December 6, 2011 • 36 mins
When does an appreciation for fire turn into an obsession with the flickering, golden god? Who are firebugs, and what drives them to burn? In this episode, Julie and Robert slip into their best burn suits and hide the matches as they explore pyromania.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamp and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
what is your relationship with fire? And by fire I
mean actual fire and not the American gladiator of fire?
Ah right, okay, because I was gonna say, like, definitely
(00:25):
a big bonk on the head with a giant foam
thing into water. Yeah, yeah, but you know, of course
fire would have caused that. But no, my relationship to
fire it is. I wouldn't say it's complicated, but I
would say, like, just like everybody else, there's something very
alluring about fire, mesmerizing. Um, My earliest memories rose were,
(00:46):
of of course, burning ants with magnified glass. You were
one of those kids. I was definitely one of those kids.
And um, and then waving my hand over a candle
flame with my babysitter for a very long time, and
why she was partaking of this with you. She was like,
let's let's She and her hippie boyfriend were both like,
(01:07):
let's do this thing was it was a hippie not
like a g Gordon Liddy thing where you like hold
your m okay, you like, look how macho and conservative
I am, because I no, no, is the opposite. It
was like, let's try to control this fire man. And
now I cannot uh speak for them, but I will
say that it's possible that maybe there was something that
(01:29):
was enhancing the experience for them looking back now and understanding, um,
teenagers back in the day. Coffee, Yeah, lots of coffee.
I'm sure that was it. Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, that
those were my memories of being absolutely mesmerized by fire,
and you you well, I tend to think of fire
is um it's not so much an element but a
(01:50):
golden God that I that I honor, and and when
I bring fire into the world, I am allowing a
part of this god to rein of the world and
destroy my Yeah. Was that that That's what I would
say if I were a pyromaniac, perhaps, as we'll discussing
this podcast, because that's that's because my history fires probably
(02:13):
mostly uninteresting. Yes, when I was a kid, I probably
had a stage where I went through where I really
like firecrackers and it was it was fun to strap
them to the backs of little g I Joe men
and and just stick them into the dirt and watch
things blow up, and you know, and we all and
I love poking around in the fire. I was in
boy Scouts. There's a lot of poking around in the fire. Uh.
(02:33):
But eventually I kind of outgrew that. So I I
like staring into the fire. I think I I like flames.
There's something, you know, kind of scary about it. If
I feel like I left a flame going in, say
the in the bathroom in the morning, I will freak
out and probably turn the car around or or turn
my walk around and go back to the house to
address it. But but I mean, fire is amazing. Fire
(02:56):
is beautiful. Um, So we can't help would be fascinated
by it. But it's probably a bad thing. We're too
fascinated by it. Well, the the crazy thing about it
is that, of course, when when we discovered fire, it
really helped us out right as people, as a civilization,
as the ability to even um exists as humans today,
(03:19):
right right. It really fact, as we've discussed in the past,
it really had a huge impact on the way that
we hunt our food. For instance, um, you could use
fire to clear out the vegetation around a watering hole,
so you could see the prey animals that were creeping
towards the water to drink and slay them. And then
once you had slain the prey animal, you could conceivably
(03:41):
roasted up and get more out of your meal um
digest things that were normally not not not something you
could digest, that's right. You would trans the ability to transform, yeah,
foods that you wouldn't be able to digest. Right, And
to say nothing of its use as a destroyer and
as a weapon. I mean, fire has has pretty much
always played a role in in human warfare. I mean,
(04:03):
from the flaming era to a flaming stick, to h
to napalm to the idea of of nuclear firestorms ravaging
the continent following some sort of a World War three scenario.
So I mean it, fire is is a big player
in human civilizations, hopes, and fears. And I guess what
we're trying to do is trying to occupy the mindset
(04:25):
of someone who would be so in love with fire
and be romancing fire, because on some level we all
understand that again, you know, fire is the life givers,
the destroyer. But some people, a very small personage of
the population paramaniacs specifically UM are absolutely obsessed with it,
and so we're gonna try to get you know, into
(04:46):
their minds a little bit today. Although we will say
that this is UH territory that hasn't been greatly explored
for many reasons. Right now, we're not going to get
into the chemical reaction of fire, but but just a
quid engine here, we have an excellent article called how
Fireworks by Tom Harris on how stuff works dot com.
Just go to the website and type in how fireworks
and you go right to it. Here's a quote from it.
(05:07):
Fire isn't matter at all. It's a visible, tangible side
effect of matter changing form. It's one part of a
chemical reaction, which, you know, just a quick quote from
just what fire is. But it gives you a little
more idea that we're a little insight into why it's
so fascinating, because it is it's a thing between you know,
and it's UH. In addition to being this life giver,
(05:29):
this destroyer UM and you and you also, I've I've
heard it argued that like every story we've ever told
is essentially a story of camp fires. You know, like
when we sit around the camp fire there's this primal
experience of of of of humans with their light, with
their warmth, and then beyond them the darkness of the
rest of the world. Well then then there's a mysterious
(05:51):
element of it too. I mean, you know, you take
a candle and you turn it um, you know, to
the right or left, it's always going to point up
and unless as about to say, that's a gravity at
work for you, unless you're on a spaceship. And then
you get to see the blue flame in the red flame,
which is really just the embers of that. So yeah,
there's something really powerful to that. UM. But again, some
(06:11):
people they get a little bit too excited by by
this flame. And let's look at some examples of people
who are too into their fire making. Yeah, yeah, okay,
So there's an infamous arsonist right who has a lot
of the characteristics of a pyromaniac. And it hasn't you know,
exactly been said this is a pyromaniac. And again we
talk about he's definitely on the waiting list. Um, looks
(06:35):
like he might make it. Paul Keller lives lives in Seattle.
He is now serving in ninety nine year prison sentence
and he started setting fires as a child and later
tried to join the fire department. And he's an alcoholic
um and during those fires, most likely he was probably imbibing.
But he set something like seventy fires in his career
(06:55):
and one at a nursing home facility. So obviously there's
you know, you know that there's a dark side to this.
But that's when you know that someone has certainly tipped
over the edge of perhaps just seeing what a fire
might do in some sort of scenario and then actually
setting a fire knowing that many lives will be taken right.
(07:16):
Another big case that hand across was one that mentioned
in some of the literature. This British psychiatrist by the
name of Randolph Parks that he did a whole paper
two thousand five looking at this twenty year old homeless
individual was not named at the study, but he was
actually going on dousing people with lighter fluid and setting
him on fire. Um and was he also had a
(07:37):
number of other symptoms like it was this guy was
was kind of out there because he was like hearing
breathing in his bedroom and seeing blood on the wall.
He reported having seen ghosts like people that looked like water,
so he was having hallucination. He was having hallucinations. So
on the light side, there's the porta potty pyromaniac. This
was in San Francisco a couple of years ago, and
(07:58):
he torched more than one t porta potties over two
month period and would do this primarily a night. Although he,
I say he could have very well been a woman.
He or she was so bold enough as to actually
um set one on fire during the daytime, in which
you could see the porta potti combusting in all its glory,
(08:19):
with all of its elements flying through the air. Well.
You know, there's probably a study out there that we
should look at on on porta potty vandalizing in general,
because it seems like there's something about the porta potty
that that humans are compelled to mess with it. I
guess because it's this little room that's full of pooh,
and we there's something and everyone that wants to tip
(08:40):
it over or or hit it with a car or
catch it on fire. Right, No, maybe you I think
we just got a little insight there. Maybe I just don't.
I mean, I'm not a big porta potty fans, so
maybe it's part of my my rage against the Maybe
it's your fear. It's like you're trying to master your
fear of porta potties by imagining being tippled over. Like seriously,
(09:03):
I went into one recently and it had a graded
floor like a like a milk carton, like it had
holes in it. That's how how why did it pick
us that long to figure out that a porta potty
needs holes in it so that it's not slick with mud,
uh and other matter when someone goes into it after
it's been up for a day or two. Well, I
mean that's there's always room for a progress, right, I guess. Yeah.
(09:24):
I told you how I was almost carried away in
one at Cochella one year. Right. It was. Now, granted,
it was not just a normal port port This is
why you have the fear, tell us it was. It
was not just a normal porta potty. They had those
two and they were disgusting, of course, But they also
had ones on the back of a truck, which is
like this this big. It's like a full sized bathroom,
(09:45):
you know, with sinks and all kind of fancy but
also kind of gross. Yeah. Yeah, And I had gone
in and I didn't know this, but they were closing
it up, and they were about to take it away
on the back of a truck with me still in it.
And then some guy I like, haller is something you know,
unintelligible that I can only call it a holler because
it was that, you know, unintelligible through the door, and
(10:06):
then shuts it. I'm like, I wonder what he's yelling about.
And so I finished my business and I rushed to
the door, and they're they're getting ready to haul it off,
probably to throw it over the edge of a canyon somewhere,
I guess. No, No, I'm just imagining that some sort
of elaborate plot to kidnap you and then they force
you into labor in some remote part of the world.
So I didn't I didn't necessarily want to start it
(10:28):
on a fire. But but but now you do. Now
you've got these feelings about porta Potti that you that
you are unresolved, that perhaps fire could help with Maybe
fire could help me with that. All right, Yeah, let's
swing back to the fire there that was. That's a
fun little party potty diversion. Um, okay, so what is pyromania? Right? Um?
That the term actually comes from French physician Charlos cretien
(10:50):
Um and it's malamuni incendiary apologies from my French, which
translates to insane incendiarism. Okay, so the terms kind of vague, right, Well,
it's in the same way that insanity is often a
term that is contested and and and depends on who's
throwing it around and who's receiving it. Uh. Yeah, you
(11:12):
look across the board and people have different definitions of
who qualifies as insane and who qualifies as a pyromaniac.
Which is really interesting too, because if you look at
this criteria of of what is a pyromaniac, there's a
very big lack of insanity in this list. Right, it's
kind of actually spelling out this story of someone who
is perfectly normal except really likes fires. Right and uh,
(11:36):
and just to give another nod to how how loose
the terminology can be, the FBI organized and Advanced Fire
Investigation Training session a little while ago, and uh, at
the start of the meeting, they ask over six hundred participants,
which included fire agency personnels like insurance investigators, uh, you know,
police officers, mental health professionals, various Walks of Life to
(11:58):
write down their definition of pyromania, and not a single
definition was identical. Well, and this is part of the problem,
right if we have um discovered here and many are
discovering in the field, is that this it hasn't been
studied that well. And um, there's a lot of misinformation
out there that we'll get to. But so far, the
American Psychiatric Association is Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
(12:20):
Disorders has set forth the following criteria for a diagnosis. Okay, pyromania.
And I can't help but think as we go through this,
let's think of of one of the more famous pyromaniacs
or potential pyromaniacs from popular culture, that being Beavis, Beavis
and butt Head, because as you remember, he was rather
enamored with the Golden Flame. Yes, well, and also Bart Simpson. Oh,
(12:44):
it's Bart Big into the fire. I think that's what
landed him in the in detention. Okay, Well, let's think
of Bart and Beavis as we proceed. Okay, alright, First,
the individual must have set fires deliberately and purposefully on
more than one occasion. Okay, definitely on the this and
I assume on Bart they've been that has been going
on too long for them to have gone to that
well more than once, I agree, and at least during
(13:06):
the episode that would have been many times. The individual
must be tense or exhibit outward emotional behaviors talking about
facial expressions, changes in voice, excitement before setting fires. Definitely this. Yes,
the individual must be interested in, curious about, fascinated with,
and or attracted to fires in their situations. I think
that kind of goes on That one's kind of silly
(13:28):
because that kind of goes with the territory. The individual
must experience pleasure, tension, relief, or gratification after setting fires
or watching fires in their aftermaths. Yes, this is obviously
the probably the biggest marker here, right, Yeah, Like it's
kind of like the whole thing, like a five. I
think there was like a Far Side cartoon where there's
a building burning and the people are turning and noticing,
(13:50):
like the dude that's just setting there with just wide
eyes and just loving every minute of it. Like that's
the guy that you're kind of suspect might have pyromania issues. Yeah, yeah,
the guy with the kaleidoscope eyes is definitely. Other psychological
disorders cannot better account for the individual's fire setting behavior,
manic episodes, antisocial behavior. Okay, So for instance, if they're
(14:12):
seeing things in the night bleeding walls and then decided
to go set hopos on fire, that's a byproduct. Yes, yeah,
we're talking about pure pyromania here. Yeah. Um, And then
the individual has no other motivations for setting the fire,
like financial gain. All right, this is this is like insurance.
I need insurance money, so I'm gonna burn my own
building down. Yeah, my restaurant is not doing that great
(14:35):
kitchen fire. Um. Expressing social or political ideas okay, Obviously
burning down building as a sign of protests, burning people
in effigy, right right, revenge or anger? Right, this is
I don't like you, you said something bad to me,
or I think or even like I perceive that you
wronged me in some fashion, So I'm going to burn
your cupical down. For any of the TLC hip hop
(14:59):
fans out there, Um, Lisa left dial Opez, I believe
burned down her fiance's mansion. Yes, right, it was in Atlanta,
so TLC before well or I guess after the Learning Channel,
but I'm thinking, yeah it was TLC, right, Um, I
was thinking of the show because I'm not as familiar
with all the TLC programming, so I thought maybe there's
(15:22):
like a pyromania ladies. Yeah, and you know I've got
one foot in there, so that you thought, Julie, she's
just fun TLC dot com again. Um enough a kick boss, Julie.
Um okay, So hiding other criminal activity, concealing a murderer, theft, right,
getting rid of a body by burning it. Yeah, something
dark like that. Improving his or her living circumstances, which
(15:42):
I don't really get that. I get the financial gain,
but you would think that would be one and the same.
Responding to delusions or hallucinations or pair judgment, dementia, mental retardation,
alcohol or dragon toxic what is improving his or her
living So it's kind of like, you know, this living
room is great, but I feel like it would be
better if I've learned that. Yeah, it would be really
shabby cheek if I could just you know, get a
(16:03):
little singe to some of this furniture. Um also that
the individual must not exhibit intoxication, criminal motivation, or other
criminal psychiatric disorders. So when you take all of this,
it's purely like this that that that one point, which
is like number point number four, then the individual must
experience pleasure attention really for gratifications. So that's really at
(16:25):
the heart of this matter. Um. And just as a
little side fact, in the US, only three percent of
suspected arson fires lead to conviction. Okay uh. And then
from slate dot com The Science of Pyromania, they say,
maybe the true arson prone pyromaniacs are still roaming the streets.
Some evidence suggests that arsonists tend to be non assertive
offenders who internalize their anger with fires, enabling them to
(16:48):
avoid face to face confrontation. Such evasiveness also makes them
difficult to study. So what they're kind of what what
all this is painting right here, is that it's very
hard to study who a true pyromaniac maybe, and in fact,
there's probably a lot of crossover from arsonists to pyromaniacs. Um.
And you know, if you kind of lift some of
(17:10):
these constraints, especially the alcohol part. Right, if someone's using
alcohol and they set a fire, that doesn't necessarily mean
that they're not a pyromaniac, especially if they did that
seventy times over the last four months. Right, I was
looking at this article from the American Institute of Forensic
Education that was talking about characteristics of quote, juvenile fire setters,
(17:31):
because the whole thing is you're gonna have juveniles who
are setting fires and they are not necessarily pyromaniacs as
as we've do you know, discussed um given these constraints.
Uh So, some of the examples they lay out in
this article include the experimental curiosity fire center. And this
is generally somebody younger than seven and and they're generally
(17:52):
after they set the fire, they're generally quite upset by it.
And it's more of a product of lack of supervision
and easy access to fire setting materials. So this would
be like, you know, you leave a cigarette lighter around
a um, a six year old, there's nobody watching him.
Of course he might set something on fire. That's why
you don't leave the fire making implements around when when
(18:13):
they're on their own generally, right, Like, you know, we
leave an ax around my nephew and he starts chopping
in a tree with it. It doesn't mean he's an
act wheeling maniac. He's just a kid who season acts
and nobody's watching, so he's gonna start swinging it's just
what they do. It's true. Then there's the thrill seeking
fire center and this is eleven to twelve years old.
(18:34):
Um and uh this tends to be interrupted by the
time they reach sixteen or seventeen, the article says, and
uh and it, but it can become more dangerous over time.
They're generally doing other bad things, and they tend to
enjoy the drama and the chaos that the fire creates.
And they they're often good manipulators. Their shallow, they're selfish,
(18:55):
they like a moral compass, so they're a little bit narcissistic, right,
and this is definitely one can see, like they say,
becoming a more serious threat. It's not just a kid
playing with fire. It's a kid playing with the emotions
that a fire um evokes. And people right in realizing
that they can get attention from this or pleasure from this,
from the attention that the fire gets, because the fire
(19:16):
always gets attention. It's pretty true. Um. Then there's another
color classification, delinquent fire setter, and this is eleven to
twelve year old and and generally these are these are
individuals who uh set the fire. And then they're denying
personal liability for the fire. They're blaming others, and it's
generally more of a hyperactivity and impulsive things. So it's
(19:38):
kind of a um, a continuation of that experimental curiosity,
but that has more than just you know, lacking control
over and the impulse control is pretty important. Impulse control.
And so they're like, I'd like to set a fire
and bam, they're already setting it. Uh. Then there's then
they also classify revenge fire setters. And so again this
(19:58):
according to what we discussed earlier, this would not be
a pyromaniac. But this is why it gets so murky, right,
because it's been studied in many different ways and labeled
in many different ways. Right, these would be this would
be like a fifteen year year old or older. And uh,
they may be taking revenge against the society, a person,
an institution of taking their group. It could be perceived
(20:19):
wrong or a real wrong. Um. And uh. These fire
setters generally expressed anger before the fire and relief after. Um.
They often come from intact families with cold, withholding parents
in a paranoid way of thinking. That's really interesting again, UM,
I mean I keep seeing markers of narcissism because usually
with people who are ncissistic. They have parents who have
(20:42):
turned away from them, which makes them turn inward and
began to become you know, the seats of narcissisms begin
to grow. So that's sort of interesting to hear that. Cool.
And then the the other category that they lay out
in this article disordered coping fire setters and this is
generally early childhood on set um and the these these
are tend tend to be very dangerous. Uh, this is
(21:03):
a situation where fire is a learned response to stress.
They're generally male, and these fire set as they experience
problems with with pretty much every aspect of their life.
They would come with a from a history of violence. Uh,
there's you know, abuse, neglect issues at home and uh,
they will set a fire up say every day, and
(21:24):
in the size doesn't matter. It might be you know,
just burning something in the sink or setting fire to
a tool shed. Um. Uh, you know, it doesn't matter
to them, but setting the fire like that lowers the stress.
It's like it's just stress reliefs mechanism. That's pretty interesting. Um. Alright,
so we're gonna take a break, but when we get back,
we're going to talk about what Freud, Prometheus, and penises
(21:46):
have to do with fire. Yes. This podcast is brought
to you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow and the
Discovery Channel. At Intel, we believe curiosity is the spark
which drives innovation. Join us at curiosity dot com and
explore the answers to life's questions. Alright, we're back. So Prometheus,
(22:11):
of course, was the fire bringer from mythology who brought
he was a Titan, brought the secret of the fire
down from the gods who overthrew the Titans, and uh,
and shares it with humans so humans can do all
these things that we were talking about, like cooked food
and dropping napalm and uh. And burned down all the
(22:32):
shrubbery around a pond so they can eat the animals
that drink from it. And uh. He ended up finding
himself chained to a rock while an eagle feast son
is liver right, right, But the liver grows back and
so each day his liver becomes a meal again. So
that's a great punishment. Um. But so he smuggled the
(22:52):
fire in a hollow Fennel Stock and Freud our man.
Freud saw this as a penis symbol. Ah, and this is. Yeah.
This is from the Slate article about pyromani and it
says uh. Psychiatra's Candice Germane and Michael Lejoy explained it
as um sort of invoking the mechanism of reversal, so
(23:14):
he he suggested. Freud suggested that it was not fire
that man harbors and his penis, but the means of
extinguishing fire the water of his stream of urine. But
Freud also saw a more bid curiosity of fire is
being related to excessive nocturnal and ursus bedwdding and children,
with the erotically tinged warmth associated with ambient urine, essentially
(23:36):
trapping problem bedwetters, and the phallic stage usually reserved for
three to six years old. Of course, Freud shuts up
on the scene. Yeah, and it's it's interesting that you
did mention the whole peeing on the fire, because I
don't remember ever peeing on a camp fire, but I
know that was that was always a big deal in
boy Scouts. I would say that if if I had
the plumbing, I probably would do that, but I don't,
(23:59):
so I can see how how that would be interesting
to do. Another thing from that Slight article was really
interesting is that in the eighteenth century, German physicians were
convinced that fire setting tendencies were primarily in affliction of
teenage girls with low i q s, and that that
that burning things gave these girls an outlet for their
sexual frustration ah, and they fuel lost right fire lust,
(24:26):
which you know, I think has actually come to uh
paint the way that we understand pyromania, because a lot
of people have taken this idea of paramedics as sociopaths
and people who are sexually disgruntled and they're just working
out their their fantasies there um their sexual problems so
on and so forth, which we know is not necessarily true,
(24:49):
but of course that's that's what really rings well with
a story. In fact, there's something called the mcdomenal triad
and UM. It's basically this correlation of animal cruelty UM,
which has been linked with obsession with fire setting and
bedwetting beyond the age of five. So if you have
all three of these traits or these behaviors, then you
(25:11):
probably have more sociopathic tendencies. At least that's what the
reasoning is. So you can understand why this idea of
um of paramaniacs, is sexually frustrated or bedwetters came came
to rise in our minds. Um. In fact, we know
that this is a problematic suggestion that you these three
behaviors creates a sociopathic tendency and a person. And in fact,
(25:34):
we recently found out in the book by how Herzog,
some we eat, some we love, and some we hate
that this association with serial killers and animal cruelty is
just pretty much plain wrong. Right. It's all about the
child sort of testing the boundaries and and figuring out
where they where they rank in relation to animals, right, right,
(25:55):
And in fact, it's really common for kids to um
has some sort of level of animal cruelty or experience
with it because they are trying to master this position
of power in their life and try to to suss
it out for themselves. But according to how Herzog, the
majority of people who abused animals as children do not
(26:15):
grow up to be violent, and eight percent of serial
killers do not have a known history of cruelty to animals.
And he found this out by a myriative studies. UM
that we're taken out, Um, definitely there are prisoners sociopathic
prisoners that they studied and they really found no correlation there.
It's interesting the you know, I'm thinking about like children,
(26:37):
young children sort of discovering, uh, these things for the
first time. I'm discovering the whole I can be cruel
to an animal and what does that mean? And how
do I relate to the animal? And then discovering lying.
We discussed lying and then one of the other podcasts
and uh and about discovering that power the ability to
say something that isn't so and therefore alter the perceived
(26:58):
universe of another person or in themselves. And then the
fire kind of fits in naturally with that. To discover
this ability to create this strange substance, to to create
it or control it, or to just release it onto something.
And uh, you know you can just imagine like a
young mind, like what what they must think of fire. Yeah,
(27:20):
it's another opportunity to either empathize or to destroy. Right.
And I wonder to how it about about pyromania, how
it how it factors into different walks of life, because
there are certain there's certain um places in the world,
certain families in the world. I mean, it varies depending
on on your your upbringing. How exposed to fire you are.
(27:41):
I mean, for some you're gonna be you're gonna be
seeing fire every day. You're gonna be playing in the
fire from an early age. While in other households or
or environments, the fire is not going to be something
that is readily available, especially if you know there are
no smokers around, the camp fires around, if everything is
just you know, like like electric heat. Well, I think
(28:02):
that's why it's so hard to understand and to study,
because it is colored by a person's perception. And there's
not all I mean, other than setting the fire. There's
not a lot of, um, you know, a common thread
between people who are pyromanics. I mean, there are accounts
of people who like, for instance, and think about this
one guy who's a pyromaniac and he um, he had
(28:23):
it for him. It was a sexual release and he
had some but he had some very um important problems
mental disorders that led him to create this association between
sex and fire. For instance, you know, he had a
strange relationship with his mom and she made him put
his hand on a burner to understand that it was hot,
(28:43):
And there were all these instances of fire throughout his
young adult life. That he began to map against his sexuality,
which then came out in fire setting. So but that's
particular only for that one person, right, Um, but again
very hard to understand, very hard to study. True piroma
is actually really rare. We're talking about less than one
percent to about four percent of arsons and uh. And
(29:07):
then there's a whole other area that comes to mind
when we're talking about pyromania um, or rather people who
are really into fire but not necessarily pyromaniac. Like I've
been to several different festivals or events where you have
people that are really into fire, like, they're into using
like stunt burned suits, they're into building their own flamethrowers.
(29:27):
Theres right right and and uh and and they love fire.
There's no denying that these guys and gals really um,
at least figuratively, get off on the idea of catching
things on fire, including themselves. Uh yeah, yeah. And you
look for any you know, images from from any given
say burning man and pyromaniac, and we're rather I'm using
(29:51):
the terminal loosely, but people who are really into fire, um,
they tend to really seek those events out. Yeah, you
know burning man, that keeps coming up, and someone that
suggested we do a podcast on it, so I don't know,
maybe we can find a science angle there. Yeah, well
we've discussed there that there are plenty of scientists at
Burning Man. That's right, that's right. You can you can
just go, I think give them like twenty cents and
(30:12):
ask an astrophysicist a question. Yeah. Um, there's a booth there.
What we're suggesting that you can go and visit and
and not only just enjoy the Burning Man, but also
learn more about the physical world. The Burning Man. It
sounds like like kind of like if somebody's grandma, we're like,
are you going to the Burning Man this year? The
Burning Man? You're talking about the effigy that they burned, right, yes, yes,
(30:36):
the big giant one at the festival that people would
like writhe uncontrollably in front of And and again I
think it comes back like the reason people get into
that though, and uh and and I love the idea
of a huge bondfire because it's it's like, it's a
story of human civilization. It's the it's people gathering around
its fire, something they create, something they create. It brings
(30:58):
warmth that I'll allows them to digest different food that
gives them power over the elements and over the other
creatures of the earth, and then on the outside, the
darkness of the unknown, of the dangerous, of the unexplored.
I mean, it just stirs something deep within us, right,
and it really complements peyote Alright. So, what we do
know about pyromaniacs, or what we suspect is that it
(31:21):
is an impulse control disorder, much like kleptomania or pathological gambling. Right,
So how do we treat it? Behavioral therapy? So far,
that's that's what most psychologists are thinking. But in a
two thousand six letter to the editor of the Journal
of Clinical Psychiatry, psychiatrist John Grant reported a case of
one patient who fit the clinical definition of pyromania, the
(31:44):
one that we talked about um and Grant was able
to examine the brain of his patient with spect imaging
and found a region in the left inferior frontal portion
that had a low blood flow. So the patient underwent
three weeks of daily behavioral therapy and a daily regiment
of topium rate, which is an anti convulsant used to
treat treat the seizures, and during that time, the patient
(32:07):
reported a substantial decrease in his urge to set fires.
And then when doctor Grant reimaged that the patient's brain,
he found that that area was was no longer there,
that the problem with the low blood flow no longer existed.
So there's this idea that it could be biological. I'd
also read that if we were had to treat it
like UM an impulse control disorder such as pathological gambling
(32:30):
or cleptomania, UM, we might look at the serotonin centers
of the brain. UM, we might be able to treat
them with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Okay, yeah, basically
any depressants. Yeah, basically try to replace that behavior with
the feeling that the reuptake inhibitors would give them, right,
or the seratonin or maybe you get them. Really unto
(32:51):
the idea of using flamethrowers at big events in the desert,
I don't know. I mean maybe that's that's right. Maybe
they get to put the torch to the burning man. Yeah,
So there have it U pyromania. And we actually you
actually threw the question out on our Facebook group what
is your relationship to fire? And so we definitely would
like to hear from everyone, Like, really, you don't have
(33:12):
an excuse to not have an opinion on fire. It's
not like it's not like we're asking about an Obscure
Doors album or something. We're talking about fire. So you know,
I'm very curious, like how did how does your upbringing
relate to it? Like for me, it's like I remember
like early on, we would go on camping trips or
or my dad would be grilling, you know, on the
back porch or something. So there was always not always,
(33:32):
but there was frequently fire around and I definitely played
in the fire. Yeah, and we got some really great
responses on Facebook. Um, and everybody did have a different experience,
although you know, some people were aunt colors like I was.
That seems to be a common theme. So so yeah,
let us let us know about that. And if you
want to find us on Facebook, just do a search
for stuff to blow to the mind. That's how you
(33:53):
find us on there. Uh. And well when we're also
on Twitter as below the mind. Uh, And we have
to take those pretty regularly. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Let me reach into the listener. Male back here real quick.
Thank you robots, Laura writes in and says, Hi, Robert
and Julie in regards to your comments on Japanese dollwomen,
probably my favorite synonym for Lolita and living with robots?
(34:16):
Can we build a better bot? I must correct Robert
in that the darker sister of lo Lolita is referred
to as Gothic Lolita. This is defined as a style
similar to Lolita, which is the way of dressing as
though one is an often female Victorian child, complete with
many many lace frills through mixing, as the name suggests,
a dark color palette. Though it is most popular in Japan,
(34:37):
I am a frequenter of a few Gothic Lolita stores
in Europe in the Great Duss Morgese Board of Camden
Market and speak for my own experience. Just to clear
things up, Thanks for providing an informative and mentally stimulating podcast, Laura.
So yeah, yeah, I got that a little mixed up there.
I think I was thinking of Kauai the whole like,
(34:58):
and I may be saying that Kui call the cute,
and then there's Kawaii nor the which is dark cute,
So this is similar, but it's uh, yeah, this is
the Gothic loluga. So they like she said, frills, but
black frills. Just on a side tangent here too. When
we were doing research for this, my eye landed on
(35:19):
something called coro. I hope I have that right ka
o r o, which I from what I understand, and
I didn't pay a lot of attention to us because
it didn't really relate to this podcast, but it is
Japanese and it's sort of a weird thing is that
there's this idea that your genitalia can retract, and there's
this irrational fear that they may just completely retract into
(35:40):
your body. Yeah, so there you go. I don't know,
maybe maybe we need to do a podcast on irrational
fear so I can understand that. Yeah, well it was
one of the things I was like, that is bizarre,
but yeah, I could understand have have somehow that could
get in someone's mind and you would start to really
fear that, especially as a child. Yes, yes, well they're there.
There's a whole host of years that can be associated
(36:01):
with with genitalia as a child, especially if nobody bothers
to explain to you what he is going on with
him or should be going on with them. But that's again.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, so maybe that's an
upcoming episode. I don't know. So, Hey, so someone wants
to We already talked about Facebook and Twitter. What if
someone wants to send us some email and have the
(36:22):
robot bring it to us? Oh? Very easy. All you
have to do is send us a line at Blue
the Mind at House to works dot com. Be sure
to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join the House to Work staff as we explore the
most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamp and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
what is your relationship with fire? And by fire I
mean actual fire and not the American gladiator of fire?
Ah right, okay, because I was gonna say, like, definitely
(00:25):
a big bonk on the head with a giant foam
thing into water. Yeah, yeah, but you know, of course
fire would have caused that. But no, my relationship to
fire it is. I wouldn't say it's complicated, but I
would say, like, just like everybody else, there's something very
alluring about fire, mesmerizing. Um, My earliest memories rose were,
(00:46):
of of course, burning ants with magnified glass. You were
one of those kids. I was definitely one of those kids.
And um, and then waving my hand over a candle
flame with my babysitter for a very long time, and
why she was partaking of this with you. She was like,
let's let's She and her hippie boyfriend were both like,
(01:07):
let's do this thing was it was a hippie not
like a g Gordon Liddy thing where you like hold
your m okay, you like, look how macho and conservative
I am, because I no, no, is the opposite. It
was like, let's try to control this fire man. And
now I cannot uh speak for them, but I will
say that it's possible that maybe there was something that
(01:29):
was enhancing the experience for them looking back now and understanding, um,
teenagers back in the day. Coffee, Yeah, lots of coffee.
I'm sure that was it. Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, that
those were my memories of being absolutely mesmerized by fire,
and you you well, I tend to think of fire
is um it's not so much an element but a
(01:50):
golden God that I that I honor, and and when
I bring fire into the world, I am allowing a
part of this god to rein of the world and
destroy my Yeah. Was that that That's what I would
say if I were a pyromaniac, perhaps, as we'll discussing
this podcast, because that's that's because my history fires probably
(02:13):
mostly uninteresting. Yes, when I was a kid, I probably
had a stage where I went through where I really
like firecrackers and it was it was fun to strap
them to the backs of little g I Joe men
and and just stick them into the dirt and watch
things blow up, and you know, and we all and
I love poking around in the fire. I was in
boy Scouts. There's a lot of poking around in the fire. Uh.
(02:33):
But eventually I kind of outgrew that. So I I
like staring into the fire. I think I I like flames.
There's something, you know, kind of scary about it. If
I feel like I left a flame going in, say
the in the bathroom in the morning, I will freak
out and probably turn the car around or or turn
my walk around and go back to the house to
address it. But but I mean, fire is amazing. Fire
(02:56):
is beautiful. Um, So we can't help would be fascinated
by it. But it's probably a bad thing. We're too
fascinated by it. Well, the the crazy thing about it
is that, of course, when when we discovered fire, it
really helped us out right as people, as a civilization,
as the ability to even um exists as humans today,
(03:19):
right right. It really fact, as we've discussed in the past,
it really had a huge impact on the way that
we hunt our food. For instance, um, you could use
fire to clear out the vegetation around a watering hole,
so you could see the prey animals that were creeping
towards the water to drink and slay them. And then
once you had slain the prey animal, you could conceivably
(03:41):
roasted up and get more out of your meal um
digest things that were normally not not not something you
could digest, that's right. You would trans the ability to transform, yeah,
foods that you wouldn't be able to digest. Right, And
to say nothing of its use as a destroyer and
as a weapon. I mean, fire has has pretty much
always played a role in in human warfare. I mean,
(04:03):
from the flaming era to a flaming stick, to h
to napalm to the idea of of nuclear firestorms ravaging
the continent following some sort of a World War three scenario.
So I mean it, fire is is a big player
in human civilizations, hopes, and fears. And I guess what
we're trying to do is trying to occupy the mindset
(04:25):
of someone who would be so in love with fire
and be romancing fire, because on some level we all
understand that again, you know, fire is the life givers,
the destroyer. But some people, a very small personage of
the population paramaniacs specifically UM are absolutely obsessed with it,
and so we're gonna try to get you know, into
(04:46):
their minds a little bit today. Although we will say
that this is UH territory that hasn't been greatly explored
for many reasons. Right now, we're not going to get
into the chemical reaction of fire, but but just a
quid engine here, we have an excellent article called how
Fireworks by Tom Harris on how stuff works dot com.
Just go to the website and type in how fireworks
and you go right to it. Here's a quote from it.
(05:07):
Fire isn't matter at all. It's a visible, tangible side
effect of matter changing form. It's one part of a
chemical reaction, which, you know, just a quick quote from
just what fire is. But it gives you a little
more idea that we're a little insight into why it's
so fascinating, because it is it's a thing between you know,
and it's UH. In addition to being this life giver,
(05:29):
this destroyer UM and you and you also, I've I've
heard it argued that like every story we've ever told
is essentially a story of camp fires. You know, like
when we sit around the camp fire there's this primal
experience of of of of humans with their light, with
their warmth, and then beyond them the darkness of the
rest of the world. Well then then there's a mysterious
(05:51):
element of it too. I mean, you know, you take
a candle and you turn it um, you know, to
the right or left, it's always going to point up
and unless as about to say, that's a gravity at
work for you, unless you're on a spaceship. And then
you get to see the blue flame in the red flame,
which is really just the embers of that. So yeah,
there's something really powerful to that. UM. But again, some
(06:11):
people they get a little bit too excited by by
this flame. And let's look at some examples of people
who are too into their fire making. Yeah, yeah, okay,
So there's an infamous arsonist right who has a lot
of the characteristics of a pyromaniac. And it hasn't you know,
exactly been said this is a pyromaniac. And again we
talk about he's definitely on the waiting list. Um, looks
(06:35):
like he might make it. Paul Keller lives lives in Seattle.
He is now serving in ninety nine year prison sentence
and he started setting fires as a child and later
tried to join the fire department. And he's an alcoholic
um and during those fires, most likely he was probably imbibing.
But he set something like seventy fires in his career
(06:55):
and one at a nursing home facility. So obviously there's
you know, you know that there's a dark side to this.
But that's when you know that someone has certainly tipped
over the edge of perhaps just seeing what a fire
might do in some sort of scenario and then actually
setting a fire knowing that many lives will be taken right.
(07:16):
Another big case that hand across was one that mentioned
in some of the literature. This British psychiatrist by the
name of Randolph Parks that he did a whole paper
two thousand five looking at this twenty year old homeless
individual was not named at the study, but he was
actually going on dousing people with lighter fluid and setting
him on fire. Um and was he also had a
(07:37):
number of other symptoms like it was this guy was
was kind of out there because he was like hearing
breathing in his bedroom and seeing blood on the wall.
He reported having seen ghosts like people that looked like water,
so he was having hallucination. He was having hallucinations. So
on the light side, there's the porta potty pyromaniac. This
was in San Francisco a couple of years ago, and
(07:58):
he torched more than one t porta potties over two
month period and would do this primarily a night. Although he,
I say he could have very well been a woman.
He or she was so bold enough as to actually
um set one on fire during the daytime, in which
you could see the porta potti combusting in all its glory,
(08:19):
with all of its elements flying through the air. Well.
You know, there's probably a study out there that we
should look at on on porta potty vandalizing in general,
because it seems like there's something about the porta potty
that that humans are compelled to mess with it. I
guess because it's this little room that's full of pooh,
and we there's something and everyone that wants to tip
(08:40):
it over or or hit it with a car or
catch it on fire. Right, No, maybe you I think
we just got a little insight there. Maybe I just don't.
I mean, I'm not a big porta potty fans, so
maybe it's part of my my rage against the Maybe
it's your fear. It's like you're trying to master your
fear of porta potties by imagining being tippled over. Like seriously,
(09:03):
I went into one recently and it had a graded
floor like a like a milk carton, like it had
holes in it. That's how how why did it pick
us that long to figure out that a porta potty
needs holes in it so that it's not slick with mud,
uh and other matter when someone goes into it after
it's been up for a day or two. Well, I
mean that's there's always room for a progress, right, I guess. Yeah.
(09:24):
I told you how I was almost carried away in
one at Cochella one year. Right. It was. Now, granted,
it was not just a normal port port This is
why you have the fear, tell us it was. It
was not just a normal porta potty. They had those
two and they were disgusting, of course, But they also
had ones on the back of a truck, which is
like this this big. It's like a full sized bathroom,
(09:45):
you know, with sinks and all kind of fancy but
also kind of gross. Yeah. Yeah, And I had gone
in and I didn't know this, but they were closing
it up, and they were about to take it away
on the back of a truck with me still in it.
And then some guy I like, haller is something you know,
unintelligible that I can only call it a holler because
it was that, you know, unintelligible through the door, and
(10:06):
then shuts it. I'm like, I wonder what he's yelling about.
And so I finished my business and I rushed to
the door, and they're they're getting ready to haul it off,
probably to throw it over the edge of a canyon somewhere,
I guess. No, No, I'm just imagining that some sort
of elaborate plot to kidnap you and then they force
you into labor in some remote part of the world.
So I didn't I didn't necessarily want to start it
(10:28):
on a fire. But but but now you do. Now
you've got these feelings about porta Potti that you that
you are unresolved, that perhaps fire could help with Maybe
fire could help me with that. All right, Yeah, let's
swing back to the fire there that was. That's a
fun little party potty diversion. Um, okay, so what is pyromania? Right? Um?
That the term actually comes from French physician Charlos cretien
(10:50):
Um and it's malamuni incendiary apologies from my French, which
translates to insane incendiarism. Okay, so the terms kind of vague, right, Well,
it's in the same way that insanity is often a
term that is contested and and and depends on who's
throwing it around and who's receiving it. Uh. Yeah, you
(11:12):
look across the board and people have different definitions of
who qualifies as insane and who qualifies as a pyromaniac.
Which is really interesting too, because if you look at
this criteria of of what is a pyromaniac, there's a
very big lack of insanity in this list. Right, it's
kind of actually spelling out this story of someone who
is perfectly normal except really likes fires. Right and uh,
(11:36):
and just to give another nod to how how loose
the terminology can be, the FBI organized and Advanced Fire
Investigation Training session a little while ago, and uh, at
the start of the meeting, they ask over six hundred participants,
which included fire agency personnels like insurance investigators, uh, you know,
police officers, mental health professionals, various Walks of Life to
(11:58):
write down their definition of pyromania, and not a single
definition was identical. Well, and this is part of the problem,
right if we have um discovered here and many are
discovering in the field, is that this it hasn't been
studied that well. And um, there's a lot of misinformation
out there that we'll get to. But so far, the
American Psychiatric Association is Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
(12:20):
Disorders has set forth the following criteria for a diagnosis. Okay, pyromania.
And I can't help but think as we go through this,
let's think of of one of the more famous pyromaniacs
or potential pyromaniacs from popular culture, that being Beavis, Beavis
and butt Head, because as you remember, he was rather
enamored with the Golden Flame. Yes, well, and also Bart Simpson. Oh,
(12:44):
it's Bart Big into the fire. I think that's what
landed him in the in detention. Okay, Well, let's think
of Bart and Beavis as we proceed. Okay, alright, First,
the individual must have set fires deliberately and purposefully on
more than one occasion. Okay, definitely on the this and
I assume on Bart they've been that has been going
on too long for them to have gone to that
well more than once, I agree, and at least during
(13:06):
the episode that would have been many times. The individual
must be tense or exhibit outward emotional behaviors talking about
facial expressions, changes in voice, excitement before setting fires. Definitely this. Yes,
the individual must be interested in, curious about, fascinated with,
and or attracted to fires in their situations. I think
that kind of goes on That one's kind of silly
(13:28):
because that kind of goes with the territory. The individual
must experience pleasure, tension, relief, or gratification after setting fires
or watching fires in their aftermaths. Yes, this is obviously
the probably the biggest marker here, right, Yeah, Like it's
kind of like the whole thing, like a five. I
think there was like a Far Side cartoon where there's
a building burning and the people are turning and noticing,
(13:50):
like the dude that's just setting there with just wide
eyes and just loving every minute of it. Like that's
the guy that you're kind of suspect might have pyromania issues. Yeah, yeah,
the guy with the kaleidoscope eyes is definitely. Other psychological
disorders cannot better account for the individual's fire setting behavior,
manic episodes, antisocial behavior. Okay, So for instance, if they're
(14:12):
seeing things in the night bleeding walls and then decided
to go set hopos on fire, that's a byproduct. Yes, yeah,
we're talking about pure pyromania here. Yeah. Um, And then
the individual has no other motivations for setting the fire,
like financial gain. All right, this is this is like insurance.
I need insurance money, so I'm gonna burn my own
building down. Yeah, my restaurant is not doing that great
(14:35):
kitchen fire. Um. Expressing social or political ideas okay, Obviously
burning down building as a sign of protests, burning people
in effigy, right right, revenge or anger? Right, this is
I don't like you, you said something bad to me,
or I think or even like I perceive that you
wronged me in some fashion, So I'm going to burn
your cupical down. For any of the TLC hip hop
(14:59):
fans out there, Um, Lisa left dial Opez, I believe
burned down her fiance's mansion. Yes, right, it was in Atlanta,
so TLC before well or I guess after the Learning Channel,
but I'm thinking, yeah it was TLC, right, Um, I
was thinking of the show because I'm not as familiar
with all the TLC programming, so I thought maybe there's
(15:22):
like a pyromania ladies. Yeah, and you know I've got
one foot in there, so that you thought, Julie, she's
just fun TLC dot com again. Um enough a kick boss, Julie.
Um okay, So hiding other criminal activity, concealing a murderer, theft, right,
getting rid of a body by burning it. Yeah, something
dark like that. Improving his or her living circumstances, which
(15:42):
I don't really get that. I get the financial gain,
but you would think that would be one and the same.
Responding to delusions or hallucinations or pair judgment, dementia, mental retardation,
alcohol or dragon toxic what is improving his or her
living So it's kind of like, you know, this living
room is great, but I feel like it would be
better if I've learned that. Yeah, it would be really
shabby cheek if I could just you know, get a
(16:03):
little singe to some of this furniture. Um also that
the individual must not exhibit intoxication, criminal motivation, or other
criminal psychiatric disorders. So when you take all of this,
it's purely like this that that that one point, which
is like number point number four, then the individual must
experience pleasure attention really for gratifications. So that's really at
(16:25):
the heart of this matter. Um. And just as a
little side fact, in the US, only three percent of
suspected arson fires lead to conviction. Okay uh. And then
from slate dot com The Science of Pyromania, they say,
maybe the true arson prone pyromaniacs are still roaming the streets.
Some evidence suggests that arsonists tend to be non assertive
offenders who internalize their anger with fires, enabling them to
(16:48):
avoid face to face confrontation. Such evasiveness also makes them
difficult to study. So what they're kind of what what
all this is painting right here, is that it's very
hard to study who a true pyromaniac maybe, and in fact,
there's probably a lot of crossover from arsonists to pyromaniacs. Um.
And you know, if you kind of lift some of
(17:10):
these constraints, especially the alcohol part. Right, if someone's using
alcohol and they set a fire, that doesn't necessarily mean
that they're not a pyromaniac, especially if they did that
seventy times over the last four months. Right, I was
looking at this article from the American Institute of Forensic
Education that was talking about characteristics of quote, juvenile fire setters,
(17:31):
because the whole thing is you're gonna have juveniles who
are setting fires and they are not necessarily pyromaniacs as
as we've do you know, discussed um given these constraints.
Uh So, some of the examples they lay out in
this article include the experimental curiosity fire center. And this
is generally somebody younger than seven and and they're generally
(17:52):
after they set the fire, they're generally quite upset by it.
And it's more of a product of lack of supervision
and easy access to fire setting materials. So this would
be like, you know, you leave a cigarette lighter around
a um, a six year old, there's nobody watching him.
Of course he might set something on fire. That's why
you don't leave the fire making implements around when when
(18:13):
they're on their own generally, right, Like, you know, we
leave an ax around my nephew and he starts chopping
in a tree with it. It doesn't mean he's an
act wheeling maniac. He's just a kid who season acts
and nobody's watching, so he's gonna start swinging it's just
what they do. It's true. Then there's the thrill seeking
fire center and this is eleven to twelve years old.
(18:34):
Um and uh this tends to be interrupted by the
time they reach sixteen or seventeen, the article says, and
uh and it, but it can become more dangerous over time.
They're generally doing other bad things, and they tend to
enjoy the drama and the chaos that the fire creates.
And they they're often good manipulators. Their shallow, they're selfish,
(18:55):
they like a moral compass, so they're a little bit narcissistic, right,
and this is definitely one can see, like they say,
becoming a more serious threat. It's not just a kid
playing with fire. It's a kid playing with the emotions
that a fire um evokes. And people right in realizing
that they can get attention from this or pleasure from this,
from the attention that the fire gets, because the fire
(19:16):
always gets attention. It's pretty true. Um. Then there's another
color classification, delinquent fire setter, and this is eleven to
twelve year old and and generally these are these are
individuals who uh set the fire. And then they're denying
personal liability for the fire. They're blaming others, and it's
generally more of a hyperactivity and impulsive things. So it's
(19:38):
kind of a um, a continuation of that experimental curiosity,
but that has more than just you know, lacking control
over and the impulse control is pretty important. Impulse control.
And so they're like, I'd like to set a fire
and bam, they're already setting it. Uh. Then there's then
they also classify revenge fire setters. And so again this
(19:58):
according to what we discussed earlier, this would not be
a pyromaniac. But this is why it gets so murky, right,
because it's been studied in many different ways and labeled
in many different ways. Right, these would be this would
be like a fifteen year year old or older. And uh,
they may be taking revenge against the society, a person,
an institution of taking their group. It could be perceived
(20:19):
wrong or a real wrong. Um. And uh. These fire
setters generally expressed anger before the fire and relief after. Um.
They often come from intact families with cold, withholding parents
in a paranoid way of thinking. That's really interesting again, UM,
I mean I keep seeing markers of narcissism because usually
with people who are ncissistic. They have parents who have
(20:42):
turned away from them, which makes them turn inward and
began to become you know, the seats of narcissisms begin
to grow. So that's sort of interesting to hear that. Cool.
And then the the other category that they lay out
in this article disordered coping fire setters and this is
generally early childhood on set um and the these these
are tend tend to be very dangerous. Uh, this is
(21:03):
a situation where fire is a learned response to stress.
They're generally male, and these fire set as they experience
problems with with pretty much every aspect of their life.
They would come with a from a history of violence. Uh,
there's you know, abuse, neglect issues at home and uh,
they will set a fire up say every day, and
(21:24):
in the size doesn't matter. It might be you know,
just burning something in the sink or setting fire to
a tool shed. Um. Uh, you know, it doesn't matter
to them, but setting the fire like that lowers the stress.
It's like it's just stress reliefs mechanism. That's pretty interesting. Um. Alright,
so we're gonna take a break, but when we get back,
we're going to talk about what Freud, Prometheus, and penises
(21:46):
have to do with fire. Yes. This podcast is brought
to you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow and the
Discovery Channel. At Intel, we believe curiosity is the spark
which drives innovation. Join us at curiosity dot com and
explore the answers to life's questions. Alright, we're back. So Prometheus,
(22:11):
of course, was the fire bringer from mythology who brought
he was a Titan, brought the secret of the fire
down from the gods who overthrew the Titans, and uh,
and shares it with humans so humans can do all
these things that we were talking about, like cooked food
and dropping napalm and uh. And burned down all the
(22:32):
shrubbery around a pond so they can eat the animals
that drink from it. And uh. He ended up finding
himself chained to a rock while an eagle feast son
is liver right, right, But the liver grows back and
so each day his liver becomes a meal again. So
that's a great punishment. Um. But so he smuggled the
(22:52):
fire in a hollow Fennel Stock and Freud our man.
Freud saw this as a penis symbol. Ah, and this is. Yeah.
This is from the Slate article about pyromani and it
says uh. Psychiatra's Candice Germane and Michael Lejoy explained it
as um sort of invoking the mechanism of reversal, so
(23:14):
he he suggested. Freud suggested that it was not fire
that man harbors and his penis, but the means of
extinguishing fire the water of his stream of urine. But
Freud also saw a more bid curiosity of fire is
being related to excessive nocturnal and ursus bedwdding and children,
with the erotically tinged warmth associated with ambient urine, essentially
(23:36):
trapping problem bedwetters, and the phallic stage usually reserved for
three to six years old. Of course, Freud shuts up
on the scene. Yeah, and it's it's interesting that you
did mention the whole peeing on the fire, because I
don't remember ever peeing on a camp fire, but I
know that was that was always a big deal in
boy Scouts. I would say that if if I had
the plumbing, I probably would do that, but I don't,
(23:59):
so I can see how how that would be interesting
to do. Another thing from that Slight article was really
interesting is that in the eighteenth century, German physicians were
convinced that fire setting tendencies were primarily in affliction of
teenage girls with low i q s, and that that
that burning things gave these girls an outlet for their
sexual frustration ah, and they fuel lost right fire lust,
(24:26):
which you know, I think has actually come to uh
paint the way that we understand pyromania, because a lot
of people have taken this idea of paramedics as sociopaths
and people who are sexually disgruntled and they're just working
out their their fantasies there um their sexual problems so
on and so forth, which we know is not necessarily true,
(24:49):
but of course that's that's what really rings well with
a story. In fact, there's something called the mcdomenal triad
and UM. It's basically this correlation of animal cruelty UM,
which has been linked with obsession with fire setting and
bedwetting beyond the age of five. So if you have
all three of these traits or these behaviors, then you
(25:11):
probably have more sociopathic tendencies. At least that's what the
reasoning is. So you can understand why this idea of
um of paramaniacs, is sexually frustrated or bedwetters came came
to rise in our minds. Um. In fact, we know
that this is a problematic suggestion that you these three
behaviors creates a sociopathic tendency and a person. And in fact,
(25:34):
we recently found out in the book by how Herzog,
some we eat, some we love, and some we hate
that this association with serial killers and animal cruelty is
just pretty much plain wrong. Right. It's all about the
child sort of testing the boundaries and and figuring out
where they where they rank in relation to animals, right, right,
(25:55):
And in fact, it's really common for kids to um
has some sort of level of animal cruelty or experience
with it because they are trying to master this position
of power in their life and try to to suss
it out for themselves. But according to how Herzog, the
majority of people who abused animals as children do not
(26:15):
grow up to be violent, and eight percent of serial
killers do not have a known history of cruelty to animals.
And he found this out by a myriative studies. UM
that we're taken out, Um, definitely there are prisoners sociopathic
prisoners that they studied and they really found no correlation there.
It's interesting the you know, I'm thinking about like children,
(26:37):
young children sort of discovering, uh, these things for the
first time. I'm discovering the whole I can be cruel
to an animal and what does that mean? And how
do I relate to the animal? And then discovering lying.
We discussed lying and then one of the other podcasts
and uh and about discovering that power the ability to
say something that isn't so and therefore alter the perceived
(26:58):
universe of another person or in themselves. And then the
fire kind of fits in naturally with that. To discover
this ability to create this strange substance, to to create
it or control it, or to just release it onto something.
And uh, you know you can just imagine like a
young mind, like what what they must think of fire. Yeah,
(27:20):
it's another opportunity to either empathize or to destroy. Right.
And I wonder to how it about about pyromania, how
it how it factors into different walks of life, because
there are certain there's certain um places in the world,
certain families in the world. I mean, it varies depending
on on your your upbringing. How exposed to fire you are.
(27:41):
I mean, for some you're gonna be you're gonna be
seeing fire every day. You're gonna be playing in the
fire from an early age. While in other households or
or environments, the fire is not going to be something
that is readily available, especially if you know there are
no smokers around, the camp fires around, if everything is
just you know, like like electric heat. Well, I think
(28:02):
that's why it's so hard to understand and to study,
because it is colored by a person's perception. And there's
not all I mean, other than setting the fire. There's
not a lot of, um, you know, a common thread
between people who are pyromanics. I mean, there are accounts
of people who like, for instance, and think about this
one guy who's a pyromaniac and he um, he had
(28:23):
it for him. It was a sexual release and he
had some but he had some very um important problems
mental disorders that led him to create this association between
sex and fire. For instance, you know, he had a
strange relationship with his mom and she made him put
his hand on a burner to understand that it was hot,
(28:43):
And there were all these instances of fire throughout his
young adult life. That he began to map against his sexuality,
which then came out in fire setting. So but that's
particular only for that one person, right, Um, but again
very hard to understand, very hard to study. True piroma
is actually really rare. We're talking about less than one
percent to about four percent of arsons and uh. And
(29:07):
then there's a whole other area that comes to mind
when we're talking about pyromania um, or rather people who
are really into fire but not necessarily pyromaniac. Like I've
been to several different festivals or events where you have
people that are really into fire, like, they're into using
like stunt burned suits, they're into building their own flamethrowers.
(29:27):
Theres right right and and uh and and they love fire.
There's no denying that these guys and gals really um,
at least figuratively, get off on the idea of catching
things on fire, including themselves. Uh yeah, yeah. And you
look for any you know, images from from any given
say burning man and pyromaniac, and we're rather I'm using
(29:51):
the terminal loosely, but people who are really into fire, um,
they tend to really seek those events out. Yeah, you
know burning man, that keeps coming up, and someone that
suggested we do a podcast on it, so I don't know,
maybe we can find a science angle there. Yeah, well
we've discussed there that there are plenty of scientists at
Burning Man. That's right, that's right. You can you can
just go, I think give them like twenty cents and
(30:12):
ask an astrophysicist a question. Yeah. Um, there's a booth there.
What we're suggesting that you can go and visit and
and not only just enjoy the Burning Man, but also
learn more about the physical world. The Burning Man. It
sounds like like kind of like if somebody's grandma, we're like,
are you going to the Burning Man this year? The
Burning Man? You're talking about the effigy that they burned, right, yes, yes,
(30:36):
the big giant one at the festival that people would
like writhe uncontrollably in front of And and again I
think it comes back like the reason people get into
that though, and uh and and I love the idea
of a huge bondfire because it's it's like, it's a
story of human civilization. It's the it's people gathering around
its fire, something they create, something they create. It brings
(30:58):
warmth that I'll allows them to digest different food that
gives them power over the elements and over the other
creatures of the earth, and then on the outside, the
darkness of the unknown, of the dangerous, of the unexplored.
I mean, it just stirs something deep within us, right,
and it really complements peyote Alright. So, what we do
know about pyromaniacs, or what we suspect is that it
(31:21):
is an impulse control disorder, much like kleptomania or pathological gambling. Right,
So how do we treat it? Behavioral therapy? So far,
that's that's what most psychologists are thinking. But in a
two thousand six letter to the editor of the Journal
of Clinical Psychiatry, psychiatrist John Grant reported a case of
one patient who fit the clinical definition of pyromania, the
(31:44):
one that we talked about um and Grant was able
to examine the brain of his patient with spect imaging
and found a region in the left inferior frontal portion
that had a low blood flow. So the patient underwent
three weeks of daily behavioral therapy and a daily regiment
of topium rate, which is an anti convulsant used to
treat treat the seizures, and during that time, the patient
(32:07):
reported a substantial decrease in his urge to set fires.
And then when doctor Grant reimaged that the patient's brain,
he found that that area was was no longer there,
that the problem with the low blood flow no longer existed.
So there's this idea that it could be biological. I'd
also read that if we were had to treat it
like UM an impulse control disorder such as pathological gambling
(32:30):
or cleptomania, UM, we might look at the serotonin centers
of the brain. UM, we might be able to treat
them with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Okay, yeah, basically
any depressants. Yeah, basically try to replace that behavior with
the feeling that the reuptake inhibitors would give them, right,
or the seratonin or maybe you get them. Really unto
(32:51):
the idea of using flamethrowers at big events in the desert,
I don't know. I mean maybe that's that's right. Maybe
they get to put the torch to the burning man. Yeah,
So there have it U pyromania. And we actually you
actually threw the question out on our Facebook group what
is your relationship to fire? And so we definitely would
like to hear from everyone, Like, really, you don't have
(33:12):
an excuse to not have an opinion on fire. It's
not like it's not like we're asking about an Obscure
Doors album or something. We're talking about fire. So you know,
I'm very curious, like how did how does your upbringing
relate to it? Like for me, it's like I remember
like early on, we would go on camping trips or
or my dad would be grilling, you know, on the
back porch or something. So there was always not always,
(33:32):
but there was frequently fire around and I definitely played
in the fire. Yeah, and we got some really great
responses on Facebook. Um, and everybody did have a different experience,
although you know, some people were aunt colors like I was.
That seems to be a common theme. So so yeah,
let us let us know about that. And if you
want to find us on Facebook, just do a search
for stuff to blow to the mind. That's how you
(33:53):
find us on there. Uh. And well when we're also
on Twitter as below the mind. Uh, And we have
to take those pretty regularly. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Let me reach into the listener. Male back here real quick.
Thank you robots, Laura writes in and says, Hi, Robert
and Julie in regards to your comments on Japanese dollwomen,
probably my favorite synonym for Lolita and living with robots?
(34:16):
Can we build a better bot? I must correct Robert
in that the darker sister of lo Lolita is referred
to as Gothic Lolita. This is defined as a style
similar to Lolita, which is the way of dressing as
though one is an often female Victorian child, complete with
many many lace frills through mixing, as the name suggests,
a dark color palette. Though it is most popular in Japan,
(34:37):
I am a frequenter of a few Gothic Lolita stores
in Europe in the Great Duss Morgese Board of Camden
Market and speak for my own experience. Just to clear
things up, Thanks for providing an informative and mentally stimulating podcast, Laura.
So yeah, yeah, I got that a little mixed up there.
I think I was thinking of Kauai the whole like,
(34:58):
and I may be saying that Kui call the cute,
and then there's Kawaii nor the which is dark cute,
So this is similar, but it's uh, yeah, this is
the Gothic loluga. So they like she said, frills, but
black frills. Just on a side tangent here too. When
we were doing research for this, my eye landed on
(35:19):
something called coro. I hope I have that right ka
o r o, which I from what I understand, and
I didn't pay a lot of attention to us because
it didn't really relate to this podcast, but it is
Japanese and it's sort of a weird thing is that
there's this idea that your genitalia can retract, and there's
this irrational fear that they may just completely retract into
(35:40):
your body. Yeah, so there you go. I don't know,
maybe maybe we need to do a podcast on irrational
fear so I can understand that. Yeah, well it was
one of the things I was like, that is bizarre,
but yeah, I could understand have have somehow that could
get in someone's mind and you would start to really
fear that, especially as a child. Yes, yes, well they're there.
There's a whole host of years that can be associated
(36:01):
with with genitalia as a child, especially if nobody bothers
to explain to you what he is going on with
him or should be going on with them. But that's again.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, so maybe that's an
upcoming episode. I don't know. So, Hey, so someone wants
to We already talked about Facebook and Twitter. What if
someone wants to send us some email and have the
(36:22):
robot bring it to us? Oh? Very easy. All you
have to do is send us a line at Blue
the Mind at House to works dot com. Be sure
to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join the House to Work staff as we explore the
most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
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