From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Welcome back humans, this is stuff they don't want you to know. With your hosts. I'm Ben and I'm married, and today we are talking about something that is might might sound pretty silly to some people, but a few centuries ago terrified entire countries, so this was very serious back in the day. We are talking about where wolves or if you want to be fancy about it, licanthropes, Yes, uh like canthropy. The idea that a human being could turn into a wolf is um kind of a specific manifestation of a much older, much more general idea of something called theory and trophy. And uh, this mispronunciation that I have just made is about um. It comes from a Greek idea of just a human who can turn into a beast, which shape exactly. Yeah. And what's weird about this is that across the spectrum of cultures of time and space, all human beings have, at some point in their early uh folklore beliefs or spiritual beliefs, thought that uh, humans themselves could change into animals, or that humans came from some sort of animal, or that gods might be combinations of animal and human characteristics, or yeah, or that a god could turn someone into an animal if they wanted to, as a curse for instance. Well, and the coolest thing about that is that throughout the in the different cultures, it's in there. It's not everyone's not turning people into wolves or being able to turn into wolves. But they are turning into in these stories, into carnivorous, scary animals generally, right, yeah, And they might or they might be turned into If they're turned into something that isn't carnivorous, then often it's because they have some sort of spiritual kinship with it, or because they are cursed, you know, like the old, the old idea that a um a witch could use a magic bridle to turn somebody into a horse and ride them away to a black sabbath or something, you know, or into a frog that could easily be squeehed. Right, yeah, exactly, And that comes in through fairy tales and stuff too. But we know that, Okay, so we know that this predates our written records. When I say our matt, you know, of course they don't mean you and I. I mean it's just humanities written records. Yeah, it goes all the way back to one of the earliest story he's the epic of Gilgamesh. Basically, Gilgamesh is like, look, I don't want to be your lover, Ishtar, because you've been treating your lovers pretty poorly. Okay, you you turned one of your lovers into a wolf and you made him. Oh, because here's the really bad part. The guy was a shepherd. Ishtar turned him into a wolf, and now he's the enemy not only of a sheep, but also of his best friends, his dogs. No, don't do that. That sounds like classic Gilgamesh. There's UH. There's another thing that might surprise a lot of people. That's that the idea of changing. While the idea of changing into various animals existed for a very long time, UM, the animals were often gonna be like the predators or the apex animals associated with that region. So in Native American war there were often stories of where bears um. One thing that's strange to me is that UH in Central Asia in a lot of places, UH. Central Asia had this weird reputation for a long time of being a home of where dogs basically people who could change into wild dogs. And strange when you think about it, because um Chinese legends had the idea of this where these ware dogs, and the far West would be the far West for China. The European idea of these dog men, which might recognize from some of the purported reports of Marco Polo, who people still aren't sure if you actually existed, at least the idea we have of Marco Polo. Story for another day. Anyway, dogmen mentioned in the famous travels of Marco Polo uh were placed by Europeans somewhere in the east. So trying to say it's West Europe, saying it's in the east, Hindu mythology uh puts them in the far north of India. UH. So it's weird. They're all these rumors about this one place somewhere in shady Eurasia where people are turning into dogs and back into men. It's very love crafty and I think it's man. We can also put the kabash on a lot of the questions that some people doubtlessly asked themselves when they clicked on the title for this episode, which was hey Ben and Matt, are you going to reveal some truth? Are you gonna tell us that werewolves are real? Yes? Oh oh wait, is that when we I got it wrong in my notes that you're right, We're not going to do that. We're we aren't, but we we were interested in this episode because way back in the days of your and the shadowy past of stuff they don't want you to know, you and I covered the idea of werewolves and a troubling explanation for for this concept. Right, yeah, that's right, And it was actually just as a historical note. It was the first video that went up on our new channel when we started our new channel. Ah, yeah, that's right. We have our our street names should be two channels because we saw videos on how stuff works, and we still have videos on a new channel which is just conspiracy stuff and stuff that want you to know. But we do know that there have been numerous cases throughout history of people being tried and executed after conviction of like Cantherpy, which was historically also uh subset of witchcraft in general, right, devil worshiping. So uh so we know that there are some old, old cases. We um we talked about a couple of them in our video podcast. Right, Uh, Peter Stump, I think we mentioned him and uh, he's one of the people who said, Yeah, I did it, I turned into a wolf and I ate those kids. Now do it again and sad a skin or a belt or something that could help him turn into a werewolf, right, yeah, which is one of the um one of the historically more popular ways of turning into a werewolf. He said that he had he had been given a magic belt by the devil, if I recall correctly, and that when he anointed this belt um in the proper ritualized fashion, he was able to uh put it on, and his form would change to that of a wolf. And all that the devil required of him to do at that point was to kill and murder as he saw fit. Um, you know, until dawn. Uh. Then there's another case, um, a very old case where this this guy named or I said, say, kid, check this out, Matt. This guy, Jean Grenier Um was only thirteen when he confessed that he was a wolf, and he had been since he was ten years old. That a man in the forest or a man of the forest gave him a potion infer to transform and he said that he had been not only transforming into a werewolf, but had been eating dogs and infants and little girl. Um yeah, and that's a sad case because you know, a kid at that age could easily be um bullied into confessing something they didn't do and'd be very interested to hear the stuff they don't want you to know about that story, or maybe drugged and manipulated by somebody. But here's where we get to some weird stuff. You'll notice that he said he had a skin and that he took a potion. There are a couple of different ways historically to transform into a werewolf, right, yeah. So one of the ways, which you mentioned already with our boy Peter s not really our boy, ps uh, is the idea that you can take off your clothes, put on a wolf skin belt or pelt, and then uh transform. Another idea is that you rubbed yourself with something, maybe the fat or blood of a wolf, or the fat or blood of an unbaptized child or something, and then you could even do something as simple as drinking rainwater out of the footprint of the animal you want to transform into. So don't pick something lame like a muskrat, or a badger. Nobody's gonna be uh, it's gonna be scared of that. You can't really further your cause of evil and satanism with that. UM. What one interesting thing that I've learned is we were going as we were researching this, is that one of the ways to transform back into a human if you're a werewolf and you don't want to be the werewolf anymore, or you have the ability to understand that you're a warewolf, because sometimes it's just this rage that you go into, depending on what a story of wherewolf you're in, UM, is to put your human clothes back on. So that's really strange to me. Just that's all you gotta do, put your clothes back on. Now you're good. Yeah, and it says a lot. I think there's somebody who's probably made a PhD or a dissertation off of analyzing that relationship between what what clothing says about humanity verse his animal nature. But you know, in other countries, being becoming a werewolf, were becoming a wolf was frighteningly easy in uh. In one case parts of Sweden. UH, there was the idea that you could just drink special kind of beer and repeat a magic formula, just like Captain Marvel would say shazam. Uh. In parts of Europe, including Italy and Germany, Uh, it would be easy enough as just sleeping outside on a summer night with the full moon shining on you on a particular Wednesday or Friday, and then boom your wolf. Accidentally you got caught up in the wolf game. That's what happened. Uh. So where you went those few weeks? Okay, sure, well, I'll believe it. But clearly, when we're we're being a little offhand about this, when we're talking about stuff that could be serious. One thing that is a serious note that we need to make is that you and I said at the top that this idea seems funny to us. Now seems a bit you know, provincial and bit gullible maybe, But at the time, the average human being was much more likely to run into dangerous wild animals. Oh yeah, dangerous wild wild animals. And there wasn't a lot of surveillance going on with people by police forces or any other enforcement agencies. It was kind of it was a scary world out there in the dark. There weren't a lot of lights. There's danger, there's real danger when you go out into the woods at night. Right, and depending upon the time of year, in the dark of winter, wild animals that would usually be intelligent enough to avoid humans, or at least worry enough not to be seen by them, uh would be driven by hunger to attack someone who might be easy prey. So there really were packs of wolves attacking people who, for one reason or another, we're traveling by their lonesome in the dark of winter in the forest. That that stuff actually happened. And we know that licanhropes um have a role to play even in biblical canons, So this isn't just pagan stuff, uh St Patrick Right? St Patrick, the Irish guy apparently transformed the Welsh king very Ticus into a wolf. And then there are other miracles by saints that you know clearly echo these pre existing pagan traditions um, which makes me makes me think that now we've talked enough about the magic, right, maybe it's time for us to get into some more real life explanations or some some current theories about what, yeah, what could these stories really be about? Yeah? But before we do that, it's time for a word from our sponsor sponsor today, Great, hey, Are you tired of wearing the same old shape? Sure I am, And it's not even something to diet or exercise can solve. Man, Well, what's the problem, Well, my skin, I'm just so tired of being human, buddy. I am just the thing for you, the patented new theory anthropy system from Bad Dog Enterprises. Check it out with this, kid, You're just a few unhallowed rituals away from shedding your mortal form and roaming the darkness to do the bidding of a dark lord of your choosing. Right, Well, how's it work? It's simple. You just wait for a moonless night, recite the incantations included in your handy instruction guide, smear yourself with the included wolf flood and baby fat, walk wittershins thrice around the included shrine and boom. You can assume a shape of your choosing. Hey, hey, hold on, I heard all this stuff before. Can I really choose any dark lord I want? Because I know a lot of these companies trying to lock you into one of these contracts for you or for souls or something. Well, yeah, yeah, but this is different. You can choose anyone from a zazel to cathulu to balls, zipakna and everything in between. Now, what sort of shapes can I assume? Those skies the limit? Oh well, maybe we should say the darkness is the limit. Please be aware of that. Bad Dog Enterprises bears now legal responsibility for any the xt transpiring while under the influence of dark Lords and assuming and on Holy shaped Bad Dog is indementified from acts including, but not limited to, murder, maiming, assault, arson, male fraud, decapitation, fingerbiding, cannibalism, and drowning. Bad Dog Enterprises is a subsidiary of illumination unlimited global and we're back. Uh that Yeah, that's a word from our sponsor, Bad Dogs. So now it's time to talk a little bit about like can therapy as we understand it in the modern day. We know that there are two things that closely equate to like can therapy. UM here uh in the twenty one century where we have the benefit of science, and one of those cases is something called hypertrichosis, which is a UM a very rare genetic condition that results in human being being covered with fur. Now, these people still have completely human anatomy. They are totally human beings. They're not monsters at all. Um, they just have a condition that produces an abnormal amount of hair, really thick hair to write all over their bodies. Right, and if you could, if you check out the pictures, Um, there is to be completely honest. Uh. There is a passing resemblance to Lawn Cheney's The Wolfman, the original version of what we think a werewolf looks like, or at least this right, if you grew up in the US. Right. Then there is the other condition, which is dark, uh. And that is like cantherrapy as a mental illness. That is, somebody who has the belief that they somehow transform into a wolf physically or some sort of mad beast, or they believe that they have the mind of a beast. And interestingly enough, the word like cantherrapy actually comes from that, the idea of a mental illness where a push a person is delusional in thinking that they can actually become a werewolf. Right. And there are a couple of things here that we should go ahead and just knock out in our address. Um, there are there is a community of people, um who refer to themselves as other kids. And these are people who identify UM often on a spiritual or perhaps metaphysical level with a particular animal, one that could be regarded as real or one that could be regarded as fictitious. So we're not lumping in these people, are this community with someone who suffers from the mental disorder of like antherapy. Um, Neither are we lumping uh these mental disorders in with the sad, unfortunate case of what's often referred to as feral children. Um. There are real kids who throughout history have been found living with wild animals with very little contact with human beings. It doesn't happen is often now, but the results are are documented and there are tragic. It turns out that there is a window of time for learning human language after which a person can't do it too well. And language isn't the only thing that can be impaired if it's not learned within a certain time span. Walking on two legs is part of that. There's so many, so many social uh physical actions right that just if you're not around other humans, you're not going to learn it. Okay. So with those two um at most tangentially related ideas out of the way, let's look at the concept of like anthropy as a mental disorder. There's a really interesting thing that an FBI profiler named Greg McCrary said. Uh. He said that, Um, there's a reluctance to admit that someone in our community would be capable of the kind of evil that we can see in brutal murders. Evil, he said, is so overpowering that we want to attribute it to a monster. But the reality is that many good people can have some terrible flaws. Although I do think he's understating it when he says that last part of the sentence, Um, it is true that there's this tremendously alienating thing about, you know, finding out that quiet neighbor down the way had a basement full of bodies or something, you know. And with with this in mind, uh, we have to understand that not only is it not only is it true that people can have a mental disorder that makes them awarewolf, but it also makes it possible that throughout history, uh, the the current the towns that were plagued with murders or something like that may have been trying to address the concept of a serial killer of some sort through their existing cultural framework. Well, it's also strange to me, it can it It strikes me that one it's almost the not guilty by insanity kind of plea, And I could see that being used back in the day, perhaps like I've turned into this monster when I put this belt on, I turned into monster. And you know it's it wasn't me who killed those people. It was the thing that I become when I down this thing or drink this or you know of this substance. Yeah, and that's I think that's a really good point because we know that often when we talked about some stuff with witches in the past, we noted that people who like elderly women who are suffering from dementia might have been called which is unable to defend themselves, or the mentally disabled could have been accused of that. The sickening truth of the matter is that we know it is frighteningly plausible that that in the past, especially people who were mentally infirmed for one reason or another, we're easy pickings as scapegoats. So maybe, you know, like, let's put ourselves back there a few centuries. Maybe, Um, this small town in France is getting attacked by a pack of wolves that have acquired a taste for vulnerable human flesh. And they need to blame someone, but they can't catch the wolves, so they blame you know, the old lady down the street, uh, who has no living family and is nuts, and they they have this scapegoat. So it's sort of, um, a pressure hatch for the community at large. It doesn't solve the problem, but it makes people feel like they're doing something and uh, as we can see in the actions in a rock Post nine eleven. Often when you have a group of people fired up about a tragedy, giving them something to lash out at or the illusion of doing something effective can be very effective for maintaining a status quo. Yeah, I walked down the street for that point, but I think it was worth it, alright, Sorry, I like it so. UM. So we also know, and this is this is the last of why I've got here, Matt. We also know that this mental disorder, this delusion that one is actually a wolf for werewolf, um, is not limited to bizarre history racle footnotes. Have you heard of a guy named Bill Ramsey? Sounds really familiar, But I I don't. I don't think so. Well. This could be a this could be a total hoax. I haven't checked into this, but um, Bill Ramsey was experiencing savage seizures since he was a kid, and he would growl and snap and bite, and he convinced himself allegedly that he was a wolf. Eventually, UM, these two self identified demonologist Ed and Lorraine Warren, upon who the conjuring is based um concluded that Ramsey was possessed by a werewolf demon. Uh. And then he was skeptical as as you might be, you know, and uh, they finger quotes exercised him. He said that he felt the werewolf demon leaving his body and didn't suffer from it again. So I don't know if this is a hoax. I don't know if this is true, but I do know it's interesting. Where wolf demon That's a new one for me. Uh. Just quickly, I wanted to bring up a couple other reasons that people may act or believe that they turned into a wolf or act as though they are a wolf. Um, a couple of things we've brought up before when we were talking about witchcraft and uh, the sale witch trials, and also the vampire what do we call that one? The vampire plague vampire panic. Oh man, that's still one of my favorite episodes. Meant oh me too, dude. The the idea of ergot poisoning, Uh, fairly simple poisoning that occurs when just grain and barley or wheat it goes bad and when you eat it you can have some serious hallucinations. Um, it can. It can be pretty brutal on you and you got you know, if you're under the influence of ergot poisoning, you may be led to believe things by someone else or just internally, that you're the things that you're seeing are real. So it could be a bad trip, could be a really bad trip. One interesting thing about that is the idea of you know, this ergot poisoning has been advanced, um controversially for a couple of other historical events like saying Almo's fire, Um, the uh what's it called the dancing plagues, which I think stuff mom never told you it was probably gonna have a good episode on if it hasn't come out already. And uh, someone's even advanced that maybe the Salem witch trials were results or the hysterious rounding them. Um. Interesting fact about ergot poisoning. It can also have physical um, physical symptoms, so it can cause extremities to swell uh, making you look totally bonkers and maybe like you're transforming jeez. Uh. And and the other thing ben I wanted to mention is rabies. This is something that spread much like in the way the stories of like a thro pree year spread through her body. Um, and it's pretty fatal. That's the one thing that kind of makes me think that it might not be rabies is because it's usually fatal, especially in the advanced stages. So anyone who would be caught as a werewolf or a lichanthrope would probably be dead within a few days. Um. Although several of these people, especially in the historical cases. The when you mentioned stub Stobs, I mean he was he was executed. UM. So perhaps someone who was suffering from rabies just gets executed. Um, and just take that guy was being attacked by the wolf. There's another another recent self professed werewolf we should mention, a murderer named Jack Owen Spillman the third Um. When he was locked up, he referred to himself as a werewolf and said he loved to stalk his prey. Uh. He was a um. He was a real life monster. Because you know, you can be technically human being and still be a monster. As a matter of fact, I would argue that most monsters are exactly that. UM, and we and I just bring this guy up because um, murderers or you know murderers and some like rapists, uh, can can go off the deep end and identify themselves as you know serial killers or as Jesus Christ for some reason, or as you know God or some other delusional idea. And this happening in the modern day to me means that it could have easily happened as well in the past, but without the benefit of a psychologist or neuroscientist or an expert to say, Um, you're crazy, because it could have been somebody saying wow, maybe, oh yeah, I guess he really does work for eton. I guess that. I guess we should kill this guy. And UM, with that, I think it's time to uh throw it to the audience. Usually this is the part where we say, um, if you want to learn more, I think we have an article on the site right. Yes, a lot of the information that I got from this site is from an article by Tracy V. Wilson, the fantastic host of Stuffy missed in history class. One of the fantastic hosts. Uh, the other being holly free and uh yeah, just check it out. It's a great read. It kind of goes over some of the same stuff we talked about, not not in quite as much detail, but it's fascinating. Yeah, and we'd like to hear from you right to us or comment on our Facebook page or tweet us and let let us know, uh what you think about the idea of like can therapy as mental illness and as um historical stuff. Especially, let us know if you believe that people really can shape shift. We didn't even touch on skin walkers, will save that for a different show. Uh, but if you let us if you do believe this stuff, then let us know why. We'd love to hear it. Um. Do you have any video evidence or pictures? Totally send that to us. I would love to be able to help prove that it's real. Well, we would put it on the air if we could find proof of it. Uh. But another question, which I think we might get more responses to here, um is which monsters should we cover next? We're up for anything, lock nest, minotaur, I don't know, from the sea, from the mountains. What do you want to tell us about it from the air from the nether regions and I don't mean but uh yeah, So tell us what you think about that we are conspiracy stuff on both Facebook and Twitter. It so happens that we have our very own website. I think you get it automatically after not being fired. Uh, as long as we have so far, it's our watch it we get Oh yeah, knock on wood, Let's see how long it last. Uh. And the best way to support our show is actually to visit our website and check it out all of our videos, all of these podcasts kinds of stuff and hopefully across your fingers everyone one day aform we are working on that. We're actually gonna have a little bit of a meeting about that in just a few minutes. So send your good vibes our way or heck right to our bosses and let us know, let them know. Uh, anyway, enough of plugging ourselves. Uh, if you want to write to us directly, if you have a story that is, you know, you think it's too long for Twitter, or you don't want to use Facebook, which we totally understand, by the way, just send us an email directly. Uh. Put monsters in the title and our email address is conspiracy at Discovery dot com. From more on this topic, another unexplained phenomenon, visit test tube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.

From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Welcome back humans, this is stuff they don't want you to know. With your hosts. I'm Ben and I'm married, and today we are talking about something that is might might sound pretty silly to some people, but a few centuries ago terrified entire countries, so this was very serious back in the day. We are talking about where wolves or if you want to be fancy about it, licanthropes, Yes, uh like canthropy. The idea that a human being could turn into a wolf is um kind of a specific manifestation of a much older, much more general idea of something called theory and trophy. And uh, this mispronunciation that I have just made is about um. It comes from a Greek idea of just a human who can turn into a beast, which shape exactly. Yeah. And what's weird about this is that across the spectrum of cultures of time and space, all human beings have, at some point in their early uh folklore beliefs or spiritual beliefs, thought that uh, humans themselves could change into animals, or that humans came from some sort of animal, or that gods might be combinations of animal and human characteristics, or yeah, or that a god could turn someone into an animal if they wanted to, as a curse for instance. Well, and the coolest thing about that is that throughout the in the different cultures, it's in there. It's not everyone's not turning people into wolves or being able to turn into wolves. But they are turning into in these stories, into carnivorous, scary animals generally, right, yeah, And they might or they might be turned into If they're turned into something that isn't carnivorous, then often it's because they have some sort of spiritual kinship with it, or because they are cursed, you know, like the old, the old idea that a um a witch could use a magic bridle to turn somebody into a horse and ride them away to a black sabbath or something, you know, or into a frog that could easily be squeehed. Right, yeah, exactly, And that comes in through fairy tales and stuff too. But we know that, Okay, so we know that this predates our written records. When I say our matt, you know, of course they don't mean you and I. I mean it's just humanities written records. Yeah, it goes all the way back to one of the earliest story he's the epic of Gilgamesh. Basically, Gilgamesh is like, look, I don't want to be your lover, Ishtar, because you've been treating your lovers pretty poorly. Okay, you you turned one of your lovers into a wolf and you made him. Oh, because here's the really bad part. The guy was a shepherd. Ishtar turned him into a wolf, and now he's the enemy not only of a sheep, but also of his best friends, his dogs. No, don't do that. That sounds like classic Gilgamesh. There's UH. There's another thing that might surprise a lot of people. That's that the idea of changing. While the idea of changing into various animals existed for a very long time, UM, the animals were often gonna be like the predators or the apex animals associated with that region. So in Native American war there were often stories of where bears um. One thing that's strange to me is that UH in Central Asia in a lot of places, UH. Central Asia had this weird reputation for a long time of being a home of where dogs basically people who could change into wild dogs. And strange when you think about it, because um Chinese legends had the idea of this where these ware dogs, and the far West would be the far West for China. The European idea of these dog men, which might recognize from some of the purported reports of Marco Polo, who people still aren't sure if you actually existed, at least the idea we have of Marco Polo. Story for another day. Anyway, dogmen mentioned in the famous travels of Marco Polo uh were placed by Europeans somewhere in the east. So trying to say it's West Europe, saying it's in the east, Hindu mythology uh puts them in the far north of India. UH. So it's weird. They're all these rumors about this one place somewhere in shady Eurasia where people are turning into dogs and back into men. It's very love crafty and I think it's man. We can also put the kabash on a lot of the questions that some people doubtlessly asked themselves when they clicked on the title for this episode, which was hey Ben and Matt, are you going to reveal some truth? Are you gonna tell us that werewolves are real? Yes? Oh oh wait, is that when we I got it wrong in my notes that you're right, We're not going to do that. We're we aren't, but we we were interested in this episode because way back in the days of your and the shadowy past of stuff they don't want you to know, you and I covered the idea of werewolves and a troubling explanation for for this concept. Right, yeah, that's right, And it was actually just as a historical note. It was the first video that went up on our new channel when we started our new channel. Ah, yeah, that's right. We have our our street names should be two channels because we saw videos on how stuff works, and we still have videos on a new channel which is just conspiracy stuff and stuff that want you to know. But we do know that there have been numerous cases throughout history of people being tried and executed after conviction of like Cantherpy, which was historically also uh subset of witchcraft in general, right, devil worshiping. So uh so we know that there are some old, old cases. We um we talked about a couple of them in our video podcast. Right, Uh, Peter Stump, I think we mentioned him and uh, he's one of the people who said, Yeah, I did it, I turned into a wolf and I ate those kids. Now do it again and sad a skin or a belt or something that could help him turn into a werewolf, right, yeah, which is one of the um one of the historically more popular ways of turning into a werewolf. He said that he had he had been given a magic belt by the devil, if I recall correctly, and that when he anointed this belt um in the proper ritualized fashion, he was able to uh put it on, and his form would change to that of a wolf. And all that the devil required of him to do at that point was to kill and murder as he saw fit. Um, you know, until dawn. Uh. Then there's another case, um, a very old case where this this guy named or I said, say, kid, check this out, Matt. This guy, Jean Grenier Um was only thirteen when he confessed that he was a wolf, and he had been since he was ten years old. That a man in the forest or a man of the forest gave him a potion infer to transform and he said that he had been not only transforming into a werewolf, but had been eating dogs and infants and little girl. Um yeah, and that's a sad case because you know, a kid at that age could easily be um bullied into confessing something they didn't do and'd be very interested to hear the stuff they don't want you to know about that story, or maybe drugged and manipulated by somebody. But here's where we get to some weird stuff. You'll notice that he said he had a skin and that he took a potion. There are a couple of different ways historically to transform into a werewolf, right, yeah. So one of the ways, which you mentioned already with our boy Peter s not really our boy, ps uh, is the idea that you can take off your clothes, put on a wolf skin belt or pelt, and then uh transform. Another idea is that you rubbed yourself with something, maybe the fat or blood of a wolf, or the fat or blood of an unbaptized child or something, and then you could even do something as simple as drinking rainwater out of the footprint of the animal you want to transform into. So don't pick something lame like a muskrat, or a badger. Nobody's gonna be uh, it's gonna be scared of that. You can't really further your cause of evil and satanism with that. UM. What one interesting thing that I've learned is we were going as we were researching this, is that one of the ways to transform back into a human if you're a werewolf and you don't want to be the werewolf anymore, or you have the ability to understand that you're a warewolf, because sometimes it's just this rage that you go into, depending on what a story of wherewolf you're in, UM, is to put your human clothes back on. So that's really strange to me. Just that's all you gotta do, put your clothes back on. Now you're good. Yeah, and it says a lot. I think there's somebody who's probably made a PhD or a dissertation off of analyzing that relationship between what what clothing says about humanity verse his animal nature. But you know, in other countries, being becoming a werewolf, were becoming a wolf was frighteningly easy in uh. In one case parts of Sweden. UH, there was the idea that you could just drink special kind of beer and repeat a magic formula, just like Captain Marvel would say shazam. Uh. In parts of Europe, including Italy and Germany, Uh, it would be easy enough as just sleeping outside on a summer night with the full moon shining on you on a particular Wednesday or Friday, and then boom your wolf. Accidentally you got caught up in the wolf game. That's what happened. Uh. So where you went those few weeks? Okay, sure, well, I'll believe it. But clearly, when we're we're being a little offhand about this, when we're talking about stuff that could be serious. One thing that is a serious note that we need to make is that you and I said at the top that this idea seems funny to us. Now seems a bit you know, provincial and bit gullible maybe, But at the time, the average human being was much more likely to run into dangerous wild animals. Oh yeah, dangerous wild wild animals. And there wasn't a lot of surveillance going on with people by police forces or any other enforcement agencies. It was kind of it was a scary world out there in the dark. There weren't a lot of lights. There's danger, there's real danger when you go out into the woods at night. Right, and depending upon the time of year, in the dark of winter, wild animals that would usually be intelligent enough to avoid humans, or at least worry enough not to be seen by them, uh would be driven by hunger to attack someone who might be easy prey. So there really were packs of wolves attacking people who, for one reason or another, we're traveling by their lonesome in the dark of winter in the forest. That that stuff actually happened. And we know that licanhropes um have a role to play even in biblical canons, So this isn't just pagan stuff, uh St Patrick Right? St Patrick, the Irish guy apparently transformed the Welsh king very Ticus into a wolf. And then there are other miracles by saints that you know clearly echo these pre existing pagan traditions um, which makes me makes me think that now we've talked enough about the magic, right, maybe it's time for us to get into some more real life explanations or some some current theories about what, yeah, what could these stories really be about? Yeah? But before we do that, it's time for a word from our sponsor sponsor today, Great, hey, Are you tired of wearing the same old shape? Sure I am, And it's not even something to diet or exercise can solve. Man, Well, what's the problem, Well, my skin, I'm just so tired of being human, buddy. I am just the thing for you, the patented new theory anthropy system from Bad Dog Enterprises. Check it out with this, kid, You're just a few unhallowed rituals away from shedding your mortal form and roaming the darkness to do the bidding of a dark lord of your choosing. Right, Well, how's it work? It's simple. 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Um, they just have a condition that produces an abnormal amount of hair, really thick hair to write all over their bodies. Right, and if you could, if you check out the pictures, Um, there is to be completely honest. Uh. There is a passing resemblance to Lawn Cheney's The Wolfman, the original version of what we think a werewolf looks like, or at least this right, if you grew up in the US. Right. Then there is the other condition, which is dark, uh. And that is like cantherrapy as a mental illness. That is, somebody who has the belief that they somehow transform into a wolf physically or some sort of mad beast, or they believe that they have the mind of a beast. And interestingly enough, the word like cantherrapy actually comes from that, the idea of a mental illness where a push a person is delusional in thinking that they can actually become a werewolf. Right. And there are a couple of things here that we should go ahead and just knock out in our address. Um, there are there is a community of people, um who refer to themselves as other kids. And these are people who identify UM often on a spiritual or perhaps metaphysical level with a particular animal, one that could be regarded as real or one that could be regarded as fictitious. So we're not lumping in these people, are this community with someone who suffers from the mental disorder of like antherapy. Um, Neither are we lumping uh these mental disorders in with the sad, unfortunate case of what's often referred to as feral children. Um. There are real kids who throughout history have been found living with wild animals with very little contact with human beings. It doesn't happen is often now, but the results are are documented and there are tragic. It turns out that there is a window of time for learning human language after which a person can't do it too well. And language isn't the only thing that can be impaired if it's not learned within a certain time span. Walking on two legs is part of that. There's so many, so many social uh physical actions right that just if you're not around other humans, you're not going to learn it. Okay. So with those two um at most tangentially related ideas out of the way, let's look at the concept of like anthropy as a mental disorder. There's a really interesting thing that an FBI profiler named Greg McCrary said. Uh. He said that, Um, there's a reluctance to admit that someone in our community would be capable of the kind of evil that we can see in brutal murders. Evil, he said, is so overpowering that we want to attribute it to a monster. But the reality is that many good people can have some terrible flaws. Although I do think he's understating it when he says that last part of the sentence, Um, it is true that there's this tremendously alienating thing about, you know, finding out that quiet neighbor down the way had a basement full of bodies or something, you know. And with with this in mind, uh, we have to understand that not only is it not only is it true that people can have a mental disorder that makes them awarewolf, but it also makes it possible that throughout history, uh, the the current the towns that were plagued with murders or something like that may have been trying to address the concept of a serial killer of some sort through their existing cultural framework. Well, it's also strange to me, it can it It strikes me that one it's almost the not guilty by insanity kind of plea, And I could see that being used back in the day, perhaps like I've turned into this monster when I put this belt on, I turned into monster. And you know it's it wasn't me who killed those people. It was the thing that I become when I down this thing or drink this or you know of this substance. Yeah, and that's I think that's a really good point because we know that often when we talked about some stuff with witches in the past, we noted that people who like elderly women who are suffering from dementia might have been called which is unable to defend themselves, or the mentally disabled could have been accused of that. The sickening truth of the matter is that we know it is frighteningly plausible that that in the past, especially people who were mentally infirmed for one reason or another, we're easy pickings as scapegoats. So maybe, you know, like, let's put ourselves back there a few centuries. Maybe, Um, this small town in France is getting attacked by a pack of wolves that have acquired a taste for vulnerable human flesh. And they need to blame someone, but they can't catch the wolves, so they blame you know, the old lady down the street, uh, who has no living family and is nuts, and they they have this scapegoat. So it's sort of, um, a pressure hatch for the community at large. It doesn't solve the problem, but it makes people feel like they're doing something and uh, as we can see in the actions in a rock Post nine eleven. Often when you have a group of people fired up about a tragedy, giving them something to lash out at or the illusion of doing something effective can be very effective for maintaining a status quo. Yeah, I walked down the street for that point, but I think it was worth it, alright, Sorry, I like it so. UM. So we also know, and this is this is the last of why I've got here, Matt. We also know that this mental disorder, this delusion that one is actually a wolf for werewolf, um, is not limited to bizarre history racle footnotes. Have you heard of a guy named Bill Ramsey? Sounds really familiar, But I I don't. I don't think so. Well. This could be a this could be a total hoax. I haven't checked into this, but um, Bill Ramsey was experiencing savage seizures since he was a kid, and he would growl and snap and bite, and he convinced himself allegedly that he was a wolf. Eventually, UM, these two self identified demonologist Ed and Lorraine Warren, upon who the conjuring is based um concluded that Ramsey was possessed by a werewolf demon. Uh. And then he was skeptical as as you might be, you know, and uh, they finger quotes exercised him. He said that he felt the werewolf demon leaving his body and didn't suffer from it again. So I don't know if this is a hoax. I don't know if this is true, but I do know it's interesting. Where wolf demon That's a new one for me. Uh. Just quickly, I wanted to bring up a couple other reasons that people may act or believe that they turned into a wolf or act as though they are a wolf. Um, a couple of things we've brought up before when we were talking about witchcraft and uh, the sale witch trials, and also the vampire what do we call that one? The vampire plague vampire panic. Oh man, that's still one of my favorite episodes. Meant oh me too, dude. The the idea of ergot poisoning, Uh, fairly simple poisoning that occurs when just grain and barley or wheat it goes bad and when you eat it you can have some serious hallucinations. Um, it can. It can be pretty brutal on you and you got you know, if you're under the influence of ergot poisoning, you may be led to believe things by someone else or just internally, that you're the things that you're seeing are real. So it could be a bad trip, could be a really bad trip. One interesting thing about that is the idea of you know, this ergot poisoning has been advanced, um controversially for a couple of other historical events like saying Almo's fire, Um, the uh what's it called the dancing plagues, which I think stuff mom never told you it was probably gonna have a good episode on if it hasn't come out already. And uh, someone's even advanced that maybe the Salem witch trials were results or the hysterious rounding them. Um. Interesting fact about ergot poisoning. It can also have physical um, physical symptoms, so it can cause extremities to swell uh, making you look totally bonkers and maybe like you're transforming jeez. Uh. And and the other thing ben I wanted to mention is rabies. This is something that spread much like in the way the stories of like a thro pree year spread through her body. Um, and it's pretty fatal. That's the one thing that kind of makes me think that it might not be rabies is because it's usually fatal, especially in the advanced stages. So anyone who would be caught as a werewolf or a lichanthrope would probably be dead within a few days. Um. Although several of these people, especially in the historical cases. The when you mentioned stub Stobs, I mean he was he was executed. UM. So perhaps someone who was suffering from rabies just gets executed. Um, and just take that guy was being attacked by the wolf. There's another another recent self professed werewolf we should mention, a murderer named Jack Owen Spillman the third Um. When he was locked up, he referred to himself as a werewolf and said he loved to stalk his prey. Uh. He was a um. He was a real life monster. Because you know, you can be technically human being and still be a monster. As a matter of fact, I would argue that most monsters are exactly that. UM, and we and I just bring this guy up because um, murderers or you know murderers and some like rapists, uh, can can go off the deep end and identify themselves as you know serial killers or as Jesus Christ for some reason, or as you know God or some other delusional idea. And this happening in the modern day to me means that it could have easily happened as well in the past, but without the benefit of a psychologist or neuroscientist or an expert to say, Um, you're crazy, because it could have been somebody saying wow, maybe, oh yeah, I guess he really does work for eton. I guess that. I guess we should kill this guy. And UM, with that, I think it's time to uh throw it to the audience. Usually this is the part where we say, um, if you want to learn more, I think we have an article on the site right. Yes, a lot of the information that I got from this site is from an article by Tracy V. Wilson, the fantastic host of Stuffy missed in history class. One of the fantastic hosts. Uh, the other being holly free and uh yeah, just check it out. It's a great read. It kind of goes over some of the same stuff we talked about, not not in quite as much detail, but it's fascinating. Yeah, and we'd like to hear from you right to us or comment on our Facebook page or tweet us and let let us know, uh what you think about the idea of like can therapy as mental illness and as um historical stuff. Especially, let us know if you believe that people really can shape shift. We didn't even touch on skin walkers, will save that for a different show. Uh, but if you let us if you do believe this stuff, then let us know why. We'd love to hear it. Um. Do you have any video evidence or pictures? Totally send that to us. I would love to be able to help prove that it's real. Well, we would put it on the air if we could find proof of it. Uh. But another question, which I think we might get more responses to here, um is which monsters should we cover next? We're up for anything, lock nest, minotaur, I don't know, from the sea, from the mountains. What do you want to tell us about it from the air from the nether regions and I don't mean but uh yeah, So tell us what you think about that we are conspiracy stuff on both Facebook and Twitter. It so happens that we have our very own website. I think you get it automatically after not being fired. Uh, as long as we have so far, it's our watch it we get Oh yeah, knock on wood, Let's see how long it last. Uh. And the best way to support our show is actually to visit our website and check it out all of our videos, all of these podcasts kinds of stuff and hopefully across your fingers everyone one day aform we are working on that. We're actually gonna have a little bit of a meeting about that in just a few minutes. So send your good vibes our way or heck right to our bosses and let us know, let them know. Uh, anyway, enough of plugging ourselves. 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