Homunculus

>> Speaker A: Could you imagine if your doctor was also, like, really into alchemy? Like, no thanks. Actually, no, thanks. I feel weird going to a doctor if I know they vape or, like, smoker. Welcome back to privy. Privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom. I'm your host, Hunter Hoover, and I love bathrooms. Quick, uh, check in. Uh, November is here. We've arrived. We've made it. I've got to be honest. Um, I work strange schedules. I work at a school,

at a public high school. Shout, uh, out. Uh, and I work at a church. I work with teens. And October, November and December are the busy seasons. So this episode is pre recorded. But that doesn't mean that we can't get into. Really get some tongue on those lips. You know what I'm saying? That's what she said. Uh, it's November. Get yourself in the

mood, if you will. Um, you know what's weird, by the way, here on privy, it's still spoop key season because we are but five mere days removed from that spooky nerduel Hallows Eve holiday. And what's weird about holidays is this is my brief Jerry Seinfeld bit at the front of the episode. What's the deal with Holland? No, but the weird thing is, I call it the, like, we're not going to talk about what I call it, but it has to do with the

load. And anyway, but, uh, there's this notion that you can be more amped and in the holiday spirit, let's take. It's. It's right upon us. It's right. I can almost taste it. And if you're like me, I used to get Tim Gettys get hyped for Christmas at, like, November 1, Halloween night. The tree used to go up. Now, my sweet son, his birthday is November 2. And so we cannot let the Christmas season overshadow his day. And so we wait. We

hold off on the Christmas cheer. Now, what I want to point out is a guy like me can get in the holiday cheer month to a month and a half before the holiday arrives. But what's weird is the day after the holiday happens, it's like, yeah, it's kind of done now. I'm, um, still kind of into it. But we did the thing, and that's what happens for spooky season. We get to the end of October, and we instantly go, man, I, uh, guess things are done being a little creepy. Not

today. Today, yet in November. And definitely not because of poor planning and programming, we are still in spooky season. And we're here to talk about. Well, we'll get to it, because first I have to tell you about, uh, recently, uh, and not so recent bad time you hear this, but whatever, you get it. With the power of the Internet, I have preloaded this one, but I farted so hard, like, it actually hurt. I actually thought I tore something.

Not the boring holio itself, but probably like that tainted skin right between the boring holio and the other stuff, I just felt like I ripped it. I just felt like I did that and I didn't check. But I'm pretty confident I'm good now. But, yeah, I farted so hard, it actually hurt. It actually hurt a little bit. Also, just a couple weeks before recording, a few weeks back, Michael Wall, former, uh, guest of the show. Michael Wall was on the show, and his lovely daughter Bethany, uh, got married.

And we had the privilege of attending her wedding. And what was really great know, we pull up to Spokane, Washington, and within minutes of being in this lovely city, I am just stared face to face. And by face, I mean my face and his butt crack to this just homeless gentleman who is just showering in the thing. Uh, and I'm not trying to make a comment about how somebody might bathe themselves if they don't

have a place to do it. I'm, um, just saying that we were not in this city for more than just a few seconds. And I am full view of a butt crack, a soggy one at that. So there you go. But it's still spooky season here at privy, and today we're going to explore something pretty wild and honestly, kind of messed up. You know how sometimes you hear about something and think, man, that is completely whack. That is so whack. That's more whack than seeing a dude's butt crack 5 seconds into being in

Spokane. You know what I'm saying? And then you begin to look into it, only to find out that what you had originally heard was just the beginning. It's going to get way more whack than that, and that's going to be, uh, us this week. So allow me to take you on the journey from whack to more whack. Or whacker. As I say, it's probably a bad word. Whacker. I don't know. Sounds bad. First of all, up front, I want to give a content warning this week. This week, we will be talking about human discharge

and excrement. Quite a lot. A lot more than I usually want to, um, especially talking about human excrement. And this is where the quotes come in here. Discharge. But isn't that kind of the nature of this show, to talk about human excrement? One of the pastimes I love, but don't have a lot of time to do is dungeons and dragons. I know, edgy. This dude

must be cool. But in one of my readings and preparing for one of my previous dungeons and dragons campaigns, years ago, I stumbled upon a monster that caught my attention and has lived in my brain in a strange way ever since. Now, the description of this monster was that of a human shaped creatureformation. I say human shaped because as we're going to learn time and time again, it is not human, or perhaps not fully or exactly

human. This monster is an entity that often is controlled by a magic using character in the game, usually a sorcerer or occasion wizard. Scram, wizard. It is often used to spy on people by offering the magician a vessel by which they can occupy two spaces at once and see what it sees. This homunculus does the human magician's bidding. Now, this week, we are going to talk about the homunculus. It's not too wild yet. We're still entry level voodoo mama juju situation at this point. You got

creepy wizard. He does creepy spell and overtakes weird human thing. Now, we need to talk about this, because it is not until we begin to talk about what a homunculus is made out of that things begin to get a little unhinged and off the rails. Remember, this is a conglomeration of nonliving things that then is animated to be living. The things that can be mixed or formed to form a homunculus include clay, dirt, mud, hair, feathers, urine, poop. And what's going to be an unfortunate refrain

this episode. Semen. Can we not, like, can we just not. Do you know what I mean? I went back and forth for like a minute trying to decide if sperm or semen would be more appropriate, and I just couldn't figure it out. So we are going to just continue. The idea here is that some wizard or hocus pocus man would poop and apparently do much, much more to that pile of poop and mix it with some dirt and actual crap, and then mix that up like a toddler making a mud pie in a backyard. My son made a

wild mud pie. I know that he said, I chopped a tomato and put it in there, and I totally believe him. But you're making, like, this weird poop shiz mud pie. Then, like, 6th grade art class, they mold the mixture into, like, a human shaped form, which then they animate by projecting their identity into that mix of poop and hair and other weird fluids. Um, now, I want to note that this monster does not have to contain poop or male reproductive fluid as an ingredient of

its form. But, well, it was listed. So at some point someone said, well, we could include those things. It is possible to include them. And so because of this, this monster has lived in my brain as the poop monster since that day, years ago. And here's the deal. As is the case with the history of most monsters, the more you look, the deeper your regret runs. Like, just the deeper it gets, that's what. Anyway, in the 13 hundreds, the black death struck the

continent of Europe. And by mid 1350, this led to a resurgence of discovery and art, and in the Renaissance period. And while we think primarily of the art of the Renaissance, you know the ninja Turtles? Ever heard of them? You have Donatello. You have Michelangelo. You have da Vinci. You have Raphael. You get it? But there was another facet of the Renaissance that kind of gets overlooked, and that's the exploration of medicine. Uh, and this is where the quotes come in big time.

Quote, the sciences, you can't see this at home, but the sciences in quotes, because we're going to find out that this science was not really science. I'm not a scientist, but I can smell a turd when there's one in the room. While some of the work and discovery that was being done at this time was legit, others were trying to turn lead into gold. You know, alchemy.

One of the folks on the scene, uh, was a man by the name of Philippus Areolis Theophrastus Bombastus von Hollenheim, known by most, and, uh, let's be honest, probably by his friends as Paracelsus. Paracelsus was a swiss physician, alchemist and philosopher. Because back then, nowadays, if you're a doctor, often you're either, like, general practitioner or you have a specific focus. But back then, to be a doctor, you also had to be trying to mix weird things together to make gold and

also do philosophy. And maybe the staying in your lane thing would have been a better thing, but Paracelsis was a physician, alchemist and philosopher. Nowadays, could you imagine if your doctor was also really into alchemy? Like, no, thanks. Actually, no, thanks. I feel weird going to a doctor if I know they vape or, like, smoke or something. To me, uh, there's no doctors that listen to this. That's just

impossible to imagine that a doctor listens to this. But if you do, just know from me to you, if you smoke or vape and you're a doctor, you just kind of lose a little bit of credibility to me. Either that or somebody has lied to somebody along the lines about the danger of that and whatever. But, yeah, I'm going to go with you lose credibility. But Paracelsus made a lot of contributions in his time in the field of chemistry.

Paracelsis pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals as treatment or medicine, and likely named the compound or the element zinc. I don't know which it is he purported, which means that he believed in and spread probably a bad idea of hermeticism, which says that you are sick because your humors are off. It's fake. But that was 500 years ago, essentially, as far as I can tell, your humors are like your chemical cocktail that's like swirling around in you, and you got all

these different biles and fluids. And when those get dysregulated, it is the result of every illness. All illnesses are because of that. Now, the other thing here was paracelsis was way down with the use of opium as treatment. In short, he might have got a little fly on his own supply, if you know what I'm saying. And I'm not a cop. His work in toxicology is often touted as being the bedrock of our understanding of poisoning and better yet,

the cure for poisoning. In short, the dude liked to get his hand on the ball and possibly the bong from time to time. Now, while some of his ideas could be linked to helpful discoveries, there are a number of his ideas that are less so. And as we will explore others that really get you asking, how often did you hit up those opiate stocks? But for our things today, about 500 years before Gary Gygax put the homunculus into dungeons and dragons, Paracels wrote of it in his De natura rareum in 1537.

He writes, and strap in, folks, because, boy, did he write. He says, quote, the sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed cucumber for 40 days with the highest degree of putrefication in a horse's womb, or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a

man, but transparent without a body. If after this, it be fed wisely with the arcanum of human blood and be nourished for up to 40 weeks and be kept in the even heat of the horse's womb, a living human child grows therefrom with all its members, like another child, which is born of women, but much smaller. Now, allow me to interpret. Just. I'm going to give you the hunter's cliffs notes of what Paracelsis is writing in Dana chira rerum. First you take human sperm

of the man. Now it's supposed to be putrefied. I'm not sure what that means. I think it means it's stored safely. Whatever. Um, you store that inside a, ah, horse's womb for 40 days. Now, after 40 days, that sperm will begin to move and function and look exactly like a small human man. It's going to look like a full grown person, but it's going to be small like a baby. After this, all you got to do is feed it a constant supply of human blood for 40 weeks, and you will have a living human child.

What in the flipping heck? Paracelsis. This makes Frankenstein sound like a cuddly puppy. Or Frankenstein, you get it? The monster. But according to Paracelsus, the homunculus, which in Latin translates the little man, is just a smaller version of a regular human that you can grow, essentially, from raw male semen. Now, lest you hear that and go, well, how could they really think that? They didn't really think that, right? They probably have not brought into the fertilization theory of

conception. Like, more on that in a moment, unless you hear this and go, wow, these dudes must have been, like, way lost and outfield. Maybe they were on drugs, am I right? Um, I should remind you, these were religious men who believed creating a person in this way was tapping into the divine portion of who we are having been made in the image of God. And may I just say that interpretation is lacking. But similar desires are found across most cultures. Uh, islamic alchemy sought the

creation of life in the Jabrian corpus. It's related to the jewish idea of a golem. And here's the deal. And I don't know if I believe this, but there are writings which noted eyewitnesses that claimed they did create these things. I think that's some freaking lies is what that is.

But in short, Paracelsus'little, man in the bottle, the homunculus, or according to his own writings, the little man in the horse carcass, lent itself to a pretty wild medical theory and an even wilder swath of folktales, or in our case, monster stories. First, the idea was that male sperm would be able to bring forth a person on its own. Is the result or possibly resulted in it's. A real chicken in the egg predicament. But it's called preformationism.

Essentially, this view argues that there's already a little dude inside the sperm. You just got to get him to grow up to be a big guy. And all a woman does is gives that little dude a little home to chill and be warm in now. Yeah. It insinuates that inside the sperm cell is a group of actually, just a little guy, uh, a homunculus, if you will, living inside of it. And given the right environment, it can grow and live. The purporter of this theory was a man named Nicholas Heartsucker.

Hatsucker. Heartsucker. And again, his argument is that sperm semen is actually just a little man that you can't see. Here's the problem, though. At that point, it's turtles all the way down, because if the little man in your sperm has an exact copy of a human person, then the little man in your sperm also has a little man in his sperm. It's

homunculus all the way down. And I'd like to quit saying the term sperm now, but this became known as, well, the homunculus argument, a logical fallacy that requires an infinite regress of unprovable cause and effects. It's little dudes in the semen all the way down. Huh? I imagine that if these blokes knew about genes and DNA, they would be shouting, yes, the genes. That's what I meant. That's what I'm talking about. And if you take the weird language out of it, that is kind

of what DNA and genes do. Like, they carry the code for making that new little man. It's a cool thing that was designed. But Paracelsis also led to a trainload of folklore. The homunculus is related in nature to the mandrake, the mythical creature mandrake, and not the actual mandrake plant. Pretty much whenever the homunculus monster emerges, it is in search for a person to create or retrofit life. The concept brought us Frankenstein's monster.

Van Gogh's Faust features a homunculus that seeks to become a real boy, if you will. There's a dude who is trying to make a homunculus with his deposits and a chicken egg. Like, that's today. That's modern times. We don't need to explore that freakish behavior that brings back some wild and concerning days and stories, mentoring in the poor chickens we used to have on our campus. Those chickens have seen some things. I'll tell you what. And if you think Pinocchio isn't a homunculus

adjacent being. You guessed it, the little puppet is. The homunculus is a monster created from some sort of concoction. Sometimes mud, sometimes poop, and seemingly always sperm. He's a nasty monster that, for many, has served as humanity's attempts at creating life. Not like the whole children having process isn't already creating life. Like God kind of made a pretty rad system. Why do we have to, anyway? But this monster is a kind of shell that can be inhabited. The homunculus.

Or as I like to think of him, the dookie monster. I mean, I made a homunculus today, but it got flushed and it wasn't animated or anything, but it smelled like it had Ben. That's enough of this. We hope he didn't spook you too bad. Thank you so much for listening. Um, and this is the end of Spook d season. We're, uh, going to be back to some regular programming here. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for being here. We love that you're here, as always. Follow us on social media. We're at

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Bathroom problem, submit that. We'd love to hear it. Leave us a rating and review. The five star options are preferred. And if you write a review, we would love to read it on the show. Um, so write us a review. It just helps others find the show, and it's a huge, uh, kick for us here to have that. As always, we want to thank Kevin McLeod for the use of bar room ballet as our intro and outro music.

You can find Kevin's music@incompetent.com and his music is licensed under Creative Commons license Attribution 40. Thanks, Kevin. This has been another episode of Privy. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for listening. We love you all. And as always, don't forget to flush.