“Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me.” — Sigmund Freud
Cargo Cults
“Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble,” wrote Dr. Johnson.
During World War II, 300,000 American troops were stationed in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). Greatly impressed with the Westerners’ wealth and power, the natives began to worship a messiah they called Jon Frum, “the king of America,” who lives in the crater of a local mountain.
To this day, every Feb. 15 they celebrate Jon Frum Day by offering prayers and flowers at a red cross — that’s the date the believe Frum will return bearing cargo from heaven. They also conduct a flag-raising ceremony and a military parade with bamboo “rifles.” The movement even has its own political party.
Records show there never was an actual Jon Frum. But a separate cult has found a real messiah: They worship Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Song of the Sphinx
The Colossi of Memnon, in Egypt. After an earthquake, the one on the right began to “sing” every morning at dawn, producing a light moaning sound probably related to rising temperatures and evaporating dew. In “The Sphinx,” Oscar Wilde wrote:
Still from his chair of porphyry gaunt Memnon strains his lidless eyes
Across the empty land, and cries each yellow morning unto thee.
Hearing the song brought good luck, so the colossi began to attract pilgrims from across the ancient world. It stopped in 199 when Emperor Septimius Severus tried to fix the damage. Nice going.
Platypus
When he received the first duck-billed platypus from Captain John Hunter in Australia, naturalist George Shaw thought it was a hoax. “Impossible not to entertain some doubts as to the genuine nature of the animal, and to surmise that there might have been practised some arts of deception in its structure,” he wrote in the journal Naturalist’s Miscellany.
Surgeon John Knox agreed: “Aware of the monstrous impostures which the artful Chinese had so frequently practised on European adventurers … the scientific felt inclined to class this rare production of nature with eastern mermaids and other works of art.”
The Chase Vault
It’s bad enough that the Chase family of Barbados had to inter six members between 1808 and 1819.
But each time they opened the family vault, they found that the coffins had been rearranged into awkward positions.
After the last instance, the island’s governor pressed his personal seal into fresh cement in the vault’s door. The seal was intact when the vault was opened the next year — but the coffins had been rearranged again, with one thrown up against the door.
Finally the coffins were buried separately in the Christ Church graveyard. No explanation was ever found.
Thumbs Up
Whenever a death sentence is commuted or a death-row inmate is released, anywhere in the world, the Colosseum’s nighttime illumination is changed from white to gold.
It’s a gesture against the death penalty, which Italy abolished in 1948.
“Trunko”
On Oct. 25, 1924, witnesses reported a three-hour fight between two whales and a “giant polar bear” off the coast of Margate, South Africa. The creature attacked the whales using its tail, lifting itself out of the water by as much as 20 feet, but eventually succumbed.
When its body washed up on shore, residents reportedly saw a 47-foot fishlike animal with snow-white fur 8 inches long, an elephant’s trunk, a lobster’s tail and a carcass drained of blood. No head was visible; the trunk extended directly from the body.
Strangely, though the body remained for 10 days on Margate Beach, no scientist investigated and no photographs were taken. Most likely it was a whale whose decay made it appear furry, but we’ll never know.
Down, Over, Up
If you start at the North Pole and walk one mile south, one mile east, and one mile north, you’ll find yourself back at your starting point.
The North Pole is not the only point with this property on Earth’s surface. In fact, there are any number of such points. Where are they?
Landmarks in Medicine, #3
From John Aubrey, Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects, 1696:
Mr. Schoot, a German, hath an excellent book of magick: it is prohibited in that country. I have here set down three spells, which are much approved.
— To cure an Ague. Write this following spell in parchment, and wear it about your neck. It must be writ triangularly.
A B R A C A D A B R A
A B R A C A D A B R
A B R A C A D A B
A B R A C A D A
A B R A C A D
A B R A C A
A B R A C
A B R A
A B R
A B
AWith this spell, one of Wells, hath cured above a hundred of the ague.
— To cure the biting of a Mad-Dog, write these words in paper, viz. “Rebus Rubus Epitepscum”, and give it to the party, or beast bit, to eat in bread, &c. A Gentleman of good quality, and a sober grave person, did affirm, that this receipt never fails.
— To cure the Tooth-Ach: out of Mr. Ashmole’s manuscript writ with his own hand.
“Mars, hur, abursa, aburse”.
Jesu Christ for Mary’s sake,
Take away this Tooth-Ach.Write the words three times; and as you say the words, let the party burn one paper, then another, and then the last. He says, he saw it experimented, and the party “immediately cured.”
Der Giftpilz
Yes, it’s a Jewish toadstool.
In 1938, fanatical Nazi Julius Streicher published a children’s book called Der Giftpilz (The Poisoned Mushroom), which compared perfidious Jews to poisonous fungus.
“Our boys and girls must learn to know the Jew,” a mother warns her children. “They must learn that the Jew is the most dangerous poison mushroom in existence. Just as poisonous mushrooms spring up everywhere, so the Jew is found in every country in the world. Just as poisonous mushrooms lead to the most dreadful calamity, so the Jew is the cause of misery and distress, illness and death.”
Disturbingly, Streicher had worked as an elementary school teacher before joining the German army in 1914. He published propaganda for Hitler, and after Nuremberg he was the only sentenced Nazi to declare “Heil Hitler” before being hanged. At least he was consistent.