Mass Hysteria (S7, E3)

Summary

Haunted Cosmos – Season 7, Episode 3: "Mass Hysteria"

Release Date: April 29, 2026
Hosts: Ben Garrett & Brian Sauvé

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Overview

In this captivating and irreverently funny episode of Haunted Cosmos, Ben and Brian dive deep into the enigmatic world of mass hysteria—those bizarre episodes in history where entire communities seem to lose themselves in chaos, fear, and often, extremely odd behavior. The hosts question whether mass hysteria can be chalked up to purely psychological causes or whether it points toward a deeper cosmic or even spiritual strangeness. They recount legendary cases like the dancing plagues of Europe, French convents overrun with biting and meowing nuns, and even the hysteria around the Jersey Devil. Through a blend of storytelling, historical context, zany banter, and theological musings, the episode probes the intersection of the mind, soul, community, and the unseen realities shaping our world.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Iconic Cases of Mass Hysteria

• Pont Saint Esprit Poisoning, 1951 (00:00–13:57)

  • Over 250 people in a French town suffered gruesome hallucinations (e.g., man jumps out window thinking he's a plane, children attacking parents).
  • Official cause blamed on ergot fungus in bread, but alternative theories abound.
  • Raises questions about what drives collective delusions—fungus, psychological factors, or something stranger?
  • Quote: "What could drive so many to share the same unprecedented fears? What else might it have been?" — Ben (07:10)

• Dancing Plague of Strasbourg, 1518 (04:45–13:57)

  • Story of Frau Troffea, who danced uncontrollably for days, infecting scores of others.
  • Hundreds afflicted, some danced to death.
  • Authorities attempted both supernatural (Saint Vitus shrine, exorcism) and social cures (organizing "dance it out" sessions).
  • Eventually mass dancing stopped, but without clear explanation.
  • Quote: "At its height, as many as 15 people per day died as they danced, their final hours filled with confusion, pain, exhaustion, and no hope of relief." — Ben (13:24)
  • Skeptical of explanations like trickery (Paracelsus) or mold; modern historians favor "mass hysteria," but the cause of the first plague remains.

2. What's Actually Going On? Theories and Frameworks

• Is mass hysteria a form of high strangeness—an anomalous natural phenomenon that's not fully understood?
• Does it reveal something about the nature of the human mind, spiritual susceptibility, or the social fabric?
• Psychological explanations (mirror neurons, suggestibility, emotional contagion).
• Biblical and spiritual explanations: Old Testament "delusions," demonic influence, God sending confusion into armies.

3. Gender, Social Dynamics, and Mass Hysteria (16:12–26:10; 29:01–32:39)

• Statistical trend: Women, children, and adolescents appear more susceptible (confirmed by sociological research).
• Biblical rationale for women’s susceptibility (Eve deceived, "weaker vessel," emotional design for nurturing, consensus-building).
• Hosts' tongue-in-cheek, hyper-conservative commentary on convents, female group dynamics, and "sorority house" effect.
• Notable Quote: "If you leave enough women alone for long enough, they’ll all descend into mass hysteria…they’ll start meowing, they’re gonna be biting, acting like dogs…" — Brian (19:06)
• Discussion of male group dynamics and "calling each other out" to counter emotional escalation.

4. Physical and Psychological Mechanisms (29:01–38:00)

• Mirror Neurons: Neurons that fire both when doing an action and observing someone else do it—possible mechanism for collective behavior/contagion.

• Empathy and emotional resonance, particularly strong in women (toxic empathy as "a besetting sin of the female").

• Quote: "A woman’s instinct is to go and sit with [the suffering person] and hurt with them…taken too far, that’s the mirror neuron thing—your brain is telling you you are doing it, your body catches up and you start doing it." — Ben (34:00)

• Ergot (Ergo) Poisoning: Rye fungus theory for hallucination outbreaks—hosts are skeptical because its effects wouldn’t last days, and the cases often go far beyond physiological symptoms.

• Alternative Theories: e.g., Tarantella—belief in dancing brought on by wolf spider bite, remedied through dance.

5. Mass Hysteria in Religious Contexts: Nuns, Possession, and Spiritual Warfare

• Meowing Nuns, Faverny (44:03–50:00)

  • Nuns suddenly began meowing, hissing, and crawling like cats; behavior spread through the convent.
  • Some fell into convulsions or trances; exorcism and isolation ended the outbreak.
  • Treated as mass possession at the time, seen now as hysteria.

• Loudun Possessions, 1632 (50:00–58:15)

  • After plague strikes, Ursuline nuns claim waking dreams, visions of the dead, and demonic possession.
  • Exorcisms were violent—biting/attacking clergy, blamed on demon Asmodeus, and pointed to priest Grandier, who was executed after a sensational trial.
  • After severe intervention (separation, exorcism, execution), possession stopped.
  • Quote: "The same cannot be said, however, for many other cases of so-called mass hysteria among the nuns of France... Shouting and cursing and barking with inhuman voices, the nuns turned to physical attacks against their would-be rescuers. They bit at them, taking as much flesh as they could with each strike and leaving the men in terrible pain." — Brian (around 54:30)

• Spiritual Explanations: Healthy Skepticism (58:15–64:59)

  • Hosts warn against over-spiritualizing every episode; not everything weird is a demon.
  • Often, these are human foibles amplified in isolation and stress—“people are quite capable of working themselves up.”
  • Room for both demonic/Supernatural and psychological factors.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Mass Hysteria’s Mystery:
  "If it’s true that this was all mass hysteria born from stories of previous dancing plagues, then what caused those earlier dancing plagues?" — Ben (13:57)
• On the 'Sorority House' Effect:
  "If you leave enough women alone for long enough, they’ll all descend into mass hysteria…they’ll start meowing, they’ll start biting…" — Brian (19:06)
• On Male/Female Emotional Dynamics:
  "Women tend to descend to the most emotional person in the room…men tend to call the one up and say ‘stop acting like that’—usually by calling you names." — Ben (41:00)
• Healthy Skepticism:
  "It's not always demons. Sometimes the nuns just need to be told to calm down." — Brian (59:05)
• Summing Up with Humor:
  "So why don’t we whip up some mass hysteria to support a great work of music—after I insult, like, 50% of the human population for an hour." — Brian (67:46)

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The Jersey Devil: Mass Panic or Monster?

(68:13–80:57)

• Classic American legend—that of the Jersey Devil, born from family curse and growing into a state-wide supernatural panic.
• In 1909, reports of a devilish creature lead to school and factory closures, police action, and a full-blown media circus.
• No lasting harm, but the episode became part of local lore.
• Stirs the question—how much of this was mass excitement, myth-making, or something stranger?
• Parallels to the biblical motif of God sending confusion/panic among enemies.

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Timestamps for Major Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------------|----------------------| | Pont Saint Esprit & Strasbourg Dancing Plague | 00:00–13:57 | | Gender & Susceptibility to Mass Hysteria | 16:12–26:10 | | Psychological Mechanisms (Mirror Neurons, etc.) | 29:01–38:00 | | French Nuns & Possession in Faverny & Loudun | 44:03–58:15 | | Spiritual vs. Psychological Explanations | 58:15–64:59 | | Jersey Devil Mass Panic | 68:13–80:57 |

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Tone & Language

• Original Tone: Wry, irreverent, confidently conservative, alternating between earnest historical analysis and off-the-wall comedic riffs.
• Language: Direct, colloquial, playful.
• Speaker Attribution: Both hosts make jokes at their own expense, rib each other, and swap wisecracks with sincere theological reflections.

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Conclusions

• Mass hysteria remains a phenomenon at the crossroads of psychology, spirituality, and culture.
• The human mind and soul, especially in community, can generate realities as strange as the folklore they're based in.
• Not every outbreak of group madness is demonic, but that doesn’t mean nothing real is happening.
• Human susceptibility, especially in vulnerable demographics or social situations, is a fascinating—sometimes frightening—window into the cosmos’s “haunted” potential.

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Further Engagement

• Quote: "Let’s whip up some mass hysteria to support a great work of music." — Brian (67:46)
• Support, comment, and interact via Patreon and show notes. Leave five-star reviews ("especially if your name is Kevin"). (26:36)
• For more weirdness, theology, and cosmic strangeness, subscribe and support Haunted Cosmos.

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Note: This summary skips all advertisements and non-content sections, focusing solely on the extended discussion, historical storytelling, and philosophical/theological riffs that are the core content of the podcast episode.

Transcript

[Ben]

This episode is brought to you by Jake Muller Adventures. A thrilling Christian AUDIO drama Some of the strangest events in history have been blamed on something called mass hysteria. Odd symptoms suffered by a group of people without any obvious cause. But is it right to blame high strangeness on what is supposed to be a merely psychological condition? Or is it better to question the high strangeness of mass hysteria itself? Dancing plagues? Biting nuns, The Jersey Devil? Are these figments of a collective imagination? Or something more? Join us as we hear the stories and dissect what they might teach us about the mind, the soul and community. Screams came from every direction, echoing down the roads of Pont Saint Esprit like a tidal wave of woe. It was a dark August night in southern France, a night of apocalypse. One man stood in the open window frame of a second story apartment wearing only his night robe. He cried out in manic ecstasy, I'm ready. I'm ready to fly. I'm a plane.

[Brian]

A plane.

[Ben]

On the street below, police shouted at the man to step back inside, but he ignored their petitions. The man launched himself into the air with wide eyes and arms outspread like wings. He laughed gaily as he fell to the earth. When his body hit the cobblestone street, the police turned their faces away. On the fringe of the scene, ladies whimpered and fainted. He died on impact. Elsewhere, a boy possessed by some awful power crept into his mother's room. Thinking her a monster, he wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed. She woke with a breathless start and saw her own son bearing down with a look of complete and desperate malice in his wide eyes. Despite the inhuman strength that compelled him, adrenaline helped her loosen his grip and she ran from her house weeping. She. She did not stop until she reached one of the town's two doctor's offices. There she saw how serious the sickness had become. Lines of men and women in states of total psychosis stood outside. Inside, people struggled to hold the stricken townsfolk down on the beds. Some seemed to speak in tongues with angry or terrified voices. Others shouted in pain about the snakes crawling in their bellies or the invisible fire burning their skin all over. The woman grabbed a nurse and told her that her son was infected. The nurse could offer no help. She told the mother to return home and lock her doors, that the doctor would see him as soon as he could. It was the mass poisoning of 1951 in Pont Saint Esprit. For 10 days, starting on 16 August, over 250 people hallucinated the most gruesome and hellish Horrors any of us could imagine. In the end, 50 people were committed to asylums and up to seven people died. Subsequent investigations determined that an outbreak of Ergofungus had infected the people through their bread. But not everyone accepts this as the definitive explanation. What could drive so many to share the same unprecedented fears? What else might it have been? In addition to the fungus, some have supposed it to be yet another in a long line of mass hysteria episodes. Specifically. Specifically in remote France. Because of course, this was not the first bout of collective insanity to strike that country. And some of the other cases make one wonder if there could be something still deeper at play in that jewel of Western history. Along the northeast border of France lies the city of Strasbourg. Today it stands as a postcard of busy modernity. But we should not let its current glamour fool us, for its beginnings are ancient and humble. In fact, Strasbourg is one of the oldest continuously existing cities in all of Europe. Founded by the emperor Nero in 12 BC as a military outpost, Strasbourg was first named Argentortum. It bore this name until people in the 5th century lazily settled on calling it what it literally Strasbourg Fortress on the roads. From the year 362 until 1262, Strasbourg was governed by a continuous line of bishops appointed by Rome. For those eight centuries, Strasbourg proved itself an important player on the world stage. Its population grew and flourished. Its pedigree improved. In those years, it earned a reputation for standing at the cutting edge of politics, theology, education and philosophy. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, its loyalty to the empire that founded it was not destined to last forever. In 1262, the people revolted against the rule of the Church and and placed the care of Strasbourg into the hands of its resident bourgeoisie. Thus, Strasbourg became a free imperial city. It functioned as a self governing city state, subordinate only to the direct authority of the Holy Roman Emperor himself. It is during this period of self governance that we find another story of high strangeness and supposed mass hysteria. For in the midsummer of 1518, a horrible something plagued the otherwise tranquil hills of eastern France. It all started with a single woman, known to history as Frau Troffea. On July 14, Troffea stepped out of her timber frame home and into the popping colors of a medieval morning. The tragedy did not wait long to overtake her. Like the fleeting and involuntary temptation to jump when looking down a sheer cliff, an alien but powerful sensation swept the woman off her feet. Had she possessed the gift of foresight, Trofeo would have immediately broken out in swift screams at the anticipation of what was to come. As it was, she could not see the future and met this force at first with a curious gaiety. It was novel to her. Her youth and naivete found her chuckling. At first, it was an uncontrollable urge to dance. With delicate and feminine grace, one foot slid up onto its toe while the other lifted into the air as if pushed by a gentle wind. Before she fully apprehended what was happening, and before neighbors and townsfolk paid her any mind, she was dancing as she had never before. Again, she thought it fun. In those days, the world was more whimsical. She assumed this sensation was something all adults were familiar with. So innocent. But after only a few minutes, without any control over herself, and without any remaining desire to experience this curiosity, her cheerfulness vanished. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop. Stop. Her husband, just as concerned as his now helpless, twirling wife, begged her to stop. Unaware that she was at the mercy of the dance. He found himself embarrassed by the behavior. Every time he begged, however, his wife's response grew more convincing. I can't stop. What started as a game was now far from it. The girl was visibly frightened, tired, sweating, panting for breath. Neighbors looked on as each new person observed, observed Troffea. They began by chuckling, but that didn't last long. It became evident the girl was not playing a joke. Thus she danced, changing style as the day waxed and waned. Finally, once the sky went fully dark, she collapsed onto the ancient Roman road running through the middle of Strasbourg. It was like a switch. One second she danced, the next she lay in a deep sleep. Her body twitched and her feet were already swollen. They oozed from broken blisters. Nobody understood what to make of it. Nobody ventured a guess. After some 14 hours of watching the poor girl dance in pain, Everyone was sad, scared and uncomfortable. Steadily, each person in the audience just turned and quietly made for home. Last of all, Troffea's husband gently picked her up and carried her back to her cottage, where he set her to bed. He hoped it was over. The next morning, right when dawn broke over what promised to be a lovely July day, Troffea pulled herself from the bed and be her dance on bruised feet. It was as if she had not woken herself up. Her expression was one of shock. She stared down at her legs, perplexed and pleading. Tears immediately poured down her flushed cheeks. Again an audience formed and watched helplessly. They listened to the cracking joints. They listened to the cries for help. They listened to the rhythmic thudding of feet on the Earth. They could do nothing. But they also could not turn away. They too were under a kind of spell. At this point, the timeline grows uncertain. It was either four or six days that everyone watched her dance. And at the end of that time, convinced her affliction was not going away and would eventually kill her, they devised what plan they could to try and save her life. Bereft of natural explanations, they surmised that their only hope lay in the supernatural. They forced her into a wagon bound for Severn. Thirty miles away, there stood a shrine honoring saint Saint Vitus, the patron saint of dancers and entertainers waiting for religious pilgrims. A martyr from the time of Diocletian, it was customary to celebrate his feast day with hours of dancing. This connection led the people of Straussberg to wonder if Troffea had been cursed by Vitus spirit with a dancing plague as punishment for some hidden impiety. Of course, they likely thought this a mad notion themselves. But after watching the young woman suffer so long, they were eager to try something, anything. What's more, an appeal to God could only help. With her respects to St. Vitus paid, they left the writhing and crying girl in the care of monastic attendants, hopeful she would be healed and Strausberg would return to normal. Of course, their hopes proved false. And it was at this point that the influence she suffered did something nobody could have predicted. It spread. Some of the onlookers who had studied poor Troffea began to mimic her, not only in motion, but also in compulsion. Unable to control themselves, their bodies were carried off into the rogue wave of misery that had already stolen the liberty of their friend. If we pause and imagine the scene, it's impossible not to feel the utmost pity. A brightly lit summer day in the beautiful region of Alsace. The times light and golden and hopeful. It was the crest of Christendom in Europe. And within the city walls one finds to his horror j jigs of mirth and cheer performed by tortured, agonizing people begging for relief. There was no prayer one could offer, no saint one could successfully appeal to, no medicine to ingest. Ceaselessly, dozens of living puppets bounced in pools of their own blood. Bones slipped from joints, others broke altogether. Yet still the dancing did not stop. It was a pandemonium of sound and flesh. As more fell under the sway of the wicked waltz. The the city elders grew desperate. They were willing to do anything to stop the dancing, or at least to stop its spread. Local clergy declared it a curse laid upon them by St. Vitus, while alchemists speculated that it was a natural disease. Caused by overheated blood. The rulers, torn between these opinions, devised a plan they hoped would work for either cause. The cure for the disease would be the disease itself. The people were ordered to dance themselves out of the dancing. This was not entirely unreasonable on the surface. While many of the afflicted showed no signs of stopping, a precious few had danced and then eventually recovered. The rulers surmised that if some could be healed by letting the dancing run its course, then maybe all could. Guild halls were rearranged into dance floors. Stages rose in public markets. Musicians were hired to play drums and pipes to encourage greater zeal in the dancing. Healthy people, those still in control, were paid to dance alongside the sick, exhorting them to continue in lifting them up whenever they stumbled. Unfortunately, this didn't work. Instead, it deepened the despair. Within a month, as chronicled by the Imlin family, more than 400 townsfolk had been seized by the plague. Still, no relief came. A new plan was therefore hatched, one that inverted. The original stages were dismantled, music ceased, and dancing was banned by the council, at least until the plague went away. Then news came from Troffea. Patient Zero had finally been cured. In response, those still afflicted were hauled away to join her by the wagon load. A wooden icon of Vetus was erected in the town center, and any who missed the wagons were corralled toward it. The dancers were told to look to the image of the old saint for succor. They were given crosses to hold. Their feet were anointed with holy water. Incense burned in heavy clothes. Clouds and Latin prayers were recited over them. At last, as more were sent to Severne, more word returned, reporting full recovery. More were sent until, slowly and with none of the questions answered, the phenomenon stopped. For over a month, hundreds of people in Strasbourg had danced uncontrollably and involuntarily, even to their own physical detriment. At its height, as many as 15 people per day dance died as they danced, their final hours filled with confusion, pain, exhaustion, and no hope of relief. But what was this? According to Paracelsus, writing eight years later, it was an elaborate trick by the townswomen to embarrass their husbands. It began with Troffea and spread as others witnessed her success. This explanation, though, rings a little hollow. At any rate, it was not only women who danced and died. Others believe it was a type of mold that grows on old rye bread and, when consumed, causes convulsions and hallucinations. The ergo fungus I mentioned earlier. Yet this effect lasts only a short time, as the mold ultimately cuts off blood flow to the extremities. If this had been the culprit, many days of dancing would have been impossible. The best explanation modern historians offer is mass hysteria. This dancing plan plague had occurred before, more than once, actually, and always in the same general region of France. Clearly, the scientists say the peasants heard these stories and given the despondent poverty they endured, gave themselves over to despair and danced to death simply because they could. To that, I have just one question, one stubborn point. If it's true that this was all mass hysteria born from stories of previous dancing plagues, then what caused those earlier dancing plagues?

[Brian]

Well, after waiting a shockingly long time for Ben to finish drinking for Loudly from his cup into the microphone.

[Ben]

Welcome to this episode, Drinking for Loudly, if I recall, collect it.

[Brian]

First question for you, Ben. Should we put a stop to women and. Or France until we figure out what's going on?

[Ben]

Yes, to both.

[Brian]

And nuns. Like, should we shut down nuns until we figure out what's happening?

[Ben]

I don't get the whole nun thing.

[Brian]

Like, the. You know what really grinds my gears?

[Ben]

The monks make more sense.

[Brian]

The monks come in, beat the nuns mercilessly.

[Ben]

I don't mean that makes sense.

[Brian]

They're just beating them with iron rods.

[Ben]

Crazy. Crazy. I definitely would have not thought of doing the same thing. Never. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Please.

[Brian]

Okay. Welcome to this episode of Haunted Cosmos. We are. This actually is one of my. To me, one of the more interesting ones in a while that we've done.

[Ben]

Dude. So true.

[Brian]

Because it's just so flipping weird.

[Ben]

I've always wanted to do this kind

[Brian]

of thing, and there's a lot of them in history.

[Ben]

Yeah, there are, dude. There are.

[Brian]

Yeah, there are.

[Ben]

Yeah, there. Ares. I heard of one from. I think it was like Taiwan. It almost made it into the show, but I wanted to focus on nuns and French women. But I heard of one from Taiwan that was like this one kid in school started laughing.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Couldn't stop.

[Brian]

He couldn't stop laughing.

[Ben]

Whole school shuts down because all the kids are laughing.

[Brian]

And you know how they knew it wasn't mass hysteria?

[Ben]

Because I was there telling jokes. We weren't there.

[Brian]

We weren't there. Because if they saw even milliseconds of our. Our patois, our banter, any content, any kind, they would have been laughing for months.

[Ben]

Yeah, it was amazing.

[Brian]

No mass hysteria, Just normal behavior.

[Ben]

No, mass hysteria is pretty cool. In this episode, we're going to be exploring mass hysteria. What is it?

[Brian]

Yeah, what is it?

[Ben]

Is it in itself a kind of high strangeness or is it so like, is it natural, but it's so deep into stuff that we just don't know yet that it may as well be high strangeness? And then also, we're going to finally answer the question that's been at the forefront of everyone's mind since the beginning of time.

[Brian]

Really the human spirit.

[Ben]

Why do women do what they do?

[Brian]

Ladies, what are you doing?

[Ben]

All my ladies out there, all my sisters, appreciate you.

[Brian]

Okay, so we've already, like, we've gotten the negative reviews, got a chuckle out of Evan. We've gotten the negative reviews to Haunted Cosmos, the one star reviews because of. Because of the accents that we do.

[Ben]

Oh, so you are saying that not everyone loves the accent.

[Brian]

No, which is funny. You know what? I did notice.

[Ben]

Would you like us to.

[Brian]

No one ever says I'm triggered. That you spoke in a British accent. I'm American. But they do when we use a Japanese accent. So why are you all so racist?

[Ben]

What about, does anyone get triggered when I do this? Wingapo. Yes, I can see.

[Brian]

No, I'm Native American. We can do it.

[Ben]

I can feel the grass. And it's telling me.

[Brian]

Wait, hang on.

[Ben]

That a white man was here, but really what he's doing is he's picking up a Zen Alpine or a Zen Alp. A Zen that's been used. The white man has been a herd

[Brian]

of buffalo approach

[Ben]

many miles off. Look, Yano, I get.

[Brian]

I'm used to Japanese accents.

[Ben]

Look. Okay, Green salamander. A murder of crows comes over the ridgeline.

[Brian]

It's like, when can you paint with

[Ben]

all the colors of the wind?

[Brian]

It's like when Legolas stands up and he says, red sunrises. Blood has been shown.

[Ben]

I just love the idea of Tucker. I don't. I don't know what just made my mind go to this. Okay, but imagine, you know the guys on Instagram that pretend to be Tucker Carlson and they're like, go to the hobby.

[Brian]

So funny.

[Ben]

Yes, Saruman is telling us. Interesting. If they did that for all Disney movies. Like the question, can you paint with all the colors of the wind? Begs the question. Something.

[Brian]

Something that almost that vibe was like the Jordan Peterson thing too.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

What does that mean?

[Ben]

You asking if that happened? Begs the question, what do you mean by happen? One of the best. Jordan Peterson.

[Brian]

So this whole bit was so that I could now say we've offended everybody, one star reviews with our ethnic impersonations, our accents. Now we are going to offend an even larger group. All Women everywhere. Because you will notice in this episode,

[Ben]

with one big exception, that with.

[Brian]

With just an exception.

[Ben]

To two to exceptions.

[Brian]

A lot of it is the women.

[Ben]

Except for. Let me give the.

[Brian]

Especially when you put them all together in a convent and you just say. Just exist here with. No. With. With. With not enough men telling you what to do. Look, just. Quite frankly.

[Ben]

Look, if you ask me, I think that most of the women I know in my life, even the non Christian women that I know, would say that a convent is a bad idea.

[Brian]

Let's just say that it's like a sorority house. If you leave enough women alone for long enough, they'll all descend into mass hysteria. Within.

[Ben]

They'll start meowing.

[Brian]

Eight to 25 minutes. I mean, they're gonna be meowing, they're

[Ben]

gonna be biting, acting like dogs.

[Brian]

You walk in there and they were taking mouthful, dude.

[Ben]

Yeah, they were.

[Brian]

They weren't just biting. They were taking flipping mouthfuls of people.

[Ben]

Look, say what you will. Say what you will. About those monks beating them with rod. With pieces of.

[Brian]

Come on. Like I. You're getting self defense.

[Ben]

But like if you had a. A person. Person.

[Brian]

Yeah, anybody. Toddler biting down.

[Ben]

Actually. So my wife used to work with kids with autism.

[Brian]

Yeah. I mean.

[Ben]

And no, there was no beating with rods.

[Brian]

No. I mean, the biting though.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Brian]

You gotta be careful.

[Ben]

It was big deal. They had people go to the hospital all the time because these kids would bite chunks out of the. Out of the arm. And I was like, what do you do? Like if a kid in this situation. Lockjaw, dude. And you can't shake him.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

What do you do? She said that the protocol is. And this is full.

[Brian]

I mean, she said it. She's an expert, has a degree.

[Ben]

This is like the protocol is you grab the back of their head and push them harder into your arm.

[Brian]

Oh.

[Ben]

So that it makes their teeth hurt. And then it like.

[Brian]

Ah.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

And then they go. And they spit out the chunk of your arm.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Wow.

[Ben]

So the damage has been done.

[Brian]

So we're off to a good start here in this episode.

[Ben]

So anyway, we're talking about mass hysteria today. What is it?

[Brian]

You know?

[Ben]

And then also we're gonna see if we can find some biblical parallels that may or may not match up to these stories. But just on the women thing.

[Brian]

Very interesting.

[Ben]

It is a it.

[Brian]

Okay.

[Ben]

I just want to get this out of the way. It actually is. Wikipedia confirms it's true. We're not just joking that in a non. Purely sociological way. Although I'm sure that has something to do with it. Women are more susceptible to mass hysteria than men. And they can't pinpoint like a.

[Brian]

And this is why women, children and adolescents.

[Ben]

Yeah, like a purely biological reason to say like. And this is why it's just as interesting.

[Brian]

Okay, here, look, I'm gonna. We're probably gonna reveal into some degrees that we are more based than some of the Hana Cosmos listeners. Let me just put it that way.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

We're very conservative in this episode. I am wildly right wing. Some people know this, some don't. Many do. Many people particularly love how right wing that I am. So much so that they protest my existence and call me names.

[Ben]

So anyway, Brian and I both have received death threats.

[Brian]

Many death threats.

[Ben]

You know, for right wing conservative views that we firmly believe that are.

[Brian]

That I want to take this opportunity to apologize to absolutely, absolutely nobody. So. But anyway, I will. I will say I do think that there is a biblical explanation for why. For why women are more susceptible to mass hysteria.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

And it comes back to how the scriptures speak to the duties of women. The office of the wife and also the duties of the husband. In light of these things. A husband is told that he's to treat his wife gently in an understanding way because she's the weaker vessel. We're told that the husband is the head of his wife. And in a way that the wife is not the head of him. That she is to submit to him in a way that he's not called to submit to her in the exact same way. And so I think this shows that there is something about the frame of the woman that does tend towards mass hysteria or at least. And it's not that only women engage in these things, but that she is more likely because of her nature.

[Ben]

Paul indicates that it could be. It could be that women in their nature are more easily deceived. Because he mentions the fact that it was Eve who was deceived and not Adam.

[Brian]

And Adam wasn't.

[Ben]

Adam sinned.

[Brian]

He sinned in a more high handedly.

[Ben]

Eve was deceived. She was tricked. So that is something too weird. Tend to flatten the weaker vessel thing. Yeah. And basically until it means nothing.

[Brian]

It's just some physical women tend to be physically less strong than men.

[Ben]

Yeah. But hey, I know a woman that's stronger than Evan.

[Brian]

Who?

[Ben]

That's the Naxalt fallacy. Not all exorcist fallacy. No. Generally women are weaker than men physically. Yes.

[Brian]

But also had to throw shade at Evan.

[Ben]

I know I'm stupid. Evan just caught a stray.

[Brian]

Her name's Olga, by the way, the woman who's stronger than. She's a trainer. She's 6 foot 9. She's 6 foot 9.

[Ben]

No. But also emotional stability. Women tend to have less of an ability to compartmentalize things, which is actually good for them because of their duties with household nurturing and wanting to bring in and all this stuff. But it does mean that in terms of gifting and men and women working together, husbands lead their wives, and women

[Brian]

tend to be more mirroring and more consensus building, which is a lot of these things are actually features of her design and what God told her to do. So they're not bad things. They're just. They're things that are true. So I do think that explains some extent of why, genuinely, women do seem more susceptible to mass hysteria than men. And so, ladies, let me take this opportunity. Let me take this opportunity just to say, from the bottom of my heart, calm down. And. And, hey, hang on. I'm not. I'm not done. Get a hold of yourselves. Okay, hang on, hang on. Just. And it's like you're feeling. You're feeling a lot of stuff. But women love it when you tell them to calm down because it tells them that they have been worked up and that they need to calm down.

[Ben]

It affirms them.

[Brian]

Yeah. And most of the time, when you tell, like, man, this is a tip for you. If your wife, your sister, like, anybody in your life who's a lady is ever, like, worked up, you can always just say, you really need to calm down. And it usually helps immediately. They realize they've lost their cool, and they thank you.

[Ben]

There's no collateral.

[Brian]

There's never anything negative that will happen to you because you say that. Okay. Now, anyway, what were you gonna say?

[Ben]

Well, I was gonna say I just

[Brian]

wanted to have that moment with the listeners.

[Ben]

And now that you said that, what I'm about to say is gonna sound less sincere. Okay, but before you start thinking that, we're gonna title this episode the High Strangeness of Women.

[Brian]

Yeah. Which we're not.

[Ben]

We do want to know that it is not only women. There's the children thing. Yeah. And that kind of makes sense, you know, but also, men fall into the mass delusion, mass hysteria stuff quite frequently as well. Just not as frequently. And you even see that in the cold open with guys jumping out the window saying, I'm a plane.

[Brian]

I'm a plane. And a kid choking his mom.

[Ben]

I guess it's a kid, though.

[Brian]

Yeah, he was a child.

[Ben]

And then there was plenty of Men. Oh, the men were who succumbed to the dancing plague.

[Brian]

And also the men who were supposed to be in charge. And a lot of this stuff, they're like, I don't know, let's mer. Let's. Let's execute this guy.

[Ben]

Yeah, you can look at Footloose, a modern equivalent.

[Brian]

Okay.

[Ben]

Mass hysteria if I've ever seen it.

[Brian]

Really.

[Ben]

Led by Kevin Bacon.

[Brian]

And that's a man.

[Ben]

And he's a man.

[Brian]

He actually has the most masculine name of all time. Kevin Bacon. Kevin is first and last name.

[Ben]

You meet a Kevin, you know what you're.

[Brian]

Dude, you know, you don't need to

[Ben]

know anything about this. Kevin.

[Brian]

Yeah, every Kevin in the world is straight.

[Ben]

I don't know. Actually, I saw a reel the other day that said. I think it said that Kevin was like a potential gay.

[Brian]

Like demographically, Kevin's at our church are like 70% more likely to be an elder.

[Ben]

That's true.

[Brian]

Because two of our Kevin's are elders.

[Ben]

Yeah. Hey, sound off in the comments if your name is Kevin and also like. And subscribe if your name is anything

[Brian]

is in is not Kevin. Hey, can I ask you a question then? Are there any biblical equivalents or like, am I jumping the gun here to ask you.

[Ben]

No, you're good.

[Brian]

You can jump in. Like, are there some. We've spoken to some biblical explanations for maybe like some we haven't gotten deep into mechanics yet. We'll talk more about where mass hysteria comes from. Spiritual, physical. There's interplay here, but are there biblical examples that you can think of?

[Ben]

The ones that I was thinking, because

[Brian]

I actually, I'm like drawing a. I'm drawing a blank here.

[Ben]

Oh, dude, get ready.

[Brian]

I was thinking, I'm gonna feel so

[Ben]

dumb of all the time. You are. No, you're not.

[Brian]

When he says it, you're not.

[Ben]

But I think you'll be pleased.

[Brian]

Is it the pigs?

[Ben]

No, no, it's not the pigs running off that cliff. It's every time in the Old Testament when God says, I'm gonna place the fear of Israel in this opposing army, where I'm gonna confuse them, I'm gonna throw them into confusion, and then they all kill each other instead of actually fighting Israel like Gideon with the Midianites.

[Brian]

That's a good example.

[Ben]

Right? Isn't that. It's not like a one to one because we can't pretend to know. Yeah, there's less dancing. There's not no dancing.

[Brian]

But there's not.

[Ben]

I imagine I'm speculating, but there's less. But it's this idea that, like, look at it from the Midianites perspective. Okay.

[Brian]

All right. I often try to.

[Ben]

Don't look at it from the Midianites. They're chilling in the camp.

[Brian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben]

Next thing you know, they hear a couple dozen guys yell for the Lord and for Gideon. Like, it sounds like a whisper.

[Brian]

It's a camp, a bowl from above.

[Ben]

Hundreds of thousands of people. Of people. And there's this one little corner where they're going, like, for the Lord and for Gideon. And then there's some barrel or some jars they throw in.

[Brian]

Yeah. And next thing you know, lights.

[Ben]

All the Midianites descend into a complete panic. A delusional panic. It is literally a delusion. And they kill each other. That seems like if you look at it from their point of view, it probably looked similar to some of these mass hysteria cases, especially the one that we'll be talking about in the hot clothes, but I'm not gonna give that away yet.

[Brian]

Ooh, dude, that's foreshadowing right there.

[Ben]

That's foreshadow. Oh, dude, that shadow is four. What?

[Brian]

Nah, that one didn't work.

[Ben]

It worked. It didn't work in my head.

[Brian]

So mass hysteria. Let's talk about some physical.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Is that cool with you? We talked about some physical reasons that people could have.

[Ben]

This is your show.

[Brian]

Okay. In that case, let's talk about some physical reasons.

[Ben]

More about women.

[Brian]

I'm kidding. Yeah, we do. Have you pointed this out in the preparation for this episode that people have what's called mirror neurons.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

And. And I remember learning about these in AP Psychology.

[Ben]

Wow.

[Brian]

Back in 11th grade.

[Ben]

I had never heard 11th grade until, like, two days ago.

[Brian]

Mirror neurons are neurons that fire when you watch somebody else do something. Kind of as if you're doing it.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

And then I actually. I hope I'm explaining this correctly, because I'm drawing on 11th grade AP psychology right now.

[Ben]

I got you.

[Brian]

And it's one of the ways that we learn how to do something imitatively. We watch somebody do something. Monkey see, monkey do. Ben, have you heard of the Jake Muller Adventures?

[Ben]

Oh, what's that?

[Brian]

A Christian audio drama. Zombies, vampires, global conspiracies, and faith at the center. I was up all night on the edge of my seat.

[Ben]

Is it fully immersive sound effects and cast and everything?

[Brian]

Yes, full cast cinematic sound. It's like you can hear the danger coming. Ooh.

[Ben]

So kind of similar to Hana Cosmos, but no. Your mom jokes and more drama.

[Brian]

No mom jokes yet, but yeah, tons of drama.

[Ben]

So it's kind of like your mom then.

[Brian]

Not quite. Check it [e-mail] haunted for 10% off. Does your outdated website give your visitors sleep paralysis?

[Ben]

What? What? Is that a thing?

[Brian]

Are you haunted by that logo your uncle's pet werewolf made?

[Ben]

Brian, what are you talking about?

[Brian]

If you're ready to level up your brand and website, you. You need to talk to Josh at Valente Creative.

[Ben]

What's up, guys?

[Brian]

Josh, my guy.

[Ben]

What the heck? How did you just appear?

[Brian]

Head to valenticreative.com NCP to talk with Josh about your brand and website.

[Ben]

Oh. Oh, this is an ad that we're doing right now. Wait, how did he teleport into this room?

[Brian]

Ah, Ben, I wish I could tell you, but this is an ad. You have to go to valenticreative.com NCP and and reach out today. Hey, Ben, I just read that our great grandparents probably experimented with butter on their dry skin as a moisturizer. Is that why you look so radiant?

[Ben]

Maybe it's grandma's butter recipe. Or maybe it's gray toe tallow.

[Brian]

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[Ben]

So say sayonara, Sammy to kitchen experiments. And say hello to healthier skin Great O tallow Trusted by skin envied by great grandma's butter recipe.

[Brian]

For more information and to get a sample pack, check out graytoadtalo.com don't forget to use the code COSMOS15. That's all caps COSMOS15 for 15 off your order. Yeah, so you see and then you do what you're seeing. You imitate you mirror. Right. But it's more than that because it's like not just that you do it, it's that they fire as if you are doing it. Right.

[Ben]

This is the distinction. So the thing that I saw was you can think of the mirror neuron and actually the picture that I saw was of a guy holding a little baby monkey. And in the first frame, he sticks his tongue out at the monkey. And in the next frame, the monkey sticks his tongue out at him. Yeah, I don't know why they used a monkey. Cause you could just do that with a child.

[Brian]

Because my kids.

[Ben]

Because they'll do that.

[Brian]

My kids will do almost anything.

[Ben]

And that from what I understand, that's like a low common denominator tier of mirror neurons that basically everyone experiences and can relate to. The level that they're saying, where it may be connected to mass hysteria is when they're saying that when you observe it, you feel like you are doing it.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

So your brain is telling you you're doing.

[Brian]

There's a part of you. Like when I watch Alex Honnold Free Solo Half Dome.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Or Free Solo. That Chinese building.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brian]

Wing Ting Tong, I think it was called or something. The Wing Ting Tang Building.

[Ben]

I think it was called General Sal's building.

[Brian]

That's what it was. Yeah, that's what it was. When he was climbing the sweet and spicy General Styles building the egg drop. There was a part of me that was like. Like I was hand start sweating. Clammed up.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

I'm getting clammed up.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

I'm like feeling like I'm about to fall off. Like a climb of a sweet and spicy delicious building.

[Ben]

Crunchy, crispy. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying?

[Brian]

Like. And I think we can all identify with that. Is that mirror neurons?

[Ben]

I think. Yeah, I think. Yeah. So I think that's good. Part of it is where you're. So that'd be a kind. Again, this is all Wikipedia, which is a primary source of Wikipedia is

[Brian]

just as good as, like. I mean, here's the thing. Has it ever been wrong?

[Ben]

I am gonna tie this back to women. Okay. Okay. But for a very, I think a very legitimate reason. Not that anything you said wasn't legitimate, but the. That was good. One of the besetting sins of the female, generally.

[Brian]

There are so many good clips in this episode.

[Ben]

Is a toxic form of empathy.

[Brian]

Yeah, no, I was gonna bring. I'm glad you did.

[Ben]

So where if a woman sees someone hurting, a man's instinct is to rescue a woman. Generally speaking, a woman's instinct is to go and sit with them and hurt with them. And that's the nurturing. Like, it's a corruption of something that is good.

[Brian]

It's good.

[Ben]

A good instinct, but it taken way too far. And that is kind of like the mirror neuron thing where you observe someone doing or experiencing something and it's as if you are experiencing it yourself.

[Brian]

It's like the meme where they're like, oh, no, someone cried. Rip up the constitution.

[Ben]

Exactly, exactly.

[Brian]

Oh, no, a child is crying.

[Ben]

Yes, we. Yes, no more borders. So it's like the mirror neuron thing that would connect to mass hysteria can be the empathy thing where you see Frau Charfea.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Dancing.

[Brian]

Isn't that like German? Frau Frau Fraulein.

[Ben]

Yeah, Fraulein is German for woman.

[Brian]

Okay.

[Ben]

Yeah. But back then the same thing.

[Brian]

Frankish.

[Ben]

Yeah, it's Frankish. And so I think Back then, it was just like the woman named Troffea.

[Brian]

Oh, okay, Gotcha. That's what I thought.

[Ben]

Yeah. And so, you know, you see her, she's hurting, she's in pain. And the mirror neuron thing is like, you are also doing that.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And then because your brain is telling you you are doing it, your body eventually catches up and you start doing it.

[Brian]

Women like to look in mirrors a lot. Ergo, they have more mirror neurons. Therefore, like, such as the Iraq. They dance 100%. I think that all track.

[Ben]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Brian]

Dude, can I tell you that speaking of Fraulein, I have a character I do for my wife, one of the many ethnic characters. I do.

[Ben]

I know some of them. Which one is this?

[Brian]

This one is Dietrich. And sometimes he just flirts with her in like, kind of a vaguely like, German sort of accent.

[Ben]

How do you flirt with someone in a German way? I want to.

[Brian]

I can't do any of that, but I do. I want you to know that I.

[Ben]

Stay tuned for the next season of the Graveyard Shift, where you'll get to see how awkward it can get around Brian and Lexi when we interview her.

[Brian]

Oh, she's in it.

[Ben]

Yeah, she's in it.

[Brian]

Yeah. Look, I don't do any ethnic impersonations there, but. But you could have but leave us five star reviews to offset the p. Like, leave us five star reviews that say five star review. Because of the accents.

[Ben]

Yeah, more accents.

[Brian]

Like, we need more of that.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

So is it time for the next story? Before we continue to discuss. Or.

[Ben]

What's the. Well, do you want to talk about the Urgot Or. Or.

[Brian]

Yeah, yeah. Urgot. I call it Urgot.

[Ben]

So I. You want to know the only reason

[Brian]

I call it Ergo, let's hear it.

[Ben]

Is because I've only heard about it in reference to French stories, and it seems like a France of French Francie. A France man franchise would say, ergo,

[Brian]

when you hear me read the next story, I do try to, like, split the diff between using, like, a full French pronunciation. Because I took a lot of French. I speak some French.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

And. And then like an American, I'm trying not to lose total credibility with all my boys, like with all the bros. By pronouncing it too French.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brian]

But I think I slipped a couple times.

[Ben]

Yeah, totally. Hey, speaking.

[Brian]

I do want to talk about ergot poisoning.

[Ben]

Yeah. Like, subscribe and comment. If you appreciated the fact that I was able to just say Pont Saint Esprit so easily. In the cold day, it was like.

[Brian]

Was it Pont.

[Ben]

Pont. Or was it Poncentaspris? P O N T. Was it Pont.

[Brian]

Was it the bridge? Cause Pont means bridge almost.

[Ben]

Yeah. Well, it's like there's a.

[Brian]

Or was it something else?

[Ben]

There's Pont Santasprix and there's a bridge there.

[Brian]

Okay, okay. Saint. The Spirit. The Spirit of the Saint Bridge or something like that. I think that's what it is.

[Ben]

Spirit of Saint Bridge. We all get it.

[Brian]

Something like that. Anyway, the ergot poisoning theory is interesting, but it doesn't actually. Like, people do this for multiple historical mysteries where they're like, oh, they got ergot poisoning because it's a fungus that grows on the grain on rye. It can happen. It really does cause psychedelic.

[Ben]

It causes convulsions. It has LSD in it. So it really. It messes you up.

[Brian]

Yeah. Like, people are hopped up on drugs. Anybody who's eating bread, the problem, anytime,

[Ben]

the problem is that it constricts the blood flow to your limbs, so you can't move.

[Brian]

You convuls within a pretty quick time

[Ben]

period, and then you stop being able to move. So the fact that it went on for days and days and days for these people, that literally wouldn't. It would be impossible.

[Brian]

Maybe they took a little bit carbo loaded.

[Ben]

Sure.

[Brian]

They danced a little bit. They wore it all off. Could be made that up.

[Ben]

Could be.

[Brian]

I don't know. Weigh in. If you're a doctor or if you have access to AI and can ask

[Ben]

it, like, comment and subscribe. If you're a doctor. The other thing that it could be is I read this thing called Tarantella.

[Brian]

Okay.

[Ben]

And it was this. Yeah. It was this belief that if you get bit by a wolf spider in Northern Italy, it makes you dance. And then it became the tarantella dance.

[Brian]

Really?

[Ben]

Yeah. I'm not kidding.

[Brian]

Because it's a type of spider.

[Ben]

Yeah. Well, no. So they thought that, like a wolf spider in particular, that apparently is really common in Northern Italy, which. Whatever.

[Brian]

It would explain Italians.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

I'm gonna leave that just as vague as I can.

[Ben]

That if you get bit by it, one of the side effects could be that you succumb to the tarantella.

[Brian]

Yeah. And then dance.

[Ben]

And then the side effect is that you dance.

[Brian]

Okay.

[Ben]

And the answer for the dance is to do the dance. A specific dance to stop it that the church came up with that would stop it.

[Brian]

I thought maybe that the cure was that you had to go bite a spider.

[Ben]

No, but that'd be.

[Brian]

Spider bites. You. And you had to bite one back.

[Ben]

It's kind of like real life Spider man, though. Like a spider and then a radioactive spider and you get kind of powers. It's just the powers are a bummer.

[Brian]

Why is there no. Why is there no movie where a man. A radioactive man bites a spider? There could be. And that spider gains the power of

[Ben]

like procrastination and they call a man spider. You're welcome.

[Brian]

This is cinema. Yeah. The ergot poisoning thing, I think it has some weaknesses in terms of an explanatory. Didn't they try to explain the. The Roanoke with ergot poisoning? Ergotism. I think that's one of the theories.

[Ben]

I could see that.

[Brian]

I think ergotism, like, they.

[Ben]

There's so many explanations for Roanoke that I. I can't keep track.

[Brian]

Yeah, so. So it is. It's one of those explanations that. A little too convenient. And I just. Honestly, the way that I think about it is that it is much more likely the psychological phenomenon of mass hysteria.

[Ben]

The mind is a powerful thing.

[Brian]

I don't actually even think it's super spiritual.

[Ben]

No, me neither.

[Brian]

And demons.

[Ben]

I. I think.

[Brian]

First time on Hanukkah.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

First it was the thing. I actually think people are just quite capable of working themselves up. Have you ever seen a toddler.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

And then do anything?

[Ben]

And people are also really good at transferring their worked up psychosis to others.

[Brian]

Absolutely.

[Ben]

They are.

[Brian]

Especially, and I cannot emphasize this enough, especially women.

[Ben]

This is a real thing.

[Brian]

Women.

[Ben]

There's actually a study that, like.

[Brian]

And if that's making you feel, like, worked up. Ladies, can I just tell you, like, what I'm saying?

[Ben]

It vindicates us.

[Brian]

You're kind of proving my point.

[Ben]

No, there actually has been sociological studies done on women's interaction on social media and how, like, women don't have a calming effect on one another when one of them is losing their mind is like kind of losing worked up or panicking. And instead, like, women tend to descend to the most emotional person in the room, really. Whether nurturing them with sympathy or succumbing to their level of crazy via toxic empathy. Whereas men tend to have a social practice of calling the one up and saying like, stop acting like that.

[Brian]

Usually by calling you names.

[Ben]

Yes, exactly.

[Brian]

Which is perfectly fine.

[Ben]

That is just like a noticed trend.

[Brian]

If you're. If you're hanging out with the boys and one of them's acting kind of dumb like, you just start calling him names until he stops and they'll eventually

[Ben]

just be so sad that they Stop talking altogether.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And it happens to me all the time. And it's a blessing.

[Brian]

It is.

[Ben]

It's a huge.

[Brian]

That's a bless. Like, bless up.

[Ben]

It's my boys loving me, you know?

[Brian]

So let's talk about this next story where I pronounce a lot of French words. I do just want to say a lot of this would have been prevented. I'm not buying Indigo Sundry Soap, actually. Believe it or not.

[Ben]

No.

[Brian]

But just by knocking it the heck off. Well, but Indigo Sundry soap does help you.

[Ben]

Indigo Sundry soap could have cleaned up

[Brian]

the mess after they beat the nuns.

[Ben]

Exactly.

[Brian]

And after they got all bitten up by the nuns, they could have cleaned up with Indigo. So get Indigo Sundry soap if you like what we're doing here at Hana Cosmos, because it really is the solution to many problems. Smelling bad, not having good hygiene, buying big box soap full of terrible chemicals from people that really don't like you that much. Instead, you should buy some homemade soap, literally made by hand. The hands of Christians. Some of our friends. The Colliers.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

The Collier family. They just had another baby. Support them.

[Ben]

And if you ever find yourself in Northern Italy getting bit by a wolf. Spider.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Be sure to scrub the wound thoroughly. First of all, Indigo Sundry soap, like.

[Brian]

And subscribe then.

[Ben]

Yeah. And comment.

[Brian]

So with that said, let's talk about some nuns. Let me take you into some more nuns.

[Ben]

Well, this is the first time we're talking about nuns.

[Brian]

We haven't talked about nuns yet in this episode.

[Ben]

Not in the Cold Open.

[Brian]

I just talked a lot about nuns, forgetting that the Cold open didn't have nuns in it.

[Ben]

It's all right.

[Brian]

You guys were wondering, like, what do the nuns have to do with anything? That was all foreshadowing.

[Ben]

We really familiarize ourselves with the script.

[Brian]

It's just that I'm so immersed in the script by the time we record.

[Ben]

Right. It's all one.

[Brian]

That it all merges together. We're about to tell you why we've been talking about nuns biting people so much.

[Ben]

Yeah. So if you're still listening, we really appreciate the patience. We'll see you soon.

[Brian]

It was the early 1730s in Faverny in the Burgundy region of eastern France. Over 100 years prior, the Abbey of Faverny had reignited the zeal of many Catholic Christians in the region through the alleged occurrence of a Eucharistic miracle. The story goes that amid the doubt foisted upon the people by the Protestant Reformation in Europe, the monks of the abbey exposed the Eucharistic elements so that the people could adore them. They hoped this gift, allowing the people to actually look upon the elements of the Supper, would dissuade any from apostatizing to the theology of John Calvin. Unfortunately, a fire broke out and burned for over 24 hours, destroying much of the abbey. Normally, this would have called for the greatest lamentation. But something happened during the fire that turned the tragedy into a triumph. Villagers and Roman clergy, civil leaders and wealthy merchants, all who watched the blaze consume their church, were thunderstruck by the sight of the glowing monstrance containing the eucharistic host hovering above the flames. Untarnished, when the fire ended, the monstrance gently descended onto the burned subfloor where the altar had so recently stood. This miracle, later confirmed by Pope Pius ix, turned Faverny into a place of immense spiritual significance. As such, the priests, monks and nuns who dwelt there were upheld by the church and the people as pillars of the faith. Then the 1730s came and all of that changed. The abbey followed the Benedictine rule for monastic life. The nuns who had begun residing in Faverni in 1137 woke to what they expected to be a normal morning. They observed the early offices and the day's work commenced. But around noon, a change came over some of the nuns. They began to meow like cats. One of them was considerably worse than the rest. Though her name is lost to history, she left her mark by meowing, Evidently against her will. She crawled on all fours like a beast, hissed and swatted at any who came too close. Over time, her condition spread to other women in in the convent. Before the day ended, a horde of otherwise austere nuns behaved no differently than frightened alley cats cornered by a predator. The next day, the behavior worsened. Though the nuns had been able to sleep, this only made the morning more strange and terrifying. The meowing, hissing and crawling, all of it continued. Now, however, many of them were periodically thrown into violent convulsions. Multiple monks were needed to restrain the frantic self destruction of even a single woman. Others who did not convulse descended into trance like states that made them appear vegetative. They could not respond to any external stimulus, even when that stimulus amounted to slaps from other nuns across the face. Whenever such a woman emerged from her trance, the cat like behavior resumed exactly where it had left off, only worsened. The women were terrified and so was everyone else. The church intervened more formally after days of decline, and eventually treated the episode as a case of mass possession. Clergy began to perform exorcisms they separated the afflicted women. Some were sent to other convents, while others were moved to isolated rooms. Civil authorities treated the situation as a societal emergency and barred any affected woman from contact with with the laity. Eventually, with these measures in place, and the exorcism seeming to bear fruit, the strangeness subsided. It is remembered either as a comical blight on the otherwise untarnished reputation of Faverni, or as a victorious triumph of spiritual light against demonic forces seeking to drag it down. Either way, it left no lasting negative physical impact. The same cannot be said, however, for many other cases of so called mass hysteria among the nuns of France. In 1632, Loudun, France was a picturesque model of Christendom, hiding great turmoil just beneath her surface. In an effort to consolidate the power of the monarchic and papist rule of the city, King Louis XIII ordered Loudun's walls demolished. The Catholics, led by the prominent Cardinal Richelieu, supported the King's decision. The Protestant Huguenots, who made up no small portion of Loudun's citizenry, wanted to keep the walls in the event that state tyranny forced them into a defensive position. Thus, factions already boiled in the French town. But the drama was not limited to this. Most controversially, the Catholic priest Urbain Grandiere, whose parish was in Loudun, sided with the Huguenots. This was not due to any sympathy for the Protestant cause. Rather, Grandiere was not fond of the beloved cardinal and therefore wasted no opportunity to oppose him. But his reasons mattered little. The people only saw factions forming, not only in the civil sphere, but also in the Church. Finally, the straw that almost broke the semblance of peace came in the form of a plague that struck Loudun in May of 1632 and wreaked havoc at Dozens were dead, hundreds sick, and the plague showed no signs of letting up. The populace was nervous, the leadership was strained. Loudun was a powder keg ready to burst. Enter the Ursuline nuns of the city's convent. A prioress presided over 17 nuns in the convent, all of them young. The average age of the group was only 25. By October of that year, the plague had turned Loudun into a ghost town. Everyone wealthy enough had left long ago for their summer villas or connections in larger cities. Even the physicians had left. After all, they quickly learned that they could offer nothing in the face of this sickness. They had wives and children to consider. The benefits of leaving weighed heavily. The common folk isolated themselves, content to stay inside their homes as much as they could until the storm ran its Course, apart from these laypeople, only the clergy, the monastics of the abbeys and convents, and a few city officials remained. For their part, the nuns of Loudun shut their gates at the outbreak of the plague and admitted no visitors for the entire spring and summer. They were alone, with nothing but the dark cloud of death looming over them. It was in this time that something strange began to take place. The nun started having visions. A younger Ursuline, who had lived in the convent only a few years, claimed to have entered a waking dream, wherein her recently deceased confessor, a Father Mousson, met and spoke with her as if he were alive and well again. Other women, more senior nuns, reported similar phenomena. Soon enough, all the women claimed interactions with the dead. The convent chaplain, Jean Mignon, feared the wicked implications of this apparently unwanted necromancy. He ordered exorcisms at once, and the church, of course, obliged. The exorcisms all took place place in the same room. It was windowless and lit only by the red glow of embers burning in lamps along the perimeter. The women, one by one, were escorted in. In the room's center stood the exorcist and Mignon. Beside them sat a small bed and chair for the nuns to use should the rite wear them down. From the onset of the first Rituali Romanum, it was clear that not only the nuns, but also the priests would be worn to the the bone by what was to come. Shouting and cursing and barking with inhuman voices, the nuns turned to physical attacks against their would be rescuers. They bit at them, taking as much flesh as they could with each strike and leaving the men in terrible pain. And fearing infection, each nun lunged to bite at the priest. Many, many times. It became a matter of personal defense. Mignon resorted to beating the nun's back with the an iron rod. Now this, coupled with the word spoken and the holy water sprinkled, brought the truth to light. Someone, the nun said, had found a familiar spirit in the demon Asmodeus, and was sending the demon to afflict them with despicable acts, visions of fear and terror, and even a lust for bloodshed. The priests demanded names. They demanded the nuns tell them who summoned the demon. But the nuns didn't know. For that question, Mignon and the exorcist were forced to ask Asmodeus himself. The demon's voice was garbled and rough as it spoke through the writhing face of a nun. Between words, like churning gravel, she lunged to bite. More and more, the priests proclaimed Christ until finally, after a week of exorcisms and beatings for all the nuns, the name was offered Crandier. Despite none of the nuns knowing Krondier beyond his name, he had never visited the convent. Their shared voice from the underworld unanimously declared him to be the sorcerer responsible for the demon's terror. The nuns were sequestered at the order of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, whereupon the apparently demonic possessions subsided. But this reprieve was short lived. The biting, the barking, the unnatural strength and aggression, the deep and gravelly voice, all of these things returned for the women only now freed from the locked down convent, their spectacle attracted a crowd. The Archbishop was beside himself and prayed with open hands to God, asking for deliverance. That prayer was answered in the form of a government clerk sent from Paris named Jean de la Derdemont. Arriving in Loudun with a commission to demolish the town's tower, he found complete mayhem to start. The town militia mutinied and stopped him from accomplishing the demolition. This alone would have justified a scathing report to Paris. But he also caught wind of the debacle with the nuns. He witnessed the possessions for himself, listened to panic in the voice of the townsfolk, and acquainted himself with the accused, Grandiere. Thereafter he returned to Paris, reported everything to higher officials and received leave to adjudicate the matter on the Parisian dime and in her name. He wasted no time in returning to Loudun and initiating an investigation. First he arrested Crandier to prevent his fleeing the town. At first the clerk held little suspicion for Grandiere, but protocol still had to be followed. Next he collected witness statements. It was these statements that damned the clergyman nuns, political rivals of Grandiere and even common folk all began to swear up and down that the eclectic priest was well known to enter the convent at all hours of the the night to perform illicit acts with the nuns. The sheer quantity of accusations and the drama of it all boiled over until, astonishingly, Crandier stood before a mob of his peers and was forced to answer for himself to the nuns who accused him in their possessed and frantic state. This of course, did not go well for the priest, who was certainly not above reproach, but who very likely did not actually summon the demon Asmodeus to a afflict a group of nuns he had ever met. Thus the local magistrate tried him and found him guilty of making a pact with the devil, of attending a witches sabbath, of sorcery and even of cursing the Ursuline nuns. After hours of grueling torture, the court sentenced him to death by hanging. Even this, however, turned into a spectacle on the day of the execution. The man charged with dealing death, a man named l', Octense, became enraged at Grandiere because of what the crowd accused him of. Lactance therefore strode forward and passing by the lever meant to drop the accused from the gallows, lit the funeral pyre. Waiting to catch his lifeless corpse. Grandiere fell into the flames and burned alive. For three days after his death, the nuns continued to exhibit the same erratic and wicked behavior. Then finally, they all stopped at once. In the aftermath of the terrible episode at Loudun, authorities separated each nun from the rest and stationed them at other convents around the country. None of them ever showed signs of possession again. The nighttime is crawling with dangerous creatures. Bigfoot, Sleep paralysis demons, the Mothman. Now imagine what would make them easier, even more terrifying. That's right, guns. Cryptids with guns. That's where Armored Republic comes in. They equip law abiding citizens to stand against the unthinkable, even if it's a gun wielding devil worshiping Bigfoot. From combat tested coatings to high performance carriers, every piece of their ballistic armor and tactical gear is built to protect. Visit armoredrepublic.com or text join all CAPS J O I n to 88027 to get involved in the preparedness effort

[Ben]

how many demons, ghosts or vampires are lurking in your investment portfolio? If you're invested in the S&P 500, it's probably more than you think since it's full of companies that actively oppose your faith. Stonecrop Wealth Advisors is here to help Their faith based portfolios redirect your hard earned dollars away from destructive agendas and into companies making a positive impact on society. Get the demons out of your portfolio and invest in God's kingdom while you grow your wealth. Contact Stonecrop Wealth Advisors today by visiting StoneCropAdvisors.com Haunted Cosmos investment advisory services offered through StoneCrop Wealth Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the U.S. securities and Exchange Commission. At Hana Cosmos, we know that a lot of our listeners are business owners and entrepreneurs that are working to advance advance Christendom. One of those listeners is Nathan Rose with Rose Solutions. He provides website design, maintenance and security. His mission is to promote the business of Christendom by building websites for like minded entrepreneurs. If you or someone you know is looking for help with your website, get a consultation with nathan by visiting cosmoswebsites.com Tell him you're a listener of Hana Cosmos to learn how you could get your first six month of hosting and security for free. Hey guys welcome back to the show where we commonly talk about stories that we have not told you yet, as if you've already heard them. That's called completely. It's a storytelling device.

[Brian]

So now we're going to talk about dancing. But you have heard it. Now we're going to talk about the Jersey Devil.

[Ben]

We've also talked a lot about women already, so we can give them a break.

[Brian]

Yeah. Hey, ladies, can I just take this opportunity to apologize for nothing. For nothing. Because we were telling the truth. You need to calm down.

[Ben]

I just said we're not going to talk about it. God, Evan.

[Brian]

No, but let's talk about. What I do want to talk about after that story is the danger of spiritual explanations for everything. When. Which this is kind of.

[Ben]

No, it makes perfect sense that this comes to us.

[Brian]

Pot, kettle. I get it. Go ahead. Let's give him a second. Go ahead and make the joke. Type your comment.

[Ben]

Like, comment and subscribe if you think that this is ironic.

[Brian]

Okay. But now, really, like, it's not always demons.

[Ben]

That's true.

[Brian]

It reminds me sometimes the nuns just need to be told to calm down.

[Ben]

It reminds me actually of that national tragedy.

[Brian]

Put out a cat box.

[Ben]

It reminds me of that national tragedy, Pearl Harbor.

[Brian]

Okay.

[Ben]

That was a national tragedy. It had nothing to do with demons, but it was a national tragedy.

[Brian]

Lot of demons in Japan because of the lack of Christianity.

[Ben]

That's true. Suicide forest. Yeah. What's it called again, Evan?

[Brian]

Do you know Kobayashi Maru?

[Ben]

I didn't know if you were like, Weeb enough to know Kobayashi Maru. Actually, Kobayashi recently retired from competitive eating because he said, and I quote, I don't find food enjoyable anymore. I have lost the sense of taste. And so now that that's already happened, I'm gonna stop. And I'm like, dude, that's the time to lean in.

[Brian]

Yeah. That's when you've. You've optimized.

[Ben]

Yeah. You've unlocked, like in the words of

[Brian]

Martina McBride, you've hit key KPIs, so,

[Ben]

you know, you hit KPIs.

[Brian]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ben]

So, yeah, the dangers of over spiritualizing.

[Brian]

Yeah. Like they're. They're literally. I mean, almost certainly literally murdering a guy and like burning him to death.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Carnier, Garnier, Fructis, I think it was Grandier.

[Ben]

Do you pronounce these in France?

[Brian]

Grandier. Grandier. I actually don't know if you have a Grandiere. Grandier, but Grandiere would have an R E at the end instead of an er. So Grandier.

[Ben]

Now, to be fair, this was not a good Guy by his own.

[Brian]

He was bad.

[Ben]

He was promiscuous.

[Brian]

Oh, okay. With nuns.

[Ben]

I don't know. He always denied that. But he said, just with women of the town, you know, And I don't mean ladies of the night. I mean, just like citizens in the town.

[Brian]

A lot of these fellas had kids.

[Ben]

Yeah, but he also was going against the celibacy of the priesthood. Anyway, he was just also fornicating while doing that, which is always uncool and in itself demonic.

[Brian]

I think we need a T shirt. Cause we've had, like, the fornicate. Stop fornicating or the Mothman will get you. I think just like, fornicating isn't cool.

[Ben]

Yeah, fornicating is bad. It's not so Grandier Wasn't a good guy, but at the same time, he didn't call down Asmodeus to possess a bunch of demons.

[Brian]

Probably not.

[Ben]

And there was a lot of political motivation around him being the one that was accused.

[Brian]

So really, they were just latching onto some of the convenient narratives of the day.

[Ben]

Right. The thing that. That doesn't answer. And this is actually where this is a good thing to talk about. What that doesn't answer is, okay, so why did the nuns do this?

[Brian]

Why were the nuns acting like cats?

[Ben]

Was that mass hysteria or was there something more spiritual there, do you think? I don't know.

[Brian]

I honestly don't know on this one.

[Ben]

I personally think that mass hysteria is the most likely explanation.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I think that it makes sense, given what we know about women in social groups and they're isolated there. Well, I'm just saying, like, this is it. Just, you know, go to a. Hey, anyone that's ever been to college and ever walked down for, you know, Greek Row at whatever town your college was in, are you gonna try to tell me?

[Brian]

You gonna stand there and tell me.

[Ben]

Are you gonna stand there and tell me that the sorority houses don't seem like. To you as a man, living hell?

[Brian]

Oh, man, it's full of drama. Like, the amount of cortisol.

[Ben]

And I'm really, like. I'm really. I'm not trying to, like, just hate on ladies here. I. I'm married. I'm a big fan of my wife.

[Brian]

Huge fan.

[Ben]

Have a daughter, Love her.

[Brian]

Of just being married to a woman.

[Ben]

She's gonna be a great woman. Yeah.

[Brian]

Huge fan.

[Ben]

The thing is, though, she will be the first to tell you.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

That living in a closed setting.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

With a bunch of ladies, a lot of whom you aren't even, like, that close to you're just kind of like forced to live together is a recipe for disaster.

[Brian]

Yeah. And like mature women are not like this.

[Ben]

No, not at all.

[Brian]

But the normative pathway by which God has appointed the maturing of the sexes is through things like marriage and childbearing and child rearing.

[Ben]

And I can't emphasize enough that where convents historically may have started in a more like lawful sense with women who were eligible to be enrolled by the church were then enrolled and they were given tasks and they were supported, it became like an escape mechanism for young women in society who just like couldn't make it. Like they couldn't make friends, they were awkward. And so it was, you know, a woman would be 18 years old and it's like, oh, send her off to the convent. And so she's growing up in that setting. Like it becomes very hard to mature genuinely when that's your whole life. And a lot of the women that were afflicted, a lot of the nuns that were afflicted in, in both stories were extremely young. Like in their.

[Brian]

It's genuinely a bad idea to send young women out from the male authority of their fathers and not transferring into the authority of a husband.

[Ben]

Yeah. Also genuinely bad.

[Brian]

The college thing right now, some of the worst things in society are happening right now because we're like yo 18 year old daughter go off to college and become the worst person possible, like good luck, like fornication, but also just total indoctrination into the false gods of secularism and the things that are happening in the universities today. Basically becoming Marxists.

[Ben]

I also think within a year or two, just to be equitable on the religious side. I also think monasticism is generally a bad idea, but yeah, for different reasons. Slightly.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

But anyway. So that does beg the question though, because it's in such a heavily religious setting, you know, do we think that there was any dark forces involved or do we think that it was mass hysteria? I for one, for my money, I think it was mass hysteria.

[Brian]

I'm going to come down in the first in a Haunted Cosmos first and say that I don't think that with the stuff we've been talking about in this episode so far, the stories we've read, which I totally am keeping track of, which ones we've talked about so far, completely flawlessly, that they were not overtly demonic. They were actually people sinning and being sucked into human foibles.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Hey, hey, put her there, big dog. That's what I think. Here I stand. I can do no other.

[Ben]

Yeah, we're very credulous here on Holly Cosmos. It's a well known fact. We like to have our sources straight.

[Brian]

Hey, you know what I realized?

[Ben]

What?

[Brian]

I actually wrote a song to fix women on my next album.

[Ben]

Oh, you write music?

[Brian]

Yeah, I do.

[Ben]

Tell the people about it.

[Brian]

I do. I write music. I have done both settings of Psalms. I've even done catechism questions set to music. But I write original music and I release it under the exotic name Brian Silvay, which is French. So that's an L. But is it Charlemagne? Yeah. I mean I'm working right now on my next album. It's almost out and one of the songs is. I literally call it a song to fix women. It's called this one's for the Darkness. And it actually explores some of these themes.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

That we've talked about in this episode. I'm doing a fundraiser right now to help cover the cost. I spend like ridiculous amount because it's not AI generated slop stuff. It's like real musicians. Real. I write the songs, I perform and sing them, but also I involve and bring in musicians with that like huge experience.

[Ben]

A real producer.

[Brian]

Real producer with 30 years of experience who does this full time. A, you know, fiddle player, upright bass player. Lots more than six musicians, including me. It's. Well, I think it's six for this album. Playing more than 10 instruments in this album. I spend like 20, 25 thousand dollars on. On an album like this to make it happen. So I'm doing a fundraiser right now. Brian silvay.com. short years. Because the album is called Long Days, Short Years. And right now if you support any tier, you'll get an instant download of that song. What? Yeah. And other stuff. You could even. I might even give you my guitar.

[Ben]

Whoa.

[Brian]

Yeah, but that's. Go, go check it out. That one's a big ask, but. Cuz it's a nice guitar and I've written the whole album, multiple albums on it.

[Ben]

Can I just say.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

That I don't own a guitar.

[Brian]

Yeah, you don't.

[Ben]

But you are the reason for the teardrops on the guitar. That if I had one, really, that would be it, man.

[Brian]

Like tears of joy, tears of sadness, tears of.

[Ben]

Just like I miss my guy.

[Brian]

Ah, yeah. Every. Every moment we're not together.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

It was like couple moments of the. Of an average week. Couple moments that were not within 30ft of each other.

[Ben]

And can't just yell, hey, yeah.

[Brian]

So why don't we whip up some mass hysteria to support a great work of music.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

After I insult, like, 50% of the human population for an hour.

[Ben]

And don't, ladies, don't be massively delusional and don't listen to it because it is. It is.

[Brian]

And actually, if you don't listen to it and really love the album out of spite, you're kind of, again, proving my point.

[Ben]

Yeah. Okay, so I think that maybe it's perchance time there, you know, therefore, Big dog, they're on two. Yeah. They're to go into the hot clothes.

[Brian]

Yeah, as a hot clothes it is

[Ben]

what a hot close it is. It's gonna blow your socks off. Now, as a, I guess, primer going into it, remember the biblical parallel that I pointed to? And there's multiple examples of this in the Old Testament where God tells the Israelites, I'm gonna put fear in their hearts, I'm gonna send them into a panic, et cetera, that I think is on display here.

[Brian]

Okay.

[Ben]

Or it is the example in this episode of something being called mass hysteria, when in actuality, it was a genuinely preternatural or supernatural event. That was terrifying. And with that, let's go into the hot close. Thank you all for listening to the show. We'll see you next time. In the southeastern quadrant of New Jersey lies the Pine Barrens. The paradoxical name betrays the forest paradoxical makeup. Densely packed pine trees stretch in all directions for hundreds of miles. Life in abundance, yet all those trees grow out of a dead wasteland of sand. The vibrant green of the pines hides a lifeless soil beneath the canopy. Despite this, the Pine Barrens remain a remnant of one of the oldest wildernesses in the world. It is a hopeless place for anything but itself. Itself, however, can be expected to endure. In the trees, it's dark and quiet, almost stifling. The only room to breathe comes in the form of lakes, rivers, and beaver ponds that appear sporadically throughout the Barrens. Inhospitable, claustrophobic, nutrient poor, nearly bereft of human touch entirely. And yet, there is undeniable beauty. How could there not be a kind of unique majesty to such a place? Very few have ever called the Pine Barrens home. Those who have, or who still do, are ridiculed as outsiders. Pineies who cannot be trusted and who have nothing better to offer society than to stay out of everyone's way. The Pineies themselves have been happy to oblige their neighbors and have adopted the derogatory name for themselves, as if they had come up with it. Therefore, a stable peace has long existed between the Pineys and others. But some live on the fringe of the Barrens, these families are either too concerned with maintaining their good name to move fully into the trees and or too poor to move further away from them. In these communities there has only ever been turmoil. One such family, the Leeds, even succeeded in spreading its chaos across entire state lines. All because of a legend that sprang from their the Jersey Devil. In the pre revolutionary province of New Jersey, a man named Daniel Leeds worked as a Royal Surveyor. He lived in the region of the Pine Barrens, now known as Leeds point, with his third wife and 12 children, three of whom had come from previous marriages. Daniel was a Quaker in a community of Quakers, all of whom dwelt in or along the fringe of the Pine Barrens. As such, Daniel and his family found solace in their religious community, which made it easier for them to ignore the stigma such types bore in the broader colony. Unfortunately, this social peace the Leeds family enjoyed was about to come to an end. You see, Daniel was a bit of an eccentric. He was a great surveyor and had thus made a good living. But he also had a mystic streak that revealed itself more and more in mature adulthood. In 1687 he published his first series of almanacs with the stated aim of helping his community. But before anyone could appreciate his work, it was tarnished by his inclusion of astrological symbols, something the Quakers very much frowned upon. People began to whisper about his heterodoxy and syncretism. Some outright accused him of blasphemy and paganism. At any rate, his social standing took a hit. But he did not take the hint. He published yet more material, almanacs and otherwise, that grew increasingly esoteric. In his personal life, his wife witnessed her husband's growing fascination with mysticism, demonology, magic and occult practices. Over time, mostly because of his writings, these private interests turned him into an outcast. Among outcasts. His wife, called Mother Leeds in the story, apparently succumbed to the loneliness by taking up her husband's new practice of magic for herself. And she too was rejected. Their children, all 12 of them, were rejected. And then, as the story goes, Mother Leeds became pregnant again, her 10th child and Daniel's 13th. This pregnancy proved the final straw that broke the Leeds family. The mother, now a full blown witch again, according to the legend, failed to see that her witchcraft fed all the other woes. Her loneliness, her depression, her anxiety, all of it flowed from the sorcery. But she and Daniel both projected their guilt onto this unborn child. They resented the baby for existing. They resented themselves for letting things go so far. Mother leads brought to her wit's end. Cursed her child. She exclaimed in exasperation. Let the child be the devil. And thus the fate of the family, the Pine Barrens, and all of New Jersey was sealed. It was a stormy night when Mother Leeds was delivered of her cursed son. Despite all these forebodings, the birth went well, as anyone could have hoped, for. As lightning flashed through the window and wind whipped rain against the wood siding, as the fire burned warm in the hearth, both Mother and Father forgot their wicked resentment. They felt only relief and love. But doom would not let the bliss last. Suddenly, the child transformed. Its neck elongated and its face twisted into something akin to a goat's or a horse's. Its legs became wiry, like spindles, and massive hooves forced the small feet aside. Small stubs of horns pushed through the scalp. A long whipping tail uncoiled from the infant's back. Finally, leather wings unfolded, black and taut, stretching out with terrible speed. It all happened too fast. No one had even screamed when the child, now much larger than before, let out an otherworldly shriek. Mother Leads dropped the monster in fear and disgust, and all watched in horror as it stumbled toward the hearth, threw itself into the flames, and then flew up the chimney and out to the sky. The Leeds family never saw their 13th child, the jersey Devil, ever again. And in this way, the legend was born. From the grief of a family came a preternatural horror that lorded its power over all the barons. In the years, decades, and even centuries that followed, a handful of people claimed encounters with this devil. It either avoided them in fear or attacked them in malice. In every recorded case, however, no one was serious, seriously injured. Still, the terror was great enough to prompt clergy to perform exorcisms in the barrens to expel the creature. Parents in Leeds Point warned their children not to venture into the Pinelands without a chaperone. Travelers were constantly warned about the dark force lurking in the woods, hungry for prey. For a time, it remained a malevolent corner of local folklore and little more. Then, in 1909, something happened that transformed the Jersey Devil into something more real, something immortal. It shut down an entire section of the United States for multiple days on end. January 17, 1909. Residents of Woodbury, New Jersey, woke to a world painted white with snow. The sun rose behind lingering cloud cover and cast a dim gray light over everything as townsfolk exited their homes to begin the day's work. Some marked the presence of prints in the snow across yards and sidewalks and streets, but they thought little of it until they took a Closer look. The prints were not human footprints, but rather what looked like hoof prints, those of a horse or goat. But what goat had walked through yards and streets in the town square the night prior? What's more, one man who had grown up on a farm with goats and horses noted that the tracks still didn't seem right. Even when attributed to these critical creatures, they were uneven. Some were pressed close together, others were spread yards apart, as if the thing had leapt some great distance for no apparent reason. Most puzzling of all, however, was that the prints were not quadrupedal. Whatever had made these tracks walked on two legs. The very next day, people in Camden, Bristol and Burlington began calling police stations to report a strange creature flying overhead in broad daylight. One caller described it as a giant bird with bat like wings and a body like a kangaroo. Long legs, long neck, and short stubby arms. As the sun set, the reports shifted from quirky and amusing to terrifying. This creature, apparently the same one from earlier, grew aggressive. Its leathery black wings flapped loudly before a high pitched scream poured from the creature's this monster's mouth. Its stretched heavy hit head like that of a horse, glowed with red eyes that shimmered against the light of fires and street lamps. Families heard the screaming, looked up to see the demon, and fled into their homes as it circled rooftops looking for something. Finally, on the next day, a full blown panic overwhelmed the entire state and beyond. In Haddon Heights, near Camden, New Jersey, a trolley car packed with men, women and children traveled through town. It was afternoon, but by no means dark. In fact, had it not been for the cloud cover, golden hour would have painted the lingering snow a delicate shade of pink. The idyllic eastern colonial town lived up to its year round coziness. But all at once the calm broke at the sound of something a few passengers had read about in the morning's paper. A shriek rattled the metal walls of the trolley and caused children and mothers to cover their ears. Everyone stiffened. The trolley car abruptly stopped and the men filed out to see the commotion. Flying awkwardly above them was the deformed Jersey Devil, a creature from the deepest pits of pandemonium. Its massive wings shook the trees on either side of the street and sent more than a few hats flying. The horned horse head dripped with the pus of constantly peeling flesh. The eyes that shone down with a hateful red appeared to some of the men too, too human for anyone's comfort. It screamed again and dove, slamming its bulk into the trolley car against the metal roof. And the screams of those Left inside, the monster pulled itself back up into the air and slammed down again and again and again and again. Finally hearing the screaming and the crashing from blocks away, police arrived on the scene. They nearly froze in horrified curiosity at what met them on the quaint streets of Camden. None of them had believed the stories could actually have been true. But here it was. The state's own demon. They drew their sidearms and opened fire without waiting for any command to do so. What else can man do against such an affront to nature? Unfortunately, the bullets either failed to find their target or proved too weak to penetrate the hide. Still, the blast drove the creature away, howling and crying ever upward and into the encroaching night. That same evening, the monster attacked a social club a few miles away from the trolley. In much the same manner, dozens of witnesses, police reports that could no longer be ignored, and sketches from the minds of grownups and youths alike fueled the frenzy. The media seized the story and ran with it until major publishers across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware printed accounts of the Jersey Devils parade out of the Barrens. By noon the next day, January 20, hundreds of reports flooded police stations across all four states. Multiple districts adjacent to the Barrens closed all public schools for the week and into the next. Factory work ground to a halt for the same length of time, leading to a miniature recession in the Delaware Valley. Trekking bravely into the Barrens as far as they dared, packs of hunters and vigilante fathers sought to bring the monster to justice. Of course, they failed. Through January 23rd, the Philadelphia Zoo publicly offered $10,000 of a reward to anyone who could kill or capture the creature. And then, on January 24th, it all stopped. No more sightings, no more encounters. No more attacks. After hundreds of reports filled volumes of files for a week straight straight, the case suddenly went cold. And to this day, the truth of the Jersey Devil, its origins and its attacks on the Delaware Valley more than a century ago have yet to receive a satisfactory answer.

[Brian]

Angel cries we hear other lies Moon ey children here to steal your soul Bigfoot Skin walkers are from my control I'll take God's fools I'm so scared

[Ben]

all this mystery I'm not prepared I'll

[Brian]

take God's most Save us now Take our hands.

[Ben]

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