean,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: that's that's the lead. Yeah, we don't want to sweep
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: it under the cauldron, but that's that's where we're at.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: We know that this is for Anny fans of this
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: kind of folklore, very weird to describe people's fans of this,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: but Frenny fans of like the Salem Witch Trials. Your
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: your spider sense should have gone off when we talked
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: about ergot poisoning, because it turns out that is one
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: of the proposed explanations for the panic, the mass hysteria
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: it's called that broke out during the Salem Witch Trials.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: That's absolutely right, and um, again, excellent reference to one
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: of my favorite Halloween movies movies period, The Witch. Um,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: it's just a quick shot of these kind of uh
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: corrupted crops, but I think it's almost meant to be
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: more symbolic than it is, Like, oh, they were definitely
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: tripping from ergot poisoning because in that movie you do
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: see the Witch, which is the Witch is really the
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Witch is seen beyond just a manifestation of these you know,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: slowly being driven insane characters. You you exist with the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Witch separate from all of them. So it's I mean, casey,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: I wonder if do you think that that's the case
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: or it is there room for interpretation that there might
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: have been some hallucination involved. I mean there there could
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: still be hallucination, but I think the Witch is definitely
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: established as real because, like you said, you have those
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: scenes where it is just the witch or the witch
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and the baby or um when she's walking through the woods.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I think there's also like the shot of the witch
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: kind of in a younger form that kind of you know,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: invites the boy into the house and all that. So yeah, yeah,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: there's no observer that could be stating. So I think
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: it skips the Hawthorn esque did this really happen nature
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: of stuff like the scarlet letter, that that which is real?
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: She got the baby. I love that though, that that
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: actually I really appreciated that about it. But I also
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: appreciated the reference and just the sort of nod to
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about, because you're right, the Salem witch
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Trials were an event that that we were all pretty
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: familiar with. I think if not through history through the
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: play The Crucible and which I think a lot of
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: us had to read in high school or even middle
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: school possibly. Um. But it you know, it was an
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: event that took place in Salem where several young women
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: accused Tituba the I believe she was from the Bahamas
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: or somewhere some island region or like somewhere we're were
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: like voodoo was a thing, and they accused her of
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: witchcraft and it created this hysteria, and a lot of
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: it was kind of written up as you know, these
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: girls kind of looking for attention, some of the same
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: things we talked about. So I don't want you to
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: know about possession stories. They're about kind of like ghost
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: stories with younger children. Um. But one of the theories
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: of the hysteria came from the fact that it spread
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: came from a collective potential ergot um infestation or rather,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: uh poisoning or got poisoning, because it'll, you know, as
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: a certain doses, it'll just kind of make you like
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: lose all sense of objectivity. Yeah, and you know, we
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: have to be very cognizant of the fact that these
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: people were isolated, they were already living a very difficult
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: and at times terrified life in in this part of
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the world, in in Salem, and essentially what happened is
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: they did have a village doctor's name was William Griggs,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: and he was called to check on two kids, Betty
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Paris and Abigail Williams, when they were exhibiting strange behavior
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and convulsing and being learned medical man of his day,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: William Griggs took one look at him and said, they've
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: been bewitched. That was his official diagnosis. You could get
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: away with saying stuff like that as a doctor in
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the late sixteen hundreds. And then as you said, no,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: other townspeople began showing similar symptoms. And that's when that's
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: when the pointer fingers started fly and people were accused,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like uh, Instead of like
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: you're out of order, you're out of order, this courts
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: out of order, they were like, you're bewitched. You're bewitched.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: This town is bewitched, and uh, I don't know. It
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: was that hilarious, were vaguely emotional. But anyway, fast forward.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: By the time the trials were over just a year later,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: sixte uh nineteen people have been executed by hanging. One
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: person got crushed by stones. Yeah, and she's Caribbean, by
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: the way, she was Caribbean suspected to be from Barbados, Right,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: that's exactly right. Yes, who was the first woman they
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: accused of this? And then of course it it blew
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: up and ballooned out of control. And and another feature
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: of ergot poisoning is convulsive fits and that also could
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: have attributed to some of the behavior that led folks
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to believe that the young girls had been quote unquote
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: bewitched as well. Oh and uh, I want to finish
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: mentioning the fatalities. Four people died in prison before they
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: were able to be executed. So that's uh twenty four
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: people in all. All of those who died accused of
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: being witches. And even now we're still asking exactly what happened.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: There numerous theories on this, but the one we want
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: to talk about comes from one doctor Linda Comporeal in
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: nine seventy six. She said that maybe all these townspeople
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: suffered these brief and intense bouts of illness, uh, not
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: because of cult powers, but because of ergotism, which is
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: contracted by consuming you know, dirty rye, dirty rye so well,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: it was a little backstory on on corporeal corporeal that's
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: an interesting last Day's c A P O R A
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: E L capparel. That's what I'm gonna go with. Uh.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: She really when she was in college he started digging
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: into this. It was something that fascinated her for a
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: long time in the early seventies. She wasn't really aware
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: of of this potential connection at all, and she just
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: kind of stumbled upon it. She is now currently a
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: behavioral psychologist at New York's Renstler Polytechnic Institute. But she
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: started to see that some of these reports of these
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: symptoms by the folks who were accusing everyone and their
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: sister's cousins, brother um. It typically involved eight young women
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and uh seemed to have similarities to the hallucinogenic effects
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: of drugs like LSD or hallucinogenic mushrooms or something like
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: peyote and LSD surprise, surprise, is a derivative of this ergot,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that fungus that we talked about that affects Rye. And
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: she actually was able to kind of cross reference it
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: with another very similar affliction in a small French town
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: called pont Saint esprit uh in nineteen fifty one. Yeah,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the Pulse sun spree mass poisoning occurred in August of
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: that year. More than two d fifty people were somehow involved,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: h including fifty people who were interned in asylums as
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: a result, and seven fatalities. So seven out of two
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: d fifty it's still a tragedy, but you know, thankfully
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the majority of people survived. Originally, this is so interesting.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Originally they thought it was a case of what they
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: called cursed bread, and years later, almost a century later,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: now experts agree that it was probably ergot poisoning. You'll
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: see some other theories like maybe it was mercury or
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: something like that. But if we know what ergo autism does,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: and we know how it presents, then we can build
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a really good case. That's what happened in nineteen fifty one,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and that's what leads Dr capa Reality to say that
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: ergot would be a likely culprit for the events in
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Salem in sixteen nine two. Do we want to talk
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: a little bit about the science of the fungus. I
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: think we should. It's a little confusing because this whole
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: idea of ergot is that the thing is that the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: fungus ergo autism, is that just like the things that
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: come from ingesting the fungus. It's a little the con
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: turns a little weird, but we can boil it down
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: to the fungus. It's called something different. It's called clavis
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: steps perperia, and that specifically affects eat and rye and
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: other grasses that we would consider in that grain portion
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: of the food pyramid um and when it's first effected
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the flower in how you know these are all grasses,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I mean that stuff. I've actually never really thought of
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: it that way, but it's totally true. Grain is a
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: sprout at the end of a stalk um. So that's
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: what happens to flowers at the top, and it will,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: when infected, shoot out this kind of yellow mucous see
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: stuff that's called honey dew. Honey do I just think
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that's a gross pari wordy honey, it's very You're right,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: it does sound very wanton and uh and depraved. I
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: don't know why, but there it is. Yeah, And that
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: honey view contains these fungal spores um that shoot out
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: of the air can become airborne. It spreads the disease Uh,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: so you don't even have to eat the stuff technically,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: although that that would be a truer way to get
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: a heroic dose. As a dr hunter, S. Thompson would say, Yeah,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: I think about it like viral load exactly. Yeah, that's
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: exactly right. Yep, go right to the source, you're gonna
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: get a much heavier load. And then the fungus actually
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: invades these kernels of grain that are developing and takes
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: them over and starts to kind of set up shop
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: with this network of these uh referred to in this
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: article that we have from PBS as filaments um, and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: they start to affect the way the grain actually looks.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: They turn it into something called scyrotia, which sounds gross,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: and it has a purple ish kind of black coloring,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: and it would be easy and it doesn't look rotten
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: per se. It's just a little oddly colored and so
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: you can easily mistake it for uh, just discolored grains
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: of rye. It doesn't mean it's bad or it looks
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: gross or anything, right, right, Yeah, we've all we've all
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: eaten some some produce. It's a little bit suss, as
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the kids say these days. So so let's picture picture
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: p O V diving deep into one of these discolored grains. Now,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: as you zoom in, what you're gonna see are a
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: couple of things. You're gonna see some regular rye chemicals, right,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the things that make up what you would eat when
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: you eat rye. But then you're also going to see
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: some or got alkaloids, including l s D. And I
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: want to take a second. I don't know if anyone
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: can help me find this. One of my favorite after
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: school p s a S was like this weird journey
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: where this kid meets these physical embodiments of different drugs.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: This kid meets heroin, and Heroin's like yeah, they meet cocaine,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and it's I gotta find it. What is LSD? Like
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: real weird? I don't remember. That's the thing, man, Like,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't show that to eight year olds. I was
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: freaking out, you know, I was just like waiting for
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: coffee to show up. I know we've talked about this,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: but you also shouldn't show eight year old giant suitcase
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: full of every drug as a cautionary tale, because then
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: you're just like, oh, I want to try that one
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and that one and that one looks like candy and
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: get my hands on some ludes, you know. Yeah. McGruff
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the crime dog was the one who introduced my middle
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: school cohort to all this with the sheriff, who's like, well,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: this is co Kai Lios, there's crack Cookai. Here's how
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: they are taken and you ingested by criminals. Now go
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: ahead and pass that around, Benjamin, pass that around. That's
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the now that's called rock. Alternately, you can't put it
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: on the end of a broomstick and stick it up
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: your butt if you wish. And then someone's like, that's
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the McGruff is saying that, and they're like, dude, chill, yeah, seriously,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: you have no chill McGuff the old boy. But yes, yes,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: So you see the alkaloids, you see the LSD and
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: then um. These alkaloids can also make ergotamine, which is
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: a legit legal thing that's now used to treat migraine headaches.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: When you have this stuff in your human system, it
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: affects your central nervous system and causes the contraction of
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: your smooth muscle. That's the stuff that makes up the
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: walls of your veins and your arteries and also your
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: internal organs. So it can cause painful stuff. But I
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: love what you have pointed out about the the decision
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: people made to eat this right. They didn't know what
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: we know about chemistry now, so they saw these darker
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: shoots on on right, and they said, well, you know,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: maybe it's just been out in the sun and for
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: a while. You know, as a matter of fact, we
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: should probably eat it now before it goes all the
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: way back. That's exactly right. I mean, I'm certainly like
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you said, sus as like as the word, I've been
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: really trying to be good about using every bit of
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: produce I've I have been bad about in the past,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: and I tried to turn over a new leaf. So
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: even if a piece is partially not looking great, I
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: might cut that part off or or you know, or
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: if I'm making a stew, I'll just roll the dice
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: because you're not gonna know if you cut it small
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: enough and then you cook it. And I'm not saying
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I would eat something that's completely rotting and disgusting, but
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: it might be a little crankily looking or a little
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: off color. And I think that's sort of what's going
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: on here. It's like these folks couldn't afford to just
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: forego their meal because it looked a little funny, right,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: especially when you consider you know, uh in earlier times,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: starvation was a very real and often ever present threat.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Uh So who were we to throw away the ugly food?
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? This goes into something called
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the cooler name for gutisum Saint Anthony's Fire. How amazing
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: is that? Uh? Once you, once you ate this dirty rot,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: which is also, by the way, if you're listening, whiskey makers,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: that is a great name for a brand of liquor.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Uh So, you know, you eat this dirty rye, you
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: get exactly what we described convulsions, muscle spasms, delusions more
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: than the average delusions that people have every day. I
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: feel like stuffs crawling under your skin. And the worst one,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the one that always grossed me out the most, is
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: you can get gang green in your in your the
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: various bits of you that dangle off your torso. I see, Yeah,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: that doesn't sound very pleasant, Ben, But the fun part
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: is the hallucinations, nol. That's that's the god. We'd be
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: terrible at p S A S. Yeah. But then if
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: you're if you're tripping and then you look at your hand.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Then it looks like it's rotting off your body. That's
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: not a good look. You're just your your brain is
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: just gonna take that and run with it, and and
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be a terrifying bad trip. Um, But I
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: don't know. This is very What what happens the next ben?
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Where do we go from here? Well? We uh, we
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: have been celebrating a tradition of our own. It seems
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: somewhat accidentally. Uh, this is going to be a two
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: part episode, No, Casey, there's just so much cool, fascinating
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: stuff about the theories behind which is im broomsticks. Right,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: he has a lot, there's a lot. Don't rightly know
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: exactly where we split this, uh, afterthought and two parter.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: But there's gonna be more cool stuff in the second part.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I assure you. Wherever we split it, Casey always picks
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the right spot, just the right spot, don't you, Casey.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: There will be something about children's toys in the second one. Right,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: that's pretty close to the end. Yeah, intense debates about
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: candy a candy consortie. But we we, of course trust
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: trust super producer Casey pegram. Casey, You're like a dowser
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: for the right moment in podcast. I don't know how
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: you do it, but every time I know about you
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: know that, every time I listen, I'm always like, Wow,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: how did Casey find the perfect moment here? I don't
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: want to hype you up too much, but this, this
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: has been a wild ride. It's just gonna get crazier.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you as always to Jonathan Strickland, a k a.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: The Quister, our number one Warlock. Thanks to Gabe Luzier
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: for this awesome research assistance. Thanks to Alex Williams who
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: composed our soundtrack. You know, I bet he would do
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: a Halloween one for us if we asked them. Yeah,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: it already has some kind of halloweeny overtones now that
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it, as it's got some witchy, spooky vibes.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Um huge. Thanks to Chris frostiotis here in spirit. You
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: already thank Jonathan, But it's Halloween, so let's thank that
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: goouless creature yet again because he deserves it. We'll see
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: you next night, Fox. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.