Demon Eaters and Possessed Tools

a Tuesday. Yeah, so how could we say no to that? Um? Now, whether you celebrate Western New Year or you or you like a good Lunar New Year or trip both or Chinese New Year, well, I think there's always room for both celebrations because you can you can shoot for your Western New Year, you can make your various goals and resolutions, and you can you have a good month to try them out and fail with them, and then you have another shot. You can say, all right, well I'm gonna

go for Lunar New Year. This is gonna be my new beginning, because that first New Beginning didn't really take off like I wanted it to. And if you feel like you're early on you've already had your year kind of infested with a lot of negative energy, you can have some exorcisms, that's right. So that is one of the things we're gonna be talking about in this episode.

It's this this episode, it might seem like something of a of a potpourri episode, but but there there's there's definitely a string connecting all of these together about the exorcism of spirits, the exorcism of you can I mean, you can even just think of them as negative emotional states and associations from your life as you head into some sort of new phase, which is kind of at the heart of so many of our approaches to a new year, we'll think about what most New Year's resolutions

actually are. I don't have empirical evidence for this, but my gut feeling is that the majority of New Year's resolutions are to stop doing something you see as a negative presence in your life or reduce doing something you see a sort of like a demon on your back. Right. Yeah. And now there's been pushback against that, and a lot of people say, we what we need to do. If we are going to set little resolutions, in addition to making them reasonable, we should try and make them more positive,

like things I Am going to do. Uh. And then, of course realizing that you need to make it attainable. I don't know, making an attainable sounds kind of scary because then you'd have to actually do it. Yeah, but then yeah, if you set it up too if you set up too much of an obstacle, if the resolution is too great, then you're just guaranteed to fail and you're gonna feel bad about that. Anyway, what was it

we said one year in the past? We uh, we decided the best New Year's resolution is that every year you should decide you're gonna live forever. Maybe so, and that might as well, right. Uh So we do have to point out that this new year, there's a lot of enthusiasm for the uh, the the ideas, the teachings of Marie Condo. Oh yes, I've been hearing all about this, and I will say so, I have not watched her show,

I've not read her stuff. I don't really know anything about this except what I've gleaned second hand from the culture. But I I sense that there is inherent controversy and misunderstanding about her whole thing. But basically, what I gather is that she's for sort of cleaning, cleansing your physical surroundings and purging yourself of unnecessary, unwanted objects. Yeah, that's

that's my understanding. A lot of people have been watching her Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Condo, which which was of course released January one, twenty nineteen, clearly aiming for New Year's resolution minded folks. Uh. And she uses what is what she calls the con Marii method, which is said to be inspired by Shinto principles about the spirit of things in one's life. And yeah, the basic idea is throw out the stuff that isn't necessary and

doesn't believe the quote is spark joy. Oh yeah, I've heard all about sparking joy. Yeah, and you know, I, you know I, I see no problem with that. I like that idea. I'd like to try and limit the clutter in my own life. And if something isn't making you happy, and it's a physical object and it's not necessary, it's not holding up a bookcase or anything or enabling you to make a living, like, what is it? What's

it doing right? Well? And I also certainly think that, and I think I'm sometimes guilty of this myself, that hanging on to lots of old objects and not getting rid of them can essentially be a way of avoiding processing and thinking about your own past, you know, Like it can be a way like if you've got stuff from previous years that you just know you're not going to use again, but you don't want to go through it and see what you need to get rid of.

That can often just be because you don't, you know, you're kind of afraid to sit down and think about what's been going on in your life, so like you don't do it. Yeah, Or one of my favorites when you find a box of old stuff that is quote unquote meaningful, but you forgot you had it. You have like looked in this box in years, and you ask youself, like, I think this stuff was dead to me, and I have brought it back to life by finding it. Maybe

it should have just stayed dead. Sometimes dead is better, right, As a wise man once said, Uh so, you know, not to spend a lot of time on mary condo, but I imagine with with her work, Yeah, you're going to see people who really dig it, who really get enthusiastic about it, people who have a lot of problems with it, people who try it and experience success, and people who try it and find that, well, here's another self help um guru whose advice has not fixed my life.

And I think that's part of the course with with most teachings, uh that are aimed at changing the shape of your life. I guess the more religious way of thinking about it would be that these objects have like a spirit to them, or spiritual energy. You obviously don't have to think that there's such a thing as a spirit in an object to recognize that objects have significance.

You know, the objects around you. They trigger certain like cascades of memories and and and react actions and emotions, and so in a certain way, they can sort of have a spirit, even if they don't literally have a soul. Right, It's something that we have clearly projected through our own imaginations or own memories and even just through the like the nature of of building being a tool building and

tool acquiring an object acquiring species. Yeah, I mean, is there any other species that acquires objects in the way we do? I mean, you could think about like birds that build, you know, bower birds building building nests with with strange attractive objects. But there is really nothing like us in terms of all the objects we we bring

to surround ourselves with. Now you might think about a lot of those objects is like, well, that's because we are you know, primates with tool using intelligence, and most of these objects are tools that we've figured out how to use, but most of them you don't ever actually use. They actually are more like the bower bird that you know, most of them are not your kitchen knife that you use every day. They might be a tool that could maybe do something, but you never do that thing or

you never use them. So it is more like you're just building a nest with strange bits of string intensil, and it's not even attracting a mate or keeping your in in the sense your collection of bubble heads or you're like grandfather's collection of bubble heads. Whatever it happens to be like something you even have you don't even have direct emotional attachment to. Perhaps like it's it's no longer winning you mates, it may be getting in the

way of your relationship with your existing mate. Um. Yeah, so it's it's this weird byproduct of the human experience. Yeah. Of course, then again, we we have a very complex way of appreciating our aesthetic surroundings, and some of these artificial objects we surround ourselves with are part of that. So I guess I walked in here wondering if I was going to have a take on the like whole like purging all your unwanted old objects thing. I don't have a take on it. I guess I just I'm

gonna say, do it if you want to do it. Well, there's my boring pronouncement, folks. Well here's the definite fact. Marie Condo was not the first individual to say, hey, it's a new beginning, maybe I should throw a few things away. Right to think that the new year is a time to exercise old demons, whether metaphorically in the modern age or quite literally in the mythological context, that's right.

So in this episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind, we are going to We're going to continue to explore these themes, and in doing so, we're gonna waltz between Chinese and Japanese myths and legends. And first of all, we are going to meet a demon slayer. I love a good demon slayer. Yeah, so this is gonna be what Buffy. No, no, no, this is the true fact. Buffy did slay demons in addition to vampires. Most for the vampire thing. I guess it looks better on a

calling card. Most of the interesting ones were more demon than vampire, I think. Yeah, the vampires became less essential as the series went on. But but no, we're talking about one of the greatest did not the greatest demon slayer, demon queller, demon defeat exorcist of all time, demon eater, demon eatery ghost banisher. Uh demon I Gauger, Yes, I Gouger. He was a man, a spirit of of many skills. We're talking about zen Quay, the demon queller from from

Chinese legend in mythology. There are a lot of fantastic paintings of zen Quay that I have found all over the internet. There's just a rich artistic tradition with this guy who's got this severe face that's sort of part of his mythology. That he's kind of like like nasty looking in the face, but that he's this real tough guy with a beard who's usually found commanding a troop of demons to do his will. Yeah, he's he's kind

of a vulcan figure to a certain extent. Yeah, And he's he's often kind of like this squat maybe slightly ugly or ourid, disfigured individual. The depictions range from him just looking like an eccentric um like middle aged scholar to looking like an outright like troll with like red or dusky skin, you know, like he It varies a lot. Sometimes he's kind of serene seeming. Sometimes he is accompanied

by demons. Other times he is like actively perpetrating violence against the demons, sometimes in a procession of demons as if on parade, sometimes being carried in a sedan chair by demons. So uh I actually, so there are different versions of the story about him, different details regarding with conflicting details, conflicting details about how he came to be,

what his role was, who tasked him with this role? Well, tell me one version of the story, Robert, Okay, this is the first version I came across in a book of Chinese mythology. So they got the idea. Here's during the eighth century uh Emperor Ming of Time who lived six eighty five through seven sixty two. Uh an historic individual suffered a fever one night and was assailed by

a rampaging demon dressed in red trousers. And though he asked the demon what its name was, and the demon said, my name is quote emptiness and desolation, and the Emperor was just powerless to stop it. You know, it's just still suffering under this fever. It's this demons running around

like cat in the hat, just messing anything up. I think in some other tellings of it, it's running around with a flute and a purse that it has stolen from the emperor, which I think is a nice wrinkle on everything, because here we see the introduction of objects, objects with some sort of value or or or or spirit to them. So who will come in to save the emperor from this horrible ghost like figure. Well the Emperor calls for his guards, of course, but you know

that that doesn't do any good. I don't even think they just they show up. Instead. What happens is a great frightening apparition storms into the chamber dressed in tattered robes and a torn bandanna. It grabs this red demon up, crunches it down into a ball cartoon style and then swallows it whole well. And then the spirit introduces itself to the Emperor as zong Quai, the soul of a talented scholar who committed suicide after failing to achieve top

honors in the public examinations. The public examinations would have been. This was like the test to determine like where you were going to be professionally in society, so like if you get a good score, you would get some kind of good position in government service. Yeah, exactly. So it was a huge, huge deal, not no mine or test. Okay, So he he fails in achieving the score that he was going for, and different versions of it play this differently,

and some he is kind of cheated out of top scores. Yeah. I think I've read one where he did get a top score but then something bad happened to him. Anyway. I think there's a version where the emperor at the time made fun of him for physical appearance and that led to the despair that ends in suicide. So they're yeah, there are different versions of exactly how it goes down, but in all of them he ends up dying the death of a suicide And is uh and is this

reduced to this raith like form? But here here's the important detail. Since the imperial family had shown him honor and buried him in green robes like a member of the imperial household, despite his shame, he'd sworn to protect the emperor and his successors from the demons of despair. Okay, so you've got this beyond the grave demon fighter figure who's paying back the debt of his honorable burial. Right, yeah, you have a vengeful ghost who kills demons, kills rogue spirits.

Uh and and essentially as the I've seen him described as the immortal exorcist of Chinese mythology. And so the emperor in this case and this story ends up putting up a picture of him to honor him and to an invoke his presence over any you know, rogue spirits that might mess with his demeanor. And so this hanging up of a picture of gen Qui does sort of become a tradition, right Oh, yes, absolutely, generally you know, by doorways. So yeah, he's this tragic figure, clearly talented

and driven. And again the details very depending on the telling. In one of them, I ran across. So he he dies, and he ends up in the tin hells of dai U, where the Tin Yama King's reside over the dead. And here the lords of the underworld recognize zen Quays potential and they offer him the position of King of Ghosts, thus tasking him with policing unruly spirits and demons, which

I think is a pretty awesome origin story as well. Yeah, in fact, I I like that one more because it's you know, the the the agency here is not with the Emperor but with the lords of Hell. Yeah, they're like, hey, look we've got some spirits out here, some demons. They're given the tin hell is a bad name. I actually need you to go out and police them one by one. Like that's a whole that's a TV series right there. Like he's a cowboy or he's like an outlaw who's

given a bounty to go collect or exactly. Yeah, and this type of figure I feel like this does this trope does show up in in even modern fictions. Certainly there are plenty of modern fictions that actually use zen Quay as a as a title character. You will find zen Quay to this day in Chinese television shows, movies. I think I saw there was a video game apparently video games, the opera, um, etcetera. So he's he's no

minor figure, as will continue to discuss. So, but basically he's roman about out on the land, uh, putting down rogues, spirits and ghosts and demons. Oh yeah, he's putting him to the sword. He's a he's gouging out their eyes. There's there's a painting or a tradition in paintings that show him gouging out the eye of a demon. So

he's pretty ruthfully, he's a frightening figure, you know. With then again, there's a long tradition of having like a frightening figure to frighten away the demons and the spirits and and all the malicious uh unseen entities that might mess with with your health and happiness, and and he is he is one of them. So he's like a figure, a legendary figure embodying the spirit of apotropaic magic, the

magic of warding off evil spirits and curses and stuff exactly. Now, as you mentioned earlier, not only is he happy to quell and uh and slay and sometimes mutilate and eat the demons that are running about, but he'll also bend them to his will. He'll make them serve him, carry him around on a litter for example, um as well as his sister who in the tellings U he's part of his gratitude to the emperor is Uh is betrothing

his his sister to the emperor, I believe. So you end up with these illustrations such as the gong Kai scroll from the Late Song dynasty, which depicts Zong eat it in a litter carried and the litter is carried by two male demons, while another litter is carrying his sister carried by two female demons. And then you have two demon attendants carrying a dog a package. All in all, it's an eighteen demon servant entourage marching across this scroll.

And there are also seven smaller captured demons, some trust up or in one case imprisoned in a jar like an octopus filling a beer bottle. Yeah, so he's not like in a sence, he is like the original Ghostbuster, but he's not content to just shove the captured ghosts into the containment unit. No, he is here to to make all the slimmers and what have you uh carry him about and then aid him in his ongoing war against the demons. This is an awesome scroll, by the way.

I mean I mentioned earlier that there's a really cool artistic tradition and this is one great example. The demons though, so they're doing his will, But often the demons also appear to be kind of having a good time, like

they'll be jumping about and doing cartwheels and sometimes playing instruments. Maybe, yeah, there is there is definitely a sense of a of a parade to what we're seeing here, and it's a type of parade that to certainly too Western audiences, it instantly makes one think of these crampus parades that one sees where you have both um good st Nicholas marching through the street, but also the unruly or slightly unruly crampuses.

And indeed, uh that that actually is there's actually a strong comparison to be made between these two when we start looking at some of the associations that Zong has with New Year's exorcisms in Chinese traditions. Oh yeah, so we started with the idea of the lunar new year and with exercising the old. So how does zen Quai tie back into that? Obviously I can begin to see the exorcism part. Oh yes, yeah, so, so I have

actually a wonderful passage here I want to read. This is from a late eighteenth century description of festivities in Han Xiao from Wu Zimmu, as quoted by Sherman E. Lee in an Artibus Asia article from nine quote. On the four day of the twelfth Lunar month, regardless of poverty or wealth, all prepare vegetarian food and sweet dishes

to sacrifice to Zal, the stove god. On the market streets are poor beggars three to five men in a company costumed as the figures of such as spirits and demons, Panguan zong Quai and his younger sister, beating gongs and striking drums from house to house they beg for money. The end of the twelve month is termed chu Ye, the eve of change. The official and commoner families, whether of greater or small households, prepare wine, sweep the gates and beams, remove the dust and dirt, clean the halls

and doors. Change the door guardians. Door guardians are are a tradition h Chinese households with opi on the doors or by the doors uh you know, guarding the household. Interestingly enough, one has seen uh Santa Claus when when transferred into modern Chinese holiday traditions, Santa Claus has sometimes been utilized as twin doric guardians and hang pictures of Zong Quay, so again helped put it put up a picture of Zong to help keep the bad spirits away,

and the passage continues. In the forbidden interior of the Imperial Palace, a great exorcism is carried out in a demon expelling ceremony. Face masks are placed on the head, and clothes and costumes with multi colored embroidered designs are worn. Hands grasp golden spears, silver Halbard's painted wooden knives and swords, multi huge dragons and phoenixes, and many colored flags and pinions, and for amusement, the musicians are costumed as Panguan, Zong, Qua,

Zao Yun, etcetera. And the Forbidden interior, the drumming and blowing begin and the exorcism of evil spirits proceeds at the don Hua gate and goes around a dragon pond bay. So this is this in a nutshell, you know, it throws in a number of different New Year's traditions in

Chinese culture. But also there is this sense of of the parade, the spectacle uh and people embodying themselves and kind of a Mummers tradition as the spirits, spirits and demons that are serving zen Quai or even zen Quay himself, but also the idea of linking the New Year with a type of exorcism and purging ritual exactly. Yes, you know, and Zong remains an important part of Chinese New Year iconography. You'll see him in parades certainly as ceremonial wall hangings

as well. And again he remains a popular figure in Chinese opera, TV, movies, video games. For instance, there's a two thousand fifteen film titled zhen Quai Snow Girl in the Dark Crystal that centers around our demon hunter. I assume it's a different Dark Crystal than correct, no relation to Hintston at all. But I bet if you had a Gartham infestation, he would get him right out of Yeah, he could clear some Gartham right out, sweep him right out of the out of the tomb. Alright. So, thus

far have we spoken mainly of Chinese mythology. But the interesting thing about dozen Qua is that he travels. He travels eventually over into Japanese traditions as well as due depictions of demon and spirit processions. In Japan, he's known as shokai and the oldest images a date back to

the twelfth century. So we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to pick up with Japanese traditions and another take on harmful spirits and things that need to be expelled in order to have a new beginning in your life. Alright, we're back and we returned to Japan. Yes, it is time to take a look at another lunar New Year related uh spirit exorcism and and cleaning up tradition that also ties

in with demons. What a wonderful confluence of concepts. And who could be surprised that we're brought back to our old friend, the scholar Nariko t writer whose work on the monsters of Japanese folklore and literature we have cited multiple times on the show in the past. Oh, yes,

we've dealt with what giant spiders, the Kappa. Yeah, she wrote that paper on the transformation of ony from from monstrous and diabolical to cute and sexy, which we talked about in I think an October past maybe a couple of years ago. Yeah, I'll make sure to link to that episode and some of these other Lunar New Year related episodes we've recorded in the past. On the landing page.

For this episode, it's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot Com. Now, I want to look to a book that Nariko T. Writer wrote called Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan from the University Press of Colorado, where she discusses the tradition known as the suku Mogami narratives. And I'll explain what those are in just a second. But the Sukamogami are attested in old illustrated scrolls, with some with unknown authors, and there are multiple versions of this story that are

reproduced across different sources. But writer writes that due to an aristocrats diary entry about one of these stories from fourteen eighty five, we know that the scrolls telling about this stuff emerged no later than the late fifteenth century. So definitely by late fifteenth century Japan, you've got these

stories of the suku Mogami, which are tool specters. Yeah, the so the idea of tools coming alive can be found in stories from as early as the hay On period, which is through five, but they first get their common name the Suku mogami later in the medieval period, and one particularly prominent story of tool specters is the Sukamogami Key The Record of the Tool Specters, a text which comes from sometime in the Moral Machi period thirt thirty

six to fifteen seventy three, as we mentioned a minute ago, definitely no later than like the fourteen eighties. So you might wonder what our tool specters. Well, I think we should turn directly to the Sukumgami Key to get the full story. So this is gonna be I'm gonna be summarizing and quoting from writers full translation of an illustrated scroll of the Record of the Tool Specters from the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, published in two thousand nine.

So the scroll starts off by discussing a Japanese ritual known as the susu Horai literally the sweeping suit, which is this year end house cleaning ritual. And according to this tradition, every year people bring out old tools and discard them in alleyways before the change of the new year.

And the author of the scroll extends this concept to quote renewing the hearth, fire, drawing fresh water, and renewing everything from clothing to furniture at the new year so we're seeing a few parallels and similarities some to some of the Chinese Lunar New Year UH rituals we were just talking about. Yeah, related to the like the physical cleansing of the space of of your home UH and in doing that also the removal of negative spirits and on.

Then the idea of removing old tools. I mean that that that is a that's something that I think UH speaks to everybody. Like what is sadder than an old, unused tool in a drawer, you know, like a pair of rusted duh hedge clippers that are no longer even functional but you still have for some reason. Uh yeah, that's like, yeah, throw it in the alleyway, begone with it. Oh well, you still have them in case you ever need props for like a sauce equal I guess yeah.

They're they're shooting at your house and you you know, so they're like, oh, where are the rusty tools and you're like, hold on, I got this, they had that. Or you open a cracker barrel right now. You know, there are always two options like what should I do with all this junk? Is it a cracker barrel? Or

saw a movie? Which one is is in fashion at the moment, or if the things you be throwing out are like old road signs and alligators with sunglasses and hats on, you could open up early two thousands chilies. There you go. I would I would love to hear from anyone out there who who has some some hard facts on the the business of repurposing junk as as decoration in restaurants. I've noticed they don't do that as much these days. If you've go into a Chili's nowadays,

the walls are very clean. I don't know how that happened. I have not been in one recently. Like, that's my other theories that we just simply don't go to restaurants with a junk on the walls anymore, you know. Okay, But let's go back to the ritual, the yearly ritual

of the sweeping suit, the susu Hurai. Why this yearly ritual, Well, the author of this medieval scroll says, well, originally some scholars assume this to be based on like people emulating the extravagant wastefulness of the rich, but the author of the scroll says that this tradition is now known instead to be rooted in the avoidance of mischief and misfortune

from a class of demons called the Suku mogami. In explaining this, the author relates a legend supposedly from an ancient Chinese text called Miscellaneous Records of Yen and Young, and writer notes that if this text exists, we don't really know anything about it. So, according to this legend, any common tool, container or instrument essentially gets granted a soul on its one birthday, and after that it becomes a type of sentient trickster demon that you don't want

in your house. It's interesting, It's almost it makes sense, right. It sounds like after a hundred years, if you've had an object that has been around for an entire century, it's probably picked up a number of different associations. It has its own personal history, it has perhaps, uh you know, been shadowed by the death of a previous owner. It's taken on a life of its own. I mean, we see this to a certain extent with the consideration of

like buildings and whatnot. Right when when a when a building or a location is old enough in uh, in various countries, certain new protections kick in. Like it is no longer treated like a like just any other building. Now it is an historic building, but to a certain thing. We kind of think this right when we when we look at it an item, we're like, oh, I can't throw that out that's a hundred years old has a soul? Now, well, yeah, what kind of jerk would I be? Exactly? We we

do think this way. I mean, obviously we're not literally literally advocating the idea that objects have souls, but they gain something, and the something is in you. It's in your brain, Like you can't stop thinking about all the other hands that touched this thing and what it was used for. I mean, there's a common thing about like to get rid of the things that were owned by, say an ancestor of yours might make you feel like you're making your ancient ancestor more dead or more gone.

You know, you're erasing their legacy or something. Absolutely, and of course we have we have so many different horror stories and ghost stories. They revolve around this basic concept. And speaking of I know, there has to be a story here, oh yeah, yeah. So in this particular story and the record of the Tool Specters, it starts with a bunch of tools getting thrown out in the trash during the susuhurai one year, the the yearly sweeping of

the soot, the yearly cleansing. And so this group of old tools gather around after they're thrown out, and they become really angry about how they were mistreated. They say, quote, we have faithfully served the houses as furniture and utensils for a long time. Instead of getting the reward that is our due, we are abandoned in the alleys to be kicked by oxen and horses. Insult has been added to injury, and this is the greatest insult of all.

Whatever it takes, we should become specters and exact vengeance. And I've got I've added an illustration here of meeting of all the tools hanging out, but beside a tree. We've got like a it's hard to tell what a lot of those are. There's obviously a Buddhist rosary, and there's something that looks like a whip. Yeah, somethink it was kind of like a foot rest or a side table. There's something looks like a plunger. I don't think that's

what it is anyway. So one of the discarded tools was, as I just mentioned, a Buddhist Rosary, and it was called each year en Novice and h the each year in Novice counseled against vengeance, saying that well, our our karma probably earned us the fate of being thrown out, and we should instead turn the other cheek. But the others do not like this, and the discard there was.

There's one discarded tool, which is a club, the discarded club, which Nariko t Rider translates as rough John, and rough John insults the eat your in novice and beats him within an inch of his life. I guess he beats him with himself. So the Rosary doesn't die. The Rosary escapes with the help of his disciples. I guess he's a Buddhist teacher Rosary and he's got disciples. But then there's another discarded tool. This discarded tool is an old

scroll named Professor Classical Chinese literature. Um, that's I don't know that, maybe could have a more creative name. But I bet there's probably a pun in the original language there. I bet so there's something lost in the translation. Well, writer mentions that this thing is full of puns and word play, that a lot of it just doesn't come through in the English But so the professor Scroll addresses

everybody with a plan. He says, quote, the beginning of creation is chaos, and there is no form for humans, grasses or trees. But because of yin Yang energy and the heavenly furnace, things are given temporary shapes. If we chance upon the art of yin Yang and heavenly craft, we inanimate beings will surely be given souls. Aren't such stories as the old pebbles talking and Mr Goose turning

into a carriage? And Writer mentions that nobody knows what that means testimony to the transformation of beings at the time of yin yang change. So let us wait for the Setsubun, which is the lunar New Year's eve, when Yin and Yang change their places and shapes are formed out of entities. At that time we must empty ourselves and leave our bodies to the hands of a creation god. Then we will surely become specters. So the eve of the lunar New Year comes around, and the tools do

what the professor advised them. They empty themselves and the creation God uses its power to change them into vengeful specters. Quote. Some tools became men or women, older, young, others took the shape of demons or goblins. Still others became beasts such as foxes and wolves. These various shapes were indeed fearful beyond description. And I've got another image here of

what they look like once they're transformed. And and this is where we begin to see these spirits take on the the often common kind of comical appearance that you see in these various Yokai paintings. Yeah, you know, we will see this weird it looks like an umbrella, that sort of thing. Well, it's interesting the way you see this mingling of sort of like this comical trickster thing with this horrible, violent, malevolent spirit thing. They seem to

exist right alongside each other. Like it's not like a demon is either just funny and playing jokes on you, or it's like eating you and kidnapping your children and boiling them alive. It's doing both. So after this transformation of the spirits, the reign of terror really begins. So they go in and out of the capital city taking out their anger against humans of all kinds. They steal animals and eat them, They kidnap humans and eat them.

They're invisible, so the people don't really have any way of protecting themselves against them except for prayers, and so the tool Specters have a fabulous time exacting their revenge. They hold banquets and festivals around around their tricks and and their their vengeance. They have dances, they have drinking poetry readings, and eventually quote building a castle out of flesh and creating a blood fountain. Damn. So things are officially out of hand at this point. They are talking

about building things out of flesh and making blood fountains. Yes, and that's all it says about that. No, no further commentary about the flesh castle or the blood fountain. But this all comes to a head when the tool Specters attack a Prince regent's party as it's proceeding through the streets, and the Prince Regent repels the tool Specters with the help of a magical amulet, and this leads to a

long section. The story in terms of just scroll length, is not nearly over by this point, because it gets into all this involved stuff about the imperial powers invoking the help of Buddhist religious leaders to summon spirits known as the Divine Boys to banish the Sukumogami, and then after the Sukumogami are defeated and humbled by the Divine Boys, the tool specters convert to Buddhism, and after that the scroll descends into this highly didactic parable about religious doctrine,

about like attaining Buddha hood and the virtues of specifically the right kind of Buddhism, which is Shingon esoteric Buddhism. Like the scroll is sectarian, it's working hard for the Shingon sect with the Tools all repenting and joining up and achieving Buddha hood through their devotion to the Shingon program. And it kind of reminds me of like those Christian apocalypse movies that have a thriller plot about the Antichrist early on, but then the last twenty minutes is just

a sermon about full immersion baptism. Yes, yeah, I know exactly the sort of thing look like going to haunted tractional haunted house. And then after after you get out of the house, you're you have to listen to a sermon. Like the plot kind of stops and you realize what this whole exercise was really about, yeah, or at least what paid for it. But I think that the tool specter's part is not incidental to the religious message because

it actually does make a theological point. I think basically it's saying, hey, if even beings who are non sentient tools can achieve enlightenment through the awesome power of the shingle on esoteric Buddhism, think what a human could do. That's right. Yeah, If this you know, umbrella or you know, a discarded UH shovel, it can essentially gain a soul and UH and achieve Buddha hood, then then certainly a human can do that as well, like you already have

this tremendous advantage over a pair of head shears. Yeah. And actually, in her book, writer goes on to talk about like the traditions of UH. There's this isn't not the only story like this. There's this whole tradition of non human things attaining Buddha hood. This is fascinating because especially when we're talking about Japanese traditions here. Uh. There is a Japanese wrestling promotion professional wrestling promotion called DDT,

and they have one championship in the promotion. I think it's there like their hardcore title UM and it started off with just various people holding the belt, but then various inanimate objects began to win the championship as well, Like I think a ladder has won the championship. I

think the championship itself won itself at some point. I can't remember the entire um you know, lineage there, but but I wonder to what extent that plays in with these traditions, the idea that an inanimate object can can achieve something with its spirit, with its soul, then of

course it can also win a championship professional wrestling belt. Yeah, despite the fact that this scroll descends into like making theological points, there's clearly like that kind of cheekiness about it, Like the the author of the story is having a lot of fun and writer, as I mentioned earlier, points out that there's a lot of there are a lot of like puns and word play that don't come through in the English version, but that this is I think

supposed to be entertaining and funny. Like it's a little bit absurd the idea of like a club gaining a ole, or like a you know, the Rosary having disciples and all that, but that it actually does end up being part of the theological point that's being made. So is that that sweet spot that's mixing, Like, is it absurd just for comedy or is it actually making a point. It's kind of both, yeah, And it can be difficult to to really judge outside of its language or outside

of its time and culture. Now, as for the idea itself, writer points out on our scholarship that the legend of the Suka Mogami does not come from this story. Rather, this story was created as an entertaining vehicle to sell the virtues of Shingon Buddhism to a wide audience by capitalizing on the pre existing belief in the Sukamogami, which is just this popular folk idea that tools must be discarded before they become too old and gain a soul

and start getting up to no good. Uh. And so in the record of the tool specters itself, it almost seems a little bit backwards, right, because the tools somehow already seemed to be sent to in at least by the time like right after they get thrown out. Then it's the throwing out that causes them to want revenge on people and become monsters and build the flesh Palace and the blood fountain, when originally the tradition is that the throwing out is what's supposed to prevent this right.

By throwing them out is what's supposed to keep them from becoming vengeful spirits that that mess with you. So the mythology in this one particular scroll seems a little. Uh. I'm not sure what the order of causation is here, but I'm captivated by the idea of like wanting to get rid of household items for the fear that they

become endowed with a soul and do harm to their owners. Well, I mean it comes back to to some of the Baitic basic Buddhist ideas concerning attachment right and having too many, too many things or or you know, physical things or non physical things in your life that you are shackle to in one way or another. You know, and you can imagine it coming to the point where you essentially are in a household where the items no longer serve you, but you serve them because they all have taken on

a life of their own. You know. I did not think at all about the parallel to the idea of attachment and Buddhist I don't know how that went over my head. But yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's like part profound insight on the nature of suffering and attachment and part Brave Little Toaster. Know what's to deal with the Brave Little Toaster? You don't know the Brave Little Toaster children's book.

It's a children's movie in which household items have uh there there, they have humanlike characteristics, and they get abandoned in an old house. And I think after journey across the wilderness, it's like homeward bound, except instead of like dogs and a cat, it's a toaster and a lamp and a radio. Well, you know this makes this, of course, reminds me of Maximum Overdrive Stephen King film. I wondered to what extent Maximum Overdrive is a treatment of these

same ideas. Probably be reaching we get there, Yeah, probably reach and probably reaching after the Maximum Overdrive content here. All right, let's take a second break, and when we come back we will talk a little bit about the idea of anthropomorphizing objects. Thank alright, we're back. You know, I joked about Maximum Overdrive, But as I've mentioned before,

Maximum Overdrive is a less ridiculous film. The more we um we imbue our our daily objects in our vehicles, etcetera, with with with some level of gadgetry, with internet connections and human voices and in a sense, but the Internet of things is kind of like a we were filling our objects with more unruly spirits or opening them up to malicious spirit um possession. Well that's an interesting idea because I actually so I want to look at a study that sort of puts together a framework for thinking

about when we anthropomorphize a non human objects. So, of course, anthromorphization or anthropomorphism is when you attribute human characteristics, thoughts, feelings, or tendencies to non human objects. So this could be two animals, or it could be to robots or a computer, or even just like a you know, a coffee mug. You put a smiley face on a coffee mug, and you're gonna be afraid to shatter it because you've given it a face. You've given it some like the slight

sliver of human identity. Yeah, and tons of studies have shown that we are we are so bad at not doing this, Like we we really just give ourselves over to anthropomorphism very easily. It takes almost no work at all. Once people get a room, but they essentially think about it as another person that lives in the house. It's I mean, we are this. This is just an absolutely insanely weak point of entry into our brains. This is how the skynet, the anti sky Net resistance defenses get penetrated.

You just barely ask people to think of a machine as human and they'll do it. And it's an interesting question to think, like what the adaptive value that kind of like broadly inclusive idea of humanity is because on on the other hand, you often just it seems like people are way too quick to dehumanize each other real other humans, Right, you know, you don't like somebody for some reason, and you start thinking of them is not really human. And yet the you know, the room by

bumping into your feet is like, that's a person. Yeah, we can be so selective about it when it comes to other humans and categorizations of humans. But yeah, when it comes to household items, we can just fall down this well of of of placing way too much value on all of our possessions. Yeah. Now, I wanted to look at one study that U the just basically put forward an interesting three part framework for thinking about the

conditions under which we anthropomorphize objects. So this was by Epley, Weights and Capoccio in Psychological Review in two thousands seven called on Seeing Human a three factor theory of anthropomorphism,

and basically I'll just do the short version. The authors here put forward a framework that suggests people are more likely to anthropomorphize under certain conditions, like you don't always anthropomorphize everything, equally, certain things are more likely to get anthropomorphized, and certain things make you more uh increase your tendency to do so. So one of the things they put forward is uh quote the accessibility and applicability of anthropocentric

knowledge elicited agent knowledge. And this just means like when you can think of ways that this object actually is like a person, So like you can identify characteristics that are in some ways actually like what a person is like, Like if there is an object, even if it's a garbage can, that a peers to sort of have a head, or it's sort of has two feet, you know, or or the way that two screws or holding like a coat rack on the wall, it may look like those

are eyes. The second is quote the motivation to explain and understand the behavior your of agents, which or they call this effectantce motivation. So essentially here this is just like when a thing's behavior is confusing to you and you're trying to understand why it's doing what it's doing. Under that condition, people start thinking of the thing as being like a human because they're they're trying to find some avenue to explain behavior, and that's like the easiest

thing to go to. It's a poor carpenter who blames his tools, and yet at the same time that's exactly what we're talking about here. Well, yeah, it's like when your computer is screwing up and you don't know what's causing it, Like you can't actually troubleshoot it from a mechanical point of view, so you just start attributing malice to be like, what is this computer doing to me? Now, yeah, yeah, it's it's acting up. It is it is, it is. It takes on this malicious spirit. Yeah, and this is

actually a useful way of thinking. I mean, this is uh, this is, in Daniel Dennett's terms, the intentional stance, Like if you can't think of why something is happening from the physical stance or the design stance, like you can't actually get into the code and troubleshoot your computer. You just start thinking about it as if it has intentions, because that's the only level that you're capable of accessing, right, And I basically think about printers this way all the time.

I just I'm just a step away from just assuming that there is a malicious spirit that resides in every printer. And then the third motivation that they pose it is the desire for social contact and affiliation, which they called the sociality motivation. And this is when people feel they need social contact and relationships. When you're when you're feeling lonely, when you're feeling a desire for stronger social bonds, you are more likely they hypothesize to anthropomorphized non human objects.

And then there were some follow up studies, actually one by Epley A, Kalis, Weights and Capoccio in two thousand eight in Psychological Science. Uh that essentially it tested out this question about loneliness and anthropomorphization. So they took gadgets like an alarm clock and air purifier and so forth, and ask people to rate how much they saw human qualities in these objects. Like the questions that would suss out do you think it has feelings, do you think

it has intentions? And they found essentially that the lonelier you are, the more likely you are to anthropomorphize non human objects. And uh so that is one of the you know, that's one of those kind of like social science studies, like I wonder if that could be replicated. There is a replication of it from sixteen by Bart's, Chilova and uh Finurci, and so this was also in psychological science. It replicated the last study with a larger sample.

They also found that this is kind of interesting. So people who are more psychologically lonely are more likely to think that inanimate objects have intentions and thoughts and stuff. But if you just ask people to think about a close personal relationship with someone that they could depend on, that caused people to anthropomorphize gadgets less if you just spin to minute thinking about that relationship in that person and then I just want to read another quote quote.

Last we showed the attachment anxiety, characterized by intense desire for and preoccupation with closeness, fear of abandonment, and hyper vigilance to social cues, was a stronger predictor of anthropomorphism than loneliness. Was. This finding helps clarify the mechanisms underlying anthropomorphism and supports the idea that anthropomorphism is a motivated process reflecting the active search for potential sources of connection. So we know that it's extremely common to to sort

of see a spirit in inanimate object. Even if you rationally know that, you know there's no reason to think that this old inanimate object from my house, this old gardening tool or whatever, actually has a soul or a spirit or anything magic about it or thoughts or intentions. We we have this tendency to see it that way, to think it has maybe bad energy that needs to be gotten rid of or good energy that needs to be protected. In pres irved. Clearly this energy is in us,

It's in our brains. But this is this, This is a powerful feeling that lots of people share, and this seems to be one thing that could be going on when we project intentions on objects this way. It's not just about the object itself. A lot of times, it's about what we need socially, right, And so you could you can you can have these in situations where if an individual doesn't have enough like personal connections in their life and it makes them more susceptible to the sort

of the siren song of the spirits and their possessions. Yeah, and you can see it going both ways, right, Like you could see it if people are more likely to anthropomorphize objects, inanimate objects in a friendly way when they're

more lonely. You can see how like having fear about loss of social connections, this attachment anxiety kind of state of mind could make you more likely to want to want to not let go of things to keep them, because it would almost be like if you let go of them, it's more like losing friends or like losing pets.

And it's certainly I'm not going to be the person to say, uh, throw your dolls away if they're making you happy, you know, I mean, if it's if it's not helping you cope with, say, kind of a lonely time in your life, or just helps you cope with loneliness. In general, life can be lonely. It's all right to have a few bobble heads around. Yeah. Well, I mean, another thing that's clearly coming through in these studies is that loneliness is not an objective state. It's a subjective state.

Loneliness does not go away if you just actually physically have people around you. Loneliness depends on how you feel about your relationships, you know. I want to actually go back to Nariko t Writer for a minute in her Seven Demon Stories book, because she she has a long section in that book discussing all kinds of interesting ideas about the Suka mogami. But one of the things in there is the idea of, like, where does this come from?

Like what's the possible origin of the tool specter's belief? And one of the things she points to is um the possibility of uh this belief coming from rituals in which an evil possessing demon is exercised from a person

and deposited into a physical thing. And she gives an example of records about this type of purification ceremony that quote was held twice a year in the Imperial Palace, when the Emperor, Impress and Crown prints transferred their impurities as well as the accumulated impurities of the nation into five bamboo scales, swords, and a pot into which they breathed these agomano things into which pollution, defilement, and crimes are transferred for a purification ceremony. Were then to be

thrown away in the river or on river banks. The discarded agomano, paper, dolls, jars, and whatever was used for the purification ceremony were to be abandoned with people's breath and impurities. These abandoned objects may have been thought to

contain evil spirits and to act vengefully. Again, tools and utensils used in rituals seem to have had a deep relationship with the formation of Sukumagami beliefs, So this is tracing it back to like another sense of purging, like that not only do you purge bad old objects to get rid of them and get their you know, get the spirit that you've imbued them without of your way.

That they were like literal rituals where you purge the badness out of yourself, you put it in a physical, inanimate object, and then you get rid of that object to take it away. It's sort of a classic type of like the sort of version of sympathetic magic, you know, where you're like you're transferring something to something else by touch or by ritual breathing or contact, and then you purge it, you get it out of your surroundings and

it takes away the bad stuff with it. Oh yeah, kind of like writing a nasty email and then deleting it instead of sending it, that sort of thing. Kind of like that. Though, I think I've I've said on this show before that I have mixed feelings about the virtues of venting actually, like expressing your frustrations to get

them out. I feel pretty convinced that sometimes enumerating all your frustrations with a person does not actually make you feel better in the long run, does not improve your state of mind, but can actually tend to make you just feel more frustrated, Like, you know, listing all the things you're mad about. It might be good to like

have somebody sympathetic to talk to about your frustrations. But but I I have seen lots of cases in my life where venting that was supposed to help somebody feel better makes them feel worse and just makes them make themselves matter and matter. Yeah, I can just gonna get you riled up and and then there's no real way to shut it off. This this all does make like we're talking about kind of like literal um ways of

venting and releasing here. I'm trying to think if there are any modern like secular or even just Western traditions that really entail this kind of like the the sympathetic magic of taking uh the bad out of you, putting

into into something else, and than discarding it. Yeah. Well, I mean I wonder if this is this is the kind of thing that more secular people could benefit from without having to literally believe in any sort of magic, to just sort of enact a psychological drama that where where you like take all the bad stuff out and you put it in an object and you get rid

of that object. If even even though you're not believing that this has literal magic power or their souls or spirits or ghosts or anything like that, the doing the physical ritual does something healthy and healing to your mind. Yeah. Yeah, and into a certain extent, various like self help scenarios, you you are dealing with a spirit, and the spirit you're you're kind of trying to go exercises yourself in

the sense that you're trying to become a new person. Uh. You know, we've talked about an the show before, like how you know how ridiculous that may seem, because we are always becoming a new person. We are essentially we're a different person now than we were earlier this morning, will be a different person this afternoon. But we're also creatures of habit, and we tend to do what we've done before, and we tend to think what we've thought before.

And without without some kind of rupturing of those habits cycles, without something to to come in and force a change of routine, we will just tend to do the things we've done before. And sometimes those things are are things that make us feel bad. Right, And of course, if we're trying to change our routine, it's I've often seen it pointed out that it's easier to change your routine if you are, say on a trip, you know you're

going vacations. Suddenly you can, you know, for many number of reasons, you can do things you don't do in a typical week. But sometimes, like just having a different physical environment allows you to break some of these habits that you've kept before. And physical ritual could be like that too, right, and certainly, changing your immediate physical uh circumstances, you know, purging yourself with various items could give you the advantage that you need in creating some new habits

in your life. You know what I started at the beginning saying, I don't have a take because I've never watched the Marie Condo stuff or whatever, But I think

maybe I'm coming around. I think through the course of this episode, I've talked myself into the idea that maybe, like changing your physical surroundings, purging yourself of old items that that you don't actually need anymore or have in a metaphorical way, become imbued with some kind of bad spirit, that's the associations in your memory that could actually have a really positive impact on your life. Maybe people should

try it out. This episode is not paid for by the Marie Condo Show or anything like that, by the way, No, no, not at all. But speaking of Netflix, they've got Marie Condo. Okay, it's it's a hit. They have the Sabrina show where she fights demons, and it's a hit. They need to bridge these two. They need a show in which Marie

Eacondo physically battles demons. If he goes to people's house, the houses to help them deal with their clutter, and then she physically battles the spirits of these items with a sword, gouges their eyes out, real real good. This proposal is definitely sparking some joy in me. I'm I'm yeah, I'm with you here. But in any case, yeah, I've

been brought around. I think whether it's a Western style New Year's resolution, whether it's a ritual for lunar New Year, or whether it's good old fashioned spring cleaning, I think maybe maybe some good physical environment exorcism is actually a healthy thing to consider. All right, we're gonna end it right there, But if you want to check out more episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where

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Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Try Harrison. If you would like to get in touch with us directly with feedback on this episode or any other, with a suggestion for a topic on the show in the future, or just to say hi, you can email us at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com about the Four Foo