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Ritual Sacrifice · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Why We Do What We Do. I am
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: your Stabby host Abraham oh No, and I am your
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: give my Blood to the Gods host Shane. We are
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and non human animals do, and in the month of October,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: we primarily focus on the spooky or type of topics,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and then we make them slightly less spooky by dropping
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of knowledge about them. Yeah, which is
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: not I mean mostly talking about spooky things because we
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: love Halloween and then making them less spooky is just
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: the fact that we are a science podcast, and that's
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: what happens when you take a scientific approach to things.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah of the time, yeah.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, many times.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: But every now and again something it's more scary because
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: if we all have an explanation.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: You're like, what what do we do with this? So
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: there's that kind of part too sometimes, or.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: We'll come up with things that are spooky, like spooky
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: action at a distance, which is a very nerdy physicist
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: type thing. I think it's physical love, maybe it's quantum scientists.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's asked astronomy. I don't know. It's a in
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: that realm of the sciences. Anyway, we're not talking Yeah,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: it's something we're not talking about those today though. We're
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: doing Halloween e stuff and that includes today's topic, which
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I will issue a quick warning at the top, contains
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: descriptions of blood and gore and violence because we're talking
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: about ritualistic sacrifices, so be warned going into it that
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: that is our topic du jour.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, I tried to like as we were putting together notes,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: I tried to make it so that it was less gory,
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: less bloody, but we are going to talk about people
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: on animals dying in pretty gruesome ways.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: But we will spare those details.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: So if this were a movie, consider it rated PG
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: thirteen and so that it's not no violence, but relatively
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: less than you might see in like an R rated
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: or an X rated podcast.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's more than what we would normally have
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: on the show.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: So yes, yes, very much. So. Anyway, if you like
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: what you hear in this discussion today and would like
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: to support us, you can join us on Patreon, pickup
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: some merch, leave us a rating and review, like, subscribe,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: tell a friend, message us on the social media platforms,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: and follow us on the social media platforms. And I'll
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: talk more about the ways that you can support us
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: at the end of this discussion. But this episode comes
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: out on October twenty ninth, and that is International Internet Day,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So yay, because that's how you got to our podcast,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: is through that magical pathway. Yes, yes it is.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: And we would also like to issue everybody it's not
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Halloween just yet, but it is two days before, so
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: we would like to offer everybody a happy early Halloween.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: We hope that your tricker treating is.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Full of all the candy that you like, and that
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: it is not that you don't get, like, you know,
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: handfuls of pennies or an apple. I mean, if you
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: get that, that's cool, but like that's not really what
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: you go trick or treating for, you know, you know
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Coincidentally, it's also Nevada Day, so for those Nevadaens, which
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I am one of those, shout out, oh joy. It
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: is National cat Day. I accept. I love that good good,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: good for good day. It is National Hermit Day.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: That's me. Eventually it is National oatmeal Day. Love that
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: me too.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Actually, it is Read for the Record Day.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: That's great. I love that.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: It is World Psoriasis Day and World Stroke Day.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: It's also a Brain Tumor Awareness Week. Another celebration that
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: we as a podcast are very in supportive, which is
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Disarmament Week.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Something that we also love as a podcast is International
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Magic Week.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Sure, sure, yeah, I love magic magic.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: It's fun.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is a Prescription errors education and awareness week.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a scary one. It is
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: Winter Weather Preparedness Week. So for US Floridians we are
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: getting our long sleeve shirts out.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes it is World or Agami days. Get your
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: papers a folded.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: That's such a fun, a fun thing, and it is
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: also a wonderful happy birthday to wood note a writer
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: Ben Foster, Bob Ross, and Gabrielle Union.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, indeed, so those are those are the holidays
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: that we're talking about. But we don't just talk about holidays.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: We talk about other things, which are sometimes mostly psychology related,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: since that's what we do and both professionally and for
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the podcast. But I think that that gets us to
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: are the point at which we transition to the substance
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: of the thing that we're talking about. So we'll get out,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: get out our knife and slice into this ritualistically as
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: we Yeah, as we're talking about this, is there anything
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: that I miss or you'd like to add before we
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: dive into our topic.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: No, I think we're ready to go.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I will add for those new listeners that at the
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: end of this discussion, what's going to happen is we're
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: going to read a bunch of credits and then we're
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: going to recommend some things. And I think that that's
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: really fun and you may or may not want to
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: follow our recommendations, but I think you I don't know.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: I think they're fun either way, and you may want to,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: so stick around through those credits as well to hear
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: here a fun discussion where we just share something that
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: brought us joy that we think might bring you joy too.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, So to get into this episode proper,
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: Abrahamer already issued a disclaimer, but we are going to
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: talk about some violent things.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: We're gonna keep it PG. Thirteen as best we.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Can, but if you're uncomfortable with the idea of torture
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: or murder or sacrifice per se, we recommend skipping this episode.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: But in this episode, we are going to discover how
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: the things are linked. We already discover what terra Cotta, propaganda,
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: and Henry Rawlins all have in common.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Is it ritualistic sacrifice.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: You'd be surprised it's actually related to the ritual. It's
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: just secrifrice.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Very good. Well, to begin every discussion, we want to
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: make sure that we understand the terms that we're using,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: that we are on the same page about the subject
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: we are discussing, because that way we are not using
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: strawman arguments. We're trying to make sure that things are
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: clear and understandable. So let's start by talking about what
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: sacrifice is if that was at all in question, and
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: it kind of doesn't matter, because when we understand things
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: precisely then we can use the parameters of those definitions
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: to help guide any further discussions that we have. So,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: sacrifice is a practice that is centered around the idea
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: of symbolically offering to a deity or a group of
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: deities something and exchange for some kind of good fortune.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: That's what sacrifices.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So essentially, like simply put, the person is
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: or the group is giving up something that they could
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: use or would be a value to them in exchange
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: to something from the gods or God that believe in so,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: and these offerings could welcome lots of different things, good
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: fortune for the group, the tribe, or the church, such
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: as bringing about good harvests, things like preventing natural disasters,
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: specifically natural disasters that would impact their people right in
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: their area, to prevent the wrath of the gods, to
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: seek favors, among other requests. Sometimes you'll have people that
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: will put together specific offerings to ask for a request
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: or a favor from the gods or the deities. And
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: really you'll see this kind of happen in lots of
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: different ways, lots of different forms, but that's essentially what's happening.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: The person is giving something up or the group is
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: giving something up in exchange for something some gift from
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: the deities that they're worshiping.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: And I guess we can say, like, obviously, sacrifices used
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: in a lot of terms, and we are talking about
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the more ritualistic sacrifice that has to do with this
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: type of sort of I guess you'd call it religious,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: maybe traditional. I mean, ritual really is the sort of
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: the key word here, because obviously, as you can have
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: lots of you have just very general sacrifice that doesn't
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: depend on any orientation to gods, although it still involves
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: giving something up.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Anyway, there are lots of types of sacrifices that humans
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: have practiced throughout history, so we have well we'll go
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: through each of these in more detail, but you'll see
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: things like what it's called a burnt offering, a grain offering,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: a peace offering, a guilt sacrifice, and a blood offering.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: So let's just go through each one of those.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So, burnt offerings they refer to the burning of
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: an animal on an altar to God or God's The
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: animal or the object must be completely unblemished and is
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: generally used to appease the god that they're sacrificing to.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: So essentially they just like the living creature on fire.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, do we know why this would be appeasing to
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: a god? Like I have the thought that I'm like,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: if if there was a god that wanted me to
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: burn an animal, I'd be like, I don't like you
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: as a god. Yeah you are bad. Yeah.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: And you know what's funny is, as I was going
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: through the notes, it was really hard to find like
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: function related to the requirements of the gods. A lot
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: of it was like the lore or the like the
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: belief that the gods had to be appeased to prevent
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: and a lot of it was like preventing something like
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: something bad, like I'm sacrificing to the god of the
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: underworld so that they don't bring about a plague.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: So it was never like it was never that the gods.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: Requested this explicitly in their rioters or anything like that.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: It was more so it was more so just kind
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: of like we believe in angry gods that find us expendable,
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: so they find us expendable, they find us thing they
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: can just throw us over there, and they're more powerful
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: than us, and so we want to respect them and
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: we don't want to piss them off. And it's really
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: more so like it's really a giant coercion tactic.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I see that now. So I guess it's
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: more like it's not that these gods love me and
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: so like I'm trying to give something back to them.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: It's more like these gods kind of don't care about me,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: but if I can assuage their indifference, then maybe they'll
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: be like, well, I like that person well enough that
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: in my quest around the world doing things I'll try
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: not to also kill them. Yeah, and so then maybe
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: the people sort of logic their way to if I
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: give up something that's valuable to me and do something
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: that I would definitely not otherwise do, then that is
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: in contrast enough and enough of an homage to these
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: great deific beings that they will then be unwilling to
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: or they'll they'll maybe go out of their way to
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: be less cruel to me than they might otherwise be. Yeah.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: One thing we do not rate well enough in terms
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: of the importance of how it guides a lot of
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: the decisions and behaviors that we engage in is that
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: if we can have a coherent narrative that is very
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: comforting to us as a species, if we like we
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: use our language in a very simplistic logic syllogism that
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: is like if A then B, if A then C,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: therefore B then C, and we can if we can
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: slot those things together so that they follow that sort
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: of logic, then we're willing to do crazy things that
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: we might otherwise not do and have that be like, Okay,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: this now fits the if then narrative I've constructed about
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: these events.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, I'm going to give everybody like
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: a quick spoiler alert here, because as we go through,
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: like you know, as we're talking about this, we're talking
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: about kind of like the will and the belief and
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: the wants and the needs of the gods. But spoiler
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: is that you're going to find that people in power
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: like to control people who are not in power. And
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: it seems like a really easy way to kind of say, like, oh,
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: like I got to sacrifice people to stay in power
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: and appease the gods on my end, So hey, send someone,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: because you got to give something up for us to
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: stay alive as a society. So and we'll actually come
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: back to that later too.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah, so another sacrife. So so we talked about
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the burnt offering, then there's also the advertisement offering. The
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: advertisement offering is the worst kind of sacrifice, that's true.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do you sacrifice your attention?
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: What a bar to the to the advertising gods. That's
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: a really good analogy if you think about it. You know,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: they are uncaring, powerful entities that just want to harm
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: us and take from us, and we try and assuage
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: them by giving them space in our podcast. Yeah, oh man,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: that's the spookiest thing. Yeah, I made up a real
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: ritualistic sacrifice that we actually do. And here we are,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, listeners, to sacrifice you for the for the advertisers.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah oh yeah, well you're back, and so now we'll
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: give you we'll give you the good fortune of more information.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: So yeah, there you go.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: So at this point we're talking about the different types
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: of sacrifices that humans have engaged in or practiced. We've
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: talked about burnt offerings. There's green offerings, which are a
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: type of sacrifice that it is also called mincha or minca,
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: and it's a non bloody sacrifice that includes maybe flour, oil, frankincense,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: and it means of sharing gratitude, like thank you for
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: this bountiful crop, for this boutiful harvest. You know, here's
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: an offering to say thank you.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: And again, I think we can make sense in a
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: way of thinking about the if you're dealing with something
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: that seems this supernatural, otherworldly being, that you got to
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: think like, what can I do that will grant me
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: goodwill or good fortune from this thing? And it can't
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: be something I do just every day, because clearly that's
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: not granting me goodwill and good fortune, I have to
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: do something that's different, right, Like in start contrast, and
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: giving up something that is valuable to me, like a
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: source of food, is possibly something I could do because
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: like I need that, so giving it away would put
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: me in the good graces of this thing. So I think,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: right thinking about it that way, you could sort of
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: see how they would make that make sense right. Absolutely Similarly,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I guess we're just on the vein of these because
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: we mentioned all the different types of offering. There is
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the peace offering. This generally refers to the offering of
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: some sort of gift. These are made voluntarily. They might
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: include ornate jewelry, weapons, pottery. I think you know anything
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that shows that again is a thing of value that
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: you're saying, like I put it on the altar, I
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: bury it in the hole, I throw it into the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: ocean or the well, whatever it is, the point being
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: that we get rid of it, we sacrifice it because
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: we hope that in doing so we will bring upon
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: ourselves good fortune by the will of the gods. That
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: actually makes me wonder because I didn't actually look into
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: whether or not how common it was to throw things
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: into wells, and like if they were throwing lead jewelry
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: into wells and then drinking from those wells.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, oh that might not be so good. I mean
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: we are going to talk about wells later, so like
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: that does come up, which is a lot of fun.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: That would explain how the Protestants came to be Just kidding,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: just kidding, Yeah. I actually literally as I was cycling
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: through like people I could throw into the bus, and
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I was like, I eventually landed on Europeans at this time,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: like we're thinking like back hundreds of years. I'm like,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say Protestants. So anyway, that was not
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: an intentional like target. I was just I just landed
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: on something as I was scrolling through possible people to
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: throw unto.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: The bus convenience. It was an issue of convenience.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: Yes, there's also guilt sacrifices, and guilt sacrifices are also
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: known as sin offerings or trespass offerings, and this is
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: used as a means of reparations. So generally speaking, the
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: person has committed a specific offense to the deities or
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: the gods, and as such they must make restitution by
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: sacrificing an unblemished ram. Generally like that was actually like
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: the thing that came up was like specifically an unblemish ram,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: but it's kind of I'm you know, that has evolved
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: to include other things as needed.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, guilt sacrifice. That makes I get it. Okay, that
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: gets us to the final one, which is probably the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: one you were thinking of the most and the one
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: that we alluded to the most. And when we were
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: describing what ritualistic sacrifices, and that's the blood offering, this
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: was sort of spoil or alert because we're going to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: get more into the lore of this. This is formalized
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: in the Old Testament. Blood sacrifices are ways for humans
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to atone for some sin, maintain the relationship with God,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: you know, slaughter a human being on the altar. Yeah,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and I feel like I've mentioned this before, but like,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: if I were an evil demon whose primary objective was
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: to cause human suffering, I could not do better than
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: coming up with a religion that teaches people that they
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: should be ashamed of themselves, hate themselves, and be perfectly
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: willing to kill each other and like spill their blood
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: on like a giant stone. I'd be like, I am
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: really good at my job as a demon. Like I
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: have got this down, Like I could not do a
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: better job than I am doing currently.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean absolutely, and actually brings us to like,
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: so sometimes blood sacrifices don't require a death, which is nice.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: I guess, Okay, if you want to go that route, sure,
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: but we are going to kind of talk to about
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: the extreme right, and this is kind of where we're
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: leading today, which is we're talking about the type of
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: sacrifice where the subject of the sacrifice is a living being,
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: they are a victim of this, and we are going
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: to start kind of treading into that scary territory of
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: animal and human sacrifice, with the focus more so on
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: human sacrifice than animal sacrifice, because animal sacrifice is actually
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: very common and has a lot of widespread kind of
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: like belief systems related to it, and human sacrifices maybe
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: the thing that people are a little bit more scared.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Of, sorry just because I I've been ruminating on this
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: for the last ten seconds, which is that in movies
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: they often depict those blood sacrifice Someone will cut their
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: hand and I'm always like, why would you cut the palm?
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: There's so many places on your body that you don't
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: need to touch things on a regular basis that like
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: people cutting the palm of their hand constantly. I'm like,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: that's the worst place that you could possibly be cutting. Dangerous.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: It'd be like cutting the bottom of your foot. I'm like,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: what are you like you now can't walk for a
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: while until the heels right, unless you can't feel pain,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: but otherwise, like, yeah, cut somewhere where you're like not
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: hitting a major artery that you also don't need to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: touch things constantly.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: It seems like a bad idea.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: It doesn't make any sense, but you know it maybe
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: just it's dramatic effect.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it's it looks cool. You lay like
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: they'll squeeze, they'll pull the blade through their fist and
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: then there's blood running between their fingers and maybe that's
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: what it is. But anyway, it's the thing they do
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: a lot.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it comes up a lot. Yeah.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Animal and human sacrifice, let's talk about those. So these
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: are rituals that center around offering an animal or a
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: human being to a deity. You hear that and you say,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: how does one offer a living creature to a deity?
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: And that's a good question. Well, there are a lot
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: of ways, but most of them end up with the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: living being being a non living bean after this ritual, yeah,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: meaning that they are a dead bean and they start living,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: they end up no longer living and like a spoiler
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: alert for all of you, like we're all gonna die.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Like that's just that's just a thing. Yeah. I feel
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: like I've heard some good ones. They're like, oh, that
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: person took a well, let's just use tilan all since
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: that's in the news right now. Sure, they took tilan on.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: They died. It was seventy five years later. But they
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: did die right, Like they were old enough to take
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: tailand all and died seventy five years later. I think
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: they had a long and healthy life, yeah, is what
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I would take from that. But anyway, point being that
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: in this case, we're talking about the person of the
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: living being whatever it was, ending up dead immediately after
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the ritual and not much later in life exactly.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: So for clarity, animal sacrifice refers to the ritual killing
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: an offering of an animal, where human sacrifice is the
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: same thing, but with people. So instead of killing a
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: ram or a sheep or chicken, it's a human being,
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: sometimes children, sometimes adults, sometimes prisoners of war, but usually
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: a human in that situation.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Also for clarity, there's a difference between capital punishment and
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the explicit sacrifice of someone for ritual. Maybe not in
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the final outcome, there's not much, there's a difference, but
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: in terms of the function, Yeah, like what is the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: reason for the behavior? Because and that I think is
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: always important to understand, because if we alter the motivations,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: then we alter the frequencies of those behaviors. If, for example,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: we said, like we're not going to sacrifice humans anymore
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: because we think that intentionally killing people to a peace
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: of God is a bad idea, then that the amount
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: of killing of people intentionally might reduce as an outcome
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: of that. So anyway, understanding the motive is important. Sometimes
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the punishment for a crime may be that they are
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: victim of a sacrifice. That also does happen, Yeah, but
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: they are not inherently entwined together. Just because it's capital
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: punishment doesn't mean it's sacrifice. And matter of fact, most
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of the time that's not the case, and a sacrifice
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: is not meant to be treated as capital punishment most
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: of the time. But they could have overlapped.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you'll find, like you know, in some of
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: the examples that we're going to share in just a
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: little bit where you've got somebody who is being punished
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: for a crime according to that society standards and they
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: are like pulled into that system of ritual sacrifice and
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: what that looks like. You'll see sometimes though for the
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: most part, like capital punishment is just like a restitution
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: of sorts, like you're gonna pay for this crime you committed,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: but with your life. Yeah, which is you know, seems
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: like an extreme and also not good, but it is
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: it is something to think about. It's like, you know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: what's the intention, because sometimes what you'll find is like
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: in ritual sacrifice, you have people that will volunteer to
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: be the sacrifice.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: You lot people that.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Are innocent, that are like indentured servants and slaves that
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: are that are forced to be part of that ritual sacrifice.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: They've done nothing wrong except for exist, and so that
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: that's kind of what we'll see here. Is as really
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: ultimately comes down to attention, like are they being murdered
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: by whatever being is in power or a group that's
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: in power. Are they being murdered because of a crime
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: they've committed, or are they being murdered to appease a
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: god or a deity in some way, or do something
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: that is like kind of in the more spiritual PARANORMALPA.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Did you ever watch the movie Master and Commander with
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Russell Crowe?
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: I never did, but I wanted to because I like
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Russell Crowe in movies.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I'm gonna spoil it. I mean, this is
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: kind of an old movie. I think this came out
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: like fifteen or twenty years ago at this point, But
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna spoil a little bit of it. So if
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: you don't want to, you can skip ahead, like fifteen seconds.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: There is really haunting scene in this movie where for
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: a minute they're like stuck on the ocean with no wind,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: and this one person on the on the boat believes
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: they are the cause of this. They think, like they're right.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: The whole crew is being punished because of this one person.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: So after days of this where they're kind of at
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the breaking point, they're like out of food, out of
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: drinkable water, they're like about ready to like all die.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: In the middle of the night, he takes a cannonball,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: ties it onto himself and then jumps into the ocean
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and you just watch him like sink down and he's
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: like the just so distressing to watch. Yeah, and then
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: sadly the next day, like the winds pick up and
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the ship moves, and of course that they'll attribute this
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to his sacrifice. But that stands out to me as
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: one of those like willing sacrifices of someone who chooses it. Yeah,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: again based on a belief about something.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah exactly.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, and something that you know we have to
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: sacrifice on our end is we have to sacrifice our
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: talking time so that we can give you more ads.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: So you have now the good fortune of hearing something
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: that we have no idea what they're going to talk about.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: It is all right, we're back from that. Whatever happens
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: to you, sure had break. We have so little control
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: over what they end up playing. I mean, we could
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: record our own ads. We just haven't done it yet.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Maybe someday.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Anyway, we're getting to the point now we're asking the question.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: We're not sacrificing the question. We're kind of sacrificing the question.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: We're asking the question who sacrifices who? And what's who's
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: the who involved in this activity? When we unpack this.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: To start, I do think it's important to note that
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: human sacrifices are really not all that common across the world.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: And when I say that, what I mean is they
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: don't happen at high rates. They have been found to
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: happen across multiple cultures across every continent. So I want
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: to point that out because that's going to come back
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: later too. But basically, the idea of like prevalent human
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: sacrifice is really just one of those like weird nineties fears,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: like Y two K or quicksand like, I feel like
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: those are those things that like we grew up as
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: kids were like, well you're gonna be maybe partly because
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: of Indiana Jones.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: But slightly before that you had Satanic panic, which we
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: did an episode on for Halloween Copley, which, boy, we'll
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: talk about that later today too. Sorry no, no, no, that's good.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: No, No, I'm not no, because it's it does come
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: up right, and it is one of those things that's
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: like it's important to kind of know a little bit
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: of context. But there are a few groups who actively
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: did engage in human sacrifice as offerings as part of
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: cultural beliefs and systems, and we are going to talk
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: about thousands and thousands of years ago. We're not talking
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: about like in the seventies. Ye, you know, we're going
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: to talk about these these cultures that like kind of this.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: This was a practice that exist for quite some time,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: over several millennia ago.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: All Right. The first one we're going to start with
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: is in China, not for any particular reason other than
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: maybe alphabetical order, but we're just going to start there.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: So in China, archaeologists found a cemetery near I'm going
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: to say Mogu village in northwestern China, Mogaw maybe I'm
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: saying that wrong. And here they found hundreds of tombs,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: but only some of which held human sacrifices or what
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: they believed to be human sacrifices. I think there was
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: good reason for them to think they were human sacrifices.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the sacrifice was occurring at the time, but
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: it likely stopped in about two hundred and twenty one
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: BCE with the first emperor of China, Qin shi Huang
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: or Wwaang. And if you're familiar with those massive Terrakatta
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: armies that were buried and found like they were excavated
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: and they were just like just thousands of thousands of
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: these Tarrakatta soldiers. It was believed these statues were buried
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: as a replacement for human sacrifice. So when he became
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: when he became the emperor, he wanted to a limit
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: human sacrifice, and this was a way that he could
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: bring soldiers into the afterlife without having to sacrifice actual soldiers.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I fully accept burying effigies as replacement sacrifices. I'm okay
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: with this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, particularly if they're already made
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: of dirt, like yeah, you almost couldn't have a better
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: replacement of the person.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you just sign your name on it. It's fine,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: this will be you.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, cool, I accept. Let's talk about Inca. Some
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: archaeologists found mummies that were identified as children who are
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: involved in rituals human sacrifice in some ruins here in
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the inc And sort of culture.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and a lot of that was believed to be
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: for harvests and good fortune. So if children were sacrifice
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: as a results of that, and they were and they
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: were mummified, so that was a little bit different than
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: what you might see in other spaces. You've also got
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Mayan practices and it was believed that the minds participated
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: in human sacrifice, but only for special occasions. This is
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: not something that happened all the time or very often.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: It would take place in their temples, and many of
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: the people sacrificed were identified as prisoners of war, so
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: it'd be intruders, people who were committed some violence against
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: the tribe or the group, and they would be used
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: as a form of capital punishment and they would be
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: sacrificed as very likely as a prisoner of war.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Apparently in some rituals, the victim was painted blue in
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: honor of the rain god Chock, and then they were
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: thrown into a well, which sounds like a very unpleasant
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: way to go because it is very likely that you
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: would die of starvation and not drowning.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, and probably from injuries too, if the
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: well is deep enough.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, good point yeah head trauma yeah yeah, boy.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Don't use that well after that.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not a drinking well. Avoid that please, you
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: will get very sick.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Thanks.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: There are some reports of human sacrifice occurring in ansurery
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: in Israel. Language in the Hebrew Bible mentions that human
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: sacrifices were carried out sometimes, but historians are actually unsure
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: of how often that practice occurred, or to what degree
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: it occurred. They think it might be more related to
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: capital punishment and things like that, but there are several
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: mentions of human sacrifice and blood sacrifices in the Hebrew Bible.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Interesting, okay. In ancient Egypt, the remains of many people
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: have been found near or within the tombs of pharaohs.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Some historians believe that when the pharaohs were entombed, a
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: certain number of slaves or animals were also buried and
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: sealed in the tombs as a sacrifice to please the
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: god of the underworld Osiris. Which that is pretty rough
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: and super crappy.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so for the crime of being owned by another person, right,
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: which is unfortunate and so and a lot of it too,
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: was that the you know, because there is some historic
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: belief that the pharaohs would bury lots of different things
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: with them to take into the afterlife, and one of
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: them was to bring their servants with them, to their
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: animals and their servants. But unfortunately, those folks were still
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: alive when the pharaoh passed, and that meant that when
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: the pharaoh passed, they were also to be passed.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: It is kind of remarkable to me how little value
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: humans hold for life. Sometimes I'm like, yeah, we're the
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: only species who I think really understands the concept of
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: death and like understands that, like we have this one
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: life and that's that's it. So the fact that we
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: would not treat that with like reverence is very bizarre
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: to me.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Well, and you know, and something to think about and
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: like let's talk about, like, you know, the possible function
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: of that behavior, Like maybe they were very reverent to
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: life and they wanted to bring their favorite people into
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: the afterlife with them, like as it, you know, because
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: that the belief, if the belief is that you're coming
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: with me, then I am and I'm honoring you by
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: bringing you with me into this space, which you know
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: is like again, I guess that has to do with
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: belief systems, but like, you know, like it's something I
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: don't understand as somebody who doesn't have a belief system
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: that includes you know, a deity at all. But it
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: is one of those things where it's like there were
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: some folks who are like they're taking their most valuable
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: people with them because they I mean, I'll never forget
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: I had a conversation with like one of my good
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: friends when I was younger, because he was trying to
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: save me. He's a Baptist trying to save me. The
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: sentiment always like struck a chord with me, sure because
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: he came over to my house and he took time
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: to talk to me to say, I am trying to
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: save you because when I go into the afterlife, I
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: want to be surrounded and be around the ones that
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: I love. And that is such a beautiful sentiment to
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: be like that you want to like spend time with
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: me like that even in the afterlife, even though I
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: know that out of you, So you know, there is that,
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: but it also is like, you know, there was also
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: not a lot a lot of value for human life
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: either at the same time, like you know, there there
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: was both of those things were true at the same time,
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: which was like really complex.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: That's that's a really good point, and I do appreciate
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: that bringing that level of nuance to it, because it is, uh,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: it's worth considering that, like thinking about it as a
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: way to value human life. And actually even if it
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't that like I'm honoring you by taking you into
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the afterlife with me, you could even see it as
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: like your life is so valuable that this is a
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: meaningful sacrifice. Yeah, Like, if if I didn't value your life,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: then like sacrificing you wouldn't do anything because you don't matter.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: But instead, like your life is so important and so
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: unique and so holy you that like like sacrificing it
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: is a really big deal. So it's it's like sort
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: of an honor in a way.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a complex thing.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Which, man, maybe we need to do an episode on
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: honor because like that is one of the most nebulous
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: and one of the most driving motivations that humans have.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: So speaking of honor, yeah, speaking of honor.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, let's go out ancient Japan and some of
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: the architecture practices. So there was a thing that came
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: across as I was looking at this, and it's called
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: qiito bashira, and I hope I'm saying that right, maybe
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: hito bashira, And it's a Japanese practice of human sacrifice
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: that involved burying people alive in or near new buildings
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: like castles, bridges, or dams as a means to appease
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: the spirits.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: And like kita bashara sounds right to me, So I'm
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: just gonna use that apparently that translates into human pillar
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: is how you might consider that, which just got to
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: throw this out there and the new between the or
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Not between the Bury and Me a cacious Strain album.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: There's a lyric in there where he says Bury me
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: vertically with my The way he rhymes is really good,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: says Bury me vertically with my head exposed, so the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: world can watch me decompose. And that I was like, Wow,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: what a horrific imagery that is. Yeah, but that's this
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: reminds me of that, the idea of human pillar. Yes, yeah, yikes.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so scary and it's it's so interesting I
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: think about too, because you know, there's so much ties
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: to like spirituality and like the old world in like
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: parts of Japan that like you could be walking around
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: near a temple or a dam or a bridge and
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: there's there's a spirit like the specifically somebody was buried
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: alive to sacrifice for that building, to make to make
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: sure it is protected.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Oh man, that is that is tough.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: It's intense.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: Speaking of tough, let's go, We're gonna go into the
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: Pacific Ocean and talk about Hawaii or Hawaii in some
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: instances the chiefs of other civilisations would be tortured and beaten,
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: so like if they were if folks were invaders, if
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: they were caught again captured as prisoners of war.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: The chiefs specifically were tortured and beaten.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: They were hung upside down and they were beaten with
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: bats to soften their skin and their tissues and stuff
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: like this. Their sweat would be collected and a local
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: priest would be anointed with it.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Prior to consuming part of the victim.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: So like, there was a little bit of Cambalism in
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: there too, and this was in service of the god
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: of war coup spelled ku. So this would happen. But
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: specifically they mentioned that it was like rival chiefs or
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: like enemy chiefs.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I hate all of that so much.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the most that's really the most graphic we'll get,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: So all right, well, pause for something that's hopefully less
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: bad than that, although the jury is out because it
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: is adds and that can be just as terrible, sometimes
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: might be worse. All right, we're back. It's probably it's
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: not as terrible. They're just they're just trying to sell
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: you something dumb or it convince you to believe something dumb,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: but whatever, that's not obviously not as bad as sacrificing people.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: That's much worse. But yes, of course, let's talk about
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: the Celts. So in the Celtic traditions, victims would be
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: brought before druids and struck on the back of the
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: head with the sword. The resulting spasms that occurred, which
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: they described as death spasms, were interpreted and used for prophecy,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: which not the last time that, like the way that
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: the violence of death portrays itself is used to try
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: and foresee the future or understand something about the present
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: or something like that is used as like a form
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: of divination. Yeah, but that is also pretty gruesome.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty brutal, pretty brutal. And there's lots of
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: other examples too. We just try I tried to really
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: capture stuff across Asia, South America, the Middle East and
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Europe and stuff like that. I really try to capture
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: a few just to kind of show that it wasn't
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: a particular culture. I think a lot of times when
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: people think of human sacrifice, they think of specific cultures
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: that are often not like European. And here's an example
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: of also a European culture who was engaging in ritual
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: sacrifice rather than just talking about genocide, because European genocide
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: is a whole conversation they have. But like we're really
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: talking about like this specific example that I use for prophecies.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: Now here's the thing about this, It was actually difficult
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: to specifically identify who was responsible for the sacrifice because
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: each circumstance that we just described was pretty unique.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: In some instances, it was initiated by a local holy
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: man or holy man in needing of prophecy, and that
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: was with the Celts, or by people in power like
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: ancient Egypt. In other situations was members of tribes for
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: the good of the tribes. You've got the Incas and
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: the Mayas, who are the mines we're doing this type
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: of stuff. Hawaii is another example. You see that kind
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: of happening. So it really was difficult to figure out
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: who was responsible because it might have been initiated by
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: multiple members of the community, but it was usually largely
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: a culturally accepted practice for these groups that was usually
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: implemented by somebody that held some type of status or power,
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: And that'll come up as far as our research goes to.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: As you might imagine, with all the sacrifice going on
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: in human sacrifice was a thing that was going on,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: animal sacrifice was actually much more common than human sacrifice.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: There was greater evidence for animal sacrifice across a greater
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: number of cultures, with greater prevalence. And I think that
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: that does speak to the fact that, like, generally, it
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: is not emotionally that easy to kill and do harm
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: to other humans. And it is for most people easier
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: at least to do harm or kill animals. And so
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: I guess there is enough humanity out there that that
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: was the case, but not so much that they were
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: above killing animals. Yeah, but yeah, people are complicated. People
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: are complicated, and history was weird in history and is
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: still weird.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think somebody's going to look at our
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: time right now and go, huh, what the hell is that?
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: And we're going to go I don't know, if I.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Live to be old enough to look back on this time,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: I really hope that I look back and be like, man,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I'm sure glad we learned our lesson from that nonsense.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the hope, right, That's the hope and the
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: dream of the way. Okay, so we're talking about this idea,
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: and really, truly, it's not happening anymore, or at least
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: it's not happening at such high levels. Specifically, human sacrifice
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: is not happening in the way that people understood it before.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: It sounds like it was maybe way worse as or
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: described as way worse than it actually was. But you
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: know what put a halt to animal and human sacrifice?
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Would you be surprised to learn that it was the
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: spread of Christianity? Of course, it was God sweeping across
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: the world and saving everybody from human sacrifice. I'm sure
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: you're not surprised by that narrative, right, That's a narrative
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: that comes up. As a more civilized religion, quote unquote,
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: more civilized religion begin to spread throughout the world, pagan
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: and ritual and tribal rituals related the sacrifice were frowned upon,
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: often considered lesser than and evil and you know, sacrilege
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: and blasphemous and ultimately reduced to near zero rates.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Or that's what Christians would have you believe.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: Since burnt offerings and blood offerings were both very prominent
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: in the Old Testament and the Bible, that's actually about
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: burning goats to death that came from the Christian Bible,
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: not somewhere else. History is written by the propagandists, So
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: I think it's important to remember that that sacrifice and
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: offerings also happened in Christian religions. It wasn't just Christianity
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: that saved that. It was all sorts of things.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: I think if we also consider things like there was
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of death and torture that occurred under the
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: banner of that that was not necessarily labeled as sacrifice,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: but was done pretty prolifically. You had the Inquisition, you
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: had the witch trials and the witch trials and the Americas,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: and yes, the colonization slave trade that often was cited
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: the Bible is justification for that. It is not a
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: bloodless approach, even if they didn't necessarily do it because
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: they were trying to make their God happy. Yeah we
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: did it in the name of that anyway.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: And yeah, they did it in service of God. And
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: none of those white robes are spotless, So let's have
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: an intellectually honest conversation about that.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: However, However, I.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: Think it's important for the concept of like describing the
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: topic today, like those events and those crimes were never
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: explicitly described as sacrifice to appease God's or to wish
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: good fortune. It was in service of a religion. It
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: was being a good servant versus like sacrificing to a
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: pease and like that might be a fine discrimination, but
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: that's often the language that like radical Christian groups would use,
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: and like specifically was used in the Inquisition. You know,
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: we get rid of people who are against God, enemies
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: of God. It wasn't that they were being sacrificed for
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: the good of Christianity or Catholicism. They were being eliminated
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: to protect the religion. And that's a different that's a
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: different experience, even though the outcome is the same.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Getting rid of people is a horrible sequence of four
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: words that I don't like. Yeah, it's bad. It's bad.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I don't like it either, unless you mean just like,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: we need to clear this room, and so we'd like
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: to get rid of people by having them leave the
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: room because we I don't know.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: I think if you belong to a group that aims
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: to eliminate people, you should probably rethink your choices and
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: maybe getting out of that group.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: You are on the wrong side of history. One percent
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: full stop. Yeah, all right, how are ritual sacrifices performed?
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: That's what we're all here for, right, is the shorter
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: tails We kind of mentioned a lot. There are a
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: lot of ways that they occurred. If humans are anything,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: they are creative, particularly in these ways. We also see
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: this in a lot of fiction writing that sometimes became
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: fact writing or was it retelling of things that actually happened.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: But let's enumerate a few of the ways that sacrifice occurred.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so a common one that was often used as
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: stabbing or gutting. And this sounds exactly like what you
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: would think, So I'm gonna spare those details, but we
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: will say in some instances, the organs of the person
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: the victim were harvested and used for different things, and
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: maybe the victim was may have been consumed as part
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: of a cannibalistic ritual too. Like those did happen. They
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: were not quite as frequent as people like to believe,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: but it did happen, and that was part of like
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: so some of the some of the belief systems, like
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm consuming part of this person because I'm
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: absorbing their essence and their abilities and their strength. I'm
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: their virility, Like there's different kind of belief systems around.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: That definitely also true for animals as well. Yeah, there's fire.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: As we mentioned, this is related to that idea of
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: burnt offerings, some sacrifices including burning at a steak or
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: a pire, sometimes burning a killed creature or a still
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: living one human or animal. But fire was one way
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: that this was done and performed.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we mentioned earlier to torture, so what was happening
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: is in the case of some tribes in Hawaii, some
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: folks were tortured for certain purposes which were including like
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: sweat and specific sweat from a person under specific conditions,
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: and those were used in ritualistic practices.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Drowning sort of related to the wells and other things.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: As I mentioned the person throwing themselves into the ocean
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: with a cannonball and some capacity victims were thrown into
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: bodies of water, usually bound with weights so they'd be
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: or or just bound so that they couldn't move, unable
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: to swim or return to shore or to safety. But
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: in some way they were restricted or held down so
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: that they would die by drowning.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: Yep, and there's live burial and as we mentioned from
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: practices of the Hitobashira. Some victims were buried alive, or
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: if they weren't buried alive, they might have been buried
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: in the structure as well, which we saw on the
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Great Wall of China, But that may have been more
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: so a function of just like efficiency than it was
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: actual ritual sacrifice. Like I think the people that were
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: buried in the Great Wall were not specifically buried because
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: it was good luck. I think it was like they
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: died on site, on their construction site and they were like, well,
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: this will be cheaper. But in Hitobashira, they were specifically
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: buried alive.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: And then another one that we'd see sometimes is beheading.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Headhunting practices were sometimes related to human sacrifice. The end
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: result was that those who finally sacrificed the person would
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: remove the head of that person. Sometimes that was the
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: killing blow, sometimes that was post mortem, but beheading could
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: be a part of the sacrifice act or the act itself. Right.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, So, now we're at the stage where we're going
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: to kind of talk about the science, like why would
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: anybody do this, why would we believe in this, why would.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Anybody engage in these practices?
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: And you know, understanding that they've kind of fallen, They've
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: fallen into history times, like we're not really doing this anymore.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: You might see animal sacrifice here and there, but it's
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: it's not quite as prevalent as it used to be,
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: especially with advancements and knowledge and advancements and technologies and
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: maybe some like movements towards like a better understanding of
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: the world around us and like how you know, like
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: we don't need to sacrifice a goat to get good
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: crops when we understand how agriculture works.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: I feel like we're heading back toward this though, like that. Yeah,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: I'm at the point now where if like the President
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: of the United States was like, we're going to sacrifice
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: this so that we have good weather this year, I'd
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: be like, that sounds like something he would do.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And honestly, that's the whole premise of the Long Walk, right,
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: like we're going to sacrifice forty nine people for the
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: good of capitalism. Okay, Yeah, it's remarkably current and modern,
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: which is very scary.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: No, what else is remarkably current and modern? As ads?
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Ah mother, all right, we're back. We started segueing to
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: science and then lamented politics, and now we're back on science. Yeah,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: so let's talk about Watts and colleagues. In twenty sixteen,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: they reported that an important function of human sacrifice was
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: related to legitimizing political and social class authority, which is
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: to say that those authority could bring good tidings to
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: their people. Essentially say like, you need me to have power,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: and you need to grant me things that I want
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: because I protect you and so I will do the
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: hard work to make sure that you stay safe. And
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: they would bring good tightings to their people in societies
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: by keeping the gods at bay, by sacrificing those people
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: that they were protecting sure, avoiding wrath and receiving good
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: fortune were beneficial to everyone, definitely the people in power.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: And since kings, emperors, and priests had direct lines to
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: d and ease, they were able to dictate the practices
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: around this to help bolster and support their communities. And
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: of course would not be the ones being sacrificed because
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: there are connections, so we need we need them to
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: have their power authority and to be dictating the sacrifice.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, so that's kind of I think important. There
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: was a societal, contextual cultural view of this, and like
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: really understanding power dynamics in this space, and generally speaking,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: the sacrifices that occurred never actually were related to those outcomes,
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: Like we couldn't sacrifice chef and then get better rain
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: the next day. It just so happened that we actually
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: got some like specific kinds of like superstitious behavior occurring, right,
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: Like killing a deer for a crop is not going
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: to cause the crop to improve. What's more likely happening
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: is development of superstitious behavior and cultural selection in the
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: form of tradition. Right, So we developed these rules, we've
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: all quote unquote we've always done it this way.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: And when the tradition.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: Orbitual loses its power or loses the power and the
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: rule because some other new rules established or something like that,
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: the rule eventually goes away. We don't need human sacrifice
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: anymore because it's no longer relevant to us. So it's
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: kind of like this, right, you know, we kind of
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: say we've always done it this way. Oh wait, we
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: don't have to get messy, we don't have to get
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: our hands dirty, we don't have to get bloody, and.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: I could just offer the gods a loaf of bread.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: That's way better.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: So Kyle today is your lucky day.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: You are free to go right Like That's that's essentially
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: kind of the shift that's happened. We went like, oh,
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: we don't have to do that anymore, so we can
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: do this other thing instead, and now people get to
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: stay alive.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: It's kind of nice.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, Okay, good, So there's that. And you know, I
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: do think that we were sort of as we went
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: through these adding in some commentary about what we think
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: some of the functions were for some of those behaviors.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: So I think, you know, this part does help elaborate
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: with some of the science. But I think bringing the
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: lens through which we view motives for human behavior that
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: we brought before of like looking for coherence and rules
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: that we generate, looking for like what is in stark
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: contrast to what I already do and what would be
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: something really important in that is like giving up something
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: of value, which could be objects, it could be animals,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: it could be people, it could be food. Yeah, it
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: could be a lot of things. So I think we've
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: outlined relatively well, I think what some of the plausible
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: and reasonable motives are going on here. Yeah, it's probably
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: like a non zero number of times that it was
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: like an opportunity to get rid of a rival of
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: some In some cases we saw that with some of
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the actual of the clear examples that were there. But
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: I know we said very explicitly that it was like,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: we can both treat this as an offering to the
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: gods and use it as a way to get rid
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: of someone whose behavior we don't like. Yeah, because we're
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: not smart enough to understand that we can change behavior.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: So the way we change it is by ending the
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: organism who does the behaving.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes sense, and it's unfortunately very much so
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: a part of what we see happening today too is
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: eliminating political opponents. We're just using different means by which
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: to get there. So, you know, as we kind of
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: unpack this and we start thinking about it, like those
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: are things that we have to stop and consider, we
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: have to start looking at those things as there are
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: infinite possibilities for why this could occur. What we understand
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: if human behavior so far is what we've kind of
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: described in a very kind of like glancing blow.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, interesting tidbits the something they think about
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: that we I sort of skipped ahead to this too
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: soon earlier during the rise of the Satanic Panic. There
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: were a reported twelve thousand cases a satanic ritual abuse
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: in North America. None of them were substantiated, so out
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: of twelve thousand, zero, so that the fraction on that
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: is zero over twelve thousand, Yeah, right, in fact equals zero.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Uh huh.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: One major case was that of the West Memphis Three.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Damian Eccles, Jesse Miss, Kelly Junior, and Jason Baldwin were
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: all charged with the murder of three children as part
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: of some satanic ritual abuse. They were eventually acquitted, but
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: they first spent eighteen years in prison as a result
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: of those charges. Henry Rowlins was one of the most
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: vocal supporters of the West Memphis Three and helped organize
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: multiple concerts tell parise money for their legal fees. So
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: that ties his background. The Henry Rowlands.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Finally, Yeah, it was it was a matter of time.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and we I have talked a little bit
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: about the West Memphis Three, and we did definitely talk
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: about it inside of the Satanic Panic episode that we did.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's a just a horrific story.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's unfortunate because the victims were young
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: children and they were, they were it was it was bad.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: It was a bad situation, and the town that they
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: were in just needed a scapegoat, and these three kids,
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: Damien Echols and his friends like, ended up being scapegoats
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: for this this thing because they were the weird goth
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: kids in town. When you listen to the stories, it didn't
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: help that Damien was like a little bit snarky and
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: sarcastic because he didn't think he was gonna get charged
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: at the beginning. So when you listened to like early interviews,
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: he's being like like kind of like not oose, but
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: he's just being like really, yeah, he's being a little
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: bit of a punk. And then and then he got
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: charged and he was like, oh, that was maybe a mistake.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: And now like, you know, he's doing some cool advocacy
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: work and some of those guys are doing that's up too.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it's one of those things where, you know,
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: satanic ritual abuse or s r A is what they're
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: calling calling it in some of the literature, was a
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: phenomenon that just wasn't happening, and people thought it was.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: So they were thinking the human sacrifice was happening, and
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: it just wasn't.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: There is nobody I can imagine more powerfully believing in this,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: advocating for this and using this to charge people with crimes.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: And Mike Johnson, this feels yeah, like that you talk
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: about this and I'm like, the first name that pops
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: in my head is Mike Johnson, Like this guy would
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: be all about that, Like, yeah, let's charge, like, let's
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: believe that this is actually a thing that's happening when
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: it's not. Let's charge people and convict them of something,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: of doing something they didn't do. Let's coerce a bunch
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: of kids into spending most of their life in prison.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: That's so in his wheelhouse, it's not even fun. Yeah. Yeah,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: that guy is satanic panic contemporary version. Yeah, the worst anyway.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: That actually brings us to the end of our discussion
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: about ritualistic sacrifice. This is one of the most gruesome
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Halloween episodes we've ever done, accept the zombie bugs Man.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: That was that was that was haunting, That was rough, Yes,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: gnarally gnarally yeah.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And honestly, like, you know, the thing, the thing
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: that we're kind of talking about is like it's really
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: to me, it doesn't really matter, like the details of
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: the specific sacrifices. I think it matters like the context
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: and why this was happening, and like in understanding like
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: the current signs of it, which is like it was
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: more so for like societal class structures. It was more
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: so for like belief systems than it was anything else.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: It wasn't because people hated people like that might have
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: been an interesting side effect, but that's not really what
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: was going on, and it's certainly not happening today in
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: the way that people think.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: It is. Certainly hope that it doesn't end up there
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: again anyway. So yes, all right, very good. Well, if
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: you would like to tell us your thoughts on ritualistic sacrifice.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: You can correct anything that we got wrong, or you
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: can just tell us everything that we got right, and
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: we're happy to hear those messages. Constructive criticism is great,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: being amounts of praise is even better. You can email
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: us directly at infowwdwwdpodcast dot com. You can reach us
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: on the social media platforms, and we do look forward
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: to hearing from you. We have some listener mail, we
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: have some recommendations. But first I would like to say
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: if that you like what you heard today and you
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: are thinking man those guys are great. I really want
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: them to keep being a podcast and reaching a lot
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: of people. There's a myriad of ways that you can
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: do that. You can like and subscribe, leave a rating,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: which helps us be sort of recommended to people. You
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: can leave a review, which helps people look at our
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: podcasts and say, people really like this, I should check
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: it out. And then if you don't like us, then
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: don't leave a review, but you can email some constructive
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: criticism and that'd be great. Otherwise, you can support us
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: by telling a friend like word of mouth is a
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: very powerful way to continue to spread podcasts in our
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: modern era. And you can even support us financially by
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: joining us over on Patreon, and if you do that,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: you will get bonus content, ad free content early episodes,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: and you get to join a community of very cool
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: people that we love. And at the end of our
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: full length episodes, which come out on Wednesday, I will
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: read the names of the people who have so generously
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: helped us keep being a podcast. So a gigantic, warm,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: happy Halloween, non ritualistic sacrifice, Thank you too. Mike m Meghan,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Mike T, Justin, Kim Brad, Stephanie, Brian Ashley, Kiara and Charlie,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: thank you all for continuing to help us be a
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: podcast by supporting us with Patreon.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: We love you so so much.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: In addition, my team of people help me do this podcast,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: so I depend on them so very much. Writing in
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: fact checking from Shane and myself. Thank you so much
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: for your awesome notes on this episode today, Shane, that
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: went super well, and thank you for reporting with me.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for having me.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson. And the reason
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: that this sounds like a podcast, and it sounds like
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: a really good podcast is because we have a really
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: good audio engineer and his name is Justin, and he's
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: so good at what he does.
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: And his ear lobes are just lovely too, sure because
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: he's using his ears for sound, right, so I want
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: to make sure to retire it together. He's using his ears.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: You can hear it, We can hear it. Justin's got
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: pretty lovely earlobes.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, maybe one day we'll have to feed your pictures
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: of just as your lobes for everyone's enjoyment somewhere in
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: some capacity. But anyway, I think that's what we have
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: to say before we get to our listener mail and recommendations.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Unless there's anything that I'm forgetting or anything you would
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: like to add.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: No, nothing on my end.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: Ad Oh no, okay, we're back. We're going to do
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: some listener mail. Okay, this comes from Letitia who has
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: written in before, and we really appreciate writing in. And
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: if you would like to do that thing that Latitia did,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: then you can email us and I'll say it again.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com. So ta Tisha, riots hi again.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Love the Frankenstein episode. When you all started talking about
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: swapping brain slash bodies, I thought about Altered Carbon books
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: and series. Keep up the good work. RFK Junior sucks.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Excellent work on the propaganda episodes. That's why all tyrannical
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: governments target the media and restrict access to any form
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: of information that doesn't agree with their agenda. What is
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: our country coming to? Thank you again for the thoughtful
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: content and I look forward to more episodes. I love this.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: This is so nice. Yeah, agree with all of that.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Thank you for the kind words about the Frankenstein episode.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: I have had Altered Carbon on my list for like
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: a really long time, but I have not engaged in
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: that series, yet it looked really good.
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I you know what, I've been checking it out
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: and I've got it on my list now because I
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: hadn't I hadn't really thought about it.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: So like, that's thank you for that recommendation.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: I love.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: I love a good recommendation.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, bonus recommendation from a listener. How cool is
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: that that? I love that. Yeah, we like sharing these things.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: I thank you for writing in. We appreciate it, appreciate
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: the kind words and all of that. As far as
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: answering your question, what is our country coming to? You know,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: it feels like we're headed toward the bottom of the
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: of the rock bottom. Yeah, and that once we get there,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: we'll maybe be able to climb back out again. But
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know. People have short memories and they don't learn,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: and people have figured out they can exploit ignorance really,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: really effectively. And that's why we have the current administration
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: and House of Representatives and Senates that we currently have
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: at the time of our recording this, Yeah, which is
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: mostly a bunch of ignorant turns. So yes in the
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: United States agree, and many other countries are not faring
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: a whole lot better than we are, but some are,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: So what is the whole world doing to?
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a real mess right now.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, but okay, that was great. Thank you. Let's go
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: ahead and get to our recommendations.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Recommendations. All right, I am recommending a action comedy that
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: came out this year, twenty twenty five. It is called Novacaine.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: This is starring Jack Quaid and a variety of other
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: people that people recognize. But it is like the guy
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: who plays Peter Parker's best friend in spider Man the
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Spider Man movies, Yeah, Jacob, that forgets last thing anyway.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: And it's essentially a movie about a guy who has
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: the genetic disability that he cannot feel pain, sure, and
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: he is a very careful, cautious, like don't take any
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: risks kind of person, and he works at a bank
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: and then the bank gets robbed and they steal his
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: they kidnap his love interest, and so he pursues them
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: to try and rescue her. And because he's not like
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: a fighter, but because he can't feel pain, he can
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: kind of tolerate things that the people he's pursuing cannot, sure,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: and so he he does. That's the movie essentially, is
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: a sort of action, some comedy, but a lot of
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: action ensues with him as the sort of foiled sort
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: of elements being that he can tolerateself. Like at one point,
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: this is in the trailer, so I don't think I'm
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: giving anything away, but at one point a gun falls
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: into deep frier and so he just reaches into grab.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: And pulls it out.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because obviously, like no one else is going to
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: go in there, so he just reaches in and grabs it.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, he probably could have just lifted up the
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: basket and pulled it out, but like I guess it
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: didn't matter. So that was an example of the kind
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: of the ways that they play with what it means
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: for him to not feel pain.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I thought it was a lot of fun.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: There is definitely some a decent enough amount of gore
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: that if you're a squeamish you probably won't want to
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: take it on. But it really reminded me of the
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: movie Nobody. Did you see that one? No?
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: I didn't, but it's on my list. I heard that
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: was really good.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, No, it reminded me a bit
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: of Nobody. It reminded me just a little tiny bit
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: of John Wick in a way, and that you just
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: have these like it's so many fight sequences and like
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: action sequences, they're just they just roll right along. So
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: it's fast paced movie. It's not very long, really fun.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: So anyway, that's my recommendation.
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I that's so, that's so awesome. I've seen
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: a couple trailers for it, and I have not had
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: a chance to check it out. So I've got that
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: on my list too.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I believe it's streaming on Paramount, plus I saw it
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: on Amazon Prime where it was streaming at the time
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: of this recording. But yeah, that's my commendation.
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: Beautiful. I love that.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: Okay, so I'm going to recommend some music. I am
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: going to recommend a soundtrack, and so more recently, I
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: went to go see the movie Tron Ares, which was,
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: by the way, a lot of fun nice, Like, no
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: matter what people are saying about the like the reviews
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: and stuff like, it was a fun It's a fun
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: extension of that Tron world, which is like so unique
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: and so like thought provoking. But I think this was
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: a lot of fun and the visuals are really cool,
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: Like they did a good job with this, so I'm
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: bringing up the soundtrack because the original soundtrack was written
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: by Nine Inch Nails.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: And it's one of those things where, you know, it
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: takes a lot for me to really enjoy soundtrack by itself,
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: Like I have to enjoy the movie and a soundtrack together.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: But I can listen to this and kind.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: Of go, this is this is good, Like it's just
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: good nine Snails like cool interludes, great songs, Like it's
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: Trent Rezlor doing cool things. And then I was like,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: I was wondering to myself. I was, you know, I
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: was thinking that, you know, Trent Reznor has been doing
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: a lot of composer work and stuff like this, so
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: I think the bonus recommendation is just checking out some
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: of the other soundtracks he's done, because he's worked on
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: ninety one projects as a composer. That includes just so
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: you know, he wrote songs for two of the episodes
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: for The Bear, he wrote the soundtrack for Challengers, He
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: wrote this. He helped work on the soundtrack for the
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: new Teenage Mutan Ninja Turtles movie that just came out
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: not too long ago. He was on Soul, So like
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: it's funny to think of like nine inch Nails writing
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: music for Disney. Yeah, but that's what's happening. He was
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: also the composer for nine episodes of the Watchmen series
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: and The Social Network and bird Box, and so he's
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: got his hands in all these kind of interesting places.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: But the Tron soundtrack is like quintessential, like more electronic
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: nineteen like like Beneach Nails, and it's really fun to
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: listen to.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: Wow, I had no idea that Trent Reznor was keeping
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: so busy. Oh yeah, that's a really fun recommendation. I
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: appreciate that.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, I think you'll dig it. And the movie,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: Like I said, the movie's fun, it's cool action.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: I would I would watch it. It looked I'm not as
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: familiar with Like I never saw the original Tron. I
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: did see the like reboot, remake, sequel, whatever it was.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: Oh the yeah, yeah, legacy.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah that one. So I've just never been very immersed
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: in that world. But like, it does look pretty cool,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Like I'd be curious to watch it, So maybe i'll
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: I'll revisit the whole thing and then watch the new
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: movie and just be more aware.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's worth it. It's worth it. Evan Peters
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: is in this new one. It's great.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: He's so good at Peters. Yeah, yeah, awesome, all right,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: very good. Well, all right, so those recommendations, so yeah,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: that's what we're doing there, and I think that's what
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: we have to say about that, and we've kind of
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: said all of our other things. So thank you all
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: for listening. Is there anything else you need to add
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: or would like to add, or that I forgot nothing
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: on mine? All right, Well, this is the end of
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: our spooky season for twenty twenty five, so happy Halloween.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: I hope that you enjoyed our spooky episodes. We're actually
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: coming back next week launching into one of our long
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: sort of series that we do where all the topics
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: are related. Should we spoil it now or let it
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: be a surprise, let's boil it now? Go all right.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: We are going to be doing for the rest of
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: the year a series of episodes focusing on disability and accessibility,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: and so those will be our topics. The way we've
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: mapped it out, it should get us all the way
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: through the end of December, and then we'll start back
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: in January fresh with the brand new batch of random
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: stuff that we just want to talk about. Yep, so
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: that will be fun, but we'll see you guys. Thank
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: you for joining us on our journey in Halloween, and
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: we'll see you in the coming months for a lot
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: of discussions about disability, which is very in the wheelhouse
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: of our experience and professional work as well, which is great.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that's it for now, so I
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: hope you have a really happy Halloween, and thanks for listening.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: This is Abraham, this is Shane. We're out see you.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: going to WWD WWD podcast dot com.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.