Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 467 - Russian Wizards, Witches, and Folk Magic, Oh My!

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

Did you know that roughly a million people in Russia today make their living as some kind of wizard, witch, or folk healer? And that some of the most popular TV programs in Russia in the '90s were presentations of psychic healers and self-proclaimed sorcerers? Russians have a long history of believing in magic, with old Slavic spiritual beliefs surviving Russia's past Christian takeover thanks to Russia's system of dual beliefs. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch.

Today we talk about magic, Russian style, magic and not the card trick in Las Vegas David Copperfield style illusion kind, but spells and curses, believed in by many today in Russia, where nearly a million people actually make their living right now is some kind of wizard or witch. Magic is alive and well in Russia, or at least a bunch of grifting bullshitters are alive and well and bilking the desperate. But maybe there's some good ones too. The kind of magic being performed goes back to even before Christianity. showed up in Mother Russia. Our Cold War foe has a long-unstoried history with wizards, sorcerers, witches, and warlocks. As written in the encyclopedia of religion and ethics, in no other

quarter of Europe has magic, and all its various forms assumed by it from the dawn of history to the present day, exercise so great a sway as in the Baltoslavic countries. From wizards practicing occult rituals and rural village bathhouses to modern-day witches publicly advertising their services and newspapers and online, magic is intertwined with the nation's history. And since the 10th century, magic and Orthodox Christianity have co-existed in Russia in a system called dual belief. There was even a time when Orthodox priests incorporated pagan magical rituals into Russia's Christian holidays. Witches and wizards were and still are seen by many in Russia and elsewhere in Eastern and Southern Europe as practitioners possessing

vast hidden knowledge, a deep connection to nature, and powers. They can both heal and destroy. It has thought they can cure any and all health problems, help one find love, financially ruin one's enemies, or help one achieve wealth beyond your wildest dreams. Belief in folk magic has, of course, shifted and evolved over the centuries with the introduction of Western texts and beliefs. There's been a divide.

Now there is so-called high magic, aka Western magic, and low, Russian, peasant folk magic. For centuries, the czar's hired court physicians with knowledge of high, magic and astronomy, while simultaneously attempting to outlaw low folk magic. But they were never able to erase it from Russian culture, and it's managed to survive to the present day, where it currently is having a post-pandemic resurgence and renaissance. And Russia, belief in magic has led to political conflicts, murders, corruption, even the overthrowing of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, when the Russian people grew increasingly concerned over Rasputin the mad monk's magical hold over the minds of Russian

royalty. In this week's strange, fascinating, and what the fuck is actually happening unusual episode. We'll cover the historical context of magic and Russia, various elements of folk magic, and a timeline of notable events in the country's recent history that involve witches and warlocks and spells, oh my. Let's make some magic this week, or at least learn about it, and maybe make fun of some of it in this week's very Russian, very wild, and very, very weird edition of TimeSuck. This is Michael McDonald, and you're listening to TimeSuck. You're listening to TimeSuck.

Well, happy Monday, and welcome or welcome back to The Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Cummins. Suck Wizard, Weirdo, lover of strange Russian facts, and you are listening to TimeSuck. Hail Nimrod, Hail Lucifina, praise B to Good Boy, Bojangles, and of course, Glory B to Triple M. One announcement, and then we're off, the Bad Magic Street Team. 2025 is coming. Monday, September 8th at noon Pacific time is when the stickers go live on our website, bad magic productions.com.

The last six rounds have been an absolute blast. Thanks for slapping those stickers all around the world, literally. We love receiving emails and social media tags showing off these stickers. You know, we still look at them years later. Once again, we're giving away a $200 merch credit for just slapping stickers around your neck of the woods or wherever you might be traveling. The stickers are free, but there will only be 500 sticker packs available. Their first come, first serve, once they're gone, that's it. And they are one sticker pack per person.

Once you receive your stickers, all you have to do is slap them all over the place, snap a pick of where you put them, post that pick on Instagram and Facebook using the hashtag Bad Magic Street Team. And that's it. The winner will be announced Monday, November 3rd. on socials and on the shows, but we do record ahead of time, so our personal announcement may be delayed. So keep an eye on socials. That's how we'll reach you if we cannot find your email attached to your sticker order. Obligatory legal disclaimer.

Bad magic will not be held liable for misplaced or illegally placed stickers. Please use discretion and be smart, but also get creative and have some fun. And now, let's get magical. Russian magical. kicking shit off today with an overview of how folk magic has developed over the course of Russian history, followed by a timeline of more recent culturally significant events involving both magic and the magicians claiming to wield it. For many Russians, folk magic, superstition, and spiritual beliefs seen as strange by many in the West are just a part of normal daily life. And they have been since long, long before, you know, anyone ever known alive in Russia today was ever born.

Let's look to the very beginning of Russia to learn how magic becomes incorporated with Russian culture. The very founding of Russia is partially based on myth and legend. Russia, as we know, it was founded over a thousand years ago in the city of Veliki Novgorat. Typically referred to now as just Novgorod. According to the BBC, at first glance, Novgorod located roughly 200 kilometers or 125 miles south of St. Petersburg along the Volkov River, appears frozen in Soviet times, with nothing to suggest it could be anywhere special. The train station stands quiet, while the streets, lined with nondescript concrete buildings feel undernourished. But at one time, the city was very special, very special when it comes to Russian history.

In the 9th century, CE, Novgorod was a trading settlement along a major Varanjian, aka Viking, trade route between Scandinavia and Greece. It was continually full of hustling merchants, peddling their goods from the Mediterranean. and from the lands of the Vikings both. And Novgorod became famous for supplying traders with luscious and lavish local furs. The Novgorodians have been fighting with other neighboring communities for centuries, and they were now looking for some order and stability. So they invited a Varangian chief, or Varangian chief, Prince Rurik. It may be more myth than man to help establish a proper government along with a potent army.

Rurik traveled from Scandinavia to take control to the city in 862 CE, and that year is the year most agreed upon is the origin of Madrachia. After Rurik died 17 years later in 879, if he ever lived at all and was more than a fairy tale. Another Varengian Oleg the Wides thought by some historians to be related somehow to Rurik, thought by others to be a military commander who fought alongside or under Rurik, took power and expanded the empire, taking land as far north as St. Petersburg and as far south as Keeve. he took the title as the prince of Kiev, and he united Slavic and Finnish tribes to form Kiev and Rus, the first East Slavic state. Kiev, pronounced in Russia as Kiev,

became its capital 20 years later. Since I'm talking about Russian, not Ukrainian history, I'll try and use that pronunciation going forward of Kiev. The term Kiev and Rus, coined by historians in the 19th century, to describe the period from the 9th century to the mid-13th century when Kiev was pre-eminent in Russia. Leaders of Kiev and Rus were granted autonomy, which allowed the state to prosper. For example, leaders of Novgorod or Novgorod were elected.

They had term limits, the first form of democratic government within Russia. Prince Rurik will, over time, be believed to be more of a mythical than historical figure, as I alluded to. The Soviet Union will actually reject him as the founder of Russia, claiming he was never a real person. Soviets, they never cared much for superstition, religious. and myth and folklore. While Rurik may not have been real, everyone seems to agree that his successor, Oleg, was an actual person. But even with his history, whatever the truth was has been blended with myth and legend.

For example, according to Russian origin legends, pagan priests of the time prophesied that Oleg would die by his stallion and that Oleg sent his prize horse away in an attempt to defy the prophecy. Then many years later, he asked to see his horse, was told that it had died, he asked to see the bones. I don't know why you would need to see the bones of your old dead horse, but he did in this myth. And then when Oleg touched the horse's skull with his boot, a venomous snake slithered out and bit him fulfilling the prophecy. And I highly fucking doubt that ever happened.

But it's a cool story. And who doesn't love a cool story? The early Slavs were big into cool stories, prophecies, curses, and overall belief in a very magical world. They worshipped ancestors. They believed in a wide range of nature and house spirits. one of their deities was Makash literally translated as Moist Mother Earth

Not just Mother Earth Moist Mother Earth Mother Earth Makash or Makash was the goddess of women, children animals I don't know if she was also the goddess of wet pussies

with the moist part I'm not sure I think it's more just talking about rain with the moisture She was strongly connected to fertility fertility and moisture obviously interconnected essential to agriculture

need those seeds to sprout, take root, need water to make them grow. Early Russians had more of an agricultural society that a hunter-gatherer society in their lives, you know, very dependent on this fertility and moisture, which helped make them a large and integral part of their religious beliefs, much like just about every other place in the world at this time. Every Slavic religion, like many ancient world religions, focused heavily on the feminine, the mother god before the rise of Christianity. no deity more revered or considered to be higher than Makash. Lucifina likes that.

Hail Lucifina. Within a few centuries, though, the father god of Christianity would push Makash to the shadows. And his push began in the city of Novgorod. Vladimir the great, prince of Novgorod, also grand prince of Kiev, who lived from 958 to 1015 CE and ruled for most of his life, he decided he would unite the country under one religion after a series of religious conflicts between Christians and pagans. Religious diversity, bad for the kingdom. Still is bad for a lot of parts of the world, right? I mean, look what's happening in Israel. You know, the roots of the current horrible conflict, and at this point

it was looking more and more by the day like an attempt of genocide, you know, are religious. Judaism versus Islam. Both religions have long held the land of Palestine slash Israel is holy, and interpretations of the respective scriptures are used by many to Jews. justified divine claims to the land and here we are simply simplifying things a bit there but not by much actually uh vladimir the great was tired of dealing with similar divisions so he sent out scholars to study various religions from around the world and in the end he chose orthodox christianity as the state religion and vladimir himself converted to christianity at nine 87 c e and now if you wanted favor with the crown you better worship the king's god soon after the introduction of

Christianity. Construction began on the Cathedral of St. Sophia, the wisdom of God. Actually, thought that was a typo, but it's not. Russian names, they just never translate with any like real flow in English. Construction began on Cathedral of San Sophia, the wisdom of God. In the old girl. And now it's the oldest church. And Russia is still in operation. I was also one of the first to feature the famous onion domes that characterized a lot of Russian architecture. Interestingly, despite its importance to Russia's early history, Novgorod will become the capital of the Novgorod Republic in 1136 and will not become a part of Russia again until Moscow conquers it in 1478 C.E. Divided into little principalities for a bit. After the Orthodox

Christian Church came to power, many idols were destroyed in the city of Kiev and Novgorod, but animism and ancestor worship continued. And not just in secret, but also openly in many areas, through rituals, stories, magical charms, other practices of Russian peasants, and as it's so often the case in an area where a new dominant religion attempts to displace the beliefs of the people that came before it, old beliefs merged with new ones between the two spiritual practices. Certain pagan deities and objects to worship became Christian saints, and some pagan holidays were kept but renamed. For example, on Trinity Day, the first Sunday after Pentecost and the 50th day after Easter. Peasant girls would honor the Slavic spirits called the Rusalka, also associated with

fertility, to commemorate ancestors and practice divination rituals considered to be magical. Centuries later, these spirits and rituals associated with them would be demonized by Christians, and instead of being benevolent entities associated with fertility and moisture, once believed to come out of the water in the spring to transfer life-giving moisture to the fields and thus help nurture or the crops that fed everyone, they became demonic, evil. Young women who either died by suicide by drowning due to an unhappy marriage,

they might have been jilted by their lovers or abused and harassed by much older husbands or violently drowned against their will, especially after becoming pregnant with unwanted children. Well, they would now be doomed to wander the earth as a Rusalka. Pretty fucked up, right? The woman gets abused in life and then she has to wander the earth as an angry spirit and death?

It was like the dude who harassed her. Should be stuck wandering the earth. He should be doomed. But, you know, patriarchy. It's never had anything to do with logic. These spirits would now haunt the watery areas where women were drowned to lure young men, seduced by either the now malevolent spirit's looks or her voice into the depths of the water, where she would then entangle their feet with her long hair and submerge and drown them.

Her body would become very slippery and not allow the victim to cling on to her body in order to reach the surface. The pagan beliefs of the ancient Slavs, beliefs, and spirits like these are documented in some old Russian folk tales. There's evidence of folk tales as early as the 12th century, but they're almost certainly much, much, much older, much older copies anymore today. Or they were just, you know, not written down for a long time. One of the reasons we don't have, you know, older written records is because the Christian church, as it became more powerful in early Russia, just like it would do elsewhere, you know, began to strongly suppress and destroy non-Christian stories, you know, and the dispersion. of any material related to them for a while doing that became punishable by death heresy we know about a lot of old pagan russian entities thanks to russian fairy tales those that survived the tested time many were translated into english in the late nineteenth century some of the most well-known works being russian folk tales published in eighteen seventy three and translated by william ralston and tales and legends from the land of the czar published in eighteen ninety and translated by edith hodgetts But now let me back up. In 1237, the Mongol Empire, a Mongol Empire, led by Batu Khan, a grandson, a former time-sex

subject, Genghis Khan, and founder of the Golden Horde invaded Kiev and Rus, an established rule destroying major cities like Kiev and Moscow and replacing a democratic society with a form of feudalism. Oh, and they are thought to have killed about a half million Russian men, women, and children, roughly 7% of the total population. It said that the Mongolian great-Konat army rolled into Kiev and Roos. with approximately 120,000 highly skilled mounted archers, and that's fucking terrifying. And they crushed the Russians in about a month.

It only took them that long because, you know, they had some territory to traverse. According to the Novgorod First Chronicle, the oldest surviving chronicle of Russian history, quote, they likewise killed the prince and princess, and men, women and children, monks, nuns, and priests, some by fire, some by the sword, they violated nuns, priests, wives, good women and girls in the presence of their mothers and sisters. Oh, the Mongols. Holy shit. Was that really not a good time to be alive? They didn't fuck around. Russia now became part of the Golden Horde, or the northwestern Mongol Empire, that have been established a dozen years prior in 1225, and will now last in some form until 1502 C.E.

But well before the horde finally dies, the plague, aka the black death. Starting in the mid-14th century will begin the golden horde's disintegration. Some Russian princes will win a victory over the hordeaux in 1380, but in retaliation, the Mongolians will sack and burn Moscow in 1882 and reestablish control over the Russians. By the 15th century, though, the horde had been broken down through infighting and disputed claims of succession into several smaller conates or principalities, the most important being Crimea, Astrakhan, and Kazan. The last surviving remnant was destroyed by the Crimean Khan in 1502. The demise of the Golden Horde allowed for the rise of the Grand Duchy of Moscow,

also known as the, or as, Muscovite Russia. Moscovy or Muscovy had become a distinct principality during the second half of the 13th century under the rule of Prince Daniel. It was located in the middle of forest at the intersection of important trade routes, was protected from invasion, and in 1326, it became the permanent residence of the Russian Metropolitan, a.k.a. senior bishop of the Orthodox Church. The princes of Muscovy have been given the title of Grand Prince of Vladimir from their Mongolian overlords, which allowed them to click tributes for the Khan and strengthen their financial and political

positions. Novgorod was also its own state at one point, but it was threatened by Moscow's growing power. The conflict between the two states came to a head in 1471 when the Novgorodian army accidentally clashed with Muscovite forces in the Battle of Voskow. Sheldon, and Novgorodian leaders were forced to surrender to Muscovite rule. 19th century writer Alexander Herzn, opined that if Novgorod had conquered Moscow, the Russian empire would have never existed. It was Ivan III, a.k.a. Ivan the Great, who freed Russia from Mongolian control and consolidated Muscovite rule in 1470, reigning until his death in 1505, almost through these numbers now. Half a century later, another former time-suck subject,

Ivan the Terrible will become the first Tsar of Russia, ruling from 1547 to 1584, he was the grandson of Ivan the Great, expanded Muscovite territory into Siberia, and instituted his infamous reign of terror against nobility and others. remember that son of a bitch we covered him a long time ago during what came to be known as the massacre of novgorod in 1570 ivan fearing the city might defect to lithuania personally led his feared secret police in a brutal five-week massacre where thousands were killed in some pretty unique and terrible ways for example men women and even children were tied to slaves and pushed into the freezing volkov river anyone who surfaced stabbed or struck with axes by waiting soldiers He had those who opposed converting to Christianity, regularly drowned, and his secret police ran roughshod over the country terrorizing, raping, torturing, and murdering thousands. And then he died of a stroke in 1584. Reconnecting all of this now to the topic at hand, following Ivan's death, an honest-to-god wizard, Chiquetilo the Black, ruled the return of Russia. I send many great fireball upon enemy and village people who not bend to

will of mine, I send them run to forests with many scream and much great terror. Sometime I use magic spell to paralyze many sexy women who make fun of limp shame wand, who I wrestle and share a seed with. What is a big deal? I'm a powerful wizard. I get to want for fun. And yes, serial killer, Andre Chiquitillo in the 20th century, direct descendant of Chiquitillo the Black.

Seriously now, reconnecting all of this with the topic at hand, during Russia's period folk magic and Christianity both held significant cultural influence right there's still around uh folk magic is still around christianity of course around our main source for the history of how folk magic impacted society in politics back then is the bath house at midnight a historical survey of magic and divination in russia by w f ryan published in 1999 i'll refer to this book a lot today. Ryan, who died not too long ago in 2023, was a British professor, librarian, and scholar of Russian language and culture, and was considered at one time to be the world's leading expert on Russian magic and witchcraft. Some of Russia's magical traditions can be linked to the influence

of the Byzantine Empire. Kievan Rus was part of the Byzantine Commonwealth, a term for the area where Byzantine influence was spread by the Byzantine Empire and its missionaries during the Middle Ages. Unlike the Western Church, with its Latin, Eastern Orthodox churches, though, not able to impose a common liturgical, or canon law language. Old Church Slavonic, a form of Macedonian, dialect of Bulgarian, became the language of the South and East Slavs, meaning the Slavs interaction with Byzantine writings was all through translation. Because the translators were clergy, they did not focus on secular literature, including philosophy and scientific texts. Orthodox Slavs translated fewer scientific and philosophical works from the Byzantine Empire

than Western or Middle Eastern kingdoms. No complete major work of Greek philosophy, science, or history was translated during that time. Because of that, European advances in knowledge, any and all knowledge, pretty much, were much slower to make their way to Russia, and the old ways were able to endure and take root a lot longer there. You know, to endure longer, take firmer root, I guess. It's possible Russia's secular literary history would have improved more than it did, if not for the damn Mongol invasion in the 13th century, which, quote, completed the disintegration of the Kievan state of dynastically linked principalities after a decline which had begun in the 12th century. According to author W.F. Ryan, the Russians were unfortunate in that the Byzantine cultural influence in Kiev-Rus did not extend much beyond the monastic sphere. and while Kiev's northern successor, Muscovite Russia, would eventually aspire as the only major

free Orthodox state after the fall of Byzantium in 1453, to the leadership of the Orthodox world and imperial status it did not acquire many of the benefits of Byzantine high culture. Neither Kievan Rus nor Muscovite Russia had an equivalent of scholasticism or Renaissance. There were no universities, only occasional schools, and no learned professions. According to Richard Kike Heffert, oh Dick Heffert, author of Magic in the Middle Ages published in 1989, quote, one of the clearest distinctions between high and popular culture in medieval, aka Western Europe, is that intellectuals derive many of their conceptions of magic from their reading of classical literature. But that wasn't the case in Russia.

And things started to feel a little backwoodsy in Mother Russia. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century, there was an influx of divinatory texts and quote an intensification of apocalyptic modes of thought. The remains of Kiev-Rousse, the southwestern principalities in Ukraine and Belarus, fell to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, one of the successors to Kiev and Rus, but not as powerful as Muscovite Russia, and became part of the Polish sphere of cultural influence with Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Islamic elements, therefore much closer culturally to Western Europe. Ryan wrote in his book

The newer kinds of magic and divination Which came to Russia as part of the Byzantine heritage Were not, as I have indicated, The learned treatises Or mathematically complicated horoscopes of the Greek world What Christianity did bring through the Bible And patristic literature Was a familiarity at least with the popular notions

of magic and divination prevalent in the ancient East And classical antiquity. Russia's Byzantine heritage and its Orthodox Christianity brought with its superstitious practices such as amulets, divination from thunder and lightning, predictions, and many spells and rituals. To quote again from Ryan's book, most of these, to judge from extant texts are fairly late importations by way of the South Slavs, and one must conclude that the coal porters, people employed by religious societies to sell Bibles and other religious tracts, who sold were the clergy, who until quite recent times, continued to be practitioners of magic and divination amongst the East and South Slavs, both Orthodox and Catholic. But there was also, of course, a more unambiguously Western European influence with text translated from Latin and later from Western vernaculars. And if in a Kiev ruses, it was the clergy, which appears to have been the main importer of Byzantine magical texts and practices, the prime movers in importing occult sciences from the West in Damascovy were its rulers.

For example, in the 15th century, it was common for the Grand Princes of Moscow to import physicians to their court who had so-called magical knowledge. one of those physicians was nicholas bulao aka nicholas of lubek or just nicholas the german employed by ivan the third uh he had knowledge of astronomy and astrology was part of some new calendar computations done at the end of the 15th century he was credited with introducing the hortis sanitatis fucking hate latin it's latin for a garden of health a text that contain information on the believed magical properties of stones some astrological medicine a bit of talk about dragons and more And now, now we're into the fun stuff. You feeling down? Don't you worry. Did you know that deep blue gemstones, lapis lazuli, can ward off melancholy? Oh, yeah. Just get yourself big, beautiful blue necklace and start smiling.

Are you insecure about your hairline? Well, I have a fix for that. The burnt remains of a sea hair. This type of mollusk, it'll cure baldness. So get to swimming. Go out there and find some sea hairs. Grab them. And crush those motherfuckers into an ashy paste.

and then rub that paste onto your bald spot. And then, well, I don't know. It doesn't really save to do after that other than just like, you know, not be bald. However, warning, if a pregnant woman so much has even lays eyes on one of these sea hairs, even just one time, she will spontaneously eject her fucking baby. Fucking sea hairs. Very risky critters. Be careful.

Suffering from panic attacks? Don't worry. All you have to do to never worry about that again is wear a necklace made mostly of dolphin teeth. So since you're already hunting for sea hares, well, club a few flippers. Beat them to death, cut out their teeth, and make yourself a real pretty necklace that'll never make anybody sad ever when you tell them it's a bunch of dolphin teeth. If there's one thing I've never heard of anybody getting sad about, it's dolphins being killed or having their teeth ripped out. You want to have sex, but not get pregnant?

Well, throw your condoms, birth control pills, and more in the trash, and just shove some literal elephant shit up in your front butt. It'll help your virgines stay clean and smelling great. while also blocking pesky sperm. You want to have a baby? Just get yourself a unicorn. Not even kidding. Just go fucking stop. Stop complaining about, oh, I'm having a hard time getting pregnant.

Shut the fuck up and get a unicorn. Spend time with it. Hold it, pet it, tell it how cute it is. Feed it some, I don't know, it doesn't say what unicorns eat. Carrots, apples probably, maybe some wheat. Then go have sex. Then come back. Pay your unicorn some more.

Fucking boom, bingo, bango. You got a baby. right the magic of the unicorn we'll see to that a lot of incredible and also very practical knowledge and advice in this old book i joke but actually a lot of the stuff in this book was was actually useful for example the book advised taking ground-up willow bark for a headache and there truly is a natural pain reliever in willow bark salison it's a compound similar to the active pain-killing ingredient and aspirin the human body converts salic acid and salicylic acid and salicylic acid it has an anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties,

so super cool. The Hortes sanitatis was more about herbal remedies than anything else, including magic, and was mostly probably used as a, like, a medical reference book, a medical encyclopedia by medieval doctors to try and treat whatever was alien medieval people. I do picture them having that unicorn consultation, you know, some couple, you know, trying to have a baby,

they're having trouble, and this guy's trying to keep a strong. straight face. It's like, but you know, just go, just get a unicorn. Just go find one and just have it be your pet. Where do we find a unicorn? I, that, uh, the woods. They're in the woods. Uh, there's a hill south of town. I saw one the other day. Um, that's, that's on you, you know, I'm a doctor. I'm not a unicorn catcher, right? So go look for it. Best luck. Uh, for the next two centuries. Until the time of Peter the Great, Russian rulers continued to have a strong interest in magic, alchemy, and astrology. They kept up the practice of hiring court physicians who kept

coming to Russia despite the risk of literal execution if they displeased the princes and that is some serious job pressure like sometimes i've definitely felt the pressure of uh you know if i don't keep a certain amount of you people happy and coming back for more i won't have enough of an audience keep making money with time suck that i'm out of a job and the show's over uh that pressure over the years you know it's felt stressful in moments but fucking way more stressful to think that if i don't keep a certain amount of you entertained you will form an angry mob find me and kill me. This podcast would sound a lot different under that kind of pressure, real shaky. Well, how good to the cold security side? How long so much? You're the best.

You always been the best and I'm really excited that you're here and I really hope you love today's topic. Definitely without a doubt I did my best. I did my best. I swear to God, I gave it my all like I always do. I promise. If there's literally anything that you don't like, if there's anything that upset you even a tiny bit, just email me. I'll change. God knows I can change. Anyway, eventually there came a divide in society in Russia between what was considered high, cool magic, came from the West, that new shit, and low old grandpa folk magic, common amongst the peasants, you know, what's new was cool and what's old was out. Same kind of shit that often happens today. W.F. Ryan wrote, the new interest of Muscovite sovereigns in Western magical arts together with their continuing interest in. and fear of indigenous magic shows that cultural divisions, which were to culminate in the 18th century, was already beginning.

On the one hand, there were texts, practices, and beliefs, which were imported exotic, occasionally blended with serious scientific ideas and largely restricted to court in high official circles. These could be classified as high culture. And on the other hand, there was the low culture of popular magic and medicine, mixed with the older Byzantine textual tradition of minor divinatory texts, and like many of their Western counterparts, The czars were quite capable of legislating against and savagely repressing the very practices in which they themselves indulged. And that kind of shit still happens today, right? Politicians outlined something they themselves continue to indulge in, like alcohol during prohibition or marijuana right now. And before we continue with this examination of Russia's historical association with magic, time for our first of two-mitchell sponsor breaks. If you don't want to hear these ads, please sign up to be a space lizard on Patreon.

get the catalog ad free episodes three days early and more thanks for listening to those ads and now let's check in with peter the great western influence on russia culminated with the rule of peter the great who reign from 1682 to 1725 long reign 43 years big peter and unlike his father alexis peter the great was not interested in magic he was more focused on importing western technology, administration, and manners. He also shifted the seat of power in Russia from Moscow to St. Petersburg in the early 18th century. After Peter, no other ruler would display any particular interest in magic in the occult until

Nicholas II, the last czar, when his wife became infatuated, as we learned a long time ago here in the suck verse, with Rasputin, the mad monk. Oh, Rasputin. Raja Rastrichton, lover of the Russian queen, there was a cat that really was gone. Rara Rasputin Russia Sing along if you know the words It was a shame how we carried on I can't believe I'd never heard that Boney M song

Before the Rasputin S episode A video of a live performance of that song That's why I was just playing right now on YouTube 685 million views Wow According to Ryan, Russia since Peter the Great has followed Western Europe In a pattern of cultural development

in which high culture has rejected magic. And most of the forms of magic and divination described in this book became the low culture of the uneducated, amusements for the bourgeois, or simply games for children. The Bolsheviks that followed the Russian czar is driven by their Marxist ideology

and commitment to atheism will view Russian folk magic, like other religious and superstitious beliefs, poorly, as part of a backward and exploitive past. Folk magic wasn't specifically outlawed, but if you were some kind of fucking wizard and became too popular the communists would feel threatened and you would get your head cracked be sent to a gulag on some trumped-up charges maybe disappear altogether forever but russian wizardry

did not go away and as i mentioned earlier is very much still alive today oh is it now let's take a closer look some different aspects of russian folk magic and get into the fun weeds of all of this to start we need to understand the russian concept of double belief or dual belief as written in rinds the bathhouse at midnight, Russian historians frequently characterize popular religion in Russia as part of double belief. Sometimes this is defined as the coexistence of two separate belief systems, Christian and pagan, sometimes as the deliberate and simultaneous acceptance by communities of Christianity and paganism, sometimes as syncretism. The Moscow Times also wrote in an article, compared to Western culture where witchcraft is considered a satanic perversion

of religion, Russian paganism and witchcraft have generally co-existed alongside the Orthodox Christian religion for centuries in a dual belief system amongst the folk. Paul Buschkovich wrote in religion and society in Russia, no presently known sources exist that could unambiguously reveal the beliefs and values of the greater part of the rural population. However, Russian chronicles and religious texts, including lists of banned books, do show evidence of a lot of magic in early Russia. in the late 15th and early 16th centuries Russian encyclopedia works

were supplemented by non-B Byzantine texts primarily translations of Hebrew texts from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and this included two tracks on logic and texts on astronomy and cosmography which included calendar computation the most important of these texts by far was the Secretum Secretorum

aka Secret of Secrets That's a fucking scammy sounding book I've ever heard one by the secret of secrets now for only $999 and know all knowledge. This book was produced in the 9th or 10th century first produced. It was an encyclopedia of advice and a variety of subjects ranging from statecraft to medicine and esoteric knowledge purporting to have been written for Alexander the Great by Aristotle. I had to read that sentence about 17 fucking times to get it right.

Anyway, modern scholarship finds it likely to have been originally written in Arabic, well over a thousand years after Aristotle's death translated into Latin in the mid-12th century it was very influential amongst European intellectuals during the high Middle Ages. An old Russian version was first published in modern times in 1908. It had been translated from Hebrew,

likely at the end of the 15th century in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. According to Ryan, the Secretim is notable in that it is not only a work which would appeal to Russians because of its association with popular Alexander's stories, but also because of its advocacy of astrology and the fact that it contained an onomantic table for predicting the outcome of battles,

the first alchemical text in old Russian, a description of the magical properties of precious stones and magical talismans, and two separate works of physiognomy. This book was one of the most read texts of the high Middle Ages. And actually some sources say that outside of the Bible, no other book was as popular as this one for the entire Middle Ages in Europe. One of the well-known passages found in the, or found in the secret of secrets, is the emerald tablet, purportedly originally written by Hermes Trismogismus, trismogistus, e.k.a. Hermes the thrice greatest. A supposed ancient Greek sage from the first few centuries BC, a mythical figure thought to have been created by combining Hermes, the Greek messenger god of interpretive communication

and more with Athoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom, writing, and magic, a combination that makes sense, since Hermes is thought to have been derived from Thoth, essentially the Greek version of the older Egyptian god, and then the Romans will later come to know this same God as Mercury. One religion, giving birth to another, new ideas rooted in old ones, new gods coming from old ones. That's something that's been happening for as long as there has been religion, if you spend any time looking into the historical roots of both major and minor religions. The Emerald Tablet was a magical object, said to have been discovered in Hermes' tomb back when a fair amount of people thought that Hermes was fucking real and therefore had a tomb.

And this emerald tablet supposedly had magical alchemical and real instructions for producing the philosopher's stone and thus making gold. The philosopher's stone is a mythic alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals like mercury into gold or silver, also long known as the tincture or the powder. Here is Sir Isaac Newton's translation of the emerald tablet in the English. which he completed sometime in either the late 1680s or the early 1690s. "'Tis true, without line, certain and most true. "'That which is below is like that which is above,

"'and that which is above is like that which is below "'due to the miracle of only one thing. "'And as all things have been and arose from one by the meditation of one, "'so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation. "'The sun is its father, the moon, its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly the earth is its nurse the father of all perfect the father of all perfection and the whole world is here its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth separate thou the earth from the fire the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry it ascends from the earth to the heaven and again it descends to the earth and receives the force of things superior and inferior by this means you shall have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you. Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing. So is the world created. From this are and do come admirable adaptations,

where of the means is here in this, hence I am called Hermes Trismogistus, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. That which I have said of the operation of the sun is accomplished and ended. So, what the fuck did all that just mean? I think it means that Wackadoodle speaking and mysterious, but ultimately pretty fucking nonsensical word salad, pretending to know more than the rest of us have been around for a

long, long time. Oh, people who talk mysteriously. How fun. Refocusing on Russia now, although that the Secret of Secrets was very popular in medieval Russia, knowledge of magical texts and practices in 16th century Muscovite Russia came mainly from two other works.

The Stoglav, aka the book of 100 chapters, and the Damestroy, aka rules for Russian households. The Stoglav is the account of the deliberations of the 1551 Church Council in Moscow, which was summoned by Ivan the Terrible. The Stoklov consists of questions submitted by the Tsar on superstitions, irreligious practices, and abuses within the church, and the formal answers of the council. for example chapter 5 question 11 concerns women who baked communion bread these women allegedly sold bread to people who wanted to pray for the dead or for their own health and the women cast spells over the bread with the names of the beneficiary the council ruled that the women who bake this bread should only be allowed to make a cross on the bread and only pray to jesus and not add all of their scary other pagan witchery only jesus magic please chapter 41 questions three concerns, people who brought soap to the church, and asked for it to be left on the altar for six weeks, because at the time, soap was thought to be a magical antidote to evil magic. And that is hilarious to me. Uh-uh, necromancer! Not today, Satan! Hex away, motherfucker!

Do you have any idea how much soap I have enough to wash away all your evil spells, wizard? I got so much soap for you. Watching you will wade hell! I was like a remix I'm working on. Chapter 41. Question 17 states, In our kingdom, in our kingdom, Orthodox Christians are in conflict and kiss the cross or icons and false witness and resort to judicial combat. And at these times, wizards and sorcerers aid them with magic.

and consult the gates of Aristotle and the Roffley and observe the stars and planets in the days and hours. They rely on these magical aids and as a result do not become reconciled, but meet in combat and kill each other. Oh, fuck yeah, bro, wizard duels. Electrico! The council ruled that these practices should be condemned, and the czar should proclaim the law in all towns.

The punishment for violating the law would be excommunication from the church. The Roffley, by the way, a popular book of fortune-telling with Arabic origins and the gates of Aristotle actually just another name for the secret of secrets I'm hearing about old Russians engaging in some sorcerer showdowns

or at least engaged in battles thinking that they were being helped by wizardry how many dudes met their untimely deaths going up against some other dude who was fucking clearly bigger, stronger and more skilled with a sword or whatever bolstered by their belief

that they had powerful magic on their side I just picture some poor scribes a little Russian dude. Just, you know, he's been talked up by some wizards and now he thinks he's he-man.

By the power of gray skull. I have the power. And then he just gets immediately struck down in battle. Like 10 seconds in his head's gone. He's like, no, dude, you didn't have the power. You got scam, bro. And now your family's probably going to waste

even more money on some fake necromancer to try and bring your chopped-up little ass back to life. chapter 41 question 24 states that on the eaves of st john christmas and the epiphany people were gathering at night to dance sing satanic songs and bathe in the river the council recommended that this is our order all priests in every town and village to tell their congregations to stop i love that it doesn't specify a punishment so tell them to stop hey guys stop it hey knock it off stop enough for the satanic songs while you frolic in the river stop come on chapter 41 question 26 states that on the thursday of passion week people were burning straw and calling upon the dead some priests were placing salt under the altar until the seventh thursday after easter when the salt would supposedly become a cure for illness the council ruled that this was heresy and any priest doing that should be excluded from the priesthood and no more curing people with your salt magic wizards stop it stop just stop if you don't stop

If we only, you wear that cool hat and robe anymore. The second text, the Domestroy, is a manual of family and domestic governance designed for lesser nobility and wealthy merchant families. Has no definite author was likely written in the late 15th century. One piece of advice in the Domestroy is to keep women away from village magicians. And you know what? That probably was good advice. Those tricksy magicians, I wouldn't put it past them to cast some sexual excitement spell to awaken a woman's clit monster get it good and hungry you have summoned me sorcerer and now you'll

provide the pleasure that mama demands mama's hunger will be saciated slowly deliberately rub your wizard wand on my upper left quadrant light touch magician light touch until mama explodes with pleasure that was really confusing i'm guessing you didn't listen to uh the episode a few weeks back on the one taste orgasmic meditation cult uh clit monster is part of the suck for us now. There's very little I can do at this point to banish her. Anyway, this text also includes stuff like a list of sins of a godless man, which include

reading magical texts and practicing magic. Magic equals devil. Right? Okay. Church and state were deeply intertwined in Muscovite, Russia, and both church officials and local officials were involved in enforcing laws against witchcraft. For example, in 1649, a governor sent a letter

to a town commissioner, instructing him to stop people from talking in church, stop it, getting drunk, Listening to traveling entertainers. Now for the traveling entertainers. Summitting witches and wizards to cure illnesses. Fortune telling, singing devilish songs, dancing, clapping hands, and so random, playing on swings. Anyone engaging in any of those activities were supposed to be now beaten with rods.

What the fuck? Is that governor just despise joy? What a miserable bastard. Hey, stop it. Stop! Don't make me grab my rod Stop singing Song feels satanic

Are you fucking are you dancing Seriously? Stop stop stop it Enough with the clapping too Stop the clapping Enough with the smiling Hey Hey get out that swing

You son of a bitch Everybody knows That swinging leads to smiling Smiling leads to giggling Giggling leads to clapping Clapping leads to singing Singing leads to dancing And dancing leads to deep throat

The devil's cock Uh Zar Alexi McCann who ruled from 1645 to 1676 once sent out a list of such forbidden magical practices to provincial governors. And W. F. Ryan, again, the author of The Bath House at Midnight, compiled a list of some unacceptable folk magic practices in 18th century Russia. And these included burying gold. Maybe they had a real problem with people burying gold and forgetting where they buried it or with people digging holes. You know what? I bet that

had a problem with people digging holes all over the place looking for buried gold. I could see that becoming a thing. God damn it. Lucas, stop. Enough for the holes. Someone's going to break an ankle. Dude has like 17 holes in the city park. Listing at thresholds and windows, a type of marital prospect divination. That sounds less like magic to me

and more just like basic eavesdropping. Listening to thunder. Okay. Smearing one's face with soot. Dirty face is apparently a big problem. Playing instruments. No more music, wizards. Enough with your magical, annoying strumming.

Playing chess. Dice or cards? What are you doing? What are you playing rummy? You have to go over my list again? Come on. Everybody knows. Playing cards. Leads to smiling. Smiling. Leas to giggling. Giggling. Leases clapping. Clapping. Leasing. Leasing to dancing. Dancing leads to deep from the devil's cock. The forbidden list continues with looking at hands, a.k.a. palm reading or allowing a magician to look at your hands. And rubbing salt, ointment, oil, mercury, human blood, human or animal milk, honey, dew, or tar on oneself. A type of medicinal magic with or without spells attached.

another aspect of Russian folk magic that's been around for who knows how long is belief in the evil eye which is actually common in many parts of the world the evil eye is a belief in a curse caused by a malevolent glare usually from an envious person amulets to protect against the evil eye

have been found that are thousands of years old I get it right it is annoying to get a stink eye, it's uncomfortable borderline evil who likes to be glared at the concept of the evil eye can be found in the Mediterranean the Balkans Eastern Europe, Middle East, Central, South Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, in addition to Russia. Earliest literary references of the evil eye in Russia made in the 16th century, but they liked the, got the concept from the Byzantine Empire.

It was thought the possessors of the evil eye were witches or wizards with, quote, black deep set, protruding crossed or in some other way, distinctive eyes or otherwise of peculiar appearance, foreigners, priests. Okay Rasputin That dude had some wicked evil eyes The fucking cross die That's sad Somebody just happens to be born with cross died And everyone was like

Stop looking at me Wizard He's like I was trying to I was trying to read this book I was trying to see where I'm going Enough for luck As late as 1881

A Russian newspaper ran a story That a prisoner on death row Was given to the Academy of Sciences For an experiment To test the power of his evil eye He was denied food for three days while he had to stare at a loaf of bread.

Weird. At the end of this experiment, very scientific, a poisonous substance was supposedly found in the bread, and I'm guessing it was mold. Who knows? One common custom to ward off the evil eye is to spit three times, cross yourself, and say with authority,

don't put the evil eye on me. Don't you put that evil on me, Ricky Bobby? Don't you put that on us! Teledagena nights. One of the greatest comedies of all time. And the scene around that quote, oh my God, one of the funniest scenes in any movie I've ever watched. Back to the evil eye, mothers were especially fearful of the evil eye, so much so that in many Russian villages, newborns were frequently locked away for six weeks with only immediate family allowed to see them. A stranger's praise was something to be feared for these families because it was thought that were actually casting the evil eye on the baby.

This fear persists persist today in many parts of Russia. Sadly, in March of 1998, a baby was abducted from a stroller. left outside of a clinic in Moscow. The baby's only 23 days old. The mom had refused to take the child into the clinic because she was that worried about the wrath of the evil eye if anyone saw her baby before 40 days had elapsed. So she went and saw the doctor and left her baby outside

and then someone fucking took her baby. And sadly that child was never found. And the mother, 30-year-old Irina Nizovich, leapt to her death three days later, falling from a window in her eight-story apartment. Damn. Trying to protect her baby from magical, superstition, she ended up placing her baby in very real world danger.

Now, these beliefs, man, they can be dangerous. Let's not take a look at a specific subtype of folk magic in Russia called Zagavori. Zagavori is a form of verbal folk magic from Eastern Slavic folklore and mythology. Practitioners of Zagavori use incantations to enchant objects or people. The Russian word Zagavore means conjuration. The practice arose from pagan prayers and incantations. was based on a belief in the power of the human word. Emphasis was placed on exact pronunciation and observing strict rituals.

The performer also needed to have enough, quote, life stamina in order to perform the ritual. An example of life stamina, a very weird one, will be having a full set of teeth. Fucking killed me the first time I came across it. The hell do you think you're doing, Igor? It's going to hurt yourself trying to cast that spell, you gummy son of a bitch.

You need like twice as many teeth as you got to pull off that curse. Zagavori includes spells to inflict illness on an enemy, cause marital problems, destroy love, harm crops or livestock, make weapons misfire, etc. Lots of super handy shit. If it works, of course. A little bit of a huge if. Another type of verbal magic is called

Sending on the Wind. Or be witching from a distance. References to quote, Sending on the Wind. That's such a funny way to phrase. Go back at least to the 16th century. and as recently as the 19th century, a Russian tailor was seized during an epidemic and accused of sending cholera on the wind.

Anyone else picturing this guy just getting arrested for farting? That's what I think of when I hear sending on the wind, fart magic. I mean, fart magic might be a thing. I've walked into some pretty gnarly farts that have felt like curses, if I'm going to be honest. If I'm going to be completely honest, some of them have come from me. I wouldn't be surprised if a few negatively impacted my health. And then the dogs, fucking, they've been using fart magic on us for years. Ginger Bell has unloaded some fart magic on me on the couch a few times.

It's made me almost thrown up or throw up. And Penny Pooper, she once ripped some kind of demon fart magic directly into Lindsay's face while we were falling in sleep in bed. And based on her reaction, I think it almost killed her. One description of a Zagavori sending on the wind spell states, The Wizard waits until there is a wind blowing in the direction of his victim, asked his client for a handful of earth, snow, or dust. Throws this in the wind in the direction of the victim and pronounces,

Coola, Cula, blind, black, blue, brown, white, red eyes. Blow up his belly larger than a charcoal pit. Dry up his body thinner than the meadow grass. Kill him quicker than a viper. Now I'm picturing some self-proclaimed wizard casting that spell on me. When he's done, I just quietly walk up to him. Without saying a word, wrestle him to the ground, sit on his head, and then send some magical wind back upon him.

I send him in the great fireball upon enemy and village people not been to will for mine. What is big deal? Feel my brown death! It is done. I, the great wizard, Chickatiel of the Black, have taken ten year of your life force. Practitioners of Zagavori also used magical herbs and roots, which were often presented as evidence at witch trials

in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. These spells are often used in combination with rituals or they have to be repeated a certain number of times at a specific time or date. Magicians also took items that belonged to their intended victim. It was thought that the closer it was to the victim's body, the better meaning underwear, would serve best for casting spells, for fuck's sake.

Now I'm picturing some panty-sniff and wizard. Yes, this is good. I can work with this, but I need more. I need a few more sets of panties. Freshly worn, of course, and I shall unleash a truly powerful curse. After the magician cast a spell under the item, it would then be transferred to the victim by renewed contact. So, you know, wizard sniffs, smites your undies, you put them back on, and then, I don't know, your front butt seals off or your dick crumbles into dust or something. Also, I thought that a man's footprint was so unique, it could be used in hostile magic.

According to one description of this ritual, quote, When you find a well-defined foot or boot print in sand, dust, mud, dew, or snow, particularly if it contains a human or animal hair, covered carefully to protect it, then get the wizard to cut or dig up the print, preferably with a broad knife bloodied by a whirlwind. If you're confused about the term or the phrase, bloodied by a whirlwind, you should be.

Whirlwinds are thought in this line of thinking to be transformed witches. who can be stopped by stabbing the whirlwind with a knife. So if you see like a little dust devil, you fucking stab with a knife. That's a witch. Now you have a magical weapon. Now back to the rest of the instructions. A spell is muttered over the print,

which is then placed under the beam of the house of the victim to cause him grief, or burned in the bathhouse of his death is required. An antidote for a spell of this kind is for a friendly wizard or medicine man to throw another print down wind. If a print cannot be found, then the victim must burn his underclothes.

on the feast of the enunciation in order to be free of the spell. A simpler method of footprint cursing is to measure the footprint of the victim with a thread and then just burn the thread. That was a lot. So if you get a wizard to cut out a footprint of somebody,

hopefully with a knife that has been bloody by a whirlwind, then you place a spell on said footprint, then burn it in a bathhouse. You can kill them. Or you can just take a piece of thread and then burn that and kill them. I feel like that second option is way easier.

but another wizard can save the victim if they just take another footprint and throw it down wind but if they can't find another footprint they can burn the person's undies on a specific day or maybe burn a thread why would someone not be able to make a second footprint

in what scenario is somebody badly needed to be saved from a death curse but they don't have time to make a new footprint okay Russians had and still have all kinds of methods to protect themselves from magic methods which were once common throughout Europe

these included religious objects such as crosses holy water incest talismans amulets and of course more magical prayers and spells charms were commonly used to banish spirits make rituals more effective or to achieve the desired results of an action love charms and charms to invoke

God or saints are once common for example one way to protect yourself from a wizard was to press your ring finger to a twig or knot in a piece of wood and then spit in a wizard's face and that'll cause him to lose his power and probably be embarrassed

who the fuck came up with that exact combo so I just spit in the wizard's face and that fixes things no no you can't just spit into a wizard's face you gotta spit in a wizard's face while also pressing your ring finger into a twig

or at least a knot in a bigger piece of wood what if I don't have a twig or not a piece of wood What if I can wrangle up as like a medium-sized stick? That won't fucking work, okay? Why not? I don't know. It's magic.

It was also thought that you needed extra protection if you were the one engaging in magic or divination. One of the most commonly used protective methods was to draw a magic circle around yourself while you were putting together your spells and charms or whatnot. Typically salt would be used to create the circle. Russians also believed in good and bad days to practice magic. On a good day, your spells would be more powerful and effective. On a bad day, your dick or vagina would explode, and your butthole would catch fire. So you've got to pay attention to the calendar.

Of course, I mean, a bit ridiculous. On a bad day, your spells would just be weaker. It doesn't seem to be a list of universal bad days. There are illusions that they're unique to the magician or to the person who was hiring the magician. For example, like the anniversary of the day that somebody who cared about, you know, died, well, that could be a bad day. Good days. Typically times of transition. Birth, marriage, death, midsummer, midwinter, equinoch, equinox.

Texas. Christmas, midsummer, were considered some of the best times for magic. I feel like death is a weird day just to go back for a second. And actually birth. Well, I guess if someone is, you know, performing magic on you or for you on the day of your birth, then, you know, to make you healthy going forward. Okay, I get that. And maybe death would be just to help you, I don't know, move on better to the next realm or whatever. Anyway, yeah, Christmas and midsummer, considered some of the best times for magic. from Christmas Eve to the 12th night, aka January 5th, people would perform divination

to figure out what the new year would bring for them. People commonly practice marital divination at midwinter. Also common for girls to gather herbs in midsummer, particularly on St. John's Day, June 24th.

After gathering herbs, the girl was to walk home without saying a word, place the herbs under her pillow, and then say, quote, John and Mary herb, head herb, and all 12 herbs. Tell me who my husband

will be. Oh my God. If the ritual was successful, she would see her husband in a dream. And the ritual was not successful, and she didn't have a dream where she saw any man she could expect to marry, well, she'd get beaten with clubs by a pack of demons, who would then eat her arms and legs, place her in the bottom of an outhouse, and she would magically stay alive for a week while getting constantly shit and pissed on. Then she'd be covered in honey, placed on top of an ant hill, and after a week of that, burned alive and poke with sticks. Very risky ritual. High risk, low reward. And of course, I just made up what we were. And of course, I just made up what would happen if the ritual was not successful.

I think the ritual was not successful. She would just still not know who she was going to marry. Officially the Orthodox Church was against this practice, but local churches held ceremonies on St. John's Day, where parishioners could bring their herbs in for blessings. Also, certain times a day were better than others, dawn and noon. Great times for Russian magic spells, apparently.

Practicing magic between sunset and sunrise, that's considered bad, unless you're some kind of necromancer. the night was and is associated with unclean forces, the boundaries between the physical and spiritual worlds thought to be thinner, allowing for interaction with spirits and beings, not always nice.

The location where magic is performed is considered just as important as a time. Some of the most common places associated with magic are churches, cemeteries, barns, thresholds, crossroads, holes in the ice on a lake or a river and randomly bathhouses.

Before Russia's bathhouse Magic. Time for today's second and two, Mitcho sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those sponsors, and now it's bathhouse time. In his book, W.F. Ryan quoted another book on Popular Magic in Russia called the Russian Primary Chronicle, a historical chronicle of Kievan Rus from 850 to

1110 C.E. And according to that book, the response to the question, where should one begin to learn to be a wizard is anywhere you like, but best is a bathhouse at midnight. I would have guessed that would be the best place to get like a hand job or a blowjob or some other sexual action back when being openly gay could and would get you killed. And maybe it was. But in addition to getting your shaft stroked, you could also get your wizard or your wizard one dust it off, I guess.

According to Ryan, the bathhouse has an ancient history among the Slavs, according to the Russian primary chronicle, the Apostle Andrew reported to Rome on the strange Slavonic bathing customs. And its place in a duelist view of religion is recorded for 1071 in the same chronicle. when two magicians claim that man was created after a quarrel between God and Satan, when God was bathing in a bathhouse, when questioned the magician said the name of their God was Antichrist. Uh, what? It would believe that many Russian wizards went to bathhouses when everyone else was in church. The wizards weren't going there to bathe since traditional village bathhouses

were only heated when people were going to use them. They were going to the bathhouses to cast spells and talk to demons. Hmm. Apparently most normal non-devil wizard folks took baths between 5 and 7 a.m., therefore, anybody who didn't bathe at the normal times suspected of being a wizard. Russians also believe their bathhouses were dangerous, and that a resident sprite called a bannock could be hostile to unwelcome visitors. The bannock is most often portrayed as a naked dwarf or as a small old man, but occasionally portrayed as female. this creature thought to be a danger to women who are left alone in the bathhouse

you don't get fucking banicked ladies careful the banic is also dangerous to magicians if they were actually going to use the bathhouse for its intended purpose because they would be removing their protective charms and amulets while they bait and the banic could attack

many accounts claim the banic is a shapeshifter he can appear as a local person to someone who stumbles across him or even as a stone or coal in the oven heating the bathhouse finally a little more weird info about the banick, he can predict the future, to consult him about the future.

What you do is you stand with your back naked, like your back exposed, in the half-opened door to the bathhouse. And then the banic will gently stroke your back if all bodes well. But if trouble lies ahead, he's going to scratch his shit out of your back with his claws. And that's a terrible way to find out that more shitty stuff is about to happen to you. He'll also strangle you, just straight up strangle you to death if you interrupt him bathing. He takes his bathing quite seriously. And sometimes if he feels offended,

he will burn the entire bathhouse down. He's a moody little fucker. In order to appease the banick upon the rebuilding of a bathhouse, a black hen needs to be suffocated. And that suffocated corpse needs to be plucked, buried beneath the building's threshold. And the people performing this ritual, the magicians, they will end it by bowing and backing away from the threshold

while reciting appropriate incantations and spells. Fair enough. and now let's talk about how the magicians performing these rituals were treated by royal rulers in Russia In the Russian Empire Zakhavori practitioners were often persecuted by the church and by secular authorities Russian archives show over 600 cases of church

and civil prosecution of witchcraft, blasphemy, and heresies in the 18th century. However, Russia did not conform to the general pattern of European witch persecution. This was first voiced by a 19th century Russian scholar who remarked that in southern Russia and the Ukraine, the connection between the devil and witchcraft not made until the 18th century

and only by the literate upper class influenced by Western books. Royals and church officials believed pagan wizards were practicing demonic magic and their magic was described as devilish, but people didn't get burned at the stake for practicing left and right, like they often did in Germany, France,

and elsewhere in medieval Europe. The church did view sorcery as a form of paganism, wanted to eradicate it to increase the church's power, but even Ivan the Terrible didn't introduce the death penalty for sorcery. He did ban the use of magic, did allow secular courts to prosecute witches and wizards, but not as harshly as they were prosecuted in the West. Russians, it seems, had more of a soft spot for magicians, and still do, as you'll see later. However, in a 1648 decree, Tsar Alexis did introduce the death penalty for all forms of paganisms, and a 1653 decree did specify that the punishment for witchcraft wizardry was death by burning, so that did happen, but just for a more limited amount of time. Because of a lack of documentation, we don't know exactly how many witch trials were conducted in the history of Russia. Scholars estimate the number is between 99 and 136. But then Catherine

the Great, who ruled from 1762 to 1796, would remove the death penalty from sorcery cases and labeled witchcraft as an insignificant crime. And while the vast majority, about 75% of accused witches in Europe were female in Russia, from 1622 to 1700 at least, 68% of the accused were men. This is possibly due to the legal definition of magic introduced into the military code in 1716. After that legislation, the number of accusations increased among soldiers

and government officials. We're such fucking weird creatures. I love that a legal definition of magic was introduced into the military code. All right, guys. No more. No more magic in the military. Before that code, it was the clergyman and members of the Tsar's court

who were most often accused of witchcraft. And obviously, most of them, even in 1832 when the digest of laws of the Russian Empire was first codified witchcraft and sorcery still punishable crimes in order to survive Zagavoria practitioners mimicked Christianity and used Christian themes and motifs

and now let's learn a bit more about some Russian terms for these wizards and magicians like Volkov Volkov is a term used in early church and old Russian text for wizard particularly the pagan sorcerers or priests of the pre-Christian sloths Volkovs believed to possess mystical powers and the ability to predict the future.

The first literary reference to a Russian Volkov occurs in the primary chronicle under the year 912 CE where a Volkov predicted that death of Prince Oleg. I went over earlier with the whole fucking snake and horse bones. One piece of folk literature suggests that the Volkov were considered similar to doctors who could treat illnesses. The word

Kolden has been used mainly from the 17th century onwards. This labeled normally applied to village magicians. There's long thought that a coldon would have some sort of distinguishing feature called a devil's mark so you could tell who they were. A coldon typically has knowledge of folk medicine but can also cast

evil spells with the help of demons. Some were thought to be so powerful. They could cause someone to lose their mind with just their stare alone. Damn you evil eye, sorcerer. It was thought that, and this is weird, coldens were often born having a small tail, or that they were born with two teeth.

and that these characteristics were the product of three generations of illegitimacy. So if a bastard has a bastard who has a bastard, that bastard will have a tail or two creepy little newborn baby teeth, and they'll be able to cast spells. A cold and will also go to lengths to pass on their magical knowledge before their death, whether the recipient is willing or unwilling. Why? Because colduns have also made packs with the devil. One totally reasonable and not insane at all method of passing knowledge down to the next generation was, for a coldon to crawl under a stove and lie there groaning with one hand outstretched for help. It's a very specific tell. Anyone who took to Colden's hand would naturally now assume his role, whether they wanted to or not,

even if they hadn't been born with a tail. You don't always have to be born a coldon. You can be made one. So don't ever try and help anybody who is pinned beneath a coal stove if you don't want to be a witch. If you do help them once you've grabbed their hand, your whole house will obviously shake. and that a small, unrecognizable black animal will scurry away. And what is that animal? Well, it's the wizard's.

And your last chance to not also end up as an evil wizard is to now catch this black soul critter and spear it with a stake. Pretty straightforward, actually. And Siberia was thought that the cold un could transform into an animal in addition to being able to see into the future. They had extra powerful wizards out there in the cold. One old Russian spell for transforming into a werewolf goes as follows. in the ocean, in the ocean sea, rather, excuse me, on the island of Buryon, in the open plain, shines the moon upon an Aspen stump, into the green wood, into the spreading veil. Around the stump goes a shaggy wolf. Under his teeth are all the horn cattle. But into the wood, the wolf goes not. In the veil, the wolf does not roam. Moon, moon, golden horns. Melt the bullet, blunt the knife, wrought the cudgel, strike fear and demand, beast and reptile, so that they may not seize the

gray wolf nor tear him from his warm hide my word is firm firmer than sleep with a strength of heroes and uh yeah that's that's that thing feels feels feels more like a weird description of a werewolf it does a spell but you know what do i know i'm not a wizard a female version of a coldon is a coldene or a vidma aka which uh the literal translation is just nowhere right how dare women possessed knowledge and know things not cool in folk tales Russian witches are portrayed as agents of evil spirits who wreak havoc

on their communities they don't seem to ever be viewed kindly by historians or chroniclers who are of course men throughout stories about them witches are blamed for problems such as droughts epidemics ruin weddings and more female practitioners of magic go back to Russia's

early history according to the Russian primary chronicle in an entry for 1071 CE the Chronicle the chronicler wrote Magic is performed through infernal instigation Particularly through the agency of women Are infernal enchantments brought to pass For in the beginning the devil deceived woman

And she in turn deceived man Thus even down to the present day Women perform magic by black arts Poison and other devilish deceits Fucking boom Because Eve ate the apple Women are worse than men forever and always Fuck yeah bro I have one

I can do whatever I want. And because of my magic wiener, I still get to be better than all you front butt bicycles. I'm sure a lot of you ladies don't feel like this is fair, but you know what? Tough shit.

Sometimes truth hurts. And the truth is that you're nasty witches and we can never fully trust you. Go ahead and get mad. We'll just tell you that you're acting crazy, which will make you angrier, which will make you look crazy. Are we gaslighting you now?

Of course we are. But no matter how much we gaslight you, we're still better. Why? Because Eve. Cause Dick. Because checkmate forever. Careful, Daniel.

Did you forget that I can punish you? Damn it, Clip Monster, what the hell are you still doing in this episode? Daniel, shall I had some other man pleasure me? Maybe even film it. Send you the video you micro-peaned Melvin'clock. Shut up, Clip Monster. I'm not a Michael Pined Melvin. Am I?

You said I was handsome. You said it was not real long, but thick. Were you lying? Stop with your patriarchal bullshit, Daniel. Maybe I'll let you lick me again. Okay, I'm sorry. Now I've got to return to this stuff. subject. It's getting weird. In the 17th century, witches in Russia were often thought to be

the source of hostile magic at weddings. They could even cause the groom to become impotent. Samuel Collins, the personal physician of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, wrote in the mid-17th century, seldom a wedding passes without some sort of witchcraft. If people of quality married chiefly acted as tis thought by nuns whose prime devotion tends that way, I saw a fellow coming out of the bride chamber, tearing his hair as though he had been mad, and being demanded the reason why he did so, he cried out, I am undone, I am bewitched. The remedy they use is to address themselves to a white witch who for money will unravel the charm and untie the codpiece point, which was this young man's case. It seems some old woman had tied up his codpiece point. Stop fucking around

with guys' codpiece points, witches. According to scholar W. F. Ryan, while the Colden be both a real figure of village life and a fantastic figure of folklore, the Vedma was much more common in folklore and popular fear, perhaps than in real life. The confusion of witches as real life practitioners in magic with malevolent female demons of mythology and folklore is most evident in the figure of Baba Yaga, who has ancient lineage as a child stealing and child eating demon. Yeah, Babi Yaga, another former time-suck subject, a witch from Slavic folklore. In some narratives. She's an evil witch who eats children. In other, she's a helpful elderly woman. But mostly, she's portrayed as evil because, you know, vagina. Baba Yaga frequently presented as a

stereotypical image of the average witch in ancient Russia. Abapka, usually an older woman perceived as having ancient wisdom and a deep connection with nature. In most stories, Baba Yaga depicted as an old woman who lives in a hut that rests on four chicken lakes that she can move at her command. So lucky. Still wish my house had chicken legs. When she leaves her hut, she rides a mortar and pestle, of course, while holding a broom to brush away her tracks. Also commands a flock of evil geese who hunt children, her main source of food. In the story, Baba Yaga's black geese, two children named Olga and Sergei sneak out of their house while their moms at the market despite being warned not to

stupid fucking kids. Sergei is snatched up by evil goose and taken to Bobby Yaga's hut. Olga is able to save him using magic, and the story teaches children to keep their fucking and eyes peeled for which minion geese at all times and also to listen to their mothers. The first clear reference to Baba Yaga occurs in 1755 in Mikhail V. Lomenosif's book, Russian grammar.

After this, she became a regular fixture in books of fairy tales and folklore. According to scholar Andreas Johns, Baba Yaga may have originally been a goddess before Christianity came to Russia and made her a witch. John cited scholar Mikhail Chulkov, who noticed similarities between Baba Yaga and an ancient goddess of death called Lugaya Baba.

The Slavs venerated the underworld goddess by this name, representing her as a frightening figure seated in an iron mortar, with an iron pestle in her hands. They made blood sacrifice to her, thinking that she fed it to the two granddaughters attributed to her and that she delighted in shedding blood herself. There is no single agreed upon interpretation of Babayaga, but she's definitely one of the most famous characters,

if not the most famous character, of Slavic folklore. Okay. Almost done with any real historical knowledge now. Historical exploration. Let's begin our timeline. We will focus on Russian folk magic in much more recent times. Cannot wait to reintroduce you to one wizard who's still alive that we met before. He's still out there working his magic today.

Let's get to it. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-suck timeline. The biggest wizard in modern Russian history is Rasputin, who we covered in a previous episode, as I mentioned, actually a long time ago, episode 47. That dude did a lot to accelerate to fall of the last Russian czar. He had made a name for himself as a faith healer,

and also as a lunatic, womanizer, family abandoner. Eventually, through some royal court connections, he was able to help heal Alexa, the youngest child of Tsar Nicholas II, Alexa was a hemophiliac. Rasputin maybe used some magic to heal him. That's what people thought, but probably his advice to have the kids stop taking aspirin.

Asperm being a blood thinner is what happened to heal him. Then as Russia's economy fell further into turmoil, it was already not doing good before Rasputin showed up. He did a bunch of crazy shit that made the Russian people think the Tsar was a fool to keep him around or bewitched and he hastened the fall of the Russian Empire.

He was seducing members of the royal court, insulting royal advisors, convincing women that his dick was God's sacrament and getting him to suck it, shooting the evil eye to all kinds of important people. A lot of people started to think before he was assassinated that he was truly the antichrist. And the only reason he ever became essentially a member of the royal court, the only reason this maniac was allowed near the czar and his children

was because of Russia's long history in believing in his type of magic as we went over. And this belief persisted after his death and the execution of the royal family by the Bolsheviks who came to power. There was a brief period in the early 20s, 1920s, where Russian folklore thrive because the revolutionary government could not dedicate any time to control literature yet. After Stalin came to power in the late 20s following Lenin, the government criticized and censored folklore studies because it was part of capitalism, they thought, and the old Tsarist system. Joseph Stalin, another former time-sex subject, one of the fucking worst people ever,

turned Russia into a military and industrial power. But it came at a cost of a lot of freedoms, a lot of death. During his reign and the reigns of the communist leaders who followed him, magic and folklore did not thrive like the ones did. But, you know, it was still a part of everyday Russian life, even in cities. People just were quieter about it. Then on March 11th, 195, Mikhail Gorbachev, his elected general secretary of the Communist Party, he restructures the Russian economy, promotes more openness with the West and the rest of the world, holds summit talks with President Reagan and the Cold War. Gorbachev elected president of the Soviet Union in 1990.

Same year, he wins a Nobel Peace Prize. And under Gorbachev, magic starts once again to be practice more openly in Russia. Gorbachev's own administration utilized astrologers. Mikhail Levin first became interested in astrology while studying mathematics at Moscow State University in the late 60s during a period of openness to new ideas in the Soviet Union, another little brief period. In the late 80s, officials working for Gorbachev invited Levin to the Kremlin to literally try and forecast the future and help make major political decisions. After the fall of the Soviet Union, at the end of 1991, Levin began to focus on growing the Moscow Academy of Astrology, which he established in 1990.

2,000 people applied in the first day. Clearly a lot of interest. Pseudo-medicine astrology and fortune-telling regain popularity during the uncertain times during and after the fall of the Soviet Union. One famous figure who emerged, the most famous figure who emerged in this area, was psychic healer, magician, wizard, Anatoly Kashpurowski, who performed televised sessions of magic. We first met the son of a bitch. in the Granny Ripper Time Suck back in October of 2020.

Kasparowski, born August 11th, 1939, as I record this, he has less than two weeks away from turning 86, and this motherfucker is still going strong, still rocking heavily dyed black hair. Dude has strong Steven Seagall vibes. If Seagal actually was one of the poorly acted characters from one of his recent terrible movies, and did not have a ponytail or a beer gut.

These two could play brothers in a movie the only people would enjoy who enjoy it's so bad it's good type of cinema. I was blown away that he was still going back in 2020. I'm more blown away now. He's even more popular. Kashparovsky was once a weightlifter and a psychiatrist, maybe. It's impossible to trust any information about his past. At some point, this dipshit started claiming he had magical powers to cure the sick.

In March of 1989, Kaspirovsky appeared on TV inside an operating room in Tbilisi, Georgia via video link. guided a woman who he claimed could not use anesthesia through open abdominal surgery and proclaimed that his magic kept her from feeling any pain and he told his viewers afterwards now everyone who watched me

can go to dentist and have their tooth pulled there will be no pain at all well this woman Lisa Yersova said in an interview months later that she actually experienced quote terrible pain during her surgery

and only cooperated because she didn't want to let Kasparovsky down reminds me of people who come out to accuse faith healers North America like that piece of shit Benny Hill faking it, right? Because they are faking it. Every single one of those faith healers I've ever looked into are blatant grifters. She was also able to use anesthesia. She wasn't allergic to it or anything. She only agreed to forego anesthesia because Kaspirovsky promised to make her thinner and bring her along to his shows

and around the world to show off his healing powers. And then when he did not keep that promise, she ratted him out. And more will rat him out later and it will not matter. Kaspirovsky's magic star will continue to rise. how many times do we see shit like that people grifters just so fucking good at failing upwards it's like the more they lie the more they cheat the more they're rewarded makes my blood boil and anytime they're called out on their bullshit right somebody actually attempts to pin them down using actual facts they just brush it off you know accuse their accusers the media whatever of having some agenda against them they're being targeted by nefarious forces trying to bring a good man down and they just keep on marching forward and you have to do that long enough eventually doesn't seem to fucking matter who speaks out against them or what they say because they have managed to so thoroughly brainwash their followers into believing that any and all allegations against them are always nothing more than lies in propaganda that, you know, they're just like impenetrable. It's fucking crazy. Anyway, Kasparovsky becomes even more popular after another televised broadcast of another

bullshit healing session in Kiev and October of 1989. This time, Keshperovsky is featured in a primetime slot while his biggest rival, psychic Alan Chumach, is stuck with an early morning slot. And the fact that these two people were both on national TV on the same time, same day, as magical healers and psychic shows how embedded in belief in magic, you know, Russian society still was. Chumach's viewers placed water bottles or creams and lotions in front of their TVs to charge them with his energy, which he claimed would allow them to heal all their ailments. Kaspirovsky chose to hypnotize his viewing audience and then heal them with magical powers while they're in a hypnotized state. Kasparovsky was compared by some to Rasputin, but he also began to regularly top polls

as one of Russia's most popular public figures second only to President Boris Yelton for a while. That's wild. Kasparovsky straight-up said at a joint news conference in 1989, referring to the Russian people in general, they idolize me. I can reverse what was once thought irreversible. I tapped the inner resources of the body.

Russian journalist Katya Merzina told a reporter for the Guardian years later, the streets would empty whenever Kasparovsky came on TV. I was just a kid, but I remember we all talked about his shows at school. Everyone was convinced he really could heal the nation. We had never seen anything like this on TV before.

You have to remember, there were basically no adverts on Soviet TV. Everything was taken at face value. So if state TV presented him as possessing these incredible powers, most people believed it. Kasparovsky's fame faded after the fall. of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991.

Some began to claim his mass hypnosis sessions drove people mad, did not heal people. Then in 1995, he was elected to the state, Dumas, lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, the country's parliament. But after one term, he left Russia for the U.S. where he found lucrative work

treating immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in Russia, magic and the paranormal becoming more popular overall than ever. According to the Guardian, the pinnacle of this scramble for new ideas to replace the certainties that Marxism, Leninism, had once provided, saw the incredible spectacle of extrasensory experiments carried out on state TV, prime time viewing spots devoted

to psychic healing sessions, where once there were screenings of Communist Party congresses and rhythmic gymnastics, now there were men with hypnotic eyes and soothing voices promising to cure the entire country of its ailments. The nation was entranced. Yeah, Kasperski did not leave the country because they didn't want magicians anymore. He left because he there was suddenly a lot more competition with magicians, right? It was intense. There was so many more of them. The New York Times reported

in the late 90s that one of Russia's most popular weekly programs was called the Third Eye hosted by Mekhail Andreev, the president of the Association of White Magicians in Russia. The show was, quote, a straight factual discussion of how sorcery

and witchcraft improve one's daily life. Man, this is in the fucking late 90s, the wild 90s. one of Russia's most popular shows, a discussion of how to use sorcery and witchcraft to improve your daily life. One episode featured a lesson on how to protect your house

with just a needle and how to use a big tailor's needle to cast spells. So much needle magic. National newspapers advertise these services of clairvoyance, witches, and warlocks. God, whenever I keep here, like, whenever I hear witches and warlocks, I immediately think of this auto-tuned edit

of this Alex Jones bullshit into this catchy little fucking Diddy. I used to play on the secret sock. Oh, Alex Jones, you're fucking piece of shit. Actual medical doctors in post-Soviet Russia were now sometimes advising their patients to see Abakka, an old woman with healing powers, which we learned about earlier in the episode. Reverend Alexander Bulekov, from the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church wasn't happy about all this, and he told the times, we have had in this country a very long period of total absence of spiritual education, and people completely forget what religion really means.

People have lost their spiritual immunity to resist evil. They have become confused, and they often have trouble knowing what is good and bad. He was just pissed that people are suddenly more interested in Slavic magic than Jesus magic. Always cracks me up with somebody from one spiritual belief system. complains that people have lost their minds because they've chosen to follow a different spiritual belief system. I mean, they're all just based on faith in magical thinking. Reverend Bulikov was asked if belief in witchcraft was more prevalent in rural areas and said, we witness it far more often in the cities. In villages, the old attitudes toward the church

are still alive and immunity against evil is better preserved. That was not what I expected. Some people believe so strongly in evil magic that they were willing to openly try and kill suspected witches and wizards. This following story is intense. In 1997, a man and his nephew joined forces to attack a woman that claimed he'd used black magic to cast a spell. Another woman, a relative of this supposed witch, came to her aid.

She fucking died during a knife and hammer attack that followed. Several children, in addition to the alleged witch, were badly injured. This incident occurred February 22nd, 1997, and here's how it went down in more detail. Sasha Lebyotkin and his nephew, Sergei Gretsov, went on their witch hunt in the small village of Terrejovo near the Ukrainian border. They armed themselves with hammers and knives entered the home of 22-year-old

Tanya Tarasova, the woman they believed was a witch who would cast some sort of spell on them. Another woman was there, raised a Tarasova, Tanya's first cousin, and she was fucking murdered. Four out of her five children hospitalized, thanks to hammer blows and knife attacks. These dudes went nuts with her literal witch hunt. Tanya received numerous hammer blows to the head, but lived. This was the first murder in the tiny village of around 100 people since the Bolshevik revolution. The men claimed they'd been terrorized by half human beasts and incantations that had literally set their eyes on fire. That's crazy.

They were able to hammer the shit out of those kids and two women with, you know, pairs of burn-up eyeballs. They also actually said in a joint statement issued the following day after the attack, quote, we went there to kill the entire family because Tanya had used her black magic and sent ruination upon us. They straight up admitted, with no shame that, yeah, yeah, they were trying to hammer some kids to death. They felt justified in what they had done

because their belief in magic was that strong. Then Leibiotkin's wife, Larissa, actually sued Tanya Tarasova, the woman and her husband had fucking hammered. She sued her for, quote, putting a hex on my husband and destroying him. What? She also requested the police confiscate a book

titled Black Magic. that she believed was in the house it wasn't as far as I can tell local police officer Ganadi Chakaldin said you can't find anyone here to tell you that witchcraft was not involved in the killing in fact you can go anywhere in Russia

these days and witchcraft is just a daily part of life many of Tanya's neighbors believed she was a witch because she had a lazy eye which they viewed as the mark of the devil remember hearing about that earlier about people you know different eye features being viewed as evil during medieval

times. Her neighbors still worried about that in 1997. If your eye looked a bit off, you're evil, right? Some witch or wizard. Tanya also mostly kept to herself. She often liked to take long, quiet walks in the woods, which fueled rumors. She was a fucking witch. My God, she probably kept herself because her dumb fucked neighbors thought she was a witch for having a lazy eye. And then she almost got a hammered to death because keeping to herself, you know, made her more suspicious. Tanya went on a few dates with Sergei. local woodcutter, Sasha's nephew, one of the two men who attacked her. Shortly afterwards, he began to have horrible visions, probably because he was mentally ill. And his mom, Galena Gretzoff,

instead of taking her son to see a psychiatrist, immediately suspected that Tanya had cursed him because he would not marry her. Galena said in an interview, he would wake up in the night screaming and afraid every day it would get worse. He said he saw her face on the head of a beast with enormous horns. He would sweat and scream and beg me to look at the beast. Of course, I never sought, but Sergei was always a normal healthy boy until he met her. Well, Sergei reached out to his uncle Sasha, who told him, yeah, you're clearly under Tanya's spell. And then prompted by Sasha's wife, Larissa, the three took a bus ride to visit 70-year-old Maria Pashenko, apparently the most respected Babka in the region. And Pashenko later said in an interview,

the young one told me he was haunted by a beast, and that whenever he went to the forest, the beast was there. He said he wanted to get married, but the evil eye was on him, and that the beast had prevented him from going back near the girl. Wait, what? So, did he want to marry Tanya or some other girl? It sounds like he wanted to marry Tanya, and she didn't want to marry him, as opposed to her not letting him marry someone with a curse. It's all very confusing.

In a hospital interview, Tanya denied being a witch. This isn't fucking crazy. Like, your reporter's like, so are you a witch? She's like, no. And she also said she never wanted to return to that village. yeah i wouldn't first she's ostracized then she's attacked her uncle stepan koppelov said these men killed my sister they talk of black magic and horrible spells she was a decent woman who worked every living every living day these men are the ones who are evil yes uh the new york times reported that sasha and sergey were being held in the city of kursk to be examined by psychiatrists thank god uh and then their story like so many stories do in russia thanks to a very corrupt regime not allowing true journalism to flourish, it just goes away.

So I don't know what happened next. Russia's favorite psychic in the 90s. Anatoly Kasparowski, let's talk about him again. Vizarro world, Stephen Seagall, which is saying a lot since Steven Seagall is so fucking weird. He returned to Mother Russia from the U.S. in late 2009, now hosting a TV show dedicated to paranormal

investigations, but the show doesn't last long. It's one and done season. But he doesn't give up. He stays in Russia the very next year in 2010. He starts a YouTube channel, starts posting videos from his shows in different countries and from within Russia. It's self-titled channel, which currently has 463,000 subscribers. In the spring of 2010, Kasparovsky announced he has restarted his mass healing sessions, and he makes his first public appearance triumphantly in the Russian capital in two decades.

Some former colleagues of Kaspirovsky thought his return was an attempt by the Russian authorities to placate society and divert attention from lower living standards and state brutality. Kasparovsky wrote of those who denounced him, These are the ravings of crazy people. There will always be unrighteous critics. Their weapons are lies and slander. Their overwhelming motive is envy and their own inadequacy. Or they're criticizing you because you're a dangerous bullshitter.

The UK Guardian's journalist Mark Bennett's actually attended one of these healing sessions. And Bennett's reported that after giving an introduction, Kasparovsky, quote, launches into an almost hour-long monologue, taking in subjects as diverse as self-programming, Genghis Khan, and unsightly vaginal moles. I'm sorry, what was that last one? Vaginal moles? That was a problem? I wish she had written more about that.

There are many problems in Russia I can fix well. Russia having not as much many children as once before times. There is, how may I say, problems with six. and the main problem is too many vagina have many moles. It is not attractive. It makes strong Russian man scared of fun time. How you stay firm and bold? When you know vagina have so many mole?

Are you with woman or wildebeest? Is vagina safe? Do it have skin cancer? Has it been in heat too long? Has it spent too much time in sun? What next after mole, wort? Goetor? How much hair come from mole?

Will mole bite it? me? Is it more friendly? Do I pet it? Do I run? Casparovsky told his audience, the most powerful medicine can only be obtained through non-medical means. For example, if we hear the sound of shattering glass, we're frightened. Is that medicine? No. And when the sun warms your body, is that medicine? No, this is biochemistry. It must awaken the medicine within. What the, literally what the fuck is he talking about? Of course, the sound of shattering glass is not medicine. What does I have to do with anything? Is car crash medicine?

No. What about sound of cat in heat? Is that medicine? What about the feel of sand and toe on beach? How about taste of homemade Prague cake that Mama make? No, none of this is medicine. But cake is tasty, yes? This is what you must understand.

This is why you must buy my books. This nonsensical grifter continued with, I don't need your belief. Why would I? Does the violinist need the violin to trust in him? Does the sculptor the sculpture? Do I need this piece of paper to believe in me before I crumple it up and throw it away? The audience and hears a female voice announced over the venue's PA system.

It is not for nothing. Anatoly Kasparovsky calls his DVDs and photographs his heavy artillery. They possess a universal and remote healing effect. Even when his stay in your town or city is over, by using his material, it is as if, Anatoly is really with you gazing into your eyes some people place the DVDs under their pillows at night

and others mainly those suffering from heart problems wear his photo under their shirts at least 16 people were healed of total blindness last year by staring at Kaparovsky's photo what the fuck he's talking about it's not even a good grift

how did completely blind people even know where to look to stare at his photo correctly what i fuck it's unbelievable to me it's unbelievable to me i see it in fucking grifts i see it in politics we're like the fucking dumbest people alive are able to scam people with the most mindless nonsensical bullshit oh fuck me uh the day after the show newspapers reported that kashperovsky's performance led to a number of people seeking medical assistance for psychosomatic symptoms uh from headaches to ulcers or like ulcer pains i mean they didn't actually have ulcers they just thought they

did. A dude didn't heal anybody, but he didn't apparently convince healthy people that they were sick. He also goes back to taking paid meetings with people who hope he will heal them in Russia. How many of them have died because they dismissed conventional treatment for his bullshit? You know, anybody's guests. And he is just one of many shady

magicians now operating to Mother Russia. One especially infamous case of an especially shitty magician from the 2010s is that of Gosha the magician, a.k.a. Georgi. Martyrusian. Self-proclaimed spiritual healer, convicted to killing three women and sentenced to 23 years in prison. That's like a very light sentence for murdering three women.

We give him 23 years. You speak bad about Putin. You get 70 years. You kill three ladies. You get 23 years. Martyrusian lured aspiring models to his apartment in Koroloff and drugged them before he killed him. Martyrusian, born in 1970 in Tbilisi. That's a very hard word for me to say.

It's the Georgian capital. It's T-B-I-L-I-I-S-I. It's like Tbilisi, Tbilisi, Tbilisi. Yeah, he was born in 1970 and Tbilisi. After the collapse of the USSR, he traveled throughout Eastern Europe. He's convicted of theft in Belarus, served a short prison sentence there before moving to Russia. In the late 90s, Martyrusian joined a gang of robbers who broke into apartments.

They were eventually arrested. Then he was released under amnesty in 2000 in honor of the 55th Victory Day, which commemorates the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany. For the next seven years, he works as a cook,

a chauffeur, a salesman, a logger, and then he finds his grift. In 2007, Mardrosian makes a profile on the Russian dating site, Mamba RU, like Mamba Dot RU.

He presented himself as Goshi the Magician, a spiritual healer who could cure ailments and heal bad karma. Business, slow at first, but eventually builds of a regular clientele,

his practice combined elements of Wicca and mysticism and just made-up nonsense. The Daily Beast reported, from the tattoos and muscular arms to the heavy jaw line and intense look, no cautious person upon studying Martyrusian's features would want to share intimate secrets with him. But apparently, Marterosian's personal page on a Russian social network, under the nickname Gosha the Wizard, attracted lots of beautiful women. Martyrusians, yes, magician wizard pretty much interchangeable.

Martyrusian's website stated that he charged $200 per visit. in one post he wrote Dear ladies who feel lonely in soul and in bed I am yours at any time I welcome those who want to be happy See fucking wizard or an escort Dear sexy woman type Do you have lonely bed

Are your pussy moles scared in men from love Find me I wait, I'm not scared He brought some of his clients To an isolated monastery for ceremonies During these ceremonies He would light candles Allegedly sacrifice animals including rams

to cast spells for good fortune. Some of his clients wanted health issues cured. Career improvements are wealthy husbands. Many of them were regulars for years. They trusted him unfailingly, which makes sense when looking at some social context. According to a survey from the Levada Center, an independent non-governmental research organization,

only about 15% of the Russian population actually trust the state medical system, and most Russians suspicious of modern medicine in general. I get being suspicious of just about anything, actually. what I don't get is being suspicious of modern medicine but then not being suspicious of some ding-dong like Gosha the magician or Gosha the wizard.

And again, those two words pretty much interchangeable when it comes to describing Russian magic practitioners. In 2009, an escort named Rima became Martha Rosian's client and she started referring her friends to him as words spread about his services. He starts to make more and more money

enough to purchase a home and an affluent neighborhood in Korolov, a city in the region of Moscow of the Moscow Oblast. He lived with his common-law wife and young daughter, frequently went on vacations around the world, had about 40, 50 regular clients, including some famous singers, some beauty pageant contestants.

Then he started to turn down all men who applied for services. He began to primarily accept only pretty wealthy young women. Nothing suspicious there. And he began to incorporate sex into his rituals. So all in the up and up, sounds like the beginning of a cold episode. Greedy for more and more money, Monterozian or Marty Rosian.

now plotted to befriend a client and convince him to withdraw all the funds in their bank account and give them to him in cash. He planned on telling them he would take his money or their money to a Babka in Moscow who would help them amass riches in combination with his powers. His first intended

victim was a businesswoman named Olga R but she caught onto his scheme, cut off all contact with him. Montorozian then decided to ditch his original plan and started performing rituals at some client's homes and he chose 24-year-old Natalia Trepsocinova as his next victim, Natalia, an aspiring model from a Nisie Novgorod.

She moved to Moscow, was searching for love and success. She often looked at photos of rich bankers and Russian Forbes, dreamed of marrying them one day, one of them, and all of them. And Natalia had also been saving money for a business startup until she met Gosha the magician. Natalia went to him because she suffered a spinal disc herniation due to a rowing injury as a teen, and that caused her pain while walking in heels, which was an essential part of her modeling career. Natalia had also started doing escort work, and she asked Martyrusian to view photos of her clients and warn her, if any of them were dangerous. Marterosian would later

tell the police, she was officially working for some company, but that was just a cover. She was actually working as a high-class prostitute, and she had a lot of rich clients. Natalia was Gosha's a client for several years. He convinced her to cut off contact with her boyfriend at one point, told her a friend from her modeling agency was trying to poison her at another point, just completely meddling in, messing up her life based on his magical and I'm surely, I'm sure entirely made up visions. In September of 2011, Martyrusian asked her to empty all her bank accounts, bring all her money to Moscow for some very powerful magic. During her last visit with her parents, Natalia mentioned that a magician named Gosha advised her to

withdraw all her money so he could charge the money with energy that would multiply her wealth. My God, the stupid shit people get conned into. He was going to charge her money, magically multiply it. Her father, Valeri, told her this was a terrible idea. Valeri later told someone on the show let them talk. Natalia liked round figures. She said she had one million rubles equivalent to around $30,000 US and wanted a lot more. Natalia arrived at her apartment in Moscow on the evening of September 21st, 2011 for a meeting with Mara Rosian. He made Natalia a drink, which he had laced with both heroin and methadone. And when Natalia lost consciousness, Miss Marterosia injected her with two syringes of more heroin to try and simulate an overdose.

However, he still hadn't given her enough to kill her. So now he drowned her in the bathroom. He poured out some food for her dog, strange bit of kindness before he left, then walked out of the apartment with her cash, some jewelry. When Natalia did not answer her parents' calls the next morning, they used a social media app to message Gosha the magician, ask if he knew anything. He claimed he hadn't seen Natalia in four days and that he was on a vacation in Georgia.

Natalia's worried parents now travel to Moscow. they can see the light on in their daughter's apartment but she doesn't answer the door. They get the landlady to let them in and then tragically find their daughter dead in the bathtub. Her cause of death ruled as asphyxiation. She has a near fatal dose of heroin in her stomach

when no fingerprints are found in the syringe in Natalia's apartment that the syringe that had injected the heroin. Law enforcement seemed to think that she has done this herself. It's an overdose. She just drowned in the tub because she took too much heroin. Her parents refused to believe that but it will take them over a year

to convince the police to investigate Natalia's case. Mardorosian is questioned, but released due to a lack of evidence. Meanwhile, Mardorosian has moved on to his next victim. Through contacts with models, Mardi Grosian finds 21-year-old Maria and 38-year-old Natalia Agarcovy, a mother-and-daughter combo from Krasnodar. He learned that Maria wanted to enter the fashion industry,

and Natalia wanted to work as a fitness instructor and dance show director. He knew they had money and volunteered to help them, quote, to carry out a ceremony of fortune. He rented a one-room suite in Moscow, told them to show up with 5.1 million rubles on January 14th, 2012. Their bodies are found a week later, and an autopsy determines their bodies.

Each contained approximately 20 times the amount of heroin that Natalia Tapskinova had in her body. So just a bit suspicious that two women, neither of whom had a known history of heroin use, suddenly decided to go on a mother-daughter drug binge and try and set the world's record for the most heroin done. or the most heroin taken at one time.

While searching the Agarov's apartment, investigators find standard cigarettes with teeth imprints in them in the ashtray next to the cigarettes. Natalia was known to smoke. After speaking to friends, looking through phone records, the police are led to Martyrusian, who smoked the exact type of cigarette

found in the ashtray. Those same cigarettes also found in Natalia Trapsovastanova's ashtray. It was Alexander Kynstein, or Kynstein, the chairman of the security Committee of the State Parliament who pushed authorities to reinvesticate Natalia's death after he heard Natalia's father's plea. If not for his involvement, Martyrusian might not have

ever been arrested. Kindstein told the Daily Beast, there are so many charlatans among police officers and amongst the magicians. The police found security video that recorded Natalia entering Martyrusian's building with a plastic bag. A few hours later, Martyrusian left the building with a similar bag. Of course, that all happened around her time of death. How the fuck did they not look for that video back when she died. Just corruption and incompetence, I guess. Martyrusian also suspected the disappearance of a fourth woman,

a 31-year-old businesswoman in a Filippanova, or Filipova. She was a long-time client of his last seen, December 29, 2011, carrying all of her savings with her to Martyrusian's apartment, and her body has never been found, as far as we know. Georgi Martyrusian, arrested February

21st, 2013. The police supposedly found 6.6 kilograms or nearly 15 pounds of heroin on his property. It feels like an insane amount. I wonder if that is a typo. That's what the source says. The place also found decorations and cards belonging to the Asgorovs during his interrogation. Mardorosian admitted to being in Natalia Trepis Konova's apartment but claimed

that he and Natalia, who he said was drunk, used cocaine, had oral sex. But then he felt disgusted because he's a really good guy you know with high moral standards and you know and he was all for having fun until he came and then he was like took a moral high road and he packed up

left while she was in the shower and took a bottle of expensive whiskey with him because he's such a good guy he's still stuff martyrosian pled not guilty to the murder charges also insulted the people in the courtroom including the judge he argued the deaths were accidental overdoses

should be acquitted he should be acquitted and claimed the police electrocuted him and did not allow him to eat for two days and planted drugs in his home authorities determined he stole between 1.5 million and 3 million rubles from his victims you know the victims that he had killed and including the victim that had disappeared uh april 22nd 2014 martyrosian found guilty of three murders robbery and drug trafficking

and sentenced to 23 years in prison ordered to pay 23 million rubles and damages to the families uh he was sent to a prison colony somewhere in russia where he supposedly remains to this day never trust a magician and i am surprised he hasn't used his powers to teleport himself out of his cell or anything, or to at least hypnotize the guards and to let him escape. What kind of bullshit magician is he? And now, before we leave this weird timeline, let's take a look at how magic influences Russian society in more recent years. Over the past two decades of Putin's administration, during which the Orthodox Christian Church has grown in power, astrology's overall popularity has generally been on the decline. A 2019 poll conducted by the

Russian Public Opinion Research Center, a government-run organization, found that just 15% of people believed in astrology, less than half of the 33% from 2000. However, during the uncertainty of the pandemic, astrologists, and also wizard magicians, once again began to attract larger audiences. At the start of the pandemic, our old buddy Anatoly Kasparovsky started to focus more of his time on YouTube, offering comfort to those who were, you know, home, alone, afraid, seeking answers. He posted a healing seance April 9th, 2020, telling his viewers, Our meeting will naturally provoke in you an explosion in your immune system.

system which will protect you. I crave that from the bottom of my soul. Since the pandemic, witchcraft has continued to rise in popularity. Modern-day witches combining Slavic paganism, modern paganism, and Western magic give tarot card readings, practice numerology, offer folk remedies and incantations, sell candles, amulets, books of spells. Arina Agafanova, owner and founder of the Happy Witch Magic Store in St. Petersburg, told the Moscow Times, what we now call practical magic in Russia is a bizarre fusion of Russian village magic, the witchcraft that came from Europe, which works with prayers, rituals and spells, reinterpreted practices of modern paganism, and many other traditions. All of these systems are combined in practice because at its heart lies magic,

which cannot be labeled, the ability to awaken in oneself and interact directly with the delicate spirit of the world. The most popular practices among her clients are cleansing and spell-casting techniques that require burning candles or herbs. She noted that tarot cards have increased in popularity. Agafanova called taro a primer and the very first experience

of an archetypal interpretation of life. That's a cool description. Lita, a practicing witch and self-described anthropologist of witchcraft recently told the Moscow Times, I feel strength, knowledge, experience, and pain in it. Uniting women of different eras and countries. She added,

magic in modern society is not a necessity. It's a choice that is complicated and personal based on a readiness to be transformed. Each of us has mythological thinking and everyone decides what to believe. Each of us has a God, whether it's Jesus, Odin, or the iPhone 12. You know, it does feel like a lot of people worship their phones. The Moscow Times noted that mysticism and superstitions still manifest themselves in everyday Russian life. In order to avoid jinxing something, it is common today in Russia to spit over your left shoulder three times. It's kind of gross.

if you have to go back home to retrieve something you forgot, you can look into a mirror before you depart again to ensure a safe journey. As mentioned earlier, many Russians don't trust doctors or they live in rural areas where health care is not easily accessible and they still turn to healers, psychics, wizards, witches who advertise their services in the newspapers. Some doctors even still refer patients to witches for healing.

According to 2017 data from Russia's health ministry, almost a million people were earning. a living from working as a foe killer, psychic medium, or similar service like a witch or warlock that year out of a total population of 145 million. So about one out of 150 people working as a wizard or witch. It seems like a very high percentage. And of course, there are people pushing back against this. Conservative politicians and leaders within the Russian Orthodox Church have tried to end occult practices, with some even wanting to ban Halloween in recent years, but so far they have been unsuccessful. And now before we leave the timeline totally, one more

thing. Let's check in again with Russia's favorite psychic, right? Our friend from the 90s, my good friend, Anatoly Kasparowski, 85 years old, almost 86, full thick head of fucking jet black hair. I mean, truly looks like the dude colors each strand with a sharpie. He's still holding private healing and magic sessions with clients, still holding public healing sessions, still putting recordings with him out on YouTube. I'm going to play at the beginning of his most recent video from July 8th, just from, you know, a month ago. It's in Russian but thanks to Google's increasingly advanced closed caption translation abilities I'm going to read what he says in English as he says it

not sure what city he recorded this in doesn't say in the video in the video description he's sitting alone on a stage behind a table covered in a red tablecloth with some red roses beside him in a small red conference room in front of about a hundred and 150 people a lot of red must be a powerfully magical color about 90% of the people attending appear to be women and I would say the average age round 65. Over 64,000 people have already watched this video. They seem to love it.

The top comment on the video is, the only doctor in the world who persistently treats people for free. Thank you for wonderful treatment programs and for valuable help. Wonderful facts about remote psychological treatment with heartfelt gratitude deep respect. Yeah, every other comment I took, you know, saw a quick glance, shared, you know, positive sentiments.

They love him. They believe him. And here's what he says as he begins his, I don't know, presentation you know I kind of got carried away you know what the sphere of the unconscious here we sit and our hair grows our nails grow our metabolism occurs and we don't feel it get used to this idea because in my books the emphasis is on the fact that no one can feel anything physically I got carried away by the body's reaction and thought wait a minute What if, what if I touch on dentistry?

Dentistry? Anyone who has been to a dentist knows that before they put a filling in, the empty area and the area where tooth was pulled out must be cleaned. But we don't have this. No, no purification. When the process occurs, what kind of, fillings arise, my fillings. But there is no need to clean the place

where it would be necessary to clean. Fawks he talking about. Automatic cleaning occurs. The infection is killed and feelings appear. What character? And as one said, of some cosmic nature. Why can't they be dug out? They are very white and beautiful.

No matter how you touch, no matter how much you pick, you won't be able to get it out of there. It grows together with a tooth. How many of these fillings are there? What the fuck? Well, on average, two or three. Two or three at once. And if I go in

again and again, at some time there are more cases. They're also up to ten. What is he talking about? I've listened to the beginning of this video several times, and I just cannot figure out what the hell he's going on about. I think you know

we're going to jump further ahead I think he's trying to fucking babble his way into convincing you that he can fix your cavities so let's jump let's jump to about six minutes and I mean fix him like through just you know listening to him speak

or buying his fucking books and DVDs and shit so we're going to jump we're going to jump ahead and see what he has to say at the six minute 10 second mark Doug So, now let's go over such a sensitive place as teeth.

Yeah, he's still talking about teeth. Today is a memorable day for you because you will get a filling. You will say the process will start in five minutes. But tomorrow you will be telling me that we have fillings. How many out of 100 people? He's talking about how many people are there. Fine. Out of 1,000, one is a lot.

Many. Do you want everything? Basically, here in our country, in our conditions, that's practically everything. What will you feel? Nothing at all. Because this filling, when it appears, somehow grows together with the tooth. There's no way to get her out of there. And you can add that to my list of those for whom this has happened. Do you want this?

Well, of course you want to. Okay. you know you can be deaf but blind and when there are no teeth you may not have a single tooth the most important thing is that the heart works that the tissue works and that there is vision

there are just fucking these old ladies just staring ahead like what but like I get the vibe that like nobody fucking knows what he's talking about not a single person there but none of them want to admit it How the fuck that this guy

become rich with this bullshit? Okay, 20 minutes later, he has some weird faith healing stuff on stage where one woman ends up falling down, sleeping on the stage

to, I guess, cure her heart arrhythmia is what he kind of says. He sends other women just kind of running back and forth on stage like idiots, like chickens with her heads

cut off. That's to cure their heart ailments as well, I guess. About 40 minutes in, he knocks about 10 women down on stage like they're living dominoes.

and then at the end of the show an hour and seven minutes in he walks back and forth on the stage and just touches people who read up to him and solemnly you know I guess heals them

with his magic so let's just listen there's got like some music going it's a little more lively towards the end of his presentation okay voila abracadal

I am a magician the fuck you have just a bunch of people kind of like quietly clapping looking very confused getting touched getting their handshaked oh my god

what the fuck is still going on over in Russia do you believe in magic no I don't not this kind I wish you would make an infomercial I know we don't really have commercials around here

because you know who the fuck cares about late night TV when you can have YouTube but you can make a I don't know, an ad that he could run on YouTube. If he did, in my mind, it would go something like this.

Hello. It is I. Anatoly Kasparowski. Russia's most premier magician wizard sorcerer man. Is life work perfect now for you? Are you health and full of vigor life, full?

Do you make love to beauty? is vagina covered in mold how our teeth are strong for chomping steak and full of life are teeth too soft and rotten from witch curse and only pudding will suffice for nourishment you confuse sound of breaking glass for medicine

I help with many of these things and more things as well I fix heart attack I kill cancer I eat stomach pain You must buy Sign Photo. Tape my jet black ball-cut wizard hair to face to chest at night for sleep and never die. Watch DVD for understanding power of sending on wind spells. I hope you place curse on enemy.

Abracadabra, may curse feel long and may cry tears of blindness and pain burning gas with death magic. May taste my curse for days! Go to website Anatoly Kasparowski.R.U.w.w.w.w.scam.scam.P.O.? Only 10,000 ruble for DVD. Or save money. Get both together for low cost of 50,000 rubles. Buy my magic and be blessed. Or do not buy and face curse. Do not risk my smite of filth. I burn lungs with smell of devil. I water eyes turn to fire By my wizard magic today

I beg to be killed With a taste hot rat on tongue Long live Russia That'd be a pretty sweet fucking ad, right? I mean that felt good That felt really good Now I feel satisfied with this timeline Let's get out of here

Good job, soldier You've made it back barely magic who knew there was so much magic and there's been around for so long on the one hand it seems crazy to me on the other you know it feels like par for the course

for humanities in general so many different cultures across the broad scope of human history have preyed to so many different gods and spirits and had so many rituals believed in the rules of so many different gods and spirits you know it seems crazy to one person is usually just different.

And maybe also a bit crazy, but a crazy, often similar to the kind of crazy that the person who thinks it's crazy has already accepted. One person will find the concept of a curse to be insane, but simultaneously fully believe in some notion of, you know,

heavenly guided reincarnation. Another person will find reincarnation to be a silly, ludicrous concept, but fully believed that the earth was created by an all-powerful God who created Earth in seven literal days, but really six, because somehow this all-powerful God got tired and needed to rest.

Another person will find that notion absurd, but totally believe you can definitely speak with the dead, aka ghost, via a seance. And someone who might laugh that away will be an atheist convinced that we're all living in a computer simulation being ran by wildly advanced entities from the future. And the list goes on and on and on. We're a fucking crazy species.

Almost all of us. Or maybe literally all of us. I don't know. My advice would just all this kind of stuff in the magical realm. It's just, you know, take it with a grain of salt. Be skeptical. Some wizard trying to convince you of their magical powers because they truly want to help you in some way or because they just want your money and adulation. You know, and same for a preacher.

Same for a priest, you know, whatever, any kind of religious, you know, figure. Are they trying to soothe your soul or just take your money? Are they selling you a concept of love that enriches your life or selling you fear that hurts you? Is the magic positive? Does it leave you feeling better, make you a better, more fulfilled, more loving, compassionate person? Or is the magic negative? Does it leave you feeling worse and scared and judgmental and full of hate? and heartache. I think if it's positive,

you know what, fuck it. Believe in magic. Let the world be mystical. Fill yourself with wonder. And if it's negative, well, it can fuck off. You ain't get my money, wizard. You know, you can shove that curse up your ass. While some psychic healers and practitioners of magic are a scam artists, you know, others are probably good people trying to, you know, make a peaceful living and promote physical and

spiritual healing. And that's all I got, Me, Sacks. Time now for the takeaways. Five takeaways. Number one, magic has been around Russia for as long as there has been Russia. Before Orthodox Christianity was introduced in the 10th century C.E., the ancient Slavs were pagans who worshipped female deities, ancestors, believed in magic, nature, house spirits, you know, many still believe in versions of all that stuff today.

Number two, in Russia, paganism, witchcraft coexist alongside Orthodox Christianity in a system called a word I cannot come close to pronouncing, despite great effort that translates to double belief or dual belief. At certain times in Russia's history, Orthodox priests even distributed pagan materials and incorporated pagan magical rituals into Christian holidays, such as blessing herbs, gathered on St. John's Day. Number three, in Russia, a wizard is typically called a cold un, a witch often called a vidma, which means knower, witches and wizards have knowledge of folk medicine or believed by some to have the power to cast spells typically with the aid of magical items or herbs,

witches and wizards still is respected and or feared for their powers in parts of Russia and have often been hired to cast spells on once enemies designed to bring misfortune, marital problems, or financial ruin. Number four, before Peter the Great became Tsar of Russia in the late 17th century, it was common for czars to hire court physicians who were basically magicians or wizards with knowledge of magic and astronomy. They brought with them knowledge of magical practices from the West, leading to a division in society between high magic and low traditional folk magic.

And number five, new info, still learn a bit more about our black, sharpy-haired boy. You got to see a picture of him sometime. Anatoly Kasparovsky, last year in 2024, he returned to Moscow to conduct four wellness sessions, which cost between 3,500 and 9,000 rubles each, also offered individual sessions for 25,000 roubles. at all his sessions he sold Magic Salt CDs with pre-recorded healing sessions, books, photos, and flash drives of songs he apparently earned about 6 million rubles in four meetings

or about $75,000 U.S. dollars. Not a bad fucking week, not bad money for a modern-day wizard. Russia's Wizards, Witches and Folk Magic has been sucked. always love learning more about Russia I hope you did too I would love to visit Russia I would really love to visit Russia

if it wasn't for fucking Putin Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all your help making time suck thanks to Queen of Bad Magic Lindsay Cummins Thanks also to Logan Keith Helping to publish this episode in designing merch for the store

at bad magic productions.com Thank you to Olivia Lee for her research Also thank you to the all-seeing eyes moderating the cult of the curious private Facebook page The Mod Squad making sure Discord keeps running smooth

and everybody over on the Time Sucks subreddit and Bad Magic subreddit. And now, this week's, Time Sucker Updates. Updates? Get your Time Sucker updates. First up, Slim, Happy, and Jacked Sack, Brian Skippers. Send a message into Bojangles at Timesug Podcast.com with the subject line of. This is all your fault, Dan. And Brian wrote, Hey, Dan and the Timesuck crew, you did this to me. this is 100% your fault i was a normal dude once overweight exhausted full of excuses then i started

listening to time suck suddenly i'm running half marathons for fun and signing up for triathlons like some kind of masochist with a podcast addiction now i know those things don't sound like they're connected but let me explain dan you are easily my fourth favorite comedian can't let your ego get too big fair uh but time suck is my undisputed number one podcast as a hopeless info file a term i am coining right now i crave knowledge like some people crave carbs. Your show has become my weekly mental feast, equal part, hilarious, horrifying, and wait, Rasputin did what? But beyond the trivia and the laughs, this podcast somehow affected me with the idea that I could be better every day, just 1% better than I was yesterday. That mindset

pushed me into fitness, and now I'm basically turned, I've turned my life into a training montage with no end credits in sight. Three years ago, I was 250 pounds at 5 foot 6. Today I'm down to 165 pounds, still 5 foot 6, which is frankly offensive, but I'm faster, strong, and chasing goals than ever imagined. And one of the biggest reasons is a fellow cult of the curious member, J.D. Roberts. J.D. randomly commented on one of my fitness posts when I was about 50 pounds down. Since then, he's become my personal hype man and long-distance sadist. He's an ultra runner.

Somebody who willingly signs up for 100-mile races and probably considers toenails optional. Thanks to his encouragement, I went from not being able to run a single mile last October to running 5Ks after a month, completing the 10K two months later. finishing a half marathon in two hours and nine minutes just four months after I started running and now I'm all in October 2025 is going to be my first full marathon in 2026 I'll run my first triathlon and half Iron Man 27 my first full Iron Man 2028 my first 50 miler just in time for my 42nd birthday midlife crisis and yes JD's promised to be there even though we have never met in person that's a kind of insane wonderful community you've built I would argue that you're

You guys have built that, and especially our moderators, but thank you. Also, because clearly I didn't have enough self-inflicted suffering. I started a fitness group called Black Flag Fitness. We're still small, less than a dozen members, but three of us are proud time suckers. Our motto, no finish line, no end goal, no quit, no mercy, just the daily grind to be better from now till death. You know, uplifting stuff. So, Dan, thanks, I guess. Thanks for breaking my brain, inspiring my grind and creating a community weird enough to cheer it all on.

I blame you and J.D. And the whole cult and somehow Nimrod. Hail Nimrod. Hail Zafina. Hail yourself. And keep on sucking while I keep on sweating. Brian Skippers, P.S. attached our photos two years apart, going from 200 pounds to 165. Fucking, Brian, you look great, man. Seriously.

Love that you're out there in the sun and your stand-up paddleboard and those photos. I wanted to include your message, not because you love this show, which I so appreciate. But because J.D. Roberts, somebody you have never met in person, has taken. the time to encourage you online and look how much that encouragement has helped your life i think a lot of us forget myself included how much just showing somebody a little bit of kindness can mean how much of a difference it can make uh i i saw your message right after actually just last night linds and i went out to dinner uh with some friends of ours jerome and marie polos they're awesome uh jerome's the best photographer in cordelaine uh marie oh my gosh she is the sweetest fucking human being she she's so good

at complimenting people. And when our waitress dropped off some water, Marie told her that her makeup looked incredible and that she had the most beautiful eyes. And then this young woman tried to kind of deflect the compliment, you know, a little embarrassed. And Marie like stayed firm and doubled down. She's like, no, no, don't say that. You're beautiful. You really are. And you could tell that young one was so touched. Marie also told Lindsay that some guys she knew at the restaurant who she'd been speaking to before we walked in. When they saw Lindsay walk in, they told her like, oh my God, she is so gorgeous. And Marie shared that with Lindsay,

and it made her fucking night. You know, just a random compliment. A little encouragement can mean so much and it's so easy to do. You look awesome, Brian. You handsome motherfucker. Keep enjoying your life. Keep killing it.

Lucifina beyond impressed. Next up. And especially caring member of the cult of the curis, Reagan Vansel, sent in a message with the subject line of one mental health person to another and they wrote,

Hello, Dan. I decided to write in after listening to the Tuskegee Study where you made several comments that stuck. The main one was Make America gracious again. I'm an emerging adult. I love that term, actually.

I'm an emerging adult who is just entering the field of mental health counseling and I think we just need to listen and empathize with each other more. You talk about your beliefs, how it is important to stand for what we believe, so here am I standing for what I believe.

Recently, 988 was cut and is no longer available as a suicide hotline primarily used by LGBTQIA plus youth and individuals. And actually, yeah, the number's still there. I'll talk about this a little bit. But yeah, the option three, as I'm sure what you meant to say. Option three is cut. This is a support line that has helped people in my life and myself when things felt out of control and at their lowest, and now it's

not an option for those who will need it in the future. This falls under the medical malpractice in my brain, along with what happened in Tuskegee and with AIDS when it was first discovered. Suicide is not something to be taken lightly, no matter who's facing it, and they should always have easy access to support when it's needed. I know with your background and mental health as well that you know just how life-saving, having someone to talk to in those moments until the time frame passes is. I just want to say thank you for

everything that you do and your team. You spread information in a fun way that helps bring light in the darkest of times. Please keep being you sharing your thoughts. It gives other bravery to do the same. Sorry, not sorry for the length of the email. Three out of five stars would never change a thing. Please for the love of all that is holy, never

changed a thing. And keep on sucking Reagan. And Reagan, man, first off Reagan thanks for jumping into the mental health field the work you will do if you're not doing it already is so fucking important everyone struggles and right now I would assume strongly that many members of the pride community are struggling more than in recent memory

I would be if I felt like a big chunk of the country is just felt emboldened to just give less of a fuck about me than they already had it's just so gross such a disgusting display of intolerance empathy ignorance Yeah, like I said, 988 is still around, but yeah, the number three option for LGBTQIA plus youth It's been defunded, even though that demo, statistically more at risk than others,

you know, could definitely use specialized services. Why was it cut, supposedly? You know, all that talk of a crackdown on DEI because, you know, I guess we were just getting too tolerant and federal supposed waste. But guess what? That's the narrative, but federal spending is increasing, currently, not decreasing.

All these cuts, they're being canceled out by increased spending in other areas, right? The U.S. is going to increase borrowing by $4.1.000 fucking trillion federally through 2034. The deficit will be boosted by $500 billion in 2026 alone, $635 billion in 2027. It's going to put a further strain on more programs. You know, you dive deeply into some nonpartisan think tank,

some analysis, and you will see that the bottom tax brackets will lose so many services that any potential tax break they're receiving, say, on like, tip wages, it's going to be offset. basically America's bottom earners are going to be in a worse position than they were before and they already were getting fucked especially when you factor in the increased cost of goods related to tariffs that are already starting

to show up on shelves and they're going to need services like this hotline that they're not going to fucking get. The rich are going to get richer, the poor who are already alienated they're going to be fucked harder than they've been fucked before and the poor of all political affiliations by the way and oh my God

that's just going to hit so many people's mental health so hard and more people are going to need to talk to somebody like you, Reagan, someone like you, to actually listen to them, to empathize, to give them hope. So be that light. Don't let these bastards grind you down. Know that people like me, a lot of people like me, we're out there. And in addition to all the folks you help directly, we recognize how important you are and the work that you're doing is so fucking important and it matters so much. Yeah, just know that the world's always changing and just because things are looking especially bleak in certain areas right now, that doesn't

mean they will remain so. Hail Nimrod and fucking good on you for being you. Next up, smart as fuck sack. Tiffany Paulson wrote in with the subject line of pet scientist application. Hey time suck team. I'm only 20 minutes into the Tuskegee experiment episode, but I had to pause to toss my name into the ring as your future pet scientist, even if I don't legally go by Clifford. I know that's the preferred name. Honestly, wouldn't a scientist named Tiffany be better? That would actually be better. Statistically, I probably should have been a, you know, stripper. I did teach pole fitness for a couple of years, but my professional resume, I've got degrees in microbiology, medical technology. I started out as a medical lab scientist and

micro, then jumped into IT about a decade ago, where I'm currently an analyst for infection prevention and laboratory systems at a major health care system. One of my first IT assignments was taking over disease reporting to the health departments, like making sure syphilis tests results go where they're supposed to, not trying to break any kind of confidentiality, but damn your dad's filthy. This has been my my biggest passion professionally, and while it may not be glamorous, I'm a behind the scenes germ wrangler making a real world difference. Yeah, you are. All this is just context for why I felt compelled to email before even hitting the halfway mark of the episode. Thanks for the work

you and your team put into research and for unapologetically supporting science, the pandemic cracked my faith in humanity. And watching scientists get publicly steamrolled has been, well, a lot. Hearing someone with the big platform, unapologetically stand up for science, that hits hard in the best way, and I hope you can hear me cheering you on all the way in Idaho. So thanks for being loud, weird, smart, and supportive of reason.

If you ever need some germ-related backup, I'm your microbe whisperer. Three out of five stars wouldn't change a thing. Tiffany Paulson. P.S. Fun, microbe fact. There's only one bacterium. You can see you with the naked eye. And thank you for phonetically writing it.

Thio Margarita Namabeensis. That's as good as I'm probably going to get, Tiffany. Uh, uh, thio margarita technically translates to sulfur pearl, sulfur, which references the bacterium's ability to metabolize sulfur and that it looks like tiny pearls of the naked eye. However, I like to imagine if it was just, however, I like to imagine it was discovered clinging to the rim of a margarita glass disguised as salt quietly metabolizing tequila. Well, thank you, Tiffany. Thanks for doing what you do. Uh, thanks for offering your services.

You know, if I don't reach out, it's only because of time constraints. But yeah, I truly appreciate your generous offer of your time. expertise and just like you know telling us what you do you know all these all these jobs in the background that make our lives richer that people just don't take the time to think about it is such a fucking knee-jerk idiotic way to go about life to be like fucking scientists it's like what what the fuck like i wish the people who had that uh attitude were just banned from like i don't know for like five years like you don't get to go to a doctor no matter what happens to you no doctor no medicine. You don't get to use your fucking computer.

Just all like our modern tech and stuff, all of our modern medicine that is built on scientific advancement. I wish it was just all of that shit was stripped away from them until they just fucking begged. I'm so sorry. I'm so please. I'm sorry. And they have to apologize profusy. Okay, I get it. I get why it's important. I was too fucking ignorant to understand before. Yeah, I will forever respect the amazing contributions of the scientific community and scientists like you. I'll be respecting it long after I stopped doing this podcast. I don't take modern medicine for granted. Don't take tech for granted. Don't take so many innovations for granted that make my life and the lives of the people who don't fucking

respect it so much better. You're the fucking best. The hard work you put in does not go unnoticed. And now let's end with some laughs. Time for another shit story. Travis the fecal terrorist has done something dirty. This is ridiculous. You're right. Say Dan, just to let you know, you asked for this. Huge fan here. I listen to every single episode of time. time sucks scared to death and his be dumb rest in peace you know my favorite escape from reality for years so when you mention that story about the night caller taking a poop in someone's bed and called out for others to send in their own tales of bowel powered vengeance that's well phrased i knew you'd love this this one goes back to when i was 14 names have been changed to protect the not so innocent now i've always been the kind of kid who would take a dare too far my crowning achievement uh at that point had been just a little more than a dare

I would sneak into my grumpy old neighbor's porch or onto, swipe his morning paper, climb up the side of his house using a small tree, sit on his chimney like it was a porcelain throne, newspaper open, reading and pooping like a gentleman. Oh my God. My friends were down below, rolling on the ground, laughing hysterically. I jumped back down like Batman if he worked at Taco Bell. Oh my God. I would be in fucking tears. I would still tear up laughing about that memory. So I already had a bit of reputation

But none of that compares to what happened the weekend I decided to get revenge on my electronics teacher We'll call him Mr. Kay This guy was pure evil Had a sadistic habit of disciplining kids in class By charging a capacitor on one of the best benches Or one of the test benches And then zapping them on the neck if they fell asleep

God, you get sued for that today One day I was his victim And after that rude awakening, I knew I had to plan some vengeance. I took note that his classroom had a huge skylight directly above his desk. That Friday, I called upon my two buddies, Eric and Ryan, asked if they wanted to go camping at this old abandoned cabin in the woods behind the high school. We all told our parents we were staying at each other's houses, yep, classic cover, and snuck off.

This place hadn't been lived in for decades. The floor sag, the furniture looked like raccoons, have been throwing keggers in there. It was the kind of place teenagers went to make out for the first time, smoked their first cigarette, you know, that type of place, and it was perfect. I brought it up casually. Hey, you guys know how, I know how to get up on top of the high school roof, right? They were both in disbelief, but they were in. They didn't know that.

Then I let them to the woods, back down to the high school. We used a big industrial dust collector behind the wood shop to scale up the side of the building. As soon as we were up there, they could tell I was on a mission. I led them straight to a skylight above Mr. Kay's classroom. I had scoped it out earlier in the week. They still thought we were just messing around, but then I dropped the bomb. I'm going to shit on his desk, I said. They thought I was joking.

I wasn't. Oddly enough, there was gravel on the roof like what you'd see in a driveway, so I grabbed a nearby rock, smashed a corner of the skylight, pulled it open just enough to get a clean shot, squatted carefully over the hole like a bald eagle of vengeance, and dropped a payload I've been holding in for two days. It hit that desk like a mortar strike. When it connected, it splattered everywhere. It wasn't just a poop. It was art. If justice had a smell, this was it. My friends were stunned. They laughed so hard, I thought one of them was going to stumble off the edge of the roof. After that, we decided to explore a little bit. We climbed a ladder

up to a higher part of the school. We were bouncing around on these long rubber pads. Unbeknownst to us, we were triggering an alarm system. It was like those old rubber house-style bells you'd run over at an old gas station. The janitor inside the school heard the alarms going off like an orchestra, figured something was up. Next thing we know, flashing red and blue lights. At this point, we're on top of the gym, the tallest part of the school. Oh my God, my high school was built just like this. We tried to stay hidden. I laid but figured it was no use, so I stood up and walked to the edge. A cop shined to spot. spotlight on me and shouted, don't move. One even had a gun drawn. It was wild. Then they yelled,

who's up there with you? I said, I don't think my friends would want me to give up their names, but hold on, I'll ask them. I turned around and walked away from the edge towards my friends who were laying flat on their bellies, and the cops started screaming, freeze, don't move. I squatted down and asked, do you want me to say your names? They both said no. So I looked, or walked back to the edge and said, I jokingly said, I don't know who they are, and they didn't think that was funny at all. They told me again, don't move. They completely lost their patience enough to scare the hell out of us. They screamed at all of us to get down immediately. We climbed down, got handcuffed. We're put into the back of a cop car. As we're sitting there, the janitor

came out and started talking to them, and we heard him say, I think one of them pooped. I think one of them pooped on a desk. We all started giggling, even though we knew we were in deep trouble. They took me into what looked like a small interrogation room, made me call my mom at two in the morning. Because I was still handcuffed. The cop held the phone for me as I pinched it between my ear and shoulder. She picked up and I said, Mom, I got arrested. And she yelled, stop mess with me. I got to get up for work. And then she hung up. The officer looked at me and asked, what's he say? I said, let me give her a call. He dialed and held the phone to his ear. I could hear her answer. What the fuck do you want? And he said, hello, man, this is Officer

McDonald from the police department. We have your son down here for trespassing and destruction of school property. She immediately now started yelling at him. You little, bastard, I know you're one of his friends, messed around again. This prank's getting old. I got to work in the morning. Let me sleep. And then she hung up on him. He looked at me straight face and said, she called me a little bastard and hung up.

Finally called her back again, this time she believed it. Ten minutes later, she stormed in furious. He waited until she sat down and then asked, Travis, tell us what you did on top of the school. And I had to say it out loud, now in front of my mom. I pooped on Mr. Kay's desk. And my mom said, what the fuck is wrong with you? The ride home was mostly just her screaming.

What the hell were you thinking? On loop. By the time I got to bed, I figured the worst was over. Spoiler, it wasn't. I woke up the next morning, realized we had left all our stuff, sleeping bags, blankets, snacks, everything back at the cabin. So I called Eric, and we decided to sneak back up, grab our gear, and get out quick. We were mid-clean up when the front door swung open. A guy stood in the doorway, furious, red-faced, and clearly the owner of the place,

apparently just because it was in shambles didn't mean it didn't have an owner. He pointed at us and yelled, The cops are on their way. When we just stood there, frozen, surrounded by sleeping bags and Dorito crumbs, knowing we were about to get arrested again. And then the same cops from the night before pulled up, their shift still wasn't over. One of them looked right at me, squinted, and said, didn't I just arrest you guys a couple hours ago? Yep, officially arrested twice within six hours. On the ride back to the station, the cops could not stop laughing.

Dude, one said, you're about to set the juvenile detention record. I was now part of their shift story, probably still am, the only other. upside. My mom was at work, so my stepdad came to pick me up instead, and he just laughed the whole way home, shaking his head and telling me how stupid we were. We got lucky. The school dismissed it as a prank. The skylight was valued at three grand. The owner of the cabin, not as nice. He blamed every broken window on us, and even said we stole a 50-foot extension ladder we had to pay for. There was never a ladder in that place. Maybe he needed a visit from Bad Santa to deliver a present down his chimney. And as for Mr. K, yeah, he knew. He didn't say word about it, probably because

I was a minor. My name was never officially released, but every time I walked into his class after that, he looked at me like I had pooped directly on his soul. He made my life hell the rest of the year, but I never stopped smiling. And Dan, if by some miracle, this little revenge shit tale makes it on to the show, I just want to say, this isn't even my best or worst poop story. I already sent you one titled, This is the most humiliating shit yourself story you'll ever hear. And even if it never makes it on the air, I beg you to dig it up in your inbox and give it a read. Trust me, it's worth it. Oddly similar to that time you shit your pants after eating fah.

My soul left my body that day, and not just because of the poop. Hail Nimrod, praise Lusufina, good boy bojangles. Thanks for everything, Travis. Travis, thank you for sharing that insanity. I love that even though you got caught, you still get to bask in that glory. Right? In class, you still got to smile knowing that he knew. I love that you got to share some good laughs

with the cops who arrested you twice in one shift. That's legendary. Keep on shitting, Traff. Keep on shitting. Hail Nimrod and enjoy the rest of your week, everybody. Thanks time, suckers. I needed that. We all did. Thanks for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast.

Be sure to rate and review time suck. If you haven't already, please and thanks. Check out nightmare fuel. If you haven't done that, I've been having so much fun with it. Please don't spend a lot of your hard-earned rubles on a wizard this week. I really don't think that they're going to be able to help you. But if you want to buy a ticket to a presentation for entertainment purposes,

please do and report back. I would love to hear how it goes. And keep on sucking. That fart sound I played during this episode is supposedly real. It's a YouTube video from a few years ago posted by Colby Kroll titled Longest Fart Shocks Wife. Cameraman, supposedly the guy who farts on the couch while his wife is watching. And as funny as I think the sound is to listen to, I can't imagine farting like that on a couch while Lindsay's sitting there watching. What about you?

Would you do this to your partner? Would you be amused if your partner did this to you? Good God. The build. All it says in the caption is, Too much granola produces excess wind.