Eating the bodies of relatives, marrying the spirit of the dead to dolls, or dying after having bitten a corpse sounds to us like completely incomprehensible actions.

Yet, for more than a century, anthropologists have been living in close contact with populations all across the world, studying their attitudes toward death, and trying to understand their logic and meaning. Here is a selection of the strangest practices and beliefs about death that have been documented by anthropologists during their explorations.

10 The ‘Wine Of The Corpse’ In Borneo

Southeast Asia is widely known for its elaborate (and for a Western audience, sometimes unsettling) funeral customs. In his research, anthropologist Peter Metcalf noticed that the Berawan population in Borneo disposed of corpses with a method similar to that adopted for preparing rice wine, a local drink.

Just like rice, dead bodies are washed, laid out in front of a communal longhouse, and stored in big jars.^[1] The fluids of decomposition are allowed to flow out through a bamboo pipe and are collected in another vase. Meanwhile, the solid part of the body is laid to rest in a cemetery.

A similar treatment of dead bodies, centered on the separation between solid and liquid parts, was described by Robert Hertz among the Ngaju of Borneo. Hertz writes, “Relatives, especially the widow, are compelled either daily or at fixed dates to collect the liquid produced by the decomposition of the flesh, to smear it on their own body, or to mix it into their food.”

9 Compassionate Cannibalism In The Amazonian Rain Forest

The practice of cannibalism has fascinated anthropologists and explorers for centuries. For a long time, “cannibal” was used as shorthand to define peoples and cultures that were thought to be “uncivilized.” Anthropologist Beth Conklin described at length the practice of “compassionate cannibalism” among the Wari tribe of the western Amazonian rain forest.

To consume the flesh of a deceased relative was considered a sign of respect among the Wari. The earth was thought to be dirty and polluting, and burying a relative in the ground was deemed highly inappropriate.

At the same time, the body’s persistence and integrity would cause distress in those related to the deceased as they would keep on thinking about the corpse and the person’s absence. Therefore, people wanted to be eaten. Only in that way would the attachment to the dead body be diminished, allowing the survivors to go on with their lives.

Interestingly, Conklin noticed that the most distressing aspect of such cannibalistic rituals for the participants was not the eating of the corpse but its dismemberment before roasting it. In that moment, the body lost all resemblance to the person whom the bereaved had known and loved.^[2]

8 Doll-Bride Marriage In Japan

Anthropologist Ellen Schattschneider describes a funeral custom which began during World War II in northern Japan. In that period, many young men died before marrying and having the chance to procreate. This was considered a “bad death.” The spirits of these dead would be restless and return to haunt their families.^[3]

Even today, if unmarried children die, rituals must be performed to ensure the rest of their souls. A marriage is thus performed between the spirit of the dead (symbolized by a photograph) and a spirit bride, represented by a doll or figurine. These objects are put in a box, which can be preserved for a long time. The spirit bride will then accompany the dead person for 30 years until the deceased finally reaches the other world.

Similar behavior, involving not dolls but the illegally stolen corpses of young unmarried women, has reportedly occurred in China.

7 Sky Burial In Mongolia

For a long time in Mongolia, people would leave their dead to decompose in the open air. When a person died, a good spot was chosen, usually near a river populated by animals and birds which consumed the body as quickly as possible. For several months after the “sky burial,” the living would avoid the place so as not to witness the decomposition of the corpse.^[4]

In 1955, funeral reform was enacted because the socialist administration considered sky burials to be inappropriate in a modern and urbanized society. The local population often resisted the newly imposed practice of interring the dead in the ground as the earth was believed to be the domain of evil spirits.

As reported by anthropologist Gregory Delaplace, the funeral reform had mixed success. Although most people are buried today rather than left to decompose in the open air, “cemeteries do not have the appearance wished by the reformed. They never became the neat gardens of remembrance [ . . . ] hoped for by the government. Until today, cemeteries resembled more vast and vague grounds [ . . . ] apparently without order.”

6 The Stigma Of Death While Alive In Japan

A Japanese cultural trait that has long interested anthropologists is the figure of the muenbotoke (“disconnected spirit”). These are the spirits of people who died childless or without having family members to ensure their commemoration in ancestral tombs by performing rituals on their graves after their deaths.

People who have the prospect of dying “unrelated” suffer from a great social stigma while still alive. So, new funeral practices have emerged in recent years to alleviate the suffering caused by such a condition.

Anthropologist Jieun Kim documented the lives of the inhabitants of a quarter in Yokohama, which is mostly peopled by the homeless or individuals who may die in solitude without relatives willing to take care of their bodies. There, charitable associations have been created to ensure that medical personnel or volunteers monitor the inhabitants frequently so that their corpses can be promptly cremated and tended to with proper rituals at the moment of death.^[5]

The remains are then put in a common grave where volunteers perform regular memorial services, allowing the spirits of the deceased to find their final peace and helping them to reach the respected status of “ancestor” despite the absence of family members willing to honor their souls.

5 Constant Conversations With The Dead In India

When we think about the ways in which people try to establish “contact” with the dead, we tend to imagine a sensational event like a seance or an obscure, vague conversation with a spirit medium. This was certainly not the case among the Sora tribe in India.

As documented by anthropologist Piers Vitebsky, the Sora had the unusual custom of having prolonged conversations with their dead, which continued for years after the moment of death. These occurred through the mediation of a funeral shaman in a state of trance.

The contents and timing of such conversations are described by Vitebsky as follows:

In a large village of 500 people, a dialogue may take place from about five times a week to about 10 times a day. [ . . . ] Dialogues contain a quest for a verdict or for an increase in certainty. [ . . . ] People seek the cause of a patient’s illness, [ . . . ] while at a funeral, they seek understanding about the cause of the victim’s death.^[6]

In a recent book, Vitebsky described the waning of this practice. Deemed primitive and superstitious by present-day generations, extensive conversations with the dead no longer take place with such frequency as the Sora shift toward Hindu or Christian beliefs.

4 Biting The Dead And Restraining The Living Among The LoDagaa In West Africa

In a classical (and rather intense) anthropological text, Jack Goody analyzed the funeral customs of the LoDagaa of West Africa. After death, the body would be washed and anointed by old women.

If the deceased was a man, the widow would be prevented from helping out in these operations as it was feared that she might commit suicide by biting the corpse. In fact, it was believed that any contact with dirt on the dead body might be lethal and that a wife might take her life this way to follow her husband in the Land of the Dead.

After the body was prepared, it was taken out of the house through a special hole made into a wall of the courtyard and placed on a funeral platform. There, it could stay for months until all friends and kin, even coming from afar, could view it.^[7]

According to complex rules, the close relatives of the deceased who showed intense emotional reactions during the funeral ritual were then restrained using hide, fiber, and strings as it was feared that they might harm themselves or attempt suicide. The latter was a common way of showing extreme suffering during funeral rituals.

3 The Adoption Of Enemy Ghosts In Vietnam

The Vietnam War left great scars in the memories of both the American and Vietnamese people. Many missing corpses of fighters from both sides still lie unburied where they fell. We often hear mentions of the “ghost of the Vietnam War,” but in Vietnam, this sentence means what it says.

Anthropologist Heonik Kwon has observed ritual practices through which local inhabitants establish relationships with ghosts in ways that go beyond the side for which the deceased fought during the war. Some Vietnamese people frequently build shrines and make offerings to the souls of dead American soldiers who died without proper burial rituals and thus became wandering, restless souls.

The ghosts of war dead can be dangerous or mischievous. (The anthropologist heard stories about a soldier from a previous war who scared young women or about ghosts entering the bodies of the living, which caused them to fall sick.) Sometimes, these ghosts become as important as local divinities.^[8]

The locals make offerings, adopt these restless souls by honoring them, and believe that the living reside near the dead. In this way, local inhabitants establish close relationships with these wandering ghosts, which are similar to those among family members.

Interestingly, a common form of paying respect to these spirits is to give them “ghost money,” namely offering replica dollars which are thought to help the wandering dead to overcome their state of suffering.

2 Voluntary Death Among The Siberian Chukchi

“Voluntary death,” the practice of being willingly killed by family members due to old age or illness, has been widely documented in Siberia. Already in the 18th century, an explorer reported the following about the people of the northeastern region:

In the year 1737, an old father admonished his son to hang him from the balagan [dwelling] because he was no longer useful. The son did; but because the strap broke on the first attempt, the father fell down and scolded his son for being clumsy. To correct his mistake and give better proof of his obedience and cleverness, the son hanged the father a second time with a double strap. It seems that the hope of getting to the lower, better world sooner has very much stimulated the Itelmen to suicide.^[9]

As described by anthropologist Rane Willerslev, voluntary death is still practiced today among certain groups of Chukchi people. There, the act of killing a relative who asks to die is regarded as both an honorable and terrible act.

On the one hand, ancestors are pleased to be joined by the spirit of the dead. But on the other hand, causing the death of a relative remains a painful ordeal. According to Russian law, voluntary death still counts as murder (and has led to people being prosecuted and imprisoned). So the practice is now kept secret.

1 Child Death By Soul Loss In Bali

In Bali, the death of children (and sometimes of adults) has often been attributed to a sickness known as kesambet. This is thought to result from a sudden fright or shock, which causes the soul to become detached from the body.

As reported by anthropologist Unni Wikan, the illness can be passed from the mother to the child through breast milk “infected” by the sudden shock experienced by the mother. The baby will start crying continuously, get a fever, and lose appetite—often with lethal consequences.

The precautions taken against the risk of kesambet are to control one’s emotional reactions and the environment in which children live by never exposing them to loud noises and turmoil. As local women say, “It is so hard to be a mother with us. A mother must never be angry, never be sad, always control her emotions.”^[10]

At the time that Unni Wikan undertook her fieldwork in Bali, almost half of the deaths of children were attributed by the locals to this syndrome.

Plenty of truths pretend to be mysteries or facts. Dedicated researchers whittle away at puzzles, sometimes making great new finds without solving the whole shebang.

However, real progress means ousting the pretenders—those pesky facts that convince scholars of their authenticity for years when, in reality, they are mere misconceptions. From a dangerous vitamin everyone loves to herbivores eating their friends, the simplest of facts are no longer so simple.

10 The Aging Plateau

A widely accepted concept is late-life mortality deceleration. According to this theory, some people get so old that even their aging slows down. This “aging plateau” means that, statistically, a 105-year-old has no greater chance of dying than a person who is 90. The process is not fully understood or even unanimously explained.^[1]

In 2018, the plateau was challenged. Opposing researchers claimed that the age surveys supporting the “phenomenon” were faulty. There was a good chance that some seniors had their ages recorded incorrectly. A deliberate demonstration showed that just a few incorrect entries could skew the outcome in a big way.

An actual study done on the life span of Italians found evidence of the plateau but also matched a hypothetical outcome if 1 in 500 people had their ages wrongly listed. However, each would need to be grossly misreported and the study worked with a hypothetical scenario, not actual survey mistakes. Either way, somebody is wrong.

9 China’s Ozone Problem

In 2013, China’s smog problem was so bad that skylines vanished from cities. Within four years, the country achieved the remarkable feat of lowering eastern China’s concentrations of PM 2.5 particles by 40 percent. These ultrafine boogers are dangerous to the human respiratory system.

However, the progressive step turned dark. In a move that nobody could predict, ozone levels increased in the cities. High up in the sky, ozone is great. At ground level, it qualifies as air pollution. In fact, ozone is a really bad thing to inhale.

A survey found that China’s megacities, including Beijing and Shanghai, were swamped with this potent pollution. The reason? The well-meaning attempt to remove the PM 2.5 particles also eradicated the very thing that soaked up the chemicals that produce ozone. All this time, the PM 2.5 fog had acted like a giant sponge that kept it under control.^[2]

8 Nun With Blue Teeth

Around AD 1100, a nun died at a monastery in Dalheim, Germany. When researchers recently examined her skull, they found something odd. The woman, who was between 45 and 60, had blue stains on her teeth.

X-ray spectroscopy revealed that the flecks were lapis lazuli, a semiprecious stone that was prized during the Middle Ages. It was the main ingredient in ultramarine, a rare and expensive blue paint. Ultramarine was used solely for the lavish decoration of religious books. Only the most skilled painters were allowed to use it.

The pigment saturated layers of the nun’s dental plaque thanks to years of licking paintbrushes. This technique was known to be used by painters when they faced particularly detailed work. However, it is the first physical proof of the habit.^[3]

Additionally, it proved that nuns also worked on religious manuscripts, a domain thought to belong to monks. Since lapis lazuli only came from mines in Afghanistan 4,800 kilometers (3,000 mi) away, it also revealed that Germany and Asia had extensive trade links almost 1,000 years ago.

7 Extra Denisovan Pulses

Scientists have known for a long time that humans interbred with two ancient hominids. Although the Neanderthals and Denisovans are extinct as individual species, their DNA continues in certain populations today. Our gene map shows two “pulses,” or sudden concentrations of hominid interbreeding. Both happened in Siberia’s Altai region thousands of years ago.

In 2018, a study searched for a third interbreeding event by examining the genetic codes of 5,500 volunteers from Asia, Europe, and Oceania. They found enough foreign hominid DNA to prove that Siberia was not the only place where humans absorbed pulses. In a surprising twist, Denisovan influence occurred twice outside the Altai Mountains.

Barely any fossils of these rare hominids exist. Yet, back in the day, they were plentiful enough to mingle heavily with humans who traveled across South Asia. The groundbreaking study found a Denisovan pulse to the north in living Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese. Another pulse showed up to the south, likely the result of humans meeting Denisovans while migrating to Papua New Guinea.^[4]

6 Paternal Mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondria nest inside cells and also provide them with energy. As a rule, people only inherit their mother’s mitochondrial DNA. The father’s is destroyed after conception.

In 2018, a new study challenged this concrete belief. Although maternal inheritance is a given, it would appear that the father’s mitochondrial DNA can do three things—avoid the next generation completely, pass on a tiny amount, or almost entirely eclipse the mother’s. This mercurial behavior challenges everything researchers know about this genetic material.

The Cincinnati study found 17 people who inherited it from both parents, and this finally lends some credence to a 2002 case from Denmark. This man appeared to have inherited 90 percent of his father’s mitochondrial DNA, but everyone thought it was a technical error.^[5]

Interestingly, it could be a family thing. The Cincinnati hospital also found the biparental inheritance in 10 people over three generations from the same family.

5 Meat-Eating Hares

Canada’s snowshoe hares are supposed to be herbivores. A recent study accidentally uncovered the hairy truth. Not only do they eat meat, but the hares are also cannibals.

Researchers rigged a remote trail near the Alaskan border with cameras. They put out hare carcasses as bait and hoped to capture photos of predators scavenging on them.

Over a period of 2.5 years, 20 dead hares were consumed by their living brethren. For the first time, the photographs captured this unexpected, if not shocking scavenging behavior in hares. Researchers also found that winter-hungry hares were not picky about the species. In one case, they even ate their main predator—a dead Canada lynx.^[6]

This meaty turn appears to be a survival strategy rather than preference. During the summer, snowshoe hares nibble exclusively on vegetation. Winter turns the region into one of the coldest on Earth. When foliage becomes scarce in such conditions, any protein is welcome.

Bizarrely, the hares also consumed feathers from dead birds. The reason remains unknown as feathers offer little nutrition.

4 How Tornadoes Really Form

Conventional belief teaches that a tornado forms inside the clouds and then grows a funnel down to the ground. A study released in 2018 told a different story. Tornadoes start on the ground.

For years, climatologists chased the deadly swirls and four spawned by rare supercell storms changed the game. Tornado intensity ranges from EF1 to EF5. A pair was recorded in 2012 in Kansas—both babies at EF1. An EF3 hit Oklahoma in 2011. A monster swept through El Reno in 2013. This EF5 was the widest tornado ever recorded, measuring 4.2 kilometers (2.6 mi).

Researchers had a hilltop view of the giant which allowed them to capture the moment of its birth. The high-tech equipment found signs that the tornado formed 10 meters (32 ft) above the ground. Droves of storm chasers provided photos of the event, which also supported the finding.^[7]

This prompted a closer look at the data. Soon, it became clear that wind rotation began on the ground long before anything churned in the clouds. The other three tornadoes showed similar data.

3 Lizard That Breathes Underwater

A group of lizards called anoles fascinate researchers so much that thousands of studies have been done on them in the past 50 years. Despite being thoroughly studied, one species did something so strange that scientists had no answer. The Costa Rican river anole disappears underwater for up to 15 minutes. The best assumption was that they could hold their breath really well.

In 2018, biologists worked with filmmakers to try to solve the mystery. What they captured was astonishing. For the first time, the footage revealed that the anoles did not stop breathing once they had sunk to the bottom.^[8]

Instead, the female they filmed had a bubble on her head. For 10 minutes, it grew and shrank repeatedly, almost as if she were recycling the air within. This behavior had never been seen in lizards or any species with a spine. As astonishing as it was to find an anole with its very own “diver’s tank,” scientists do not know how the oxygen is stored or exactly how they tap into the bubble.

2 Vitamin D Is Not A Vitamin

Vitamin D is the darling of thousands. For decades, governments and doctors encouraged swallowing more of this wonder vitamin, linking it to a host of benefits and disease prevention. In recent times, scientists focused on a particular benefit—the prevention of bone fractures. As the largest study of its kind, it involved over 500,000 people and 188,000 fractures. No evidence was found that vitamin D stopped breaks from happening.

The truth about this supplement is scary. It is not a true vitamin but an unsafe steroid. The popularity comes from outdated studies in the 1980s and marketing skills of food manufacturers and vitamin companies.^[9]

Apart from taking increasingly stronger dosages, people get extra vitamin D through exposure to sunshine and food. For this reason, clinics see a rise in overdose cases. At the lower end of the problem, nobody really knows what qualifies as a vitamin D deficiency. Ironically, several studies have shown that dosages above 800 IU actually increased the chance of a fracture.

1 Mona Lisa‘s Gaze

So many people have claimed that Leonardo da Vinci’s painting has stared at them that the phenomenon became known as the “Mona Lisa effect.” Her gaze is said to follow observers no matter where they are in the room.

When researchers recently worked on artificial intelligence programs, they wanted the avatars to really look at people. Due to her famous “effect,” the Mona Lisa was included in the study. At one point, the team realized that she was not gazing soulfully at any of them.

To confirm this, they asked volunteers to view the painting on a computer. A ruler in front of the screen carried numbers, and participants picked the one which intersected with her stare. The ruler was then moved to a second point, and the exercise was repeated.^[10]

The two sets of answers gave researchers an angle. Mona Lisa does not stare at anyone. Her gaze is 15.4 degrees to the right of observers. The real mystery is why people continue to believe otherwise.

Throughout the majority of anthropological history, a council of gods and divine forces dictated the affairs of humankind. The following items capture life as it was when the world was mystical and magic still real.

10Scrolls For Tortured Souls

Surveyors in the Serbian city of Kostolac have discovered a forgotten burial ground that harkens the former glory of Viminacium, a Roman outpost from the fourth century BC that at its peak boasted 40,000 inhabitants.

The site belched up a few 2,000-year-old skeletons and also two mystifying leaden amulets. Inside the amulets, they found adorably tiny scrolls of gold and silver. Commonly referred to as “curse tablets,” such spells generally invoke otherworldly powers to affect or afflict the caster’s friends, family, or foes.

The mere presence of magical scrolls suggests the amulet bearers died grisly deaths. Such arcana are buried with the violently murdered, as it’s believed that tortured souls are most likely to encounter the demon middle-men that pass messages on to higher after-worldly offices.

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely these particular scrolls will be deciphered anytime soon. Thanks to an inconvenient confluence of culture, the alphabet is Greek but the language is Aramaic, offering a seemingly uncrackable linguistic nut.

9Galilean Tomb Magic

Tomb robbing has plagued humanity throughout its history of entombing. Hollywood-style booby traps are infeasible, so the denizens of Southern Galilee inscribed curses onto the surfaces at the Beit She’arim necropolis.

Dating to the early centuries AD, the catacombs bear markings in a variety of languages, including Greek, Hebrew, Palmyrene, and Aramaic, the universal lingo of the Near East. Roman and pagan influences are present as well, like the sarcophagi that populate a burial trove known as the Cave of Coffins, a practice borrowed from Romans.

The messages throughout wish the dead an agreeable resurrection, yet another tradition not inherent to Jewish beliefs. Magical spells in Greek adorn the walls and tombs, preferring protection and peace to the reposed and invoking poxes on any who disturb the sacred bones.

8The Catalhoyuk Statuette

Turkey’s most fruitful Neolithic excavation site is Catalhoyuk, the remains of a settlement established circa 7,500 BC and lasting nearly two millennia before its dissolution. It has relinquished a range of archaeological goodies, from the household to the mystical, including a recently discovered 7-inch, marble statuette of a woman.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the Neolithic woman boasts a more substantial figure compared to the female representations of other cultures and times. Similar figurines, though not as large, well-preserved, or delicately crafted, have been found throughout Europe and the Middle East.

Researchers previously ascribed them as fertility goddesses, but a new point of view argues a more terrestrial influence. Instead of goddesses of any kind, the sculptures may immortalize the community’s respected, elderly women.

The egalitarian community here respected its elders as well as the concept of corpulence, because obesity designated a more distinguished and sedentary clerical or bureaucratic career.

7Re-Used Roman Coffin

In spite of a belief in hexes and pervading fear of sacrilege, coffin recycling was apparently A-OK for Roman Britons, according to a grave site at Dorset Quarry in England. Here, archaeologists discovered an open-faced stone sarcophagus, presenting the skeleton of a man who died mysteriously sometime around 1,500–2,000 years ago.

Only 100 or so such burials have popped up across the former Roman Brittania, including 11 others at the quarry, suggesting the individual in question, who died aged 20–30 years old, likely achieved some form of high status to deserve such an unusually dignified send-off.

However, this belief is somewhat at odds with the burial itself. The coffin is too small for its 177-centimeter (5’10″) inhabitant, whose feet have been bent back to accommodate the one-size-too-small coffin. Researchers believe the sarcophagus reused like some grisly pass-me-down.

6Moche Ritual Cat Claws

Renowned temple builders and metalworkers, the agriculturally adept Moche populated northern Peru from AD 100–800. Recently, archaeologists discovered a stupefying pair of metal cat claws in a tomb at the former Moche capital.

The grave, at the Huaca de la Luna (Temple of the Moon) dig site in Trujillo, also surrendered a man’s body and assorted finery, including a mask, bronze earrings, copper scepter, and mixed ceramics. It’s doubtful that the claws served as weaponry and more likely that they carried mystical value, possibly advertising their owner’s nobility or societal influence.

Like their Pan-American neighbors, the Moche enjoyed their own brutal traditions. It’s believed that two warriors squared off in costumed ritual combat, with the winner receiving the costume and claws while the loser earned the privilege of being sacrificed.

5Shamanic Animal Bone Burial

A 12,000-year-old Natufian grave site in Galilee reveals a laborious, six-stage internment process fit for an evil witch.

Of the nearly 30 bodies found inside the burial cave near the Hilazon River, one presumably belonged to a female shaman. It was surrounded by an embarrassment of animal parts, including a bovine tailbone, an eagle wing, a pig leg, a leopard pelvis, 86 tortoise shells, deer bones, and a human foot to boot. The burial process began with oval grave and lined with plaster and stone slabs, upon which several different layers of animal parts and flint tools were layered, followed by the woman’s body, then a final garnish of more bones and a triangular stone slab to seal the grave.

The process is unexpectedly intricate for the period. Though maybe we should be less surprised, because these same Levant-dwelling Natufians were among history’s first civilizations to ditch the nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

4The Vestal Virgin Hairdo

Even more so than today, hairstyles in ancient Rome expressed identity. Personal factors such as age, gender, and station in life dictated one’s hairdo, which doubled as a societal nametag to visually designate one’s role and rank.

Most styles are lost forever to history, but at least one has been revived courtesy of self-proclaimed hair-chaeologist Janet Stephens. Inspired by Roman busts in museums, Stephens spent seven years studying a style known as the seni crines, a Roman staple that consisted of six braids.

The seni crines was the notorious ‘do that adorned the crowns of Rome’s famed vestal virgins, the celibate devotees of the hearth goddess Vesta, and spiritual tenders of the eternal Roman flame.

3Medusa Good-Luck Charm

The image of Medusa, the serpent-haired Gorgon with a petrifying gaze, is synonymous with evildoing and general villainy. But it wasn’t always so, and some even regarded Medusa as a harbinger of good luck.

Like the inhabitants of Antiochia ad Cragum, a first-century Roman city in southern Turkey that hosted the spectrum of Roman conveniences, including an organized, colonnaded street grid, bathhouses, shops, and a rich artistic culture. Within the remnants of the ruined outpost, archaeologists discovered a marble Medusa head.

The decoration served as a Pagan apotropaic charm, intended to ward off evil and imbue the settlement with divine protectorship. Myriad similar sculptures adorned the city, though were destroyed by the Christians who smashed a majority of the Pagan iconography to bits.

2Monument To The River God

Ancient life was ruled by a compulsion to appease the gods, who communicated with the mortal world through various mediums. So when the river god Harpasos appeared to Flavius Ouliades in a dream almost 2,000 years ago, it was like a direct message from the heavens.

To commemorate the apparition Ouliades erected a marble shrine next to the AkCay River in southeastern Turkey, hoping to invoke Harpasos’s blessing for a fruitful harvest and flood-free season.

According to researchers, the scene depicted might portray a particular traditional myth: Hercules’s son, Bargasos, defeating a maleficent river monster in hopes of summoning the riparian deity. Alternatively, the image may pay tribute to divine hero Hercules himself, commemorating his slaying of the many-headed hydra.

1Egyptian Spells Of Manipulation

The ancient Egyptian arsenal of magic contained invocations for every terrestrial desire, especially in the arena of love. Spells ranged from the hopeful to the overtly evil, as in the case of two recently deciphered papyri from Oxyrhynchus.

Written in Greek some 1,800 years ago by an unknown mage, both spells promise varying levels of mind control. One spell claims to subjugate its male victim to the whims of the wielder, while the other spell is female-specific, capable of “burning a woman’s heart” until she falls in love with the caster.

The one-size-fits-all spells are open-ended, written to be wielded when and where the occasion strikes. The love-sick caster only needs to insert a name and Bam! Their beloved is now cursed with debilitating fits of passions.

People who lived in the past had some pretty crazy ideas about the world. There was a time when no one was safe from being accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake, and people refused to sail across the Atlantic for fear of falling off the edge of the world. Today, we can laugh at our ancestors for actually believing this junk, but their beliefs about medicine and the human body make the Salem Witch Trials and Flat Earth Theory look as normal and boring as a folded blanket.

10The Tapeworm Diet

A little over 100 years ago, society started giving women the idea that they need to be super thin, but it wasn’t easy for all women to drop the pounds fast. The medical industry saw fit to help these women with diet pills containing tapeworms. It took everyone a while to realize that while tapeworms do cause weight loss, they can also cause diarrhea, vitamin deficiencies, insomnia, and malnutrition.

Today, no one is sure if this practice really existed. The only evidence of tapeworm diet pills are old advertisements and rumors. However, these advertisements do indicate that whether or not these diet pills actually contained tapeworms, people wanted them to. Although the sale of tapeworms is now banned in America, there are reports of people buying tapeworms as diet aides online. Inevitably, these people just end up getting sick.

9Bat Blood Cures Blindness

The tropical, marshy environment along the Nile River made eye infections a common problem among the ancient Egyptians. They had to concoct some sort of cure to combat this complaint, and one of the solutions was dripping bat blood into their eyes.

The logic behind this cure isn’t actually all that crazy. The Egyptians thought since bats flew around at night, they must have had fantastic eyesight, and their blood might contain magical, eyesight-restoring properties. Of course, we now know that bats have horrible eyesight and only know where they are going thanks to echolocation.

8Having Sex With Virgins Cures STDs

By the 1500s, syphilis had become a big problem all across Europe. People soon realized that the disease spread through sex. Their understanding went badly wrong, however, when it was decided that the way to get rid of syphilis was to have sex with a virgin.

People believed at the time that those who had syphilis were diseased by their sexual misconduct and virgins possessed a powerful purity. As a result, by the 1800s, people infected with syphilis were having sex with virgins as a cure. The fault in this method soon became apparent when even more people contracted syphilis.

Mercury was also believed to rid people of this pox. They bathed in mercury and rubbed mercury ointments onto their skin, often resulting in death from mercury poisoning. Nevertheless, it was used through the 20th century to cure syphilis, but all it really did was cause tooth loss, nerve damage, and death.

7Cannibalism Cures Everything

As crazy as it sounds, it was shockingly common in Renaissance Europe to use cured human flesh as a cure for countless ailments, including epilepsy, nausea, and the common cold. Many people, including royals and priests, ate human meat and rubbed human fat on their bodies. Some even crafted delectable marmalades made with human blood. Sometimes they didn’t even bother cooking the blood and drank it like a fine wine instead. Treatments that involved human blood and flesh became almost as popular as herbal medicines in the 16th and 17th centuries.

European cannibalism was probably inspired by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Greeks, who followed Galenic medicine, believed illnesses caused an unbalanced body and the only way the body could regain equilibrium was if the sick person ate healthy body parts corresponding to their particular ailment. For example, if you had a headache, you could nibble on some powdered skull to stop the pain. Meanwhile, the Romans started the trend of drinking human blood to cure epilepsy. They believed that untimely deaths left unused energy and life in the body, which could be captured by drinking the blood of fallen gladiators.

European folks eased themselves into cannibalism slowly. First, they ate the powdered remains of stolen Egyptian mummies. Later on, they consumed pulverized skull powder before finally upgrading to eating human flesh. They mostly ate the bodies of dead beggars, lepers, and executed prisoners. Just like the Romans, they thought they could gain the years that should have been left of these people’s lives. This idea persisted for an astonishing length of time, but in the 1700s, most people finally stopped calling cannibalism “medicine.”

6Women Had Roving Uteruses

The belief of the wandering womb originated from the ancient Greeks, who thought uteruses traveled around women’s bodies to follow good scents and run away from bad ones. Overwork and sexual abstinence was also thought to contribute to the womb’s movement.

The wandering womb was said to cause an array of physical and emotional ailments for women, which were were lumped under the catch-all term of “hysteria.” Symptoms of hysteria might include lethargy, headaches, vertigo, choking, suffocation, and heartburn. Even though men were acknowledged to have similar symptoms, it was never considered that their sexual organs were the cause. There were two solutions for troublesome traveling womb: One could lure the womb back home by inserting pleasant-smelling vaginal suppositories and smelling or swallowing something nasty (sometimes including feces), or simply get pregnant.

It took society well over 2,000 years to finally let go of the idea of the wandering womb. Even though the concept had mostly faded from medicine by the Enlightenment, hysteria was still regarded as a genuine phenomenon hundreds of years later. By the 1700s, the disease was blamed on women’s suggestible and damaged brains. This idea persisted until the mid-1900s.

5Penises Should Be Cultivated Like Houseplants

Back in the day, people used something called the “theory of humors” to explain medical conditions and the state of the human body. The theory was that since the world was composed of four elements (earth, air, water, and fire), there were four corresponding states of the human body (cold, dry, moist, and hot). Men were believed to have warm, dry bodies, which allowed them to grow penises. Women, however, were cold and wet like frigid swamps, so they lacked the proper conditions to grow penises.

You would think that the ancient Greeks—the same civilization that introduced geometry and democracy—would have known that plants grow best with warmth from the Sun and moisture from water, but they seem to have ignored the importance of moisture with this belief. Furthermore, vaginas are not exactly known for their icy temperatures.

4Spiderwebs Combat Malaria

A few hundred years ago, malaria was a devastating diagnosis with a high mortality rate and no known cure. Before quinine and modern medicines were implemented, people decided that the answer to the yellow fever was consuming the silky strands of protein that come out of spider abdomens.

Of course, they weren’t just sitting around gnawing on spiderwebs—that would be barbaric. Instead, they tucked the webs inside tablets to give to people who were suffering from malaria. Surprisingly enough, this did absolutely nothing, so to make the spiderweb cure more potent, sick people were instructed to eat actual spiders in butter in addition to the web pills. Somehow, that also failed. The Italians had a particular cure for malaria that was just as bizarre and ineffective: carrying around a spider enclosed in a walnut shell.

Luckily, people no longer have to eat spiders and their webs to cure malaria. After quinine was first introduced to Europe in the 1600s, the ineffective spiderweb cure became obsolete.

3Smoking Tobacco Cures Asthma And Cancer

When Europeans arrived in the Americas and first made contact with the natives, they found tobacco. They observed the natives smoking tobacco during religious celebrations and for medical purposes, so they took a small amount back to Europe. By the mid-1500s, the Europeans figured out how to ship enough tobacco from the New World for mass consumption, and everyone decided they should smoke it.

Tobacco became wildly popular in only a few decades. It took even less time for people to decide that it was a sacred healing herb that could cure all of their ailments, despite a lack of any supporting evidence. One doctor, Nicolas Monardes, claimed that tobacco could cure 36 different health problems, including cancer. People even thought smoking cured asthma. These ideas prevailed through the 1920s.

Doctors didn’t start noticing that smoking caused health issues until the 1930s. A few decades later, they finally figured out that smoking caused and exacerbated many diseases, including asthma and cancer.

2Elves Cause Illness

Whether you’re more familiar with the elves at Santa’s workshop who build toys or the ones who live in trees and bake delicious cookies, every image you’ve ever had of elves is about to be destroyed. These quaint and innocent renderings of elves wouldn’t have existed if you lived in Europe during the Middle Ages. That’s because people believed that elves were in league with the devil and sought to make humans sick by shooting them with tiny arrows.

As horrifying as it is to imagine demonic elves wielding miniature bows of destruction, more than one group of people believed this. Scandinavians believed in dark elves who created endless mischief, mostly spending their days causing devastating diseases. The English also believed elves caused disease, while the Scottish believed that arrows shot by elves caused internal pain and had the ability to afflict livestock in addition to humans. Those afflicted by elf-shots were treated as though they were possessed by a demon: They smoked herbs to expel evil spirits, prayed, and drank holy water to banish diseases caused by elves.

1The Healing Properties Of Dog Poop

It’s safe to say that all of us have had a sore throat at some point in time, and we have all sought some sort of relief. It’s also probably safe to say that none of us have ever thought of swallowing dog poop to relieve a sore throat, but this was a fairly common cure in the Middle Ages. People actually searched for white dog poop, crushed the dried poop into a powder, and mixed it with honey to soothe a scratchy throat.

Although the treatment’s effectiveness is unknown, the risk of consuming dog feces far outweighs any potential benefits. It includes the possibility of nausea, vomiting, abdominal pains and cramps, fever, and even bloody diarrhea. It’s pretty amazing that anyone of European ancestry is even alive today.

Julie Battin is a student at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania.

The world is, was and seemingly will be full of misinformation. People misunderstand, make mistakes or outright lie about this or that and the next thing you know a rumor or myth gets loose into the wild and everyone hears it. Before long, more people know the fake story than the truth. Once that genie is out of the bottle it can be very hard to put it back in. All we can do is try.

Sometimes this misinformation can be serious stuff and relate to things like disease, war, politics, or finances. And sometimes it’s just silly pop culture things. 

10. Tang Was Not Made For Astronauts

Back in the day, the orange-flavored drink powder known as Tang was inextricably tied to astronauts. This was because of Tang’s heavy marketing which described it as a product used in space but still available to regular folks on the ground. It became associated with space travel and astronauts for years.

Tang was used in space but they did not make it for space. It just coincidentally worked as a beverage for astronauts because it was powdered and easily carried into orbit. 

Tang came on the market in 1959 but it was never popular. Even in space it wasn’t popular, and Buzz Aldrin once went on record to say it sucks. But the problem was that water in space, thanks to how it has to be treated, tastes terrible as well. 

In 1960, someone at NASA determined Tang would work well in space so they began buying it in bulk. They never used the word “Tang,” they just called it orange crystals. But after John Glenn took some into space, General Mills, the company that made Tang, hopped on it as a marketing gimmick and told the world that Tang was an astronaut drink and they were the ones that made it. 

In the minds of many, the marketing implied that NASA made Tang and now it was being sold to everyday people, and General Mills would correct no one on that point.

9. Hobbits Were Never Described as Having Big Feet

In the world of Middle Earth, everything we know about the residents originally came from writer J. R. R. Tolkien. However, his work was subsequently altered by artists drawing images and filmmakers bringing his words to life and somewhere along the lines many people became convinced that Hobbits have giant feet.

Feet were definitely in Tolkien’s mind and he describes them as having hairy feet with leathery soles because they never wear shoes.  But Tolkien never said they had enormous feet, especially not unusually large ones. He also did many illustrations for his work and none of the Hobbits have unusual feet in what he produced. 

Large feet came into play when artists started drawing Hobbits. The Hildebrand Brothers, noted fantasy artists though they were, took liberties in their interpretation and had a habit of giving Hobbits large feet in their drawings from the 1970s. Because this was the first exposure many people had to what a Hobbit might look like, it became ingrained in people that a Hobbit has large feet, something perpetuated through film.

8. Chinese Checkers Has Nothing To Do With China

Games are big business these days, mostly as video games. The board game industry is nothing to sneeze at either, and was worth $15.5 billion in 2019 with projections that it would hit $34 billion by 2030. It’s safe to say many people are playing board games.

There’s no statistics on how many people are playing Chinese Checkers but the game rose to popularity in the US in the 1930s. Despite what the name clearly implies, it’s not a Chinese game at all. It came from Germany and the original version dated back to the late 1800s in America again where it was called Halma. So, if you’re keeping track, it’s called Chinese, but it’s an American game based on a German game based on an American game.

The game became “Chinese” in America, when Pressman Company adopted an “Oriental mystique” by branding it with pseudo-Asian imagery to sell it. 

7. Garfield Was Never Meant to be Funny

This is going to be a hard one for some people to deal with. Have you ever read a Garfield comic and thought “this isn’t very funny?” Don’t feel bad because you’re not alone. At least one other person in the world agrees with you – Garfield creator Jim Davis.

Davis never actually intended for Garfield to be funny at all. So if a joke misses the mark that’s par for the course. And if the joke seems to just be a repeat of how fat Garfield is, how dumb Odie is, or how Garfield hates Mondays, that’s on purpose, too.

In a 1982 interview, Davis said he had seen that characters like Snoopy were hugely popular, especially in terms of licensing, but Charlie Brown was not. He also saw that the comics were loaded with dog characters but not cats. He concluded that there was a market for a cute, memorable cat character that could be licensed to the moon and back.

Davis intentionally created a stable of repetitive jokes and set about making his little cartoon. The entire purpose was to make money, not to be funny. He said he would spend 14 hours per week making the comic but up to 60 hours on promotion and licensing. 

The reason Garfield’s face has been found on T-shirts, coffee mugs, a pizza cafe in Kuala Lumpur and a million other things is, and always was, because Jim Davis wanted money. Seems like it worked out for him.

6. The Star Trek Theme Song Actually Has Lyrics 

The theme song to the original Star Trek series is pretty memorable even if it’s just an instrumental track that starts after William Shatner’s narration. Over the years people have made up lyrics for it and you can probably find more than a few videos on YouTube of people singing along. What fewer people realize is that the song already has lyrics and series creator Gene Roddenberry wrote them.

A man named Alexander Courage composed the instrumental music. As part of the deal for making the music, he would receive royalties every time that song played on TV. So every rerun of Trek would have cut him a check. Not too shabby as deals go. Except it only lasted a year.

Roddenberry and Courage made a deal that gave Roddenberry the right to add lyrics to the song. He waited a year and then did just that. Even though the lyrics were never used, and they’re arguably terrible, he was now the song’s co-writer. That meant it entitled him to half of the royalties for the song and apparently told Courage “Hey, I have to get some money somewhere. I’m sure not going to get it out of the profits of Star Trek.”

5. Solo Cup Lines Are Not For Measuring Alcohol

If you ever attended a college party, then there’s a good chance you’ve enjoyed an alcoholic beverage out of a red Solo cup. If you’ve gotten deep into the lore of drinking out of these Solo cups, you may have even heard that there are lines of demarcation inside the cup which show you different measurements for booze. The top line shows 12 ounces for beer, the next down is 5 ounces for wine and the lowest is one ounce for a shot of hard liquor.

The good people at Solo have explained more than once that the lines inside a cup are not measurements. They are part of the manufacturing process and just have a functional purpose rather than a convenient one for booze consumption. 

Also, as has been pointed out, why would anyone drinking out of a plastic cup specifically measure out their wine or beer, anyway? And if you’re so concerned about measuring a shot, why not use an actual shot glass? 

4. Back to the Future Was Never Supposed to Have a Sequel

Back to the Future was one of the most popular movies of the ’80s and spawned two sequels. The first film ends with Doc Brown’s character showing up with a flying Delorean insisting Marty needs to go to the future. It was a clear set up for a sequel except for one important detail – it wasn’t.

The producers never intended to make a sequel. That ending was meant as a joke. When the idea of a sequel became a reality, after part one was so popular, a “to be continued” was added to copies of the original and the sequel had to follow the original setup.

3. Schrodinger’s Cat Metaphor Was Not Meant to Be Serious

Many people are familiar, at least in passing, with Schrodinger’s Cat. It’s a metaphorical thought experiment to help explain quantum mechanics. The gist of it is that you can never know if the cat in this box is alive or dead at any given moment based on the elaborate setup that deals with poison and radioactive decay and the cat has to be both alive and dead for various reasons understood by physics. Only by observing the experiment could it become one or the other.

For many people this idea is absurd because cats cannot be both alive and dead. But what many people miss, especially in the less scientific understanding of this experiment as it gets simplified in modern pop culture, is that Schrodinger fully knew how absurd it was. That was part of the point. He was commenting on the silliness of the experimenter himself being the deciding factor in whether this cat was alive or dead, which was part of a prevailing theory of quantum physics at the time.

2. Seinfeld’s Festivus Was a Real Event in One Writer’s Home

If you’re a fan of Seinfeld, and even if you aren’t, you may know Festivus. It’s the secular stand-in for Christmas created by Frank Costanza on the show that involved decorating an aluminum pole and airing grievances with loved ones. The joke holiday was one of the most memorable parts of the series’ entire run and became so popular that people have Festivus celebrations in real life. 

As fun as it must be for some to celebrate this fake holiday for real, the truth is that it was not actually a fake holiday. It was just never an official holiday. Writer Dan O’Keefe came up with the concept for the show based on the real-life Festivus that was forced upon his family as a child by his own father.

In his telling, Festivus was even more chaotic than what made it on TV, and his father was never clear about why it happened or even when. There was no set date, no set reason, and no set rituals. 

1. Bram Stoker Didn’t Intend for Dracula to Be a Work of Fiction

Remember when The Blair Witch Project came out, and they sold it to audiences as a true story? Or, really, many modern horror movies from The Conjuring to The Strangers which always claim to be based on true events? None of them actually are, but saying that seems to add a layer of mystique to the proceedings. Maybe that’s what Bram Stoker had in mind with Dracula. Or maybe it really was a true story.

Despite what it seems like now, Stoker tried to sell Dracula as a true story after he wrote it. He told his editor that Mina and Jonathan Harker were dear friends of his and had relayed the story to him. 

Stoker’s editor was not having it. Historically, the book was written shortly after Jack the Ripper had terrorized London and was still obviously at large. The editor wanted no part of a so-called true story about a supernatural monster stalking London’s streets.

In order to get the book published, Stoker had to remove several elements including the first 101 pages. The version that we have today starts on what would have been page 102 in the original. 

Some of what Stoker included in his tale is, in fact, real. While he wrote of a boat called the Demeter taking Dracula to England, he researched a real vessel called the Dmitri that had run aground while carrying crates of Earth. Those who went to rescue the boat reported seeing a large black dog that ran to a graveyard. 

Whether or not Stoker was sincere, confused or just trolling is lost to history.

Nowadays, if Jennifer Lawrence suggested that dragons are real and live in a secret kingdom beneath Tulsa, Oklahoma, nobody would really bat an eye. Some might even agree: #smaugisundertulsa #jlawmotherofdragons

Celebrity culture seems so broken that possessing wacky, easily debunked, and even dangerous ideologies or cultish beliefs could now be considered a prerequisite for being a celeb. Once upon a time, the public was willing to pay to simply watch or listen to the amazing things that celebrities did. Sometimes, we even bought their wares.

Oh, they can still be put on the same sort of pedestals now, but they also have to be total weirdos who must broadcast their peculiarities. Without the weirdo angle, such individuals are merely “successful people.”

As a follow-up to this great list, 10 Bizarre Beliefs Held By Top Celebrities, here are 10 more celebs and the odd things they believe.

10 Celebrities With Surprising Connections To Horrific Murders

10 Lady Gaga Gets Her Ideas From . . . Within

According to famed gynecologist and part-time, award-winning pop star Lady Gaga, her creativity is housed in vaginal juices.

The “Born This Way” singer believes that women are indeed born differently from what all the relevant science suggests. But don’t simply dismiss her as a pseudoscientific nutjob. Her worry that engaging in sexual activity robs her of her creative inspiration (via her vagina) has, she claims, kept her “perpetually lonely.”

Lady Gaga seems to be locked into her theory. Frankly, one cannot help but feel sorry for her. Unless she’s right. In which case, Evian should drop their water-based model and start bottling up women’s va . . . we can’t even finish that sentence.^[1]

9 Missy Elliott And Black Cats

Plenty of people hold illogical superstitions. Some of these beliefs have seemingly practical uses—don’t cross people on the stairs (so you avoid getting bumped over the banister and breaking your neck) and don’t walk below a ladder (so you can avoid falling tools dropped by whomever is atop the ladder).^[2]

Black cats crossing your path is a bit weirder. We can point to folkloric underpinnings—allusions can be made to witches’ familiars and the devil. But what makes this superstition so weird in Missy Elliott’s case? She admits that “people think you’re crazy” for adhering to it.

She still suggests that even seeing a black cat will cause her to replan her whole day to avoid whatever consequences are linked to a cat crossing your path. She knows this is nuts but doesn’t care.

8 Kyrie Irving Is (Kinda) A Flat-Earther

Despite pulling back a bit on his initial flat Earth claims, NBA star Kyrie Irving doesn’t limit his beliefs to the ones he derived from watching too much History Channel.

Irving also considers it possible that the Federal Reserve Bank ordered the hit on JFK and that the CIA orchestrated the murder of Bob Marley. Still, if Irving helps the Brooklyn Nets to a playoff spot, fans probably won’t care if he suggests that Oprah and Cap’n Crunch conspired to take over Venezuela on behalf of the Nazi colony on the dark side of the Moon.^[3]

7 M.I.A. Thinks Google and Facebook Are Controlled By World Governments

Aren’t these companies evil enough in and of themselves? Sure, these corporations often work in conjunction with governmental bodies given the role the firms play in public discourse and data gathering. But controlled directly by world governments all while fronting as powerful corporations? Too convoluted.

This is another face of the “New World Order” conspiracy. It suggests that a small cabal of people are trying to bring about a single world government and run it as a dictatorship.

The problem with this?

Along with the near-total lack of corroborating evidence, the theory doesn’t really hang together by its own internal logic. The more exposure it gets, the more individuals, companies, organizations and governments are implicated in it.

That sounds more like a general consensus than a “cabal.” But let’s give the devil its due for a moment. If M.I.A. is right that the CIA created Google and Facebook to spy on the users or control their minds, there is an easy fix. Don’t use them. Easier said than done? Not really. Just don’t log on. Still, “Paper Planes” is a hell of a jam.^[4]

6 Randy Quaid Thinks Hollywood Is Trying To Kill Him

Randy, Randy, Randy. Okay, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Let’s concede that there is indeed a shady cabal of individuals who are hiring assassins to prey upon Hollywood’s brightest stars and systematically bump them off to . . . well, it doesn’t really matter, let’s just give him that.^[5]

Why him? Why Randy Quaid? And how is he privy to the knowledge that he is on the list? Was he once one of their number—an assassin perhaps? An agent? Is Randy Quaid really John Wick? Randy, Randy, Randy.

Top 10 Celebrities Who Lived Double Lives

5 Former Sugababe Mutya Buena Adds A Conspiracy Theory To Another Conspiracy Theory

Remember when boy bands sang and made their young female fans scream and cry with joy? Remember when girl bands pumped out hits that we could all dance to? Not anymore!

When you consider that a former boy band member suggests that a strange political conspiracy theory is real, it’s mildly amusing at best and mildly alarming tabloid fodder at worst. When a former girl band member then adds a new conspiracy theory to justify the claim, we’ve entered peak idiocracy.

Mutya Buena added fuel to the minor media firestorm created by ex–Take That star Robbie Williams when he claimed that the notorious American “Pizzagate” conspiracy was real.

How did she do it?

Well, Buena told the world that the COVID-19 pandemic was a smoke screen invented by whomever runs the world to distract from the fact that Hillary Clinton was on trial for cutting off a young child’s face at a Washington, DC, pizza parlor. Oh, and Buena stated that Obama was involved, too. And Bill Clinton. And Oprah.^[6]

2020, folks. 2020. Let’s hope that 2021 is the year the celebs shut up.

4 Alicia Silverstone Thinks The Birds Have The Right Idea

Maybe it isn’t advisable to spit a gob of mushed-up fava beans into a toddler’s mouth. However, some Hollywood stars, like Alicia Silverstone, would disagree. In Silverstone’s defense, Mayim Bialik, Hollywood’s resident super genius, also used this strange practice with her kids.

They considered it beneficial to chew their kids’ food first and then spit it into the youngsters’ mouths. If it’s good enough for birds, it must be good for us, right?^[7]

Humans are mammals. We are not birds. Still, are these two sentences a cogent rebuttal to this practice? Not really. Silverstone and Bialik can do whatever they want.

It is a bit odd, though. There’s no clear benefit other than allowing your babies to ingest hard-to-swallow foods that the kids otherwise don’t need until they develop teeth. So, weird and pointless? Yup. The work of the devil? Hardly.

3 Rob Lowe Believes He Was Nearly Killed By Bigfoot

Rob Lowe is a legend. He also thinks that he was nearly murdered by a legend. During a shoot for his documentary series, The Lowe Files, he and his crew trekked deep into the wilderness of the Ozark Mountains in search of a cryptid that the locals had dubbed a “wood ape.”

Despite commenting that he was “fully aware” that he sounded like a “Hollywood kook,” Lowe swore that he and his crew were threatened by the unseen legendary beast at their remote camp.^[8]

Given that 2020 is officially “The Year The Earth Went Nuts,” Rob Lowe needs to return to the great American wilderness. He must find the elusive race of giant hominids and either be an ambassador to them—normalizing relations and maybe forging a trade deal—or challenge one of their number to a death match using 1950s biker gang weapons like pipe wrenches and lengths of chain.

2 Alice Walker Praised David Icke’s Theory That Lizard People Rule The World

Former professional soccer player and sportscaster David Icke has peddled outlandish conspiracy theories for years—ever since he essentially proclaimed himself to be the messiah on the Wogan TV show in 1991. Icke’s general worldview states that an underground cabal of shape-shifting reptilian-human hybrids are orchestrating major world events to enact a nefarious plan for world domination . . . and venerable author Alice Walker agrees.^[9]

Apparently, these reptilian beings can be swapped out for “Zionists,” the real enemies of freedom according to Icke and his acolytes. This is where Alice Walker agrees with Icke. Once again, it’s all about the Jews! The current reemergence of anti-Semitism seems so telegraphed and prosaic that it never fails to dumbfound reasonable people who still hold enlightenment values. And yet . . . 

For an author whose lifework is the complex discussion of the historic plight of her people, it is incredibly sad that she should so easily fall into wholesale blame of another group, let alone a people who have been so systematically maligned and persecuted (and who continue to suffer the scourge of anti-Semitism today).

1 Terrence Howard Thinks Mathematics Is Wrong

How do we know that 1 + 1 = 2 (or maybe 1 by Terrence logic)? Because we were told at school? Suckers! Empire star Terrence Howard has a new lesson for all you sheeple out there.

Math. Is. All. Wrong!

If you follow the logic of “Terryology,” then 1 x 1 = 2. Yes, that’s right. 2! You want proof? Take it away, Terrence.

“How can it equal one?” he asks. “If one times one equals one, that means that two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two because the square root of four is two. So, what’s the square root of two? Should be one. But we’re told it’s two, and that cannot be”.^[10]

Get it? No? Well, maybe you need to seek a degree in Terryology. From Howard University. Excelsior!

8 Creepy Cults With Famous Celebrity Members

About The Author: CJ Phillips is a storyteller, actor, and writer living in rural West Wales. He is a little obsessed with lists.

3, 7 and 13 are arguably the most recognizable numbers when it comes to superstition. Bad luck, for instance, is said to come in threes, as is death. Some who believe in superstitions, held their breath after the news broke in 2016 that actor and talk show host Alan Thicke had passed away on 13 December.

They knew that the bad news wouldn’t be over until two more celebrities had died. Their fears were confirmed when singer George Michael passed away on 25 December and Star Wars fans around the world were devastated when Carrie Fisher died in hospital on 27 December after suffering a medical emergency during a flight to Los Angeles a few days earlier.

The number 7 on the other hand is believed to bring good luck as it is a prime number and cannot be obtained by multiplying two smaller numbers. 7 can be found throughout mythology and ancient legends, bringing good fortune, healing, and even seven paths to heaven.

The number 13 usually spells horror. Whenever a Friday the 13th swings around during any given calendar year, many who are superstitious do their best to avoid crossing paths with a black cat, walking under ladders and spilling salt. Why is the number 13 unlucky though? Well, it depends on where in the world you find yourself.

On this list are more numbers either feared or revered around the world.

10 Extremely Lucky Suicide Survivors

10 Knock on wood with a twist

The ‘knock on wood’ or ‘touch wood’ superstition is well known in many countries. The action of knocking on a piece of wood is meant to ward off bad luck and draw good fortune towards the knocker.

In Iceland, the superstition is so common that no one even bats an eyelid when knuckles around them knock wood all over the place. Icelanders also say “sjö níu þrettán” when they do this, which translates to ‘seven nine thirteen.’

Seven is considered to be a magic number in Iceland, because it can be obtained by adding three and four. Three and Four are said to represent the spirit and material worlds. Nine is obtained by multiplying three times three, which is the number of the Holy Trinity. The number thirteen, as per the Icelandic superstition, is said to have been taken from the days of the old Roman calendar which included an extra (thirteenth) month every six years. The so-called ‘Leap Month’ was not well-received and eventually became associated with bad luck.

The phrase ‘seven nine thirteen’ is thought to ward off bad luck and bring good fortune, by ‘paying homage’ to both good and bad numbers.^[1]

9 Tuesday the 13th

Move over, Friday the 13th. In Spain, people couldn’t be bothered with you. Instead, when the 13th falls on a Tuesday, the superstitious tend to be wary of leaving the house in case bad luck befalls them.

The god of war, Mars, is said to have dominated Tuesdays and since Martes (Tuesday in Spanish) is derived from his name, the day has been connected to violence and death. What’s more, it’s believed that Constantinople fell on Tuesday April 13, 1204.

According to legend, ‘The Confusion of Tongues’ which took place after the construction of the Tower of Babel, also took place on Tuesday the 13th. And don’t forget that the 13th chapter of Revelation speaks of the coming of the Antichrist, which just makes the number even more ominous.

Tuesday has become so unpopular that a saying was born: ‘don’t marry, go on a boat, or leave your house on a Tuesday.’^[2]

8 The number of good fortune and wealth

In 2016, an office building in Sydney was sold to a Chinese developer for the price of A$88,888,888.

While that might seem like a strange number, it helped to sell the place fast. This is because the number 8 is considered to be extremely lucky in Chinese culture and features prominently in real estate, both in pricing and in the numbering of streets, buildings, and floors. This was further proven by the fact that a building at 88 Alfred St. in Sydney was sold within a few hours after being put up for sale. There are also often requests made by buyers to include an 8 in the selling price, to ensure good fortune.

Some who buy apartments and units within high-rise buildings insist on staying on the 8th floor or in an apartment with 8 in its number, wherever possible.

8 can also be found in events, airlines, automobiles, microchip tag numbers, and restaurant menus. The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing started at 8 minutes and 8 seconds past 8 pm local time on 8/8/08. The Petronas Twin Towers each have 88 floors and in 2003, the easy-to-remember phone number, +86 28 8888 8888, was sold to Sichuan Airlines for around US$280,000.^[3]

7 On the flip side

As much as the number 8 is said to bring good luck, the number 4 is frequently omitted from buildings and planes and supermarket aisles in some Asian countries. The reason being that 4 sounds similar to the word ‘death’ in many Chinese and Japanese languages, which had led to a large number of Asian companies avoiding using the number wherever possible.

The fear of the number 4 is so common that it has been given an official name: tetraphobia. In the early years of the new millennium, Alfa Romeo changed the name of their 144 model car which they were trying to sell in Singapore because of people’s fear of buying it. Nokia has long since stopped releasing phone models that start with 4, for the same reason. In Beijing, the manufacturing of license plates that include 4 has been halted. Many apartment buildings and hospitals don’t have a fourth floor either. In Japan, combining the number 4 with 9 to get 49 is considered especially bad luck because the words sound the same as the phrase “pain until death.”

Giving gifts in sets of four or multiples of four is also a big no-no and considered to spell doom for the receiver.^[4]

6 The number of the beast

666 has long since been associated with the seven-headed, ten-horned beast of the Book of Revelation, since it is called the ‘number of the beast’ in chapter 13. The numbers have become the most recognized symbols for the Antichrist/devil and has led to hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, which is the fear of the number 666.

Because of its devilish connotations, many superstitious Americans have concluded that 666 has been encoded in banking systems, social security systems, medical and personnel records as well as UPC bar codes for sinister reasons. Some refuse to live in houses that bear this number and many even drive around until their odometer turns from 666 to 667.

In America, Highway 666 has become known as the Devil’s Highway after several accidents rumored to have been caused by the highway itself. Late former US president, Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, had the number of their Bel-Air home changed from 666 to 668 after moving in.

666 is not unlucky for everyone, however. On 13 Oct 2017, which happened to fall on a Friday, Flight 666 departed on the 13th hour from Copenhagen, Denmark and landed safely in HEL. Helsinki, that is.^[5]

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5 It’s all in the numbers

In Russia, many superstitions revolve around numbers. As is the case with other countries around the world, many Russians refuse to shake hands over a threshold on a Friday that bears the 13th as a date. Doing so on any day of the year offends the local unhappy house spirit, Domovoi, but even more so on Friday the 13th.

Spitting three times over the left shoulder is not uncommon after complimenting a fellow Russian’s good looks or a baby’s good health. Some even eat their bus tickets when the sum of the left three numbers equal the sum of the numbers of the right, as this is believed to bring good luck.

Also, a newborn baby shouldn’t be paraded around strangers until the infant is at least 40 days old. And don’t give the gift of even-numbered bouquets of flowers. Even numbered flower arrangements are reserved for funerals and even numbers are considered back luck in Russian folklore.
^[6]

4 Superstition in the land of magic

Four-leaf clovers are as much a part of Ireland as St. Patrick’s Day, the country’s renowned hospitality and Riverdance. In the Middle Ages, children believed that carrying a four-leaf clover would grant them the ability to see fairies. Four-leaf clovers were also believed to grant magical protection and ward off evil.

Today there are many more superstitions in Ireland, above and beyond four-leaf clovers. This includes the one of the magpies, and why you should wave at them if their numbers are unfavourable. As the rhyme says:

“One for sorrow, two for joy
Three for a girl and four for a boy
Five for silver, six for gold
Seven for a secret never to be told.”

Should you happen upon one lonely magpie, you must salute it, to break any curse that may settle on you.

Also, if a funeral procession passes you by in Ireland, don’t count the cars. If you do, you will know the exact amount of years you have left to live.
^[7]

3 Friday the 17th

Friday doesn’t have to include 13 for it to be unlucky. In Italy, whenever a Friday the 17th rolls around, they refer to it as a ‘black day’ because 17 is considered bad luck while the number 13 is actually regarded as a good luck charm. It is thought that the negativity around the number 17 was helped along by the belief that the Great Flood took place on the 17th day of the second month. Friday is believed to have been the day on which Jesus was crucified, which led to Fridays also being considered bad luck or cursed.

November 2nd is All Soul’s Day, following on from All Saint’s Day on November 1st. When Friday the 17th falls in November, it is considered the unluckiest day of all and November is then referred to as the ‘month of the deceased.’

Italians are known to carry lucky charms on Friday the 17th, including red horn pendants, horseshoes or the image of an old hunchbacked man and telling the sceptics: “Not on Friday, nor on Tuesday one marries, one leaves, or one starts something.”^[8]

2 13 – Unlucky for some

New Zealanders have some of the most unique superstitions in the world, especially when it comes to new homes. Not only is it customary to walk through each room of a new house, carrying a loaf of bread and salt, guests who arrive at the new house should bring salt and coal with them. In order to avoid the disaster of a fire in the house, the shirt of a virgin should be tucked inside a jar and buried in the garden (this is now a rare occurrence due to the lack of virgins in New Zealand).

But before any of these superstitious rituals can be performed, a new house must first be bought, and it is during this process that the number 13 rears its unlucky head. Data compiled in 2016 revealed that 13 seemed to be unlucky for homeowners trying to sell. In Mission Bay, Auckland, homes with No 13 for an address were valued at $390,000 less than their counterparts. In Orakei, houses sporting the number 13 were valued at $350,000 less than the total median.

In other areas such as Glendowie and Northcote, however, 13 seemed to be a good luck charm as here, houses with this number were valued higher than the total median.^[9]

1 What’s up with the number 23?

Ever heard of the 23rdians? It is a Facebook group for people who are fascinated with the number 23 and who post pictures of the number popping up in their daily lives.

It is alleged that the obsession with the number 23 began with William Burroughs who claimed to have met a sea captain whose ship sank the same day he had bragged about never having had an accident at sea in 23 years. Later that night Burroughs also claimed that he had heard a news report over the radio about a Flight 23 that had crashed in Florida. The pilot had the same name as the sea captain: Clark. Both died. Burroughs became obsessed with the number 23 after these incidents and passed it on to several people including John Forbes Nash Jr, the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician who apparently claimed that 23 was his favorite prime number.

23 is considered to be an unlucky number, often alluding to tragedy and death wherever it pops up. For instance, the Twin Towers were attacked on 9/11/2001 (9+11+2+0+0+1 = 23). Julius Caesar was allegedly stabbed 23 times. Kurt Cobain was born in 1967 and died in 1994. 1+9+6+7= 23, 1+9+9+4 = 23.
^[10]

Top 10 Luckiest People In The World

Every age probably thinks of itself as pretty enlightened. Today, we all seem to be fairly certain that we know how the world works but we can still see examples of people believing some stunningly foolish things all the time. In the future, it’s very likely people will be writing articles about the world of today and all the silly things we believed, just as we can now look at some of the things people in the medieval world believed and wonder how we ever survived as a species. 

10. Salamanders Can Live in Fire

For about 1,500 years people believed the humble salamander was somehow fireproof. This is made all the more amazing by the fact that, for those entire 1,500 years, we can safely assume everyone understood what fire did to living things. Nonetheless, this persistent belief actually gave rise to salamanders as a mythical beast.

Pliny the Elder insisted the cool flesh of the salamander could extinguish fire which probably killed a few salamanders who died trying to prove this against their will. He was just trying to prove what he’d heard from Aristotle, mind you.

By the time of Saint Isidor, between 560 and 636, people still believed this fact about salamanders and Isidor confirmed it along with suggesting they poisoned fruit. St. Augustine believed they lived in fire. Leonardo da Vinci insisted the little creatures ate fire instead of food. Paracelsus swapped fire out of the four primal elements and put the salamander in its place. 

So where did the belief come from? It’s speculated it may be due to the salamander’s tendency to live in rotten logs. If you were to throw one on a fire, chances are you’d see any living salamanders scuttle free, making it seem like they were indeed living in the flames. 

9. Newlyweds Had to Kiss Over Stacked Pastries 

Few events in a person’s life are subject to more curious beliefs and rituals than a wedding. Even today people still adhere to things like wanting to include something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. There’s not a lot of reason for it, it’s just either tradition or superstition, however you want to view it. 

In the Middle Ages, one of many wedding traditions involved creating a tower of cakes or spiced buns. Consider it an old-timey version of the multi-tiered cakes of today. But instead of just looking large and in charge, the newlywed couple had to arrange themselves over the top of this tower and kiss one another. If the kiss went off without a hitch, then it was good fortune for the couple. If the stack fell, well, better luck next time. 

8. In Medieval Italy They Believed Being Poor Was a Virtue

There’s a lot of talk of entitlement in the modern world but check out the habits of late medieval Italy to see some next level entitlement in action. At that time, the rich looked upon the poor as a means to an end. In this case, the end was Heaven. The means was giving them handouts so that they could pray for the rich and in term get them into Heaven.

The idea of being poor was considered virtuous at the time. Being poor was a hardship and conditioned your soul for good things to come. Along the way, they helped the rich get to Heaven by giving them opportunities to show they own good grace. So the rich saw no reason to do anything to help the poor long term. They didn’t even want the poor to go away. They wanted the poor to be there so they could be nice to them which would grant them eternal salvation. 

There’s even a saying that “the rich help the poor in this world but the poor help the rich in the world to come” which reflects this belief that one doesn’t necessarily need to eschew their riches or lift up the poor in this world, because everything will balance out in Heaven.

7. Medieval Scots Believed They Descended from an Egyptian Princess

Every people at one point or another begin to ask where they came from. That’s where origin myths and religions begin to form and while most of that is well established today, it all had to start somewhere. For the people of Scotland, there was once a belief that a woman named Scota helped form both Scotland and Ireland around 1400 BC. 

According to the tale, Scota was the daughter of an Egyptian Pharaoh named Cingris. There’s no record of this Pharaoh in Egypt and it seems to be solely from the Irish and Scottish lore.  Scota married a Babylonian fellow named Niul and together they had a son named Goidel Glas. It was he who created the Gaelic language, and the people known as the Gaels. 

In 1360, John of Fordun published a history of Scotland in which it’s believed he just took the Irish tales of Scota and made them into something he liked the sound of for the history of Scotland. In his version, Goidel Glas, now renamed Gaythelos, marries Scota. They get exiled to Spain from Egypt, have a son, and then he marries another woman named Scota who is the daughter of yet another Pharoah. Two of their sons conquered Ireland by defeating the Tuatha Dé Danann, who you might recognize as fairies, and some of their descendants called themselves Scoti, after Scota, which evolved to Scottish. 

6. Fruits and Veggies Need to Be Cooked For Safety

For better or mostly worse, a lot of our modern knowledge of medieval times comes from pop culture. To that end, most people imagine the medieval diet consisting of bread and mead, maybe some hard cheese and meat off the bone, possibly in a stew. 

Medieval people ate fruits and vegetables, but they approached them differently than we do in modern times. Most specifically, fruits and vegetables were not eaten raw ever because it was generally believed raw fruits and vegetables caused disease. 

Fruits that grew on trees were better than fruits on the ground because treetops were close to heaven. Watermelon and strawberry were lowly fruits better suited for poor folk. Doctors recommended some fruits be eaten at the beginning of a meal and others at the end for various pseudo-medicinal reasons like their ability to either stop you from puking or to help you go to the bathroom.

5. Crocodiles Weep With Remorse When They Eat, Hence Crocodile Tears

When you say someone is shedding crocodile tears, you’re roasting them for their insincerity when they pretend to be concerned but are not. This comes from the widely held belief that serpents, but very specifically crocodiles, shed tears for their prey as they ate them. So while the visual would indicate the beast was somewhat remorseful over the kill, the fact was it was still eating something so there was a marked lack of sincerity.  

The Voyage and Travels of Sir John Mandeville used the saying in 1400, and the saying can also be found in a letter from 1569 but is presented there in the context that it was common enough knowledge not to need an explanation. Crocodiles wept in false sadness when they ate. 

Ironically, crocodiles do shed tears when they eat but the cause may be related to air being forced through their sinuses when they eat, rather than any kind of dinner-related remorse.

4. A Magnet Could Be Demagnetized with Goat Blood

Magnets are pretty cool even today so you can imagine what people must have thought about them hundreds of years ago. The ability to move metal with unseen forces had to be pretty close to magical. 

If something is magical that arguably meant there were magical ways to deal with it. In the case of magnets it was believed you could neutralize their power with things like diamonds or goat’s blood. Garlic was another item put forth by alchemists as a means of demagnetizing them, though a man named William Gilbert had to disprove it all in the year 1600, presumably by showing off bloody yet fully functional magnets. 

3. People Believed Witches Stole Men’s Penises 

Any beliefs about witches have to clearly be taken with a grain of salt because we’re starting from the standpoint that witches were real. That aside, when it came to fear of witches, some writers went above and beyond to make up reasons to fear them and Heinrich Kramer may have taken the cake.

In his 15th century witch hunting guide Malleus Maleficarum, Kramer warned that witches had the ability to steal a man’s penis. They could even keep it as a pet and feed it grain. He goes on to say such things have been seen by many. He also claims one man, in an effort to regain his stolen penis, was forced to climb a tree and raid a nest in which many penises were being kept to pick the one he liked best. 

The idea of penis trees was one that pervaded the mythology around witches and a mural was uncovered in the year 2000 in Massa Marittima in Italy depicting numerous witches under such a tree. Some people still contend it’s just a fertility symbol and not related to witches, but given the history there’s definitely room for debate. 

2. It was Long Believed Lynx Urine Solidified Into Precious Stones

When we think of big cats we usually imagine lions, tigers, panthers and maybe the cheetah. Less remembered is their somewhat smaller but still intimidating cousin the lynx. One of the lesser known claims to fame of the lynx is that its urine crystalizes into a precious stone called lyngurium. This came from the philosopher Theophrastus back around 200 BC or so.

By the medieval period, lyngurium was enjoying a fully flesh out life in the hands of lapidary experts concerned with precious stones and their nature. Books were written detailing the physical nature of the stone and even its medicinal properties. Keep in mind, this stone never existed at all and none of these people had seen it or knew anything about it for that reason.

It would not be until the 17th century when new authors finally began to stop writing about the fictional stone. 

1. John Mandeville Perpetuated the Belief that Cotton Came From Lambs That Grew on Plants

Medieval art is often perplexing when you see how animals and other natural things are presented, especially when they are tragically off the mark from reality. It makes you wonder how anyone could depict a real thing so wrongly. Unfortunately, at the time, a lot of art was being done by people who had never seen the things they were drawing and was based on second or third hand accounts. And then some of it was just random, made up stuff. That’s where the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary comes in.

Cotton was a new thing for the Western world at the time of John Mandeville. For whatever reason, as he explored (or pretended to explore) a world few people back in England had even heard about, the man insisted on making things up. So when news came of cotton, that was like wool but came from a plant, Mandeville related the story of how it was indeed a small, long-stemmed plant that blossomed a tiny lamb on the top of it. This understanding of cotton lasted from the 13th through the 17th century. Try to imagine that, generations of people believing tiny sheep growing as flowers were producing fabric for them. 

The little plant lamb didn’t just look like a lamb, it was one. It would dangle from its stalk and eat everything it could reach around the plant, then it would die when no food was left. You could catch one and eat it and the meat was said to taste like fish while the blood was like honey. So this was no quick misunderstanding. Mandeville, and whoever took up his bizarre tale, was sincere in their efforts to just make up silly things and have people believe things.