Stay ConnectedMonsterTalk: The Science Show About Monsters is a free audio podcast that critically examines the science behind cryptozoological (and legendary) creatures, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or werewolves.
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I had the opportunity to talk with game designer Mike Mulvihill about his cryptid-focused version of the cooperative board-game HORRIFIED. (affiliate link) We get into discussions of gaming as a hobby, how this was designed, how the monsters were chosen, and much more. Thanks to Mike (and Ravensburger) for their generous allocation of time with MonsterTalk. Notes/Links: The Ozark Howler The Banshee of the Badlands See HORRIFIED on Board Game Geek page Mike Mulvihill American Monsters by Jason Offutt This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/monstertalk and get on your way to being your best self.
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Karen takes us down under to discover the tale of FISHER'S GHOST. Murder, intrigue, and the supernatural await in part 1. Show Notes: Official legend of Fisher's Ghost - from Campbelltown Government Site, Australia Indigenous Trackers (Australia) (Wikipedia) Ghost Riots (British Newspaper Archive) The Greenbrier Ghost (wiki) The Red Barn Murder (wiki) Karen's latest story collection Fisher's Ghost and Other Stories. Laura Krantz's new children's book on Bigfoot and Critical Thinking: Searching for Sasquatch: A Wild Thing Book This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/monstertalk and get on your way to being your best self.
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This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/monstertalk and get on your way to being your best self.
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S02E02 - We continue our discussion of Tarot with some (hopefully interesting) digressions into Kabbalah and more. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/monstertalk and get on your way to being your best self. Show Notes: The "egg trick" - article by Joe Nickell The Sefirot "explained" - video (there are many of these and I don't know which are most accurate) Ultima IV (from the intro) The lovely art of the Rider Waite Smith deck (from Tartot.com) Kabbalah (wikipedia) The Sefirot (wikipedia) the tree of life of the Kabbalah An interesting video that explains the concepts in the Sefirot (there are MANY of these on YouTube and I'm not endorsing any of them - just sharing an example) Because this is a two-parter and I don't know who will catch only 1 part, I'm including the notes from part 1 here as well: Trick-Taking Games - card games where each round has a winner, usually seeking most points over the duration of multiple rounds. Playing card suits The Marseilles Deck (tarot.com) see also Wikipedia coverage. A lot of what we know about historical Tarot and its relationship to divination comes from Michael Dummett (1925 - 1911) an English philosopher and academic. The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City (1980) is out of print and way, way overpriced but you can read it on Scribd with a basic subscription. A brief history of Playing Cards and further reading on the same topic over at Britannica. A history of Cartomancy (wikipedia) Forms of Divination (wikipedia) What is a stripped deck? A history of Tarot cards (from Bicycle playing card company) Jean-Baptiste Alliette aka "Etteilla" (1738 - 1791) the Frenchman who "invented" the use of Tarot for divination and tied it to ancient Egypt (via a false history, prior to the Rosetta stone and rediscovery of how to read hieroglyphs from Egypt) He wrote a book called Etteilla, ou manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes ("Etteilla, or a Way to Entertain Yourself With a Deck of Cards") in 1770. Excerpt from Wikipedia: "In 1781 the French Swiss Protestant clergyman and occultist Antoine Court who named himself Court de Gébelin published in his massive work Le Monde primitif his idea that the Tarot was actually an ancient Egyptian book of arcane wisdom; his work included an essay by the Comte de Mellet who first called tarot cards the Book of Thoth and, crucially, claimed that the Egyptians used the cards for fortune-telling and described what purported to be their method of divination." Note: The key to unlocking ancient Egyptian (the Rosetta Stone) hadn't even been recovered yet so the idea that people are reading ancient Egyptian wisdom and using it to develop card divination to preserve some ancient wisdom is preposterous. The stone with its multiple languages repeating the same text was found in 1799 but wasn't translated until 1822. After the popularity of Court's book, Alliette quickly produces: Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées Tarots ("How to Entertain Yourself With the Deck of Cards Called Tarot") in 1785 Rider-Waite (Smith) Tarot Deck How to play the game Tarot (French style) A Wicked Pack of Cards: Origins of the Occult Tarot - by Michael Dummett and Ronald Decker U. S. Games Systems Inc. brought Tarot to America in 1967. Founder Stuart Kaplan (who passed away in 2021) spent a lot of time researching illustrator Pamela Coleman Smith and restoring her long overdue historical significance. Previous episodes on Western Esotericism
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MonsterTalk begins its second season and its weekly release schedule with a look at the surprisingly mundane origin of the Tarot deck and how the practice of divination emerged in the late 1700s steeped in pseudo-antiquity. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/monstertalk and get on your way to being your best self. Show Notes: Trick-Taking Games - card games where each round has a winner, usually seeking most points over the duration of multiple rounds. Playing card suits The Marseilles Deck (tarot.com) see also Wikipedia coverage. A lot of what we know about historical Tarot and its relationship to divination comes from Michael Dummett (1925 - 1911) an English philosopher and academic. The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City (1980) is out of print and way, way overpriced but you can read it on Scribd with a basic subscription. A brief history of Playing Cards and further reading on the same topic over at Britannica. A history of Cartomancy (wikipedia) Forms of Divination (wikipedia) What is a stripped deck? A history of Tarot cards (from Bicycle playing card company) Jean-Baptiste Alliette aka "Etteilla" (1738 - 1791) the Frenchman who "invented" the use of Tarot for divination and tied it to ancient Egypt (via a false history, prior to the Rosetta stone and rediscovery of how to read hieroglyphs from Egypt) He wrote a book called Etteilla, ou manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes ("Etteilla, or a Way to Entertain Yourself With a Deck of Cards") in 1770. Excerpt from Wikipedia: "In 1781 the French Swiss Protestant clergyman and occultist Antoine Court who named himself Court de Gébelin published in his massive work Le Monde primitif his idea that the Tarot was actually an ancient Egyptian book of arcane wisdom; his work included an essay by the Comte de Mellet who first called tarot cards the Book of Thoth and, crucially, claimed that the Egyptians used the cards for fortune-telling and described what purported to be their method of divination." Note: The key to unlocking ancient Egyptian (the Rosetta Stone) hadn't even been recovered yet so the idea that people are reading ancient Egyptian wisdom and using it to develop card divination to preserve some ancient wisdom is preposterous. The stone with its multiple languages repeating the same text was found in 1799 but wasn't translated until 1822. After the popularity of Court's book, Alliette quickly produces: Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées Tarots ("How to Entertain Yourself With the Deck of Cards Called Tarot") in 1785 Rider-Waite (Smith) Tarot Deck How to play the game Tarot (French style) A Wicked Pack of Cards: Origins of the Occult Tarot - by Michael Dummett and Ronald Decker U. S. Games Systems Inc. brought Tarot to America in 1967. Founder Stuart Kaplan (who passed away in 2021) spent a lot of time researching illustrator Pamela Coleman Smith and restoring her long overdue historical significance. Previous episodes on Western Esotericism
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Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
Darren Naish joins us to catch us up on his latest project - a series of dawings and descriptions based on the cryptids of Bernard Heuvelmans! (Patreon Link) The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep (Affiliate Link) Les Félins Encore Inconnus d’Afrique (Affiliate Link - French Edition) The Blue Tiger (Affiliate Link - leatherbound edition) Prehistoric Planet (Apple TV) Darren recently wrote a long piece on the present state of Cryptozoology - worth a read! Huevelman's On the Track of Unknown Animals
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We're joined by folklorist and anthropologist Dr. John Gutowski, a professor at Saint Xavier, to discuss the Beast of Busco and the festivals such creatures often inspire. Paper on giant turtle of Charbusco. Author of The Beast of Busco (currently out of print) Additional: The White River Monster - episode #204 (Joe Nickell) Our coverage of Mothman (several episodes) Arkansas policy on White River Monster Fisher's Ghost (Australia) has a festival The Mothman Festival Boggy Creek (Fouke Monster) Festival The Nantucket Sea Serpent Jackalopes Lizard Man Stomp Roswell UFO Festival Rhinelander, WI (Hodag) Festival Can’t get enough of monsters? If you’ve enjoyed this episode and want to listen to more from MonsterTalk, click here! Want to talk about a monster we haven’t talked about before? Send us an email! Catch MonsterTalk on All Your Favorite Podcasting Sites Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn Follow MonsterTalk on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube Support Love the show? Consider supporting MonsterTalk on Patreon! Interested in Advertising with us? Contact sales@advertisecast.com!
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Dr. Brian Regal joins us again (actually his 6th appearance!) to discuss his latest work, The Battle Over America's Origin Story. We know Columbus didn't "discover" America, yet there are so many competing narratives that seek to topple Columbus yet still not acknowledge the clear and obvious indigenous people who were already here when all of these explorers allegedly arrived. Regal's latest book looks at a broad swath of these fringe historian theories and gives them context in the bigger picture of people's search for national identity in the the United States. Previous Visits from Dr. Regal: YetiPalooza #116 Montague Summers #110 His Story of the Jersey Devil #71 Searching for Sasquatch #36 Darwin vs the Wolf-man #06 Books by Regal: Searching for Sasquatch The Secret History of the Jersey Devil Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia Can’t get enough of monsters? If you’ve enjoyed this episode and want to listen to more from MonsterTalk, click here! Want to talk about a monster we haven’t talked about before? Send us an email! Catch MonsterTalk on All Your Favorite Podcasting Sites Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn Follow MonsterTalk on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube Support Love the show? Consider supporting MonsterTalk on Patreon! Interested in Advertising with us? Contact sales@advertisecast.com!
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258 - The Winchester Mystery House 258_Monstertalk_Patreon.mp3 Karen and Blake are joined by Matthew Baxter to tell the true story of Sara Winchester and the sprawling mansion in San Jose. Legend says the estate was built to appease the spirits of the victims of the Winchester repeating rifle. But was it? No - but the story behind the story is fascinating. Location: 525 S Winchester Blvd, San Jose, CA 95128 Want to visit it? Tickets here - but get your facts elsewhere. Karen's book Haunting America 1948 was the 75th anniversary of the Winchester 73 repeating rifle. Captive of the Labyrinth - a biography of Sarah Winchester Can’t get enough of monsters? If you’ve enjoyed this episode and want to listen to more from MonsterTalk, click here! Want to talk about a monster we haven’t talked about before? Send us an email! Catch MonsterTalk on All Your Favorite Podcasting Sites Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn Follow MonsterTalk on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube Support Love the show? Consider supporting MonsterTalk on Patreon! Interested in Advertising with us? Contact sales@advertisecast.com!
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We are joined by the incomparable Dr. Irving Finkel to discuss the oldest recorded stories of ghosts in human history. Pliny the Younger - Wikipedia The tale of Athenodorus and the chained ghost How to write cuneiform (video with Dr. Finkel) By Dr. Irving Finkel: The First Ghosts The Ark Before Noah Dr. Finkel teaches how to play The Royal Game of Ur (youtube) PDF of UR rules A replica of the game of Ur A quite expensive version of the game of Ur from the British Museum Can’t get enough of monsters? If you’ve enjoyed this episode and want to listen to more from MonsterTalk, click here! Want to talk about a monster we haven’t talked about before? Send us an email! Catch MonsterTalk on All Your Favorite Podcasting Sites Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn Follow MonsterTalk on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube Support Love the show? Consider supporting MonsterTalk on Patreon! Interested in Advertising with us? Contact sales@advertisecast.com!
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