Show Notes
The finale of our three-part Halloween run. Her whole Bible entry is half a verse: the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. Pleasant, in Hebrew. So how does a woman with seven words to her name end up a righteous mother, a queen of demons, a singer of laments, and maybe a passenger on the ark? We walk the sources oldest first, with a date and a writer for every step. Genesis gives her family and then silence. Noah's wife has no name at all. Jubilees gives her one, Emzara, and Josephus gives Naam...
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Part 2 of 2, and the last night of our Halloween run. Last time we read the rulebooks. Tonight the rulebook meets real people, oldest case first, each told as what the witnesses swore they saw against what the investigators found, and who was holding the story. Laon, 1566, where a demon is said to have named itself the "Prince of the Huguenots" and asked for the bishop, in public. Marthe Brossier in 1599 and the three tests set for her: water in a plain cup, a key wrapped in red silk, and a ...
Part 1 of 2 of our Halloween special. For years Ellie's scariest demon was Pazuzu, until she met the real one on a little amulet in the Louvre, where he chases a child-snatching demon away from a sick patient. He was the bodyguard the whole time. So how old is the fear that something can get inside a person, and who first wrote down how to make it leave? We walk the written record oldest first, with a date and a name for every step. A painted figure in a French cave with no text at all. The ...
Every fighter jet ever built needs a runway, wheels, a pilot and a radio. Shield AI, a defence company from San Diego, is building one with none of the four. It stands on its tail, goes straight up, and backs down onto its tail to come home. This week we sort what is real from what still lives in brochures, with a label on every number. Newest news first. As we recorded in mid-October, there is no flying X-BAT yet. The company says a first full-size prototype is weeks away and flight testing...
Part two of our three-part Halloween run. Last time we pointed at a door. Tonight it opens. Three names travel together online now: Lilith, the first wife. Cain, the first murderer. Judas, the betrayer. People call them an unholy trinity, one cursed bloodline from Eden to thirty pieces of silver. Is there really one? We read the pages each name stands on, oldest first, with a date and a writer for every step. The oldest page is a Sumerian poem about a laughing maid who lives in a tree, on cl...
Part one of our three-part Halloween run. Tonight: the ring that, in legend, let a king put demons to work. Part 2 is cursed bloodlines. Part 3 is a queen of demons. Here is the odd thing we found first: the oldest book about Solomon, First Kings, has no ring and no demons in it. A wise king, a temple built by human hands, a visiting queen with hard questions, and a sad ending. So where does the ring come from? We walk it through the books that gave it to him, oldest to newest, and every one...