>> Speaker A: 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. Thank you guys for being here. Um, every time we do this, it's kind of like, you join me in the bathroom. Welcome. I, uh, used the bathroom moments ago, and I must confess, I kind of chickened out. I did go use my kids bathroom, so that way I didn't have to sit in the stink during the record. Um, so, yeah, that's pretty cool. Um, I also
want to say it's spooky season. Now, I want to note here on privy, it's spooky. There is a p. It's spooky season, but, like, with turds and stuff. And as, uh, the world, I think, is too eager to get to the next celebration, I feel like we were dragging out Halloween decorations. There are people in these neighborhoods with Halloween decorations up in September. It's absolutely baffling to me. Like,
imagine. Imagine this. Imagine it's September 15, and I roll out. You hear the scary howl at the intro there. The wolf man's coming to get you. Ah. And you check your watch, and. No, that's right. It's September 15. Nobody's in the spooky season in September 15. It's just not the way that things were meant to be. The order of operations are we celebrate american independence, America. And then we do August, which is nothing. We don't
do anything in August. The whole point of August is that we stare down the end of summer, and then we go back to school. We go, hooray, it's fall. We forget that October fest is in September, which is, again, the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. And then after fall is Halloween. That's spooky season. Now, there's these people that want to move spooky season up to what directly follows the end of summer, and it's just not how it goes. It's light out too late. There's not enough clouds.
We're still recovering from the summer candy and soda sprees. And I got to tell you, we had some pretty good offerings this year for summer sodas. Uh, I'll be sampling many of them. But it's spooky season here on privy. And something that happens around the hallowed en is there is an uptick in the fiction that surrounds magic
and things of the occult. Speaking of the occult, um, I had another run in with a mason, and it was funny, because, as I'm describing, this interaction with a fellow coworker, right out of the gate, the first thing that he says in response to hearing that is, oh, like the illuminati. Now, I will note, it was not prompted. It was not what I was fishing for. It is just where his brain went. And I think that says
something. Sometimes when you think of spooky season, you might think of those spooky, glowing balls, uh, that witches and cartoons peer into and the weird, misty crap that swirls around. It's just smoke. It is just smoke. At the end of the day, it's just smoke. And now I understand that in the year 2023 of our Lord, there are people who are very much, um, prone to believe heavily in horoscopes. Now, normally, I don't take stances.
I have the mediums in which I take hard stances. And those people who know me, I'm a moderately opinionated guy. I've got opinions about a lot of stuff. I've primarily got opinions about stuff that many people never thought that a person should have an opinion about. One instance of this example is the Transylvania twist, hashtag justice for the twist. And there's many people who have reached out and said, hunter,
this is stupid. And to that, I say, no, I'm not going to say that you're being dense, but there is fruitcake that is more spongy than you. Uh, but there's people that think that horoscopes, and every time I hear it, I think it's horror scopes. But it's horror. Is it horoscopes or horoscopes? I think it's horror scopes, but they think that horoscopes are real, and they think that they can cast a magic on me. Uh, and no,
I think it's nonsense. But this week, we need to take a journey back to discuss the spooky world of divination as it relates to the bathroom. You, as with all good stories about studying things, do, especially when it comes to the bathroom, we need to go back to the 1970s. In 1971, General Mills debuted what would become a cult, classic cult, and a fan favorite in the seasonal cereal market. The monster cereals hit shelves with Count chocolate and Frankenberry
at the same time. They were the only chocolate and strawberry cereals in m the market. Kids went bananas for this stuff, and ironically, there's no monster cereal with banana flavoring yet. And, boy, did kids eat it. And what's fascinating is, like, as I noted, uh, Count chocolate and Frankenberry, they were the only cereals on the shelf that were providing the chocolate and strawberry palates there was not cocoa puffs or cocoa
krispies. And if there was, then I don't know why people are saying that this is the only one offering it. But these monster cereals hit shelves, and kids just gobbled it up. They loved it. And as they gobbled it up, there began to be reports that something unexpected had begun to happen. Kids were reporting to have bright pink poops or red colored stool. Now, while this was technically harmless, the fear, if you do not know that this is going to happen, is that the red in the stool was
blood. Ironic that Frankenberry was the culprit for blood and not count chocula because he's a vampir. Frankenberry. Well, uh, technically both cereals, but I think Frankenberry had a higher concentrate of this. Both contained red dyes two and three, one of which was later found to be linked to cancer causing agents, and both of which were discontinued in use in cereals and other food products after these
incidents. It happened so often, like this phenomenon where kids would come in reporting, uh, I've got mystery, like, neon red turd, that it began to be called Frankenberry stool, which is awesome. The next time that I snosh down too many beets and I get the red dookies, I'm calling it Frankenberry stool. It's Frankenberry poop. Like, it's Frankenberry
turds. But to get to the bottom of it, bottom, they had to study the stool that is the turds, to figure out what it was made of, what was going on, and why is it pink or red? The act of, uh, studying poop is called scatology. Much like most medicine. Much of it used to be thought of as magic or was related to the occult. There has been a tradition of people who decided they could diagnose someone's illness or tell their fortune by reading or studying their poop. When you
submit a fecals test, you go into the doctor. The doctor like, all right, I'm going to need you to poop in this container. Remember, centuries before they looked at it for science, they read your poop as if it was magic. It's a wild world. Some, um. In this time period, this is long ago, in a galaxy very close to where we live, um, there was a claim that you could tell someone's future and fortune by looking at their poop. This is featured prominently in the documentary called welcome to planet
sanity. And the idea is that this deed, it is called spatalamancy, because of the greek word for excrement, where the word derives these poop. Divinators, diviners, if you will, and I will. They read a lot about the poop. Where did it happen? Where did Dave take a dump? The odor. How did Dave smell while taking his dump? The consistency. What does Dave's dump feel like? And the contents. It looks like Dave had corn again.
And to divine anything from someone's poop, if you are doing more than visual and maybe olfactory checks on this turd, I would say you're becoming too involved. This idea of scatomancy or divining someone's future and fortune based on their fecal matter arrived early on in ancient Egypt through the study of the dung beetle, who would roll the dung, thus allowing witch doctors and other magicians to read the poop as the beetle rolls it around to take a closer
look. I like to think that the magicians in Exodus, in the Bible, um, that Moses is often showing down, having the showdown against. I like to think that these are the blokes that are just, like, really getting a good look at m the pharaoh's turds. Like, really just reading that stink. You know what I'm saying? I would love, number one. I would love if you are a psychic, we're not going to get into it, but if you are a psychic and you read people's poop, please reach
out to me. Privycast@gmail.com but I would love if someone went into a psychic's office today. Oh, I got to go get my reading. And they walk you in and they talk to you a little bit and they just hand you, like, a glad tupperware container and some toilet paper and say, feel free to leave your deposit and I'll read your fortune. I guarantee you that there are going to be far less people going in for
a reading. The occult is wild, similar to the strange practice of reading someone's turd to divine their future and their fortune. The act of Euromancy is divining someone's future and fortune from their golden stream, much like scooping up a big pile of steaming Dave, rooting around in it, and then letting Dave know that he's going to meet the girl of his dreams next week, get Twitter paid, and fall madly in love. And also that he should cut back on those pumpkin
spice frosties, for goodness sakes. Again, if you haven't had the pumpkin spice frosty, you need to run, not walk, to Wendy's. Like, I can't stress it, but euromancy is similar, except, as you might guess, because I said it, it is observing the urine, much like poop pee, has been used for thousands of years to try to determine what is going on with someone's body. And it makes sense. If you're sick and your understanding of the human body is less than it is now,
you would probably go, you know what? I don't feel good inside my tum tum. And I just flopped the just gnarliest stack. I'm going to go see if there's something different about this one in case there's a clue to be found. The men, and I guess women who are looking at the urine were called piss prophets for their ability, or alleged ability, to tell the future and read one's fortune based on the
golden stream they had blasted. Nowadays, piss profits are going to tell you whether you've smoked marijuana before going to go to work or if you are consuming sports enhancing drugs before you throw the football. Very good. But in ancient Rome, here we are, men, thinking about Rome again. Am I right? Ladies would observe the bubbles. Ain't no ladies. Listen. Ladies, don't listen to this. I don't think they do. If you're a lady and you listen to this, shout at me,
privycast. Um, but these piss prophets in ancient Rome would observe the bubbles of the urine to determine the fortunes based off of the bubbles left in the chamber pot. Old Emperor Dipthasius or whatever blasts just a massive stream of gold into the pot. And then he just finishes the deed, and then he passes that pot over the chamber pot, over to his piss prophet to check out the bubbles. Higgity boogity. He's got the whole doctor strange thing going on with this, and he's just holding a
thing of urine. It's fresh, steamy, wet, and he's checking out them bubbles. He's really getting a good look at these bubbles. Larger bubbles, it would seem, based on, I don't know, what seemed to have been better. So, like, the bigger the bubbles, the better the pea. Um, but smaller bubbles, they said, often pointed to more impending death or bad luck. Today on privy. Hi, kids. Welcome. There's no kids here either. Today on privy, you need to know you want
big bubbles in your urine. Big bubbles equals big luck. The next time you go to buy a lottery ticket, I want you to get yourself a bowl. And before you buy that ticket, I want you to just. No, don't do that. Um, just don't do that. It should be noted early forms of pregnancy tests, which we've already spoken about in our pregnancy test episode, go check that out, were also technically viewed as euromancy, we talked about all
that stuff. See, the references to Dave's wife peeing on barley, stuffing an onion up her zone to find out what her baby will be. But euromancy or uroscopy, if you want to sound less spooky in spooky season, uh, was very, very concerned with a person's pee. As was noted, much of ancient medicine was tied to the occult in magic. Greek physician Hippocrates believed that urine was a byproduct of the four humors, which is totally fake, that had been filtered
out later. Uh, Galen believed that it was a filtration of only one of those humors, the blood. He's the one who. Galen is the one who gives us the phrase diarrhea of the urine. Diarrhea of the urine is when a person has to urine too much. And I want you next time you're on a road trip without fail. Uh, when I'm on a road trip, the people in my vehicle have to pee more than I think they should have to pee. And I know that is so self involved, but sometimes I just cannot fathom how much someone
has to pee. And I want you to hit the people in your life that pee frequently with the idea that they have diarrhea of the urine. An author of greek medical works, I'm going to totally butcher this greek name, Theophilus Protoprotos Patherius. Theophilus Protospatharius wrote a book or a treatise called on urines. And he is often this Theophilus, he was like a doctor, um, was often depicted as holding what was called a blue
euromancy flask. But I want to note that this flask appears to be clear because you can see through at the top, and it is filled with blue urine. What's going on in Greece, y'all? What do they got going on in there? Why do they have this weird Star wars milk colored urine? Not a fan. Also, milk should not be blue. Uh, Disney. Uh, here's the thing.
You built your theme parks in two of the hottest states in these beloved United States, and then you're like, you know what people want on a fresh 95 degree Florida 180% humidity day? Just a glass of milk. No, actually, you know what? They don't want a glass of milk. They want a glass of strange, freaking mega mind brain colored milk. No, stupid. Like, just. It's stupid. That's not what we want. It's a bad move. It makes me mad. Milk's not blue.
That's, ah, facts. But Theophilus wrote and came up with the idea of heating urine. And that it would cause the proteins, he called it the bits and other agents in the urine. To indicate differences based on what was going on in the body. This then would allow you to tell someone's future in his on urines. In this, it became one of the first works to transition from Euromancy, that is, studying urine as an act of magic in the occult. To uroscopy, studying
urine for medical purposes. And this is where the hoogity boogity of Dr. Strange. Becomes the hoogity boogity of Dr. Oz. Or fill in the blank doctor. I love it when doctors oh, my gosh. So people that go to school for however many years you have to do to get a doctorate. When they promote their doctorness. It's weird. It's not that. It's not an accomplishment. And there is an appropriate time to be called a doctor in your setting of expertise is pretty much the only time. But if you are in
the lay world. And you tell people you're a doctor. They think you can prescribe medication. That's what they think in their brain. In my perspective, that is what they think. In the twelveth century, even after Theophilus's time. We had people running around classifying urine like they are Pokemon. In fact, a french scholar in the eleven hundreds. Decided that there were 20 types of urine. There's fire
type, water type. No. Um, but what's weird is this began as the creepy way they used to view our waste. As having mystical and magical properties. But in the case of french scholar and Dr. Guillas de Corbiel, it inspired him to write poetry. Somehow we have come full circle. And we have arrived at what seems almost romantic poetry. But in the Frenchman, wee wee Mansour. Get it? Wee wee. I had to. This is two weeks in a row hitting you with a wee wee
monsour. But I can't hear the word Frenchman and not say wee wee monsour. I can't. I'm not mature enough. But Giz Gil, Gilles, whatever his head is, wrote, uh, a poem about urine called. Now, he really workshopped this title. But it's called poem on urine. And it was 352 verses long. My dude was mad about P. He was a fanatic of the yellow stuff. In his poem on urine, we are told that we must analyze the sediment of the pea. Which is not something I think of when I
ever look at pea. This is better than the most serious instances. Where they would have had. Have had to handle. No, you don't handle P. I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it right now. Quote handling pee is worse than quote handling poop. There's times where I'm in my backyard and I spy just the most crusted, hard dog turd. And the quickest path forward is to just grab it and throw it over the fence. Not in my neighbor. I throw it into the field behind my house. And you just got to bare
palm it. It's fine. Like you're outside working. It's fine. Everybody has bare handed a dog turd in their life. That's facts. Shout at me. Bare hand in the dog turd. You know you have. Yeah. People are bare handing dog turds. That's all there is to it. But in the serious instances, they were told to handle the pee. No big no. And in some cases, taste it even greater. No. Like the biggest of no's.
If your doctor, you go to the doctor and they tell you to pee in this cup, and my dude snags that cup and slings it back like some sort of energy drink. Walk out, just leave. Um, he's a dangerous fellow. He's one of those type of doctors. You know what I'm saying? But the poem that Guillz or that guy wrote also included drawings. And one of these drawings is called the urine wheel, and it was used to help identify what type of urine they had. Check out pictures of this in the privy
socials. This table included colors of urine from, quote, clear as well water, to, quote, as ruddy as gold, and, quote, black as a dark horn. Now, again, what in the world was going on in medieval times that people were peeing dark brown, black, green, and gray urine, which are colors that are all featured on Guillz's urine wheel. The piss prophet, urine wheel, King George the, I think, third, I don't know, was reported to have had purple urine. M no way. No way. Just no way. I'm not a
doctor. I'm not a witch doctor, spooky season, or a magician or a piss prophet. I'm none of them, but I'm going to go ahead and say it. If you pee purple, you're sick, dude. If your pee is purple, go to the doctor. And what's even more interesting about this wheel of urine is when they developed it, they were not working with the 64 pack of crayola crayons with the crayola sharpener in the
back. The coloring techniques that they use to get these intricate and very minute different colors are pretty interesting. These urine wheels were something else, but in divining the disease from the color only gets you so far. As was noted, sometimes they just had to taste it. And if you hear that and you think, you know, it's spooky season, this hasn't been terribly spooky. Like, I guess they're, like, doing weird magic with the urine and poop. That's kind of weird. Um, that's more
weird than creepy. But if you think that the scariest thing that you've heard today, the spookiest thing, if you will, is that they were drinking pee in order to tell people's future, that's fair. But you might doubt that this happened. But also it might be tempting for you to doubt that this happened. In 1674, english physician Thomas Willis wrote that diabetics urine was, quote, wonderfully sweet, as if it had honey in it. Good God. He made, uh, up the term mellitus, an
experience in diabetes. And for some time where, like, there is sweetness that comes from them. Uh, and for some time, this was called Willis disease. But these people were straight wild with these wheels. These wheels were used for four to 500 years. We have circled all the way back to Euromancy and divining fortunes from p. This is the period that many of the notions of the pregnancy test came in. And while this was legitimate future predicting. Are you going to produce a baby? Let's
tell your fortune. I would like to note that all pregnancy tests are fortune tellers. That's facts. There was also, at the time, a lot of quack job teachings. They taught and believed in the 16 and 17 hundreds that the astrology. We're back to the horror scopes are captured and observed in your pee. I just want the people that are like the horoscope warriors to just be walking around with, like, little pea cups and it's like, well, I could tell you your. Let me, let me
tell you. Are you a Pisces? Could you pee in here so I could find out? Stop. In other words, the smell, look and taste. For God's sake, quit tasting. The pea carried astrology about you. Stop it. And they thought essentially doing this connected you to nature, the cycles of the moon, the cycles of the stars, and we're back to magic related to your pee. It's fake and bad, but here we
are. The next time you see a witch this spooky season, remember that that cauldron or pot at one point in our very good human history may have contained p heated to tell the future. Happy spooky season, everybody. This brings us to the end of another episode of Privy thank you so much for being here. This is a reminder. Leave us a rating or review. Five star options are preferred and ratings and reviews left. Uh, we're going to be given some money to the wounded warriors project, reminding you
to keep pooping in the free world. But that free world was not always free. Uh, they gave up a lot. Let's give up a little for them. We also would like you to reach out to us at Privycast on social media. We'd love to hear from you. Connect with us. Join the community. Share the show. Um, take the episode. You're going to click that weird little arrow looking thing and you're going to share
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to the end of another episode of Privy. Thank you for joining us. Own your stank fart proudly. And now, as always, don't forget to flush.