tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/spirits-23000/articles
Spirits – The Conversation
2024-03-01T13:33:52Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218992
2024-03-01T13:33:52Z
2024-03-01T13:33:52Z
The tools in a medieval Japanese healer’s toolkit: from fortunetelling and exorcism to herbal medicines
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578362/original/file-20240227-20-ng0qz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C979%2C466&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An 'onmyoji,' an expert on yin and yang, performs divination with counting rods in an Edo-period illustration.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tamamonomae_Onmyoji.jpg">Kyoto University Library/Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“The Tale of Genji,” often called <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/530271/the-tale-of-genji-by-murasaki-shikibu/">Japan’s first novel</a>, was written 1,000 years ago. Yet it still occupies a powerful place in the Japanese imagination. A popular TV drama, “Dear Radiance” – “<a href="https://www.nhk.jp/p/hikarukimie/ts/1YM111N6KW/">Hikaru kimi e</a>” – is based on the life of its author, Murasaki Shikibu: the lady-in-waiting whose experiences at court inspired the refined world of “Genji.”</p>
<p>Romantic relationships, poetry and political intrigue provide most of the novel’s action. Yet illness plays an important role in several crucial moments, most famously when one of the main character’s lovers, Yūgao, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66057/pg66057-images.html#page_92">falls ill and passes away</a>, killed by what appears to be a powerful spirit – as later happens <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66057/pg66057-images.html#page_250">to his wife, Aoi</a>, as well.</p>
<p>Someone reading “The Tale of Genji” at the time it was written would have found this realistic – as would some people in different cultures around the world today. Records from early medieval Japan document numerous descriptions <a href="https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-46cs-wq63">of spirit possession</a>, usually blamed on spirits of the dead. As has been true in many times and places, physical and spiritual health were seen as intertwined.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://ealc.wustl.edu/people/alessandro-poletto">a historian of premodern Japan</a>, I’ve studied the processes its healing experts used to deal with possessions, and illness generally. Both literature and historical records demonstrate that the boundaries between what are often called “religion” and “medicine” were indistinct, if they existed at all.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An intricate illustration of a ceremony attended by people in robes, with the background covered in a golden color." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 17th-century scroll, ‘Maboroshi no Genji monogatari emaki,’ showing the funeral of Genji’s wife, Aoi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/leaves-of-wild-ginger-from-the-phantom-genji-scrolls-mid-news-photo/1206222207?adppopup=true">Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Vanquishing spirits</h2>
<p>The government department in charge of divination, the Bureau of Yin and Yang, established in the late seventh century, played a crucial role. Its technicians, known as <a href="https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/issue/186">onmyōji</a> – yin and yang masters – were in charge of divination and fortunetelling. They were also responsible for observing the skies, interpreting omens, calendrical calculations, timekeeping and eventually a variety of rituals.</p>
<p>Today, onmyōji appear as wizardlike figures in <a href="https://books.bunshun.jp/sp/onmyoji">novels</a>, <a href="https://www.viz.com/twin-star-exorcists">manga</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEiZuDTEq6A">anime</a> and <a href="https://en.onmyojigame.com/">video games</a>. Though heavily fictionalized, there is a historical kernel of truth in these fantastical depictions.</p>
<p>Starting from around the 10th century, Onmyōji were charged with carrying out iatromancy: divining the cause of a disease. Generally, they distinguished between disease caused by external or internal factors, though boundaries between the categories were often blurred. External factors could include local deities known as “kami,” other kami-like entities the patient had upset, minor Buddhist deities or malicious spirits – often revengeful ghosts. </p>
<p>In the case of spirit-induced illness, Buddhist monks would work to winnow out the culprit. Monks who specialized in exorcistic practices were known as “genja” and were believed to know how to <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/300922/the-pillow-book-by-sei-shonagon">expel the spirit from a patient’s body</a> through powerful incantations. Genja would then transfer it onto another person and force the spirit to reveal its identity before vanquishing it.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A faded picture of a broom, branch with a few leaves, and a fan, as well as Japanese script on top of it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 19th century print by Kubo Shunman shows objects representing the New Year’s ceremony of exorcising demons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/objects-representing-the-ceremony-of-exorcising-demons-one-news-photo/1338629689?adppopup=true">Heritage Images/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Court physicians</h2>
<p>While less common than spirit possessions, the idea that physical factors could also cause illness appears in sources from this period. </p>
<p>Since the late seventh century, the government of the Japanese archipelago had established a bureau in charge of the well-being of aristocratic families and high-ranking members of the state bureaucracy. This <a href="https://rekihaku.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/2657">Bureau of Medications</a>, the Ten’yakuryō, was based on similar systems in China’s Tang dynasty, <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/3414658">which Japanese officials</a> adapted for their own culture.</p>
<p>The bureau’s members, whom scholars today often call “court physicians” in English, created medicinal concoctions. But the bureau also included technicians tasked with using spells, perhaps to protect high-ranking people from maladies.</p>
<h2>Not either/or</h2>
<p>Some scholars, both Japanese and non-Japanese, compare the practices of members of the Bureau of Medications with what is now called “traditional Chinese medicine,” or just “medicine.” They typically consider the onmyōji and Buddhist monks, meanwhile, to fall under the label of “religion” – or perhaps, <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/7306973">in the case of onmyōji, “magic</a>.”</p>
<p>But I have found numerous signs that these categories do not help people today make sense of early medieval Japan.</p>
<p>Starting in the seventh century, as a centralized Japanese state began to take shape, Buddhist monks from the Korean Peninsula and present-day China brought healing practices to Japan. These techniques, such as herbalism – treatments made of plants – later became associated with court physicians. At the same time, though, monks also employed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.980">healing practices rooted in Buddhist rituals</a>. Clearly, <a href="https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-46cs-wq63">the distinction between ritual and physical healing</a> was not part of their mindset.</p>
<p>Similarly, with court physicians, it is true that sources from this period mostly show them <a href="https://rekihaku.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/2657">practicing herbalism</a>. Later on, they incorporated simple needle surgeries and moxibustion, which involves burning a substance derived from dried leaves from the mugwort plant near the patient’s skin.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A drawing showing the outline of the human body from behind and in front, with one arm outstretched, and Chinese characters written on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 18th-century engraving identifying parts of the body treated by moxibustion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/engraving-of-the-meridian-points-on-the-human-body-which-news-photo/90731089?adppopup=true">Science & Society Picture Library via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>However, they also incorporated ritual elements from various Chinese traditions: spells, divination, fortunetelling and hemerology, the practice of identifying auspicious and inauspicious days for specific events. For example, moxibustion was supposed to be avoided on certain days because of the position of a deity, <a href="https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1520853832664346880">known as “jinshin</a>,” believed to reside and move inside the human body. Practicing moxibustion on the body part where “jinshin” resided in a specific moment could kill it, therefore potentially harming the patient. </p>
<p>Court physicians were also expected to ritually “rent” a place for a pregnant woman to deliver, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12110907">producing talismans</a> written in red ink that were meant to function as “leases” for the birthing area. This was done in order to keep away deities who might otherwise enter that space, possibly because childbirth was believed to be a source of defilement. They also used hemerology to determine where the birthing bed should be placed.</p>
<p>In short, these healing experts straddled the boundaries between what are often called “religion” and “medicine.” We take for granted the categories that shape our understanding of the world around us, but they are the result of complex historical processes – and look different in every time and place.</p>
<p>Reading works like “The Tale of Genji” is not only a way to immerse ourselves in the world of a medieval court, one where spirits roam freely, but a chance to see other ways of sorting human experience at work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218992/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alessandro Poletto does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In medieval Japan, healing might mean taking medicine, undergoing an exorcism or sidestepping harm in the first place by avoiding inauspicious days.
Alessandro Poletto, Lecturer in East Asian Religions, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218769
2023-12-18T13:21:18Z
2023-12-18T13:21:18Z
A bottle of scotch recently sold for $2.7 million – what’s behind such outrageous prices?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565866/original/file-20231214-17-d6ucfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=164%2C82%2C3965%2C2734&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In November 2023, a bottle of Macallan Scotch whisky fetched the highest price of all time for a bottle of wine or spirits.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sothebys-global-head-of-spirits-jonny-fowle-poses-with-a-news-photo/1733842929?adppopup=true">Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a rare bottle of Scotch whisky <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scotch-whisky-auction-record-180983299/">sold for US$2.7 million</a> in November 2023, I was stunned, but I wasn’t surprised.</p>
<p>The whiskey market has been booming for some time.</p>
<p>Bourbon brands like Pappy Van Winkle from Buffalo Trace distillery <a href="https://www.thebourbonflight.com/why-is-pappy-van-winkle-so-expensive/">are selling for astronomical prices in the secondary market</a>. <a href="https://www.foodandwine.com/cocktails-spirits/japanese-whisky-prices">Japanese whiskies</a>, which have become popular over the past decade, <a href="https://www.vinovest.co/blog/expensive-japanese-whiskey">now fetch prices up to 50 times higher what they did a decade ago</a>.</p>
<p>And in July 2022, a single Ardbeg whisky barrel, aged since 1975, with enough liquid for about 500 bottles, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/09/cask-scotch-whisky-world-record-sale-ardbeg-distillery">sold at auction for around $19 million</a>. In 1997, the entire Ardbeg distillery had been purchased by Glenmorangie Distillery <a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12074010.glenmorangie-pays-7m-for-ardbeg-distillery/">for roughly $11 million</a>.</p>
<p>How could a single cask of Scotch whisky sell for nearly twice the value of an entire distillery purchased just over two decades earlier?</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=nghJ8UEAAAAJ&hl=en">I’ve been studying specialty markets</a> for a decade, and I see at least two stories to unpack. </p>
<p>One is economic, where items in low supply, like rare bottles or barrels, sell for high prices. And prices in the whiskey market have been rising rapidly <a href="https://nobleandcompany.com/whisky-intelligence-2023/">over the last two decades</a>, fueled in part by investors. Some investors see luxury collectibles, such as high-end whiskey bottles or casks, <a href="https://www.businessexpert.co.uk/investing/whisky-investments/">as an alternative to other assets</a> like stocks and bonds. (There are, however, signs that the luxury market <a href="https://whiskymag.com/articles/where-does-the-whisky-cask-investment-market-stand-in-2023/">is softening</a> due to oversupply.)</p>
<p>But a second, overlooked – and arguably more interesting – explanation is social. It revolves around <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691165493/masters-of-craft">the increasing focus on the purported authenticity of craft products</a> – especially ones like Scotch whisky, which trade on their heritage as much as their flavor.</p>
<h2>A ‘brown spirit’ boom</h2>
<p>The history of whiskey is one of booms and busts.</p>
<p>Whiskey has been produced in Scotland and Ireland <a href="https://scotchwhisky.com/magazine/latest-news/26580/earliest-whisky-still-mention-found/">since at least the late 1400s</a>. The spirit spread to the rest of Europe in the mid-to-late 1700s. The late 1800s and early 1900s were boom years, especially for Irish whiskey. The period also witnessed innovations such as aging the spirit in oak barrels, which enhances its flavor. (Scotch, Japanese, Canadian and Indian whisky is spelled without the “e,” and Irish and American whiskey is spelled with the “e.” Whiskey is the general category label.)</p>
<p>In the U.S., Prohibition <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-prohibition-era-origins-of-the-modern-craft-cocktail-movement-109623">moved distilling underground</a> until it made a midcentury comeback. Famously, the advent of “white spirits” like vodka and gin <a href="https://www.wineenthusiast.com/culture/spirits/pappy-van-winkle-expensive/">pushed down prices</a> of “brown spirits” like whiskey starting in the 1970s. This led to what Scotch distillers call the “<a href="https://www.whiskyinvestdirect.com/whisky-news/whisky-loch-092320221">whisky loch</a>,” or “lake” – the accumulation of large stores of matured whisky and the resulting shuttering of many whisky producers.</p>
<p>But whiskey has made a comeback since 2000. Prices of some bottles, including highly prized single-malt whiskies produced at a single distillery, have risen <a href="https://www.knightfrank.com/research/article/2020-04-16-knight-frank-luxury-investment-index-update-rare-whisky">by almost 600% over the last decade</a>. American bourbon has also seen a spike in interest – and prices – <a href="https://robbreport.com/food-drink/spirits/bourbon-rye-price-increase-1234790092/">since at least 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Long perceived as an inferior knockoff of Scotch whisky, Japanese whiskies have also experienced price surges. The House of Suntory, the oldest Japanese distiller, <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Food-Beverage/Japanese-whisky-continues-to-get-pricier-amid-solid-popularity">recently announced</a> its own substantial price increases in the primary market, in some cases <a href="https://japantoday.com/category/business/suntory-announces-massive-price-spike-for-its-whisky-some-types-more-than-double-in-price">by as much as 100%</a>. And India, long the largest consumer of Scotch whisky, is also seeing its distilleries produce their own single-malt whiskies and <a href="https://www.theiwsr.com/the-volatility-of-indian-whisky-markets/">gradually move up-market</a>.</p>
<p>While these increases have largely been confined <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/541735f0-cacd-4a45-aaa6-f80933889a27">to the higher end of the market</a>, prices of affordable bottles have gone up, too.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man with white gloves arranges bottles of amber-colored whisky on a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565870/original/file-20231214-15-tnmarg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565870/original/file-20231214-15-tnmarg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565870/original/file-20231214-15-tnmarg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565870/original/file-20231214-15-tnmarg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565870/original/file-20231214-15-tnmarg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565870/original/file-20231214-15-tnmarg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565870/original/file-20231214-15-tnmarg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Japanese whiskies have become more popular in the 21st century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jonny-fowle-sothebys-global-head-of-spirits-unveils-a-news-photo/1793160447?adppopup=true">Tristan Fewings/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Craving real connections</h2>
<p>Not long after the sale of the 1926 Macallan for $2.7 million, Merriam-Webster named “<a href="https://theconversation.com/merriam-websters-word-of-the-year-authentic-reflects-growing-concerns-over-ais-ability-to-deceive-and-dehumanize-217171">authentic</a>” its 2023 word of the year.</p>
<p>The term’s popularity can be attributed to advances in artificial intelligence – and, with it, misinformation. But much of the focus on authenticity is also the result of <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-substance-of-style-virginia-postrel">the longing for more in-person connections</a> in an increasingly virtual world. People want authentic experiences – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2018.1253">or what look like authentic experiences</a>. And that includes the products that they buy.</p>
<p>Authenticity is a notoriously <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1089268019829469">difficult concept to define</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2017.0047">But it tends to revolve</a> around following a set of internal or external standards. That might mean following your values or your heart in order to cultivate your best, most real or most authentic self. When it comes to products – think vintage cars, artisanal foods or craft beer – it could mean those products must meet certain criteria to be considered authentic. For example, <a href="https://eh.net/encyclopedia/a-concise-history-of-americas-brewing-industry/">according to standards defined by the microbrewery movement</a>, in order for craft beer to be considered authentic, it must be produced in-house in small batches.</p>
<p>These sorts of distinctions can be difficult for the average consumer to grasp, and authenticity can be easy to fake. The beer brand Samuel Adams, for instance, attempts to signal its authenticity by associating itself with the people, places and events of the American Revolution. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2517">the brewery also got in trouble</a> for marketing itself as a craft beer without making its beer in-house.</p>
<h2>Putting a price on authenticity</h2>
<p>Intangible qualities make whiskey special – aspects such as the aroma, or “nose”; its complexity; and its lingering flavor, or “finish.” </p>
<p>But to boost whiskey’s value, purveyors of high-end whiskey convey the product’s heritage.</p>
<p>A whiskey’s unique locale – what wine enthusiasts call “<a href="https://www.jjbuckley.com/wine-knowledge/blog/defining-what-terroir-is-for-wine/1022">terroir</a>” – matters greatly to its perceived authenticity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Flush young man wearing green suit jacket sniffs a glass of whiskey." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565320/original/file-20231212-20-egifje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565320/original/file-20231212-20-egifje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565320/original/file-20231212-20-egifje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565320/original/file-20231212-20-egifje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565320/original/file-20231212-20-egifje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565320/original/file-20231212-20-egifje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565320/original/file-20231212-20-egifje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King Charles III – then the Prince of Wales – sniffs a glass of whisky during a 1994 visit to a distillery on the Scottish island of Islay.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/prince-of-wales-sniffs-a-glass-of-whisky-during-a-visit-to-news-photo/830078022?adppopup=true">Chris Bacon/PA Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During and after the whisky loch, scotch producers realized they were sitting on large stocks of unsold whisky. Much of that whisky was produced and aged <a href="https://scotchwhisky.com/magazine/ask-the-professor/20868/why-was-scotch-whisky-better-in-the-1960s/">starting in the 1960s</a>, before the advent of automation, faster distilling and new ingredients. The desire to return to those more authentic, simpler times allowed distillers to rewrite the stories of those stores.</p>
<p>Scotch whisky has a long-standing reputation as more historically significant – and, therefore, more authentic. Despite research suggesting that <a href="https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13411-017-0056-x">even most expert judges</a> can’t distinguish different categories of whisky, a Scotch whisky bottle can sell for as much as 100 times the price of a similarly aged – and similarly complex – Canadian whisky. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2020.0017">One recent study of Canadian whisky</a> showed how distilleries can even use their physical features and local character to enhance perceptions of their spirits’ authenticity. Bottles from older distilleries were deemed more authentic – and could sell for more. Those from newer, factorylike buildings had less appeal to consumers.</p>
<p>There’s a miragelike nature to all of this. A product can be considered authentic if everyone believes and acts like it is.</p>
<p>It should come as no surprise, then, that the history of whiskey is one of perception, not necessarily quality. And this perception helps drive its economic fortunes.</p>
<p>So the next time you search for a nice bottle of whiskey for yourself or as a gift, consider the story and history that’s amplifying its price.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218769/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hovig Tchalian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The history of whiskey is one of perception, not necessarily quality.
Hovig Tchalian, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, University of Southern California
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215889
2023-10-26T12:31:10Z
2023-10-26T12:31:10Z
To better understand addiction, students in this course take a close look at liquor in literature
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555246/original/file-20231023-15-kxsfnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C31%2C5152%2C3383&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Characters in books can teach lessons about addiction.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/open-book-and-glass-of-white-wine-in-sunlight-royalty-free-image/1219727594?phrase=wine+literature&adppopup=true">Nataliia Shcherbyna via iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>Alcohol in American Literature</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p>I got the idea for the course when I was writing a chapter on the temperance movement in American literature for my doctoral dissertation. I ended up reading a lot of fiction and poetry about alcohol and the anti-alcohol movement. I thought it would be fun to teach a class that <a href="https://www.academia.edu/12903259/_Temperance_Novels_and_Moral_Reform_in_Oxford_History_of_the_Novel_in_English_Oxford_UP_2014_">surveyed American literature through a booze-themed lens</a>. </p>
<p>Since alcohol affects and disables people regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or class, it is easy to find literature about the impact of alcohol from many points of view. </p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>I pair my course with a medical doctor who teaches a course on the <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/addiction-4157312">biology of addiction</a>. In the biology course, students learn about the <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/addiction-overview-4581803">biological and physiological effects</a> of diseases of addiction, <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/substance-use-vs-substance-use-disorder-whats-the-difference-6385961">substance use and abuse</a>, dependency and recovery.</p>
<p>The core curriculum at John Carroll University requires students to take paired courses from different departments that are linked together. A colleague who teaches biology courses approached me about linking my alcohol class to her addiction class. Students must take both of our courses during the same semester. The combined courses give students both a scientific and literary view of addiction. </p>
<p>Students read fiction, poetry and drama about many aspects of alcohol and other addictive substances: celebrating them, struggling with them, even prohibiting and regulating them. Students compare the literary representations of substance and alcohol abuse with medical descriptions and impacts. For example, when my class reads Kristen Roupenian’s viral short story “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person">Cat Person,</a>” we talk about the role of alcohol in reducing inhibition when casually dating.</p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>My goal is for students to come to a better understanding of how alcohol influences literature. They learn how some writers portray the way alcoholism further marginalizes minorities. For example, characters in <a href="https://fallsapart.com/">Sherman Alexie</a>’s “<a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-lone-ranger-and-tonto-fistfight-in-heaven-20th-anniversary-edition-sherman-alexie/12459512?ean=9780802121998">The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven</a>” are enrolled members of the Spokane Tribe of Indians. They live on the reservation and have great difficulty finding or keeping a job. Many characters suffer from intergenerational trauma, poverty and a pervasive addiction to alcohol. </p>
<p>For their final project, students must pitch a movie that offers a compelling plot with relatable characters. The storyline must be backed up by a deep understanding of the science of disease and addiction. </p>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<p>• “<a href="https://tinhouse.com/book/night-of-the-living-rez/">Night of the Living Rez</a>,” by Morgan Talty, explores addiction and poverty among the Penobscot Nation.</p>
<p>• “<a href="https://www.hemingwayhome.com/store/p/the-sun-also-rises-softcover">The Sun Also Rises</a>,” by Ernest Hemingway, is a classic novel set in 1920s Paris about a set of heavy-drinking American ex-pats dealing with the trauma of World War I.</p>
<p>• We visit <a href="https://karamuhouse.org/">Karamu House</a>, the U.S.’s oldest continuing African American theater, to watch a performance of “<a href="https://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=6301">Clyde’s</a>,” a popular play by Lynn Nottage that is set in a truck stop sandwich shop that employs the recently incarcerated.</p>
<h2>What will the course prepare students to do?</h2>
<p>Students can be better advocates for their own personal health, and the health of others, if they understand how addictive substances affect their minds and bodies. Pre-health students in particular get a general introduction to medical issues related to addiction and how American authors have long portrayed booze. </p>
<p>For example, Frances Watkins Harper’s “<a href="https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/full-texts-of-classic-works/the-two-offers-by-frances-watkins-harper/">The Two Offers</a>,” written in the 1850s, is believed to be the first short story ever published by an African American woman. It is a temperance story that encourages young women not to marry a drunkard, highlighting the antebellum Black community’s concerns about sobriety and domestic well-being, in addition to freedom.</p>
<p>The course hones students’ critical reading and writing skills while challenging them to think about the role of alcohol, substance abuse, sobriety and recovery in their lives and in American culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215889/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Debra J. Rosenthal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
This course beckons students to examine how alcoholic beverages are portrayed in books by American authors.
Debra J. Rosenthal, Professor of English, John Carroll University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/210048
2023-10-24T13:26:36Z
2023-10-24T13:26:36Z
Are ghosts real? A social psychologist examines the evidence
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543535/original/file-20230818-4259-hhjv4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C16%2C5540%2C3676&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Remember the old saying: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/looking-up-at-a-spooky-blurred-ghostly-figure-royalty-free-image/1266059277?phrase=Ghosts&adppopup=true">David Wall/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Is it possible for there to be ghosts? – Madelyn, age 11, Fort Lupton, Colorado</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>Certainly, lots of people believe in ghosts – a spirit left behind after someone who was alive has died.</p>
<p>In a 2021 <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/entertainment/articles-reports/2021/10/21/americans-say-ghosts-exist-seen-a-ghost">poll of 1,000 American adults</a>, 41% said they believe in ghosts, and 20% said they had personally experienced them. If they’re right, that’s more than 50 million spirit encounters in the U.S. alone.</p>
<p>That includes the owner of a retail shop near my home who believes his place is haunted. When I asked what most convinced him of this, he sent me dozens of eerie security camera video clips. He also brought in ghost hunters who reinforced his suspicions. </p>
<p>Some of the videos show small orbs of light gliding around the room. In others, you can hear faint voices and loud bumping sounds when nobody’s there. Others show a <a href="https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxUDWmE2OLTCMcgoRoApiRZs9at_eJQZjj">book flying off a desk</a> and products jumping off a shelf. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MyQT78Bjt04?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Many ghostly encounters are due to the way your brain interprets certain sights and sounds.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s not uncommon for me to hear stories like this. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZEQu09wAAAAJ&hl=en">As a sociologist</a>, some of my work looks at beliefs in things like <a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/news/scared-of-ghosts-thats-because-you-want-to-be-sc-researchers-say/article_b87cf418-f735-11e9-bdb4-1bab7238a47f.html">ghosts</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-people-tend-to-believe-ufos-are-extraterrestrial-208403">aliens</a>, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1525/sop.2001.44.1.21">pyramid power</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-13-considered-unlucky-explaining-the-power-of-its-bad-reputation-191477">superstitions</a>. </p>
<p>Along with others who practice scientific skepticism, I keep an open mind while maintaining that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Tell me you had a burger for lunch, and I’ll take your word for it. Tell me you shared your fries with Abraham Lincoln’s ghost, and I’ll want more evidence.</p>
<p>In the “spirit” of critical thinking, consider the following three questions:</p>
<h2>Are ghosts possible?</h2>
<p>People may think they’re experiencing ghosts when they hear strange voices, see moving objects, witness balls or wisps of light or even translucent people. </p>
<p>Yet no one describes ghosts as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/ghost-spirit">aging, eating, breathing</a> or using bathrooms – despite plumbers receiving many calls about toilets “<a href="https://www.theplumberguy.com/blog/what-to-do-when-your-toilet-ghost-flushes/">ghost-flushing</a>.” </p>
<p>So could ghosts be made of a <a href="https://www.livescience.com/16951-einstein-physics-ghosts-proof.html">special kind of energy</a> that hovers and flies without dissipating? </p>
<p>If that’s the case, that means when ghosts glow, move objects and make sounds, they are acting like matter – something that takes up space and has mass, like wood, water, plants and people. Conversely, when passing through walls or vanishing, they must not act like matter. </p>
<p>But centuries of <a href="https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/what-is-energy/forms-of-energy.php">physics research</a> have found nothing like this exists, which is why physicists say <a href="https://futurism.com/brian-cox-if-ghosts-existed-wed-have-found-evidence-for-them-by-now">ghosts can’t exist</a>. </p>
<p>And so far, there is no proof that any part of a person can continue on after death. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The real truth is out there, says this ghost skeptic.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s the evidence?</h2>
<p>Never before in history have people recorded so many ghost encounters, thanks in part to mobile phone cameras and microphones. It seems there would be great evidence by now. <a href="https://benjaminradford.com/investigating-ghosts-2/">But scientists don’t have it</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, there are lots of ambiguous recordings sabotaged by bad lighting and faulty equipment. But popular <a href="https://www.eonline.com/news/1306826/ranking-ghost-hunting-shows-from-ghoulish-to-down-right-silly">television shows on ghost hunting</a> convince many viewers that blurry images and emotional reactions are proof enough. </p>
<p>As for <a href="https://www.ghoststop.com/tough-ghost-hunting-kit/">all the devices</a> ghost hunters use to capture sounds, electrical fields and infrared radiation – they may look scientific, but <a href="https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/reality-check-ghost-hunters-and-lsquoghost-detectorsrsquo/">they’re not</a>. Measurements are worthless without some knowledge of the thing you’re measuring.</p>
<p>When ghost hunters descend on an allegedly haunted location for a night of meandering and measurement, they usually find something they later deem paranormal. It may be a moving door (breeze?), a chill (gap in the floorboards?), a glow (light entering from outside?), electrical fluctuations (old wiring?), or bumps and faint voices (crew in other rooms?). </p>
<p>Whatever happens, ghost hunters will draw a bull’s-eye around it, interpret that as “evidence” <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/ghost-hunters-who-use-science-reveal-what-other-paranormal-investigators-get-wrong-1642693">and investigate no further</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">There’s a scientific explanation for spooky sightings.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Are there alternative explanations?</h2>
<p>Personal experiences with ghosts can be misleading due to the limitations of human senses. That’s why anecdotes can’t substitute for objective research. Alleged hauntings usually have plenty of non-ghostly explanations.</p>
<p>One example is that retail establishment in my neighborhood. I reviewed the security camera clips and gathered information about the store’s location and layout, and the exact equipment used in the recordings. </p>
<p>First, the “orbs”: Videos captured many small globes of light seemingly moving around the room. </p>
<p>In reality, the orbs are <a href="https://support.simplisafe.com/articles/video-doorbell-pro/why-do-i-see-orbsbubbles-when-my-camera-is-in-night-mode/634492a5d9a8b404da76cccb">tiny particles of dust</a> wafting close to the camera lens, made to “bloom” by the camera’s infrared lights. That they appear to float around the room is an optical illusion. Watch any orb video closely and you’ll see they never go behind objects in the room. That’s exactly what you’d expect with dust particles close to the camera lens.</p>
<p>Next, voices and bumps: The shop is in a busy corner mini-mall. Three walls abut sidewalks, loading zones and parking areas; an adjacent store shares the fourth. The security camera mics probably recorded sounds from outdoors, other rooms and the adjacent unit. The owner never checked for these possibilities.</p>
<p>Then, the flying objects: The video shows objects falling off the showroom wall. The shelf rests on adjustable brackets, one of which wasn’t fully seated in its slot. The weight of the shelf caused the bracket to settle into place with a visible jerk. This movement sent some items tumbling off the shelf.</p>
<p>Then, the flying book: I used a simple trick to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soA5P1myQ7k&ab_channel=BarryMarkovsky">recreate the event</a> at home: a hidden string taped inside a book’s cover, wrapped around the kitchen island, and tugged by my right hand out of camera range. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/soA5P1myQ7k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Experience the mystery of the flying book.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now I can’t prove there wasn’t a ghost in the original video.
The point is to provide a more plausible explanation than “it must have been a ghost.” </p>
<p>One final consideration: Virtually all ghostly experiences involve impediments to making accurate perceptions and judgments – <a href="https://skepticalinquirer.org/2017/01/ghost-hunters-in-the-dark/">bad lighting</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.879163">emotional arousal</a>, <a href="https://time.com/6259846/sleep-paralysis-ghosts/">sleep phenomena</a>, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1525/sop.2001.44.1.21">social influences</a>, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/21478-what-is-culture-definition-of-culture.html">culture</a>, a misunderstanding of <a href="https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/ghost-meters-i-can-name-that-ghost-in-5-milligauss/">how recording devices work</a>, and <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2019/how-expectation-influences-perception-0715">the prior beliefs</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-0047-9">personality traits</a> of those who claim to see ghosts. All of these hold the potential to induce unforgettable ghostly encounters.</p>
<p>But all can be explained without ghosts being real.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barry Markovsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Ghosts can be spooky fun, but there’s no evidence they exist.
Barry Markovsky, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of South Carolina
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/206978
2023-06-30T12:38:23Z
2023-06-30T12:38:23Z
Inside the grogue wars of Cabo Verde
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534404/original/file-20230627-18-7g0oll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C7%2C5084%2C3809&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Grogue, the national drink of Cabo Verde, is a spirit distilled from sugar cane.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/distillery-for-grogue-the-local-and-iconic-liquor-produced-news-photo/1265225678?adppopup=true">Martin Zwick/REDA&CO/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At what point does a craft spirit no longer qualify as craft? </p>
<p>For centuries on the archipelago nation Cabo Verde off Africa’s west coast, farmers have produced <a href="https://bookline.hu/product/home.action?_v=Gilabert_Philippe_Grogue_From_Sugar_&type=200&id=6141857">a sugar cane-based craft spirit</a> known as “grogue.” The liquor – an effervescent spirit with light grassy notes – has a rich cultural legacy and has historically been made in limited quantities by skilled workers using traditional distilling methods. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2243434&HistoricalAwards=false">We’ve been studying</a> tensions between some traditional producers and the government, which seeks to more strictly regulate the production of the spirit to popularize it in international markets.</p>
<p>The industrialization of this drink could be a boon for a struggling rural economy. However, some small-scale producers are being forced to <a href="https://www.asemana.publ.cv/?Reportagem-Santo-Antao-Produtores-do-grogue-encaram-constrangimentos-na&ak=1">close shop</a>, unable to meet new regulatory demands.</p>
<h2>A brief history of grogue</h2>
<p>The history of grogue reflects the story of the islands themselves.</p>
<p>After the archipelago was <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1310/">discovered by European mariners</a> between 1455 and 1461, the islands became a stopover along Atlantic trade routes, a place for ships to resupply and their new crews to embark. By 1490, Portuguese merchants brought enslaved peoples from the African mainland to grow crops, particularly <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/322123/sweetness-and-power-by-sidney-w-mintz/">plantation sugar cane</a>, which largely failed due to degraded soil and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=2acjCugg7FoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">lack of consistent rain</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534450/original/file-20230627-23-j8a7ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map of Africa with a zoomed-in section featuring the 10 islands of Cabo Verde." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534450/original/file-20230627-23-j8a7ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534450/original/file-20230627-23-j8a7ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534450/original/file-20230627-23-j8a7ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534450/original/file-20230627-23-j8a7ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534450/original/file-20230627-23-j8a7ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534450/original/file-20230627-23-j8a7ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534450/original/file-20230627-23-j8a7ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The vast majority of Cabo Verde’s sugar cane is grown on the island of Santo Antão.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://southafrica-info.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/cabo_verde_map.jpg">South Africa Gateway</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, 82% of the arable land in <a href="https://www.asemana.publ.cv/?Reportagem-Santo-Antao-Produtores-do-grogue-encaram-constrangimentos-na&ak=1">Santo Antão</a>, the country’s second biggest island, is still planted with sugar cane, which represents about 30% of the island’s GDP. Grogue, which uses sugar cane as its base, doesn’t rot and can be kept for years, which makes it an attractive export.</p>
<p>On July 5, 1975, Cabo Verde became one of the last African colonies to achieve <a href="https://africaworldpressbooks.com/amilcar-cabral-revolutionary-leadership-and-people-s-war-by-patrick-chabal/">independence</a>. The nation’s newly <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Cape-Verde-Crioulo-Colony-To-Independent-Nation/Lobban/p/book/9780813335629">independent government</a> quickly moved to promote domestic agriculture through subsidies and investment, with unanticipated consequences on the grogue economy. </p>
<p>The decision to subsidize desired staples throughout the islands, such as refined sugar in 1993, resulted in an increase in grogue production – not from freshly pressed sugar cane, but from imported sugar. The glut of industrial sugar impaired the quality and value of grogue and became known colloquially as “merdon” or the “grogue of democracy.”</p>
<p>In 2008, the <a href="https://www.asemana.publ.cv/?Confraria-do-Grog">Confrérie du Grogue de Santo Antão</a>, a guild of grogue producers, claimed grogue was being threatened by quality control issues and subsidized imported sugar. The guild lobbied for stricter government regulation to protect grogue’s legacy and cultural importance.</p>
<h2>Regulating grogue</h2>
<p>As a result of this lobbying, the government passed laws <a href="https://leap.unep.org/countries/cv/national-legislation/decree-law-no-112015-establishing-legal-regime-production-sugar">in 2015</a> <a href="https://kiosk.incv.cv/V/2018/8/22/1.1.56.2567/p1430">and 2018</a> to establish rules governing the production of grogue, such as the banning of the use of refined sugar. The regulations considered national and international food standards, environmental protection, public health, and consumer and producer rights.</p>
<p>The law strictly defined grogue as a sugar cane spirit produced in Cabo Verde, specifically from the distillation of naturally fermented syrup that was directly pressed from Cabo Verdean sugar cane.</p>
<p>Once the regulatory apparatus was established after the COVID-19 pandemic, however, many small distilleries were forced to <a href="https://www.asemana.publ.cv/?Reportagem-Santo-Antao-Produtores-do-grogue-encaram-constrangimentos-na&ak=1">stop production</a> because they couldn’t meet the new fermentation, storage and labeling standards.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A metal machine with toothed gears crushes stalks of sugar cane on a floor covered with sugar cane detritus." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534402/original/file-20230627-25-gst25p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534402/original/file-20230627-25-gst25p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534402/original/file-20230627-25-gst25p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534402/original/file-20230627-25-gst25p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534402/original/file-20230627-25-gst25p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534402/original/file-20230627-25-gst25p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534402/original/file-20230627-25-gst25p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A machine for crushing sugar cane to make grogue on Santo Antão, the second-largest of Cabo Verde’s 10 islands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/machine-for-crushing-sugar-cane-to-extract-the-sugar-for-news-photo/872096810?adppopup=true">Jon G. Fuller/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, these farmers sent their relatively meager sugar cane harvests to larger processors, since it was no longer cost effective to produce grogue in small batches, or they left the enterprise entirely.</p>
<p>The new regulations primarily affected artisanal distillers throughout the main island of Santiago, which has more small-scale production sites. Most of the larger producers are in Santo Antão, where 80% of the country’s grogue is made.</p>
<h2>Be careful what you wish for</h2>
<p>In some contexts, small-batch production represents high quality and care – French cheeses, Italian olive oil and Kentucky bourbon, for example. In others, it signifies cheapness and inferior quality.</p>
<p>Cabo Verdean grogue can possess both elements, leading to highly charged debates over its value. </p>
<p>Almost 35% of Cabo Verde’s population participates in agriculture, and a deep and complex <a href="https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.47.2.37240k86j655hj46">agricultural ethos</a> has been cultivated over the centuries in what scholars Aminah Fernandes Pilgrim and João Resende-Santos describe as a “<a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793653833/Economic-Growth-and-Democracy-in-Post-Colonial-Africa-Cabo-Verde-Small-States-and-the-World-Economy">fading and failing rural economy</a>.” </p>
<p>Does scaling up to meet industrial standards hold the key to rural renewal? Or will it create insurmountable barriers for small-scale producers, closing one more path out of poverty? </p>
<p>That is the current conundrum facing Cabo Verde, which has implications for other places where craft spirit production is highly valued as a cultural asset and is scaling up.</p>
<p>Cabo Verde and grogue go hand in hand, and locals, <a href="https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/35270/340060.pdf?sequence=1#page=14">diasporas</a> and <a href="https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/cabo-verde-tourism#:%7E:text=In%202019%2C%20Cabo%20Verde%20welcomed,pre%2Dpandemic%20levels%20by%202023.">tourists</a> seem to broadly support the <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/caravelle/2481?lang=en">expansion of sugar cane cultivation and grogue distillation</a>. Many local consumers see grogue as a quality drink that’s better than <a href="https://www.asemana.publ.cv/?IGAE-e-PN-aprendem-104-litros-de-bebida-alcoolica-de-ma-qualidade-no-Tarrafal&ak=1">cheaper, imported alternatives</a>. It represents a piece of <a href="https://www.asemana.publ.cv/?Santo-Antao-IGAE-desmantela-e-apreende-14-000-litros-de-calda-ilegal-na-semana&ak=1">cultural heritage</a> and is key to rural economic development. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Hand of man holding cup over metal contraption made up of tubes and funnels." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534406/original/file-20230627-23-gqsrrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534406/original/file-20230627-23-gqsrrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534406/original/file-20230627-23-gqsrrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534406/original/file-20230627-23-gqsrrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534406/original/file-20230627-23-gqsrrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534406/original/file-20230627-23-gqsrrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534406/original/file-20230627-23-gqsrrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man distills grogue at a small distillery on Santo Antão.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-distills-grogue-a-local-alcoholic-liquor-from-crushed-news-photo/872096820?adppopup=true">Jon G. Fuller/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, our analysis shows that the shift toward industrialization has deep implications <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture10060216">for food security and public health</a>. </p>
<p>Farmers producing grogue can use money they earn from grogue to pay school fees and achieve some financial stability. </p>
<p>Yet regulatory efforts to improve quality and consistency of grogue may have inadvertently and negatively affected small producers.</p>
<p>Improperly or illegally made grogue is now being confiscated and destroyed, pushing clandestine producers back underground. <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/country/CV">Agricultural figures from the World Bank</a> suggest that there may be more grogue being made than available sugar cane to produce it, which indicates that refined sugar is still being used to make poor-quality merdon.</p>
<p>Of course, improperly produced grogue could get people sick. And it goes without saying that any alcohol consumed – regardless of how it is produced – can lead to <a href="https://www.asemana.publ.cv/?Santo-Antao-Clinico-alerta-que-10-dos-7-mil-internados-no-hospital-Joao-Morais&ak=1">alcoholism</a>, <a href="https://www.asemana.publ.cv/?Santo-Antao-IGAE-desmantela-e-apreende-14-000-litros-de-calda-ilegal-na-semana&ak=1">violence</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/etnografica.2559">drunken driving</a>.</p>
<p>It’s somewhat ironic that a local grogue guild of artisanal producers lobbied for new legislation to enhance the quality and highlight the cultural significance of their product. These efforts, however, have ended up pushing the smaller outfits – the kind most likely to use traditional methods – out of business, into cooperative arrangements or underground.</p>
<p>On Cabo Verde, all of the elements of craft spirits that make grogue special – a connection to people and place, a unique taste and a symbol of local celebration and identity – are in danger of being lost.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206978/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brandon D. Lundy receives funding from the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Patterson receives funding from the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monica Swahn receives funding from The National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nancy Hoalst-Pullen receives funding from The National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>
The government and some producers are pushing to industrialize the sugar cane-based spirit to boost its popularity around the world, while small farmers fear losing their livelihoods.
Brandon D. Lundy, Professor of Anthropology, Kennesaw State University
Mark Patterson, Professor of Geography and Geospatial Sciences, Kennesaw State University
Monica Swahn, Dean of the Wellstar College of Health and Human Services, Kennesaw State University
Nancy Hoalst-Pullen, Professor of Geography, Kennesaw State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/190123
2022-10-28T12:31:59Z
2022-10-28T12:31:59Z
Japan’s ‘waste not, want not’ philosophy has deep religious and cultural roots, from monsters and meditation to Marie Kondo’s tidying up
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491759/original/file-20221025-24-seyy2h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C1%2C1017%2C505&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Monsters and spirits –including 'tsukumogami,' which are made of everyday objects – in the 'Hyakki-Yagyō-Emaki' scroll, painted between the 14th and 16th centuries.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Hyakki-Yagyo-Emaki_Tsukumogami_1.jpg/1024px-Hyakki-Yagyo-Emaki_Tsukumogami_1.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The word “waste” is often frightening. People fear not making the most of their time, whether at work or at leisure, and failing to live life to the fullest. </p>
<p>Warnings against waste run especially deep in Japanese culture. Many Americans are familiar with the famous decluttering technique of <a href="https://theconversation.com/marie-kondo-a-psychologist-assesses-the-konmari-method-of-tidying-110217">organization guru Marie Kondo</a>, who wrote “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” Travelers to Japan may hear the classic expression “<a href="https://www.mottainai.info/jp/">mottainai</a>,” which means “don’t be wasteful” or “what a waste.” There are even gods, spirits and monsters, or “yokai,” associated with waste, cleanliness and respect for material goods.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.memphis.edu/philosophy/people/bios/kevin-taylor.php">As a scholar of Asian philosophy and religions</a>, I believe the popularity of “mottainai” expresses an ideal more than a reality. Japan is not always known for being environmentally conscious, but its anti-waste values are deeply held. These traditions have been shaped by centuries-old Buddhist and Shinto teachings about inanimate objects’ interconnectedness with humans that continue to influence culture today.</p>
<h2>Soot sprites and ceiling lickers</h2>
<p>The idea of avoiding waste is closely tied to ideas of tidiness, which has a whole host of spirits and rituals in Japanese culture. Fans of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hayao-miyazakis-spirited-away-continues-to-delight-fans-and-inspire-animators-20-years-after-its-us-premiere-188636">famous animator</a> Hayao Miyazaki may recall the cute little <a href="https://ghibli.fandom.com/wiki/Susuwatari">soot sprites</a> made of dust in his films “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Spirited Away.” Then there’s the ceiling licker, “<a href="https://yokai.com/tenjouname/">tenjōname</a>”: a tall monster with a long tongue said to eat up the filth that accumulates in hard-to-reach places.</p>
<p>“Oosouji,” or “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-long-history-of-japans-tidying-up">big cleaning</a>,” is an end-of-year household ritual. Previously known as “<a href="https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/issue/179/article/1278">susuharai” or “soot sweeping</a>,” it is more than a chance to tidy up. The rite is believed to expel the negativity of the previous year while welcoming the Shinto god Toshigami: a major deity, considered grandson of the gods who created the islands of Japan – and who brings good luck for the new year.</p>
<p>Out with the defiled and old, in with the purified and new.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A painting on a scroll shows several people in traditional Japanese clothing intensely cleaning a house." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491756/original/file-20221025-13-959jto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491756/original/file-20221025-13-959jto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491756/original/file-20221025-13-959jto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491756/original/file-20221025-13-959jto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491756/original/file-20221025-13-959jto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491756/original/file-20221025-13-959jto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491756/original/file-20221025-13-959jto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene of housecleaning in preparation for the new year by artist Kitagawa Utamaro in the late 1700s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/house-cleaning-in-preparation-for-the-new-year-japan-circa-news-photo/1365701151?phrase=cleaning%20new%20year%20japan&adppopup=true">Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Revenge of the tools</h2>
<p>There are countless varieties of monsters in Japanese folklore, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520253629/pandemonium-and-parade">including “yokai</a>.” As Japanese folklore scholar <a href="https://ealc.ucdavis.edu/people/michael-dylan-foster">Michael Dylan Foster</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Pandemonium_and_Parade.html?id=Z5WQy5Q6Hj4C&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0#v=snippet&q=yokai%20intentionally&f=false">points out</a>, the category “yokai” is nearly impossible to define, because the meaning is ever-changing – and many yokai themselves are shape-shifters.</p>
<p>For instance, “<a href="https://yokai.com/yuurei/">yurei</a>” are truly terrifying, vengeful ghosts. But another category of yokai is the living, shape-changing “bakemono” – including the mischievous “<a href="https://yokai.com/tanuki/">tanuki</a>,” a raccoon dog, and “<a href="https://yokai.com/kitsune/">kitsune</a>,” or fox, often depicted in statues guarding shrines.</p>
<p>One special class of yokai is known as “<a href="https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/issue/179/article/1278">tsukumogami</a>,” referring to animated household objects. This concept originates in Shinto, which literally translates as “the way of the gods,” and is Japan’s <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/shinto-9780190621711?cc=us&lang=en&">native folk religion</a>. Shinto recognizes spirits, or “kami,” as existing in various places in the human world: from trees, mountains and waterfalls to human-made objects.</p>
<p>It is said that when an object becomes 100 years old it becomes inhabited by a Shinto spirit and comes to life as a tsukumogami. The “Tsukumogami-ki,” or “<a href="https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/issue/179/article/1275">Record of Tool Specters</a>,” is a text written sometime between the 14th and 16th centuries. It tells the story of how just such objects, already 100 years old and possessed by kami, were cast out in the trash after the annual housecleaning ritual. These animated household objects took offense at their casual disregard after years of loyal service. Angered at the perceived disrespect, the tool specters went on a rampage: drinking, gambling, even kidnapping and killing humans and animals.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A faded poster with brightly colored small images of different kinds of monsters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491751/original/file-20221025-15497-tjwt97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491751/original/file-20221025-15497-tjwt97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491751/original/file-20221025-15497-tjwt97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491751/original/file-20221025-15497-tjwt97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491751/original/file-20221025-15497-tjwt97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491751/original/file-20221025-15497-tjwt97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491751/original/file-20221025-15497-tjwt97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster of monsters by Japanese artist Utagawa Shigekiyo, published in 1860.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.mfa.org/download/190862">Museum of Fine Arts Boston</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the Shinto elements, this is not a Shinto story <a href="https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/issue/179/article/1275">but a Buddhist one</a>. The animated household objects’ frenzy comes to an end when Buddhist priests intervene – meant to convince the audience that Buddhist practices were more powerful than local spirits associated with Shinto. At the time, Buddhism was still cementing its influence in Japan.</p>
<h2>Laying objects to rest</h2>
<p>If the “Tsukumogami-ki” is Buddhist propaganda, it is also a cautionary tale. The cast-aside objects lash out in anger for being treated without a second thought. </p>
<p>Reverence for objects has persisted throughout Japanese history in many forms. Sometimes this is for practical reasons, and sometimes more symbolic ones. The samurai sword known as the “katana,” for example, was often considered the soul of the warrior, symbolizing devotion to <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12096">the way of the warrior</a>, or “bushido.” In a more everyday example, cracked teapots are not discarded but rather repaired with gold in a process called “<a href="https://mymodernmet.com/kintsugi-kintsukuroi/">kintsugi</a>,” which adds an asymmetrical beauty like a golden scar.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A light-colored bowl with golden streaks across it sits against a white backdrop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491750/original/file-20221025-18366-ckrqgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491750/original/file-20221025-18366-ckrqgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491750/original/file-20221025-18366-ckrqgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491750/original/file-20221025-18366-ckrqgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491750/original/file-20221025-18366-ckrqgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491750/original/file-20221025-18366-ckrqgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491750/original/file-20221025-18366-ckrqgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A bowl restored with gold along the cracks, using the traditional ‘kintsugi’ restoration technique.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/antique-broken-japanese-beige-bowl-repaired-with-royalty-free-image/1280370725?phrase=kintsugi&adppopup=true">Marco Montalti/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This reverence also persists in the form of funerary services for a host of objects considered deserving of respect, such as <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-06/japanese-dolls-souls-return-to-heaven-at-shinmeisha-shrine/7695414">doll-burning ceremonies</a> performed at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. No-longer-wanted but not-unloved dolls are collected so that the spirits within can be honored and released before the end of their lives. A similar practice exists for artisans’ <a href="https://trc-leiden.nl/trc-needles/texts-films-customs-and-event/celebrations/hari-kuyo-japan">sewing needles</a>, which are put to rest with a memorial service.</p>
<h2>Karma and clutter</h2>
<p>The roots of these attitudes toward material things are therefore religious, practical and psychological. As a Japanese philosophy of waste, “mottainai” keys into Zen Buddhism’s emphasis on emptiness: minimalism to <a href="https://www.zen-buddhism.net/zen-concepts/mushin.html">empty the mind</a> and bring insight.</p>
<p>This desire to show respect also stems from Buddhist beliefs that all things, living or not, are interconnected – a teaching called “<a href="http://www.meditationcircle.org.uk/notes/pratityasamutpada-dependent-origination-cont/">pratītyasamutpāda</a>.” It’s closely tied with conceptions of karma: the idea that actions have consequences, especially moral consequences.</p>
<p>In short, Buddhism acknowledges that things shapes people, for better or worse. Unhealthy attachment to objects can manifest in different ways, whether it be the perceived need to buy an expensive car or reluctance to let go of unneeded items.</p>
<p>But that does not necessarily mean throwing away everything. When we are done with material goods, we don’t need to simply cast them into the trash to fill up landfills or pollute the air and water. They can be given a dignified send-off, whether through reuse or responsible disposal. </p>
<p>Failing that, the story in the “Record of Tool Specters” warns, they may come back to haunt us.</p>
<p>Now, that’s scary.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190123/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin C. Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Shinto and Buddhist ideas about interconnectedness have deeply influenced Japan, shaping centuries-old rituals and stories whose impact continues today.
Kevin C. Taylor, Director of Religious Studies and Instructor of Philosophy, University of Memphis
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/193059
2022-10-28T12:22:10Z
2022-10-28T12:22:10Z
Ouija boards: three factors that might explain why they appear to work for some
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492276/original/file-20221028-23824-nl6cxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C0%2C5434%2C3628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Ouija board was first developed in 1890.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/communicating-ghosts-through-spiritual-board-under-693915274">Couperfield/ Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite being around for more than 100 years, Ouija boards (a wooden board covered with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0-9 and the words “yes”, “no” and “goodbye”) continue to be a popular activity – especially around Halloween. To work, all participants must place their hands on the wooden pointer (or planchette) and ask any present “spirits” to answer their questions by moving the planchette around the board to spell out their response.</p>
<p>While some see it as a harmless parlour game, others swear by the board’s ability to communicate with those who have passed to the “other side”. But though science suggests that ghosts aren’t behind the board’s mysterious movements, the explanation for how they do work isn’t as straightforward as you might expect.</p>
<p>The history of the Ouija board is a long and varied one. It may first be partially traced back to the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=MOt-EAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT6&dq=the+fox+sisters&ots=1dZPIis86h&sig=ZRX9THowuf0swzZzjPcRa4MUWds&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=the%20fox%20sisters&f=false">Fox Sisters</a>, popular mediums in the 19th century who <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-ouija-board-got-its-sinister-reputation-66971">pioneered the spiritualism movement</a>. One of their most frequently used methods for communicating with so-called spirits involved saying the alphabet aloud and listening for a knock in response. This allowed them to spell out words and messages, supposedly from the dead.</p>
<p>This method captured the public’s imagination, but was quickly frustrating. People wanted to be able to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-strange-and-mysterious-history-of-the-ouija-board-5860627/">communicate with spirits as quickly</a> as they were able to communicate with people using new technologies, such as the telegraph. So when the Ouija board was finally developed in 1890, it was an <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-strange-and-mysterious-history-of-the-ouija-board-5860627">instant success</a>.</p>
<p>But despite its early popularity, the Ouija board fell out of favour at the start of the 20th century. This was largely due to many famous mediums who used the device being publicly debunked. Even the Society for Psychical Research <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3CnxDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT7&dq=morton+seance&ots=rZzEkQTisw&sig=al2mT6JxWMtjgzEcxuR4355O9vg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=morton%20seance&f=false">moved away from spirit communication</a>, towards other paranormal phenomena such as extra-sensory perception (the ability to send and receive information with your mind) and haunted houses. However, interest in spiritualism and Ouija boards more generally was rapidly revived <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Calling_the_Spirits/3CnxDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">after the second world war</a> – and continues to this day. </p>
<h2>Ouija boards at work</h2>
<p>But do Ouija boards work? It depends on who you ask. For those who believe in the ability to communicate with spirits, the answer would be yes. But given there’s no conclusive evidence spirits exist, the answer from sceptics and scientists alike would be a firm no. And yet we often hear stories from so-called “non-believers” who say that they have felt the planchette move over the board, spelling out words and telling them things no one else around the table could know. So, if it isn’t ghostly messages from the other side, what is it?</p>
<p>One possible answer is the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/ideomotor-theory">ideomotor effect</a>. The term ideomotor stems from ideo (an idea) and motor (muscular activity), suggesting our movements can be <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anne-Jensen-2/publication/332549233/inline/jsViewer/5cbc5882299bf1209774c32a">driven by our thoughts</a>. The ideomotor effect refers to movements people make that they’re unaware of – referred to as a subconscious movement. So when using a Ouija board for example, a person may subconsciously move the planchette, spelling out things only they could know.</p>
<p>Those around them may also contribute their own subconscious movement, which can also explain why the planchette appears to move independently. This effect may explain a variety of other paranormal phenomena as well – including <a href="https://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/ancient.html">automatic writing and dowsing</a> (a type of pseudoscience which uses a y-shaped twig or metal rods to find the location of buried objects, such as water or oil).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two people use a Ouija board together." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492329/original/file-20221028-13-evyl2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492329/original/file-20221028-13-evyl2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492329/original/file-20221028-13-evyl2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492329/original/file-20221028-13-evyl2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492329/original/file-20221028-13-evyl2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492329/original/file-20221028-13-evyl2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492329/original/file-20221028-13-evyl2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ideomotor effect may explain why the planchette appears to move for some people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-people-conducting-seance-using-ouija-1366832420">Atomazul/ Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another explanation, which is also linked to the ideomotor effect, is related to our sense of agency. Sense of agency refers to our subjective ability to control actions that will have an influence on external events. So for example, if you decide to lift a table up, it will cause it to move.</p>
<p>Experiments with Ouija boards have demonstrated that our sense of agency can be manipulated, leading us to think that <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11097-018-9585-8.pdf">an invisible third party</a> is moving the planchette. This is thought to be due to issues our brain faces around predicting the consequences of outcomes. When our predictions match the outcome (for example, you lift the table and the table moves), we feel that we are responsible for the action. But if we feel the actual outcome doesn’t match up with how we expected things to turn out, then our <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(12)00191-1.pdf">sense of agency decreases</a> – and it’s possible that, in the context of a seance, we may instead attribute this movement as coming from an external source.</p>
<p>A third factor to consider is emotional contagion. We know that shocking, highly emotional events can lead to witnesses nearby <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/2642569313/fulltextPDF/8BF9072B643F4AFCPQ/1?accountid=13827&forcedol=true&forcedol=true">“catching” those emotions</a>. This was thought to be a prevalent factor in the witch trials of Salem and Europe.</p>
<p>So when using a Ouija board with other people, the excitement of the highly charged environment may make it easier for us to start to empathise with those around us. This may see us pick up on their fear and anxiety, making it more likely for us to think the planchette is moving on its own.</p>
<p>It’s possible then to see that a combination of factors – the ideomotor effect, a manipulated sense of agency and emotional contagion – can all combine to convince people that the planchette is moving and spirits are speaking to them. But given how difficult it is to replicate the social setting in which most people use Ouija boards in a lab, we can’t say with complete certainty that these factors alone explain what actually happens when we place our fingers on the planchette and call to the spirits to share their knowledge.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.katesummerscale.com/copy-of-the-wicked-boy">some experts note</a>, the public’s desire to communicate with the dead tends to become more popular following times of social and political upheaval. Given the present social, economic, and political climate – including the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing war in Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis – it’s entirely possible that we will see a return to the seance rooms of the Victorian era. Or at the very least, on TikTok.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan Kenny does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Ouija boards have been around for more than a hundred years.
Megan Kenny, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191300
2022-10-24T12:27:11Z
2022-10-24T12:27:11Z
Halloween’s celebration of mingling with the dead has roots in ancient Celtic celebrations of Samhain
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489639/original/file-20221013-22-tnrhsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C25%2C2095%2C1384&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How did Halloween get associated with the spooky?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/group-of-friends-dancing-together-royalty-free-image/1144985881?phrase=halloween%20party&adppopup=true">SolStock/Collection E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Halloween approaches, people get ready to celebrate the spooky, the scary and the haunted. Ghosts, zombies, skeletons and witches are prominently displayed in yards, windows, stores and community spaces. Festivities center around the realm of the dead, and some believe that the dead might actually mingle with the living on the night of Halloween. </p>
<p>Scholars have often noted how these modern-day celebrations of Halloween have origins in Samhain, a festival <a href="https://theconversation.com/tricking-and-treating-has-a-history-85720">celebrated by ancient Celtic cultures</a>. In contemporary Irish Gaelic, <a href="https://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/O%C3%ADche+Shamhna">Halloween is still known as Oíche Shamhna, or Eve of Samhain</a></p>
<hr>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/halloweens-celebration-of-mingling-with-the-dead-has-roots-in-ancient-celtic-celebrations-of-samhain-191300&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>As a <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1012737">folklorist with a special interest in Celtic culture</a>, I find it interesting to note the longevity of this holiday: The celebration of the dead on Halloween is not a recent innovation, but rather one of the oldest surviving traditions that continues today as a vibrant part of many peoples’ lives.</p>
<h2>Early evidence from archaeology</h2>
<p>In ninth century Irish literature, Samhain is mentioned many times as an integral part of the Celtic culture. It was <a href="https://sites.uwm.edu/barnold/2001/10/31/halloween-customs-in-the-celtic-world/">one of four seasonal turning points</a> in the Celtic calendar, and perhaps the most important one. It signaled the end of the light half of the year, associated with life, and the beginning of the dark half, associated with the dead. </p>
<p>Archaeological records suggest that commemorations of Samhain can be traced back to the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/inside-irelands-gate-to-hell-that-birthed-halloween">Neolithic period, some from 6,000 years ago</a>. Neolithic Ireland had no towns or cities, but did craft huge architectural monuments, which acted as seasonal gathering spots, and housed the remains of the societies’ elites. </p>
<p>These megalithic sites, from the Greek “mega” and “lithos,” meaning big stone, would at times host vast numbers of people, gathered together for brief periods around specific calendar dates. Archaeological records reveal evidence of massive feasts, yet little to no evidence of domestic use. If people did live year-round at these sites, they would have been a select few.</p>
<p>Data from animal bones can reveal approximate time periods of the feasts, and further data comes from the monuments themselves. Not only are the monuments situated in key places in the landscape, but they are also carefully celestially aligned to allow the sun or moon to shine directly into the center of the monument on a particular day.</p>
<p>These sites connect the landscape to the cosmos, creating a lived calendar, scripted in stone. The UNESCO World Heritage monument of Newgrange, for example, is built so that a <a href="https://www.worldheritageireland.ie/bru-na-boinne/built-heritage/newgrange/">shaft of sunlight illuminates the innermost chamber</a> precisely on the day of winter solstice. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A front view of the Newgrange monument in Ireland taken from outside the grounds." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ancient monuments such as the Newgrange have been carefully celestially aligned.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Irelands_history.jpg">Tjp finn via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Less than 30 miles away lies the hill of Tara, another massive megalithic site. The Mound of Hostages, the oldest extant megalithic structure at Tara, <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Samhain/">is aligned to Samhain</a>. Tara is known as the traditional spiritual and political capital of Ireland, and here, too, archaeologists have found evidence of <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/archirel.34.1">mass seasonal gatherings of people, with the remains of feasts and great bonfires</a>.</p>
<h2>The spirits of the dead</h2>
<p>According to early Irish literature, as well as traditional folklore collected in the 19th century, Samhain of long ago was a time for people to come together, under a command of peace, to feast, tell stories, make social and political claims, engage in important sacred rituals and, perhaps most importantly, <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Samhain/">to commune with the dead</a>. </p>
<p>The traditional, pre-Christian realm of the dead was referred to as the Otherworld. The Otherworld was not somewhere far away, but rather overlapping with the world of the living. The Irish beliefs about the Otherworld were detailed and complex. It is full of magic, of witchcraft, of speaking with the dead as well as <a href="https://sites.uwm.edu/barnold/2001/10/31/halloween-customs-in-the-celtic-world/">seeing into the future</a>. The dead were traditionally believed to continue to see the living, although the living could only occasionally see them. The most prominent occasion would be on Samhain itself, when lines between the Otherworld of the dead and the realm of the living were weakened.</p>
<p>Not only were there particular days that one might encounter the dead, but particular places as well, these being the same megalithic sites. These sites are known in Irish Gaelic as “sí” sites, but there is another meaning of the word sí in Irish, <a href="https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/s%c3%ad">that being the spirits of the mounds</a>. This is often translated into English as “fairies”, which loses a great deal of meaning. “Fairies” in Ireland are spirits deeply connected with the realm of the dead, the mounds, and, perhaps most especially, Samhain. </p>
<p>The connection can be witnessed in the figure of the banshee – or bean sí, in Irish – an important mythological figure in Irish folklore, believed to be heard wailing with grief directly before the death of a family member. With Irish “bean” meaning simply “woman”, the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20177501">banshee is thus a female spirit of the mounds</a>, and a ruler of the realm of the dead. </p>
<p>The sí spirits are not only spirits of the dead, but they are also a particular aristocracy of the dead, who host the dead with feasting, merriment and eternal youth, often at the age-old megalithic sites. In Irish lore, they are powerful and dangerous, able to give great gifts or exact great damage. They once ruled Ireland, according to folklore, and now they rule the world of the dead.</p>
<p>The Otherworld is always there, but it is on the beginning of the dark half of the year, the evening of Samhain, now Halloween, when the dead are at their most powerful and when the lines between this world and the next are erased.</p>
<p>As the light of summer fades and the season of darkness begins, the ancient holiday of Halloween continues to celebrate the dead mingling with the world of the living once again, as it has for thousands of years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tok Thompson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A folklorist explains how Halloween continues an ancient Celtic tradition of the celebration of the dead.
Tok Thompson, Professor of Anthropology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/179176
2022-04-20T12:17:46Z
2022-04-20T12:17:46Z
Beer and spirits have more detrimental effects on the waistline and on cardiovascular disease risk than red or white wine
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458683/original/file-20220419-15105-khdsoe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C61%2C6869%2C2623&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Researchers are working to tease apart how various alcohol types contribute to weight gain and disease risk.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/six-drinks-royalty-free-image/157333486?adppopup=true">pixhook/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em> </p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Drinking beer and spirits is linked to elevated levels of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1259/bjr/38447238">visceral fat</a> – the harmful type of fat that is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and other health complications – whereas drinking wine shows no such association with levels of this harmful fat and may even be protective against it, depending on the type of wine consumed. In fact, we found that drinking red wine is linked to having lower levels of visceral fat. These are some of the key takeaways of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/osp4.598">a new study</a> that my colleagues and I recently published in the Obesity Science & Practice journal. </p>
<p>Although white wine consumption did not influence levels of visceral fat, our study did show that drinking white wine in moderation might offer its own unique health benefit for older adults: denser bones. We found higher bone mineral density among older adults who drank white wine in moderation in our study. And we did not find this same link between beer or red wine consumption and bone mineral density.</p>
<p>Our study relied on a large-scale longitudinal database called <a href="https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/">the U.K. Biobank</a>. We assessed 1,869 white adults ranging in age from 40 to 79 years who reported demographic, alcohol, dietary and lifestyle factors via a touchscreen questionnaire. Next, we collected height, weight and blood samples from each participant and obtained body composition information using a direct measure of body composition called <a href="https://radiology.ucsf.edu/blog/dxadexa-beats-bmi-using-x-ray-exam-measure-body-composition-fat-loss">dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry</a>. Then, we used a statistical program to examine the relationships among the types of alcoholic beverages and body composition. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Aging is often accompanied by an increase in the problematic fat that can lead to heightened cardiovascular disease risk as well as by a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1759720X11430858">reduction in bone mineral density</a>. This has important health implications given that nearly 75% of adults in the U.S. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity-adult-17-18/overweight-obesity-adults-H.pdf">are considered overweight or obese</a>. Having higher levels of body fat has been consistently linked to an increased risk for acquiring many different diseases, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000973">cardiovascular disease</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa021423">certain types of cancer</a>, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa0801891">a higher risk of death</a>. And it’s worth noting that national medical care costs associated with treating obesity-related diseases total more than <a href="https://doi.org/10.18553/jmcp.2021.20410">US$260.6 billion annually</a>.</p>
<p>Considering these trends, it is vital for researchers like us to examine all the potential contributors to weight gain so that we can determine how to combat the problem. Alcohol has long been considered one possible driving factor <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13679-014-0129-4">for the obesity epidemic</a>. Yet the public often hears conflicting information about the potential <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12134">risks</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2013.11.005">benefits</a> of alcohol. Therefore, we hoped to help untangle some of these factors through our research. </p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>There are many biological and environmental factors that contribute to being overweight or obese. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13679-014-0129-4">Alcohol consumption</a> may be one factor, although there are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1753-4887.2011.00403.x">other studies</a> that have not found clear links between weight gain and alcohol consumption. </p>
<p>One reason for the inconsistencies in the literature could stem from the fact that much of the previous research has traditionally treated alcohol as a single entity rather than separately measuring the effects of beer, cider, red wine, white wine, Champagne and spirits. Yet, even when broken down in this way, the research yields mixed messages.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a117556">one study has suggested</a> that drinking more beer contributes to a higher waist-to-hip ratio, while <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17416040/">another study</a> concluded that, after one month of drinking moderate levels of beer, healthy adults did not experience any significant weight gain.</p>
<p>As a result, we’ve aimed to further tease out the unique risks and benefits that are associated with each alcohol type. Our next steps will be to examine how diet – including alcohol consumption – could influence diseases of the brain and cognition in older adults with <a href="https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-mild-cognitive-impairment">mild cognitive impairment</a>. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179176/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brittany Larsen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Research has been inconclusive on the degree to which drinking alcohol leads to the growth of harmful fat. But a new study suggests that beer and spirits are far bigger culprits than wine.
Brittany Larsen, Ph.D. Candidate in Neuroscience & Graduate Assistant, Iowa State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/173201
2021-12-17T13:32:03Z
2021-12-17T13:32:03Z
The magnificent history of the maligned and misunderstood fruitcake
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438113/original/file-20211216-17-1wuzgn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C149%2C3988%2C2940&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fruitcakes are known for their legendary shelf life.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/fruitcake-royalty-free-illustration/1003494502?adppopup=true">CSA-Printstock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nothing says Christmas quite like a fruitcake – or, at the very least, a fruitcake joke.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-SEB-57313">A quip</a> attributed to former “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson has it that “There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.”</p>
<p>It’s certainly earned its reputation for longevity.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.clintonherald.com/news/friends-still-exchanging-50-year-old-fruitcake/article_02708bee-0251-510a-bf73-3c99770a3509.html">Two friends from Iowa have been exchanging the same fruitcake since the late 1950s</a>. Even older is <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/14/543389016/photos-almost-edible-106-year-old-fruitcake-found-in-antarctica">the fruitcake left behind in Antarctica</a> by the explorer Robert Falcon Scott in 1910. But the honor for the oldest known existing fruitcake goes to one that <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/12/12/tecumseh-family-141-year-old-fruitcake-represents-love/4406238002/">was baked in 1878</a> when Rutherford B. Hayes was president of the United States. </p>
<p>What’s amazing about these old fruitcakes is that people have tasted them and lived, meaning they are still edible after all these years. The trifecta of sugar, low moisture ingredients and some high-proof spirits make fruitcakes <a href="https://news.ncsu.edu/2014/12/wms-fruitcake/">some of the longest-lasting foods in the world</a>. </p>
<h2>The original energy bar</h2>
<p>Fruitcake is an ancient goody, with the oldest versions <a href="https://culinaryagents.com/resources/the-history-of-the-fruitcake">a sort of energy bar</a> made by the Romans to sustain their soldiers in battle. <a href="https://www.palmspringslife.com/fruitcake-history/">The Roman fruitcake</a> was a mash of barley, honey, wine and dried fruit, often pomegranate seeds.</p>
<p>What you might recognize as a modern-style fruitcake – a moist, leavened dessert studded with fruits and nuts – was probably first baked in the early Middle Ages in Europe. Cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg <a href="https://the-footnote.org/2021/04/12/spiced-the-historical-impact-of-medieval-desserts/">were symbols of culinary sophistication</a>, and these sweet spices started appearing alongside fruit in many savory dishes – especially breads, but also main courses.</p>
<p>Before long, most cuisines <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fruitcake-101-a-concise-cultural-history-of-this-loved-and-loathed-loaf-26428035/">had some sort of fruited breads or cakes that were early versions of the modern fruitcake</a>. </p>
<p>Fruitcakes are different in Europe than they are in America. European fruitcakes are more like the medieval fruited bread than the versions made in Great Britain and the United States. <a href="https://blog.relish.com/articles/stollen-and-panettone-recipes/">The two most common styles</a> of fruitcake in Europe are the stollen and panettone.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A chef holds two halves of a cake." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438115/original/file-20211216-15-1nnuidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438115/original/file-20211216-15-1nnuidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438115/original/file-20211216-15-1nnuidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438115/original/file-20211216-15-1nnuidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438115/original/file-20211216-15-1nnuidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438115/original/file-20211216-15-1nnuidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438115/original/file-20211216-15-1nnuidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Panettone is one of the most popular fruitcakes in Europe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/maestri-del-panettone-hold-in-milano-italy-on-november-24-news-photo/1064830708?adppopup=true">Mairo Cinquetti/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>British and American versions are much more cakelike. For over-the-top extravagance, honors have to go to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/classic_christmas_cake_04076">a British version</a> that crowns a rich fruitcake with a layer of marzipan icing. </p>
<h2>Sweetening the pot</h2>
<p>Fruitcakes came to America with the European colonists, and the rising tide of emigration from Britain to New England closely mirrored <a href="https://www.livescience.com/4949-sugar-changed-world.html">an influx of cheap sugar</a> from the Caribbean. </p>
<p>Sugar was the key to preserving fruit for use across the seasons. One of the favorite methods of preserving fruit was to “candy” it. <a href="https://www.lacucinaitaliana.com/italian-food/how-to-cook/candied-fruits-how-to-prepare-and-use-them">Candied fruit</a> – sometimes known as crystallized fruit – is fruit that’s been cut into small pieces, boiled in sugar syrup, tossed in granulated sugar and allowed to dry. </p>
<p>Thanks to this technique, colonists were able to keep fruit from the summer harvest to use in their Christmas confections, and fruitcakes became one of the most popular seasonal desserts. </p>
<h2>A dessert with staying power</h2>
<p>Fruitcakes were also popular due to their legendary shelf life, which, in an era before mechanical refrigeration, was extremely desirable.</p>
<p>Fruitcake aficionados will tell you that the best fruit cakes are matured – or “seasoned” in fruitcake lingo – for at least three months before they are cut. Seasoning not only improves the flavor of the fruitcake, but it makes it easier to slice. </p>
<p>Seasoning a fruitcake involves brushing your fruitcake periodically with your preferred distilled spirit before wrapping it tightly and letting it sit in a cool, dark place for up to two months. The traditional spirit of choice is brandy, but rum is also popular. In the American South, where fruitcake is extremely popular, bourbon is preferred. A well-seasoned fruitcake <a href="https://www.thespruceeats.com/fruitcake-storage-1807766">will get several spirit baths</a> over the maturation period. </p>
<p>Credit for the fruitcake’s popularity in America should at least partially go to the U.S. Post Office.</p>
<p>The institution of Rural Free Delivery in 1896 and the addition of the Parcel Post service in 1913 <a href="https://www.sil.si.edu/ondisplay/parcelpost/intro.htm">caused an explosion of mail-order foods in America</a>. Overnight, once rare delicacies were a mere mail-order envelope away for people anywhere who could afford them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A cat paws at a fruitcake while a child sleeps." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438116/original/file-20211216-13-19gg64z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438116/original/file-20211216-13-19gg64z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438116/original/file-20211216-13-19gg64z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438116/original/file-20211216-13-19gg64z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438116/original/file-20211216-13-19gg64z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438116/original/file-20211216-13-19gg64z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438116/original/file-20211216-13-19gg64z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some people (and animals) are more enthused by fruitcakes than others.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cat-eating-a-panettone-while-a-little-girl-sleeping-1957-news-photo/1177015484?adppopup=true">Touring Club Italiano/Marka/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Given fruitcake’s long shelf life and dense texture, it was a natural for a mail-order food business. America’s two most famous fruitcake companies, <a href="https://www.claxtonfruitcake.com/">Claxton’s </a> of Claxton, Georgia, and <a href="https://collinstreet.com">Collin Street</a> of Corsicana, Texas, got their start in this heyday of mail-order food. By the early 1900s, U.S. mailrooms were full of the now ubiquitous <a href="https://laurelleaffarm.com/holidays/vintage-fruitcake-tin-Pilgrim-fruit-cake-pilgrims-illustration-in-Christmas-red-white-Laurel-Leaf-Farm-item-no-z6484.htm">fruitcake tins</a>. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>As late as the 1950s, fruitcakes were a widely esteemed part of the American holiday tradition. A 1953 Los Angeles Times article called fruitcake a “holiday must,” and in 1958, the Christian Science Monitor asked, “What Could Be a Better Gift Than Fruitcake?” But by 1989, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffwilliams/2015/12/21/making-fun-of-fruitcake-is-a-relatively-new-tradition/?sh=795cb46f7b30">a survey by Mastercard</a> found that fruitcake was the least favorite gift of 75% of those polled.</p>
<p>Haters and disrespect aside, fruitcake is still a robust American tradition: The website Serious Eats <a href="https://www.seriouseats.com/know-your-sweets-fruitcake#:%7E:text=%22Hate%20it%20or%20love%20it,from%20companies%20across%20the%20South">reports that over 2 million fruitcakes are still sold each year</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173201/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The polarizing dessert that people love to hate became a Christmas mainstay thanks, in part, to the U.S. Postal Service.
Jeffrey Miller, Associate Professor of Hospitality Management, Colorado State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/169239
2021-10-26T19:48:36Z
2021-10-26T19:48:36Z
Spirit photography captured love, loss and longing
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428561/original/file-20211026-23-16vp1mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C82%2C988%2C713&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Spirit photograph by William Hope, taken around 1920.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(National Media Museum Collection/Flickr)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/spirit-photography-captured-love--loss-and-longing" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/cinematic-ghosts-haunting-and-spectrality-from-silent-cinema-to-the-digital-era/ch1-phantom-images-and-modern-manifestations-spirit-photography-magic-theater-trick-films-and-photography-s-uncanny">Photography has always had a relationship to haunting</a> as it shows not what is, but what once was. </p>
<p>The process whereby light must bounce off the subject and back towards the camera suggests that photographs have touched and carry a trace of what is shown. Scholars of fields from anthropology to art history have explored the <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/nature-exposed">association between</a> photographs <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08949460802156292">and ghosts</a>. </p>
<p>This association is exaggerated by spirit photography, which are portraits that visually reunite the bereaved with their loved ones — a phenomenon I attribute <a href="https://theconversation.com/spirit-photography-19th-century-innovation-in-bereavement-rituals-was-likely-invented-by-a-woman-164033">to the creative innovation of a Boston woman in 1861</a>. </p>
<p>Modern readers may be <a href="https://www.history.com/news/spirit-photography-civil-war-william-mumler">preoccupied by the motives and methods of spirit photographers</a> — their use of double exposure, combination printing or contemporary digital manipulation to produce semi-translucent “apparitions.” But far more interesting is the impact the resulting photographs had on the bereaved who commissioned the portraits. At heart, the Victorian interest in spirit photography is a tale of love, loss and longing.</p>
<h2>Spirit of the age</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Black and white photo of a woman seated next to a semi-translucent child." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428568/original/file-20211026-13-c04axm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428568/original/file-20211026-13-c04axm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428568/original/file-20211026-13-c04axm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428568/original/file-20211026-13-c04axm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428568/original/file-20211026-13-c04axm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1241&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428568/original/file-20211026-13-c04axm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1241&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428568/original/file-20211026-13-c04axm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1241&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spirit photograph taken between 1862–1875.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/95744/william-h-mumler-mrs-tinkham-american-1862-1875/">(The Paul J. Getty Museum)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Spirit photography developed within the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/spiritualism-religion">context of spiritualism</a>, a 19th-century religious movement. Spiritualists believed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/20/seances-and-science">in the soul’s persistence after death</a> and of the potential for continued bonds and communication between the dead and the living.</p>
<p>In 1848, when two young women of Hydesville, N.Y., <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-fox-sisters-and-the-rap-on-spiritualism-99663697/">claimed the ability to hear and interpret the knocking of a deceased peddler in their home</a>, <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253215024/radical-spirits-second-edition/">spiritualist ideas were already in the air</a>.</p>
<p>Some 19th-century spiritualist artists saw their work as being inspired by an unseen presence. For example, British artist and medium Georgianna Houghton produced <a href="https://georgianahoughton.com/">abstract watercolours she dubbed her “spirit drawings.”</a> Similarly, about 20 years after photography as a medium emerged, spirit photographers began attributing <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20191001-how-spiritualism-influenced-modern-art">their work to an external force, a presence that temporarily overcame or possessed them</a>. The spiritual “extra” that appeared alongside the bereaved in spirit photographs — sometimes clearly a face, at other times a shape or object — was meant to be understood as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8676.2010.00139.x">not having been made by humans</a>. </p>
<p>Paired with the longing of the bereaved, spirit photographs had the potential to become intensely personal, enchanted memory objects.</p>
<h2>Sustained bonds</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Photograph of a seated man with a semi-translucent female figure standing next to him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428569/original/file-20211026-17-vyezlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428569/original/file-20211026-17-vyezlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428569/original/file-20211026-17-vyezlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428569/original/file-20211026-17-vyezlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428569/original/file-20211026-17-vyezlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1210&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428569/original/file-20211026-17-vyezlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1210&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428569/original/file-20211026-17-vyezlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1210&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spirit photograph believed to be taken in the 1870s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Wikimedia Commons)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unlike <a href="http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?K=9781861897916">postmortem photography — the 19th-century practice of photographing the deceased, typically as though sleeping</a> — spirit photographs did not lock the loved one in a moment after separation has occurred through death. Instead, they suggested a moment beyond death and therefore the potential for future moments shared.</p>
<p>Spirit photography <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/439624">encouraged and then mediated the resurgence of the deceased’s animated likeness</a>. At a time when many <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/haunted-media">available technologies</a> — <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801448010/the-sympathetic-medium/#bookTabs=1">such as the telegraph, telephone and typewriter</a> — were being applied towards communication with the dead, spirit photography offered a visual record of communication. </p>
<p>But in spirit photographs, the beloved seldom appeared at full opacity. Using the technique of semi-translucence, spirit photographers depict spirits as animated and “still with us.” That they are only <em>half</em> there is also indicated. In this way, spirit photographs illustrate the lingering presence of the absent loved one, just as it is felt by the bereaved.</p>
<p>Spirit photographs <a href="https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2018/09/27/stories-in-stereo/">were not the first photographs to depict ghostly apparitions</a>. But they do mark the first instance wherein these semi-translucent “extras” were marketed as evidence of continued connection to the deceased.</p>
<p>As a service rendered within the bereavement industry, spirit photographs were meant to be understood as the grief of separation, captured by the camera — and not constructed through some form of trickery.</p>
<h2>Spirits in the world</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Oil painting of a veil with a translucent face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428574/original/file-20211026-15-1m5qlz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428574/original/file-20211026-15-1m5qlz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428574/original/file-20211026-15-1m5qlz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428574/original/file-20211026-15-1m5qlz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428574/original/file-20211026-15-1m5qlz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428574/original/file-20211026-15-1m5qlz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428574/original/file-20211026-15-1m5qlz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The Veil of Saint Veronica,’ oil painting by Francisco de Zurbaran (1598-1664), photo taken at National Museum of Fine Arts, Stockholm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Ninara/Flickr)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Belief in the appearance of miraculous impressions of forms and faces may appear novel in the emerging medium and technology of photography. But a longer tradition of finding meaning and solace in the apparition of faces can be seen <a href="https://theconversation.com/belief-in-touch-as-salvation-was-stronger-than-fear-of-contagion-in-the-italian-renaissance-157135">in Christian traditions of venerating relics</a> such as <em><a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Veil_of_Veronica">The Veil of Veronica</a></em> which, according to Catholic popular belief and legend, bears the likeness of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Veronica">Christ’s face imprinted on it before his crucifixion</a>.</p>
<p>Even <a href="https://www.unz.com/print/AtlanticMonthly-1863jul-00001/">in the 19th century</a>, recognition of the beloved in spirit photographs was occasionally equated <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140730-why-do-we-see-faces-in-objects">with pareidolia</a> — the powerful human tendency to perceive patterns, objects or faces, such as in relics or random objects. </p>
<p>In 1863, physician and poet O.W. Holmes <a href="https://www.unz.com/print/AtlanticMonthly-1863jul-00001/">noted in <em>Atlantic Monthly</em></a> that for the bereaved who commissioned spirit photography, what the resulting photograph showed was inconsequential: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It is enough for the poor mother, whose eyes are blinded with tears, that she sees a print of drapery like an infant’s dress, and a rounded something, like a foggy dumpling, which will stand for a face: she accepts the spirit-portrait as a revelation from the world of shadows.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If the photographer’s methods were exposed, the bereaved still maintained their spirit photograph was authentic. The ambiguity of the figures that appeared seldom deterred the bereaved from seeing what they hoped for. Indeed, it was this very leap of faith that incited the imaginative input required to transform these otherwise unbelievable photographs into potent and intensely personal objects.</p>
<p>In 1962, a woman who had commissioned a photograph of her late husband shared with the spirit photographer: “It is recognized by all that have seen it, who knew him when upon Earth, <a href="http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/banner_of_light/banner_of_light_v12_n12_13_dec_1862.pdf">as a perfect likeness, and I am myself satisfied, that his spirit was present, although invisible to mortals</a>.” </p>
<h2>Haunting refrains</h2>
<p>Spirit photographs were often proven to have been produced through double exposure or by way of combination printing. Thus, it would have been equally possible to produce photographs wherein the deceased appeared at full opacity alongside the bereaved — seamlessly reunited. And yet the tendency to present the absent individual at a lesser opacity has persisted — even within contemporary, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/us/a-dead-child-a-ghostly-photo-and-a-mother-charged-with-murder.html">digitally produced composite portraits</a>.</p>
<p>The use of semi-translucence in depicting the remembered individual, is a deliberate indication of a presence that is felt but not seen, except by those attuned to it. </p>
<p>While spirit photographs were cherished as messages of love from beyond the grave, surely they were also messages of love to the departed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169239/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felicity T. C. Hamer has received funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture (FRQSC).</span></em></p>
Today viewers may be preoccupied by the methods used by spirit photographers, but spirit photographs had a notable impact on the bereaved who commissioned the portraits.
Felicity T. C. Hamer, PhD Candidate and Public Scholar, Communication Studies, Concordia University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/123132
2019-10-24T11:50:16Z
2019-10-24T11:50:16Z
When Halloween became America’s most dangerous holiday
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294450/original/file-20190926-51425-1bq8ynj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Halloween can also be a time of expression of cultural and social anxieties.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hollywood-Halloween-Parade/c585c99599264bcd90e9ce19347ab6f0/132/0">AP Photo/Richard Vogel</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The unquiet spirits, vampires and the omnipresent zombies that <a href="https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/halloween-spending-reach-9-billion">take over</a> American streets every October 31 may think Halloween is all about spooky fun. But what Halloween masqueraders may not realize is that in the early 1970s and well into the next decade, real fear took over.</p>
<p>The media, police departments and politicians began to tell a new kind of Halloween horror story – about poisoned candy. </p>
<p>No actual events explained this fear: It was driven by social and cultural anxieties. And there is a lesson in that about the power of rumors on this day of dark fantasy.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TLCzaYxTk1U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Poison candy fear</h2>
<p>The Halloween candy scare began in 1970. An op-ed on Oct. 28, 1970, in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/28/archives/those-treats-may-be-tricks.html">The New York Times</a> suggested the possibility of strangers using Halloween’s “trick-or treat” tradition to poison children.</p>
<p>The editorial mentioned two unconfirmed incidents in upstate New York and offered a series of frightening rhetorical questions. The author, Judy Klemesrud, wondered, for example, if that “plump red apple” from the “kindly old lady down the block…may have a razor blade hidden inside.” </p>
<p>Some readers accepted her questions as definitive fact.</p>
<p>Two days later, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1970/11/10/archives/boy-5-who-died-of-heroin-may-have-taken-a-capsule.html">a five-year-old child died on Halloween</a> in Detroit after consuming heroin. Early media reports of his death cited his uncle’s claim that he had been exposed to the drug in tainted holiday treats. </p>
<p>By mid-November 1970, newspaper reportage showed that the child had in fact found the heroin at his uncle’s home – not in his bag of Halloween candy, as investigators had at first been told. </p>
<p>But on Oct. 31, 1974, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1975/05/29/archives/wife-a-takes-stand-at-husbands-trial-in-sons-poisoning.html">another child died</a> in Houston. This time, the death was a result of eating poisoned candy: The child’s father had murdered his own son by placing cyanide in a pixie stick.</p>
<p>This story of the Houston “candyman killer” quickly metastasized. Though it had no evidence, Newsweek magazine <a href="https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article-abstract/32/5/488/1640225?redirectedFrom=PDF">asserted</a> in a 1975 article that “over the past several years, several children have died and hundreds have narrowly escaped injury from razor blades, sewing needles and shards of glass put into their goodies by adults.” </p>
<p>By the 1980s, some communities <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/31/nyregion/new-warnings-of-tainted-candy-heighten-worries-over-halloween.html">banned</a> “trick-or-treating” while hospitals in some metropolitan areas offered to X-ray Halloween candy. Parent-teacher associations encouraged fall festivals to replace Halloween, and on Long Island a community group gave prizes to children who stayed home altogether for Halloween 1982. </p>
<p>In 1982 the governor of New Jersey <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/31/nyregion/new-warnings-of-tainted-candy-heighten-worries-over-halloween.html">signed a bill</a> requiring a jail term for those tampering with candy. </p>
<p>Worries of parents and community leaders drove the fear. In a popular nationally syndicated newspaper advice column called “Ask Ann Landers,” Landers warned in 1983 of “<a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=896&dat=19951031&id=8CUOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=k30DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6927,4432593">twisted strangers</a>” who had been “putting razor blades and poison in taffy apples and other Halloween candy.” </p>
<h2>Social tensions and fear</h2>
<p>However, a comprehensive 1985 study of the of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article-abstract/32/5/488/1640225?redirectedFrom=PDF">30 years of alleged poisoning</a> did not find even a single confirmed incident of a child’s death, or even serious injury. </p>
<p>Sociologist <a href="https://www.joelbest.net/">Joel Best</a> at the University of Delaware, who led the study, called it an “urban legend.” Most reports of poisoned Halloween candy that appeared in print were editorials written by authoritative voices in politics and media rather than actual events. However, police all over the country <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1982/10/31/259232.html?pageNumber=45">urged parents</a> to accompany their children while trick-or-treating. In 1982, annual Halloween festivities at the governor’s mansion in Hartford, Connecticut were canceled.</p>
<p>Why did a series of rumors, very loosely based on a a small number of tragic crimes, convince so many people in authority and led to such panic? </p>
<p>In his book “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393951691">The Vanishing Hitchhiker</a>,” folklorist <a href="http://people.westminstercollege.edu/faculty/dstanley/folklore/FINAL%20FINAL%20Docs/fiu12thursby.htm">Jan Harold Brunvand</a> argues that while urban legends may be grounded in actual incidents, they often come to stand in for real-world fears. </p>
<p>In the case of poisoned candy, my own <a href="https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481308823/">research into American politics and horror tales</a> suggests that those fears might have been driven in part by the multitude of problems facing the United States at the time. The years from 1970 to 1975 were marked by cultural upheaval, both domestic and geopolitical. </p>
<p>In 1974, President Richard Nixon <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/watergate/part3.html">resigned</a> following the Watergate scandal. The scandal exposed the abuse of power and a criminal cover-up under his administration.</p>
<p>Americans had much more to worry about than Watergate in the mid-1970s. Scholar of the Vietnam era <a href="https://www.umass.edu/history/member/christian-appy">Christian G. Appy</a>, in his 2015 book “American Reckoning,” <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307777/american-reckoning-by-christian-g-appy/9780143128342/">described the era</a> as one in which defeat in Vietnam combined with “stagnant economic growth and soaring inflation” caused many Americans to see the country itself as “a victim of forces beyond its control.” This sense of victimization drove the sense that American society had become deeply unsafe.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294451/original/file-20190926-51425-1569lqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294451/original/file-20190926-51425-1569lqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294451/original/file-20190926-51425-1569lqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294451/original/file-20190926-51425-1569lqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294451/original/file-20190926-51425-1569lqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294451/original/file-20190926-51425-1569lqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294451/original/file-20190926-51425-1569lqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young people in the streets of Harvard Square, with one of them wearing a President Nixon mask, after he resigned.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Nixon-Resignation-Reaction/f4a75ebddfd54c21b4eb8fcbe76c4d0f/6/0">AP Photo/Peter Bregg</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All the social change in the 1970s fed the creation of urban legends, argues sociologist <a href="https://secularhumanism.org/authors/jeffrey-s-victor/">Jefferey S. Victor</a>. A brutal story about strangers with poison candy seemed <a href="https://rowman.com/isbn/9780742561724/satan-in-america-the-devil-we-know">a preferable national fantasy to historical reality in the 1970s and 1980s</a>. </p>
<p>Horror at the state of the world can take the form of parody or simple scary stories. Americans had become so <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Invisible-Bridge/Rick-Perlstein/9781476782423">disenchanted</a>, according to the journalist and historian <a href="https://www.rickperlstein.net/">Rick Perlstein</a>, that bleak and frightening films such as 1974’s “The Exorcist” captured the national mood. </p>
<p>The false case of the poisoned candy legend is another way that American fears manifested: as an easily understood threat to innocence. </p>
<p>Scholar <a href="http://www.monstershow.net/">David J. Skal</a> in his book, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Death_Makes_a_Holiday.html?id=Aip2HAAACAAJ">Death Makes a Holiday</a>,” argues Halloween, throughout its history, has provided a moment for people to unleash their political and cultural fears. As an example, Skal notes, Richard Nixon became the first president satirized by a rubber Halloween mask in the autumn of 1974, just two months after his resignation. </p>
<h2>Fears today</h2>
<p>Today a majority of Americans, of all ages, see Halloween as an opportunity to celebrate excess, <a href="https://vinepair.com/articles/halloween-drinking-holiday/">a kind of a dark Mardi Gras</a>. </p>
<p>But some Christian churches, especially those attended by conservative evangelicals, continue to declare a kind of “<a href="https://www.christianexaminer.com/article/evangelicals-deeply-divided-on-celebrating-halloween-new-poll-says/49702.htm">war on Halloween</a>” every year. Many evangelicals, in their own description, see the holiday <a href="https://www.christiantoday.com/article/five-things-evangelicals-get-wrong-about-halloween/42290.htm">as a celebration of the occult</a>, often viewed in their religious worldview as connected to a very literal Satan.</p>
<p>Halloween, with its association with the powers of darkness, can allow many legends to flourish – tales of dangerous outsiders, poisoned candy and other alleged threats to American life. </p>
<p>Social media <a href="https://theconversation.com/misinformation-on-social-media-can-technology-save-us-69264">may serve that role</a> the rest of the year. But on Halloween, dark rumors may actually knock at the door.</p>
<p>[ <em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123132/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Scott Poole is the author "Wasteland: The Great War and the Origin of Modern Horror."</span></em></p>
In the early 1970s, rumors about poisoned candy on Halloween led to mass paranoia. A historian explains why such fears emerge – and what, in reality, feeds them.
W. Scott Poole, Professor of History, College of Charleston
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/123408
2019-10-03T11:40:55Z
2019-10-03T11:40:55Z
3 questions about vodka, answered
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295311/original/file-20191002-49369-1xui73u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Actor Roger Moore poses with a martini after learning he would play the British secret agent James Bond.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-England-Uni-/ea656b42a2e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/3/0">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Towards the end of Ian Fleming’s spy novel “Dr. No,” James Bond orders a vodka dry martini – “Shaken and not stirred please.” </p>
<p>The novel was published in 1958, at the height of the Cold War. But four decades before the Berlin Wall would crumble, vodka had already bridged the East-West divide. </p>
<p>Between 1950 and 1975, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1976/04/18/archives/vodka-is-no1.html">vodka went from being a statistical blip to America’s best selling spirit</a>. In addition to the martini, it’s become the base spirit in popular cocktails like the Cosmopolitan, the Moscow Mule and the <a href="https://www.maxim.com/entertainment/energy-drinks-with-alcohol-risky-2017-3">Vodka Red Bull</a>. </p>
<p>With National Vodka Day taking place on Oct. 4, here are the answers to a few questions I sometimes hear in my classes on food and beverage management. </p>
<h2>1. What’s vodka made from?</h2>
<p>You might think that all vodka is distilled from potatoes, but only a handful of today’s brands use the root vegetable.</p>
<p>Russia and Poland each claim to the be the birthplace of vodka, which is a Slavonic diminutive term meaning “little water.” There are mentions of vodka in Polish records <a href="http://www.drinkingcup.net/1534-vodkas-earliest-reference/">as early as 1500</a>, but the drink was probably around for at least 300 years prior – maybe even longer. </p>
<p>Potatoes, however, weren’t brought from South America to Europe <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00029633">until the 1570s</a>. And before 1700, <a href="http://www.ruralhistory2013.org/papers/11.3.4._Miodunka.pdf">it’s unlikely that they were grown in quantities large enough</a> in Poland or Russia to sustain any sort of commercial enterprise. </p>
<p>Instead, vodka was originally a grain distillate, with rye as the primary constituent. This makes sense: Rye grows better than other grains <a href="http://go-poland.pl/climate">in the cool, damp climates</a> of northern Eurasia. </p>
<p>While some vodka is made from potatoes, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/41298-what-is-vodka.html">most vodkas</a> are made from whatever grain the distiller prefers to use, with sorghum, rye, wheat and corn leading the pack. Grapes, plums and sugar cane are even used by some brands. </p>
<h2>2. Why is some vodka so expensive?</h2>
<p>A bottle of Crystal Head vodka <a href="https://www.totalwine.com/spirits/vodka/vodka/crystal-head-vodka/p/105693750">retails for around US$50</a>, while a bottle of Romanoff <a href="https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/romanoff+vodka+usa">goes for roughly $10</a>. </p>
<p>But the cheapest vodka should taste just like the most expensive one – at least in theory. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/27/5.22">According to the U.S. Federal Standard of Identity</a>, in order for a spirit to be marketed as “vodka,” “it must be odorless, colorless and tasteless.” </p>
<p>Every vodka does have its own <a href="http://downloads.brewhaus.com/instruction-pages/wheat-vodka-recipe.pdf">mashbill</a>, which is the word for its own recipe. What’s in the mashbill can create minor differences in the flavor of finished vodka.</p>
<p>Whether a grain or fruit is used to make the vodka, each has a number of flavoring ingredients known as “<a href="http://www.dramdevotees.com/what-are-congeners/">congeners</a>” that give the final product its unique taste. </p>
<p>The primary flavor, however, is ethanol, which has a taste that evokes the smell of rubbing alcohol. Many would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between different brands of vodka in a blindfold test.</p>
<p>In fact, a taste test conducted for The New York Times by journalist Eric Asimov and a group of vodka experts concluded that America’s old favorite, Smirnoff vodka, retailing at under $15 a bottle, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/26/dining/a-humble-old-label-ices-its-rivals.html">beat out all the fancy high-priced brands for flavor and value</a>.</p>
<p>There are two real reasons that some vodkas cost so much more than others. First, some brands spend a small fortune on marketing and celebrity endorsements – think <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/ciroc-vodka-ftc-instagram-influencers-diddy">Ciroc</a> and its $100 million endorsement deal with Sean “Diddy” Combs. </p>
<p>Other brands, like Grey Goose or Hangar One, simply sell their vodka at a high price point to make their brand seem luxurious and exclusive. </p>
<h2>3. Is there really vodka in that dish of pasta?</h2>
<p>Most American Italian restaurants feature “penne alla vodka” on the menu. There is, in fact, actual vodka in the sauce: Most recipes use around a quarter of a cup, though Food Network star Ree Drummond <a href="https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/penne-alla-vodka-recipe-2014981">uses a whole cup in her version</a>. </p>
<p>While vodka was probably first added to a creamy pasta sauce for promotional or novelty purposes, <a href="https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/18566/why-add-a-shot-of-vodka-to-a-cream-sauce">some cooks claim</a> that the vodka helps stabilize the cream and tomato mixture and that the alcohol helps extract flavors from the tomatoes and herbs. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295312/original/file-20191002-49346-otnona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295312/original/file-20191002-49346-otnona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295312/original/file-20191002-49346-otnona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295312/original/file-20191002-49346-otnona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295312/original/file-20191002-49346-otnona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295312/original/file-20191002-49346-otnona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295312/original/file-20191002-49346-otnona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Penne alla vodka features a small amount of vodka, though Ree Drummond’s version might make you a little tipsy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/penne-alla-vodka-classic-italian-dinner-1224005827?src=Ua3z8ywcma_S4Uv6K_WMcA-1-0">Bokey/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Vodka can be used in other courses as well. <a href="https://food52.com/recipes/23145-vodka-watermelon-sorbet">A vodka-watermelon sorbet</a> is an excellent <a href="https://www.thedailymeal.com/brief-history-intermezzo-and-11-favorites">intermezzo</a>, or palate cleanser, while the authoritative Cook’s Illustrated <a href="https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-review-vodka-pie-crust-68851">recommends</a> using some vodka when making pie crust, since it adds moisture without activating as much gluten, keeping the pie crust tender and flaky.</p>
<p>Whatever the logic, a dish with a dash of vodka – accompanied by a vodka dry martini, of course – might be the best way to celebrate National Vodka Day. </p>
<p>As they say in Russia when toasting with vodka, “<a href="https://www.rbth.com/blogs/2013/12/26/the_basics_of_the_best_russian_drinking_toasts_32961.html">vashe zdorovie</a>” – “to your health!”</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
To celebrate National Vodka Day, a food historian debunks myths and highlights unknown facts about one of America’s favorite liquors.
Jeffrey Miller, Associate Professor, Hospitality Management, Colorado State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112012
2019-02-19T12:51:43Z
2019-02-19T12:51:43Z
Deep sea mining threatens indigenous culture in Papua New Guinea
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259680/original/file-20190219-43261-1vsa6pt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">JC142 research cruise: reproduced with permission of the British Geological Survey, National Oceanography Centre ©UKRI 2018.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>When they start mining the seabed, they’ll start mining part of me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These are the words of a clan chief of the Duke of York Islands – a small archipelago in the Bismarck Sea of Papua New Guinea which lies 30km from the world’s first commercial deep sea mine site, known as “Solwara 1”. The project, which has been delayed due to funding difficulties, is <a href="http://www.nautilusminerals.com/irm/content/png.aspx?RID=258">operated by Canadian company Nautilus Minerals</a> and is poised to extract copper from the seabed, 1600m below the surface.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259681/original/file-20190219-43255-1n3v5no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259681/original/file-20190219-43255-1n3v5no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259681/original/file-20190219-43255-1n3v5no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259681/original/file-20190219-43255-1n3v5no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259681/original/file-20190219-43255-1n3v5no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259681/original/file-20190219-43255-1n3v5no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259681/original/file-20190219-43255-1n3v5no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259681/original/file-20190219-43255-1n3v5no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New Ireland Province – the Duke of York Islands are situated in the strait between the two land masses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_Ireland_Languages.jpg">CPUD-PW/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Valuable minerals are created as rapidly cooling gases emerge from volcanic vents on the seafloor. Mining the seabed for these minerals could supply the metals and rare earth elements essential to building electric vehicles, solar panels <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/04/is-deep-sea-mining-vital-for-greener-future-even-if-it-means-destroying-precious-ecosystems">and other green energy infrastructure</a>. But deep sea mining could also <a href="http://www.deepseaminingoutofourdepth.org">damage and contaminate</a> these unique environments, where researchers have only begun to explore.</p>
<p>The industry’s environmental impact isn’t the only concern. It’s been assumed by the corporate sector that there is limited human impact from mining in the deep sea. It is a notion that is persuasive especially when compared with the socio-ecological impacts of land-based mining. </p>
<p>But such thinking is a fallacy – insights from my <a href="https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%252FN016548%252F1">research with communities</a> in Papua New Guinea over the past three years highlight that the deep sea and its seabed should be thought of as intimately connected to humanity, despite the geographical distances involved. For the people of the Duke of York Islands, deep sea mining disturbs a sense of who they are, including the spirits that inhabit their culture and beliefs. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259597/original/file-20190218-56208-fbhaj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259597/original/file-20190218-56208-fbhaj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259597/original/file-20190218-56208-fbhaj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259597/original/file-20190218-56208-fbhaj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259597/original/file-20190218-56208-fbhaj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259597/original/file-20190218-56208-fbhaj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259597/original/file-20190218-56208-fbhaj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young people on Duke of York Islands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Hearne</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Out of sight, out of mined</h2>
<p>In Western thought, the sea has not only been considered to be marginal to politics, but also as entirely distinct from the land. Separating nature from humanity has proved useful in enabling exploitation of the natural world for human means. Deep sea mining, with all its material connections between a dynamic seabed and sites of consumption on land, provokes new questions.</p>
<p>If humanity can’t physically encounter the deep seabed, then how are we to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14650045.2018.1465041">treat it ethically?</a>. By conceptually “distancing” the deep ocean, who is being marginalised?</p>
<p>For the people who live close to Solwara 1, the answer is pointed. These communities have long understood the world as a connection between “nature”, “spirits” and “beings”. Central within this cosmology are the spirits – masalai – some of which are understood as guardians of the seabed and its resources.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259596/original/file-20190218-56215-135fhxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259596/original/file-20190218-56215-135fhxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259596/original/file-20190218-56215-135fhxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259596/original/file-20190218-56215-135fhxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259596/original/file-20190218-56215-135fhxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259596/original/file-20190218-56215-135fhxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259596/original/file-20190218-56215-135fhxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The people of Duke of York Islands are tied spiritually to events in the deep sea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Childs</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Masalai are a fundamental part of the islanders’ world. Thus, the prospect of deep sea mining means not just social and economic disruption, but spiritual turmoil. The digging up of the seabed and the extraction of its resources cuts through the very fabric of their spiritual world and its sacred links to the sea and land. </p>
<p>As the historian Neil Macgregor put it in the Radio 4 series “Living with the Gods”, masalai are not </p>
<blockquote>
<p>out there… [like] tourists in the human realm, from somewhere else … but in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09fy6fz">a world in which we co-inhabit</a>. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The political implication for island communities here is clear. The copper which might be mined from the seabed is effectively constituted by these spirits. Thus, as copper “resurfaces” in the objects and technologies of the future – in batteries and wiring – it also carries a spirituality from the region where it originated.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ymXG8BMFoBs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Spirits infuse the traditions and everyday practises of the people on the Duke of York Islands. “Shark calling” is one such example which is practised along parts of the west coast of New Ireland Province – the closest point on land to Solwara 1. </p>
<p>Every few weeks, when the sea conditions allow, “shark callers” attempt to attract sharks to their hand-carved wooden canoes by rattling a mesh of coconut shells in the water, before capturing them by hand. Shark meat is a key part of local diets that generally lack protein.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/deep-sea-mining-could-help-develop-mass-solar-energy-is-it-worth-the-risk-76500">Deep sea mining could help develop mass solar energy – is it worth the risk?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Shark callers communicate with spirits which are “resident” in stones found on local beaches prior to their expeditions. It’s no surprise then, that these communities fear noise pollution generated by deep sea mining and the physical disturbance of the seabed which could sever the cultural connections they have with the ocean.</p>
<p>Deep sea mining companies should consider the spirituality of the people their work affects and other kinds of environmental knowledge as important in their own right. As this new industry collides with cultural belief systems in different parts of the world, it will be essential to understand the complex ways in which deep sea mining does have “human” impacts after all. Culture is a key part of any understanding of environmental politics, no matter how extreme the environment in question.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112012/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was based upon funding received from the Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p>
Deep sea mining could supply valuable rare minerals to green technology, but one project in the south-west Pacific is invoking the wrath of local spirits.
John Childs, Lecturer in International Development and Natural Resources, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/102466
2018-09-13T10:46:51Z
2018-09-13T10:46:51Z
Why we love robotic dogs, puppets and dolls
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235426/original/file-20180907-90574-1obkomk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why are we drawn to tech toys?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/36739648920">Ars Electronica</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s a <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sony-announces-limited-first-litter-edition-release-of-aibo-in-us-300701503.html">lot of hype around the release of Sony’s latest robotic dog</a>. It’s called “aibo,” and is promoted as using artificial intelligence to respond to people looking at it, talking to it and touching it. </p>
<p>Japanese customers have already bought over 20,000 units, and it is expected to come to the U.S. before the holiday gift-buying season – at a price nearing US$3,000. </p>
<p>Why would anyone pay so much for a robotic dog?</p>
<p>My ongoing research suggests part of the attraction might be explained through humanity’s longstanding connection with various forms of puppets, religious icons, and other figurines, that I collectively call “dolls.” </p>
<p>These dolls, I argue, are embedded deep in our social and religious lives. </p>
<h2>Spiritual and social dolls</h2>
<p>As part of the process of writing a “spiritual history of dolls,” I’ve returned to that ancient mythology of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions where God <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A4-3%3A24&version=CJB">formed</a> the first human from the dirt of the earth, and then breathed life into the mud-creature.</p>
<p>Since that time, humans have attempted to do the same – metaphorically, mystically and scientifically – by fashioning raw materials into forms and figures that look like people. </p>
<p>As folklorist <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Mayor.html">Adrienne Mayor</a> explains in a recent study, “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/14162.html">Gods and Robots</a>,” such artificial creatures find their ways into the myths of several ancient cultures, in various ways.</p>
<p>Beyond the stories, people have made these figures part of their religious lives in the form of <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/463984">icons</a> of the Virgin Mary and human-shaped <a href="https://www.bgc.bard.edu/gallery/exhibitions/81/agents-of-faith-votive-objects">votive objects</a>. </p>
<p>In the late 19th century, dolls with a gramophone disc that could recite the Lord’s Prayer were produced on a mass scale. That was considered a <a href="http://forums.ssrc.org/ndsp/2014/01/29/prayers-of-a-phonographic-doll/">playful way of teaching a child</a> to be pious. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, <a href="https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/mavungu.html">certain spirits are believed to reside</a> in figurines created by humans. </p>
<p>Across time and place, dolls have played a role in human affairs. In South Asia, dolls of various forms <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Tiruchirapalli/celebrating-navaratri-with-display-of-dolls/article19767269.ece">become ritually important</a> during the great goddess festival Navaratri. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/35924051_Carving_self-identity_Hopi_Katsina_dolls_as_contemporary_cultural_expression">Katsina</a> dolls of the Hopi people allow them to create their own self-identity. And in the famed Javanese and Balinese Wayang – shadow puppet <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Javanese_Shadow_Puppets.html?id=ZshkAAAAMAAJ">performances</a> – mass audiences learn about a mythical past and its bearing on the present. </p>
<h2>Making us human</h2>
<p>In the modern Western context, <a href="http://www.mudec.it/eng/barbie/">Barbie dolls</a> and <a href="http://www.toyhalloffame.org/toys/gi-joe">G.I. Joes</a> have come to play an important role in children’s development. Barbie has been <a href="https://orca.cf.ac.uk/48291/1/PhDJ.Whitney2013.pdf">shown</a> to have a negative impact on girls’ body images, while G.I. Joe has made <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0022-3840.2004.00099.x">many boys believe</a> that they are important, powerful and that they can do great things.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barbie dolls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinker-tailor/6383911765/in/photolist-aJ8dye-dJ4wnb-9FExaM-r8Ye5m-egen9a-kPSwsc-nNZCAQ-anZhzQ-5a7doe-mKc79t-oMfPax-jqLz9H-nuEaZ7-cuHwvy-nt31xr-pD2dXr-qzBhff-ns5JLY-9hMYPY-ajEPsU-dGjzYR-f8uidJ-L3qP3d-272wyHN-b7hvwM-fHBuxJ-oWMjJZ-mj5LK8-sU6cfg-fQHWny-dwCasm-er5Bbz-8bPDUK-os9cNx-mWFRvA-oZZJXZ-FcUGpa-fqdaVS-e8u1gw-gdKFtL-c3cbqQ-aJ77m8-pRmsoL-e3w4Cv-oWvQiB-pqzdXc-oTztVo-qPqKuf-exfgUf-qgoz47">Tinker Tailor loves Lalka</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is at the root of our connection with dolls? </p>
<p>As I have argued in my <a href="http://www.beacon.org/A-History-of-Religion-in-5-Objects-P997.aspx">earlier research</a>, humans share a deep and ancient relationship with ordinary objects. When people create forms, they are participating in the ancient hominid practice of <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/becoming-human-the-origin-of-stone-tools-55335180/">toolmaking</a>. Tools have agricultural, domestic and communication uses, but they also help people think, feel, act and pray. </p>
<p>Dolls are a primary tool that humans have used for the spiritual and social dimensions of their lives. </p>
<p>They come to have a profound influence on humans. They help build religious connections, such as teaching children to pray, serving as a medium for answering prayers, providing protection and prompting healing. </p>
<p>They also model gender roles and teach people how to behave in society. </p>
<h2>Tech toys and messages</h2>
<p>Aibo and other such technologies, I argue, play a similar role. </p>
<p>Part of aibo’s enchantment is that he appears to see, hear and respond to touch. In other words, the mechanical dog has an embodied intelligence, not unlike humans. One can quickly find <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/11/16876086/sony-aibo-hands-on-video-ces-2018">videos</a> of people being emotionally captivated by aibo because he has big eyes that “look” back at people, he cocks his head, seeming to hear, and he wags his tail when “petted” the right way. </p>
<p>Another such robot, <a href="http://www.parorobots.com/index.asp">PARO</a>, a furry, seal-shaped machine that purrs and vibrates as it is stroked, has been <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130624075748.htm">shown</a> to have a number of positive effects on elderly people, such as <a href="http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/summer-house-residential-memory-care-communities-introduce-paro-robot-therapy-2108672.htm">reducing anxiety</a>, increasing social behaviors and counteracting loneliness.</p>
<p>Dolls can have a deep and lasting psychological impact on young people. Psychotherapist <a href="https://mommikin.com/laurel-wider-is-a-psychotherapist-turned-toy-inventor/">Laurel Wider</a>, for example, became concerned about the gendered messages that her son was receiving in social settings about how boys were not supposed to cry or really show many feelings at all. </p>
<p>She then <a href="https://www.wondercrew.com/pages/about-us">founded</a> a new toy company to create dolls that could help nurture <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/well/family/wonder-crew-dolls-boys-empathy.html">empathy in boys</a>. As Wider <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/well/family/wonder-crew-dolls-boys-empathy.html">says</a>, these dolls are “like a peer, an equal, but also small enough, vulnerable enough, to where a child could also want to take care of him.”</p>
<h2>Outsourcing social life?</h2>
<p>Not everyone welcomes the influence these dolls have come to have on our lives. Critics of these dolls argue they outsource some of humanity’s most basic social skills. Humans, they argue, need other humans to teach them about gender norms, and provide companionship – not dolls and robots.</p>
<p>MIT’s <a href="http://www.mit.edu/%7Esturkle/">Sherry Turkle</a>, for example, somewhat famously dissents from the praise given to these mechanical imitations. Turkle has long been working at the human-machine interface. Over the years, she has become more skeptical about the roles we assign these mechanical tools. </p>
<p>When confronted with patients using PARO, she found herself “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/08/16/172988165/are-we-plugged-in-connected-but-alone">profoundly depressed</a>” at society’s resort to machines as companions, when humans should be spending more time with other humans.</p>
<h2>Teaching us to be humans?</h2>
<p>It’s hard to disagree with Turkle’s concerns, but that’s not the point. What I argue is that as humans, we share a deep connection with such dolls. The new wave of dolls and robots are instrumental in motivating further questions about who we are as humans.</p>
<p>Given the technological advances, people are asking whether robots “<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hot-thought/201712/will-robots-ever-have-emotions">can have feelings</a>,” “<a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/248774/can-robots-be-jewish">be Jewish</a>” or “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04989-2">make art</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A question being asked is, can robots have feelings?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ellenm1/6340377633/in/photolist-aEh6nK-dtAV6J-88ajiy-aErGvC-szMPe-28aU3K5-6sffsJ-arYhVS-h4UrTE-d3Raw9-bnX4Ja-4njGV-9kMSgS-e4tzo4-bHviTD-qNVJPV-tKVxX-7gnVhi-5ddYsr-2TdX9-m15Rki-m16F3U-2RwW1W-2bCK6R-3hTjfG-5mAcY1-3hSmPj-3hSX87-dfYmeN-4gBusR-dYPfBj-LwZTq-3hQUaz-5PS1E9-pxDtVq-3hQQ16-61oLTo-SsR43-7SS1Cq-3hQFJB-oH1MY-6RojjC-Ejwu4-5PSmS1-ae8Lgr-4KUiyX-gJDZz-7pwjx5-nxPg1-5NtP6">ellenm1</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When people attempt to answer these questions, they must first reflect on what it means for humans to have feelings, be Jewish and make art.</p>
<p>Some academics go so far as to argue that humans have always been cyborgs, always a mixture of human biological bodies and technological parts. </p>
<p>As philosophers like <a href="https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/andy-clark">Andy Clark</a> have <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/natural-born-cyborgs-9780195177510?cc=us&lang=en&">argued</a>, “our tools are not just external props and aids, but they are deep and integral parts of the problem-solving systems we now identify as human intelligence.”</p>
<p>Technologies are not in competition with humans. In fact, technology is the divine breath, the animating, ensouling force of Homo sapiens. And, in my view, dolls are vital technological tools that find their way into devotional lives, workplaces and social spaces. </p>
<p>As we create, we are simultaneously being created.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An expert argues our connection with these figures is longstanding. They are embedded in our myths and help us explore deeper questions about being human.
S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate, Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Hamilton College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/100206
2018-08-02T20:25:26Z
2018-08-02T20:25:26Z
Drink, drank, drunk: what happens when we drink alcohol in four short videos
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229226/original/file-20180725-194131-l7ow8i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2640%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There’s a reason we apologise to our livers after a big night, and it's not pretty.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alcohol is a depressant, a diuretic, and a disinfectant. These generally aren’t pleasant attributes, but people have been drinking alcohol for thousands of years – some of the earliest written texts mention or <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/the-oldest-beer-recipe-in-history.html">contain recipes for beer</a>, and <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/101/51/17593">pottery shards from China</a> show people may have been making alcohol as far back as 7,000BCE.</p>
<p>So what is this special chemical that we’ve loved to drink for so long? </p>
<p>Well, there are many types of alcoholic drinks – fizzy and flat, hot and cold, fermented and distilled – but all of the alcohol we drink as humans is ethanol based.</p>
<hr>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y1Y8Hig0L5s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>The process of how ethanol gets from the glass into your brain is not straight forward. And how quickly it gets to your brain (and whether or not it’s quickly broken down by your liver) is down to a variety of factors, one of which it’s actually very easy for us to control: whether or not we’ve eaten.</p>
<p>Let’s take a look at what happens after that first sip of alcohol.</p>
<hr>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QHYlRc6-Gdw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>The organ that takes on the biggest burden of processing ethanol in our body is the liver. </p>
<p>The liver is one of our largest and most important organs and it performs hundreds of functions, including converting the nutrients in food into something our bodies can actually use. </p>
<p>But there’s a reason we apologise to our livers if we’ve a big night: the liver’s other job is processing any toxic substances we ingest into something harmless, or removing them from the body altogether. Which makes it the perfect organ to deal with ethanol. </p>
<p>Most – about 90 to 98% – of the ethanol we consume is processed in the liver, with the remainder either removed in our urine, sweat or when we exhale.</p>
<p>The liver processes alcohol in two distinct steps. The first involves an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which breaks down ethanol into a chemical called acetaldehyde. Unfortunately acetaldehyde is actually a toxin, which is why there’s a second stage to the process. </p>
<p>Another enzyme – aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) – quickly breaks down acetaldehyde into acetate, which is harmless. It’s then either excreted, used to make other molecules or broken down into water and carbon dioxide.</p>
<p>And it’s while your liver is slowly processing the ethanol in your system (as quickly as it can) that the remainder makes its way to your brain.</p>
<hr>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mUQZEhdgqko?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>A complicating factor for determining how drunk we’re likely to feel after a certain amount of alcohol is that different people will process alcohol at different speeds.</p>
<p>There are many things that impact how quickly the body processes alcohol, including your weight, body composition and hormones, the number of drinks you’ve had and how quickly you drank them.</p>
<p>But roughly, the liver can effectively process about 1 standard drink in an hour, give or take. Women and men do process alcohol at different speeds, which is why alcohol campaigns often suggest women consume fewer drinks in the first hour than men. </p>
<p>The problems start when you consume more than a standard drink per hour – which is not hard to do, given an average bottle of beer has 1.2 to 1.4 standard drinks, and a restaurant sized glass of wine is about 1.5 standard drinks.</p>
<p>While it can be hard to match up exactly how many drinks equate to how intoxicated you’ll feel, your blood alcohol concentration (or BAC) gives a pretty good indication of what most people will feel as they ingest escalating amounts of alcohol. </p>
<p>So what does that actually look like?</p>
<hr>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zSKsSrXXj7E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>Alcohol makes us feel increasing pleasure and relaxation as we drink more, while simultaneously hampering both our ability to make decisions and even move capably, which can lead to dangerous consequences.</p>
<p>The actual recommended intake for adults is just <a href="https://theconversation.com/health-check-how-do-i-know-if-i-drink-too-much-61857">two standard drinks a day</a>, which is less than a pint of beer. Realistically, many Australians often drink more than this. So the important thing is to be aware of your limits, plan for how much you intend to drink, eat a meal before you begin drinking, and drink responsibly.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/there-are-four-types-of-drinker-which-one-are-you-89377">There are four types of drinker – which one are you?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
What is it that makes us feel drunk when we drink? And why do we keep drinking if it can make us feel so terrible?
Emil Jeyaratnam, Data + Interactives Editor, The Conversation
Wes Mountain, Social Media + Visual Storytelling Editor
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/100362
2018-07-24T10:27:43Z
2018-07-24T10:27:43Z
3 questions about tequila, answered
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228873/original/file-20180723-189313-r9xqli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An agave plant cutter, or 'jimador,' cuts the tips off from agave branches at a Jose Cuervo blue agave field.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-Mexico-MEXI-/0ccc0ceaeae0da11af9f0014c2589dfb/59/0">AP Photo/Guillermo Arias</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In less than a decade, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tequila-sales-are-soaring-in-america-2016-5">worldwide sales of tequila have doubled</a>, while sales of premium and ultra-premium brands have <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/article/interest-builds-up-in-the-premium-tequila-market-cm910247">shot up by 292 percent and 706 percent</a>, respectively.</p>
<p>In recent years, you may have heard of tequila tastings and walked by a new mezcal bar – and wondered about the difference between the two. Or you’ve seen a headline proclaiming that a shot of tequila a day will keep the doctor away. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.fshn.chhs.colostate.edu/faculty-staff/miller.aspx">As a food historian</a>, I hope to debunk some myths and explore some little-known aspects of the Mexican spirit that’s become a global phenomenon. </p>
<h2>1. What’s the deal with the worm?</h2>
<p>Walking through the tequila section of your local liquor store, you may see a bottle with a worm floating in it. But if you see one, you’re looking at a bottle of mezcal – not tequila. </p>
<p>While all tequila is mezcal, all mezcal is not tequila: To be labeled as tequila the spirit <a href="http://www.llifle.com/Encyclopedia/SUCCULENTS/Family/Agavaceae/22672/Agave_weberi">must be distilled from at least 51 percent blue agave</a> (<em>Agave weberii</em>) and made within a region <a href="https://www.diffordsguide.com/encyclopedia/993/bws/tequila-regions-where-does-tequila-come-from">around the Mexican town of Tequila</a>.</p>
<p>Mezcals, on the other hand, can be made from any of 30 aloe-like succulents and can be made in a number of Mexican states. </p>
<p>As for the worm, it’s the larva of the <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/maguey-worm-gusano-del-maguey">maguey moth</a>, an animal that lives and feeds on agave plants. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228867/original/file-20180723-189335-1o83rx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228867/original/file-20180723-189335-1o83rx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228867/original/file-20180723-189335-1o83rx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228867/original/file-20180723-189335-1o83rx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228867/original/file-20180723-189335-1o83rx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228867/original/file-20180723-189335-1o83rx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228867/original/file-20180723-189335-1o83rx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228867/original/file-20180723-189335-1o83rx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hundreds of red worms used in mezcal wait to be placed into bottles at a plant in Oaxaca, Mexico.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-Mexico-TEQU-/657607e644e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/2/0">AP Photo/Gregory Bull</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was originally inserted <a href="http://www.gusanorojo.com/web/gusano_english.html">into bottles of Gusano Rojo</a>
mezcal as a marketing gimmick. The worm isn’t a psychedelic <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xywvnn/that-worm-at-the-bottom-of-your-mezcal-isnt-a-lie-1">as fraternity lore would have it</a>, but it is edible and is sold as a delicacy in food markets across central Mexico.</p>
<h2>2. Can tequila actually be good for you?</h2>
<p>Tequila has long been thought of as a cure for various ailments.</p>
<p>During the influenza pandemic of 1918, Mexican doctors would prescribe tequila with lemon and salt <a href="http://www.tequiladosalas.com/process.php">to treat flu symptoms</a>. To this day, Mexicans stir it into hot tea with honey to assuage sore throats.</p>
<p>In recent years, you may have come across articles <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/7-ways-tequila-good-article-1.3136410">giddily announcing</a> that a shot of tequila a day can lower bad cholesterol and blood sugar. </p>
<p>But the study showing lower cholesterol levels <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/drinking-tequila-health-benefits/">was conducted on mice</a>, and there’s been no evidence showing the same effect on humans. (In fact, the findings for mice couldn’t be replicated in a similar study.) Meanwhile, agave has been shown to have a higher fructose content than sugar – <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/sugar-wars/372220/">and even high-fructose corn syrup</a>.</p>
<p>In the end, your tequila benders aren’t likely to have any inadvertent health benefits.</p>
<h2>3. Is the margarita named after a woman?</h2>
<p>Tequila is mixed with lime juice, salt and liquor to make the margarita, one of the more popular summer cocktails.</p>
<p>Most of the margarita’s origin stories <a href="http://observer.com/2016/02/the-origin-of-the-margarita-and-7-twists-on-the-classic-drink/">claim it was named after a girl named Margarita</a>. One version of the legend says that the drink was named after dancer Marjorie King: On a trip to Mexico, she asked a bartender near Tijuana to make her a drink with tequila since she was allergic to grain-based spirits. <a href="http://intoxicology.net/controy-orange-liqueur-hits-the-u-s/">Another version</a> traces the drink to Ensenada, Mexico, where, in the early 1940s, a bartender concocted the drink to honor Margarita Henkel, the daughter of the German Ambassador to Mexico. </p>
<p>Neither story is probably true. Before Prohibition, a very popular cocktail in California was the <a href="https://www.thespruceeats.com/brandy-daisy-cocktail-recipe-759414">Brandy Daisy</a>, a mix of brandy, Curaçao liqueur and lemon juice. As people drifted over the border into Mexico to evade Prohibition’s restrictions, it’s likely that bartenders began making the drink with Mexico’s national spirit, which would have been more available and cheaper. </p>
<p>“Margarita” is Spanish for daisy, so when Americans ordered a daisy, it would have been natural for the bartender to reply, “One margarita, coming up.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100362/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Is a shot of tequila actually good for you? What’s the deal with the worm? Who was margarita, anyway? A food historian explores some little-known aspects of the popular Mexican spirit.
Jeffrey Miller, Associate Professor, Hospitality Management, Colorado State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/99638
2018-07-10T00:42:18Z
2018-07-10T00:42:18Z
Inside the sacred danger of Thailand’s caves
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227196/original/file-20180711-27018-bxzlv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Three of the 12 rescued boys in their hospital beds.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thailand Government Spokesman Bureau via AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After almost three weeks in the dark, 12 Thai boys and their coach, <a href="https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/first-images-released-of-thai-cave-rescue-boys/news-story/57a8f03744da69907facfc1d1f295091">were rescued</a> from a cave deep underneath the mountains that form the Thai-Burmese border. The boys, aged 11 to 16, were part of a soccer team that also dabbled in outdoor adventures with the charming nickname the “wild pigs” (“mu pa”). The snacks they are reported to have carried into the cave, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44792455">to celebrate the birthday</a> of one of their friends, likely sustained them during the ordeal.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226824/original/file-20180709-122256-6i2eqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226824/original/file-20180709-122256-6i2eqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226824/original/file-20180709-122256-6i2eqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226824/original/file-20180709-122256-6i2eqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226824/original/file-20180709-122256-6i2eqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226824/original/file-20180709-122256-6i2eqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226824/original/file-20180709-122256-6i2eqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A department-store mannequin used as the votive image for Jao Mae Nang Non, the guardian spirit of Nang Non Cave.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew A. Johnson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The name of the cave, Tham Luang Nang Non, literally means “the cave of the reclining lady.” It is named after a princess who, as the legend goes, <a href="http://www.newmandala.org/myth-politics-thailands-cave-rescue-operation/">committed suicide</a> after she was forbidden to be with her commoner love. Her body became the mountains, and her genitals, the cave. She is now the ruler – the “jao mae” – of both.</p>
<p>I first visited Nang Non Cave in the rainy season of 2007 along with my partner, for my book project “<a href="https://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/ghosts-of-the-new-city-spirits-urbanity-and-the-ruins-of-progress-in-chiang-mai/">Ghosts of the New City</a>.” While the current attention has focused on the treacherous flooded passages, the trapped children and their heroic rescuers, as I found, there is much more to this story.</p>
<h2>Nang Non Cave</h2>
<p>The cave is enthralling. Its entrance is broad, like a cathedral door, and during the rainy season the humidity pours out of it like steam. It looks like the gateway to another world. In some senses, it is.</p>
<p>I started down the rocky descent toward the entrance, drawn in by its vast scale and emptiness. Only my companion, having heeded better the sign at the entrance forbidding ingress during the rainy season, called me back. I returned reluctantly. </p>
<p>I was right to retreat. As the schoolchildren found out, during the rainy season the water levels at tight spots in the cave can rise dramatically, trapping would-be explorers inside. So in the faces of the trapped children, I can see a little of me, had I kept going.</p>
<p>But I spent a great deal of time in other caves around the region, interviewing religious attendants and local guides about how people in the region understand the power of caves and other sacred sites, and what their role is in Northern Thai mythology. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226821/original/file-20180709-122265-1hia2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226821/original/file-20180709-122265-1hia2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226821/original/file-20180709-122265-1hia2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226821/original/file-20180709-122265-1hia2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226821/original/file-20180709-122265-1hia2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226821/original/file-20180709-122265-1hia2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226821/original/file-20180709-122265-1hia2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thai rescue teams arrange water pumping system at the entrance to the flooded cave complex.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Royal Thai Navy via AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lords of places</h2>
<p>Just south of Nang Non Cave and about an hour north of the city of Chiang Mai, the capital of Thailand’s northern region, is Chiang Dao peak. It is an impressive mountain, rising straight up from rice fields, with sheer drops on most sides. And, like many such mountains in the region, there is a cave that winds down into its heart.</p>
<p>Local chronicle and oral legend <a href="http://www.manusya.journals.chula.ac.th/files/essay/Nittaya_p.87-104.pdf">varies</a> on the exact story of the place: Some say the cave was the home of demonic giants – “yaksha” – who were nonetheless ruled from within the cave by a noble king. Others have a noble ruler founding the kingdom of Lanna (Northern Thailand) and then retreating to the cave only to have his realm fall into disarray.</p>
<p>My favorite such story has a Northern Thai lord – Jao Luang Kham Daeng, the Lord of Burnished Copper – who was tricked into following a beautiful woman into the cave, where he was later devoured by the spirits within. However, in his death, according to one version, he <a href="https://silkwormbooks.com/products/sacred-mountains">became its ruler</a>. </p>
<p>In each of these stories, the cave becomes the home of a powerful but sometimes dangerous spirit, who keeps the Northern Thai region safe, prosperous and healthy so long as the spirit and the dangerous power of the mountain is respected.</p>
<p>It could be inferred that Northern Thai caves, then, have little to do with Buddhism. But religion in Thailand and especially the North is, as scholars such as <a href="http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/rc_hub/KITIARSAp.html">Pattana Kitiarsa</a>, <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/asian/people/faculty/erick-white.html">Erick White</a>, <a href="https://www.sas.upenn.edu/religious_studies/faculty/mcdaniel">Justin McDaniel</a> and many others have pointed out, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228685368_Beyond_Syncretism_Hybridization_of_Popular_Religion_in_Contemporary_Thailand">a blend</a> of different influences: <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/canf/2003/00000013/00000002/art00012">a belief in the power of particular people and places</a>, <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-lovelorn-ghost-and-the-magical-monk/9780231153775">a respect for Buddhist teachings</a>, and a model of kingly power based on older Hindu traditions in the region. </p>
<p>The caves of Northern Thailand are places where these religious traditions blend: There are shrines to the Buddha, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.5367/sear.2013.0151?journalCode=sera">Hindu</a> hermits and the spirit lords of the mountain, all in the same space. </p>
<p>These, as some might expect, are not three separate traditions. They blend together, especially so in cave legends. For instance, the caves in Sri Lanna National Park, in between Chiang Dao and Nang Non caves, are rumored to be the home of two princesses that hid after their kingdom was destroyed. </p>
<p>They sought protection in a cave, and the Buddha, hearing their pleas, appointed a monstrous ghost to keep them safe – a ghost that persists, according to legend, today. Thus, kingship, Buddhism, and spirits all combine in one story.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226818/original/file-20180709-122274-pupm7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226818/original/file-20180709-122274-pupm7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226818/original/file-20180709-122274-pupm7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226818/original/file-20180709-122274-pupm7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226818/original/file-20180709-122274-pupm7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226818/original/file-20180709-122274-pupm7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226818/original/file-20180709-122274-pupm7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Family members pray in front of a Buddhist statue near the cave where 12 boys and their soccer coach were trapped in northern Thailand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Places of danger and possibility</h2>
<p>Caves are liminal spaces – an in-between space. They are openings to another world, one that is shrouded in darkness, difficult to access, and, as the story of the 12 boys shows, is often hostile to humans.</p>
<p>And in them are spirits. In Thailand, these <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2012.01394.x">nature spirits are often women</a>, and, as counterparts to the figures of Buddhist monks, offer their followers something that Buddhism cannot provide: assistance with love, money, and other things of this world with which monks do not concern themselves. At the same time, they pose a potential danger if slighted. </p>
<p>As such, Thailand’s sacred caves are places full of power, but also full of danger. Such places, as I describe in my book, often have yearly rituals in order to ensure that the spirits provide for the village in the future. </p>
<p>In many, the spirits acquire a bit of a ferocious aspect. After all, they are the rulers of an inhospitable natural world that must be tamed before it can be of use to humans. </p>
<p>This acknowledgment of nature’s danger is a drama that is played out in rituals across the region, a number of which I attended as a part of my research. In Chiang Mai, for instance, each year the local people hold a tradition wherein two mountain spirits possess two human mediums, who in turn devour a raw buffalo and drink its blood, before surrendering to the Buddha and agreeing to help the city with cool breezes and clean water. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226823/original/file-20180709-122256-1c7hmp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226823/original/file-20180709-122256-1c7hmp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226823/original/file-20180709-122256-1c7hmp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226823/original/file-20180709-122256-1c7hmp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226823/original/file-20180709-122256-1c7hmp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226823/original/file-20180709-122256-1c7hmp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226823/original/file-20180709-122256-1c7hmp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Thai soccer teammates in the partly flooded cave.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Royal Thai Navy Facebook Page via AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The story of the 12 trapped boys, then, is one that can be read at multiple levels. For some, it is a story of the heroism of rescue workers against an inhospitable environment. <a href="http://www.newmandala.org/myth-politics-thailands-cave-rescue-operation/">For others</a>, it is a story that emphasizes the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/buddhist-meditation-may-calm-team-trapped-in-thai-cave/2018/07/05/8a827ee0-80c4-11e8-a63f-7b5d2aba7ac5_story.html?utm_term=.d93ff45c2af5">Buddhist piety</a> of the team’s coach and the power of Buddhist prayers over the spirits of the mountain. </p>
<p>In my view, such ideas of danger and power were always a part of the liminal spaces of mountain caves. The stories of the spirit lords under the earth reflect both human fascination and human fears.</p>
<p><em>This article, originally published on July 10, was updated to incorporate the latest developments of the rescue.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99638/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Alan Johnson receives funding from Princeton University, Yale-NUS College, Sogang University, and the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant Award.</span></em></p>
A scholar, who has conducted research on the Thai caves in which 12 children were recently trapped, explains their power and appeal, including the rituals and myth surrounding these sacred sites.
Andrew Alan Johnson, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/88247
2017-11-30T03:59:37Z
2017-11-30T03:59:37Z
Do different drinks make you different drunk?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197060/original/file-20171130-12027-p1jnjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A recent study found people link different alcohol types to different emotional states.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/gj6THKvbm10">Photo by Mattias Diesel on Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/av/health-42072497/how-different-drinks-alter-your-mood">Reports of a study</a> linking different kinds of alcoholic drinks with different mood states were making the rounds recently. The <a href="http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/10/e016089">research used</a> 30,000 survey responses from the <a href="http://www.globaldrugsurvey.com">Global Drug Survey</a> and found that people attached different emotions to different alcoholic drinks. </p>
<p>For instance, more respondents reported feeling aggressive when drinking spirits than when drinking wine. </p>
<p>We all have friends who swear they feel differently when drinking different types of alcohol. But can different drinks really influence your mood in different ways?</p>
<h2>Alcohol is alcohol</h2>
<p>Let’s cut to the chase. No matter what the drink, the active ingredient is the same: ethanol. </p>
<p>When you have a drink, ethanol enters the bloodstream through the stomach and small intestine and is then processed in the liver. The liver can process only a limited amount of alcohol at a time so any excess remains in the blood and travels to other organs, including your brain where mood is regulated.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197063/original/file-20171130-12072-1gzk6hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197063/original/file-20171130-12072-1gzk6hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197063/original/file-20171130-12072-1gzk6hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197063/original/file-20171130-12072-1gzk6hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197063/original/file-20171130-12072-1gzk6hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197063/original/file-20171130-12072-1gzk6hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197063/original/file-20171130-12072-1gzk6hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197063/original/file-20171130-12072-1gzk6hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many people think drinking spirits makes them more aggressive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/dmkmrNptMpw">Photo by Adam Jaime on Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The direct effects of alcohol are the same whether you drink wine, beer or spirits. There’s no evidence that different types of alcohol cause different mood states. People aren’t even very good at recognising their <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2167702616689780?journalCode=cpxa">mood states</a> when they have been drinking.</p>
<p>So where does the myth come from?</p>
<h2>Grape expectations</h2>
<p>Scientists have studied specific <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2965491/">alcohol-related beliefs</a> called “expectancies”. If you believe a particular type of drink makes you angry, sad or sexed up, then it is more likely to.</p>
<p>We develop expectancies from a number of sources, including our own and others’ experiences. If wine makes you relaxed, it’s probably because you usually sip it slowly in a calm and relaxed atmosphere. If tequila makes you crazy, maybe it’s because you usually drink it in shots, which is bound to be on a wild night out.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197064/original/file-20171130-12069-sihxwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197064/original/file-20171130-12069-sihxwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197064/original/file-20171130-12069-sihxwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197064/original/file-20171130-12069-sihxwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197064/original/file-20171130-12069-sihxwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197064/original/file-20171130-12069-sihxwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197064/original/file-20171130-12069-sihxwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197064/original/file-20171130-12069-sihxwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You might think wine is relaxing because you usually drink it in a relaxing atmosphere.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/asGtWUdJe2U">Photo by Willian West on Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Or if you regularly saw your parents sitting around on a Sunday afternoon with their friends and a few beers, you might expect beer to make you more sociable. Kids as young as six have been <a href="http://www.jsad.com/doi/abs/10.15288/jsa.1990.51.343">found to have expectancies</a> about alcohol, well before any experience of drinking.</p>
<p>We build conscious and unconscious associations between alcohol and our emotions every time we drink or see someone else drinking.</p>
<p>We could even be influenced by music and art. “Tequila makes me crazy” is a common belief, which also happens to be a line in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8XkLrErSHw">Kenny Chesney</a> song, and Billy Joel’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxEPV4kolz0">Piano Man</a> might reinforce the idea that gin makes you melancholy.</p>
<h2>It’s the ‘how’ more than the ‘what’</h2>
<p>Other chemicals, called congeners, can be produced in the process of making alcohol. Different drinks produce different congeners. Some argue these could have different effects on mood, but the only real effect of these chemicals is on the taste and smell of a beverage. They can also contribute to a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20712591">cracker of a hangover</a>.</p>
<p>But there is no evidence that these congeners produce specific mood or behavioural effects while you are drinking.</p>
<p>The critical factor in the physical and psychological effects you experience when drinking really comes down to how you drink rather than what you drink. Different drinks have different alcohol content and the more alcohol you ingest – and the faster you ingest it – the stronger the effects.</p>
<p>Spirits have a higher concentration of alcohol (40%) than beer (5%) or wine (12%) and are often downed quickly, either in shots or with a sweet mixer. This rapidly increases blood alcohol concentration, and therefore alcohol’s effects, including changes in mood.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197065/original/file-20171130-12040-1lzjx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197065/original/file-20171130-12040-1lzjx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197065/original/file-20171130-12040-1lzjx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197065/original/file-20171130-12040-1lzjx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197065/original/file-20171130-12040-1lzjx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197065/original/file-20171130-12040-1lzjx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197065/original/file-20171130-12040-1lzjx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197065/original/file-20171130-12040-1lzjx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spirits are higher in alcohol than beer, and are usually drunk much more quickly.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/MxfcoxycH_Y">Photo by Michael Discenza on Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The same goes for mixing drinks. You might have heard the saying “Beer before liquor, never been sicker; liquor before beer, you’re in the clear”, but again it’s the amount of alcohol that might get you into trouble rather than mixing different types. </p>
<p>Mixing a stimulant (like an energy drink) with alcohol can also mask how intoxicated you feel, allowing you to drink more.</p>
<p>You can reduce the risk of extreme mood changes by drinking slowly, eating food before and while you drink, and spacing alcoholic drinks with water, juice or soft drink. Stick to drinking within the Australian <a href="https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/health-topics/alcohol-guidelines">alcohol guidelines</a> of no more than four standard drinks on a single occasion.</p>
<h2>Party animals and bad eggs</h2>
<p>Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, which means it slows the brain’s functioning. Alcohol’s effects include reducing activity in the part of the brain that regulates thinking, reasoning and decision-making, known as the <a href="http://universe-review.ca/I10-80-prefrontal.jpg">prefrontal cortex</a>. Alcohol also decreases inhibitions and our ability to regulate emotions.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197067/original/file-20171130-12069-ho1337.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197067/original/file-20171130-12069-ho1337.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197067/original/file-20171130-12069-ho1337.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197067/original/file-20171130-12069-ho1337.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197067/original/file-20171130-12069-ho1337.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197067/original/file-20171130-12069-ho1337.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197067/original/file-20171130-12069-ho1337.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197067/original/file-20171130-12069-ho1337.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The effect of alcohol depends on many factors, including where you’re drinking it and how you’re feeling at the time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/mY4VrLwciQk">Photo by Cassiano Barletta on Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“In vino veritas” (in wine there is truth) is a saying that suggests that when drinking we are more likely to reveal our true selves. While that’s not completely accurate, the changes in mood when someone is drinking often reflect underlying personal styles that become less regulated with alcohol on board.</p>
<p>Studies of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2791902/">aggression and alcohol</a>, for example, show that people who are normally irritable, cranky or low in empathy when they are not drinking are more likely to be aggressive when their inhibitions are lowered while drinking.</p>
<p>As with all drugs, the effect alcohol has on your mood is a combination of the alcohol itself, where you are drinking it and how you’re feeling at the time.</p>
<p>So does alcohol make you crazy, mean or sad? If it does, you were probably a bit that way inclined already, and if you believe it enough it may just come true.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88247/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Lee works as a paid consultant in the public, private and not for profit alcohol and other drug sector and to commonwealth and state governments. She has previously been awarded grants by the state and federal government, NHMRC and other public funding bodies for alcohol and other drug research.</span></em></p>
Some people believe different drinks make them feel differently. But the effect alcohol has on your mood depends on factors like where you are drinking it and how you’re feeling at the time.
Nicole Lee, Professor at the National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/87569
2017-11-17T20:41:11Z
2017-11-17T20:41:11Z
Feeling guilty about drinking? Well, ask the saints
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195239/original/file-20171117-19305-17d3usa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pious drinking.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWalter_Dendy_Sadler_(1854_-1923)_The_monks_repast.jpg">Walter Dendy Sadler via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Each year the holidays bring with them an increase in both the consumption of <a href="http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/sponsor-story/kaiser-permanente/2015/12/03/alcohol-consumption-increases-during-holidays/76744200/">alcohol</a> and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/christmas-drinking-binge-increase-alcohol-dependence-alcoholism-risk-expert-a7488401.html">concern about drinking’s harmful effects.</a> </p>
<p>Alcohol abuse is no laughing matter, but is it sinful to drink and make merry, moderately and responsibly, during a holy season or at any other time? </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.baylor.edu/great_texts/index.php?id=100028">historical theologian</a>, I <a href="https://www.regnery.com/books/drinking-with-the-saints/">researched</a> the role that pious Christians played in developing and producing alcohol. What I discovered was an astonishing history. </p>
<h2>Religious orders and wine-making</h2>
<p>Wine was invented <a href="https://vinepair.com/booze-news/oldest-winemaking-site/?utm_source=The+Drop+by+VinePair&utm_campaign=508c000821-Oct_7_2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b653fb8c99-508c000821-46572873&goal=0_b653fb8c99-508c000821-46572873&mc_cid=508c000821&mc_eid=044391995d">6,000 years</a> before the birth of Christ, but it was monks who largely preserved viniculture in Europe. Religious orders such as the Benedictines and Jesuits became expert winemakers. They stopped only because their lands were confiscated in the 18th and 19th centuries by anti-Catholic governments such as the French Revolution’s <a href="http://www.historytoday.com/gemma-betros/french-revolution-and-catholic-church">Constituent Assembly</a> and Germany’s <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8670">Second Reich</a>.</p>
<p>In order to celebrate the Eucharist, which requires the use of bread and wine, Catholic missionaries brought their knowledge of vine-growing with them to the New World. Wine grapes were first introduced to Alta California in 1779 by Saint Junipero Serra and his Franciscan brethren, laying the foundation for the <a href="http://www.discovercaliforniawines.com/wp-content/files_mf/ecawinehistory.pdf">California wine industry</a>. A similar pattern emerged in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=tEqx2zwuq-gC&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=history+of+argentina+wine+industry+missionaries&source=bl&ots=-4W6L0fLCv&sig=Y6wV24LoRHwUDn7CxzS9OtXnLBU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivh-SAqsHXAhXhs1QKHT7dCMoQ6AEIPzAD#v=onepage&q=history%20of%20argentina%20wine%20industry%20missionaries&f=false">Argentina</a>, <a href="http://www.chilean-wine.com/chilean-wine-history/">Chile</a> and <a href="https://www.sevenhill.com.au/the-jesuits">Australia</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195241/original/file-20171117-19320-1wdyxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195241/original/file-20171117-19320-1wdyxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195241/original/file-20171117-19320-1wdyxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195241/original/file-20171117-19320-1wdyxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195241/original/file-20171117-19320-1wdyxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195241/original/file-20171117-19320-1wdyxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195241/original/file-20171117-19320-1wdyxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monks in a cellar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJoseph_Haier_-_Monks_in_a_cellar_1873.jpg">Joseph Haier 1816-1891, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Godly men not only preserved and promulgated oenology, or the study of wines; they also advanced it. One of the pioneers in the “méthode champenoise,” or the “<a href="http://winefolly.com/review/how-sparkling-wine-is-made/">traditional method</a>” of making sparkling wine, was a Benedictine monk whose name now adorns one of the world’s finest champagnes: Dom Pérignon. According to a later legend, when he sampled his first batch in 1715, Pérignon <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pIdGLlMTsucC&pg=PA59&lpg=PA59&dq=%E2%80%9CBrothers,+come+quickly.+I+am+drinking+stars!%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=j1jFQNJvEF&sig=M4aqm9jJ7PTLFwEavwndflQ6DwU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjpyY2ruMHXAhVByVQKHV8RCt0Q6AEISjAM#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CBrothers%2C%20come%20quickly.%20I%20am%20drinking%20stars!%E2%80%9D&f=false">cried out to his fellow monks</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Brothers, come quickly. I am drinking stars!”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Monks and priests also found new uses for the grape. The Jesuits are credited with improving the process for making <a href="http://www.grappamontanaro.com/storia-della-grappa/?lang=en">grappa</a> in Italy and <a href="https://museodelpisco.org/all-about-pisco/">pisco</a> in South America, both of which are grape brandies.</p>
<h2>Beer in the cloister</h2>
<p>And although beer may have been invented by the ancient Babylonians, it was perfected by the <a href="https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/alcohol-in-the-middle-ages/#_ednref3">medieval monasteries</a> that gave us brewing as we know it today. The oldest drawings of a modern brewery are from the Monastery of Saint Gall in Switzerland. The plans, which date back to A.D. 820, show three breweries – one for guests of the monastery, one for pilgrims and the poor, and one for the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/20909447">monks</a> themselves.</p>
<p>One saint, Arnold of Soissons, who lived in the 11th century, has even been credited with inventing the <a href="http://allaboutbeer.com/article/beer-saints/">filtration</a> process. To this day and despite the proliferation of many outstanding microbreweries, the world’s finest beer is arguably still made within the cloister – specifically, within the cloister of a <a href="http://ithinkaboutbeer.com/2013/05/09/the-brewing-monks-a-brief-history-of-the-trappist-order-and-monastic-brewing/">Trappist monastery</a>.</p>
<h2>Liquors and liqueurs</h2>
<p>Equally impressive is the religious contribution to distilled spirits. Whiskey was invented by medieval <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=A4EvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8&dq=history+of+whiskey+irish+monks&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjL94DAucHXAhVjxlQKHWdXAsQQ6AEIQDAE#v=onepage&q=history%20of%20whiskey%20irish%20monks&f=false">Irish monks</a>, who probably shared their knowledge with the Scots during their missions.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195243/original/file-20171117-19256-1unope6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195243/original/file-20171117-19256-1unope6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195243/original/file-20171117-19256-1unope6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195243/original/file-20171117-19256-1unope6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195243/original/file-20171117-19256-1unope6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195243/original/file-20171117-19256-1unope6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195243/original/file-20171117-19256-1unope6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monk sneaking a drink.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMonk_sneaking_a_drink.jpg">Scanned from Den medeltida kokboken, Swedish translation of The Medieval Cookbook by Maggie Black, via Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.chartreuse.fr/en/produits/green-chartreuse/">Chartreuse</a> is widely considered the <a href="http://www.orangecoast.com/booze-blog/green-chartreuse-best-liqueur-ever/">world’s best liqueur</a> because of its extraordinary spectrum of distinct flavors and even medicinal benefits. Perfected by the Carthusian order almost 300 years ago, the recipe is known by only <a href="https://www.chartreuse.fr/en/produits/green-chartreuse/">two monks</a> at a time. The herbal liqueur Bénédictine D.O.M. is reputed to have been invented in 1510 by an Italian Benedictine named Dom Bernardo Vincelli to fortify and restore weary monks. And the cherry brandy known as Maraska liqueur was invented by Dominican apothecaries in the early 16th century.</p>
<p>Nor was ingenuity in alcohol a male-only domain. Carmelite sisters once produced an extract called “<a href="http://www.herbrally.com/monographs/lemon-balm/">Carmelite water</a>” that was used as a herbal tonic. The nuns no longer make this elixir, but another concoction of the convent survived and went on to become one of Mexico’s most popular holiday liqueurs – Rompope. </p>
<p>Made from vanilla, milk and eggs, Rompope was invented by Clarist nuns from the Spanish colonial city of Puebla, located southeast of Mexico City. According to one account, the nuns used egg whites to give the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JqZkUC_7WQIC&pg=PT423&lpg=PT423&dq=ROMPOPE+nuns+convent+egg+whites+yolks&source=bl&ots=h2JgzxgkHB&sig=_nHVhycm68vYrgWLwNmFZALDVMQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwipiIfNvsHXAhVIrFQKHf_BDckQ6AEIPzAD#v=onepage&q=ROMPOPE%20nuns%20convent%20egg%20whites%20yolks&f=false">sacred art</a> in their chapel a protective coating. Not wishing the leftover yolks to go to waste, they developed the recipe for this festive refreshment.</p>
<h2>Health and community</h2>
<p>So why such an impressive record of alcoholic creativity among the religious? I believe there are two underlying reasons.</p>
<p>First, the conditions were right for it. Monastic communities and similar religious orders possessed all of the <a href="https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/alcohol-in-the-middle-ages/#_ednref3">qualities</a> necessary for producing fine alcoholic beverages. They had vast tracts of land for planting grapes or barley, a long institutional memory through which special knowledge could be handed down and perfected, a facility for teamwork and a commitment to excellence in even the smallest of chores as a means of glorifying God.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195244/original/file-20171117-19278-3qcurn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195244/original/file-20171117-19278-3qcurn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195244/original/file-20171117-19278-3qcurn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195244/original/file-20171117-19278-3qcurn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195244/original/file-20171117-19278-3qcurn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195244/original/file-20171117-19278-3qcurn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195244/original/file-20171117-19278-3qcurn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Historically, alcohol was seen to be promoting health.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFritz_Wagner_Ein_guter_Schluck.jpg">Fritz Wagner (1896-1939) (Dorotheum) , via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, it is easy to forget in our current age that for much of human history, alcohol was instrumental in promoting <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14037.html">health</a>. Water sources often carried dangerous pathogens, and so small amounts of alcohol would be mixed with water to kill the germs therein.</p>
<p>Roman soldiers, for example, were given a daily <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=LfRiXN5hhCUC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=%22wine+per+day+to+soldiers%22&source=bl&ots=vArw70Tv2k&sig=ML-X9Cg_fJVq7ox571zHYABqLOw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj72ILdv8HXAhVLy1QKHePgCMkQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=%22wine%20per%20day%20to%20soldiers%22&f=false">allowance of wine</a>, not in order to get drunk but to purify whatever water they found on campaign. And two bishops, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=R9i5BgAAQBAJ&pg=PT527&dq=%22Arnulf+of+Metz%22+plague+beer&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwikmY-PwMHXAhUHi1QKHdB2CMsQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=%22Arnulf%20of%20Metz%22%20plague%20beer&f=false">Saint Arnulf of Metz</a> and Saint <a href="https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/10/20/arnold-of-soissons-the-patron-saint-of-beer/">Arnold of Soissons</a>, are credited with saving hundreds from a plague because they admonished their flock to drink beer instead of water. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=A4EvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8&dq=history+of+whiskey+irish+monks&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjL94DAucHXAhVjxlQKHWdXAsQQ6AEIQDAE#v=onepage&q=history%20of%20whiskey%20irish%20monks&f=false">Whiskey</a>, herbal liqueurs and even bitters were likewise invented for medicinal reasons. </p>
<p>And if beer can save souls from pestilence, no wonder the Church has a special blessing for it that <a href="http://www.sanctamissa.org/en/resources/books-1962/rituale-romanum/54-blessings-of-things-designated-for-ordinary-use.html">begins</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“O Lord, bless this creature beer, which by Your kindness and power has been produced from kernels of grain, and may it be a health-giving drink for mankind.”</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87569/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Foley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For those wondering whether it is sinful to drink, even moderately, a scholar goes into the history of alcohol and its distillation to show how early monks and priests contributed to it.
Michael Foley, Associate Professor of Patristics, Baylor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/67519
2016-10-28T11:37:57Z
2016-10-28T11:37:57Z
How the ancient world invoked the dead to help the living
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143525/original/image-20161027-11239-5huerr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The dead wait to be ferried across the River Styx.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adolf_Hiremy-Hirschl,_Die_Seelen_des_Acheron.jpg">The Souls of Acheron (1898) by Adolf Hiremy Hirschl</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Though it may seem as if Halloween is a modern con trick designed to get us spending our hard-earned cash on an American celebration, this is not the case. In fact, dressing up, knocking on neighbours’ doors and asking for food at this time of year is a very old tradition. Communities on the British Isles were taking part in similar rituals as far back as <a href="http://www.livescience.com/40596-history-of-halloween.html">the 16th century</a>. </p>
<p>For centuries, people have believed this was the time when the boundary between our world and the spirit world became permeable. Terrifying outfits and specific rituals were designed and used to ward off or appease evil spirits roaming the earth around All Hallow’s Eve. But evidence has also been found of ordinary people, as early as the times of the ancient Greeks and Romans, using magical incantations throughout the year to call on those departed to help the living.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143527/original/image-20161027-11271-v94zhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143527/original/image-20161027-11271-v94zhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143527/original/image-20161027-11271-v94zhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143527/original/image-20161027-11271-v94zhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143527/original/image-20161027-11271-v94zhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143527/original/image-20161027-11271-v94zhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143527/original/image-20161027-11271-v94zhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lead tablets, found bound together, with magical inscriptions. Dated to 300–500 AD.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Magical_book_Kircherian_Terme.jpg">Marie-Lan Nguyen</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Though the Romans certainly invoked spirits for aid, they also felt the need to placate the dead. According to <a href="http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/OvidFastiBkFive.htm">the Roman poet Ovid</a>, at the Lemuria festival in May, the <em>pater familias</em> – that is the head of the household – walked around the house at midnight, throwing black beans on the floor to pacify any ancestral spirits who might be vengeful because they had not been buried.</p>
<p>The Romans thus had similar concerns regarding angry spirits, but, like the Greeks, they also saw the uses of those vengeful dead in their daily quest for happiness.</p>
<h2>Ancient incantations</h2>
<p>The Greeks and Romans were as anxious about their health and happiness as we are today. So other, more private – sometimes questionable – approaches were tried, and such practices became labelled as “magic” as early as the fifth century BC.</p>
<p>Magic was big business for the ancients – and though its professionals were often accused of being charlatans who were only after customers’ money, it thrived throughout antiquity. Spells were used for various purposes. Erotic spells, for example, cast to attract someone or control your love interest, were very popular. But they were also used to confound an opponent’s speech in court, make the horses you bet on win in the races, or curse a thief who stole your money. </p>
<p>The perceived success or failure of magic depended on the precise combination and execution of spell, ingredients, and ritual. Of paramount importance in the casting of a spell was acquiring assistance from the right supernatural entity. </p>
<p>Many people invoked the gods Zeus or Jupiter, arch angels, or demons such as the terrifying <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraxas">Abrasax</a>. But the angry dead offered equal potential: the Greeks and Romans believed that those who had died before their time, such as children or soldiers, were particularly restless and likely to offer help. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143655/original/image-20161028-15821-gbwbpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143655/original/image-20161028-15821-gbwbpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143655/original/image-20161028-15821-gbwbpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143655/original/image-20161028-15821-gbwbpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143655/original/image-20161028-15821-gbwbpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143655/original/image-20161028-15821-gbwbpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143655/original/image-20161028-15821-gbwbpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘I curse Tretia Maria and her life and mind and memory and liver and lungs mixed up together…’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACurse_tablet_BM_1934.11-5.1.jpg">Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lots of these spells, written on lead tablets, have been <a href="http://www.livescience.com/54285-curse-tablets-uncovered-in-greece.html">found in or near graves</a> in cemeteries, folded and often pierced several times.</p>
<p>In a collection of spells called the <a href="https://archive.org/stream/Papyri_Graecae_Magicae/Papyri_Graecae_Magicae_djvu.txt">Greek Magical Papyri</a>, one spell instructs the person wishing to create a spell of attraction:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Go quickly to where someone lies buried … spread a donkey’s hide under him at about sunset. Return home and he will actually be present and will stand beside you on that night … Say: “I adjure you, dead spirit, by the Destiny of Destinies, to come to me, [insert your name], on this day, on this night, and agree to the act of service of me. And if you don’t, expect other chastisements”.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Unwilling dead</h2>
<p>The reason the “chastisements” are mentioned in the spell above is that the dead were not always willing assistants. In his novel <em>Metamorphoses</em>, the Roman author Apuleius narrates how the Egyptian prophet Zatchlas was able to make the corpse of a young man come to life again so he might tell his relatives who was his murderer.</p>
<p>Once awake, however, the young man groaned: “Why, pray, do you restore me to the tasks of fleeting life? Desist now, I beg you, desist, and leave me in peace.” The young man finally succumbed to Zatchlas’s urging and informed his audience that his new bride had poisoned him.</p>
<p>The modern notion that those who have died before their time are eager to wreak havoc is thus not universally applicable. By means of the correct rituals, however, any spirit might be pacified or compelled to assist. </p>
<p>The modern Western world likes to think it is far removed from these Greek and Roman rituals – impervious to magical superstitions – and the restless dead confined to the cinema screen and Halloween costumes. But studying these past rituals can help us understand that these magic spells had a powerful function for the ancients, intended to last for many centuries.</p>
<p>More than anything, it demonstrates that it is not the dead that need to be feared, but the living who conjure them for their own nefarious gains.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67519/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evelien Bracke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
These days they are scary, but for the ancients, ghosts could be quite useful.
Evelien Bracke, Senior Lecturer in Classics, Swansea University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/51430
2015-11-30T14:00:02Z
2015-11-30T14:00:02Z
Why wine raises tricky problems for tackling excess drinking
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103490/original/image-20151127-11634-1q8xqjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Blooming Beaujolais</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&searchterm=wine&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=299562197">Jirateep Sancote</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Is it time to cut down? East Dunbartonshire, a local authority just north of Glasgow in Scotland, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-34915774">is launching</a> a simple initiative to encourage people to drink less. One hundred licensed premises have agreed to ensure that they offer wine in small 125ml glasses alongside their medium (175ml) and large (250ml) measures, taking us <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/wine/10547001/Fight-for-your-right-to-a-smaller-glass-of-wine.html">back to the days</a> when this quantity was the standard measure that was on sale. </p>
<p>Will it work? The UK, and Scotland in particular, is certainly much keener on wine than it used to be. <a href="http://www.healthscotland.com/documents/25918.aspx">We drink</a> 19% more of it per adult than in England and Wales, having more than doubled our consumption between 1994 and 2014 (it’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/may/26/alcohol-consumption-statistics">up by</a> about a third south of the border, <a href="http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2015/01/uk-wine-consumption-set-to-rebound-in-2015/">having dropped</a> a little in the past six years). Wine accounts for 31% of Scottish alcohol purchases, and we consume over four-fifths of it at home, meaning that the quantities we pour are very much under our own control. </p>
<p>This is obviously a problem for any initiative focused on the pub trade. The participating licensed premises could help stretch the benefits of the scheme by offering a translation of what a unit of alcohol means in the home setting, but it’s far from straightforward. </p>
<h2>Unit confusion</h2>
<p>The UK advice is that we should restrict our daily drinking to two to three units of alcohol for women and three to four units for men, but there is plenty of evidence to show that the public are confused by what exactly a “unit” means in relation to wine. In the <a href="http://www.natcen.ac.uk/our-research/research/scottish-social-attitudes/">2013 Scottish Social Attitudes survey</a>, for example, only half of adults correctly identified the number of units in a glass of wine, while only one in five knew the correct number in a bottle. Only around 40% of men and women could correctly recall the recommended daily consumption limits for their gender. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103491/original/image-20151127-11634-13qp9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103491/original/image-20151127-11634-13qp9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103491/original/image-20151127-11634-13qp9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103491/original/image-20151127-11634-13qp9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103491/original/image-20151127-11634-13qp9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103491/original/image-20151127-11634-13qp9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103491/original/image-20151127-11634-13qp9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103491/original/image-20151127-11634-13qp9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Supersize me’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=gQ0JEaIH0QHhIA74F7JA0A&searchterm=giant%20wine%20glass&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=108640157">Jarp2</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For some alcoholic drinks, it’s less confusing. For instance a pint of beer is typically two units and a half pint is typically one unit, while most spirit drinkers are probably aware that a spirit shot is one unit. These standard sizes provide a useful visual communication of the unit volume, subtly aiding drinkers trying to consume within the guidelines. It’s particularly useful for beer, where almost half is consumed in licensed premises. Like wine, spirits are mainly sold in shops, but at least they mostly have the same alcohol content. </p>
<p>Wine varies so much in alcohol content that it’s confusing enough in pubs – many of whom <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2805711/Pubs-refuse-sell-small-wine-One-seven-no-longer-offer-125ml-glass-despite-legal-requirement-so.html">either currently</a> don’t sell a 125ml glass or fail to make it clearly available on their menus. Meanwhile domestic wine glasses come in numerous shapes and sizes, and the fact that we normally drink wine at home means we are likely to continually top up our glass. </p>
<h2>Guideline grumbles</h2>
<p>There are also other caveats. The current responsible drinking guidelines have been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17513505">under debate lately</a>. It’s become apparent that the “one size” of message does not fit all. We ought to make distinctions between younger and older drinkers, those wishing to become pregnant, women who are pregnant or breastfeeding and so forth. The Royal College of Psychiatrists <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13863196">suggests that</a> over-65s should not drink more than 1.5 units a day, for instance. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103492/original/image-20151127-11631-lwkgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103492/original/image-20151127-11631-lwkgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103492/original/image-20151127-11631-lwkgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103492/original/image-20151127-11631-lwkgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103492/original/image-20151127-11631-lwkgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103492/original/image-20151127-11631-lwkgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103492/original/image-20151127-11631-lwkgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103492/original/image-20151127-11631-lwkgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Enough already’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=xHY2yoS-CZAxpMw1p-Kmqg&searchterm=old%20man%20alcohol&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=247123918">Budimir Jevtic</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When you look at the three wine measures on sale in the East Dunbartonshire pilot, you realise the problems this causes in practice. Suppose a bottle has 12% alcohol content. For the three glass sizes potentially for sale in East Dunbartonshire pubs, it translates as follows: 125ml = 1.5 units, 175ml = 2.1 units and 250ml = 3 units. But for a 14% wine, the biggest glass contains 3.5 units, meaning it is above the daily limit for all women. Even the smallest glass of this stronger wine exceeds the alcohol intake recommended for all over-65s.</p>
<p>It is obviously impractical to propose that wine be sold in one-unit volumes equivalent to the shot and half pint of beer, but the volumes currently sold in pubs are not helping. We could make the 125ml glass the standard pub measure for wine rather than designating it as the small glass. Alongside this, we could promote the phrase “125 equals one point five”. </p>
<p>And while it’s all very well having lots of licensed premises selling smaller wine measures, you need to make sure they are sold at proportionate prices. Should the 250ml glass represent better value, this sort of scheme may backfire. Making sure the scheme is promoted properly in each pub is also important. </p>
<p>In sum, the East Dunbartonshire scheme is undoubtedly useful publicity in Scotland’s efforts to reduce the harms associated with alcohol. Once the effects have been evaluated, it will be interesting to see the results.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51430/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan receives funding from ARUK, CSO, NHS Lothian and Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems</span></em></p>
When it comes to getting us to quaffing less, the bottle of plonk is a surprisingly awkward customer.
Jan Gill, Associate Professor of Physiology , Edinburgh Napier University
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