Bittersweet Infamy - #36 - The Jerusalem Syndrome

Episode Date: January 23, 2022

Josie tells Taylor about the mysterious affliction that makes travellers to the Holy Land think they're the Messiah. Plus: chilling true crime from ice-cold Antarctica.

This episode is brought to you by Travelodge by Wyndham. There's so much to discover, and Travelodge is your base camp for adventure. Get up and explore with free Wi-Fi, free coffee, and a great night's rest, so you can be ready for anything, whether you're exploring a national park, escaping to the beach, or discovering a new city. Adventure isn't far away when you stay with Travelodge, one of 24 trusted brands by Wyndham. Stay close to adventure at Travelodge by Wyndham. Get the lowest price at Travelodge.com.

Wyndham rewards membership may be required. Restrictions apply. Welcome to Bitter Sweden for me. I'm Taylor Basso. I'm Josie Mitchell. On this podcast, we tell the stories that live on in envy, shocking the unbelievable and the unforgettable. Truth may be bitter, stories are always sweet. Josie. Taylor.

These days it's hard to make travel plans. I have no idea. Wow, really? Yeah, no, it's pretty crazy. With Omicron, your stuff can get canceled in a moment. In a brief cough and you're out of there. You know, it's so true. I've always said that one of my favorite things about this podcast is it lets me travel around the world free of charge

to all kinds of interesting locations. Yes, some very strange ones. Very, very strange and far flung locales on all seven continents. And since we're taping this episode in the immediate wake of Vancouver's first white Christmas in years, and it's still very much, you know, it's a snowy winter wonderland out there. In a way, we don't typically get in Vancouver.

Vancouver isn't a city best known for its snow. Is it not Slush Central out there? It is just starting to become Slush Central because today it rained for the first time. But prior to this, it had just been snow, snow, snow, snow, snow. Big fluffy, big fluffy bouquets and bundles of snow. Oh, beautiful. So with that thought in mind and with this thought of, you know,

gosh, I'd like to travel, but I just can't. I have combined those two thoughts for today's Minfamous, which is a look at crime in Antarctica. Oh, shit. Ah, some snowy, snowy crime. Some ice cold crime on the coldest of all continents. Quick sources for this week's Minfamous. Wikipedia, Ovi.

A book called The Antarctic Legal Regime by Christopher C. Joyner and Sudhir K. Chopra. I didn't read much of it. I just read some excerpts. A Mental Floss article by Michelle Debchak and a Smithsonian Magazine article by Jason Daly. Wow, look at you. I wanted to get things right, and yet I am not confident that I have,

so please fit that in my mind. Cool, cool. Crime in Antarctica is rare, but it does happen. I mean, if humans are down there, then it's gonna happen. Exactly, put any group of people anywhere and in like close quarters, things will break out, and they have. Very broadly, the population of Antarctica

consists of about 1,000 to 5,000 people. That's more than I thought. Wow. Well, it changes based on the time of year. Because so Antarctica is one of these magical places that gets a bajillion days of nothing but daylight, followed by a bajillion days of nothing but darkness and the most bitter, cold, miserable weather you've ever seen. If you've ever seen the movie The Thing,

that seems to be a decently good picture of it. Who actually is in Antarctica and how laws govern them is, it's confusing. Yeah, because it's like internationally governed, isn't it? So the first piece of international law around Antarctica was the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which outlines how the region is to be used for cooperative research and was signed by 12 nations,

Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, the former USSR, South Africa, the UK, and the United States. Okay, so either close places or cold places. Or big ass places, like the UK and the US. The treaty is more fleshed out than that and citizens from other nations have, of course, travelled to and stayed in Antarctica,

but this is a good jumping off point to understand how complex the logistics of investigating Antarctic crime can be. Many different nationals living in the sovereign territory of Antarctica. And in this place that nobody can quite agree upon who it is, and we've all decided for once in a fucking human history that we're gonna play nice and use this place for research. Yeah, but mainly because it's inhabitable.

Yeah, exactly, because nobody, like, legit, this is a deeply hostile environment. Nobody really wants to be there. But some of us have shown up there. Right. How these crimes are dealt with tend to be at the discretion of the national governments involved. South Africa, for example, has 1962's

South African Citizens in Antarctica Act, and other countries have similar laws. Okay. But the two main issues on that are one, it doesn't account for all of the permutations. What if a Chinese person does something to an Australian person on American territory? What if they're dual citizens, baby?

What if they're dual citizens? There's all these complications. And in situations like that, a situation like that kinda comes up, and it seems to be down to what is the nationality of the accused perpetrator, and then on whose territory does it happen?

Right, yeah. But maybe it's the victim. Like, it's very complicated, anyway. Yeah. The other issue is that the isolated geography and lack of practical infrastructure and dedicated law enforcement makes dealing with crime in the South Pole

uniquely challenging. Yeah. And these unique challenges cyclically contribute to these instances of crime. For example, the unforgiving climate means a lot of lonely time spent in close quarters, far away from home.

Dark forever and always, if you're there in the winter. Unless it's bright forever and always. Yeah, and then you're crazy, too. And there's no fucking sunset. There's a lot of drinking. Apparently, alcoholism is rampant. Because every one of these places

has a well-stocked bar and a bunch of people who are trying to forget how dark it is. Yeah. And there's virtually no way to escape someone who's pissing you off. What are you gonna do? Take the fucking skidoo around for a rip? Yeah, right.

That's true. In minus 32 fucking Celsius? Nope. Yeah, thank you. As you might imagine, conflicts emerge and they're not always amicably resolved. So that's enough stalling. That's enough bullshit to set the table.

Yeah. The table is set. Let's dig into a non-exhaustive list. So in 1959, at the Soviet Vostok Station, one scientist was so incensed by losing a chess game to a colleague that he attacked the winner with an ice axe.

Oh, my God. So this one is really hard to pin down. Nobody can really agree, like, did this happen? We can't find a court case. We can't find the names of the people involved. And we can't decide was it a murder, was it an assault, what happened? It feels pretty Russian to me.

I don't know. The chess game and the ice, it's like that's how Trotsky died, right? So there's a lot happening there. Yeah. Regardless, the attacker ruined it for everyone. Not only were Soviet scientists banned from playing chess in the Soviet Antarctic,

but even cosmonauts were disallowed from playing the game in outer space. Oh, shit. That is wild. You could have someone go and rogue in, you know, upper orbit and snap in a piece of rebar off the machinery.

No, dude. And just go and ham. No. In zero G. Oh, man. Ponds and bishops floating everywhere. A disaster. Blood globules.

In 1984 at Argentina's Estación Científica Almirante Brown, the station's leader and doctor unexpectedly ordered to stay for the harsh Antarctic winter, so he thought he was going home. Oh, no.

And they were like, no, we need you to stay for the winter, which is by universal acclaim everybody's absolute least favorite part about being an Antarctica. Yeah. He wasn't so stoked on this idea, so he simply burned the station to the ground.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Station personnel were rescued by a ship called Hero and evacuated to a distant American research station. Whoa. Oh, man. Labor issues.

They're real. You can't be springing these this over time. No, no. You got to give somebody a winter in Antarctica. You got to give them like two years to prep for that. So this one, I'm going to go into a little bit more in depth. Okay.

This one's really interesting and sad, I should say, because somebody dies. So to be clear, like RIP, I don't ever seek to take entertainment in someone else's death. In spite of what you might believe from listening to this podcast, the year 2000 brought the unexpected death

of Australian astrophysicist Rodney Marks. Marks was a 32-year-old in his second stint in Antarctica. He was described as considerate and kind with a dry wit. Specifically, the articles say that like his wit was so dry that he could come off a certain way,

but was actually like deeply considerate if that caused any problems with anybody always sought to like resolve it amicably, which is something like I vibe with that because I'm like, I feel like, I feel like that kind of describes me as well. So I understand this guy's struggle. He's also 32, so.

Ah, fuck. Okay. So the Mental Floss article that I read notes that he was part of the base's band, which was called Fanny Pack and the Big Nancy Boys. Awesome name. Awesome name for the local Antarctic house band that plays, apparently they have like,

the bands always play at New Year's and shit. They have like New Year's festivals. I think they're called like Ice Stock or something like that. I forgot what it's called. In May 2000, Rodney suddenly found himself feverish, nauseated, and sleepy. He was leaving the base to go back somewhere and all of a sudden he felt really, really weird

and he began vomiting blood. Jesus. And then after some brief time of being ill, he died of what station doctor Robert Thompson suggested a massive heart attack or stroke. Oh. This is an otherwise very healthy 32 year old dude. Yeah.

Yeah. As no plane would be able to breach the Antarctic darkness until October, so this is the winter. The winter is May to October, I gather. Jesus. His compatriots built him a makeshift casket and kept his body in the station's storage where cold temperatures preserved it

until it could be retrieved for a proper burial. Oh my gosh. In October, the body was finally transported from the American Ammons and Scott station, which is where all of this takes place, to Christchurch, New Zealand, I hope I pronounced that right, where forensic pathologist Dr. Martin Sage offered a different opinion on Marx's cause of death.

Quoting from Mental Floss, according to the postmortem, Marx had adjusted approximately 150 milliliters of methanol, roughly the size of a glass of wine. Methanol is a type of alcohol used to clean scientific equipment in Antarctica. It's subtly sweet, colorless, and toxic in even small amounts, which means a fatal dose

could easily be slipped into someone's drink without their knowledge. Oh. Oh, shit. So, although this was the case of an Australian scientist dying at American Station, the area where he died was governed by New Zealand so they were responsible for the inquest.

Oh, fuck. Okay, okay. Is that why they returned his body to Christchurch? To Christchurch, yeah. Okay. Detective Senior Sergeant Grant Wormald eliminated suicide and accidental ingestion is likely causes.

He reasoned that Marx's relationship and career and general mood were promising. He was in a relationship with another woman who worked at the station that seemed to be going well. Yeah. His mental health was generally good, and while he had a habit of overindulging in alcohol, not uncommon in Antarctica,

as we've discussed, there was no evidence to indicate that he had experimentally dabbled in ethanol or something. Right, and he was also kind of like out and about. If he had self-ingested, you'd think that he would like be alone or, you know what I mean? Yeah.

The other thing too is he, there is a time where he is sick and suffering symptoms during which time he could have conceivably reported like, yo, I drank this ethanol, and he didn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. So with that said, like, I get where he's coming from. I also think someone's seeming

apparently in very good mental health doesn't necessarily preclude suicide. No, that's very true. We've all heard of cases where someone seemed very upbeat and vibrant and then took their own life. So it does happen. Yeah, yeah.

Wormald, the detective, criticized Dr. Thompson, the original doctor who had diagnosed a heart attack or a stroke, but who was also not, this guy isn't trained in autopsies. He was just the doctor on station, right? Yeah, yeah. But Wormald criticized him for

both his handling of Marx while he was alive, as well as his ad hoc autopsy post-mortem. Oh. The detective also criticized America's National Science Foundation, which runs the Ammons and Scott station, for allegedly being uncooperative with the investigation, which the NSF denies.

For example, quote, only after being pestered by the detective, he said, did the NSF agree to send out a questionnaire to the 49 crew members who had been at the station at the time of Marx's death. The foundation vetted the questions first to assure ourselves, this is quoting NSF now, to assure ourselves that appropriate discretion

has been exercised, back to quoting this article. And when they were finally mailed out, they came with a note saying participation wasn't mandatory. Only 13 of Marx's 49 colleagues responded. Whoa. Yeah, why wouldn't she respond? I would participate. I mean, I might talk to a lawyer first,

just to get my peasing. Whatever lawyers they got in Antarctica, that's a sitcom. But... So we're now eight years after this man's death, a new coroner, Richard McElray, declared that no conclusions could be drawn in the death of Rodney Marx,

and that whether this was suicide, foul play, or some freak accident could not be accurately appraised given the investigation that had been conducted. Oh, shit. He declared, based on his findings, quote, an urgent need to set comprehensive rules of investigation and accountability for deaths in Antarctica on a fair and open basis.

Yeah, because things were dropped in that six months. Yeah. No evidence ever emerged against any particular person nor any motive to this day the circumstances behind Rodney's death remain a mystery. Oh, my... Sad story, because he seemed like he was... He was an astronomer who was studying down there

because the skies are so very clear in Antarctica, and he loved the skies, and he loved this woman, you know, he was one of... One of Fanny Pack and the Big Nancy Boys. He seemed like a nice guy. And he would follow up with you and be like, that thing I said, I hope that didn't offend you, I just, you know...

I have a certain sense, which I, again... I love it, I love it! Oh! Poor Rodney. Finally, in 2018, my favorite Antarctic crime occurred. Ooh. At the Belling's Housing Station on King George Island,

which is all Russian territory. Two Russian workers, 54-year-old electrical engineer, Sergei Savitsky, and 52-year-old welder, Oleg Belogazov, simply could not get along. Oh, shit.

Just couldn't stop rubbing each other the wrong way. Apparently they'd already done a stint together like a year back, and things were like totally fine, but this time around, they cannot stop getting on each other's nerves. Oh, my goodness. The unconfirmed sources suggest that Belogazov was giving away

the endings to books that Savitsky was checking out at the station's library. Oh, that's the one where the god died. Yeah, yeah, Savitsky was... Fuck you! Savitsky was straight up just like, it's his sled, Rosebud was his sled, man.

Like, I don't know what to tell you. What's a book? Name a book? Let's spoil the ending of a book. Let's spoil the ending of an old book. Gone with the Wind. They lose the war. There you go. They're horrible people. So he's there being like, the sun does not rise again.

That's a bad example. And Savitsky is not having it. So whatever. So on October 9th, 2018, the pair gets into a fight when so Savitsky, I guess, needed some money,

and Belogazov was like, why don't you dance on the top of the table and that is a very disrespectful thing to say to a colleague unless you both work at a strip club. Like... In any other context, that is not an appropriate thing to say

to your colleague that you've been having all of this bad blood with. That's true, that's true. Don't say anything at all, perhaps. And Savitsky, who was drunk and had been going through a lot of his own emotional meltdown, Antarctic winter shit, because this is October, right?

This is the tail end of the Antarctic winter and apparently he's really, really been going through it. He's drunk as everybody constantly is in Antarctica. And he did not receive this suggestion well. So he retrieved a knife and stabbed Belogazov in the chest

multiple times. Belogazov was flown to a hospital 670 miles away in Chile where he made a full recovery. Savitsky apparently turns himself in right away and he spends 11 days under confinement.

And I believe it's at this Russian Orthodox church because they don't have a jail. Okay, okay, yeah. So I feel like I read that but I couldn't find the source. But I seem to remember him kind of being under arrest, like

voluntary arrest and just kind of living quietly at this church for 11 days and then going back to Russia and being under house arrest. So the case comes before the court and Savitsky fully apologizes and repents and expresses his remorse

and Belogazov forgives him and asks Judge Anatoly Kovan to drop the charges and the public prosecutor agrees. He's like Savitsky is remorseful and he's never done anything like this. Yes, and the circumstances

the Russian winter and he is crying and everything. He once had danced on the tables and it was an embarrassing moment. And he was really looking forward to this reading on with the wind and all of it. So in the spirit of conviviality and forgiveness

Judge Kovan drops the case and everybody makes amends the end. Oh, that's a beautiful Antarctic story. I feel like I like to think I would be as big a guy as Belogazov in that situation being like, yes, he stabbed me

in the chest, but I was kind of being a beehore. Like I recognize I was over the line too. Do you think he was like, but it got me out of the job. I got out of the Antarctic early. I got those Chilean hospitals they're nicer than you might imagine.

He's like, I'm going to go watch the sunset. I'm going to watch the sun rise and then set and then rise and set. You don't get sick of that shit once it's taken away from you. Have a nice Chilean Malbec. He was having a good time, I bet. Oh, baby. Oh, wow.

That's the crime you want to hear about. Those are some stories of ice cold crime on an ice cold continent Antarctica. It's warms my heart. So this is always my favorite part of the podcast. The moment right before I find out the

subject. So I'm going to milk it a little while longer. Josie. Yeah. Did you know that if you give Bitter Sweden for me five stars on Apple podcast, it helps us get discovered and as a small independent podcast

that's a great help. I did not know that all the specifics. I'm so glad to know now. I will go do that. Remember when we used to be embarrassed to tell people to say that? Yeah, I don't. Can we do that? Is that rude? Should we make up aliases? We're not doing

that. I don't. I'm not saying you should do it. Literally, that was just. Oh, okay. No. A plural you. A plural you. Okay. But yeah, that was me just to the audience. Subscribe dummies. Yeah, do it. Or not subscribe. Give us five stars. You can subscribe to subscribe. Give us five stars.

Follow us on Instagram at Bitter Sweden for me. We'd love to hear from you. Dream about us. Dream about us. That's it. That's all I got. Take me away. Well, I wish that I could take you away. I mean, we got to go to Antarctica just now. That was nice

where we might have ended up stabbing each other. We pushed through. We would have like a beautiful scene of forgiveness in a Russian courtroom. So it would be worth it. That would be totally worth it. But you know, considering that we can't go these places,

that is okay too. And I'm going to tell you why it's okay. Okay. Because sometimes travel isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Nope. Sometimes it can pose many challenges. Delayed flights are super frustrating.

Culture shock. You know, you can enjoy a place so much, but you might get homesick. You might also go to a place be so affected by it that you have some type of psychotic break. And

then you really can't enjoy yourself. No, that's a tough scenario. I agree. I haven't encountered it personally, but I'm susceptible. So... There's a few iterations of travel

type syndromes. The one that I'm going to concentrate on today takes us to the holy city, the ancient holy city much disputed Jerusalem. Yes. Have you heard of the syndrome,

the Jerusalem syndrome? No, I've heard of the Havana syndrome, but not the Jerusalem syndrome. Havana syndrome is the what they think could be the auditory like terrorism? Yeah, yeah. No, no, this is different. This is different. The

Jerusalem syndrome is specific to when you visit the city of Jerusalem as a tourist. And during your time there, you experience a profound shift in your reality. So that you understand

yourself to be called on by God for a specific mission. You understand yourself to be perhaps a biblical figure. Oh, no. John the Baptist, Moses. Yeah, those are biblical figures.

Mary the mother of God. Yeah. All those things. Or you have a very strong religious conviction that you must complete some type of mission. So they're all somehow related to the Bible in some way.

But you enter this state of a psychosis, a break from reality, which must seem very much like enlightenment. Oh, totes magots, my dude. Oh, no. Okay. It's pretty wild. So, okay. First off, when it comes to

psychiatry and religion, there's always a little tata-tap there. Yeah. Just naturally, naturally. Yes. Because a belief in a God that it can't be seen, a belief in a religious system,

those within the realm of modern psychology could be claimed to be some type of psychotic break in and of themselves, right? A religious experience within the psychiatric umbrella could be analogous with mental illness.

Joan of Arc. Boom. Joan of Arc. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah, I didn't think Joan of Arc during all of this. I didn't. So there's kind of a natural friction that's happening there. But the friction is not only from psychiatry claiming that all religious belief is, you know,

a mental illness. There's also within the framework of psychiatry, you cannot disprove a religious belief either. Right. What they call a test of falsity. It's not able to be

tested within a scientific method to be proven false, right? Sure. And typically within a religious belief what can be determined as being true is that if a large group of people believe in the same thing, there's no other

real test to see if something is... It's called faith. Yeah, to see if it's true. So there's naturally this opposition that happens when somebody comes to a religious belief especially if it's a new

religious belief. Right. Because this idea that nobody else believes that you're the Messiah might just mean that you are the Messiah or it might mean you're crazy. Part of the thing too, part of the thing about being the Messiah is that like

nobody believes you. Like that's the whole gimmick. Yeah. That's the whole, yeah, that's how you know you're the Messiah. That's how you know, because if everyone just unquestioningly accepted you as the Messiah, you'd already be like, you know? Yeah, no, it's, yeah. It's a chicken and an egg situation.

It's a real tricky one. What is that? What's the snake eating itself? Oroborus. Yeah. So the earliest known case, documented at least, was a patron of Pisa, Italy, Ranieri. He went

in the 12th century to Jerusalem and he displayed with his fellow travelers, or to his fellow travelers I'll say, a mixture of piety and unusual behavior. Right. So there's not really a lot of details about what that means

in the 12th century, but yeah, we'll go with it. Maybe a man he was washing his hands, we don't know. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's a strange thing. Oh my god. The first more medical descriptions of it, so kind of

modern, a modern medicine approach, were recorded by Dr. Heinz Hermann, a psychiatrist who worked in Israel during the early 20th century. So, there's a few different ways to break down the Jerusalem syndrome.

And as it's come up from Hermann's Day, Dr. Hermann's Day, there's been a lot of categorization. That's pretty much all the research that's been done, is trying to define like, these boxes, right? Right. Of what everyone kind of fits into. So, we're

going to talk a little bit about all these different elements. And some I think are kind of like, well, yeah, no shit. And then there's some that are I think a little bit more peculiar to this Jerusalem syndrome. Okay. So, the first type is

the Jerusalem syndrome superimposed on previous psychotic illness. So, what that pretty much means No shit. Yeah. Somebody is not mentally well. They travel to Jerusalem and things just

That puts the lens on the illness and directs it in this particular fervor. Yes, exactly. So, there was an example and of course, all these examples are from researched, period, psychiatric papers. So, there's no

names and there's not even a lot of dates. They tend to be a little bit, you know, fluffy on the details because they're actual people and they're research subjects and, you know. Yes. And you need to anonymize that to some degree in order to be ethical. Exactly. Exactly. And typically, they're not given names because of that. Can we give them names?

Sure. I mean, this guy felt he had a name already. Okay, that's that. You're right. Let's keep going. I don't know why not. Yes. So, let's do that. He was an American man in his 40s

and he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Okay. And he had been admitted and treated in the US but he was out and he was functioning in society. He took up this hobby of body building. He was like this big...

We get a lot of body builders in these, hey? I know. I know. That's like a lot. Okay, anyway. Maybe it's a sign, Taylor. Maybe 2023 is... I mean, 232? I don't know what year it is. I mean, you're looking pretty ripped as it is. I was gonna say, the gun show wasn't bad there.

No, that was nice. I got a little up angle there. That's good. So, over time through his body building practices, he began to identify as the biblical figure Sampson. Now,

Sampson, if you'll remember is from the Old Testament. He's from Judges. There you go. Let down that hair. Just shook out the mane in honor of Sampson. That's beautiful. Your hair is so long. That's so beautiful. Thank you. Well done.

It's finally getting summer. Lovely. So, yes, the source of Sampson's strength came from his hair. Once he cut his hair, he would no longer be strong. But he's also known as the Old Testament version of Hercules. Yes.

Big strong boy. Supernatural strength. He could kill a lion with his bare hands and massacre an army all by himself. Right. And so, our dude,

our American tourist in his 40s Sampson, bodybuilding Sampson, he has this compulsion to make his way to Jerusalem, gets on a plane, gets there, loves it, was overwhelmed by the city. It looks so old and oh my god, history everywhere.

Right. Whoa, Jesus could have been right here. Yes. Eating a falafel. I don't know. But, part of his belief system in addition to his psychosis, he believes that he needs

to tear down the western wall. That's tough. That's going to be hard for one man to do. Even Sampson. That's tough for one man to do. Also, though, the western wall, also termed the whaling wall, is a very holy

site to Jewish practitioners. Yeah, people aren't going to be stoked. No. And if this big, huge American guy comes in trying to, like, tear it down, shit is going to look a little weird.

Yeah, people are going to be upset. No, yeah, exactly. And I learned this, actually, in my research. The proper nomenclature's western wall. Because whaling wall is seen to some, I don't think to all, but to some slightly productive.

Because you're meant to pray, pray in front of it, and if your prayer becomes overwhelming that you cry, then that's... It diminishes the experience that you're having there to call it simply whaling. Exactly, yeah. But it's what's left of the temple

of one of the final Jewish temples that was destroyed by the Romans. So it is the holy site for Jews in Jerusalem. And so our boy Sampson goes in and tries to take it down. And finally, officials come in and they're like, oh, sir,

please don't. They take him to... Sir, sir, sir, no. I'm so sorry. They take him to a mental health facility called the Kafar Saul Mental Health Center.

He's interviewed and the attending doctor hears the story of how he's Sampson and he just kind of laughs in his face. Which is... That's good mental health care. I don't know where that guy's hippo went, but it was

a little dusty on the back shelf somewhere. I don't know. The doctor also pointed out that Sampson, according to the Bible, was never in Jerusalem, which further enraged our Sampson. Yeah, that's tough.

Just a little historical inaccuracy there. The third one, yeah. And our Sampson, American 40-year-old Sampson, was so pissed off. Oh, no, he hulked out. Reged out, he hulked out on the doctor, smashed a window,

and escaped through the window. Like Candyman. Like Candyman. Kind of. Wow, that's wild. Yeah, that is a wild set of events that are happening right now. The report on him

does not talk about his hair. I don't know if he grew out his hair. That's the whole thing. No, you'd have to. You have to have a luscious condition that thing three times a night. Anyone tries to get close to it with scissors, hulk smash. That makes sense. I imagine kind of a hulk-hogan vibe,

where it's like bleach blonde, too. Yes, and like bald... Yes, absolutely. I'm gonna tear down the west wall, just like I tore down Macho Man Ready Savage, brother. Back to wrestling. It does, always. What is this guy doing if not a wrestling gimmick?

No, that's true. He's a bodybuilder calling himself Samson. He 100% worked Hercules at WrestleMania. Like, I'm sure of it. No, it's true. So, a team is sent out to spread through the city to look for this man, because obviously

he's a danger to himself or to others. Oh yeah, he's on the loose. He's on the fucking loose. Even a student nurse finds him at a local bus stop. She approaches him cautiously and she acknowledges

that he is Samson. She says, oh my goodness, your strength is immense. Oh my goodness, I remember you from the Bible. Yes! And through acknowledging

the yes and rule of improv, she convinces him that they need him back at the hospital. He is needed at the hospital. His super strength is needed there. Good! And so he comes back, he is sedated, he's given a proper examination.

I heard you guys needed me to lift some heavy boxes. Yeah. Poor thing, I'm not to be clear. It's hard in stories like this where the particulars of the way this man's mental illness express itself

are quite outrageous and campy. But also I want to underlay a bedrock of sympathy for this man going through a hard time. Because that's what the doctors determine. That's just me checking myself before I ha ha too much and I suspect I'll probably laugh again.

But know that it does not come from a place of malice. More from a place of oh my humans. It continues. There's quite a few examples because there's certain inaccuracies. You weren't in Jerusalem, Samson wasn't in Jerusalem, bro.

Yeah! Or just like intersections of modernity and belief and ancient ways that all just kind of come together and they're comical in a way. But I think your right to acknowledge that in this type of Jerusalem syndrome, they are predicated

by people who are suffering from mental illness. Of course. Of course. And with our boy Samson he was examined by doctors and it was determined that he was in a psychotic state when he had convinced himself

that he was Samson and he had this mission to accomplish which was to bring down the western wall. Right. So finally when he had calmed down his father flew to Jerusalem and flew him back to the states. That's good. Within this type one

so there's this previous psychotic illness that happens. So people start identifying with biblical figures or ideas or missions, even kind of magical ideas. There's also an instance where family problems accentuate

this syndrome when you get to Jerusalem. So there's another story of a woman who is called Mary. Oh no. Actually she doesn't think she's married. Oh wow. Okay. Interesting.

That feels like a layout but go ahead. I know. Why would you all pick that one? She is English. She's in her mid 60s when one winter in Jerusalem she is found on a city bench

passed out and near starvation. Oh no. So her story is that she came from a semi-religious background. Her parents were Christian but not really church going Christian.

Culturally Christian. Right. Where across around your neck kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Middle class non-practicing Episcopalian. So, you know, in England that's kind of the default, right? Right. At the age of 12 she developed this

really deep interest in religion and she asked her parents about Catholicism because she got really into all the rituals and rites and they're like, really? Dude, Catholics get such a bad rap from other Christians. It's hilarious. Joe Biden is, I think, the second

Catholic president. That's true. That is true. We do love a Protestant. Yeah. The wasps are not. We got big wings, baby. A little too spicy. A little too spicy. Her parents eventually

obliged. She becomes Catholic. She goes to a religious college for about two years and then drops out to get married and have two babies. When her kids are little she plays with the idea of joining

like a religious Christian faction which more or less would be called a cult. Yeah, I was going to say. Feels like your, feels like faction is a euphemism here, okay? Faction is perhaps her word of reality or a reality that we'll be using as cult. It's like

on Real Housewives they can't acknowledge the fourth wall so they can't be like, we've got to film this show together. There's a lot of big talk about like, in this group of friends and so I feel like that's her situation. She's got a group of friends. She's got a group of friends. Yeah, no exactly.

The cult doesn't really pan out for her. That's probably for the best. Probably for the best. But maybe not because her kids are adult aged. She gets a divorce and she starts hearing through, not

voices from God, but through her own inclinations she's hearing from God. She's getting vibes. God's giving her like a vibe check. Yeah. She's getting heavy vibes from G.O.D. And those vibes are telling her to go to Jerusalem.

And so she does. She tells no one that she's going. She just boards a plane and heads to Israel. I feel like I only hear about those kind of stories on podcasts like this one. It makes me uneasy. Tell people where you're going folks. Yeah, just do it. Just send

a quick text. Just selfie, whatever in front of the... I'm in front of the western wall. He's this guy, lol. He's really mad. Whatever it is. So our girl Mary apparently wandered the streets of Jerusalem for six years.

Oh my God. She stayed for a time with an elderly woman who apparently didn't mind her idiosyncratic religious religious osities that she deployed. Right. And then this is a quote from Mary

herself. Until one day God told me I was getting too close to her. So I left while she was sleeping and never came back. Oh. Yeah. She has this kind of reoccurring thing where she finds that

connection to other people goes against what God wants for her. Oh no. I don't know. In the VeggieTales version, right? Yeah, no. Take me. Jesus is about connecting with other people, loving

other people. But is Jesus like a radish in this contest? That is what I want to know. I feel more kind of carrot-esque. I see. I see. Like a daikon maybe. Yeah. That's good.

We like daikon. I'm into daikon. So she has this disconnection from people. She's left the old lady's house. At this point she starts to get heavy vibes. Not voices, but heavy vibes from God telling her that

she needs to starve herself. She gets this reoccurring phrase that goes through her mind, through her being, where she says that she was meant to die a famine on the streets of Jerusalem.

Oh no. So famine on the streets of Jerusalem. So what that eventually becomes is self-neglect, so intense that she just doesn't eat. Yeah, this is a really sad story about a woman with what seems to be really bad, undiagnosed

mental illness. Like if you walk by somebody on the street on the bus stop and they look hungry and they're cold and whatever and you're like, oh I wonder how that person got there. Maybe something like this, right? Yeah, no exactly. It's a really sad story. She says, I did get fearful

at the end. Meaning before she was contacted by a social worker. I said, I can't fast anymore. I was so weak and tired and I went to signal the police but they didn't hear me so I went back to my bench. People brought me food packages there

but I didn't understand the mixed message. Then the social worker came and took me to the hospital. So you're right, she's suffering so much confusion within her own beliefs and reality that she can't even

put the food there. She can't even take in. It doesn't quite make sense as a gesture to her because she's decided that what she needs to do is starve and so these concerned people observing that she's in distress and bringing her food she can't quite wrap her head around it.

And it could even be a challenge from God. Like here's food but you're not supposed to eat it. Here's another test, yeah. Oh God, that's stressful. So she's brought to the hospital and it turns out that her grown children back home had filed a missing persons report over six years ago.

Right, because this has been years that she's just vanished into the streets of Jerusalem where she doesn't know a soul and nobody would know to look for her. Yeah, and the kids were not surprised to hear that she was in this way. They had kind of thought that maybe she had joined a cult that she had pulled the trigger and done it. Right, right.

And so they one family member, I don't know if it was her kids, they came out to Israel and they helped her apply for another passport. She hadn't lost her passport, all this kind of stuff and brought her home. She still owned her home actually

in England. Nobody had gotten rid of it so she moved back there and not much of follow up has been reported. But that's fair. I feel like after a person has like a big public mental health episode like this and they've resumed some semblance of their normal life give them some privacy. No, totally.

Like thank God we don't know these people's names. I know, right. Yeah. I think that that has to be such a difficult process both for the families of the people involved and then for the people involved to one D program

believing that you're Samson and you need to tear down the western wall. That doesn't go away in a day. So you have to work through that. And then you also need to work through the like the shame and embarrassment and because once you've realized that God didn't send you to Jerusalem

and you effectively spent six years away from your family starving yourself on the streets for reasons that were not what they seemed that has to be a lot to come to terms with as well. Yeah, exactly. But this is only one type of Jerusalem

syndrome. There's actually two more. Right, God, you've got a roster at Keller's Row here. Let me, can I guess? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you've got that, you've got you've got Oh God, I don't even know.

So one of them presumably would have to be people who have no previous symptoms of anything and then show up and all of a sudden I'm Watts wife, please, I can never turn around again. Like whatever it is, right? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, and there's there's a little bit of separation of that category. They've divided it into two. Yeah, got you. This is mainly written by doctors out of that Kefarsha Wool Mental Health Center who have, you know,

been on the ground working with with people who suffer from this center. They've seen this if anyone if anyone has seen this, it's them. Yeah, yeah. So the second type is Jerusalem Superimposed on and complicated

by idiosyncratic ideations. So what this means, I think give it to me in English. You get to Jerusalem. You and your cult get to Jerusalem and you're like, Oh, here we go.

And it just kind of ramps up. This makes sense. Yeah. I'm Stacy. I'm so glad you decided to come to Jerusalem. This is really I this makes the space it makes sense. Everything coming together. Is that

this is obviously where the spaceship came from. Yeah. And this type gets even subcategorized into the groups. So like a large group and then an individual and typically the individual just actually

fractures off from a group and kind of does their own thing. And in terms of the individual there is a Simpsons episode, the greatest story ever doed where the Simpsons go to

Jerusalem. This has to be where is this like season 15? When are we? I think it's 21. Jesus Christ. Did you watch it? Oh, I watched it twice. Yay. Oh, that's so fun.

Okay. So I got a little I got a little late late era Simpsons. I know right. The animation. iPods and shit. How was it? Well iPods. Yeah. But there was a flip phone. So that was nice. Okay. So that's when we are. That's what we're so 2006-2007. Yeah. Yeah. Around there. Got you.

Let's see. Sasha Baron Cohen plays the Israeli tour guide. Say what you want about the Simpsons. They have always been able to pull in a guest star. They always do. They always do. And they did this time. Always. Always do. Yeah. I would do it.

You know, they wanted me. Yeah. Listen, hey, Matt Groening, if you're listening to this, how about you? Listen to these pipes. Listen to these pipes. Homer. Come on. Have you heard? Have you heard poor Julie Kavanaugh's

voice lately? That chick has been doing Marge voice for 20, 30 years and it shows that poor woman. Oh, no. Retire. Retire and gargle hunting for the rest of your days, fella. Or do you think her voice was like that before? You can hear the difference.

You can. Yeah. You know how she used to do like Marge's mom, like with a little bit of a, that's how Marge sounds now. Oh. Homer. Homer, I don't like that you did that to me. Marge has an age today, but for her voice.

But for her voice. So it's Flanders who takes Homer to Jerusalem. I mean, the whole Simpsons clan. Yeah, that scans. He particularly wants to save Homer. As always. A reverent classic Flanders. To a fault.

Yeah. To the point of sacrilege, I'm sure. Yes. Yes, exactly. He takes a nap on the Holy Suplexer and the church of the Holy Suplexer, like on the altar where... I do like a Simpsons vacation episode, I will say that. Yes. Very true to their research.

It's very true. I've never seen the Vancouver one. They did come to Vancouver once I haven't seen that one. Oh, shit. Oh, okay. Flanders walks in, you know, the biggest site of Christendom and Homer is there taking a nap and Homer is like, oh, I'm sorry. Is this where they buried

Porky Pig? And he thinks they have a blow-off. Jesus Christ. Flanders. Get yourself together, Homer. That's what's fucking bottom. Flanders is so irate. He gets kicked out of the church of the Holy Suplexer. He's banned for life.

He's so upset. He walks out of the old city gate into what would be the Negev Desert. And Homer follows him into the desert. Homer gets on a camel. But Flanders never went to the desert. He went to this little tea shop

instead. And so Homer has an endless journey before him now. An endless journey. The camel deserts him. He's heat stroke, crazy, you know, mirage. He tries to drink from the Dead Sea. Perfect.

You know, it's hidden from beautiful. In this moment of epiphany from the sky comes down a tomato, a carrot, and a gherkin pickle. It's the Veggie Tales. I love that.

Great ending. That's actually so... This sounds decent, honestly. It is. That's not so bad. And so that begins the mark of the Jerusalem Syndrome that Homer cheats from the hotel. He goes to the Dome of the Rock.

He preaches about how Homer knows. Everyone needs to come together. He calls this new religion Christmas Jews and they unite over their love of chicken. Not everybody eats pork, not everybody eats shellfish, but chicken is delicious.

Yeah, I get that. Yeah, I mean, I love chicken. Who doesn't? Interesting. Okay. Probably the best joke of the episode is Bart, when they determine that Homer has Jerusalem Syndrome

he says, Dad always seems to get the disease they write about in the Insight magazine. Which I think is pretty good. That's a good line. Nice one, Bart. Bart's been a silent assassin in this episode, hey? He's a...

This is a Homer character study. Homer and Ned. Yeah. Homer and Ned for sure. And that's a pretty good example of this idiosyncratic ideations that happen. Yes. You come with a group, you come with your Bible study group and then you go off on your own. You kind of peel off

the Holy Sepulcher hits different for you. Yeah. And you kind of you like, you guys I'll catch up. Yeah. And then you don't. And then you have your mom that keeps on going, keeps on giving. So, the third and final type

of the Jerusalem syndrome is probably the most unique to this particular syndrome. It's also the most kind of mind-boggling to psychiatry and psychology.

It is fascinating. So the official title of this scientific paper says discrete form, unconfounded by previous psychopathology. So, what that means is that an individual

has no prior history with mental illness, with psychosis, with any psychopathic, any, any type of What about religion though? Yes. Typically, they are religious. There we go.

They all come from pretty strong religious backgrounds. Even if they are not very religious at the time of their arrival in Jerusalem. Yeah. They have a very strong understanding of a religion. So, culturally,

they know it really well. They grew up in it. Or they are very religious. That could be part of it too. Interesting. They predominantly are Christian. A few cases of Muslims experiencing it. A few cases of Jewish people experiencing it. But overwhelmingly,

it is Christians. And it is Christians from America, Europe, Western and Eastern Australia, New Zealand. Predominantly Protestant Christians. So, you Roman Catholics? Not quite there.

That's interesting to me because I feel like the idea of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem or the pilgrimage to Mecca is much more prominent in Jewish or Muslim kind of religions. But think that my idea of

quote unquote Western religion, this kind of big, more Christian that you describe, sort of exists slightly more disconnected from this idea of a return to the Holy Land. Yeah. So, it's interesting to me that that is the group that is most

afflicted by this. And it makes me wonder if there's some sort of like cultural factor in the way that Christianity is taught or received or something. Yeah. No, I think that could definitely be part of it. You know, Israel is a site of a lot of conflict for many people

but predominantly, it's a conflict as of right now between the Jewish faith and the Muslim faith. So, I don't know, maybe there's some part of that that Christians go there and they want a bigger piece?

I don't know. I don't know. I'm inclined to weigh in as much as I can but I'm also I don't want to give any half-baked takes on the subject. No, because I and I feel the same way because I have very little heat on this subject. Yeah.

And so my half-baked is like pretty fucking mushy. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm trying to find that line of like what's a good observation and what's mushy. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not going to share any more half-baked ideas. But I will say this type of Jerusalem syndrome

they also call the pure Jerusalem syndrome because there's no I know, right? It's like. Why do we need to rank them anyway? Yeah, I. Anyway, so this is the real Jerusalem syndrome. That guy was just schizophrenic man.

Fuck. It seems rude. I know this is a relatively small category of diagnosed Jerusalem syndrome. So between the years of 1980 and 1993 there were only 42 cases. So it's 13 years.

That seems like a lot to me. I mean. More than once a year. Considering I just heard this shit existed 42 cases a year or in however many years feels oof. There were a lot more cases. There was kind of

an uptick closer to the millennia. I thought you were going to tell me this was like six people. No, dude. Like total. We get 42. We get 42. Listen. It seems to kind of jazz people up a little bit. It's very moving. And then after there was a drop off.

So there's that. The millennium after the millennium. Y2K baby. Y2K? I got him. So. Okay, see. That's the level of conversation we're having. It must have been Y2K.

Next spot. Next slide, please. Yeah. So like I said before in order to be diagnosed with this type of Jerusalem syndrome no history of mental illness not even like drug use.

Nothing that could lead to this. Right. So typically they arrive in Jerusalem as a regular tourist. They don't come with any type of motive or mission. They just come to kind of see the city. See the sights.

But that's when love finds you when you're not looking. True. Oh my God. The hallmark of this. What a rom-com. Okay, let me describe more of this because this is it does start to get sad.

No, no, it gets more and more comedic. I think. Okay, so they get to Jerusalem and it's the arrival to Jerusalem that sends off the psychosis. There are seven clinical stages

of this particular type. There's just general kind of tension, anxiety. They get there and they're like a little more aggressive than usual maybe. And then there is a declaration that they want to kind of split away from the group. You know, I'm going to stay

at the dome of the rock. You guys go ahead. I'm just going journal. You know, I'll see you at dinner. You know, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the tour guides are signaled to some of these stages so that they can

kind of flag certain people if there are issues. Yeah, that makes sense. From a public health perspective, that's a smart thing to do. And because it's pretty well known too that if anybody is suffering these symptoms, they should go to Kafar Seoul Mental Health Center.

There's a shuttle that leaves twice a day. Yeah, it's one of those things. Yeah, exactly. I'll say you. You start to feel this need to be clean and pure. You isn't the royal you. No, make it mean.

Commit to the bed. So you're feeling anxious, you're alone, journaling in Jerusalem. And then you start to have this strong inclination to be very clean. You bathe multiple times a day. You trim

your nails constantly. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, that secondary you does do a lot to make me feel really uncomfortable. Yeah, good, good, good. You start to borrow the hotel linens, my friend, and you don yourself

in a toga-like garment. Yes, my friend. Yes, ankle length, always white. You feel the need to scream, shout, let the world know about understanding of the Bible, certain

psalms and passages from the Bible, religious hymns or spirituals, you're singing those aloud. I do love me some gospel music. I will say that. Always. I'm not religious, but I would sometimes. Oh, big time. Lord, I lift your name on high.

Like, fuck. How do you beat Lord, I lift your name on high? Do you? Gospel music is good, man. Do you ever scan the radio and you hit on a jam? And all of a sudden you're like, who's the he? And all of a sudden it's Christian rock.

You realize it's Christian rock. No, I'm never on the radio about to happen. No, I fuck with Christian rock. I had a real life house, baby. I had a real moment with a server at a restaurant when I was drunk explaining to her how much I love Creed.

She didn't ask. Sir. This is a Wendy's. This is a red robin, sir. Yeah. Sir, the fries are endless, but we will have to ask you to leave eventually. The fries are endless,

but my patience are not. Is not, no. So once you start kind of spouting religiosity to large crowds or in your hotel lobby, hopefully somebody has taken the cue and

you are being escorted to the Cafar Solo Mental Health Center. If not, then you might start a procession or a march through the Old City of Jerusalem and you might land yourself in a holy place within the Old City

and deliver a sermon. Typically it's a very confusing sermon that doesn't follow blockchain. Yeah, I know I can see how that might be the case. And I'll quote from this paper and it is based on an unrealistic

plea to humankind to adopt a more wholesome, moral, simple way of life. End of quote. You know? It doesn't sound that bad. I'm into that. That's totally fine.

I love wholesome, simple morals. Who doesn't? So the very interesting thing about this pure Jerusalem syndrome is that once you are treated meaning you're given maybe some very light sedatives

they don't do any anti-psychotic drugs for this type of if you don't have a history. Just because those are so intense they want to ease you into them and ease you off. So they give you a mild sedative they let you rest they take off your toga

they get you ready and you leave Jerusalem and you absolutely have no inclination to excessively bathe to wear a toga

you are not you might be religious but you're not pure Jerusalem syndrome pure Jerusalem syndrome the cure is to remove Jerusalem from the equation. Do you really want that clip of you out there on the internet?

Oh God Oh God What's that? So maybe the Hallmark movie is a little bit more in line with this type of Jerusalem syndrome rather than

our poor gal, Mary six years starving at a bank. Yeah It's super, super strange because this doesn't happen in any other place that they know of this type of drop in

have this intense reaction this psychosis and then drop out Have a manic episode and then leave and that's that It's pretty fucking wild That's so strange, yeah I mean obviously Jerusalem is a uniquely

spiritually and psychologically loaded place for many reasons and they're like I imagine there's a lot of wonder at being not only in this old place but also being at the western wall and seeing people all incredibly moved

in prayer at once These are very profound human experiences and I understand some of the impulse to seek the spiritual in it because that's what it's there for And it's this nexus of

the three major religions Everybody has a very very sacred site there if not more than one And by everybody I mean the Jewish faith, Islam and Christianity No, I got you

But there are instances where travel and other particular cities have syndromes like this or not like this but they do have syndromes so there's like a syndromes, have you heard of this? Is this when you go to

Paris and then all of a sudden you have a little beret on You know I have seen sisters aloof Okay, okay Brayden You're just describing

like Emily in Paris, that's all Dude Someone was like have you seen Emily in Paris and I was like nope Paris syndrome is actually pretty different It's when as a tourist you go to Paris and you are so

let down Yes, I have heard of this Yes, I have heard of this Yeah, it's not the city of light It is infested with rats The Franks are extremely rude and make fun of your accent Don't put the French up

I'm just saying I feel like the French might agree that tourists in Paris are horrible That's fine Yep Apparently the Paris syndrome I have heard of this

inflicts in particular Japanese tourists There's a lot of research and non-research out there that says the Japanese embassy in Paris has a special hotline for people to call

when they're so overwhelmed with How much Paris sucks It's not so much that Paris sucks because that implies that the food tastes bad It's not literally the postcard with the Eiffel Tower

Exactly, exactly There's a gas station in front of the Eiffel Tower Yeah When I went to Japan French restaurants everywhere Tokyo large cities clearly Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka

all kinds of French restaurants I think that might be it What gets exported relative to where you are What gets to Japan is this very distilled aesthetic

Of course, we get it here as well But I don't know, there's some type of disconnect? I don't know There's something peculiar about the way those two cultures interface Once you get to Paris, it doesn't quite work Not in person

I liked the movie, the real experience not so much Interesting There's also a syndrome called Sendal syndrome which is particular to Florence Yeah, he was a French writer who went to Florence, visited

saw the wonderful art and architecture and he wrote about in his journals having palpitations because the art was so incredibly moving and beautiful and so they named this syndrome after Sendal and it's supposed to describe

people who have physical reactions to the art like a man had a heart attack or a vollege's medusa like that kind of thing Oh no Oh no

Yeah It evokes this outburst of anxiety in people So it can be like a mental anxiety where you're kind of tensed up Art is very moving Very moving So that one's kind of funny because

you go to Florence and the beauty just like smacks you upside the head but if you go to Paris it's just like don't meet your idols Oh no Oh wow So there's a few and then there's also

something called airport syndrome where you're supposed to kind of go into in any airport you can go into this kind of like dizzying psychosis where you lose track of who you are and where you are and what time it is which makes total sense Yeah

Airports are the ultimate liminal space Oh exactly, yeah Airports and hotels You can drink at like 6 in the morning Yeah Everyone around you is somebody you'll never see again It's really strange It's true, I don't know how

flight attendants and pilots do it Yeah, that would be cool You're always on different time zones and shit, that's strange Not for me So the research paper that I'm pulling from was written before the millennia It was written in 2000 itself

so all the interviews that they had with patients were before the millennia and apparently there was a ramping up of the Jerusalem syndrome as we got closer and closer to 2000 the numbers have dropped off significantly and I'm sure as travel

has lessened international in particular this is not affecting as many people just because there's not as many tourists who are flying in No, although I can imagine that all of the stuff around the pandemic will

exacerbate it when people do return to Jerusalem Potentially Yeah, that's true because they couldn't go for so long or when they finally get to travel this is where they choose to go and it has all that more significance Yeah, you're right, that's true

And you know, I don't know I fucked everyone up mentally Oh yeah, no We're all doing our very best Yeah, we are Except for those who are not So, I kept referring to this as a research paper

and in very scientific realms it is not a research study and part of why it's not a research study is because these were all kind of narrative-based interviews like one-on-one interviews

so that kind of changes the dynamic and what you would want for something like that to make it more scientific in its scope is to do follow-up interviews to really track these people through time to see how they're doing, what's going on

and multiple, multiple people did not respond to any follow-up I understand wanting to put it behind you Yes, what happens in Jerusalem stays in Jerusalem

Absolutely Absolutely Absolutely, no toga parties for me now that I'm home, thank you very much No, no, no, no And so, a lot of the storytelling around this, I'll use storytelling and research here, is based

on these very limited interactions with people who were going through or coming out of this psychosis The test population Yeah, it didn't go through the rigors of a scientific research study So, a slight caveat

there, but it still is It's enlightening for whatever it is And it's still such a unique syndrome, it's such a unique case or case study of what could happen in this particular city

and not the follow-up It's so insanely particular that the lack of follow-up makes sense In my mind, it doesn't discredit it I'll say that Who knows? Who knows, who can figure out this strange human machine of ours

Do you want to go to Jerusalem? No Because I'm susceptible to this dude Other than the religious background, which I don't have all the rest of it easily moved by travel experiences I have a history of mental illness

Candidly, I need some sort of exciting change in my life This could be it I fall I fall right into place I feel pretty similar And I think too, not having been able to travel so much, I'm just like

I'm thirsty for some travel epiphany and it It'd be rough, it would be really rough Listen, I've got the hair I got the guns You really do Let's make this happen

Let's bring the house down Thanks for tuning in If you want more infamy, go to bittersweetinfamy.com or search for us wherever you find podcasts We usually release new episodes every other Sunday You can also follow us on Instagram

at bittersweetinfamy If you liked the show, consider subscribing, leaving a review or just telling a friend Stay sweet The sources that I used for this episode were the article Jerusalem syndrome by

Marel, Ramona Durst Gregory Katz Joseph Zislin Ziva Strauss and Hyene Y. Nohler Published in the year 2000 in the British Journal of Psychiatry I also used the article

spiritual starvation in a holy space a form of Jerusalem syndrome by Moshe Callum Sarah Cattarini Yuriel Heresco Levy and Eliezer Witzutom Published in the Journal

Mental Health, Religion and Culture March 2008 I also read the article Messiah Hunt by Sam McFeeders Published in Vice September 2011 I watched the Simpsons episode The Greatest Story Ever Doed

Season 21 Episode 16 and I read the Wikipedia entries for Jerusalem syndrome the Paris syndrome and the Stendhal syndrome The interstitial music you heard earlier is by Mitchell Collins

or Mitchell Mitchell and the song you are now listening to is Tea Street by Brian Steele Video calls are good for now but there is nothing like going there in person to elevate your business so why not elevate your business

travel while you are at it With the TD Aeroplan Visa Business Card you can earn towards lounge access from everyday purchases plus enjoy a whole suite of travel perks and rewards The TD Aeroplan Visa Business Card Learn more at TD.com

slash Aeroplan Business Conditions Apply by Brian Steele