WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.240 So in October of 2024, there were nearly 5 ,000 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:08.720 people who went online to download this incredibly 00:00:08.720 --> 00:00:12.679 dry 130 -year -old academic text. Right, which 00:00:12.679 --> 00:00:14.519 is just a wild statistic when you actually think 00:00:14.519 --> 00:00:16.059 about it. It's totally wild. I mean, we're talking 00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:19.359 about a book covering spells, spirits, and the 00:00:19.359 --> 00:00:22.769 folklore of the Malay Peninsula. Yeah. You know, 00:00:22.789 --> 00:00:25.570 it wasn't some leaked fantasy novel manuscript. 00:00:25.710 --> 00:00:28.129 It wasn't a newly discovered, like, grimoire 00:00:28.129 --> 00:00:30.289 tied to a blockbuster movie franchise or anything. 00:00:30.289 --> 00:00:32.729 No, not at all. It's a literal anthropological 00:00:32.729 --> 00:00:35.869 study. Exactly. It's a 1 .4 megabyte plain text 00:00:35.869 --> 00:00:38.270 file of historical magic, and it's just sitting 00:00:38.270 --> 00:00:40.969 there on a bare bones open source platform. Yeah, 00:00:41.070 --> 00:00:44.649 Project Gutenberg. Right. 4 ,516 people download 00:00:44.649 --> 00:00:47.570 it in just 30 days. Which makes you wonder, you 00:00:47.570 --> 00:00:49.810 know, why? It's a great question. Like, what 00:00:49.810 --> 00:00:53.420 is driving thousands of... modern hyper -connected 00:00:53.420 --> 00:00:55.979 people to seek out a public domain text from 00:00:55.979 --> 00:00:57.740 the late 19th century. Well, I mean, I think 00:00:57.740 --> 00:00:59.979 it points to a massive deficit in our modern 00:00:59.979 --> 00:01:03.079 environment. A deficit. How so? We have this 00:01:03.079 --> 00:01:05.760 unparalleled access to information today, right? 00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:09.780 But we are just completely starving for cosmological 00:01:09.780 --> 00:01:11.640 context. Oh, that's an interesting way to put 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:14.340 it. Cosmological context. Yeah, because when 00:01:14.340 --> 00:01:16.920 you look at the text those people were downloading, 00:01:17.079 --> 00:01:19.439 Walter Williamskeet's Malay Magic, you aren't 00:01:19.439 --> 00:01:23.159 just looking at a catalog of quirky superstitions. 00:01:23.180 --> 00:01:25.140 Right, it's not just a list of spooky stories. 00:01:25.459 --> 00:01:28.700 Exactly. You are looking at a meticulously documented 00:01:28.700 --> 00:01:31.980 blueprint of how human beings manufacture reality. 00:01:32.680 --> 00:01:35.260 Wow. Skeet captured a society that was actively 00:01:35.260 --> 00:01:39.260 negotiating its survival. And they did that through 00:01:39.260 --> 00:01:42.219 creation myths and deeply structured supernatural 00:01:42.219 --> 00:01:45.019 relationships. So that hunger we're seeing in 00:01:45.019 --> 00:01:46.959 the download statistics. Yeah, that's modern 00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:48.980 society looking for the source code of human 00:01:48.980 --> 00:01:51.310 belief. That is exactly what we're going to be 00:01:51.310 --> 00:01:54.030 using today for this deep dive. We're using that 00:01:54.030 --> 00:01:56.909 exact source code. And we get to bypass the dusty 00:01:56.909 --> 00:01:59.629 university archives completely. We do. We're 00:01:59.629 --> 00:02:01.290 skipping the velvet ropes and looking directly 00:02:01.290 --> 00:02:04.209 at this digitized text. It's called Malay Magic. 00:02:04.950 --> 00:02:07.489 Being an introduction to the folklore and popular 00:02:07.489 --> 00:02:09.889 religion of the Malay Peninsula. Which is such 00:02:09.889 --> 00:02:12.050 a 19th century title, by the way. Oh, it really 00:02:12.050 --> 00:02:14.949 is. But the mission here... for you listening, 00:02:15.469 --> 00:02:18.030 is that we are going to look at how humanity 00:02:18.030 --> 00:02:20.650 constructs its world from scratch. And through 00:02:20.650 --> 00:02:23.530 those origin narratives. Right. And how we forge 00:02:23.530 --> 00:02:26.849 these intense, highly pragmatic connections to 00:02:26.849 --> 00:02:29.909 the supernatural world simply to survive the 00:02:29.909 --> 00:02:32.229 terror of the natural one. Yeah, because the 00:02:32.229 --> 00:02:35.110 natural world was and is terrifying. Exactly. 00:02:36.189 --> 00:02:38.370 So Skeet's documentation of Malay culture is 00:02:38.370 --> 00:02:41.110 our lens today. But the mechanics we are going 00:02:41.110 --> 00:02:44.120 to look at applied to the very foundation of 00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:46.819 human psychology. Absolutely, because, you know, 00:02:46.900 --> 00:02:49.139 Steele was positioned at a very specific temporal 00:02:49.139 --> 00:02:51.800 and geographical vantage point. He was a British 00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:54.219 colonial administrator in the 1890s, right? Yes, 00:02:54.379 --> 00:02:57.060 walking through villages, recording these incantations 00:02:57.060 --> 00:02:59.659 and origin myths. He was observing a culture 00:02:59.659 --> 00:03:02.159 that had systematized its relationship with the 00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:05.060 unknown. And it was a system that was both ancient, 00:03:05.389 --> 00:03:09.050 but also hyper -adaptable. Precisely. And by 00:03:09.050 --> 00:03:11.590 dissecting his observations, we can kind of strip 00:03:11.590 --> 00:03:13.789 away the exoticism that people usually apply 00:03:13.789 --> 00:03:15.669 to the word magic. Right, because we treat magic 00:03:15.669 --> 00:03:18.909 like it's a parlor trick. We do. But this reveals 00:03:18.909 --> 00:03:21.370 the underlying psychological frameworks that 00:03:21.469 --> 00:03:24.969 literally every culture uses to process chaos. 00:03:25.289 --> 00:03:27.530 Including our own culture. Oh, absolutely. We 00:03:27.530 --> 00:03:30.169 use it to handle uncertainty and just the sheer 00:03:30.169 --> 00:03:33.009 terror of existing in an unpredictable universe. 00:03:33.210 --> 00:03:35.090 Well, let's look at the metadata for this Project 00:03:35.090 --> 00:03:37.590 Gutenberg file for a second, because the numbers 00:03:37.590 --> 00:03:40.090 themselves kind of frame this entire discussion. 00:03:40.189 --> 00:03:42.349 They really do tell a story of their own. Right. 00:03:42.349 --> 00:03:45.469 So you have this text gathered in the 1890s, 00:03:45.469 --> 00:03:47.689 but it was released digitally in 2015. And it 00:03:47.689 --> 00:03:51.050 was updated just recently in October 2024. Yeah. 00:03:51.199 --> 00:03:55.219 and it sits at a reading e -score of 63 .1. Which 00:03:55.219 --> 00:03:57.280 is what about an eighth grade level? Exactly 00:03:57.280 --> 00:03:59.300 an eighth or ninth grade reading level. And the 00:03:59.300 --> 00:04:02.919 formatting is EP Yeeb, Kindle, plain text, UTF 00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:05.780 -8. So it's accessible on literally any device. 00:04:05.879 --> 00:04:09.219 Any device. And it was painstakingly digitized 00:04:09.219 --> 00:04:11.800 by a guy named Jerome Hellingman and a volunteer 00:04:11.800 --> 00:04:13.960 distributed proofreading team. Right. They took 00:04:13.960 --> 00:04:16.360 images of the physical book and manually typed 00:04:16.360 --> 00:04:19.000 it into a living digital format. Which is really 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:21.680 an act of preservation that mirrors the old monastic 00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:23.959 traditions of the Middle Ages. OK, let's unpack 00:04:23.959 --> 00:04:26.459 this. Because you're saying they're like digital 00:04:26.459 --> 00:04:30.910 monks. Yes. But executed on this global, decentralized 00:04:30.910 --> 00:04:33.589 scale, they are ensuring the cultural memory 00:04:33.589 --> 00:04:36.990 encoded in Skeet's observations survives the 00:04:36.990 --> 00:04:39.790 degradation of physical media. I have to stop 00:04:39.790 --> 00:04:42.629 you there, though, because you call it preservation. 00:04:43.110 --> 00:04:46.350 But doesn't reading an English eighth grade level 00:04:46.350 --> 00:04:49.810 summary of a deeply complex police system kind 00:04:49.810 --> 00:04:51.990 of strip it of its power? Well, that's a common 00:04:51.990 --> 00:04:54.350 criticism, yeah. Like, if I can download the 00:04:54.350 --> 00:04:58.329 sacred... terrifying secrets of a culture's relationship 00:04:58.329 --> 00:05:02.029 with the supernatural as a tiny file. A 1 .4 00:05:02.029 --> 00:05:04.209 megabyte file. Right, and I read it on my phone 00:05:04.209 --> 00:05:06.629 while I'm like... waiting for the subway. Aren't 00:05:06.629 --> 00:05:08.689 we just looking at a sanitized version of their 00:05:08.689 --> 00:05:10.889 reality? You mean because we've removed the physical 00:05:10.889 --> 00:05:13.269 context? Exactly. We've stripped away the jungle, 00:05:13.550 --> 00:05:16.329 the monsoon, the spoken cadence of the shaman's 00:05:16.329 --> 00:05:18.889 incantation. We've reduced it to a sterile string 00:05:18.889 --> 00:05:21.629 of characters. Yeah. Doesn't that hyper accessibility 00:05:21.629 --> 00:05:24.089 kill the magic? See, that is the central anxiety 00:05:24.089 --> 00:05:26.569 of the digital humanities right there. Oh yeah. 00:05:26.790 --> 00:05:29.370 The big question is always... Does digitization 00:05:29.370 --> 00:05:33.009 demystify? Does translation inherently reduce 00:05:33.009 --> 00:05:35.149 the power of the original thing? And what's the 00:05:35.149 --> 00:05:39.259 verdict? Well. Yes, the experiential context 00:05:39.259 --> 00:05:41.360 is obviously lost. You aren't sitting in a village 00:05:41.360 --> 00:05:44.120 feeling the humidity, you know, or hearing the 00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:46.759 specific tonal resonance of a voice in the dark. 00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:50.199 But what's fascinating here is that stripping 00:05:50.199 --> 00:05:54.160 away the physical barrier to entry actually isolates 00:05:54.160 --> 00:05:57.019 the core psychological mechanism. Oh, so it makes 00:05:57.019 --> 00:05:59.319 the mechanism more visible. Exactly. We aren't 00:05:59.319 --> 00:06:02.519 distracted by the sensory exoticism of like a 00:06:02.519 --> 00:06:05.040 rare leather bound book in some London archive. 00:06:05.100 --> 00:06:07.769 We're forced to confront the raw ideas. That's 00:06:07.769 --> 00:06:09.810 a really good point. The fact that an 8th grade 00:06:09.810 --> 00:06:12.529 reading level can adequately convey the structural 00:06:12.529 --> 00:06:15.670 logic of Malay magic proves something huge. Which 00:06:15.670 --> 00:06:17.930 is? That the underlying architecture of belief 00:06:17.930 --> 00:06:21.329 is fundamentally universally human. It doesn't 00:06:21.329 --> 00:06:23.990 require complex academic jargon because it operates 00:06:23.990 --> 00:06:26.850 on primal emotional logic. So the translation 00:06:26.850 --> 00:06:28.990 to plain text actually acts as a centrifuge. 00:06:29.029 --> 00:06:32.069 A centrifuge, yeah I like that. It spins out 00:06:32.069 --> 00:06:33.970 the environmental context and just leaves us 00:06:33.970 --> 00:06:37.670 with a dense, heavy, psychological core of why 00:06:37.670 --> 00:06:40.209 the magic was invented in the first place. Precisely. 00:06:40.310 --> 00:06:44.639 And that core is highly, highly pragmatic. Well 00:06:44.639 --> 00:06:47.060 when you look at the text, skeet isn't describing 00:06:47.060 --> 00:06:50.899 some isolated pristine bubble of indigenous thought. 00:06:51.220 --> 00:06:53.279 Right, because the Malay Peninsula was definitely 00:06:53.279 --> 00:06:55.800 not isolated. No, it was arguably one of the 00:06:55.800 --> 00:06:59.040 most dynamic chaotic crossroads of human history. 00:06:59.319 --> 00:07:01.180 Yeah, the text is actually incredibly explicit 00:07:01.180 --> 00:07:03.500 about that. It describes Malay popular religion 00:07:03.500 --> 00:07:07.370 as a rich tapestry. that is intertwined with 00:07:07.370 --> 00:07:10.029 influences from Indian, Arab, and indigenous 00:07:10.029 --> 00:07:12.410 sources. Which means we aren't dealing with a 00:07:12.410 --> 00:07:15.089 closed system at all. Not even close. We're dealing 00:07:15.089 --> 00:07:17.769 with a geographic bottleneck on these ancient 00:07:17.769 --> 00:07:19.870 maritime trade roads. Yeah, you have merchant 00:07:19.870 --> 00:07:22.790 ships from the Middle East, India, East Asia. 00:07:22.949 --> 00:07:24.610 And they're all just waiting there for the monsoon 00:07:24.610 --> 00:07:26.370 winds to shift. Right, they were stuck there 00:07:26.370 --> 00:07:28.709 for months sometimes. And they aren't just trading 00:07:28.709 --> 00:07:31.750 spices, are they? They are offloading gods. They're 00:07:31.750 --> 00:07:34.649 offloading entirely distinct frameworks of reality. 00:07:34.839 --> 00:07:37.879 Which creates a massive logistical problem for 00:07:37.879 --> 00:07:40.819 a culture's spiritual infrastructure. Here's 00:07:40.819 --> 00:07:42.939 where it gets really interesting. Yeah. Because 00:07:42.939 --> 00:07:45.379 how does that actually work on the ground? It's 00:07:45.379 --> 00:07:47.639 messy, very messy. I mean, you have these deeply 00:07:47.639 --> 00:07:51.639 rooted indigenous animistic beliefs, right? Spirits 00:07:51.639 --> 00:07:54.420 of the soil, the rivers, the tigers in the jungle. 00:07:54.600 --> 00:07:57.220 Yes, a very localized earth based system. And 00:07:57.220 --> 00:08:00.170 then suddenly. Indian traders bring in these 00:08:00.170 --> 00:08:03.970 massive complex pantheons of Hindu deities. Right. 00:08:04.189 --> 00:08:06.430 And then Arab merchants arrive carrying deeply 00:08:06.430 --> 00:08:09.470 structured uncompromising monotheism. Yeah, Islam 00:08:09.470 --> 00:08:13.800 arrives. So what happens? Do they just... Does 00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:16.779 one god overwrite the other in some kind of holy 00:08:16.779 --> 00:08:19.500 war, or does the culture somehow force these 00:08:19.500 --> 00:08:22.379 hostile architectures to coexist? They absolutely 00:08:22.379 --> 00:08:24.199 force them to coexist. They do it through the 00:08:24.199 --> 00:08:26.639 mechanics of cultural synthesis. But synthesis 00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:28.860 sounds so polite. Right. It isn't just a polite 00:08:28.860 --> 00:08:31.300 blending of ideas. It is a desperate, highly 00:08:31.300 --> 00:08:33.659 creative act of structural engineering. Oh, I 00:08:33.659 --> 00:08:35.700 like that. Structural engineering. Think of it 00:08:35.700 --> 00:08:39.620 like retrofitting a modern, rigid glass skyscraper 00:08:39.620 --> 00:08:42.570 with ancient Roman plumbing. They're simultaneously 00:08:42.570 --> 00:08:44.929 trying to wire the whole thing for high -speed 00:08:44.929 --> 00:08:47.210 internet. That sounds like a disaster. It shouldn't 00:08:47.210 --> 00:08:49.929 work. The blueprints are completely hostile to 00:08:49.929 --> 00:08:52.870 one another. Like, strict monotheism theoretically 00:08:52.870 --> 00:08:55.929 cannot tolerate animistic Earth spirits. Right. 00:08:55.970 --> 00:08:58.350 The rules of monotheism explicitly forbid that. 00:08:58.570 --> 00:09:01.309 Exactly. But the local population, they aren't 00:09:01.309 --> 00:09:04.269 concerned with theological purity. They are concerned 00:09:04.269 --> 00:09:07.230 with survival. They just need the lights to turn 00:09:07.230 --> 00:09:10.750 on and the water to flow. So they build bizarre... 00:09:10.600 --> 00:09:12.980 architectural workarounds. That's exactly what 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:16.059 they do. The indigenous forest spirit isn't eradicated. 00:09:16.059 --> 00:09:19.120 It just gets quietly demoted to a local saint. 00:09:19.159 --> 00:09:22.360 Oh, wow. Or it's given a new Arabic name. An 00:09:22.360 --> 00:09:25.059 ancient harvest ritual meant to appease a local 00:09:25.059 --> 00:09:27.600 earth goddess is suddenly prefaced with an Islamic 00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:30.220 prayer. So if you examine the theological blueprints, 00:09:30.519 --> 00:09:32.779 it looks like a chaotic mess. A total mess, yeah. 00:09:32.919 --> 00:09:35.279 But to the people living inside that structure, 00:09:35.720 --> 00:09:39.679 it is a highly stable, hyper -adaptable fortress. 00:09:39.909 --> 00:09:42.029 Yes. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:09:42.250 --> 00:09:44.690 it's the ultimate proof that pure folklore is 00:09:44.690 --> 00:09:47.629 just a myth. It really is. The strength of the 00:09:47.629 --> 00:09:50.409 Malay magical system wasn't its isolation. Not 00:09:50.409 --> 00:09:53.409 at all. It was its aggressive, almost predatory 00:09:53.409 --> 00:09:56.289 ability to absorb the most useful technologies 00:09:56.289 --> 00:09:58.529 of visiting cultures. It's like a linguistic 00:09:58.529 --> 00:10:02.039 creel, but for magic. Exactly. If a passing Indian 00:10:02.039 --> 00:10:04.320 merchant had a chant that seemed to cure a fever 00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:07.059 faster than the local root, the local shaman 00:10:07.059 --> 00:10:09.419 didn't reject it out of indigenous pride. No, 00:10:09.419 --> 00:10:12.820 they stole it. They stole the chant, recontextualized 00:10:12.820 --> 00:10:15.620 it, and added it to the arsenal. Because belief 00:10:15.620 --> 00:10:18.740 at this level is a survival technology. And this 00:10:18.740 --> 00:10:21.000 brings us to the foundation of how that technology 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:23.000 is built in the first place. Which is what we 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:25.340 really want to dig into today. Right. You cannot 00:10:25.340 --> 00:10:29.059 understand a culture's survival mechanisms until 00:10:29.059 --> 00:10:31.990 you understand their creation myths. And the 00:10:31.990 --> 00:10:33.730 Project Gutenberg summary specifically notes 00:10:33.730 --> 00:10:36.970 this. It says Skeet introduces creation myths 00:10:36.970 --> 00:10:39.549 right at the outset of his work. He positions 00:10:39.549 --> 00:10:42.409 them as the absolute key to understanding Malay 00:10:42.409 --> 00:10:46.009 identity. So if we run with the idea that belief 00:10:46.009 --> 00:10:49.309 is a technology, then the creation myth is basically 00:10:49.309 --> 00:10:51.629 the operating system. Yes. It dictates how all 00:10:51.629 --> 00:10:54.629 the subsequent software runs. So it establishes 00:10:54.629 --> 00:10:57.370 the baseline rules of the hardware, the social 00:10:57.370 --> 00:11:00.950 hierarchy, the gender dynamics. and the culture's 00:11:00.950 --> 00:11:02.450 fundamental relationship with the environment. 00:11:02.690 --> 00:11:04.690 Without that operating system, nothing makes 00:11:04.690 --> 00:11:06.929 sense. So what does this all mean for someone 00:11:06.929 --> 00:11:08.629 looking from the outside? It's kind of like the 00:11:08.629 --> 00:11:11.450 foundational rules of a complex board game, right? 00:11:11.470 --> 00:11:14.049 Yeah, or a universe -building franchise. Exactly. 00:11:14.529 --> 00:11:16.809 If you don't know the origin story, observing 00:11:16.809 --> 00:11:20.169 a cultural ritual is like watching someone wildly 00:11:20.169 --> 00:11:22.490 click a mouse without being able to see their 00:11:22.490 --> 00:11:24.769 monitor. That's a great analogy. It just looks 00:11:24.769 --> 00:11:27.690 arbitrary and insane to an outsider. But to the 00:11:27.690 --> 00:11:31.659 user... Every click has a specific vital purpose 00:11:31.659 --> 00:11:34.259 based on the rules of the system. That is the 00:11:34.259 --> 00:11:36.340 function of a creation myth. It provides the 00:11:36.340 --> 00:11:38.720 rules. More than that, it provides ontological 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:41.600 security. That fundamental sense of order and 00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:43.879 meaning that prevents human beings from just 00:11:43.879 --> 00:11:46.559 descending into existential panic. Right, because 00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:49.340 a creation myth isn't trying to answer the scientific 00:11:49.340 --> 00:11:51.639 question of how the universe was formed in a 00:11:51.639 --> 00:11:54.480 geological sense. No, not at all. It is answering 00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:57.419 the sociological question of why the universe 00:11:57.419 --> 00:11:59.679 is organized the way it is right now. But wait, 00:11:59.700 --> 00:12:01.519 let's tie this back to the retrofitting metaphor 00:12:01.519 --> 00:12:04.279 we talked about earlier. OK. If the Malay Peninsula 00:12:04.279 --> 00:12:07.139 is constantly absorbing Indian and Arab influences, 00:12:07.879 --> 00:12:09.940 what happens to their operating system? It has 00:12:09.940 --> 00:12:12.539 to adapt. But an operating system is notoriously 00:12:12.539 --> 00:12:15.100 rigid. If you try to run incompatible software 00:12:15.100 --> 00:12:17.960 on it, the whole system crashes. True. So if 00:12:17.960 --> 00:12:20.440 your foundational myth says the world was born 00:12:20.440 --> 00:12:24.080 from, I don't know, a cosmic egg laid by a primordial 00:12:24.080 --> 00:12:27.159 bird. Right. Then a foreign culture arise and 00:12:27.159 --> 00:12:29.360 insist the world was spoken into existence in 00:12:29.360 --> 00:12:32.360 six days by a singular creator Yeah, that's a 00:12:32.360 --> 00:12:34.700 massive conflict. The cognitive dissonance should 00:12:34.700 --> 00:12:38.000 tear the society apart How does a culture rewrite 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:40.919 its own source code without collapsing? Well, 00:12:40.919 --> 00:12:44.559 that is the absolute genius of mythological adaptation 00:12:44.559 --> 00:12:48.120 and it's a deeply painful Generational process 00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:50.789 it doesn't happen overnight No. Origin stories 00:12:50.789 --> 00:12:53.350 are not fixed historical points in folklore. 00:12:53.629 --> 00:12:56.490 They are fluid, living documents that are continuously 00:12:56.490 --> 00:12:58.990 updated through narrative friction. Narrative 00:12:58.990 --> 00:13:01.990 friction? Yeah. When a new, powerful religion 00:13:01.990 --> 00:13:05.309 arrives, the existing creation myth has to stretch 00:13:05.309 --> 00:13:07.490 to accommodate it. Okay, give me the mechanics 00:13:07.490 --> 00:13:10.669 of that stretch. How do you actually merge the 00:13:10.669 --> 00:13:13.320 cosmic egg with... the six day creation. You 00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:16.679 do it through narrative subordination and recontextualization. 00:13:16.899 --> 00:13:20.500 Meaning the local storytellers and shamans begin 00:13:20.500 --> 00:13:23.379 to subtly alter the oral traditions. So they 00:13:23.379 --> 00:13:25.899 just change the story. Gradually. Yes. Perhaps 00:13:25.899 --> 00:13:29.100 the singular formless creator is now the one 00:13:29.100 --> 00:13:30.860 who placed the cosmic egg in the first place. 00:13:30.879 --> 00:13:33.700 Wow. OK. Or the primordial bird is recast as 00:13:33.700 --> 00:13:36.340 an angel or a servant of the new monotheistic 00:13:36.340 --> 00:13:39.620 God. You see this heavily in the texts Skeet 00:13:39.620 --> 00:13:43.190 collected. So you literally find indigenous animistic 00:13:43.190 --> 00:13:46.450 creation elements sitting awkwardly side by side 00:13:46.450 --> 00:13:49.990 with imported Hindu cosmology and Islamic theology. 00:13:50.289 --> 00:13:53.629 Yes. It creates a layered, sometimes deeply contradictory 00:13:53.629 --> 00:13:55.389 narrative. But they don't care about the contradiction. 00:13:55.649 --> 00:13:57.889 Exactly. Human psychology is incredibly adept 00:13:57.889 --> 00:14:00.309 at ignoring contradictions if the resulting story 00:14:00.309 --> 00:14:02.950 provides a cohesive social identity. So the past 00:14:02.950 --> 00:14:05.169 is completely subjugated by the needs of the 00:14:05.169 --> 00:14:07.990 present. Entirely. They are looking backward 00:14:07.990 --> 00:14:12.080 and projecting their current chaotic, multicultural 00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:15.179 reality onto the very beginning of time. Yes, 00:14:15.320 --> 00:14:17.139 just to prove to themselves that their current 00:14:17.139 --> 00:14:20.279 existence is natural and ordained. That's incredible. 00:14:20.559 --> 00:14:22.419 The beginning of the world is always a reflection 00:14:22.419 --> 00:14:25.169 of the world as it currently is. Always. If your 00:14:25.169 --> 00:14:28.049 society now relies on Indian and Arab merchants 00:14:28.049 --> 00:14:31.009 for economic survival, your creation myth will 00:14:31.009 --> 00:14:33.309 eventually be rewritten to include a universe 00:14:33.309 --> 00:14:36.049 large enough to justify their presence. It's 00:14:36.049 --> 00:14:38.470 a psychological defense mechanism against the 00:14:38.470 --> 00:14:41.509 chaos of change. Exactly. But once that massive 00:14:41.509 --> 00:14:44.370 convoluted operating system is booted up, we 00:14:44.370 --> 00:14:46.129 have to look at the user interface. Right. How 00:14:46.129 --> 00:14:47.809 do these people actually interact with the world 00:14:47.809 --> 00:14:50.549 they've built? This is where the macro cosmology 00:14:50.549 --> 00:14:53.190 hits the dirt. And the text emphasizes this. 00:14:53.309 --> 00:14:56.730 It talks about exploration of the understanding 00:14:56.730 --> 00:14:59.909 of nature. the relationships between humans and 00:14:59.909 --> 00:15:02.830 the supernatural world, and the role of magic 00:15:02.830 --> 00:15:05.389 in everyday life. Yeah, everyday magic. This 00:15:05.389 --> 00:15:07.710 requires us to fundamentally redefine the word 00:15:07.710 --> 00:15:10.309 magic, though. How so? Because in our modern 00:15:10.309 --> 00:15:13.210 post -enlightenment context, we categorize magic 00:15:13.210 --> 00:15:15.970 as fiction. It's a performance, an illusion, 00:15:16.269 --> 00:15:18.250 or, you know, a fantasy novel. Right, we draw 00:15:18.250 --> 00:15:21.330 an absolute impenetrable line between hard science 00:15:21.330 --> 00:15:24.330 and magic. Exactly. Science is measurable cause 00:15:24.330 --> 00:15:26.389 and effect. And magic is just wishful thinking. 00:15:26.490 --> 00:15:28.669 But for the culture skeet was documenting in 00:15:28.669 --> 00:15:32.190 the 19th century, that line did not exist. Magic 00:15:32.190 --> 00:15:35.230 was applied science. Applied science. Yes. It 00:15:35.230 --> 00:15:37.649 was the logical, systematic framework they used 00:15:37.649 --> 00:15:40.309 to assert control over a natural world that was 00:15:40.309 --> 00:15:42.870 terrifyingly opaque and lethal. I want to push 00:15:42.870 --> 00:15:44.750 back on the applied science label though. Okay, 00:15:44.850 --> 00:15:48.210 go ahead. Because science requires falsifiability. 00:15:48.519 --> 00:15:51.360 It requires a hypothesis to be tested, and if 00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:54.059 it fails, it's discarded. Right. If a shaman 00:15:54.059 --> 00:15:56.360 performs a ritual to summon the monsoon rain 00:15:56.360 --> 00:15:58.620 so the crops don't fail and the rain doesn't 00:15:58.620 --> 00:16:02.659 come, the crops die. The spell failed. Yes. The 00:16:02.659 --> 00:16:05.200 outcome wasn't achieved. So why doesn't the system 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:07.659 collapse? Why don't they discard the magic if 00:16:07.659 --> 00:16:10.179 it repeatedly fails the reality test? This raises 00:16:10.179 --> 00:16:12.799 an important question. But the answer is that 00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:15.759 the magical framework contains its own internal 00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:18.419 logic for failure. What do you mean? It's much 00:16:18.419 --> 00:16:21.700 like modern debugging in software or diagnosing 00:16:21.700 --> 00:16:24.860 a complex mechanical engine. OK. If the rain 00:16:24.860 --> 00:16:26.899 doesn't come, the practitioner doesn't assume 00:16:26.899 --> 00:16:30.159 the entire concept of magic is fake, just as 00:16:30.159 --> 00:16:32.639 a mechanic doesn't assume the laws of thermodynamics 00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:35.700 are fake when a car won't start. Oh, that's a 00:16:35.700 --> 00:16:38.519 brilliant comparison. The shaman assumes a specific 00:16:38.519 --> 00:16:41.799 variable was flawed. So like, The phrasing of 00:16:41.799 --> 00:16:44.700 the incantation was wrong. Exactly. A syllable 00:16:44.700 --> 00:16:47.080 was mispronounced. An ingredient was harvested 00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:49.480 at the wrong phase of the moon. Or they just 00:16:49.480 --> 00:16:51.960 didn't hold their mouth right. Yeah. Or crucially, 00:16:52.379 --> 00:16:54.720 a rival practitioner in the next village cast 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:57.379 a stronger counter -curse. Ah. So there's always 00:16:57.379 --> 00:17:00.480 an out. Always. The system is a closed logical 00:17:00.480 --> 00:17:02.740 loop. It is entirely self -sustaining because 00:17:02.740 --> 00:17:04.779 every failure can be explained within the rules 00:17:04.779 --> 00:17:07.039 of the system itself. So it's not ignorance at 00:17:07.039 --> 00:17:10.180 all. No. It is a highly sophisticated cognitive 00:17:10.180 --> 00:17:12.359 structure designed to protect the community from 00:17:12.359 --> 00:17:15.759 the despair of true powerlessness. It's the ritualization 00:17:15.759 --> 00:17:18.480 of hope. That is a beautiful way to put it. I 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:21.119 mean, if you are a farmer relying on weather 00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:24.640 patterns you literally cannot track, the sheer 00:17:24.640 --> 00:17:28.059 existential dread of that helplessness would 00:17:28.059 --> 00:17:30.099 paralyze you. You wouldn't be able to function. 00:17:30.220 --> 00:17:34.329 Right. So magic provides agency. If I perform 00:17:34.329 --> 00:17:37.589 this complex, demanding ritual exactly right, 00:17:38.130 --> 00:17:40.549 I have a hand on the steering wheel of the universe. 00:17:40.910 --> 00:17:42.970 Even if it's an illusion of control. Right. That 00:17:42.970 --> 00:17:45.430 illusion is the exact psychological mechanism 00:17:45.430 --> 00:17:47.549 required to get out of bed in the morning and 00:17:47.549 --> 00:17:49.250 plant the seeds. And here's the thing you really 00:17:49.250 --> 00:17:53.039 have to consider. We employ the exact same mechanisms 00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:55.880 today. You think so? Oh, absolutely. The tools 00:17:55.880 --> 00:17:58.660 have changed, but the human intent is identical. 00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:01.279 What stands out to you when you think about our 00:18:01.279 --> 00:18:03.579 modern daily routines? Well, think about how 00:18:03.579 --> 00:18:06.380 we interface with the opaque, terrifying forces 00:18:06.380 --> 00:18:09.099 that govern our modern lives. Like the economy? 00:18:09.240 --> 00:18:12.150 Or algorithms. Look at how people interact with 00:18:12.150 --> 00:18:14.390 the algorithms that control social media visibility, 00:18:14.930 --> 00:18:18.589 gig economy jobs, or digital markets. The algorithm 00:18:18.589 --> 00:18:21.670 is essentially an invisible, omnipotent deity 00:18:21.670 --> 00:18:24.759 that dictates fortune and ruin. And no one truly 00:18:24.759 --> 00:18:27.579 understands its full internal logic, not even 00:18:27.579 --> 00:18:29.660 its creators at this point. Exactly. So what 00:18:29.660 --> 00:18:32.460 do we do? We invent everyday magic. We do. We 00:18:32.460 --> 00:18:34.900 tell each other that if you post at exactly 9 00:18:34.900 --> 00:18:39.680 .04 AM, use exactly five specific hashtags and 00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:41.859 engage with three other accounts within 10 minutes, 00:18:41.900 --> 00:18:44.460 the algorithm will bless your content. It is 00:18:44.460 --> 00:18:46.940 functionally indistinguishable from 19th century 00:18:46.940 --> 00:18:49.779 agricultural magic. It really is. We are negotiating 00:18:49.779 --> 00:18:52.680 with the unseen forces of our environment using 00:18:52.680 --> 00:18:56.170 ritual behaviors, hoping to exert a tiny sliver 00:18:56.170 --> 00:18:58.769 of control over a system that is massively more 00:18:58.769 --> 00:19:01.049 powerful than we are. Which brings us to the 00:19:01.049 --> 00:19:03.190 most staggering detail buried in the metadata 00:19:03.190 --> 00:19:06.430 of this Project Gutenberg page. Yes, the classification. 00:19:06.609 --> 00:19:09.609 It's a tiny categorization note that completely 00:19:09.609 --> 00:19:12.390 reframes what Skeet was actually doing and what 00:19:12.390 --> 00:19:14.269 we are doing by reading him. You're referring 00:19:14.269 --> 00:19:16.490 to the Library of Congress classification. Yes. 00:19:16.670 --> 00:19:19.190 The Library of Congress system is the ultimate 00:19:19.190 --> 00:19:22.549 objective arbiter of how human knowledge is categorized 00:19:22.549 --> 00:19:24.950 and physically shelved. Right, it's the standard. 00:19:25.410 --> 00:19:28.470 Skeet wrote a book in the late 1800s documenting 00:19:28.470 --> 00:19:32.329 literal spells, incantations, animistic spirits 00:19:32.329 --> 00:19:36.509 and folklore. Yeah. The subject keywords explicitly 00:19:36.509 --> 00:19:40.099 say Magic Malay Peninsula. Yet the Library of 00:19:40.099 --> 00:19:42.740 Congress classification for this book is BF. 00:19:42.839 --> 00:19:45.119 And BF is the classification for philosophy, 00:19:45.420 --> 00:19:48.880 psychology, and religion. But the specific subcategories 00:19:48.880 --> 00:19:52.160 applied to this text are psychology, philosophy, 00:19:52.410 --> 00:19:55.670 and psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis. Yes. They 00:19:55.670 --> 00:19:58.890 took a book of raw historical magic, a catalog 00:19:58.890 --> 00:20:01.309 of how indigenous people summoned rain and cured 00:20:01.309 --> 00:20:03.990 fevers, and the modern archival system filed 00:20:03.990 --> 00:20:06.769 it under psychoanalysis. Because the modern archival 00:20:06.769 --> 00:20:09.670 system recognizes the underlying truth of the 00:20:09.670 --> 00:20:12.349 text. Which is what? Skeet thought he was cataloging 00:20:12.349 --> 00:20:14.690 the external beliefs of a specific Southeast 00:20:14.690 --> 00:20:17.849 Asian culture. But in reality, texts like Malay 00:20:17.849 --> 00:20:20.650 Magic are mirrors. Mirrors for us. Yes. When 00:20:20.650 --> 00:20:22.970 we study the ancient magic, the impossible creation 00:20:22.970 --> 00:20:25.190 myths, and the desperate supernatural rituals 00:20:25.190 --> 00:20:27.730 of other cultures, we aren't studying their universe 00:20:27.730 --> 00:20:30.490 at all. What are we studying then? We are simply 00:20:30.490 --> 00:20:34.630 psychoanalyzing the human mind's eternal desperate 00:20:34.630 --> 00:20:37.890 need to control the unknown. Wow. We are looking 00:20:37.890 --> 00:20:40.980 at the architecture of our own anxiety. That 00:20:40.980 --> 00:20:43.400 is why 4 ,500 people downloaded it last month. 00:20:43.980 --> 00:20:46.079 Exactly. They weren't downloading magic. They 00:20:46.079 --> 00:20:48.619 were downloading a diagnostic manual for the 00:20:48.619 --> 00:20:50.920 human condition. And it remains just as vital 00:20:50.920 --> 00:20:54.039 and applicable today as it was in the jungles 00:20:54.039 --> 00:20:56.579 of the Malay Peninsula over a century ago. It 00:20:56.579 --> 00:20:58.819 really does. It's an incredible text. Well, that 00:20:58.819 --> 00:21:01.119 leaves us with a lot to think about. Thank you 00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:03.059 for joining us on this deep dive. Thanks for 00:21:03.059 --> 00:21:04.240 having me. We'll see you next time.