November 13, 2018 • 10 mins
What tour of the Cabinet would be complete without an introduction to two amazing individuals? Today's guests are guaranteed to enthrall and entertain you.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Goren Crop loved mountains.
(00:30):
Some might say he was even built like one. The
man topped out at six ft three and two forty pounds.
He was born in Sweden in nineteen sixty six and
his father introduced him to climbing at a very young age.
When Goren was six, he and his father climbed the
highest mountain in Norway together, cementing Goren's obsession. Then and there,
(00:52):
mountains change over time, but never go away. They're solid, permanent.
If only Mr and Mrs Crop's marriage had been and
so strong. Several years after Goren's life changing adventure, his
parents divorced. Goren didn't take it well, but after a
few years of endless partying and excessive drinking, he knew
(01:13):
something had to change. He couldn't keep going on this way,
so Goren made a complete one eighty degree turn and
joined the Swedish Paratroopers. It was there he built up
his strength and stamina, marching for miles with one fifty
pounds of gears strapped to his back, and gained the
admiration of his fellow soldiers. But he never forgot his
(01:34):
love of climbing, the feel of rocks under his fingers,
and the thrill of reaching the top of the place
man was not meant to see. Goren lived a simple
life outside of being a paratrooper. He saved his meager
military earnings by living in a tent and climbed mountains
in his free time. By the late nineteen eighties, he'd
climbed five peaks, each of them nearly four miles tall,
(01:58):
and all by himself. After that, it was all about
climbing higher and farther. He was the first Swede to
climb to the top of K two in the Himalayas,
and by the mid nineteen nineties he reached the summit
of five of the fourteen tallest mountains in the world,
most of them by himself. There was a reason he
(02:18):
was known as the crazy Swede. But one peak stood
out above all the rest. Literally, survivors have written books
about it, and countless men and women have died trying
to reach the top. That's right, Mount Everest. He still
had yet to summit the granddaddy of them all. He
(02:38):
was going crop the crazy Swede and climbing to the
top of Mount Everest like everyone else, was out of
the question. He couldn't just fly from his home in
Stockholm all the way to Nepal. No, he wanted to
make an entrance, one that would take him six months
to make. He loaded up a specially designed bicycle with
two fifty pounds of food and gear and left his
(03:00):
home on October sixteenth. He rode six thousand miles on
that bicycle all the way to Mount Everest base camp,
arriving in April of Once there, he convinced the other
ongoing expeditions at the time to let him summit first alone.
No sherpa, no partner, just Goren and his gear. This
(03:23):
was it. Everything he'd been training for. All of those
other mountains he had conquered had been nothing more than appetizers,
and this was the main course. He began his ascent
on May three, trudging all day through snow as deep
as his thighs until he found himself three hundred feet
from the summit. Unfortunately, the day had gotten away from
(03:45):
him and darkness was closing in. Goren wasn't worried about
reaching the top, but of being stranded alone on the
mountain until morning. Up to his waist in snow and ice,
he would surely die of exposure. Instead, he climbed back
down and bided his time in base camp. Then the
unthinkable happened. A blizzard had struck another group of climbers
(04:07):
descending Everest a few days later. They had left too
late in the day and had been caught in the
storm after dark. Goren helped carry medical supplies up the
mountain over the next several weeks. When the weather finally
cleared up three weeks later, he saw his chance. He
was going to try again. On his second attempt, the
crazy Suite did it. He climbed to the top of
(04:28):
Mount Everest all by himself, accomplishing something very few others
had done before him. Then, with nothing left to prove,
Goren descended the mountain. Waiting for him back at base
camp was his only companion, the one who had come
with him all the way from Stockholm, Sweden, his trusty bicycle.
(04:49):
Goren crop packed up his gear, mounted his mighty steed,
and said goodbye to everyone at base camp before beginning
his ride home. It seems that even after climbing the
tall and most dangerous mountain in the world, he just
couldn't help going the extra mile. The mind is a
(05:20):
miraculous thing. This bundle of nerves and gray matter floating
in our heads is constantly coming up with new ideas
and dreams, tiny explosions of creativity every second of every day.
Feed it and watch it grow. Push it just a
little bit and you'll be amazed at when it's capable of.
Helene Smith had opened her mind while growing up in
(05:43):
Hungary in the late eight hundreds. From a very young age,
she treated her brain like a sponge, absorbing as much
as possible from books, teachers, and her surrounding environment. She
was fluent in five languages and had passable skills in
three others, England, Latin, and Greek. She was also a
spiritual person. Literally the whole family was. Helene's mother and
(06:07):
brother were known to experience visions of the future, communicate
with the dead, and even see into other worlds. Their
talents hadn't skipped Helene, who started attending and hosting seances
in her thirties. Her performances were what we've come to
expect from mediums today. She had knowledge of events she
(06:28):
shouldn't have known about, and could relay messages from dead
relatives to their living ones via her voice or through
taps on a table. Nowadays we greet these techniques with
healthy skepticism and even have clear explanations for many of them,
but back then it was a different story. Take cold reading,
for example, a common observational method used by mediums to
(06:51):
do people into revealing more about themselves than they realize.
A medium can use that information, be it verbal or
through body language, to pretend to know something about a
person without explicitly being told. We're wise to it today.
But back in, Helene's intuition was a revelation. She was
(07:13):
the star attraction at parties where her abilities were tested
by new and increasingly doubtful audiences. Then one night, a
new skill manifested automatism. Helene found the spirits would speak
through her, sometimes literally, but often using her hands as
their own. She could write in the persona of the
(07:34):
spirit she had conjured without conscious thought. As far as
she knew, time had passed and something had been transcribed,
but she hadn't written a word of it herself. But
automatism turned out to be a talent that would take
her far, some might say too far. During one particular
(07:54):
seance at the home of a psychology professor named Theodore Floorny,
Helene began to communicate with the other world, not the
world of the dead, as she had done many times before.
This was a much different world, an outer world otherwise
unreachable by man. Helene entered a trance, a kind of
deep sleep, where she sighed and swayed in her chair
(08:17):
to music that only she heard until the music suddenly stopped.
Then Helene softly recited the words coming to her from
this distant land translated into English. The spirit said, this
is the house of the Great Man, as Stain whom
thou hast seen a stain you see lived on Mars,
(08:37):
and Helene Smith of Earth heavy incredible ability to go
there in her mind at least and bring back the
message to us. Floornie wasn't so sure. After multiple sessions
with her and a copious amount of research, he concluded
the similarities of the supposed Martian language to Helene's native
French meant she hadn't really accessed the far reaches of
(08:59):
outer Base using her mind. Her deep trances and automatism. However,
those were not so easily explained. Hearing this today, you
two might assume Helene was probably conning them all, that
she knew exactly what she was doing and was very
good at it. You might be right too, But Helene
(09:19):
did one more thing that leaves even the most skeptical
of skeptics scratching their heads. She described the floorny her
journeys to the planet Mars, which Flournie recorded in his notes.
During one session, she told him in the Martian language
that she saw carriages gliding by with no horses or wheels,
(09:40):
but emitting sparks. While gas powered automobiles first appeared in
the late eighteen hundreds, they would not be mass produced
until well after the turn of the century. Perhaps Helene's
vision of vehicles on Mars was a lucky guess, meant
to wow unsuspecting crowds, or maybe not. With robots traversing
(10:01):
the surface of the red planet. Today, it's tempting to
believe the impossible that she really could see the future.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
(10:24):
The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television
show and you can learn all about it over at
the World of Lore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious.
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Goren Crop loved mountains.
(00:30):
Some might say he was even built like one. The
man topped out at six ft three and two forty pounds.
He was born in Sweden in nineteen sixty six and
his father introduced him to climbing at a very young age.
When Goren was six, he and his father climbed the
highest mountain in Norway together, cementing Goren's obsession. Then and there,
(00:52):
mountains change over time, but never go away. They're solid, permanent.
If only Mr and Mrs Crop's marriage had been and
so strong. Several years after Goren's life changing adventure, his
parents divorced. Goren didn't take it well, but after a
few years of endless partying and excessive drinking, he knew
(01:13):
something had to change. He couldn't keep going on this way,
so Goren made a complete one eighty degree turn and
joined the Swedish Paratroopers. It was there he built up
his strength and stamina, marching for miles with one fifty
pounds of gears strapped to his back, and gained the
admiration of his fellow soldiers. But he never forgot his
(01:34):
love of climbing, the feel of rocks under his fingers,
and the thrill of reaching the top of the place
man was not meant to see. Goren lived a simple
life outside of being a paratrooper. He saved his meager
military earnings by living in a tent and climbed mountains
in his free time. By the late nineteen eighties, he'd
climbed five peaks, each of them nearly four miles tall,
(01:58):
and all by himself. After that, it was all about
climbing higher and farther. He was the first Swede to
climb to the top of K two in the Himalayas,
and by the mid nineteen nineties he reached the summit
of five of the fourteen tallest mountains in the world,
most of them by himself. There was a reason he
(02:18):
was known as the crazy Swede. But one peak stood
out above all the rest. Literally, survivors have written books
about it, and countless men and women have died trying
to reach the top. That's right, Mount Everest. He still
had yet to summit the granddaddy of them all. He
(02:38):
was going crop the crazy Swede and climbing to the
top of Mount Everest like everyone else, was out of
the question. He couldn't just fly from his home in
Stockholm all the way to Nepal. No, he wanted to
make an entrance, one that would take him six months
to make. He loaded up a specially designed bicycle with
two fifty pounds of food and gear and left his
(03:00):
home on October sixteenth. He rode six thousand miles on
that bicycle all the way to Mount Everest base camp,
arriving in April of Once there, he convinced the other
ongoing expeditions at the time to let him summit first alone.
No sherpa, no partner, just Goren and his gear. This
(03:23):
was it. Everything he'd been training for. All of those
other mountains he had conquered had been nothing more than appetizers,
and this was the main course. He began his ascent
on May three, trudging all day through snow as deep
as his thighs until he found himself three hundred feet
from the summit. Unfortunately, the day had gotten away from
(03:45):
him and darkness was closing in. Goren wasn't worried about
reaching the top, but of being stranded alone on the
mountain until morning. Up to his waist in snow and ice,
he would surely die of exposure. Instead, he climbed back
down and bided his time in base camp. Then the
unthinkable happened. A blizzard had struck another group of climbers
(04:07):
descending Everest a few days later. They had left too
late in the day and had been caught in the
storm after dark. Goren helped carry medical supplies up the
mountain over the next several weeks. When the weather finally
cleared up three weeks later, he saw his chance. He
was going to try again. On his second attempt, the
crazy Suite did it. He climbed to the top of
(04:28):
Mount Everest all by himself, accomplishing something very few others
had done before him. Then, with nothing left to prove,
Goren descended the mountain. Waiting for him back at base
camp was his only companion, the one who had come
with him all the way from Stockholm, Sweden, his trusty bicycle.
(04:49):
Goren crop packed up his gear, mounted his mighty steed,
and said goodbye to everyone at base camp before beginning
his ride home. It seems that even after climbing the
tall and most dangerous mountain in the world, he just
couldn't help going the extra mile. The mind is a
(05:20):
miraculous thing. This bundle of nerves and gray matter floating
in our heads is constantly coming up with new ideas
and dreams, tiny explosions of creativity every second of every day.
Feed it and watch it grow. Push it just a
little bit and you'll be amazed at when it's capable of.
Helene Smith had opened her mind while growing up in
(05:43):
Hungary in the late eight hundreds. From a very young age,
she treated her brain like a sponge, absorbing as much
as possible from books, teachers, and her surrounding environment. She
was fluent in five languages and had passable skills in
three others, England, Latin, and Greek. She was also a
spiritual person. Literally the whole family was. Helene's mother and
(06:07):
brother were known to experience visions of the future, communicate
with the dead, and even see into other worlds. Their
talents hadn't skipped Helene, who started attending and hosting seances
in her thirties. Her performances were what we've come to
expect from mediums today. She had knowledge of events she
(06:28):
shouldn't have known about, and could relay messages from dead
relatives to their living ones via her voice or through
taps on a table. Nowadays we greet these techniques with
healthy skepticism and even have clear explanations for many of them,
but back then it was a different story. Take cold reading,
for example, a common observational method used by mediums to
(06:51):
do people into revealing more about themselves than they realize.
A medium can use that information, be it verbal or
through body language, to pretend to know something about a
person without explicitly being told. We're wise to it today.
But back in, Helene's intuition was a revelation. She was
(07:13):
the star attraction at parties where her abilities were tested
by new and increasingly doubtful audiences. Then one night, a
new skill manifested automatism. Helene found the spirits would speak
through her, sometimes literally, but often using her hands as
their own. She could write in the persona of the
(07:34):
spirit she had conjured without conscious thought. As far as
she knew, time had passed and something had been transcribed,
but she hadn't written a word of it herself. But
automatism turned out to be a talent that would take
her far, some might say too far. During one particular
(07:54):
seance at the home of a psychology professor named Theodore Floorny,
Helene began to communicate with the other world, not the
world of the dead, as she had done many times before.
This was a much different world, an outer world otherwise
unreachable by man. Helene entered a trance, a kind of
deep sleep, where she sighed and swayed in her chair
(08:17):
to music that only she heard until the music suddenly stopped.
Then Helene softly recited the words coming to her from
this distant land translated into English. The spirit said, this
is the house of the Great Man, as Stain whom
thou hast seen a stain you see lived on Mars,
(08:37):
and Helene Smith of Earth heavy incredible ability to go
there in her mind at least and bring back the
message to us. Floornie wasn't so sure. After multiple sessions
with her and a copious amount of research, he concluded
the similarities of the supposed Martian language to Helene's native
French meant she hadn't really accessed the far reaches of
(08:59):
outer Base using her mind. Her deep trances and automatism. However,
those were not so easily explained. Hearing this today, you
two might assume Helene was probably conning them all, that
she knew exactly what she was doing and was very
good at it. You might be right too, But Helene
(09:19):
did one more thing that leaves even the most skeptical
of skeptics scratching their heads. She described the floorny her
journeys to the planet Mars, which Flournie recorded in his notes.
During one session, she told him in the Martian language
that she saw carriages gliding by with no horses or wheels,
(09:40):
but emitting sparks. While gas powered automobiles first appeared in
the late eighteen hundreds, they would not be mass produced
until well after the turn of the century. Perhaps Helene's
vision of vehicles on Mars was a lucky guess, meant
to wow unsuspecting crowds, or maybe not. With robots traversing
(10:01):
the surface of the red planet. Today, it's tempting to
believe the impossible that she really could see the future.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
(10:24):
The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television
show and you can learn all about it over at
the World of Lore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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