Lore - Episode 54: Teacher’s Pet

Episode Date: February 20, 2017

The more crowded our world becomes, the more frequently we are confronted with our commonality. Our interests, our passions…even our appearance. But just how similar can we get? Well, that’s the stuff of folklore. * * * Official Lore Website: www.lorepodcast.com Extra member episodes: www.patreon.com/lorepodcast Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support

Gifting the Glen Levitt says, I know I wasn't always the easiest child. It says after everything you've done for me, you deserve better than novelty socks. It says, the best parent in Canada deserves the best single malt scotch in Canada. Parents give their best. Why not return the favor

and give the gift of the Glen Levitt this Father's Day. Discover the single malt collection at the Glen Levitt dot com. Please enjoy responsibly. Music Maria Arana was a Franciscan abyss who lived and worked in Spain during the first half of the 17th century.

Later in life, she would become a prolific author and everywhere she went, she wore the blue garments of her order. But in 1620, when she was just 18, she started to report odd experiences. Maria claimed that she was having incredibly real visions. Visions, she said, of being in a foreign land

far away from Spain. In those dreams, she encountered a tribe of people known as the Humano. But Mary considered these to be more than just dreams. She said that angels were literally transporting her to another place. For over three years, Maria spoke with the Yamano people,

telling them of her work in the church and teaching them as best as she could. And then, in 1623, her visions stopped. Six years later, a group of Native Americans from the western region of modern Texas approached the local Spanish authorities there and asked for a missionary to be sent to their village.

Before agreeing to do so, a local priest asked why. The men said that they'd been visited by a beautiful young woman dressed in blue and that she had taught them many things. Those Native Americans, it turns out, were members of a tribe known as the Humano. And their arrival in 1629,

along with their mysterious connection to a young avis thousands of miles away, have sparked questions that are still impossible to answer, even now. In a world as enormous and enticing as our own, it's easy to see how people would dream of being somewhere else. We long for tropical vacations

or a chance to visit our ancestral home. Right now, you might be in an office or a classroom or sitting in traffic and at the same time, your mind might be on a beach somewhere else entirely. But that's nothing more than a daydream. It can be in two places at once. Or can they?

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. There are nearly 8.5 million people living in New York City at this moment. Los Angeles is home to another 4 million, half of whom are probably sitting in their car on the 101 right now. And there are another 3 million souls in Chicago. Cities can be crowded places, no doubt about it.

And it's not an American problem either. London is home to nearly 9 million human lives. Tokyo has over 13 million, and Shanghai clocks in at over 24 million. Everywhere we go, there's a crowd. And as our cities fill up faster and faster, it's no wonder some people feel a little lost. When there are 5 or 10 or 20 million other humans

buzzing through our streets, how can anyone feel truly unique? How many other people on the subway with you are wearing the same color or the same jacket or sunglasses or headphones? How many other redheads work in your office? How many other guys in your dorm have a beard? The more of us we cram into a small space,

the more our uniqueness becomes typical and common. Which is why we always step back and smile when we see someone who looks a lot like someone else, isn't it? But they are an example of extreme odds, I know. The genetic role of the dice that results in your cousin looking a lot like Brad Pitt or Adrian Brody having more than a passing resemblance to the 17th century philosopher John Locke.

Trust me on that. Look it up. It's crazy. But there's a huge difference between a genetic probability that someone somewhere else in the world might look like us and the belief that a Spanish nun could somehow transport herself around the globe through her dreams. That fantastical feat is what some writers call bi-location, which literally means two locations at once. There are stories involving bi-location sprinkled throughout history.

Centuries ago, claiming to be present in two places at once was seen as an act of witchcraft. In fact, Maria Arana herself was investigated by the Inquisition, sort of a fanatical police force inside the Catholic Church that chased down heresy. In the end, though, they didn't pursue her case. Some historians think that's because her bi-location resulted in true, fruitful missionary work.

While others believed it was because she happened to be good friends with the King of Spain. Either way, her stories were believed. For others, the results weren't so positive. One of the common pieces of evidence brought up during the Salem Witch Trials was, in fact, bi-location. Many of the witnesses who claimed witchcraft had been used against them also claimed

that they saw the witches themselves in spectral form inside their homes. And while the events of the Salem Witch Trial are now looked at as a horrific case of mass hysteria and social prejudice, those who lived through it firmly believed that these things were possible and therefore punishable. In more modern times, bi-location has been viewed

less as an act of witchcraft and more as a mystical ability, however fringe it might seem. Examples are found in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and the occult. Famous occultist Aleister Crowley was known to appear in person in front of many of his friends while actually being far away in another location. In some cultures, these mystical duplicates

are referred to as changelings, and their source is more sinister. Stories of changelings appear in the folklore of Wales, Ireland, Sweden, Poland, and many other places in Europe. And in all of them, the common thread is very dark and very terrifying to parents. Fairies from the dangerous world outside the home will, upon occasion, sneak inside and steal children.

Sometimes they replace the stolen child with an enchanted wooden dummy they call a stock. Other times, they leave their own fairy child in its place. And because humans aren't skilled in caring for fairy babies or, you know, magical blocks of wood, these replacements would always fail to thrive. These tales were often used to warn mothers of the importance of watching their children closely.

But when people felt that a loved one had undergone an inexplicable, dramatic shift in personality, this folklore also became the logical explanation. No, ma'am, your husband hasn't become an angry, abusive monster overnight. He's just been replaced by a changeling. Today, psychologists think these stories have roots in a disorder known as capcara delusion,

where a person believes someone close to them has been replaced with a look-alike imposter. Rather than being the work of elves, though, it's a neurological disorder caused by lesions on the brain. Yet one more example of how science can take the magic out of folklore and replace it with something even more depressing and horrible. But there are other stories that are much harder to explain.

Stories where more than one copy of a person has been witnessed, often times by people of strong reputation or those who can prove their claims. And while these stories have taken place in many different countries, most of them feature a term that we can trace back to one language in particular, German. And that word?

Doppelgänger. The term doppelgänger is one of those misused words slapped on a whole slew of stories in a way that dilutes the true meaning. Do a Google search for celebrity doppelgangers, and you'll find lots of examples of that genetic game of chance I mentioned earlier. Strangers who look eerily like other strangers

aren't doppelgangers in the true sense of the word. Doppelgänger, as I said before, is a German word that means double walker, which admittedly isn't very specific. But in historical context, it's a term that's full of a magical connotation. Another term used interchangeably with doppelganger is the Irish fetch.

The core idea of both words, though, is the sense of seeing the ghost of someone who's still alive, an apparition, or a spectral copy of a living human being. But the key characteristic of doppelgangers isn't what they are, it's what they mean. Because seeing a doppelganger or a fetch, the literal act of seeing one with your own eyes

can have powerful consequences. In fact, one common interpretation is that doppelgangers represent our true desires brought to life. Secondhand stories tell of individuals seeing the very things they wish would happen, or their spectral doubles participating in activities they long for.

One story tells of a farmer who worked so long each day that he was never able to come home and see his family. On multiple occasions, his neighbors saw him walk up to the house in the afternoon and enter through the front door, all while the farmer claimed he had still been working in the fields. Sir Frederick Raj was a British military figure

from the mid-1800s, and he also served as a Member of Parliament for over 20 years. In March of 1905, though, he was sick at home with influenza and wasn't able to travel to London to participate in a debate. He'd spent months preparing for this key political moment

and was, understandably, full of regret and frustration. During the debate in London, though, another Member of Parliament, Gilbert Parker, turned in his seat and noticed Raj sitting toward the back of the room, near the door. Parker later said that Raj looked, and I quote, pallid, steely, and grim.

But after turning away for a moment and then looking back, the sick man was gone. Later, Parker spoke with others in the room, including Sir Arthur Hader and future Prime Minister Henry Campbell Bannerman, and both men confirmed what Parker had witnessed. Raj, they all confirmed, had been in the room,

except he hadn't. He was still at home, sick in bed, and had never left. He wanted to be there, of course, and that, according to some, was enough to send a copy of himself. Some people, however, interpret doppelgangers as a sign

or portent that something dark was about to happen. They're a visual premonition, if you will. A prediction acted out in spectral form right before our eyes. According to one story, English poet John Dunn was privy to just such a vision.

Dunn and his wife Anne had 12 children over the span of their 16-year marriage. In 1612, while his wife was due to give birth to their eighth child, Dunn traveled with a friend to Paris on business, and it was while he was there that he experienced a most

unusual vision. One afternoon, his friend, Sir Robert Drury, entered their apartment to find Dunn in a state of shock. He was pale, almost vacant, and this worried the friend. When Drury pressed him for an explanation, Dunn told an amazing story.

He'd been in his room earlier that day, when his wife appeared before him. But it hadn't been a happy vision. Anne, he said, had been weeping, and in her arms she held a dead child. Later, upon returning home to England,

Dunn learned that his wife had given birth to a stillborn baby on the very morning he'd witnessed her doppelganger. In other situations, seeing a doppelganger of yourself is viewed as an omen of your own impending death, and that's what happened to another writer

in early 1822, according to his own account. Friends reported seeing him numerous times, only to discover that he was actually elsewhere, verifiable by other witnesses. One friend, Jane Williams, lived near the writer on a dead-end street.

One day, she looked through her window to see him pass by, headed in the direction of the dead end. But after waiting for a few minutes, he never walked back. She looked outside and checked the street, but couldn't find a sign of him. He seemed to have seen himself on multiple

occasions, which he reported later to his wife. Once, he claimed he was walking alone on a terrace when a man approached him from the shadows. When the figure's face came into view, the writer was shocked to see that it was his own. And it spoke,

how long, it asked him, do you mean to be content? Later, on July 8th of 1822, he was sailing across the Gulf of Piazza in Italy, when a severe storm struck his boat, causing it to sink.

All three men aboard were drowned, and their bodies washed ashore later that day. It seems that seeing your own doppelganger can, in some cases, truly end in death. The writer's name, by the way, was Percy Bish Shelley.

He was a famous poet, a respected novelist, and a close friend of Lord Byron. But most remember him today as the husband of Mary Shelley, author of the classic horror novel Frankenstein. From the early 12th century

until about a century ago, the region of northern Europe in the 16th century was known as Livonia. It's an ancient name that held on for a very long time, but today that area has become three separate countries of Estonia,

Lithuania, and Latvia. The Latvian town of Almira is an important industrial center today, but two centuries ago, it was home to a prestigious finishing school for girls. The school, known as the Pensiona Noeveca,

was formerly sought after. If you were the daughter of a noble Livonia family, the odds were good that you would be sent there for your education. And in 1845, under the care of Principal Buch, there were 42 young women in residence at the school.

One of those girls was Julie, the daughter of the Baron of Goldenstuba, who was 13 years old at the time. Years later, Julie sat down with the American writer Robert Dale Owens and told him her story, he reprinted in one of his books. It's a story that is,

to say the least, peculiar. In 1845, the school welcomed a new teacher. She was in her early 30s and described as slim with pale blue eyes and chestnut hair. And she'd traveled all the way from her home in Dijon, in eastern France,

although she appears to have also had family right there in Almira. Her name, according to Julie, was Madame Waselle, Emily Sagie. A few weeks after she arrived, the students began to whisper about odd happenings. One of the girls walked into a room

and asked if anyone knew where Madame Waselle Sagie was. One friend replied that she had just seen the teacher in a particular location moments before. Another girl said, no, she had just spotted her in a different room. It struck the girls as odd.

Weeks later, Madame Waselle Sagie was teaching a class of a dozen or so students and was using the blackboard to illustrate her lesson. While her back was to the class, the girls looked up to see a second Madame Waselle Sagie

standing behind the first. They looked alike. They were dressed alike. They even moved with the same gestures. And then, after a few moments, the duplicate vanished. The entire class of girls witnessed it, though, and that made it impossible

which made for a tense moment a few days later, when Madame Waselle Sagie offered to help one of the students clasp a difficult hook on the back of her dress. While standing in front of the mirror, the student looked into the glass to see not one, but two Madame Waselle Sagie's standing behind her.

The girl, frightened by what she saw, fainted instantly. Months went by and more and more encounters were reported by the girls. Sometimes two of her would appear at the dinner table side by side, but only one of the figures would be holding silverware.

And then, just before the holiday season, the strangest event of all took place. All 42 of the students at the school had gathered in one room and were seated together at a long table. They were there to practice their embroidery

and were being supervised by one of the teachers. On one wall of the room, though, was a series of tall glass windows that looked out onto the school's garden and through them, all of the girls could see Madame Waselle Sagie outside, gathering flowers into a basket.

At some point in the lesson, their teacher stood and excused herself from the room. The girls had run out of blue silk and she knew where to find more so she went to retrieve it. A moment later, some of the girls gasped. Madame Waselle Sagie had silently appeared in the vacant chair.

She didn't speak or move, but all 42 of the girls saw her. The trouble was, when they turned back to the windows, they could still see her in the garden, gathering flowers. Two of the students were brave enough to stand up and approach the seated figure

and even tried to touch her. They later compared this sensation to pressing your fingertips to loose fabric. There was resistance, but very little of it. When the school went out for the holidays that year, all of the girls went home and told their parents about the unusual

events. And true to form, most of them were furious. How dare the school expose their daughters to such a bad influence. When school resumed weeks later, Principal Buch was shocked to learn that only 12 of the original 42 students

had returned. Worried for the financial security and their reputation of the school, the principal had no choice but to fire Emily Sagie. Julie Golden Stuba was one of the few who returned, and she claimed to have heard the teacher exclaim something to the effect of

oh no, not again. When Julie asked her about this, Sagie replied that this wasn't the first time that this had happened, or even the second. According to her, it had happened to her 18 times before. Julie also noted that Emily Sagie

had remained in town for a few months after being fired. Apparently, her sister-in-law lived there and Sagie had moved in and tried to find work in town. Julie knew this because she had actually gone to visit her there. When she arrived at the house,

Julie claims that she was greeted by several young children. According to her, when she asked them where she might find Emily Sagie, the children shook their heads. They didn't know, but they told her that it was never difficult to find her. With expressions of wonder,

they said that they often saw and I quote, too, Aunt Emily's. Maybe we look for similarities because it helps us fight loneliness in a crowded world. Maybe we need those moments when we see someone else who looks

a lot like someone we know, or a celebrity, or that college roommate we haven't seen in years. When we're all so very different, those similarities are like footholds, giving us a place to stand, to feel safe, to find comfort.

There's a bit of a rush when you see someone else wearing the same concert t-shirt you have on, or reading the same book as you in the cafe. That's one of the paradoxes of being human. We strive for individuality and yet we long for inclusion. So it's no wonder

that people, for centuries, have claimed to see their body double, or a duplicate of a friend or family member. On some level, it's just more of that same grasping for familiarity, isn't it? But how can over 40 students all have the same delusions?

How can events repeat themselves month after month, then all be explained away as just figments of the imagination? Where do we draw the line between those who can't be taken for their word and those who must? One final story.

In November of 1860, a man found himself at the end of a very long, very exhausting day. Thankful to finally be home, he wandered into his bedroom and sat down on a lounge. Think of it as sort of a couch with no back, and maybe a head rest

on one end. But after a long day on his feet, even a wooden bench would have felt amazing, I'm sure. He closed his eyes and felt exhaustion rush over him, and then slowly lowered himself to lay down. Just a moment, he thought, that's all I need,

just a little bit of rest. Then he opened his eyes again. Straight ahead, just a few feet away was a dresser with a mirror on top, the sort that can be pivoted to point up or down as your needs require. And the mirror appeared to have been

tilted down enough that he could see himself stretched out there on the couch. But when he saw his face, he caught his breath. There were two of them, not one. He sat up in horror and looked at the mirror again, but the duplicates were gone. He shook his head,

probably mumbled something about being too tired to see straight, and then lowered himself back down once more. And there, in the mirror, he saw it again, two copies of his own face looking back at him. He later told a friend that the faces

were slightly different from each other. One of them, he said, seemed normal and what he might expect to find from any mirror. The other, though, seemed much more pale, more sickly, almost dead, in fact. He shook it off for a while,

but later that evening he told his wife about it, and she didn't like what she heard. Now, maybe it was her Irish and English heritage, or perhaps it was just something she learned later in life, but the man's wife called it an omen, and not a good one. Much as it

pained her to say it, the sign was clear. Her husband was fated to die unexpectedly sooner rather than later. The doppelganger lore is pretty clear about it after all. Seeing your double can only end in tragedy. And it did.

Less than five years later, a stranger held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. And just who was that man in the mirror? The 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. This episode of Lore was written and produced

by me, Aaron Mankey, with research help from Marsette Crockett. Lore is much more than a podcast. There's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season of the Amazon Prime television show was recently released. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.

I also make two other podcasts. Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn about both of those

shows and everything else going on all over in one central place. The World of Lore.com slash now. And you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button.

When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye.