August 17, 2024 • 44 mins
The interaction between oil and water has fascinated us since ancient times, and it has factored into practices as diverse as divination rituals and attempts to calm turbulent waters at sea with storm oil. In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe explore the effect of oil on troubled waters. (Originally published 07/20/2023, Part 1 of 2)
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb and it is a Saturday, so it's
time for another episode from the vault. This is going
to be part one of our series on oil and
Troubled Water. This originally published on July twentieth, twenty twenty three.
It's a part one of two and it gets into
the fascinating interactions between oil and water and how it's
(00:29):
factored into practices as diverse as divination, rituals and attempts
to calm the sea with oil. So, without further ado,
let's jump right in.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
is Robert.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
We have a fun journey to tell take you on
in the next couple of episodes, probably going to be
a two parter, but who knows. We never know. We
don't know what the future is going to bring. But
this is one that on the surface of things, you
might think, oh, well, oil and water, how interesting could
that get? But it gets pretty interesting because you know,
(01:19):
we're going to get into divination, We're going to get
into the idea of pouring storm oil into the sea
to calm turbulent waters. There's a lot to talk about here,
but at the very base level, oil and water two
things that famously don't mix. You've probably observed varying levels
(01:40):
of the interaction before. Perhaps you've just seen like a
film of oil on the surface of a puddle, or
you've observed the separation of cooking oil combined with another
liquid in a mixing bowl. It instantly catches the eye.
I'm not going to say it necessarily always captures the
human imagination, but there is something about it that you
can't help but know.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Did you ever have one of those toys when you
were a kid where there is I actually don't know
what liquids they use in these, but presumably it's water
and then some kind of lipid based colored liquid, maybe
like red or blue, that bubbles through the water and
maybe spins a little pin wheel or something.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. I
do remember these. They're really fun for a brief period
of time, and then they go into the junk drawer.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, maybe I'm just easily amused. I remember turning mine
over and over a lot.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, well, I mean it's memorable. I'm not saying it's forgotten.
That it certainly ends up in the toy chest.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I bet that one's really fun when it breaks. That'd
be a great origin story for like a long dormant
virus or something, the dangerous microorganism encased within the item
of power.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
What strange oil did they end up using. Yeah, well
it's not just children, It's not just the inner child
as well. Humans have interactions of oil and water intriguing
since ancient times. And yeah, indeed it does trace back
into the realm of ancient magic and divination. You know,
various tales and we'll touch on some of these of
(03:12):
like ancient kings and so forth, seeking out the word
and the wisdom of diviners who use various methods to
sort of reach into the murky future and make sense
of the strange shapes there. Now, divination is, of course
the attempt to seek guidance concerning the future and decisions
(03:32):
that impact future events. As we've discussed in the show before.
You can certainly think of it as a as the
right of supernatural guidance, which it is, but especially in
the ancient context too, we might think of it as
well as a means of sort of generating a randomized
direction that is weighted by belief for superstition. You know,
if presented with two choices, all things being equal, you know,
(03:54):
flip a coin, but not a trivial coin, not a
completely trivial coin, because this coin is weighted supernatural belief.
But then also you keep it from being just you know,
completely random, because it also entails an art of interpretation.
It's not just a coin anyone can flip and anyone
can read. You need a specialist who's going to read
(04:15):
the coin, read whatever it is you're reading, and perhaps
too you know, read the client, read the patron and
or the you know, the larger events going on and
so so, yeah, there's a there's an art to divination
as well.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
So it's often interesting when you think about a lot
of the stories of what the interpreter does. I mean,
there are some cases where they get real specific about things,
but most of the time it seems like they are
adding in ambiguity that makes it harder to falsify the prediction.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, sort of the you know, there's obviously an art
to the cold read, and you know, there's a level
of manipulation to carrying it out as well. And also
there's a lot of self preservation, especially when you're dealing
with you know, dark and gloomy kings and ancient times.
If you want to be a diviner that lives a
(05:09):
long life, or even a reasonably long life, you do
have to read the room and figure out exactly what
kind of message you're going to relay to the ruler.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Look, I always said there would be a decisive victory.
I didn't say which side would get.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
So there are various methods of divination that have been
used over the years. We talked about about many on
the show before in the past, and we're going to
touch on several different ones here, but specifically concerning oil
and water divination, this is what the ancient Greeks would
come to call lacanamancy, the use of oil poured into
(05:47):
a basin of water to tell the future.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, so the name lacanomancy comes from the Greek lakane,
meaning bowl. So this is lacanomancy meaning bowl divination. And
in the literature, yeah, it seems most often to refer
to omens in mixtures of oil or water, either in
a bowl or in a cup and could apparently be
done either way, maybe by I think more often by
(06:12):
pouring oil into water, but maybe also by pouring water
into oil. Though there are some other definitions for this
word that seem to overlap with the concept of hydromancy,
meaning divination through water. And since the name only means bowl,
like the name doesn't mean oil, I guess it could
also involve these other things, like you have a bowl
of water and you drop gems in it and see
(06:34):
what they do to get your omen, or you drop
gold or silver coins in, or you like move, you know,
move the water around and see which way the ripples go.
There are a number of ways of doing this, but
the oil and water one seems to have been prominent
in the ancient Near East.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah. Yeah, this this lines up with what I was
reading as well. I was looking at a book from
nineteen eighty one titled Oracles and Divination, and in particular,
there's a section in it by O. R. Gurney that says, yes,
these these practices, they tended to involve a bowl or
a basin of some sort, and yes, one would either
pour oil into water or water into oil, and the
(07:10):
oil would cause various shapes on the surface of the water,
and these would be used through the diviner's art or
the barus art. I believe barrou is the term in
ancient Babylon to predict the future. There is also a
variation called al romance, which used flour instead of oil.
(07:30):
So you know, take heart, if you're out of oil
and you have some flour on hand, you can also
go with that.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Method make you the loosest of dose.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Now. Gurney also mentions that there now are slash were
I'm not sure if this is like the current count.
This is again a text from eighty one the six
known surviving tablets from ancient Mesopotamia dealing with oil omens,
and the author includes a couple of examples here that
(08:02):
I wanted to read. So these would be different nuggets
of wisdom to help you the diviner interpret what's happening
in the bowl. Quote. If from the middle of the
oil two drops come out, one big, the other small,
the man's wife will bear a sun for a sick man,
he will recover. And then the next one here concerns
(08:25):
the use of flower instead of oil. If the flower
in the east takes the shape of a lion's face,
the man is in the grip of a ghost of
one who lies in the open country. The sun will
consign it, the ghost to the wind, and he will
get well.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Oh wow, that's creepy. So wait, flower forms a lion's face.
Does that mean the ghost of one who lies in
the open country? Does that mean a ghost of someone
who didn't receive a proper burial?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Would that be? That was what it made me think of.
I'm not certain, and the author doesn't go into detail
on this, but yeah, it made me think of other
superstitions we've discussed from other traditions involving the unburied or
the improperly buried dead.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
This was a subject often of great concern in the
literature and folklore of the ancient world, that like people
like not getting a proper burial was really something you
didn't want.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah. Now, another form of divination that he mentions is lebanomancy,
which is divination by smoke from throwing cedar shavings on
an incense burner. And this would be kind of similar,
like you throw the wood shavings on their smoke billows up,
and however the smoke is moving, what shapes it seems
to be forming. That is the basis of your vision
(09:39):
of the future. M Now, he writes that the use
of entrails and a sacrificed animal would become more popular,
but oil, flower and smoke based divination would remain a
cheaper option, but also still one that would be invoked
and used by various important individuals, including kings, such as
when cassite Ogham the Second, he says, prayed to the
(10:03):
god Shamish by oil before setting out on a quest
to reclaim stolen statues of Marduk and Sarpanitum.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
It's interesting that you mentioned lacanamancy as a cheaper alternative
to reading omens in the entrails of sacrificed animals. I
came across that exact same claim and some other sources.
I don't know if they're citing from a common source
that says that, but yeah, that is interesting obviously. So
I guess the benefit of reading the entrails of a
(10:33):
sacrificed animal is you're almost like, you know, you're paying
for the really high price ticket for your message from
the gods, Like you're taking a good animal, getting it sacrificed.
I suppose at the altar of the god you're asking
for the answer from and then its entrails will tell
you something. And the budget option, yeah, is just a
(10:53):
little bit of olive oil and some water or some
flour or something like that.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah. And I'm just guessing here. I mean, maybe that's
not always available. Maybe sometimes the old ways are thought
the best, or maybe sometimes you have a situation where
even a king is getting a second or third opinion
on a matter, and it's like, well, okay, what do
the Lacinda mancers have to say about this? Maybe they'll
give me the answer that I want to hear now.
(11:19):
The author here Gurney, goes on and mentions that there's
also a form of Lacando mancy that was used by
the Hittites that involved a basin or a tub filled
with water. Certainly, but instead of adding oil or flour,
you would add what might be a snake or possibly
an eel, and its movements in the enclosed space of
(11:43):
the tank would foretell the future. And it does not
in this case sound like the animal was sacrificed. It's
just about you put the animal in there, watch it
swim around. How does it behave its movements are going
to reveal what the future holds? For us now I
was looking at concerning this topic appears in the Influence
(12:04):
of surface films on interfacial flow Dynamics from nineteen ninety
seven by Sean Patrick McKenna, and this author writes that
lacana manci is, of course one of the forms of
divination practice during the eighteenth century BCE in the Hamarabi
ruled Old Babylonian Empire, and points out, Yeah, there's several
tablets of the time period unearthed in the nineteenth and
(12:25):
twentieth centuries that list examples of the kind of mancy
and guides for interpreting what's going on in the water.
This author also shares some examples translated from these tablets.
A few of these include the following. If the oil sinks,
then rises and spreads around the water for the campaign,
unfavorable consequences for the sick divine punishment. If the oil
(12:50):
splits in two for the campaign, both camps should march
together for the sick death. If a drop emerges in
the east and remains stationary for the camp pain booty
for the sick recovery. If two drops emerge, one large,
one small, a male child will be born for the
sick recovery, if the oil fills the bowl for the sick,
(13:14):
death for the campaign, defeat for the leader.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
This last one actually raises questions for me, because the
question is if the oil fills the bowl. Knowing what
we know about the physics of oil and water today,
I mean, I think what will pretty much always happen
is that over time, any oil in the water will
spread out as far as it can, and so it
will pretty much always spread to fill the surface of
(13:39):
water in a bowl. So it takes time for it
to do that. So maybe you've got to put a
time limit on it. Otherwise it's always going to be
death or defeat for the leader. I would think.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, I think there has to be an immediacy to this.
And obviously, if you especially if you don't have a
steady hand, all of your divinations can't be you know,
death for the sick and defeat for the leader of
an army. That's going to be bad for business, I think.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
But it's interesting to see the pairings of the different
interpretations with like the two different kinds of battles, the
battle for health within the body, in the battle you know,
for the in the military campaign going on for the King.
So some of these pairings make sense to me, like
unfavorable consequences for the military campaign with divine punishment for
(14:29):
the sick death and defeat death and defeat booty and recovery.
That peering makes sense. The one I was confused about
is if the oil splits in two, that means for
the sick death for the campaign, both camps should march together.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, I'm maud you exactly sure what to make of
that either.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Yeah, though, I like that because that's not just stating
an outcome, that's giving advice.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah. Now, obviously another issue that all this raises is
you know, what what kinds of oil are you using
in what kinds of water? You know, there could conceivably
be differences in the reaction that takes place. Well, one
source I looked at this is from D. Tabor. This
(15:13):
is from nineteen eighty Babylonian Lacanomancy, an ancient text on
the spreading of oil on water, and in that the
author suggests that the water here is likely rain water
and the oil is some manner of vegetable oil. I
found that interesting, like the rain water, especially because on
one hand, okay, I guess this is going to be
how you're going to obtain the purest water that is
(15:36):
also free of any oils that might, you know, otherwise
contaminate it. And then on the other hand, there is
something kind of supernatural to it as well, like this
is the water that came from the sky, from the
realm of the gods, and therefore I can imagine that
playing a role in all of this as well. Now,
(16:02):
another interesting thing that came up in one of these
sources is they pointed this out Joe, that apparently in
the Old Testament, in Genesis forty four five, there is
a reference to lacanamancy. There's a there's a bit that goes,
is not this it in which my Lord drinketh, and
(16:23):
whereby indeed he divineth he have done evil in so
doing so?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
This is a very interesting case. I think this is
not necessarily a reference to lacanomancy, though that is a
good candidate for what it is referring to. It is
definitely referring to a form of divination, which means I
think maybe this is a good time for a digression
on references to divination in the Bible. And here I
(16:50):
have to apologize because I got seriously over zealous in
pursuing this digression, which is only lightly related to the
topic to begin with, So please bear with me, but
I think it's interesting subject. So there are actually a
lot of references to divination in the Bible. The Hebrew Bible,
or what Christians would call the Old Testament, contains references
(17:11):
to a bunch of different methods of divination. First of all,
there is actually a divination method officially sanctioned by the
Torah and by the priest class in the Bible, which
is known as the Urim and Thummim, which seems to
have been some other kind of object. It's like a
pair of objects worn on the ceremonial breastplate of the
(17:33):
high priest. And while the exact form of these objects
and the procedure for using them is not certain, it
seems they would essentially be used for casting lots of
some kind by the high priest in order to receive
answers from God, possibly answers to yes or no questions
about what would happen in the future, will we be
successful in battle and so forth, or answers to questions
(17:57):
about the guilt or innocence of an alleged sinner. Sometimes
They're represented as like gems that flash with a divine
light in order to project messages. I think there were
some interpretations in the later rabbinical literature like this, but
I think that's all sort of like later writers speculating
on what these original passages in the scriptures meant.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Now the urim and thummim here, if I'm correct on this,
this is this kind of often depict that is kind
of a multi code, like you said, crystal plate that
is worn from the neck. And I remember as a child,
I would experience a certain amount of excitement and maybe
(18:38):
a little bit of confusion because at the time I
would have my Star Wars books on one hand, and
then I would have, you know, some of these illustrated
like Old Testament stories books on the other and these
looked kind of these made me think of the chest
plate of Darth Vader.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Oh wow, yeah, well, the chess plate of Darth Vader,
Like it's got all the little tic TACs and stuff
on it.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Red lights and all, and oftentimes these illustrations you see
some sort of like red gems in there as well.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, So I think what it does, what is clear
is that these objects are linked to the breastplate of
the high priest in some way, like it said that
maybe they are put in or put on the breastplate,
but it's not exactly clear what they are. But what
is clear is that they are somehow used in an
(19:25):
officially in bounds divination process. This is what the followers
of the God of Israel were supposed to use for
divination purposes if they needed to. But the Hebrew Bible
also contains numerous references to other forms of divination, such
as necromancy. This is apparently a big concern in the
(19:45):
era of the Mosaic Law, and despite its modern interpretation
as a kind of evil sorcery used for like calling
up armies of undead skeleton soldiers and zombie swarms to go,
you know, get your paladins. Originally necromancy meant communication with
the dead for the purpose of divination, not raising zombie soldiers.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Now, to be clear, even in like the modern dungeons
and Dragons eccusage of necromancy, yes, there's a lot of
calling up the dead and using all sorts of you know,
weird spectral hands and so forth. There is still a
little bit of talking to the dead, though they keep
it real a little bit there, and we see a
bit of that in the recent Dungeons and Dragons movie.
There's a whole scene of speaking with the dead and
trying to gain wisdom from them.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Oh yeah, it's played mostly for comedy, I recall. Yeah,
like they have a fixed number of questions they can
ask and so forth. Yeah, So that's what necromancy means
in this context, though it's not. Yeah, it's not the
zombie soldiers. It's the talking to the dead for the
purposes of gaining hidden information or knowing the past or
knowing the future. Anyway, in the Mosaic law there are
(20:51):
general prohibitions against divination and wizardry and magic of all forms,
but one of the forms of divination that is specific
called out in these verses is necromancy. Also, there is
a very famous story in the Bible about a consultation
with a dead prophet. This is in First Samuel chapter
(21:12):
twenty eight, where Saul, the King of Israel, famously he
goes to a village called Indoor to meet with a
wise woman or a witch who can speak to the dead.
And this is significant in the story because Saul has
condemned witchcraft and has previously banished all the wizards and
fortune tellers from Israel. But then he's facing a military
(21:34):
conflict with another nation, with the Philistines, and he wants
to know what he should do, and apparently he tries
to get an answer from the sanctioned methods of information.
He tries to consult the Urim and Thumim, he tries
to have a dream from God or get some kind
of direct revelation, and nothing ends up with no guidance
(21:55):
and has no idea what to do from any of
the official channels, so he goes rogue. He violates his
own edict. He puts on a disguise and seeks out
a necromancer to speak to the dead prophet Samuel. He
wants to get Samuel's advice on what he should do,
and this does not go well, so he does go
(22:16):
to the woman in disguise. She figures out it's Saul
by the way. She's like, oh, wait a minute, you
said we're not allowed to do this, and he's like,
oh no, don't worry about it. I need you to
talk to Samuel. So she raises Samuel from the grave.
I think she can see him, but Saul can't, and
he's trying to talk with him, and Samuel just does
not help. He seems to be kind of irritated for
being woken up from the sleep of death, and then
(22:38):
he condemns Saul for his treachery. And then Samuel tells
him that his army is going to be defeated and
he will lose his kingship, and Samuel is right. The
army is defeated and Saul falls on his own sword
and dies. And this story seems to, at least in part,
emphasize how you really shouldn't go off trail on divination methods.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, stick to the to the legal methods. Don't go
into a legal divination.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
By the way, if you've never seen it, everyone should
look up William Blake's painting of Saul and the Spirit
of Samuel and the Witch of Indoor.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Brilliant, brilliant. Yeah, I mean all of Blake's illustrations. Those
hand colored illustrations are always so great. This one's no exception.
By the way, The Witch of Indoor would also come
to play a part in the nineteen eighty five film
The Battle for Indoor. Weird how cinema listeners may remember
no real connection to the Biblical account other than other
(23:33):
that we're dealing with a moon of indoor and there
is a witch on it.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
You were also not supposed to divine the future with
the help of Wilford Brimley. But anyway, so that's a
story from the Bible from after the delivery of the
Mosaic Law, which contains all of these prohibitions against divination
in general, presumably with the exception of the urim and
thumim and the prohibitions against necromancy in particular. But there
(23:59):
are also interesting references to divination from before the law
when it seems to have different connotations. So one of
these that occurs here is the example you raised earlier.
This is where we're coming back to La canamancy. This
is the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis,
which is a long and complicated story, so I'll try
to do the very condensed and simplified version. Joseph is
(24:23):
one of the twelve sons of the biblical patriarch Jacob,
and Jacob in the story shows favoritism toward him over
his other brothers, even buying him a splendid coat of
many colors. They made a musical about it.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yes, yeah, classic story.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
But his brothers, who are less favored by their father,
become very jealous, so one day they conspire, they beat
him up, they trap him in a well, and they
sell him into slavery, where he ends up being transported
to Egypt. But they take Joseph's coat to their father,
covered in the blood of a goat, and convince him
that Joseph was killed by a wild animal.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Again children's story. I remember reading it alongside My Star
Wars as a child.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
But in Egypt, Joseph does pretty well. He manages to
rise from lowly servitude and at one point he's imprisoned,
he manages to rise out of that to the rank
of the pharaoh's most senior lieutenant. He's like the number
two in Egypt. And the way he does this is
by showing a talent for divination. He is able to
interpret the omens of the future in dreams, and by
(25:30):
correctly analyzing pharaoh's dreams, he brings great prosperity to Egypt
at a time of famine for all the surrounding nations.
And actually, since it matters to my interpretation of this
story in a minute, the specific way this works is
that the pharaoh dreams of seven fat cows that are
eaten they're like swallowed up by seven lean cows, and
(25:52):
seven rotten stalks of grain that consumes seven good stalks
of grain, and Joseph realizes that this means they're going
to be seven years of good crops followed by seven
years of famine, and so to anticipate the famine, the
Egyptians must ration their good crops and store up extra
grain during the years of abundance. Joseph's prediction or his
(26:13):
interpretation of the dream comes true, and so later suffering
from famine like all of the surrounding nations are, Joseph's
brothers come to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, whom
they do not recognize. They don't know it's him, and
then they have several interactions actually, but in the last
one in secret, Joseph hides his silver cup in the
(26:38):
grain bag carried by his youngest brother Benjamin. He then
arranges to have his youngest brother caught quote stealing the
cup again he actually actually planted it on him, and
then demands Benjamin be given to him as a slave
as punishment, and instead their older brother Judah asks that
he be made a slave in Benjamin's play, and this
(27:01):
causes Joseph to break down in tears. He reveals his identity,
he forgives his brothers, and the family is reunited and
allowed to relocate to a fertile part of Egypt. But
it is the part of the story about the silver
cup that relates to divination. So when Joseph's steward finds
the silver cup hidden in Benjamin's sack, he says, just
(27:24):
as Joseph commands him to. He says, why have you
repaid evil for good? Is not this the one from
which my lord drinks and with which he indeed practices divination?
You have done evil in so doing. Now. Of course,
it doesn't say exactly what kind of divination he does
in the cup, So it could be a form of hydromancy,
(27:46):
where you would, you know, put water in the cup
or some liquid and drop coins or gems or other
objects into the water and see what they do. It
could be maybe used for a form of scrying, since
it's silver. Scrying is reading the future in reflection, and
a shiny surface such as a silver cup. Often a
crystal ball is used for scrying, but based on a
(28:07):
lot of the commentaries. I found a good candidate for
what is being described here is lacanomancy, where he would be,
you know, dropping oil into water or doing one of
the other things we've been talking about. But in any case,
I think this passage is interesting because I think the
staging of the theft of the silver cup used for
divination is supposed to be interpreted as more profound than
(28:32):
like mere burglary of an expensive cup. This is the
cup in which Joseph receives omens about the future, and
if you remember the earlier part of the story, correctly,
interpreting omens about the future is how Joseph rose to
his position of prominence in the first place. It was
the dream interpretations, you know, the Fadoleine cows and so forth.
(28:54):
And it's also how Egypt is currently in a good
position with this grain surplus during years of famine. So
in a way, I think with that gloss, it makes
sense to wonder if stealing Joseph's divination cup in the
story is kind of an espionage caper. It would be
like stealing the codes to the nuclear arsenal in a
(29:17):
modern spy thriller. This is a piece of supernatural technology
that helps give Egypt its strategic advantage over other nations.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Hmmm, that's fascinating. So I'm a little out of practice
with this particular Bible story. But Joseph frames one of
his brothers for stealing.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
It, but then he undoes it.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, he does it when another for his youngest brother. Yea,
his youngest brother is then fingered for the crime, and
he's like, oh, I didn't want to enslave him. He
wanted to enslave them both.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
No, no, no, no, he didn't want to enslave any
of them. I think I think he wanted to test them.
It's one of those kind of stories. I think. So
he plants that, Yeah, he frames his youngest brother, who
he loves, for the crime. Then he says, I'm gonna
make him a slave, and then because the older brother
is like no, no, no, take me instead. Then I
(30:11):
think that that softens his heart and he forgives his
brothers for what they did to him.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Replicated family dynamic anyway you cut it, Yes, But to
your point, yeah, this is not just any cup or
any silver cup. This isn't is this isn't an artifact
of the art of divination that Joseph practices. So this
is this is vital, this is this has strategic importance
for the Egyptians.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yes, and in this specific story, it is divination in
particular that has made Egypt prosperous. And so anyway, thinking
about the idea of dropping oil and water in a
(30:56):
cup or a basin to receive messages from from the
heavens or from the gods. You know, while even mundane
objects were often used for divination in the ancient world,
it seems clear to me why the behavior of oil
on water could inspire a kind of oracular fascination. Like
there's that sense of strangeness and wonder about it that
(31:17):
actually I found to be captured quite well in a
passage in a letter written by Benjamin Franklin in the
year seventeen seventy three. We're going to get more into
Benjamin Franklin, I think in the next part in this series.
But I wanted to read this passage because it articulates
the kind of amazing weirdness here when you really pay
attention to it. So Franklin's writing to somebody named William
(31:39):
Brownrigg in November seventeen seventy three, and he says, in
these experiments. One circumstance struck me with particular surprise. There
was the sudden, wide, and forcible spreading of a drop
of oil on the face of the water, which I
do not know that anybody has hitherto considered. If a
drop of oil is put on a polished marble table
(32:01):
or on a looking glass that lies horizontally, the drop
remains in place, spreading very little. But when put on water,
it spreads instantly many feet around, becoming so thin as
to produce the prismatic colors for a considerable space, and
beyond them so much thinner as to be invisible except
in its effect of smoothing the waves. Now, as I said,
(32:26):
we'll come back to Benjamin Franklin in the next part
of the series. But while I don't know if he
was the first person to notice the way that oil
spreads over the water, I actually somewhat doubt that he
definitely was not the first person to notice these other
strange properties, like the prismatic colors that tend to shine
out from oil spreading over a pool of water, And
(32:48):
he was certainly not the first person to notice the
apparent ability of oil to somehow soothe the chop of
threatening waters.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, and this was the thing that drew us into
this topic initially, because I know, for my part anyway,
I don't think i'd come across this before, this idea
of oil being used to calm storm waters, because I mean,
it just sounds so completely magical, and it will continue
to sound completely magical while also having a basis in
(33:19):
fact in science to at least a limited degree. So
the accounts that we have dealing with this with this idea,
these come from far after the time of ancient Babylon.
One of the earliest, if not the earliest. It seems
to go back to the writings of Aristotle. Aristotle lived
three eighty four through three point twenty two BCE, and
(33:41):
these a lot of his writings are generally just attributed
to three point fifty BCE. So Aristotle brings this up
in problems or Problemata physica, asking why is it that
the sea, which is heavier than fresh water, is more transparent?
Is it because it's fattier composition? Now, oil poured on
(34:02):
the surface of water makes it more transparent, and the
sea having fat in it is naturally more transparent.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Uh huh, okay, several things.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
There's also a part in I was looking up oil
in various of these ancient writings, and I noticed in meteorology,
Aristotle also points out that oil contains air. So there's
a lot of you know, mixed information here.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Purely speculating here that this could be totally wrong. But
I wonder if he's tempted to think that because oil
floats on the top of water, therefore like air rises
like bubbles through the water.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
M Yeah, that sounds likely. All right. I think we're
gonna come back to Aristotle, but we're going to skip
ahead now to another favorite source on the show, and
that is, of course Roman historian Plenty of the Elder,
who lived twenty three or twenty four CE through seventy nine. See.
I have to say Plenty talks a lot about oils
(35:02):
in the natural history. Like if you just start searching
for searching up the word oil, you're going to find
him mentioning all sorts of medicinal oils. Uh. There's also
a section titled waters which serve as a substitute for oil,
concerning waters that emit light and heal wounds. So a
lot in there for oil fans to consume and to
(35:23):
try to make sense of he's in generally a big
fan of oils, and he busts this out in Book two,
chapter one oh six. There's a whole info dump regarding
wisdom concerning the water, and he says everything is soothed
by oil and that this is the reason why divers
send out small quantities of it from their mouths, because
(35:44):
it's smooth any part which is rough and transmits the
light to them. M okay, So I think this is
tying in with what we were talking about earlier with
Aristotle as well, and I've seen this particular bit translated
as sprinkled from the mouth as well, so I believe leave.
The scenario here is that Plenty is sharing something that
he has heard or read regarding free divers carrying some
(36:10):
small quantity of oil in their mouths during the dive
and spitting it out to make the surrounding water more
visible during the dive while they're, you know, looking for
something like a molluskh. Now, this the quote I read
is from the Mayoff translation of Plenty, and he notes
in the notes for this that while this would be
(36:30):
proven to be correct, the effect is greatly exaggerated both
here and elsewhere. So keep that in mind. As we're
going here, we're dealing with, you know, second and third
hand accounts of these things that the definitely seem to
have a certain basis in fact, but also are greatly
exaggerated in the retelling.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Okay, well, I imagine we'll return to the mechanics of this,
if possible, in the next episode. But do you have
any idea how exactly this would work that would make
the water more visible?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
What's my understanding that that what we're dealing with here
is that, Yeah, the idea is that oil will sort
of smooth out the surface of troubled water, but that
it will also smooth things out underneath the water, and
if you are free diving looking for again, you know,
fish or shells or what have you, that some small
amount of oil released into that water would make it
(37:19):
clearer and easier to see these things and or allow
light to filter down more effectively. Again, we'll get into
the actual science of this probably in the next episode,
and we have to keep in mind that again we're
doing probably the second or third hand information here. I'm
guessing here this is something that Plenty had had heard
(37:41):
regarding some free diving people, and even though he would
have certainly been familiar with ships and all. I don't
remember in reading anything that indicated that he himself would
have any firsthand experience with diving underneath the water. Now,
another author who gets into some of this is Plutarch,
who have forty six through one nineteen CE. He also
(38:03):
references Aristotle in Causes of Natural Phenomena, and according to
Heinrich Hunifus in Oil Untroubled Waters a historical survey, this
is likely referencing a lost portion of Aristotle's Problemata reads
as follows. This is from Plutarch. What is the reason
for the clearness and calm produced when the sea is
(38:24):
sprinkled with oil? Is it as Aristotle says that the
wind slipping over the smoothness so caused makes no impression
and raises no swell? Or does this plausibly explain the
external phenomena? Only they say that when divers take oil
into their mouths and blow it out in the depths,
they get illumination and can see through the water. Surely
(38:46):
it is impossible to adduce slipping of the wind in
the cause there. Consider, then, whether the oil does not,
by reason of its density, push and force aside the sea,
which is earthy and irregular. Subsequently, when it flows back
to its former position and draws together, intermediate passages are
left in it, which offer transparency and clear visibility to
(39:08):
the organs of sight.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Oh that's interesting. So again I wonder if I'm understanding
Plutarch right here, But it sounds like maybe he's saying that,
like when oil is spit out under the water, it
kind of clears channels in the water. I wonder if
that would work by like attracting particles in the water
that would be making the water cloudy into the oil,
(39:31):
and then dragging them away with it as the oil rises.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Yeah, I'm not sure. I couldn't find much information on
this particular detail of the scenario. Maybe I'll find something
for the next episode. But yeah, it's like you'd have
to put ourselves in the like in the position of
an ancient free diver who's you know, I assume, not
using any kind of covering for their eyes. I did
(39:56):
run across some mentions of these practices where they talk
more like they were putting the oil in their eyes, which,
again I don't know how that's factoring into the sort
of telephone game of you know, second third and fourth
hand reporting on this during ancient times, in addition to
translation errors. All right, but in this we've touched on
this other big area, something that we're going to have
(40:18):
a lot more to discuss in the next episode as well,
and that is, Hey, if you dump some quantity of oil,
and the quantity seems to vary tremendously, if you dump
that into a stormy sea, well that's just going to
smooth everything out, smooth sailing thanks to the oil.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Okay, what do we have any stories about how this works?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
We do. We have a pretty good story here, and
it comes to us from the English monk Bead, who
lived somewhere around six seventy two or six seventy three
through seven thirty.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Five, often known as the Venerable Bead. It's good if
you can get venerable attached to your name.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yes. So the year here that he's talking about is
six fifty one, and King Oswig sometimes it's spelled Oswig
of Northumbria sends out a priest to bring his bride
home from Kent, and one Bishop Aiden blesses the priest
and gives him some holy oil and tells him, when
you set sail, you're going to encounter some really stormy weather.
(41:19):
There's going to be some high winds, so remember to
pour this oil that I'm giving you into the sea,
and that's gonna calm everything out. And this is later
described as a flask, so I'm assuming we're talking about
a magic potion quantity of oil here, rather than say,
a barrel of oil. So Bed claimed that everything happened
(41:39):
as the bishop said it would. When the storms came,
the priest poured the flask of holy oil into the
sea and the storm died down. And Bid insisted that
the miracle was no mere fable, that he had heard
it from reliable sources close to the matter, so you know,
he was like, this works. This is not a tall tale.
This is reality. Also worth noting by the way that
(42:00):
Osweg or Oswig was said. It was said that he
and his queen had been gifted multiple holy relics, including
a cross with a key to it made from the
chains of the apostles Peter and Paul.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Okay, Well, as much as this does just sound like
a standard magical item legend, I think whether or not
the story is plausible actually maybe more a matter of
degree rather than just like it could happen or it couldn't.
I don't know about using oil to stop a storm.
But in the next episode we're going to end up
exploring some surprising grains of truth in this kind of legend.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Yeah, and you might be surprised too. It just what
kind of legs this idea had concerning the idea that, yeah,
you might want to have some oil on hand in
case the water gets choppy.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
So maybe we got to call it there for today,
but we'll be back next time to talk about pouring
oil on the seas.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah, this one was more in depth than I expected,
and you never expect it, but Ben Franklin often does
show up. This is not the first episode where you
don't expect Ben Franklin, but here he comes sauntering up
with his weird energy and strange ideas, becoming a part
of the story of a particular invention or natural phenomena
(43:16):
or what have you.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
So tune in next time.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
In the meantime, if you would like to listen to
other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, well you'll
find them on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those are the core
episodes and the Stuff to Blow your Own podcast feed
listener mail on Monday. On Wednesday, a short form artifact
or monster effect. On on Fridays, we set aside most
serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If
you would like to get in touch with us with
feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
can email us at contact stuff to Blow your Mind
dot com.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb and it is a Saturday, so it's
time for another episode from the vault. This is going
to be part one of our series on oil and
Troubled Water. This originally published on July twentieth, twenty twenty three.
It's a part one of two and it gets into
the fascinating interactions between oil and water and how it's
(00:29):
factored into practices as diverse as divination, rituals and attempts
to calm the sea with oil. So, without further ado,
let's jump right in.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
is Robert.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
We have a fun journey to tell take you on
in the next couple of episodes, probably going to be
a two parter, but who knows. We never know. We
don't know what the future is going to bring. But
this is one that on the surface of things, you
might think, oh, well, oil and water, how interesting could
that get? But it gets pretty interesting because you know,
(01:19):
we're going to get into divination, We're going to get
into the idea of pouring storm oil into the sea
to calm turbulent waters. There's a lot to talk about here,
but at the very base level, oil and water two
things that famously don't mix. You've probably observed varying levels
(01:40):
of the interaction before. Perhaps you've just seen like a
film of oil on the surface of a puddle, or
you've observed the separation of cooking oil combined with another
liquid in a mixing bowl. It instantly catches the eye.
I'm not going to say it necessarily always captures the
human imagination, but there is something about it that you
can't help but know.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Did you ever have one of those toys when you
were a kid where there is I actually don't know
what liquids they use in these, but presumably it's water
and then some kind of lipid based colored liquid, maybe
like red or blue, that bubbles through the water and
maybe spins a little pin wheel or something.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. I
do remember these. They're really fun for a brief period
of time, and then they go into the junk drawer.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, maybe I'm just easily amused. I remember turning mine
over and over a lot.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, well, I mean it's memorable. I'm not saying it's forgotten.
That it certainly ends up in the toy chest.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I bet that one's really fun when it breaks. That'd
be a great origin story for like a long dormant
virus or something, the dangerous microorganism encased within the item
of power.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
What strange oil did they end up using. Yeah, well
it's not just children, It's not just the inner child
as well. Humans have interactions of oil and water intriguing
since ancient times. And yeah, indeed it does trace back
into the realm of ancient magic and divination. You know,
various tales and we'll touch on some of these of
(03:12):
like ancient kings and so forth, seeking out the word
and the wisdom of diviners who use various methods to
sort of reach into the murky future and make sense
of the strange shapes there. Now, divination is, of course
the attempt to seek guidance concerning the future and decisions
(03:32):
that impact future events. As we've discussed in the show before.
You can certainly think of it as a as the
right of supernatural guidance, which it is, but especially in
the ancient context too, we might think of it as
well as a means of sort of generating a randomized
direction that is weighted by belief for superstition. You know,
if presented with two choices, all things being equal, you know,
(03:54):
flip a coin, but not a trivial coin, not a
completely trivial coin, because this coin is weighted supernatural belief.
But then also you keep it from being just you know,
completely random, because it also entails an art of interpretation.
It's not just a coin anyone can flip and anyone
can read. You need a specialist who's going to read
(04:15):
the coin, read whatever it is you're reading, and perhaps
too you know, read the client, read the patron and
or the you know, the larger events going on and
so so, yeah, there's a there's an art to divination
as well.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
So it's often interesting when you think about a lot
of the stories of what the interpreter does. I mean,
there are some cases where they get real specific about things,
but most of the time it seems like they are
adding in ambiguity that makes it harder to falsify the prediction.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, sort of the you know, there's obviously an art
to the cold read, and you know, there's a level
of manipulation to carrying it out as well. And also
there's a lot of self preservation, especially when you're dealing
with you know, dark and gloomy kings and ancient times.
If you want to be a diviner that lives a
(05:09):
long life, or even a reasonably long life, you do
have to read the room and figure out exactly what
kind of message you're going to relay to the ruler.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Look, I always said there would be a decisive victory.
I didn't say which side would get.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
So there are various methods of divination that have been
used over the years. We talked about about many on
the show before in the past, and we're going to
touch on several different ones here, but specifically concerning oil
and water divination, this is what the ancient Greeks would
come to call lacanamancy, the use of oil poured into
(05:47):
a basin of water to tell the future.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, so the name lacanomancy comes from the Greek lakane,
meaning bowl. So this is lacanomancy meaning bowl divination. And
in the literature, yeah, it seems most often to refer
to omens in mixtures of oil or water, either in
a bowl or in a cup and could apparently be
done either way, maybe by I think more often by
(06:12):
pouring oil into water, but maybe also by pouring water
into oil. Though there are some other definitions for this
word that seem to overlap with the concept of hydromancy,
meaning divination through water. And since the name only means bowl,
like the name doesn't mean oil, I guess it could
also involve these other things, like you have a bowl
of water and you drop gems in it and see
(06:34):
what they do to get your omen, or you drop
gold or silver coins in, or you like move, you know,
move the water around and see which way the ripples go.
There are a number of ways of doing this, but
the oil and water one seems to have been prominent
in the ancient Near East.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah. Yeah, this this lines up with what I was
reading as well. I was looking at a book from
nineteen eighty one titled Oracles and Divination, and in particular,
there's a section in it by O. R. Gurney that says, yes,
these these practices, they tended to involve a bowl or
a basin of some sort, and yes, one would either
pour oil into water or water into oil, and the
(07:10):
oil would cause various shapes on the surface of the water,
and these would be used through the diviner's art or
the barus art. I believe barrou is the term in
ancient Babylon to predict the future. There is also a
variation called al romance, which used flour instead of oil.
(07:30):
So you know, take heart, if you're out of oil
and you have some flour on hand, you can also
go with that.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Method make you the loosest of dose.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Now. Gurney also mentions that there now are slash were
I'm not sure if this is like the current count.
This is again a text from eighty one the six
known surviving tablets from ancient Mesopotamia dealing with oil omens,
and the author includes a couple of examples here that
(08:02):
I wanted to read. So these would be different nuggets
of wisdom to help you the diviner interpret what's happening
in the bowl. Quote. If from the middle of the
oil two drops come out, one big, the other small,
the man's wife will bear a sun for a sick man,
he will recover. And then the next one here concerns
(08:25):
the use of flower instead of oil. If the flower
in the east takes the shape of a lion's face,
the man is in the grip of a ghost of
one who lies in the open country. The sun will
consign it, the ghost to the wind, and he will
get well.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Oh wow, that's creepy. So wait, flower forms a lion's face.
Does that mean the ghost of one who lies in
the open country? Does that mean a ghost of someone
who didn't receive a proper burial?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Would that be? That was what it made me think of.
I'm not certain, and the author doesn't go into detail
on this, but yeah, it made me think of other
superstitions we've discussed from other traditions involving the unburied or
the improperly buried dead.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
This was a subject often of great concern in the
literature and folklore of the ancient world, that like people
like not getting a proper burial was really something you
didn't want.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah. Now, another form of divination that he mentions is lebanomancy,
which is divination by smoke from throwing cedar shavings on
an incense burner. And this would be kind of similar,
like you throw the wood shavings on their smoke billows up,
and however the smoke is moving, what shapes it seems
to be forming. That is the basis of your vision
(09:39):
of the future. M Now, he writes that the use
of entrails and a sacrificed animal would become more popular,
but oil, flower and smoke based divination would remain a
cheaper option, but also still one that would be invoked
and used by various important individuals, including kings, such as
when cassite Ogham the Second, he says, prayed to the
(10:03):
god Shamish by oil before setting out on a quest
to reclaim stolen statues of Marduk and Sarpanitum.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
It's interesting that you mentioned lacanamancy as a cheaper alternative
to reading omens in the entrails of sacrificed animals. I
came across that exact same claim and some other sources.
I don't know if they're citing from a common source
that says that, but yeah, that is interesting obviously. So
I guess the benefit of reading the entrails of a
(10:33):
sacrificed animal is you're almost like, you know, you're paying
for the really high price ticket for your message from
the gods, Like you're taking a good animal, getting it sacrificed.
I suppose at the altar of the god you're asking
for the answer from and then its entrails will tell
you something. And the budget option, yeah, is just a
(10:53):
little bit of olive oil and some water or some
flour or something like that.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah. And I'm just guessing here. I mean, maybe that's
not always available. Maybe sometimes the old ways are thought
the best, or maybe sometimes you have a situation where
even a king is getting a second or third opinion
on a matter, and it's like, well, okay, what do
the Lacinda mancers have to say about this? Maybe they'll
give me the answer that I want to hear now.
(11:19):
The author here Gurney, goes on and mentions that there's
also a form of Lacando mancy that was used by
the Hittites that involved a basin or a tub filled
with water. Certainly, but instead of adding oil or flour,
you would add what might be a snake or possibly
an eel, and its movements in the enclosed space of
(11:43):
the tank would foretell the future. And it does not
in this case sound like the animal was sacrificed. It's
just about you put the animal in there, watch it
swim around. How does it behave its movements are going
to reveal what the future holds? For us now I
was looking at concerning this topic appears in the Influence
(12:04):
of surface films on interfacial flow Dynamics from nineteen ninety
seven by Sean Patrick McKenna, and this author writes that
lacana manci is, of course one of the forms of
divination practice during the eighteenth century BCE in the Hamarabi
ruled Old Babylonian Empire, and points out, Yeah, there's several
tablets of the time period unearthed in the nineteenth and
(12:25):
twentieth centuries that list examples of the kind of mancy
and guides for interpreting what's going on in the water.
This author also shares some examples translated from these tablets.
A few of these include the following. If the oil sinks,
then rises and spreads around the water for the campaign,
unfavorable consequences for the sick divine punishment. If the oil
(12:50):
splits in two for the campaign, both camps should march
together for the sick death. If a drop emerges in
the east and remains stationary for the camp pain booty
for the sick recovery. If two drops emerge, one large,
one small, a male child will be born for the
sick recovery, if the oil fills the bowl for the sick,
(13:14):
death for the campaign, defeat for the leader.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
This last one actually raises questions for me, because the
question is if the oil fills the bowl. Knowing what
we know about the physics of oil and water today,
I mean, I think what will pretty much always happen
is that over time, any oil in the water will
spread out as far as it can, and so it
will pretty much always spread to fill the surface of
(13:39):
water in a bowl. So it takes time for it
to do that. So maybe you've got to put a
time limit on it. Otherwise it's always going to be
death or defeat for the leader. I would think.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, I think there has to be an immediacy to this.
And obviously, if you especially if you don't have a
steady hand, all of your divinations can't be you know,
death for the sick and defeat for the leader of
an army. That's going to be bad for business, I think.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
But it's interesting to see the pairings of the different
interpretations with like the two different kinds of battles, the
battle for health within the body, in the battle you know,
for the in the military campaign going on for the King.
So some of these pairings make sense to me, like
unfavorable consequences for the military campaign with divine punishment for
(14:29):
the sick death and defeat death and defeat booty and recovery.
That peering makes sense. The one I was confused about
is if the oil splits in two, that means for
the sick death for the campaign, both camps should march together.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, I'm maud you exactly sure what to make of
that either.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Yeah, though, I like that because that's not just stating
an outcome, that's giving advice.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah. Now, obviously another issue that all this raises is
you know, what what kinds of oil are you using
in what kinds of water? You know, there could conceivably
be differences in the reaction that takes place. Well, one
source I looked at this is from D. Tabor. This
(15:13):
is from nineteen eighty Babylonian Lacanomancy, an ancient text on
the spreading of oil on water, and in that the
author suggests that the water here is likely rain water
and the oil is some manner of vegetable oil. I
found that interesting, like the rain water, especially because on
one hand, okay, I guess this is going to be
how you're going to obtain the purest water that is
(15:36):
also free of any oils that might, you know, otherwise
contaminate it. And then on the other hand, there is
something kind of supernatural to it as well, like this
is the water that came from the sky, from the
realm of the gods, and therefore I can imagine that
playing a role in all of this as well. Now,
(16:02):
another interesting thing that came up in one of these
sources is they pointed this out Joe, that apparently in
the Old Testament, in Genesis forty four five, there is
a reference to lacanamancy. There's a there's a bit that goes,
is not this it in which my Lord drinketh, and
(16:23):
whereby indeed he divineth he have done evil in so
doing so?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
This is a very interesting case. I think this is
not necessarily a reference to lacanomancy, though that is a
good candidate for what it is referring to. It is
definitely referring to a form of divination, which means I
think maybe this is a good time for a digression
on references to divination in the Bible. And here I
(16:50):
have to apologize because I got seriously over zealous in
pursuing this digression, which is only lightly related to the
topic to begin with, So please bear with me, but
I think it's interesting subject. So there are actually a
lot of references to divination in the Bible. The Hebrew Bible,
or what Christians would call the Old Testament, contains references
(17:11):
to a bunch of different methods of divination. First of all,
there is actually a divination method officially sanctioned by the
Torah and by the priest class in the Bible, which
is known as the Urim and Thummim, which seems to
have been some other kind of object. It's like a
pair of objects worn on the ceremonial breastplate of the
(17:33):
high priest. And while the exact form of these objects
and the procedure for using them is not certain, it
seems they would essentially be used for casting lots of
some kind by the high priest in order to receive
answers from God, possibly answers to yes or no questions
about what would happen in the future, will we be
successful in battle and so forth, or answers to questions
(17:57):
about the guilt or innocence of an alleged sinner. Sometimes
They're represented as like gems that flash with a divine
light in order to project messages. I think there were
some interpretations in the later rabbinical literature like this, but
I think that's all sort of like later writers speculating
on what these original passages in the scriptures meant.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Now the urim and thummim here, if I'm correct on this,
this is this kind of often depict that is kind
of a multi code, like you said, crystal plate that
is worn from the neck. And I remember as a child,
I would experience a certain amount of excitement and maybe
(18:38):
a little bit of confusion because at the time I
would have my Star Wars books on one hand, and
then I would have, you know, some of these illustrated
like Old Testament stories books on the other and these
looked kind of these made me think of the chest
plate of Darth Vader.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Oh wow, yeah, well, the chess plate of Darth Vader,
Like it's got all the little tic TACs and stuff
on it.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Red lights and all, and oftentimes these illustrations you see
some sort of like red gems in there as well.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, So I think what it does, what is clear
is that these objects are linked to the breastplate of
the high priest in some way, like it said that
maybe they are put in or put on the breastplate,
but it's not exactly clear what they are. But what
is clear is that they are somehow used in an
(19:25):
officially in bounds divination process. This is what the followers
of the God of Israel were supposed to use for
divination purposes if they needed to. But the Hebrew Bible
also contains numerous references to other forms of divination, such
as necromancy. This is apparently a big concern in the
(19:45):
era of the Mosaic Law, and despite its modern interpretation
as a kind of evil sorcery used for like calling
up armies of undead skeleton soldiers and zombie swarms to go,
you know, get your paladins. Originally necromancy meant communication with
the dead for the purpose of divination, not raising zombie soldiers.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Now, to be clear, even in like the modern dungeons
and Dragons eccusage of necromancy, yes, there's a lot of
calling up the dead and using all sorts of you know,
weird spectral hands and so forth. There is still a
little bit of talking to the dead, though they keep
it real a little bit there, and we see a
bit of that in the recent Dungeons and Dragons movie.
There's a whole scene of speaking with the dead and
trying to gain wisdom from them.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Oh yeah, it's played mostly for comedy, I recall. Yeah,
like they have a fixed number of questions they can
ask and so forth. Yeah, So that's what necromancy means
in this context, though it's not. Yeah, it's not the
zombie soldiers. It's the talking to the dead for the
purposes of gaining hidden information or knowing the past or
knowing the future. Anyway, in the Mosaic law there are
(20:51):
general prohibitions against divination and wizardry and magic of all forms,
but one of the forms of divination that is specific
called out in these verses is necromancy. Also, there is
a very famous story in the Bible about a consultation
with a dead prophet. This is in First Samuel chapter
(21:12):
twenty eight, where Saul, the King of Israel, famously he
goes to a village called Indoor to meet with a
wise woman or a witch who can speak to the dead.
And this is significant in the story because Saul has
condemned witchcraft and has previously banished all the wizards and
fortune tellers from Israel. But then he's facing a military
(21:34):
conflict with another nation, with the Philistines, and he wants
to know what he should do, and apparently he tries
to get an answer from the sanctioned methods of information.
He tries to consult the Urim and Thumim, he tries
to have a dream from God or get some kind
of direct revelation, and nothing ends up with no guidance
(21:55):
and has no idea what to do from any of
the official channels, so he goes rogue. He violates his
own edict. He puts on a disguise and seeks out
a necromancer to speak to the dead prophet Samuel. He
wants to get Samuel's advice on what he should do,
and this does not go well, so he does go
(22:16):
to the woman in disguise. She figures out it's Saul
by the way. She's like, oh, wait a minute, you
said we're not allowed to do this, and he's like,
oh no, don't worry about it. I need you to
talk to Samuel. So she raises Samuel from the grave.
I think she can see him, but Saul can't, and
he's trying to talk with him, and Samuel just does
not help. He seems to be kind of irritated for
being woken up from the sleep of death, and then
(22:38):
he condemns Saul for his treachery. And then Samuel tells
him that his army is going to be defeated and
he will lose his kingship, and Samuel is right. The
army is defeated and Saul falls on his own sword
and dies. And this story seems to, at least in part,
emphasize how you really shouldn't go off trail on divination methods.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, stick to the to the legal methods. Don't go
into a legal divination.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
By the way, if you've never seen it, everyone should
look up William Blake's painting of Saul and the Spirit
of Samuel and the Witch of Indoor.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Brilliant, brilliant. Yeah, I mean all of Blake's illustrations. Those
hand colored illustrations are always so great. This one's no exception.
By the way, The Witch of Indoor would also come
to play a part in the nineteen eighty five film
The Battle for Indoor. Weird how cinema listeners may remember
no real connection to the Biblical account other than other
(23:33):
that we're dealing with a moon of indoor and there
is a witch on it.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
You were also not supposed to divine the future with
the help of Wilford Brimley. But anyway, so that's a
story from the Bible from after the delivery of the
Mosaic Law, which contains all of these prohibitions against divination
in general, presumably with the exception of the urim and
thumim and the prohibitions against necromancy in particular. But there
(23:59):
are also interesting references to divination from before the law
when it seems to have different connotations. So one of
these that occurs here is the example you raised earlier.
This is where we're coming back to La canamancy. This
is the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis,
which is a long and complicated story, so I'll try
to do the very condensed and simplified version. Joseph is
(24:23):
one of the twelve sons of the biblical patriarch Jacob,
and Jacob in the story shows favoritism toward him over
his other brothers, even buying him a splendid coat of
many colors. They made a musical about it.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yes, yeah, classic story.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
But his brothers, who are less favored by their father,
become very jealous, so one day they conspire, they beat
him up, they trap him in a well, and they
sell him into slavery, where he ends up being transported
to Egypt. But they take Joseph's coat to their father,
covered in the blood of a goat, and convince him
that Joseph was killed by a wild animal.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Again children's story. I remember reading it alongside My Star
Wars as a child.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
But in Egypt, Joseph does pretty well. He manages to
rise from lowly servitude and at one point he's imprisoned,
he manages to rise out of that to the rank
of the pharaoh's most senior lieutenant. He's like the number
two in Egypt. And the way he does this is
by showing a talent for divination. He is able to
interpret the omens of the future in dreams, and by
(25:30):
correctly analyzing pharaoh's dreams, he brings great prosperity to Egypt
at a time of famine for all the surrounding nations.
And actually, since it matters to my interpretation of this
story in a minute, the specific way this works is
that the pharaoh dreams of seven fat cows that are
eaten they're like swallowed up by seven lean cows, and
(25:52):
seven rotten stalks of grain that consumes seven good stalks
of grain, and Joseph realizes that this means they're going
to be seven years of good crops followed by seven
years of famine, and so to anticipate the famine, the
Egyptians must ration their good crops and store up extra
grain during the years of abundance. Joseph's prediction or his
(26:13):
interpretation of the dream comes true, and so later suffering
from famine like all of the surrounding nations are, Joseph's
brothers come to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, whom
they do not recognize. They don't know it's him, and
then they have several interactions actually, but in the last
one in secret, Joseph hides his silver cup in the
(26:38):
grain bag carried by his youngest brother Benjamin. He then
arranges to have his youngest brother caught quote stealing the
cup again he actually actually planted it on him, and
then demands Benjamin be given to him as a slave
as punishment, and instead their older brother Judah asks that
he be made a slave in Benjamin's play, and this
(27:01):
causes Joseph to break down in tears. He reveals his identity,
he forgives his brothers, and the family is reunited and
allowed to relocate to a fertile part of Egypt. But
it is the part of the story about the silver
cup that relates to divination. So when Joseph's steward finds
the silver cup hidden in Benjamin's sack, he says, just
(27:24):
as Joseph commands him to. He says, why have you
repaid evil for good? Is not this the one from
which my lord drinks and with which he indeed practices divination?
You have done evil in so doing. Now. Of course,
it doesn't say exactly what kind of divination he does
in the cup, So it could be a form of hydromancy,
(27:46):
where you would, you know, put water in the cup
or some liquid and drop coins or gems or other
objects into the water and see what they do. It
could be maybe used for a form of scrying, since
it's silver. Scrying is reading the future in reflection, and
a shiny surface such as a silver cup. Often a
crystal ball is used for scrying, but based on a
(28:07):
lot of the commentaries. I found a good candidate for
what is being described here is lacanomancy, where he would be,
you know, dropping oil into water or doing one of
the other things we've been talking about. But in any case,
I think this passage is interesting because I think the
staging of the theft of the silver cup used for
divination is supposed to be interpreted as more profound than
(28:32):
like mere burglary of an expensive cup. This is the
cup in which Joseph receives omens about the future, and
if you remember the earlier part of the story, correctly,
interpreting omens about the future is how Joseph rose to
his position of prominence in the first place. It was
the dream interpretations, you know, the Fadoleine cows and so forth.
(28:54):
And it's also how Egypt is currently in a good
position with this grain surplus during years of famine. So
in a way, I think with that gloss, it makes
sense to wonder if stealing Joseph's divination cup in the
story is kind of an espionage caper. It would be
like stealing the codes to the nuclear arsenal in a
(29:17):
modern spy thriller. This is a piece of supernatural technology
that helps give Egypt its strategic advantage over other nations.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Hmmm, that's fascinating. So I'm a little out of practice
with this particular Bible story. But Joseph frames one of
his brothers for stealing.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
It, but then he undoes it.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, he does it when another for his youngest brother. Yea,
his youngest brother is then fingered for the crime, and
he's like, oh, I didn't want to enslave him. He
wanted to enslave them both.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
No, no, no, no, he didn't want to enslave any
of them. I think I think he wanted to test them.
It's one of those kind of stories. I think. So
he plants that, Yeah, he frames his youngest brother, who
he loves, for the crime. Then he says, I'm gonna
make him a slave, and then because the older brother
is like no, no, no, take me instead. Then I
(30:11):
think that that softens his heart and he forgives his
brothers for what they did to him.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Replicated family dynamic anyway you cut it, Yes, But to
your point, yeah, this is not just any cup or
any silver cup. This isn't is this isn't an artifact
of the art of divination that Joseph practices. So this
is this is vital, this is this has strategic importance
for the Egyptians.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yes, and in this specific story, it is divination in
particular that has made Egypt prosperous. And so anyway, thinking
about the idea of dropping oil and water in a
(30:56):
cup or a basin to receive messages from from the
heavens or from the gods. You know, while even mundane
objects were often used for divination in the ancient world,
it seems clear to me why the behavior of oil
on water could inspire a kind of oracular fascination. Like
there's that sense of strangeness and wonder about it that
(31:17):
actually I found to be captured quite well in a
passage in a letter written by Benjamin Franklin in the
year seventeen seventy three. We're going to get more into
Benjamin Franklin, I think in the next part in this series.
But I wanted to read this passage because it articulates
the kind of amazing weirdness here when you really pay
attention to it. So Franklin's writing to somebody named William
(31:39):
Brownrigg in November seventeen seventy three, and he says, in
these experiments. One circumstance struck me with particular surprise. There
was the sudden, wide, and forcible spreading of a drop
of oil on the face of the water, which I
do not know that anybody has hitherto considered. If a
drop of oil is put on a polished marble table
(32:01):
or on a looking glass that lies horizontally, the drop
remains in place, spreading very little. But when put on water,
it spreads instantly many feet around, becoming so thin as
to produce the prismatic colors for a considerable space, and
beyond them so much thinner as to be invisible except
in its effect of smoothing the waves. Now, as I said,
(32:26):
we'll come back to Benjamin Franklin in the next part
of the series. But while I don't know if he
was the first person to notice the way that oil
spreads over the water, I actually somewhat doubt that he
definitely was not the first person to notice these other
strange properties, like the prismatic colors that tend to shine
out from oil spreading over a pool of water, And
(32:48):
he was certainly not the first person to notice the
apparent ability of oil to somehow soothe the chop of
threatening waters.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, and this was the thing that drew us into
this topic initially, because I know, for my part anyway,
I don't think i'd come across this before, this idea
of oil being used to calm storm waters, because I mean,
it just sounds so completely magical, and it will continue
to sound completely magical while also having a basis in
(33:19):
fact in science to at least a limited degree. So
the accounts that we have dealing with this with this idea,
these come from far after the time of ancient Babylon.
One of the earliest, if not the earliest. It seems
to go back to the writings of Aristotle. Aristotle lived
three eighty four through three point twenty two BCE, and
(33:41):
these a lot of his writings are generally just attributed
to three point fifty BCE. So Aristotle brings this up
in problems or Problemata physica, asking why is it that
the sea, which is heavier than fresh water, is more transparent?
Is it because it's fattier composition? Now, oil poured on
(34:02):
the surface of water makes it more transparent, and the
sea having fat in it is naturally more transparent.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Uh huh, okay, several things.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
There's also a part in I was looking up oil
in various of these ancient writings, and I noticed in meteorology,
Aristotle also points out that oil contains air. So there's
a lot of you know, mixed information here.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Purely speculating here that this could be totally wrong. But
I wonder if he's tempted to think that because oil
floats on the top of water, therefore like air rises
like bubbles through the water.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
M Yeah, that sounds likely. All right. I think we're
gonna come back to Aristotle, but we're going to skip
ahead now to another favorite source on the show, and
that is, of course Roman historian Plenty of the Elder,
who lived twenty three or twenty four CE through seventy nine. See.
I have to say Plenty talks a lot about oils
(35:02):
in the natural history. Like if you just start searching
for searching up the word oil, you're going to find
him mentioning all sorts of medicinal oils. Uh. There's also
a section titled waters which serve as a substitute for oil,
concerning waters that emit light and heal wounds. So a
lot in there for oil fans to consume and to
(35:23):
try to make sense of he's in generally a big
fan of oils, and he busts this out in Book two,
chapter one oh six. There's a whole info dump regarding
wisdom concerning the water, and he says everything is soothed
by oil and that this is the reason why divers
send out small quantities of it from their mouths, because
(35:44):
it's smooth any part which is rough and transmits the
light to them. M okay, So I think this is
tying in with what we were talking about earlier with
Aristotle as well, and I've seen this particular bit translated
as sprinkled from the mouth as well, so I believe leave.
The scenario here is that Plenty is sharing something that
he has heard or read regarding free divers carrying some
(36:10):
small quantity of oil in their mouths during the dive
and spitting it out to make the surrounding water more
visible during the dive while they're, you know, looking for
something like a molluskh. Now, this the quote I read
is from the Mayoff translation of Plenty, and he notes
in the notes for this that while this would be
(36:30):
proven to be correct, the effect is greatly exaggerated both
here and elsewhere. So keep that in mind. As we're
going here, we're dealing with, you know, second and third
hand accounts of these things that the definitely seem to
have a certain basis in fact, but also are greatly
exaggerated in the retelling.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Okay, well, I imagine we'll return to the mechanics of this,
if possible, in the next episode. But do you have
any idea how exactly this would work that would make
the water more visible?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
What's my understanding that that what we're dealing with here
is that, Yeah, the idea is that oil will sort
of smooth out the surface of troubled water, but that
it will also smooth things out underneath the water, and
if you are free diving looking for again, you know,
fish or shells or what have you, that some small
amount of oil released into that water would make it
(37:19):
clearer and easier to see these things and or allow
light to filter down more effectively. Again, we'll get into
the actual science of this probably in the next episode,
and we have to keep in mind that again we're
doing probably the second or third hand information here. I'm
guessing here this is something that Plenty had had heard
(37:41):
regarding some free diving people, and even though he would
have certainly been familiar with ships and all. I don't
remember in reading anything that indicated that he himself would
have any firsthand experience with diving underneath the water. Now,
another author who gets into some of this is Plutarch,
who have forty six through one nineteen CE. He also
(38:03):
references Aristotle in Causes of Natural Phenomena, and according to
Heinrich Hunifus in Oil Untroubled Waters a historical survey, this
is likely referencing a lost portion of Aristotle's Problemata reads
as follows. This is from Plutarch. What is the reason
for the clearness and calm produced when the sea is
(38:24):
sprinkled with oil? Is it as Aristotle says that the
wind slipping over the smoothness so caused makes no impression
and raises no swell? Or does this plausibly explain the
external phenomena? Only they say that when divers take oil
into their mouths and blow it out in the depths,
they get illumination and can see through the water. Surely
(38:46):
it is impossible to adduce slipping of the wind in
the cause there. Consider, then, whether the oil does not,
by reason of its density, push and force aside the sea,
which is earthy and irregular. Subsequently, when it flows back
to its former position and draws together, intermediate passages are
left in it, which offer transparency and clear visibility to
(39:08):
the organs of sight.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Oh that's interesting. So again I wonder if I'm understanding
Plutarch right here, But it sounds like maybe he's saying that,
like when oil is spit out under the water, it
kind of clears channels in the water. I wonder if
that would work by like attracting particles in the water
that would be making the water cloudy into the oil,
(39:31):
and then dragging them away with it as the oil rises.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Yeah, I'm not sure. I couldn't find much information on
this particular detail of the scenario. Maybe I'll find something
for the next episode. But yeah, it's like you'd have
to put ourselves in the like in the position of
an ancient free diver who's you know, I assume, not
using any kind of covering for their eyes. I did
(39:56):
run across some mentions of these practices where they talk
more like they were putting the oil in their eyes, which,
again I don't know how that's factoring into the sort
of telephone game of you know, second third and fourth
hand reporting on this during ancient times, in addition to
translation errors. All right, but in this we've touched on
this other big area, something that we're going to have
(40:18):
a lot more to discuss in the next episode as well,
and that is, Hey, if you dump some quantity of oil,
and the quantity seems to vary tremendously, if you dump
that into a stormy sea, well that's just going to
smooth everything out, smooth sailing thanks to the oil.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Okay, what do we have any stories about how this works?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
We do. We have a pretty good story here, and
it comes to us from the English monk Bead, who
lived somewhere around six seventy two or six seventy three
through seven thirty.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Five, often known as the Venerable Bead. It's good if
you can get venerable attached to your name.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yes. So the year here that he's talking about is
six fifty one, and King Oswig sometimes it's spelled Oswig
of Northumbria sends out a priest to bring his bride
home from Kent, and one Bishop Aiden blesses the priest
and gives him some holy oil and tells him, when
you set sail, you're going to encounter some really stormy weather.
(41:19):
There's going to be some high winds, so remember to
pour this oil that I'm giving you into the sea,
and that's gonna calm everything out. And this is later
described as a flask, so I'm assuming we're talking about
a magic potion quantity of oil here, rather than say,
a barrel of oil. So Bed claimed that everything happened
(41:39):
as the bishop said it would. When the storms came,
the priest poured the flask of holy oil into the
sea and the storm died down. And Bid insisted that
the miracle was no mere fable, that he had heard
it from reliable sources close to the matter, so you know,
he was like, this works. This is not a tall tale.
This is reality. Also worth noting by the way that
(42:00):
Osweg or Oswig was said. It was said that he
and his queen had been gifted multiple holy relics, including
a cross with a key to it made from the
chains of the apostles Peter and Paul.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Okay, Well, as much as this does just sound like
a standard magical item legend, I think whether or not
the story is plausible actually maybe more a matter of
degree rather than just like it could happen or it couldn't.
I don't know about using oil to stop a storm.
But in the next episode we're going to end up
exploring some surprising grains of truth in this kind of legend.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Yeah, and you might be surprised too. It just what
kind of legs this idea had concerning the idea that, yeah,
you might want to have some oil on hand in
case the water gets choppy.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
So maybe we got to call it there for today,
but we'll be back next time to talk about pouring
oil on the seas.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah, this one was more in depth than I expected,
and you never expect it, but Ben Franklin often does
show up. This is not the first episode where you
don't expect Ben Franklin, but here he comes sauntering up
with his weird energy and strange ideas, becoming a part
of the story of a particular invention or natural phenomena
(43:16):
or what have you.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
So tune in next time.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
In the meantime, if you would like to listen to
other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, well you'll
find them on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those are the core
episodes and the Stuff to Blow your Own podcast feed
listener mail on Monday. On Wednesday, a short form artifact
or monster effect. On on Fridays, we set aside most
serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If
you would like to get in touch with us with
feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
can email us at contact stuff to Blow your Mind
dot com.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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