CLASSIC: Grimoires: Fact and Fiction

From fictional works like the Necronomicon to the all-too-real Key of Solomon, humanity has long been obsessed with the idea of ancient tomes holding hidden, unholy and possibly dangerous secrets. But where do these grimoires come from? How many are hoaxes, and are there any legitimate works out there?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, it's Halloween. It's Halloween season. If you ask me, uh,
if you ask me my favorite season, it would be Halloween,
or I'd be someone else pretending to be me. So
what better time to introduce you to our old classic
episode on grimoise Books of Magic, necronomicons and um. I

(00:22):
always think of, oh gosh, what are some other ones? Mouthfishes, milk, No, no,
the k the Maleficarius, maam Malicharium, philific uh not domine
news never mind no, something like that, that is the Malificarium.
But Ben, I gotta backcheck a little bit. You buried
the lead there. I think the idea of a Halloween

(00:43):
custom of someone else pretending to be you is brilliant,
does a stroke of genius. You don't have to do anything,
but you can say, I'm I'm dressed up as a
doppel I'm somebody else pretending to be me. That's my costume.
It's both lazy and absolutely Jane, I don't think it's
a bad idea, fully support meta. You know, it's really cheap. Actually,

(01:04):
it's inexpensive to get a mask of your own face
made so you could wear the mask too. Dude. It
reminds me of that the Comic Con panel where Brian
Cranston was wearing a Walter White mask and then took
it off and it was just his face. And I
mean that it was a good look at mask. I
think that would be a pretty cool hallowing costume, although
pressed a little pricey, but you said it's not too bad, right,

(01:25):
It's cheaper than you surprisingly, So Yeah. Another weirdly inexpensive thing,
life size cardboard cutouts. Just if you ever want to
buy one of your friends a terrible housewarming gift, get
them a life size cardboard cut out of themselves. But
then surely there is an incantation or some sort of
spell somewhere in a grimoire that could, you know, cause

(01:46):
someone's face to shift and and and resemble the face
of somebody else or these are the kinds of things
we're talking about in these tombs are either you know,
kind of death magic, um, you know, the idea of
reanimating you know, corpses and stuff like that. I mean,
you know, there's tons of different ones, and they kind
of run the gamut, but uh, you know, there are
some definite spooky things in these homes exactly. Yeah, and

(02:11):
we do want to add one note that hammer of
which is book that we were describing there. That's actually
for inquisitors. There's a lot more to this story about
Grimoise than Uh. Then you might pick up from your
favorite love crafty of films. So we can't wait for
you to join us. We hope you are having a
wonderful Halloween month and we'll be back very soon with

(02:33):
even more spooky stuff from UFOs to psychic powers and
government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can
turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want
you to know. Hello, welcome back to the show. My

(03:00):
name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call me Ben.
You or you, or at least a close approximation there
of This is stuff they don't want you to know.
You've heard of spelled books before, probably right. If this
is a surprise to you, then buckle your seatbelt because
this is going to be probably one of your favorite
episodes of our show. So several of us are fans

(03:24):
of horror movies. If you are a fan of this show,
you probably have a higher statistical likelihood of enjoying horror movies.
I'm a big fan of them. Uh, And if you
enjoy horror movies, then you're also familiar with that old trope,
the Cursed Book. Right, what's the most famous example of
the cursed book? Well, the one that comes to mind
for me is HP loves Crafts Necronomicon, which is that

(03:48):
ancient cursed book? Which is the tone? I guess yeah,
it's a tone. It's clearly a work of fiction because
it is written by HP Lovecraft, but numerous people have
attempt to create a real necronomicon, right, this this tone
of dark Eldridge magic. According to Lovecraft and the Cadulu Mythos,

(04:10):
it was composed by a and I'm quoting here a
half crazed Arab named Abdul al Hazred. We should note
at this point that, amongst many other things, Lovecraft was
cartoonishly racist people. Right, We've we've covered this, And what's
interesting is Lovecraft himself maintained the book was entirely fictitious.

(04:33):
And what we found this will tie into some stuff
later in the show, is that despite the fact that
whenever he was asked about it by friends, family, or journalists, right,
and despite the fact that he would always say this
is fictional, not only did I make it up, But
I didn't make up all of it. I just made
up some excerpts for my short stories. Despite that, it

(04:55):
got to a point of popularity where more and more
people became fans of his cosmic horror genre and then
started writing their own necronomicons. As Matt said, and this
takes a path from fiction to fandom to reality take
place in more recent things like slender Man started out
as pure fiction, purely anowledge fiction that gained such notoriety

(05:17):
that ultimately it had real world consequence. Well, the Necronomicon
has that same effect where it's like introduced and then
reused and sort of like adjusted and adapted to different times,
different personalities, and it almost takes on a life of
its own, like slender Man, where even though the original
creator was like, yeah, this is definitely fake, the more
you start to see it in different incarnations, the more

(05:39):
the mind tends to go to, well, maybe it's not fake,
you know, right, Yeah, And that's the moral of the
Necronomicon story in a way, is just because something isn't real,
to take your air quote move, doesn't mean that it
is not dangerous. On a lighter note, there are many
other spell books in fiction, of course, will will all recalls,
since we all have in peckable taste in films, Disney's

(06:01):
hocus Pocus don come to me. Yes, let's not forget
the more malevolent yet equally hilarious necronomicon ex Mortis from
the Evil Dead films. Okay, wait a minute, everything's full

(06:29):
or even that that creepy book with the face from
the care Bears movie, Yeah anyone? Yeah, too late, too late.
The last spell is chast No really, no, I I
can't even handle that one. Well that yeah, all I
was about to say, you thought you were saying you
were not familiar, because that is the stuff of nightmares. Friends.

(06:51):
It possesses that kid, possesses this little kid who is
like the magician's assistant, makes them do things, and the
care Bears have to come down and do their stay
care Bears stare, I get too far off, but that
it is an economicon of sorts, a grimoire of sorts,

(07:14):
because if in the way it's depicted in the film,
it is a big, thick tone that he finds in
a long forgotten, dusty magician's chest, and it's got all
of these kind of esoteric scrawls and different symbols all
through it, and it, you know, spawns this weird green,
bald kind of androgynous face that you know makes him
do things and what that you know that reminds me.

(07:38):
This is a separate talk about censorship which ties in
later to the car tubes of Yesteryear. I think we're
a little better because they were less sanitized, you know
what I mean? A demonic possession film marketed towards children,
where the main heroes are zy teddy bears with different

(08:02):
on their tummies that can shoot out rainbow magic energy,
completely completely new. What did it even do? By the way,
what did the stair do? Did it just fill you
with goodness? It was like it was like The Heart
Ring and Captain Planet except bears. Yeah, it was. It
was overwhelming love and compassion. Yeah. It was a very

(08:24):
It was a very aggressive form of non violence because
they were shooting people technically. Now, not to say that
a grimoire is inherently evil. Yeah, you know. Additionally, when
we talk about just the fictional stuff, we also have
another side, which would be that there are a lot
of out and out hoaxes and someone wrote something and

(08:46):
pretended they discovered some ancient source of knowledge hidden or
occulted from the public eye. Sorry, it would not say
that in such a dumb voice. Regular occulted? Was that
an edit? Or was that? You know? That was just
me not wanting to sound so npr about it. Enough.

(09:07):
Now I've got a question for you. Would you consider
We've talked about the Voytage manuscript, and I know that's
gonna come up later in the episode. But since we
don't really know, does something to be considered a hoax
have to have a hoaxer? Do you have to know
who did it in order for it to be considered
a hoax? No, for something that's an excellent question. For
something to be considered a hoax, there must be something

(09:28):
about it that is marketed or propagated that is untrue.
So if you anonymously wrote something and three years later
Matt's descendants find it and they just don't know you
wrote it, that doesn't make it a hoax. Like well,
with the Voyage manuscript, they can't read it. But if
you wrote something that actually happened, like three years ago,

(09:50):
this happened, we don't know who you are, doesn't make
you a hoax. If Matt wrote something and then waited
and some master plan to give it to us and say, hey,
I found this in a grave and it's four hundred
years old. That would definitely be a hoax. But we're
also sort of in the realm of like, you know,

(10:13):
if I write a spell and tell you this is
a legit spell and you can't do it, you can't
recreate what I'm telling you it should be able to do,
is that a hoax? Or you just done any good
at doing magic? That's a great question. We raised that
in one of our earlier episodes on the Occult too,
because there's a there's a fuzzy line here with a
hoax For people who don't believe in magic, any book

(10:36):
of magic written is essentially disingenuous, right, But there are
quite a few people, maybe not as often now, but
in in the span of human history who believed that
they were simply the instrument from so for some supernatural
or otherworldly being that was writing through them. Is it

(10:56):
a hoax when the creator is absolutely believe in it,
You know, that's that's almost a matter of perspective. But
even let's let's go one further. Are there any real
grim wise, meaning, are there any books of magic created
by people who genuinely believed they were creating how to
manual on you know, the so called occulted arts. Shall

(11:19):
we have some facts then? Yes, there are numerous examples
of historical spell books. Today, these are popularly known as
what this episode is about grim wars in the West.
But you know, what we're gonna explore here is primarily
stuff that's occurring in the Western world. Um. It's it's
crucial to note though, that these things exist throughout the globe,

(11:40):
throughout the planet. Uh, in the east and the north
and the south, all of the cardinal directions. You will
find these. However, we would have to make up our whole,
like a whole different show to cover all of them, right,
It wouldn't be just one episode to cover all the
cultures across the globe that have their own very traditions
and rituals and incantations that other people might call magic.

(12:03):
And these people might just call, you know, their day
to day life a Tuesday A Tuesday. Yeah. Perfect. So, yeah,
like you said, now we're sticking with Western spell books.
Grandma's first question, what's what's with the name that's not
a name? You hear every day. Scholars are not completely
sure about the etymology of this word, but the most

(12:25):
popular belief is that the term grimois comes from Latin
via Old French grammaire, which originally just described this. This
is kind of funny. It originally just described any book
written in Latin. There you go. Do you think is
there any connection to the word grammar, perhaps like a
collect language. There must be, yeah, there must be. With

(12:46):
the root and back in the day, something as mundane
as a how to manual on you know, avoiding the
Plague by Lord Noel Brown or uh well, Digging for
Dummies by Duke Matt Vaughan Frederick trademark trademark, it would
also be a grim wa back then. And then eventually

(13:07):
in France people started just using the term grimoi to
mean pretty much any book that was difficult to understand,
anything there was a pain in the case, star to read.
And then the big shift to where this goes from
just being a word for difficult book too. This book
has magic Powers came in the nineteenth century in uh

(13:27):
in Britain and England, the publication of a book called
The Major's in eighteen o one. The British had a
real profound interest in all occult matters at the time.
You know, this is the age when people are getting
into the concept of using scientific principles to investigate things
that have once been thought to be purely the realm

(13:48):
of spirituality and magic. So they're interested in this, And
through this book the term grim wab became firmly cemented
in English as a word that meant specifically books of
magic in general. And since that point, of course, we
talked about the hoaxes and emerged, and a lot of
them ballooned after this book came out. Typically stories take

(14:12):
the same strokes, uh, contemporary writer. Uh, Let's say, let's see,
since this is an example of a of a bad
person and I kind of picked on you guys by
giving you cool books earlier. Uh, let's say some uh
slightly disingenuous person will we'll we'll call him uh at

(14:33):
Admiral Boland or whatever. UH makes up a pseudonym like
Antonio Ventiana de la Rabina, who is the supposed author
of The Grand Grimoire, also known as the Red Dragon.
So this this charlatan of an admiral then implies that
this text is ancient and it's handed down in secret
for centuries, millennia, or if we want to get super

(14:55):
weird with it, a secret pre existing civilization that rose
and f before the Biblical flood. And then there's a
bullet point here on the on our notes. That's just
four question marks. So that's where we're at. Yeah, and
the next step after that is profit, notoriety, at cetera. Oh. Also,
by the way, I never get to use this word,

(15:16):
the word for things that existed before the Biblical flood,
pre lapsarian. I know it's not the sexiest word, but
you know, it never comes up. So obviously, this proliferation
of these fraudulent texts has given the whole enterprise of
occult books a bad rap. But we also have to
remember there's a context in which so many of these

(15:37):
texts were made. Yeah. Not only were books in general
much much rarer and more expensive, they were a commodity.
I mean, you had to be, you know, a bit
of a fancy pants to afford to have books, and
to have access to good quality books and books of
high academic rigor heck to read. Of course, of course

(15:58):
I'm putting the cart before the horse there, But yeah,
but I mean, but research, as we understand it today
was in its infancy or pretty much did not exist.
You did not have the resources to research in the
way that we just have an embarrassment of riches via
the internet. You know, there's that in Carta Encyclopedia c

(16:19):
rom You know those are great, Um kidding, but it
were great. That was a game changing. It was a
game changer. But when you look at it now, it
feels the way you know it must have felt to
go from having a book to having a library. You know,
that's a that's a good point. There was also this
implicit degree of trust between authors and readers, right like,

(16:42):
after all, if we're living in the thirteen hundreds and
we're some of the people who see a book that
happens not to be religious texts like the Bible, then
holy smokes, of course it's got to be true. Why
would somebody spend years handwriting this thing if it was

(17:02):
just for fun, Why would somebody do an elaborate troll
like that? Well, and I guess that's a big part
of why. When like things like pamphlets and tracts became
widely distributed, that was a great way to misinform the
populace because you could those were cheap to make. You
could very easily kind of fit some propaganda in there
and have it circulate and have that same mentality of oh,

(17:25):
it's printed on paper, therefore it must be the truth.
Can you imagine how those guys would have felt, those
ladies and gentlemen if they saw Facebook post let's pamphletize
a million. So this means that, of course, while grand
wise get a hard time, books of magic were not
the only inaccurate things out there by any means um.

(17:47):
But we do know that before the British called spell
books grim wise, before the French read Latin, before even
the age of the Roman Empire, magic in some form
existed around the world or magical practices. Earliest precursors the
books of magic are these incantations found on clay tablets
and Mesopotamia. And that's the earliest we found so far.

(18:08):
What would you guys mind if we paused for a
quick break before we got into the details of that.
Sounds good, cool, and we're back. We're back in ten
but we're talking about ancient Mesopotamia. Let's broen what it is.

(18:36):
Where's my flying car? Yeah, where's your flying car? It's
in my suitcase. But the suitcase also flies. We should
have thought about all right, I got the year wrong.
It is seen but back before it was even sixteen,
like way before the Greeks believed. The first people to

(18:58):
compile books of mad Jack were in the Persian culture,
where a Persian tribe known as wait for it, the Magi. Yeah,
it's basically like magic without the sea. Hey, that is
a cool That is a cool word in term. I
don't for some reason, I love that I've actually heard

(19:19):
it pronounced magi and quite like there's a story of
the gift of the Magi. I've I've heard that, I've
heard it pronounced that way. Oh, I thought, well, I know,
I think it's I think both are acceptable. Listeners, call
me out, tell me. And there was some translation stuff too,
because in earlier text it used to be spelled m
A j I you know. So, yeah, folks, we're talking

(19:41):
about the same ones, the famous Wise Men of the East,
perhaps best known today in our neck of the woods
for their cameo during Christ's birth in the Christian Bible. UM.
I grew up in a classical music family, and um
one of the sort of opera is kind of Operetta
sp Is that my mother was quite fond of. Was

(20:02):
It's called a Mall and the Night Visitors, and it's about,
you know what, my dad played a mall for a
long term. It's it's a thing. Churches do it all
the time. But the wise Men are really central characters
in it because they hang out a lot, and they
all have their own personalities. And one of them has
this box that he carries around that's full of all
these amazing little trinkets and and like one of them

(20:25):
are like a bunch of them are these precious stones
that he considers magical and he describes them and it's
like moonstone will make you sleep, and like lap slazuli
and like all these different ones that have these different
properties that are all clearly charms. Yeah, but he, you know,
ascribed very specific effects to these stones just by placing

(20:45):
them near you. And the mall. The main character is
a boy who can't walk and has to use a crutch,
and uh, the wise Man is trying, you know, attempts
to even cure him, or implies that he could cure
him using some of these these trinkets. I'm saying charms. Yeah,
And that's that is because originally, before we see the

(21:07):
rise of the book, we're still like talking about before
the age of the book, these spells would be inscribed
on amulets and things like that. So the Greeks believed
that the first magician magi to compile the cult works
into a single large text or collection was a Persian
associate of King Xerxes, remember from three hundred Okay, I

(21:33):
think that's not entirely in accurate film. Uh, But there
was a magician the story goes, named Austen's, and during
xerxes failed war with Greece around four b c E.
This magician allegedly scattered the seeds of what would become
much of the world's modern in the time of the

(21:55):
Greek's understanding magical thinking. Also, the in this story the
magi learned their arts. They are culled arts from uh Zaraster.
So this is a tie in with the earlier religion
of Zarastrianism. I was gonna say, yeah, so I've heard
that mentioned in several places on the net, that those

(22:16):
guys were or on the net. On the net, you're
on the net, that's nothing but a bunch of pamphlets.
Then that's my faith at Sandra Bullock film. You know,
I rewatched speed and it doesn't hold up. Uh So today,
as we said, they're they're thought to be. Grimoire is
like an umbrella term for different types of magical knowledge,

(22:40):
and it can include everything from you know, how to
create charms, allah the magi, how to perform spells, practice
divination which is a big one, summon supernatural entities, angels, spirits, demons, domino.
We actually have a grimoire that we have to use
every single time we podcast with End because he just

(23:00):
you know, we have to you know, summon him. He
has to materialize from his interdimensional what do you call
it lair allegedly, just so you guys know, in three
separate grimois I found spells to ward against cattle witching
and uh diabolical mischief, and cattle had a ward against it.

(23:22):
It's pretty it was a big problem. He's a big problem. Oh,
we want to thank everybody who wrote listener mail to
us about that would occurred to me, like, how come
supernatural entities and extraterrestrial entities alike can't quit messing with
the damned cattle? Well that's a great question. Snatching babies,
stealing cattle, and there's there's a there's a troubling and

(23:46):
compelling argument about how closely older descriptions of the fay
or fairy folk can jibe like almost a one on
one correlation with stories about UFOs, Like you know what, man,
maybe it's maybe it's like, you know, how you follow
the money in politics, maybe we follow the cattle and

(24:09):
do you have uf I'm just just really fast, I
want to say how how important the cattle were two
people's of the times when a lot of us were
absolutely and so if anything is going wrong, if you're
not getting milk correctly, or if there's blood in the milk,
or you know, whatever small ailment the cow has, that's
going to be the biggest problem that your whole you

(24:31):
know group is experiencing at that time. Sure, yeah, I
mean it's easy for some people who don't who have
not lived in an agricultural environment to you know, we
can we can poke fun at this, and it's all
it's all a good nature. But it's sort of the
idea of let's say, if your family owns cattle, right,

(24:51):
they're probably pretty well to do in many ways, but
think of it like your your father or your mother
would then be the same thing as like they own
a small car lot. Every single one of those is
super important. And if something goes wrong, then it's food
out of your mouth. Yeah exactly, except in this case
instead of cars, you're literally drinking and like consuming yeah,

(25:15):
the byproducts. So yeah, I gotta live. And and so
these books were like compendiums, almanacs, reference works of all
this other stuff that existed oral traditions. Sometimes the books
themselves were believed to be imbued with magic powers, not
just the stuff you would read or do from the

(25:37):
manuals or the grimoire, but the physical object. And there's
a special note here that I think is important. We're
lucky to have listeners of all spiritual stripes or no
spiritual stripes on this show. And like that Preacher character,
and Poultergeist said, all they're welcome, All they're welcome, place
your hearty your heart exactly, and then he said, oh,

(26:04):
that's a good film. But so you might be hearing
this talk of magical books, either on this episode or
another episode, and wonder, you know, hey, how do spiritual
reference works fit into you know, holy text and stuff.
I was wondering that Ben Great Well, no time, like
the president. Technically, these would not be considered grimoise. In fact,

(26:27):
many people would consider the correlation to be offensive. Right Uh.
In the current day, they're definitely not consider that. But
many do contain either explorations of the occult or mentions
of the occult. You know, there are characters that are
fortune tellers, soothsayers, uh, practices of witchcraft, and some of

(26:48):
some of these books were often believed to have physical
magical properties themselves just the text on the page, imbut
it with some sort of power. And this belief exists
in a more subdued form today. This is why, for example,
you can hear religious excerpts being read during exorcisms in Catholicism.

(27:09):
And that's just one example. You can check out our
exorcism episode from more Info. And despite all of these
hoaxes that we've talked about, we do know that there
are a couple let's call them true with quotes grimoires.
In his book Grimoires History of Magical Books, author Owen

(27:31):
Davies names several. So we're gonna go through a couple
of these. Yeah, that's from all across the spectrum of
religions as well. Jewish Christian Islamic traditions, all of them. Yeah, well, yes,
and all of these were they were influenced by this
Babylonian myth that is ancient, super ancient. H and the

(27:52):
origin of these magic books were dated to the age
before the Great Flood has been said, Okay, it's not
that bad of a word, as long as we think
of prolapse. I was gonna say, as long as it's
not about that. Oh man, I'm arian. I just lost
this word now. I guess it's better that I get

(28:15):
it now. This explains why everybody it pro laps is
a scientific word. Edit that say it I did. It's
a yes, well, my misunderstanding of before the flood, which
is pre lapse arian. It's still a great word, you guys. Uh.

(28:39):
The idea here is that the ancient roots of what
would become magic in the West, which would be Babylonian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian,
interacting with Grecian mythology, this stuff becomes sort of a

(29:00):
immortal ooze, you know, a soil from which these other
things grow. And while some Hebrew and Smaritan text described
writings to the first man Adam in late antiquity, in
the medieval period. Uh Enoch, who in Arabic was known
as Idris, was more generally believed to be the inventor

(29:20):
of books overall. Yeah, so we're so far back in
time now that we're looking at uh spiritual and religious
traditions as well as stuff histories tells us. But this
right now is purely the stories from these belief systems.
So in the tradition Enoch is the is the creator

(29:44):
essentially the first Book, but also the first magic. The
first book is essentially magic. Another tradition relates there's another
worldly author, how the angel Raziel communicated to Noah a
secret book containing the art of astrology, which was then
written on a sapphire like we were talking like writing
on emeralds and precious jewels that Noah kept in a

(30:07):
golden chest they brought with him on the arc. Subsequently,
this was inherited by his son's Shim and a surviving
there's a surviving tract on astrology called the Treatise of
Shim that dates back to the late first century b c. EU.
This means that these are two early contenders for what

(30:29):
could be considered a kind of grim wis the purported
Books of Enoch contained astronomical, astrological and angelic lore, and
we know that versions of these were circulating during the
time of Jesus Christ, so in another medieval account. And
again these are all medieval accounts, so this is still

(30:51):
that that period of time where people were just believing
almost anything they read as long as it did not
directly contradict their religiost beliefs. So, without getting too deep
into biblical chronology, the argument here would be the earliest
works on the occult sciences where those studied by Enoch.
But the first Book of Conjuration and Magic is associated

(31:12):
with Noah and his son's Shim and Ham, and in
many ways this views into conjecture. Of course, often that's
sadly par for the course. In some degree weren't dealing
with ancient history. But there's another one that's a little
bit further, a little bit closer to us in time.
Whatever year we're in. I can't believe I forgot that
it was. I didn't mean to call you out. Someone

(31:35):
should at least I was really close. That's one of
my new years A relation is to call people out
more this year. Oh that's so sweet, like like the
fascinating m yep. I remember that. I certainly remember I
invite the same gentleman and listeners. I am no gentleman.

(31:59):
No ohen Davies cites the I didn't mean that to
come off solominous. Uh oh, And Davies cites another one,
the Key of Solomon, which you may have heard of
if you have an interesting grimma, and pops up in
fiction all the time too. I think it even pops
up in video games now. And I can't recall which one. Uh.
You guys probably know better than I would. Uh. Clavicula

(32:21):
Solemnus is the is the official name Keith Solomon, sort
of the anglified street name. It was the earliest known
written versions. There are multiple versions of a lot of
these kind of books dates back to the fifteenth century,
somewhere in the fourteen hundreds, written in Greek. Davies has
a great quote for us about this. There is no

(32:41):
definitive version of the Clavicule, but along with conjurations to
command and control the angels of darkness, manuscripts usually contained
rituals and symbols for personal rather than spiritual well being,
such as to provoke love, punish enemies, become invisible, and

(33:01):
deal with thieves and also unlock any door. I found
that to be interesting. Yeah, that's pretty cool, and I
like that deal with thieves. But you find these all
to be really practical, timely kind of things. You know,
they're like life pro tips exactly. Yeah, there's there's nothing
there's nothing there in that list that's super super abstract.

(33:24):
You know, abstraction would be more like the great work
of alchemy. So there's nothing about summoning the eld Rich
horrors that will then turn your mind to jelly. You know,
that should be a thing. There are remedies for gout
that I'm listening at right here, exactly. It's a big
problem I have. I have one that I actually found

(33:45):
in a work that we'll talk about in a little bit.
But would you like to hear a spell? Let's do? Okay,
So this one is as described in in the passage
we read a second ago. It's got these little symbols
um that I'm not it's not quite clear what their
origins are, but they kind of look almost like Hebrew

(34:06):
a little bit. They're kind of like, what do you think, Ben,
what do these did those jump out? As some older
Arabic older Arabic. That's yeah, they're definitely. They're kind of
a cursive e very fluid um stroke where the characters
are connected together. They're not like very definitive individual characters.
They're sort of like a big flowy central line and
then different um sort of filigreed little bits along the path.

(34:31):
But here's one to know of treasure hidden in the earth.
And this comes from a book called The Discovery of Witchcraft,
which was written by a man named Reginald Scott who
was from Kent in England and was a was a gentleman,
and it was published in four we'll go into this
work a little bit more, but it's a perfect place
to hear a spell. This one to know of treasure

(34:54):
hidden in the earth. On a piece of paper right
the following characters on a Saturday, the hour of the
rising moon, and lay it where you think treasure might
be hidden. If there's treasure on that spot, the paper
will burn and then it gives the characters. And just
to give proper credit, this comes from a blog post

(35:15):
by a gentleman named Jason Mankie who has a book
called The Witches Book of Shadows that you can seek
out Um, which sort of talks about different historical grimoires,
including the Key of Solomon and some others that will discuss,
including this one. But yeah, all very seemingly practical, like
I I want some treasure, I want to know, you know,

(35:36):
it's sort of a pre a pre metal detector, you know. Yeah,
that's a great point. And so these were practical things.
And this means that the first collection of spells probably
dates back into antiquity, probably just didn't happen to be
in a book for him yet before the rise of
the book. But the spell like well just read very

(35:57):
very practical instructions and in that age, right, And so
of course you want to accumulate all of those and
happen in one place. And the concept of magic itself
predates writing because it goes back to oral tradition and stuff.
So another big question is if these sorts of things
have been around since the dawn of recorded history, why

(36:18):
aren't there more examples. One of the answers to that
question is also surprisingly pragmatic and practical and grounded in
the real world censorship. Yet by the early years of Christianity,
magic scrolls and books were in wide circulation. But to

(36:40):
the Church, magic fundamentally smacked of paganism, a competitor every
no matter whether someone professed to be a Christian, if
they were still engaging in pagan practices, you know, like uh,
some sort of divination using the entrails of animals or
something that was still paganism to them? Is the Bible
a grimoire? The Bible is not a grim wire. The

(37:03):
Bible is uh. The Bible contains stuff about occult information
in the cult, characters, practice, and magic show up, but
it doesn't tell people how to do it. And it's
interesting because there is a there is an evolution in
the early days of Christianity where we see the the

(37:24):
line between what was perceived of his magic was received
as holy practices or whatever became blurred dependent on who
you ask. And I wonder if the the use of
the word occult as a term of abuse, you know,
a cult meaning hidden, is part of that or what's
proliferated by Christianity and Catholicism, because if the Bible doesn't

(37:45):
tell you how to do the tricks, it just kind
of tells you should follow and leave that to the
people that know how, that know what's up. In terms
of like who can commune with the whole spirit. I mean,
obviously in certain beyond Catholicism, you could do it yourself.
That was a big part of you know, the Reformation
and all that. But I like the idea of Christianity

(38:07):
being anti occultism because they already have their own book,
and they already have their own experts and their own
practitioners of that are higher level, and they don't want
the plebs getting their fingers and that stuff. Right, thou
shalt not intercede. Right, But there's a that's I just
made that up and used thou shalt, But the argument

(38:29):
is absolutely sound. What you're saying, Noll, is that that
that is an interesting juxtaposition. There a position for them
to take. And it reminds me before we go on,
did you guys ever hear that Prince Philip quote about religion.
It drove the more conspiratorial minded people quite quite mad.

(38:49):
And it was a It was a quote where he
talks about the revealed religions and a lot of people
thought that to me, there was a hidden mystery or
an a cult religion of which he and some other
elite cabal was was a part or we're a part.
But the word apparently the way that the word is

(39:11):
being used. A revealed religion is something that has its beliefs,
since value systems set down in a book or a
text according to the official story, but to the church
at the time, early days of the Church, they saw
magical works as impediments to the socio political dominance of
their belief system, which meant they saw it to actively

(39:33):
destroy works that ran counter to its purpose, which at
that time was to convert people right as many as possible,
to protect adherents of their belief system from the prejudice
and discrimination of other groups and you know, other like.
This is basically what religions were having to do to survive,

(39:56):
especially if there was a state sponsored religion that had
a lot of power. You gotta get that tithe money in.
I mean, how can you build you know, entire complexes, churches,
cities without that type money. So they would be destroying books,
and books were very powerful. Books are still powerful today.
The book is not going away for a long time,

(40:18):
of course. Just a bit of foreshadowing here. There were
apparently a few exceptions to their rules of burning and
destroying unholy books, and you will read ad nauseum so
many stories about certain unspeakably vile works hidden in the
bowels of the Vatican. Point of order. Though, although Christianity

(40:42):
gets picked on for book burning pretty often nowadays, and
although there were a lot of books burned and a
lot of religions names, the early Church was not the
originator Early Christian churches should say it was not the
originator of this idea. Way before they got started. Pagan
Roman authorities were also suppressing any literature that threatened state
control of religion, especially like we've named all these powers right,

(41:07):
how to how to sneak into places, how to find treasure,
how to summon angels and demons. But the thing that
civilizations were most frightened by, and these magical workings, it
wasn't cattle witching, It wasn't necromancy. It was divination. It
was the idea that if even if it was a
totally fictional prophecy, if enough people believed in it, it

(41:29):
would destabilize the state. It would destabilize the military. It
would you know, topple the house the cards, or the
column of cards, the Parthenonic cards. This is something I
wanted to bring up really fast, and I was watching
all of these YouTube videos with this gentleman named Tarl Warwick.
That's at least what he calls himself. The YouTube channel

(41:51):
is sticks hex and Hamma six six six and he
I don't know exactly what he is besides an editor
of books and translator and also a thinker and an occultist.
I guess his name is Tor Tarl T A R. L.
And believe that's at least what he calls himself. But
one of one of his main arguments when discussing the

(42:15):
occult he has a whole video series on the occult,
is that if a belief is held by enough people
and strongly enough, then it is what separates that from
um reality and fiction. Right if the if the belief
is strong enough, so one of these tones that would
be considered a grimoire. If enough people believe that it's real,

(42:37):
is it not real in some way? If there are
enough people actually chanting out the words that are inside
of it, or you know, believing that it's true. And
so I can imagine that the Romans were terrified that
if one person gave this divine prophecy, then enough people
believed it, then perhaps they're going to try and fulfill it.

(42:58):
No matter what. Yeah, there's a the medic or viral
quality to belief. So if Noel receives a prophecy and
enough people believe in follow him. Depend on what the
prophecy is, it could just be self fulfilling. And I
got prophecies for days. Yeah, ask me about something, all right? Yeah?

(43:20):
Uh a, Noal, What's what's gonna be? You know how?
Like the guitar is often considered the main instrument of
a lot of modern music today, what's gonna is it
gonna have a replacement? And if so, what would that be?
The key tar? Mm hmm like a guitar, but it's
also a keyboard. That's pretty good. I mean, that's just

(43:41):
it's gonna make a comeback. That just checks out? Yeah,
okayt When will twenty one Savage retire and become whatever
his next thing is? I don't know who that is.
It's good enough for me. I think sometimes we see
we see only partially, you know, through a glass darkly

(44:04):
there we go see he read my mind in b C.
I do have a prophecy, oh you do. We need
to take a break, and so it shall be fulfilled.

(44:24):
And so if it was fulfilled, that's crazy. Right when
you said that that happened, And I didn't even say
those things. It just came out like I saw your
eyes roll back. Are you cool? You're meeting a little
out of your ear. We'll be right, all right. Well,
there's a cute tip while you're while you're queuing up,
which is our new slang for bottle key tips while

(44:45):
you're queueing up. Let's let's further this with some examples
of times that non Christians or non Monotheistic religions were
like burning books or non Abramaic religions we should say
Hunding eighty six BC, for example, the Senate rounded up
and burned books only books on sooth, saying the medicinal

(45:08):
stuff was fine. Over a century and a half later,
two thousand books also on divination were burned on the
orders of Emperor Augustus. But it wasn't just for magical
books either. It was just books that people disagreed with,
like religious and philosophical works didn't do much better. In
one b C, somebody found a buried chest of books

(45:30):
that were supposedly the work of Pythagoras, and then the
Senate said, oh wow, what treasure burn it? I mean
these guys were burning books left and right, religious works.
Of course, we're also burned by opponents on all sides.
If we were living back then, and Matt and Noel
and I each had different religions, like one of our

(45:51):
main missions would be to destroy the other people's stuff unfortunately,
uh and and then try to convert each other, which
rem my to me. In that story, I don't know
have you ever heard it. It's real quick and and
listeners please fill this in if you're more familiar with
this story than I am. There were three patients at
a an asylum, a mental health facility, who were each

(46:11):
convinced they were Jesus Christ, and one of the staff members,
one of the doctors there, said, you know what, let's
just let's put these guys in the room and see
what happens. And then they thought they would come to
blows or go crazy, you know, have some sort of break.
But instead they came back to find them apparently like

(46:32):
pleasantly chatting just about everyday stuff. And then one on
one interviews apparently revealed that they had they had each
come to the conclusion that the other two guys were crazy.
This is um I've heard of this it's got a
weird name. It's like the Three Christs of and then
you insert the name and it's like it starts with
a why, the Three Christs of Ipsilante? Is that is

(46:56):
that it? It's a silent y, yeah, I mean, it's
definitely starts with a why. There's a book and the film.
According to the Google the thank you good saving a
So do check that up because it shows just some
of the intricacies of the human mind and perspective. But
all this burning, all this censorship, led to an unfortunate
situation wherein modern experts may know that a certain text existed,

(47:19):
we may find multiple references to it in other documents
and other historical works, but all copies of it were
either lost the history are consigned to the tragic ashes
of a fire somewhere. And this means that many grimoires
are fakes or half truths, or destroyed. In the thousands
of years since humanity invented books found, we enjoyed burning them,

(47:41):
and the very beginning of what we happen to call
the year seventeen. And I don't know about you, guys,
but I'm thankful that for now people have not found
a way to burn podcast. Yeah, we we should have
been making books out of something less flammable early on.
I think it's easy to say that now. So the

(48:01):
sum it all up. The t LDR. Davies writes that
the magic of the first millennium as we know it
from surviving written text, which is a heck of a
caveat now as we know, was primarily a mix of Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian,
and Jewish influences. Medieval grimoise reflect this, but new traditions
developed as scholars, theologians, and I would also insert Charlatan's

(48:22):
reconceptualized and reconstructed, sometimes falsely, the cultures, philosophies, and beliefs
of the ancient world. And at this point, at this point,
we have to we have to give the bummer disclaimer,
bummer announcement. At this point, as we were recording this
and we looked absolutely no one ever has provided accepted

(48:47):
reproducible proof that any spell or incantation in any true
grimoire works, at least so far as we could find,
And most of the claims regarding a successful ritual are
either very old an anecdotal, or they're backed up by
the same single group of spiritual adherence. So like, there's
not anybody saying that group did it successfully over there?

(49:11):
That one right, and there's not someone saying, well, let's
ship the book off to you know, Dunwich and try
it there and get the same results. That anecdotal thing
is something we've found in a couple of different podcasts
and episodes where we really wanted to find evidence. It
reminds me of the Ghosts episodes where we are looking

(49:31):
so hard to find something that we could say this
is proof that that this exists. But everything that you
read is the story from one person or two people,
you know, a small group that performed a ritual and
it was successful. And it's one of these things where
should it be that hard to find the evidence of
a single person with all of these different books, all

(49:53):
of these different accounts, if it was a thing, shouldn't
shouldn't it be a little easier to find a video
you to video of someone successfully performing us about our ritual?
And there there are questions because there are also people
who will say, well, I've successfully performed a ritual and
it had results that are either not easily comprehended or

(50:16):
depicted or measurable. Yeah, exactly, and so one of the
things that came up a lot in the Alchemy episode,
Yes right, is it weaponized psychology? I believe, was the phrase.
And it's true that some of the things that you
can do to yourself and others simply through psychological manipulation
come very close to what we would think of as

(50:37):
acts of magic, you know, eight hundred years ago or so,
we do know. Not while there might not be any
proof so far as we know, and we would love
to see proof if if you feel you have some,
please send it to us. Uh, this is not We're
not going to blow up the spot if you ask
us not to tell anybody. We just want to know.
While there isn't any proof so far that we know

(50:59):
of people actually successfully reproducible, that's the important part casting
spells from a book. There are mysterious books in the world,
many many more than you might think. And we have
some examples of grim wise that are still either unsolved
or have numerous questions, or that we're convinced if they

(51:25):
were convinced, that there's stuff about them we have yet
to fully understand. And we have a bunch of examples
here in no particular order. The Book of Siga, which
was allegedly given to John D on March tenth of
fifty two, Queen's Favorite Alchemists, by an angel. Yes, it

(51:45):
was then lost for five hundred years following the death
of Mr D. And then apparently two copies remain in England,
that is where they exist, and they were written in
this code that is yet to be solved. That's pretty cool.
It's pretty strange, especially considering a book was lost for

(52:06):
five years. Another is the Prodigiorum Ostentorum Chronicon or Chronicle
Importance and Prophecies. This is interesting because it was written
in fifteen fifty seven thereabouts by guy named Conrad Lycosenies.
This book is a reference work of sorts, and it
contains here's the thing. It contains documented events like we

(52:29):
know historically these happened, stuff that you can't fake, like
Hayley's comment at the correct time, like floods, disasters. But
in between these different world events that are accurate. It
also contains descriptions of sea monsters and UFOs and things
that today are more relegated to the realm of fringe theories. Next,

(52:55):
we have the one I mentioned earlier, which upon further
discussion and and you know observation I don't know necessarily
be classified as a grimoire not, but I think it's
worth mentioning because of what it contains. Um. It is
the Discovery of Witchcraft written by a Sir Reginald Scott. Uh.
He's not officially a sert to my knowledge, but I
think it's got a nice ring to it. Who was

(53:17):
a Kentish gentleman, a gentleman from Kent in England. Um.
And he was attempting to debunk witchcraft and place the
blame uh for the execution of which is on you know,
the Catholic Church. A lot of these which scares and

(53:37):
which trials, and would wanted to kind of paint these
many of these women who were killed as as complete
and total victims. And you know, meant this not this
book to be a very damning portrayal of the way
the church, the Catholic Church behaved, but it ended up
becoming I think possibly counter to Got's intended purpose. Uh.

(54:02):
This collection of various bits of lore and even if
it's spells, one of which we read earlier about finding
the Treasure, became widely read and considered a resource on
the subject. So I'm wondering. Then he said that resource
books and historical collections of this kind of esoterica, this
kind of witchcraft, um spells and such, wouldn't necessarily be

(54:24):
get considered a grimoire. But isn't it also and how
you choose to use it? Is it all about the intent?
Because I don't know. I'm asking, um, I think this
is worth a mention, but it sets up for debate.
The jury stillot as to whether or not this would
actually be considered a grim wire. So listeners, if you
have any thoughts on that, police let us know. I
think it would if it has a collection of Lord spells,

(54:45):
even if he didn't intend it to. There's this, uh,
this conversation that we've been having off air for a
long time about you know, who owns a piece of
art after it's created, whether it's a sculpture, a song,
or you know, a story or a book. It did
have a spin to it, like I said, Jeff, markedly

(55:05):
anti Catholic spin and ultimately anti witchcraft. I think it
was a little bit sympathetic in a way, but kind
of like thought it was privolous, not dangerous at all,
just sort of like a passing fancy sort of if
you will, and meant to sort of neuter it. Well,
that I mean, and that would be effective because the
ideas about the the ideas about witchcraft in Europe at

(55:30):
the time, we're largely held and propagated by people who
saw themselves as opponents of the practice, and a lot
of innocent people died. So if this book got through
to someone, if if Reginald Scott's book did prevent someone
from being executed in some incredibly torturous way, then I
think it was a good It was a good deed. However,

(55:53):
I could easily see the unfortunate path that appears to
have happened where someone said here I found a and
wire too. I don't care what he says about these spells.
I'm going to find some treasure, you know. And and
I think you make a beautiful point about the use
of these things, right like is a can of gas

(56:18):
and a lighter a ticket to a warm fire at night?
Or is it a ticket to burn down a building?
You know? Oh, it is all things. And if if
these if the belief here is that this magic actually works,
then in a way people would see these books as weapons.
Even if somebody made one that said, clearly, I'm showing

(56:42):
you that this is all malarkey and you should stop
hurting people for silly reasons. But then also there's some stuff,
probably one of the some of the biggest legends we've
talked about, something like there's the Book of Shadows that
we touch upon in our video stuff. There's one that
got me um that I'd really like to hear from
the listeners about it. It's called the Grand Grimoire or

(57:05):
the Red Dragon, and this is sort of um. This
is one of the white whales of the of the
Grimoire world was allegedly written in fifteen twenty and it
was penned by a guyamed Honorius of Thebes during a
particularly nasty bout of demonic possession. And so yeah, and

(57:28):
so you have and so apparently the spells within it work.
It was owned, the legend goes it's owned by the
Roman Catholic Church, and it's unavailable to the public. It
contains the only working rituals to summon uh Satan or

(57:48):
other demonic forces such as pezus think like Pezuzu from
The Exorcists, and and and uh and then also ways
to corrupt the pope over time. So if all that's true,
why didn't anyone destroy it? Especially with this predilection for

(58:12):
burning books off the suddenly a little bit you guys
stoked about the Young Pope because I'm really excited about it.
I haven't. I've seen the trailer. I watched the first
twenty minutes of the first episode last night. I love it.
But Diana was falling asleep, so I said, we're gonna
table it till tonight. Put a pen in it. Yeah, well, listeners,
let us know what you're thinking about the Young Pope.

(58:32):
I'm excited about it. The first shot, yeah, and the
entire thing. Have you seen it? You haven't seen it?
The first thing, you see. I'm trying to figure it out,
trying to see where they're taking me. But again, I've
only seen the first twenty four minutes or so, but
the first shot. You know. I know they can be

(58:53):
controversial throughout history, but I've never had an unpleasant conversation
with the Pope on my end at least, have you mind?
So conversations with popes? Here's the kicker. They can't destroy
the book because apparently it can't burn. Is there any
way we can have that happen and then talking about

(59:13):
the Young Pope because it was building it up so well.
I was waiting for Ben to say it can't burn
and then go to the young Pope that possible, like okay, okay,
because we're clearly like having fun with you. O UM. Now,

(59:33):
I know that's a lot to take in, folks, UH,
and I want to let people know I looked I recently. Also,
I've been sending some correspondence to the to the Vatican
to see, you know, if there's any sand to this story,
because I at this point couldn't find an official yes

(59:57):
or no over whether they own a book like this. Uh.
There are copies or purported copies that you can buy,
because apparently it's popular in some other circles, especially in
vood unrelated circles. But those aren't the only mysterious books.
There's also some that I would consider the the we
don't know books, like the Rohan Seed Codex UH, donated

(01:00:20):
to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in the early nineteenth century.
Not only do we not know what it's about because
it's written in like the Oiga, like the Oiga Chronicles
and uncracked code, we also don't know where it comes from.
It just short of showed up with an alphabet all
its own. Some people believe it is a hoax, but
so far, at the time of the recording, no one

(01:00:41):
has proven that to be the case. And then, of
course there's the Voyantage manuscript. We've talked about this in
an older video. This has come up in numerous episodes
just as a creepy cool uh I don't one of
those topics that you can bring up at any dinner
conversation and you'll you will be the talk the toast

(01:01:02):
of the dinner, the table, because it's just it's really cool.
But it doesn't have any inherently like occult ish. It
doesn't have spells. It's it's it's it's all these amazing gorgeous,
frankly illustrations of things that just frankly don't exist. Wow,
but they might, like plants that aren't real, you know,
in in a very naturalistic as though it were a

(01:01:25):
medical illustration of some sort or like like like you said,
a uh something from Darwin's Journalist perhaps like very much
looks to be observational illustrations, which is what makes it
so darn cool. It's named after the book dealer viefited
Wantach Wantach, who acquired the book in nineteen twelve, and
it's been dated to sometime around the fourteen hundreds, maybe

(01:01:48):
as recently as fourteen thirty eight. And it appears to be,
as you're saying, part pharmacopeia illustrations of plants and herbs,
but also part alchemy, part just treatise on the cosmos,
part of a encyclopedia for a world that doesn't exist.
And it appears that this is just scratching the surface

(01:02:10):
of one part of the world's evolution with magic, and
just just a few of those books. There's so many more.
But it appears that whether or not you believe in
magic yourself, there really is stuff they don't want you
to know about. Grim Wise will never know exactly how
many magical texts were lost to purges of ancient empires,
religious zealots, looters, and plunderers. And it's it's tantalizing to

(01:02:34):
know that some of these are mentioned in other texts
and we will never encounter them because the people who
didn't want you to know this numbered in the hundreds
of thousands, perhaps the millions, and they had executed this
conspiracy uh, thousands of years before we were twinkles and

(01:02:58):
our grandparents. I you know what I mean. Do you
think there's real magical knowledge that's hidden out there that's
gone it's just lost because these texts are gone. I
feel like there's got to be some kind of knowledge,
even if it's just herbal some herbalism stuff, what certain
plants can cure, you know, just trial and error over time.

(01:03:24):
I mean that, I'm sure that happens now. Pharmaceutical companies
have sent people into, you know, into very rural areas
of the Amazon to research plants, uh, the efficacy of
plants treein disease. If we're just spit bawling, I guess
it's also possible that an ancient civilization could have documented

(01:03:45):
the orbit of a comment or something that is so
far out and comes so rarely totally we wouldn't be
aware of it. Possibly we just saw last, not this
previous money, but last or was it this previous when
they notice, yes, there's a by Earth giant asteroid that

(01:04:07):
we've are just seeing for the first time, and then
you know, I think it's completely possible that there are
books that are hidden and they were written by people
who believed very much and what they were writing. And
I'm sure that there are suppressed works, whether those are
waiting to be found or whether they destroyed they were destroyed,

(01:04:28):
or whether they actually can do something, whether it's possible
for us to summon something. I don't know. I think
we should try. Do you think we should try? I
kind of want to try. We should. We should get

(01:04:49):
woven in here again and Damien skim Let's do it
Damian the creepy kid from the omen He and then
our friend Damien. We'll get him to come into and
be a powerhouse duo. Can you go double Damien? Is
that like it's not gonna be like when two people

(01:05:11):
in the same crew where hat wear the same hat.
Two Damian's don't make a Shamie Shamian Damie. Right, Okay,
all right, well, we do hope that we do hope
that you enjoyed this episode. We're interested to hear what
you think because there's so much information about Grimoise and

(01:05:34):
there's such a i'll say it, fascinating evolution here that
we're going to continue exploring this off the air and
may have some updates for you, or may have some
updates from you. For your fellow listeners. If you would
like to read more about the evolution of grim Wise boy,
have we got a book for you. Check out Grandois
a History of Magical Books by Owen Davies. And if

(01:05:59):
you like this kind of stuff, go to grim Wis
dot org. There it's just a place where you can
look up different grimoires. Uh. And they're they're listed out
through a timeline as well with the purported written dates
and throughout the centuries. It's good stuff. Do we have
time for a little lust? Shut at corners? Excellent? Yes,

(01:06:24):
thank you know. Our first shout out corner and goes
to Devon w with it gets his own entire corner.
Oh yeah, he gets a part. He gets a part
of the corner. Scoot and scoot over Devin. Sorry, nobody
puts Devin in a corner. Actually, I really like this.
We're in one corner because there are four corners obviously,
and then there are three shoutouts and each one is

(01:06:46):
in a different corner, so it's more of a shout out.
It's room. Yeah, all right, Well while we are working out, okay,
we're gonna get some We're gonna get some pen and
paper and figure this out or just some blood and pavirus.
Devin w rights it and says I love your podcast. However,
I was listening guys recent show on the HEMP Car

(01:07:08):
when guys were going through listener mail. You seem to
be under the impression that Vladimir Putin was the head
of the KGB at some point and think that'd be true.
I did a little looking up and found, in fact,
it was not. He left the service as lieutenant colonel.
It makes sense since there's a narrative driven by the
media lately. Anyways, just wanted to correct the record. Thanks
for the Thanks for a great podcasts, Devin, Thank you

(01:07:28):
even more for a great correction. These are very important
to us. Uh this, Devin, you are correct. This was
on me because the truth of the matter is that
on July Yeltsin appointed Putin as the director of the
f SP, the Federal Security Service, which is the successor

(01:07:49):
to the Cold War a KGB. Devin, thank you even
more for writing this one was on me. Folks is correct.
Vladimir Putin was never the head of the KGB. He
was appointed the director of the f s B, the
successor to the KGB, on July by Yelson. So he

(01:08:11):
was in charge of the of the successor today it
was in charge of the FSB Intelligence Service and was
a high ranking official in the KGP. Yes, this one
comes from josh At Shivers Smash on Twitter act conspiracy
stuff nol. There are reports that the Smashing Pumpkins are
legitimately getting back together for a tour. You are a wizard, no, sir,

(01:08:34):
not a wizard, a seer, a prophet, a sayer of sooth,
a sooth sayer slayer. Yeah no, um, that's cool. I
hope maybe maybe it'll keep Billy Corgan from saying dumb
stuff in the press and kidding suit over wrestling and
going on Alex Jones. That'd be cool. Play some music,

(01:08:55):
Billy Corgan. I'd beat down with that. What why are
you guys the eyeball on me? I gotta have issues.
I've got beef. The guy sort of, you know, ruined
my childhood by like being such a blowhard. And that's
not the only tweet we got regarding Smashing. I have
feelings about Billy Corgan. I'm sorry, okay you. I was

(01:09:16):
just a huge fan when I was a kid. I
thought he was such a sensitive lad. I felt like
he really summed up by teenage angst, like I like
melanchol in the infinite sadness. Yeah, I mean those you know,
doing the ten albums that affected your teenage years that's
been making the rounds lately. Three of them were Pumpkins
albums for me, So you know why you gotta do
that to a kid, Billy Corgan anyway, another one, Um,

(01:09:39):
we had Philo cult uh tweet at us. You guys
asked the Smashing Pumpkins to get back together and they did?
You know? It was just an inkling. It was an inkling. Well,
maybe maybe there's something redemptive about it. Maybe the story
of Noel Brown and the Smashing Pumpkins has a better ended. Maybe.
So uh, I feel like Corgan, I still love you man,

(01:10:05):
It's cool. I have opinions too. And the last shout
out goes to the Ben Randall at in the Weeds
w b R, who says, Yo, I don't even smoke weed,
but I would totally smoke some sweet kitten whisper. I
think that is hilarious. I think anyone would really, Well,

(01:10:26):
you can always you can always count on beds. They're
good people, right, If I'm being honest, kitten whisper sounds
like the name for a much harder drug than weed.
I'm just putting out there. That's true. That's true. It's
like if you see a really mean looking rough person
and they have a very strangely uh soft nickname, you
need to be frightened of them. It's dear clear. Yeah,

(01:10:49):
if you see a seven ft two guy with visible
face scars named sprinkles run. Oh. Yeah, here's the other thing.
What does a sweet kitten whisper like sound like? Mhmm,
are you gonna put something in there? I got I
got nothing, man, No, I'm not gonna put anything in there.

(01:11:10):
That's not a sound that the human voice can make. Okay,
that is that is beyond our powers in this room. Right,
it's gonna be unfair to whispers. I'm gonna do it.
This is what a sweet kitten whisper sounds. I don't
know why. That makes me uncomfortable. Gives me the a
s mr tingles, that's what I hear. Man. It's like, um,

(01:11:32):
it's a meal. It's a sweet little kitten meal. But
it's also should we pop a sweet kitten meals? The
old dusty trail? Yeah, I think it's that recipe me
out and that's the end of this classic episode. If
you have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you
can get into contact with us in a number of

(01:11:53):
different ways. One of the best is to give us
a call. Our number is one eight three three st
d w y t K. If you don't want to
do that, you can send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff
they Don't want you to Know is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,

(01:12:13):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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