339: Ancient Mysteries Solved? Shroud of Turin, Pyramid’s True Purpose & the Emerald Tablet of Thoth
01:28:43 Share

Hey, what is up, everybody? And welcome back to Mile Higher Podcast, episode 338. And today, we are diving into a very interesting topic. I think you guys are going to really dig this episode. Several, actually. Yeah, yes. Not just one. Right. But multiple. We're talking about...

New discoveries that could solve the world's most ancient mysteries. And we know our audience loves this type of content. We actually haven't done an episode like this in a minute where we dive into...

you know, ancient mysteries. But it's always just so interesting. We're going to be covering everything from Egyptian pyramids and their true purpose to the Shroud of Turin, which is very new to me. Very interesting stuff. And then the Emerald Tablet, which has always been fascinating. I know that we've talked about it on the show at some point years ago. It's hard to remember. I think we have. I mean, I'm pretty sure in an old, I mean, our second episode we ever made on the show was about

the pyramids. Yeah. And then I think we, we revisited it a few, a few years later. And now here we are again. But the reason we're talking about the pyramid is because there is a

huge discovery that just happened just happened caught off the press if you're clued into the ancient mysteries world you probably have heard about it but uh some massive structures have been detected underneath uh the pyramids specifically the pyramid of khafre which uh

It really provides a lot more evidence. Again, we need, you know, there's still, this is like fresh, fresh, fresh. So there's not like a scientifically reviewed paper on this or anything like that at this point. But if these findings turn out to be, you know, totally legitimate, which it seems like they are, this could mean that there's

A lot of things underneath that we've, you know, theorists have been talking about for a long time. Things that we've been talking about for a long time. The Hall of Records. Yeah. You know, remnants of an ancient civilization that once existed prior to, you know, what we now know as modern Egypt. So.

Very exciting stuff because, you know, maybe Atlantis was real. And we'll be talking about Atlantis a little bit because that is the lost civilization that many people out there believe really did exist at one point, but we've just yet to find hard evidence to prove that it was real. And so...

maybe it was. I'm so excited to be talking about Atlantis again because it really is one of my favorite topics. I am an Atlantis believer. I absolutely think that it's real. I've done full, even on my channel back before I only did true crime, I used to talk about Atlantis a lot. Yeah, and I mean, there's been a lot of, a lot of research going into it and a great, you know, a great channel that's done a lot of work on the locating Atlantis is Bright Insight. Yeah, yep. Oh, he's so great. he,

He presented some several different sort of hypotheses around where it could be located, including the eye of Sahara. And Africa is a very interesting possible location for Atlantis. But specifically with the emerald tablet of Toth, we're going to, you know, the Atlantean.

We will be talking a little bit about Atlantis a little bit later in the episode. But then, of course, in 24, so just this past year, you know, some major, I guess, I wouldn't necessarily say, I guess it's a new discovery surrounding the Shroud of Turin, which if you're not familiar with that, this is potentially the burial cloth that Jesus was put, was

wrapped in after his crucifixion and subsequent resurrection. And a lot of people claim that there is this imprint of Jesus on this cloth. And it's a very holy relic that is heavily guarded, but also heavily debated and probably one of the most studied relics.

artifacts out there scientifically as well. Yeah, that one was new to me. I find it fascinating though. It is. Really no one knows. It cannot be explained. Well, it looks like a negative photo, which is wild. So we'll get into all the specifics of it.

And, you know, we could spend hours and days and probably do multiple podcast episodes on each of these topics. So this is a very nice, concise, straight to the point. Overview. Yeah. Fill you in. You know, if you haven't heard of these things, we'll give you a little get you caught up to speed here. And hopefully you'll learn some new things because we certainly did. You sound like Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. Sup, sup, sup. Sorry.

I'm not going to do that. So let us begin. Throughout history, objects filled with philosophical and religious importance have attracted millions of followers who want to get closer and touch the stories that shape their beliefs and worldview. Perhaps the most famous worldwide object of religious reverence is the Black Stone, which I know for a fact we have an episode where we talked about this before in perhaps more detail. But this is housed inside

the Kaaba in Mecca and is said to be a meteorite dating back to the time of Adam and Eve. Hell yeah. Basically, since the creation of the earth. And it was put into the wall of the Kaaba by the Prophet Muhammad in 605 CE. And every year, nearly 3 million Muslims make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, an act of faith that many make at least once in their lifetime. In the Christian tradition, the idea of relics and pilgrimage dates back to at least the 4th century AD.

when St. Helena made the 2,000-mile journey from Rome to Jerusalem. Her son, Emperor Constantine, had legalized Christianity through the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, and Helena began her journey in 327. Helena, who was in her 70s at this point in time, set out to locate the tomb of Jesus Christ in Golgotha and the remnants of the cross that he was crucified on. And according to the legend, St. Helena found his tomb, which was

has since been lost to time. People are still looking for the tomb. Well, Tom actually just sent me... They found it? They found it! Just now, breaking news. There's the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which people believe was the tomb in Jerusalem, but it's not. I mean, it can't be confirmed. It was built in the 1800s. But that was another new discovery that Tom literally just filled me in on, was that they were able to dig a little bit deeper and found gardens that

closely relate to what is described about Jesus's tomb in the Bible. Interesting. Just a little, just hot off the presses. Wow. Breaking news, people. Well, I think on that note, you could apply that same thought process for most of these things in this episode, right?

Everybody's looking for these things and trying to figure out if they're legitimate or not. And a lot of people claim that they are. A lot of people claim that they're not. And so just keep that in mind. You got to keep that in mind throughout pretty much this whole episode. But so anyway, back to St. Helena. Using the body of a dead man, St. Helena placed him on each of the crosses. On the third cross, the man miraculously sprang to life and Helena declared that it was the true cross of Christ and brought it back to Rome.

She also carried soil from Jerusalem, built her chapel in the city on the sacred dirt, and housed the true cross. Eventually, she would send fragments of the cross to churches across the Roman world. And between the next three centuries, pilgrims would discover dozens of relics said to have come in contact with Jesus, including the spear of Longinus, which is said to have pierced Jesus at the time of his crucifixion, as well as his crown of thorns, and even the Holy Grail.

The Crown of Thorns is said to still be housed in Notre Dame after centuries of being held in Constantinople and eventually sold to Louis IX, which is a move that actually bankrupted France.

And while the pedigree for the crown of thorns and the nameplate of Jesus' crucifix, also known as Titleus Crucius, is the best they could be for a single Roman execution 2,000 years ago, other objects are less so. For one, there is speculation surrounding whether St. Helena even made the pilgrimage in the first place, which would have made her whole resurrection story totally bogus.

There are two Spears of Longinus. One is in the Vatican and the other is in Vienna. And at least two churches claim to have the Holy Grail in Spain alone. And obviously they can't both have it. The coveted cup from the Last Supper, which his disciples drank Jesus's blood, which is where the whole concept of communion started. Oh, they drank the blood? That's wild.

You wouldn't drink anyone's blood? Anyone you really follow? People be drinking blood today. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I guess so. Other countries, they drink goat's blood and everything else. I'd drink your blood, Kendall. Would you? Aw, that means a lot to me. I've tasted mine. Everyone's tasted their own blood. I'm not going to lie. Sometimes I like it. Hey, what? Like when I get a little cut. Okay, that was... Don't judge me. No, I don't... It's fine. It's fine. I kind of like the taste of my own blood a little bit. I think we're all curious about it. Not like a ton.

But like if I have a little paper cut, I'm going to like, okay, vampire. A little salty. A little irony. My own blood. You can do whatever you want with your own blood. Right. It's my blood. That's my right as a human being on this planet. Your body, your choice. My body, my choice. My blood, my choice.

So even in the Middle Ages, so many churches claimed to have a piece of the true cross that Pastor John Calvin said you could use the pieces of wood to, quote, fill a ship. Perhaps the most famous modern-day relic of Jesus is the Shroud of Turin, which claims to be a piece of cloth that Jesus was wrapped in following his crucifixion, as Josh explained earlier, and the fabric has the photo-negative imprint of a man who looks a lot like the classic renditions of a bearded Jesus. And

And it's not just Christianity that claims to have objects of worldwide importance. The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus is said to be the starting point for tales about Atlantis and modern-day New Age movement, and still is, in fact, the blueprint for what would become modern-day chemistry, which is really interesting. And some say the tablet is lost to time.

Others say it never even existed, and some say that it's buried underneath the Great Pyramid of Giza. And as of just a few days ago, well, when we're recording this episode, we're recording on March 26th, so this just happened for us.

Couple weeks late for you guys or like a week or so. But a hidden underground structure was discovered underneath the Khafre Pyramid in Giza using radar scans of the area. So with so many objects of historical and religious importance just floating around.

Is believing in these relics an act of faith itself? Some would say yes. I would say yes. Even though I like this crap, I think it's awesome. I do too. But I definitely would agree. An act of faith. But there are a lot of people that take it quite literally. Yeah. And that is their right. Yeah, absolutely. But I'm really excited to talk about this new pyramid discovery because, you know, I think most of us are fascinated by the pyramids. We all want to know how they were built.

I think a lot of us tend to err on the side of it just doesn't make sense. How were they constructed? And also just

The the advanced placement of them, you know, the alignment with the stars and, you know, so many other mysteries of what were they for? We're all looking for answers because I think, you know, Egyptologists, you know, they were built for the pharaohs and, you know, there was they were just used for burials and, you know, storing a bunch of riches and things like that. Absolutely could have been.

And, you know, there's a lot of interesting things about it that people have theorized, which maybe this discovery helps back those up a little bit more. I wish Graham Hancock was with us here today. You know, we could just like pull him whenever we wanted to. I know. I'm curious to hear what his thoughts on this, because.

As far as I know, as of recording, I've looked at all of his social media and his website and stuff, and he has not made any sort of statement as far as what I could find about this new discovery. He's probably still ruminating. I don't know what he thinks. Maybe by the time this episode comes up, he'll have made a statement we can pin in or something. Which, if you want to know more about the pyramids more so, more knowledge than either Ken or I have, that is a great episode. Certainly.

On our YouTube channel, or I guess it's on the podcast as well. But he goes, I mean, we spent a good two hours talking about this very subject. That was the ancient Civ episode, not the psychedelic one, because YouTube majorly suppressed the psychedelic one. Yes, very much so. Not shocking. All right. So scientists, they discovered a large underground structure underneath the pyramids of Giza using radar scans of the area. The scientists involved in the discovery were Corrado Malanga from the University of Pisa and Filippo Biondi.

And they first located the anomaly in 2022, actually, but they had just returned to take another look with this radar technology. And these new findings show an underground or several underground structures twice as deep as the Eiffel Tower. You know, based on these radar scans, there's, you know, 3D models that have been generated to give you sort of a better idea in 3D of what these radar scans can possibly be looking at.

But the Giza complex consists of three pyramids. There's Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, which were built around 4,500 years ago and as well along with the Great Sphinx. The team studied the second largest, Khafre, named after the pharaoh that was

supposedly once buried there. There's actually not been a pharaoh found in a pyramid, believe it or not. Well, you know, I think it's probably because they were stolen. But that's just me. That's me being... That's what Egyptologists would say, is they would say that they were taken from their pyramid by looters, which we do know that looters did loot the pyramids at one point. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm with you, Ian. I think that's probably what happened, even though it's less fun to believe. But many also think that they just built it for the pharaoh, you know, because it's interesting that most of the pharaohs are found in the Valley of Kings. So is it possible? I tend to personally think that they were never buried there, but that's just me. I believe more that they were multipurpose.

I mean, it's pretty interesting, though. If you ever look at, you know, have a tour of the pyramids, how are they getting things through those corridors, man? It's pretty narrow. It is. How are they hauling a bunch of stuff through their bodies and everything else? Well... Unless there's stuff that we don't know about. We do know there's, like, hidden tunnels and things like that that haven't been opened. And so there's a lot of mysteries still there. But I don't know. Maybe it was something where the pharaohs were...

in, you know, whatever the pyramids were actually built for. And so they were buried along with their life's work.

You know, we all have bad habits out there. They can be hard to get past, right? It's a struggle. You know, it doesn't matter what it is. But if you're somebody who finds yourself vaping, you know, more than you want to, or maybe you're just trying to quit altogether, you need to check out Fume because they're here to help with a smarter alternative. Fume is this really cool flavored air device. So it's not a vape. It's not a pipe. But

but something completely different. Fume lets you satisfy the urge to reach for something without nicotine, vapor, or batteries. Kind of gives you that like oral fixation a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. It's great because it's, you know, you can take it anywhere. And obviously people are confused a little bit when they see you use it for the first time because they're expecting vapor to come out, but there's none of that. It's just air. Yep.

Use it on an airplane. It's a great way to talk about fume with the flight attendant, you know. Plus, it comes with amazing flavors like crisp mint, cinnamon hearts, and peach blush to keep things fresh. I've had the opportunity to use fume, and I'm actually really impressed with the quality of this device. And they made it so for people who are fidgeters like I am, you know, I'm always tapping my leg, my feet.

Fume is great because it's got a little like slide on it. So you can kind of slide it back and forth in your hand, kind of like almost like you would with a lighter or something, which is great just for that fixation, you know, and then you can hit it and get that delicious flavored air.

I mean, it's basically you slide it. There's like a little divot that you then insert the little cartridge, I guess. It's not really a cartridge. It's like a little pouch, you know, that you put in there. And basically when you breathe through it, it's running the air through this little cartridge and it flavors it for you.

without the vapor. Fume has already helped over 400,000 people take steps towards better habits, and now it's your turn. To kick off the new year, use our code MILHAR to get a free gift with your journey pack. Head to tryfume.com. That's tryfume.com. Use code MILHAR to claim this limited time offer today.

So Corrado Malanga is a fairly well-known ufologist who's appeared on numerous YouTube channels and videos and has really been researching this topic for a very, very long time, especially UFO sightings in Italy. And I feel like we may have even mentioned him in talking about one of our UFO cases in the past. Yeah, it sounds familiar. In Italy. Biondi specializes in radar technology and launched a satellite to help further examine the Khafre Pyramid

after their 2022 findings were published in Remote Sensing. According to Malanga and Biondi, the Khafre Pyramid, the second largest, was found to have five identical structures near its base, each containing multiple levels and connected by geometric pathways. The two said they found a limestone platform with two chambers and channels that resemble pipelines for a water system more than 2,100 feet below the pyramid. And they said, quote,

When we magnify the images, we will reveal that beneath it lies what can only be described as a true underground city. Wow. Wouldn't that be crazy? They even stated that it could house the long fabled Hall of Records, which according to legend contains information about ancient technology civilizations. I mean, we're talking about Atlantis. We're talking about basically the history of the universe. You know, we definitely have talked about it.

When we talked about the Great Sphinx in another episode, I believe it's either the exit or the entrance is supposedly...

underneath the Great Sphinx. And I'm pretty sure we talked about this a little bit with Graham Hancock as well, because there's definitely been things detected underneath the Great Sphinx as well. Yeah, I think we did. As far as structures. But the team used a new radar technology known as synthetic aperture radar. And this technology uses satellite data combined with seismic data to create a 3D model of what lies beneath the surface of the Earth without the need for physical excavation. It's really such a cool technology that they can do this.

Yeah, especially when you're not allowed to dig. And I understand, you know, they don't want to compromise the structural integrity of the pyramids because, of course, the pyramids are a major tourist attraction for Egypt. I don't think that's the main reason. No, I know that's not the main reason, but it is a big reason. There's a lot of tourism around the pyramids, but also it is a revered ancient place.

you know artifact or you know structure that they want to preserve for the sake of egyptian history which i told you yeah the old like some of the oldest yes correct the oldest well there's also other pyramid sites that are that might even predate the pyramids the ones in northern sudan certainly do certainly but i'm trying oh right yes according to google egypt's

um tourism revenue was 15.3 billion in 2024 now that's not just the pyramids but i would assume a large portion of that is because of you know having to do with the pyramids yeah so overall the team said that they found eight vertical cylinder shaped structures extending 2100 feet deep beneath the pyramid 10 times larger than

than the Giza complex itself. Researchers on the team believe that the cylinders serve as access points along the underground system and have strong correlation with the, quote, halls of a mentee or hall of records. Theorists have speculated that the pyramids were not merely royal tombs, but rather that they served mechanical purposes as well. Nikola Tesla and Christopher Dunn's theories maintain that the pyramids collected and used Earth's natural energy to

To create power for the ancient Egyptian civilization. Yeah, through harmonic resonance. Yeah, yep. It's really interesting. So it was really an acoustical device that converted the vibrational energies into microwave radiation. There's been other discoveries and evidence of radiation within the pyramids as well. So it's not... It's...

It's not just this like outlandish theory. There's definitely, which would also help explain the astrological significance of the pyramids as well. But this idea that the pyramids were actually...

generators for energy that was used to power this ancient civilization. Which a big part of me really does believe that. And it's something that we've talked about in countless episodes. But if you want to know more about it, Dunn actually published his theories in a book, The Giza Power Plant, speculating that the pyramids were machines for ancient Egyptians used to generate power throughout

or through their vibrations. Egyptologists maintain that the pyramids were built around 2500 BCE using conventional methods. However, these newly uncovered structures and anomalies within the pyramids' construction have, of course, created debate surrounding their true purpose. The Khafre Project, named after the pyramid under examination,

wishes to excavate the region to investigate the findings further. However, Egyptian officials often do not approve of new digs in the Giza complex, which, of course, theorists believe is because they do not want to challenge the previously held notions of ancient Egyptian history. And the authorities, however, have expressed that since the pyramids are constructed on top

of a flooded basin that digging into the underground structures could threaten the Khafre pyramid's structural integrity and the whole complex, which does make a lot of sense. However, like any new findings being claimed out of Egypt, they've been challenged. Even in 22, after Egyptologists noted how it was already known that a water system flowed beneath the pyramids,

You know, they're like, hey, this is old news to us. We already knew this was under there. Some theorists said that the royal tombs were initially supposed to be underground before they dug into a natural aquifer and flooded the basin which created these structures found on the radar scans through erosion. While the team has yet to publish its findings in a scientific paper, which they do plan on doing, others in the field are already expressing doubt, including Professor Lawrence Conyers, an archaeological radar expert at the University of Denver.

said that the technology could not yet penetrate that deeply into the ground. While an underground city is a quote, huge exaggeration, Professor Conyer said the small structures like the shafts and chambers found on the scans may have been present before the pyramids were built. He went on to say, quote, the Mayans and other peoples in ancient Mesoamerica often built pyramids on top of entrances to caves or caverns

that had ceremonial significance to them. But if these findings do hold up, they speak to the rumored findings of Dr. M. Doriel and the Emerald Tablets. And we'll talk about those here in a little bit, but let's talk about Jesus. But before we do, I wanted to just, this is a AI-generated image of, based off of the, those new scans of what, you know, a...

modern you know take of this ancient civilization if this were in fact a power plant if you look that so cool so people are very split you know as they should be it's healthy yeah it's healthy we love to hear it we love to hear we love we love to see see good research but but anyway back to jesus but let's talk about jesus man jesus is my homeboy

I remember that. You remember that? I remember that. Oh, yeah. I always saw shirts like that. I thought you just randomly said that. No, people used to wear shirts. Well, I'm sure people still do. It says, Jesus is my homeboy. Oh, okay.

Or like Jesus Freak. You never saw shirts like that? Oh yeah, Jesus Freak, yeah. I mean, to be fair, Jesus seemed like a really chill dude. Yeah, he's my homeboy. Seemed like a very, very good guy. But before we talk about the Shroud of Turin, it's important that we further explore the context of Christian relics, especially during the Middle Ages, because

Middle Ages were crazy times, man. What a time to be alive. It's hard to even wrap your head around what it would have been like to live in the Middle Ages. God. We think we have it hard now. We got it hard. I know. I have to remind myself that on a daily basis. The Middle Ages was brutal. It was. But they were living in a time before social media, so they had that going for them. Okay.

I'm just saying like that's destroying us. So at least they didn't have to deal with that. Yeah, but I don't know. You're still safe. I'm just trying to find the positives. Okay. You can say whatever you want on social media and it doesn't do anything, you know, in your life. Except for destroy your mental health. Right. But these guys weren't thinking about their mental health. They're thinking about their physical health because they could be things could happen at any point in time. And then you've got

you know, all these religious leaders that are trying to establish themselves across the world and establish churches. And so during this time, tons of fake relics were being manufactured because everybody wanted to have the church, especially Catholic churches. They were known for doing this because they wanted people, they wanted to seem like, yeah, we're the real legit one. Put themselves on the map. We've got this holy relic. You got to come to our church. Yeah, it's like a marketing ploy. Yeah, yeah, a little bit.

While other denominations, like certain branches of Protestantism, denounce relics. And they said, quote, faith alone should be enough. Is it enough? I guess for them. I get this point of view, though. I was going to say, Josh, you've made this argument, not necessarily for religion, but for other things that we've talked about. Faith alone should be enough. Yeah, you definitely have.

Bigfoot is real. I was about to say seeing is not believing. Yeah. And maybe this is the, the former Protestant me talking. Oh, I didn't know you. Faith alone should be enough. Yeah. I was a Protestant. Yep. My pappy was a Catholic.

Oh no. And he left the Catholic church. Yeah, he did. He like exiled too. Yeah. I mean, and I was always taught like, you know, do not worship false idols and don't, you know, holy relics fall into that to some extent, you know, why do you need a relic to confirm whether or not you believe in something? You should just believe in it because you believe. That's not how my brain works. I need to see. Well, a lot of, a lot of people need tangible proof, tangible scientific evidence to back it up. But

What is science? Where did science come from? I was going to say, Kendall, you kind of

subscribe to that, though. Because you're spiritual. I'm like the afterlife. Oh, yeah. But I don't have anything like super solid. I'm not like set 100% I believe this. I just... I like to dabble in different ideas. And I do believe that there's something more. I'm not like an atheist. You're an agnostic. Yeah, I'm an agnostic. Yeah. You believe there is some type of higher power. You just don't know what it is. Maybe not even a higher power. Oh, okay. So not agnostic. Yeah, I don't know. But I feel like... I believe there's a higher purpose. Yeah, you...

Because we've talked about this a million times. If we believe, you know, we just lights are out and that's the end of it. And you always have said that you really have a strong feeling that that's not the case. Yeah. Although I'm not based on belief. Yeah. On nothing. Right. Just, yeah. My own like personal feelings. Which are based off of? Nothing. Nothing. Yeah. But at the end of the day, I don't believe in it to the point where I'm like, I'd put all my money on it. You know, we could just die and that's it.

Yep. That is true. We could just die and that's it. I just don't like that. So I choose for my own sanity to not believe that. That's totally fair. Do you remember what it was like before you were born? Yes. It was quiet. It was cozy. It was dark, but it was good. Being in the womb was lit. Well, that's the thing is maybe it does return to that. And that in itself to me is comforting in some way. I know my grandma before she passed, I would always be like,

I don't know. We'd have talks like this. She's like, there ain't shit. I'm going in the ground, going with the worms. And that's the end of me. She would say that to me. Right. It's like, OK, that's her right to believe that it is. I respect it. Well, anyways, back to these relics here. We're talking about these holy relics. OK. OK.

Serious stuff. The whole purpose of having the relics was so that they gained more respect, more clout, more clout, more clout, more relics, more clout. Catholic churches in the Middle Ages.

You know, so it was like full on, you know, wars are fought over these things. Everybody's going for Jesus's relics, man. I mean, if you had Jesus's relics, your church was pimping, man. You're doing really good. Bringing in big numbers. Ark of the Covenant, Holy Grail, Shroud of Turin. Imagine if a church had all of them. It would be the only church. That'd be crazy. That'd be a crazy church.

Well, and I think, you know, this is off topic a little bit, but I think that's why there's so many theories around the secret library of the Vatican. Going back to that. Totally. It's just like, oh, my God, they're so fucking powerful that they have to have all of this. Yes. That's a great point. I think the Vatican is a perfect example of everything that happened in the medieval ages. There was a purpose for all of it because ultimately the Vatican came out on top.

They have their own freaking country. Yeah. You know, with their own. God, I always forget that. Yeah. They're their own country within a country. And then they have the secret archives, the library and everything else. And of course, all these relics that we'll be talking about, people throw it out there. Maybe they're in the Vatican, which would be absolutely that. That'd be nuts. The Vatican has all this. They somehow got a hold of everything and they're keeping it hidden forever.

But why? Wouldn't you want humanity to know about these things? And wouldn't you want to market it a little better? Wouldn't the Vatican want everybody to know that Jesus Christ was real and that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead? Yeah, so they probably don't have any of this, probably. There's a lot of theories out there, man. Yeah, that's a topic for a different day. Maybe they're not in the business of good. Maybe. Hey, you know what? That's a new theory. No, no, no, no. No, dude. The most...

Experience Vatican Exorcist said the devil is in the Vatican. Oh, yeah. We've talked about that. Father Amort. Right. That guy changed my perspective. Oh, really? Because I don't trust the Vatican. I mean, not many people do. I don't. There's something weird, possibly nefarious going on there because...

The devil's in the Vatican. Why? What else do they have going on? Anyways, we're getting off topic. Let's go back to the 5th century. Reign it in. 5th century. As early as the 5th century, bishops and high-ranking church officials were against the trade of these hoaxed items as it created an entire market of swindlers and fraudsters. Soon, there were thousands of nails used in the crucifixion just

Floating around Europe and Boulder, supposedly to be the resting rock of Mother Mary, were carted around from church to church. Oftentimes, churches and their leaders relied on these hoaxed religious relics to gain respect and clout from the lower classes and other countries. And as previously mentioned, Louis IX bankrupted France to purchase Notre Dame's Crown of Thorns, hoping that it would lead to greater power and political prestige in

in Europe. But what's interesting is that even these hoaxed items have well-documented pedigrees that place them being found in the 4th and 6th centuries. However, there is no mention of the Shroud of Turin being found around this time or anywhere near Jerusalem at all. It wasn't until the second half of the 6th century that early Christian pilgrims mentioned burial cloths, and even they had doubts about how they had been preserved.

and what form they took. Plus, with major items like the crown of thorns and the Holy Grail already found, these pilgrims began to find more obscure items like the bathtub of baby Jesus, his cradle nappy, his umbilical cord, his baby teeth, the tail of the donkey that he had rode when he entered Jerusalem, the bodies of his grandparents, even the milk of Mother Mary and her wedding ring. Which, okay, also...

One pilgrim even claimed to have found the foreskin of baby Jesus. Imagine what that discovery would have been like. What did it look like? I don't know. Be really, really old at that point. Nasty. Also, I just have a question. When it comes to the tail of the donkey, is this where... Because I didn't know about this whole tail of the donkey that...

He had rode in when he entered Jerusalem. What did they chop it off? This poor donk. That's it's not really explained how they because in the Bible, they did not chop off the donkey's tail. It just didn't happen. So I imagine they what would have happened is they went on down to Jerusalem and there was some guy they met there who was like this donkey tail.

Guess where it came from. This is the one. This is the one, man. So my question is, is this where Eeyore came from? Because his tail is nailed on. You know, where did Pin the Tail on the Donkey come from? That's my next question. Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Does all of this, does Eeyore and Pin the Tail on the Donkey go back to religious theories? Very curious. That's a very curious question. Because I've always wondered, what's up with his tail being nailed on? That's so violent. Violent. Yeah. Yeah.

And then Pin the Tail on a Donkey is such a weird thing, but we all did that as kids. Pin the Tail on a Donkey just comes from rural Wisconsin. Oh, no way. In the 1800s. Well, maybe they were inspired by- Donkey parties. Yeah. Donkey parties became a craze at the turn of the century. A fucking craze. It was initially a parlor game played by prominent society members. Oh, just the prominent ones. Yes. Wow. I'd like to know more about that.

Okay. Next week's episode. Next week, tune in. Donkey parties, where'd they come from? However, the first time a burial shroud is mentioned leaving Jerusalem is in the 9th century, when the relic trade ramped up as part of the Crusades. Legend has it that the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne himself made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and obtained it.

the Shroud of Jesus, though this one did not have an imprint of Jesus. And it's not just Charlemagne who claimed to have the burial shroud. Rome also has one. Caduan has one and dozens of others as well. Perhaps the most respected one is the Sudarium of Oviedo in Spain, which can be traced back to the 8th century. And a sudarium, if you didn't know, is a face wrapping used in Jewish burials during the time of Jesus.

So when you consider all of this, it's important to note that the Shroud of Turin is perhaps the most famous burial shroud. It's also the most recent. So,

The shroud, what is it? It's a large linen cloth that measures over four meters in length with bloodstains matching various wounds that Jesus would have obtained during his crucifixion. What's even more interesting is that the Shroud of Turin is the only burial shroud that shows the image of a man, which just so happens to look like classic renditions of Jesus. And they're imprinted on either side in a near photographic negative, as if the form of the man was transferred to the shroud

after it was wrapped around him, which is honestly, this is pretty insane. Whether it's real or not, it is pretty fascinating to look at. Yeah, this is mind-blowing, honestly. So what's the history? In 1355, French knight Joffroy de Charney showed off the shroud for the first time in a small country church in Leray. What would that have been like? He just shows up to it and he's like, guys, check this shit out. He's like, shroud hall. Yep. Shroud hall. Now,

Now, parading around a burial shroud has definitely is definitely not a new thing at this point in time. It's been they've been doing it for a long, long time. But this one was different because it's the only one with this miraculous image of Jesus Christ. The moment that night Joffroy displayed the shroud, it became a subject of intense debate, as you can imagine, because he's like, hey, guys, it's Jesus Christ. Check this out. You're lying.

But after they saw the shroud for themselves, two local bishops were like, hell nah, this is fake. In 1389, the Bishop of Troyes wrote to the Pope denouncing the shroud and saying that the Church of Loray was engaged in deliberate fraud. He even claimed to have known the artist who created the image.

But the Pope made a diplomatic decision. He knew that the shroud had become sort of a pilgrimage for the Church of Lorraine, which ultimately meant more moolah for the Catholic Church. So he said that the church could continue showing off the cloth. But, you know, you have to publicly give a little disclaimer that it's just a representation and not the true burial shroud. Maybe like small, small text underneath it. This is fake. Yeah, like on a, you know, on a little...

disclaimer for sweepstakes yeah exactly the bottom of the smallest possible of the cereal box however that didn't stop later owners in 1453 the house of savoy illegally purchased the shroud and moved it to the city of shamboy the house of savoy wanted to gain political power in the catholic church and they're like what better way than to have the shroud of turin this is real and so they began parading around and showing in religious ceremonies because

Yeah. And they declared it as real. Yeah. So, again, we have local bishops at the very beginning saying, no, no, no, this is fake. But maybe they just said that because they want it eventually. Competition. They want to be like, yeah, it's fake. You know, not a big deal. But then behind the scenes, like, no, we need to get our hands on this. How do we get this for our church? Josh, are there quotes in the Bible about

having to do with how money is somehow like being greedy is a bad thing. I've literally said them on this show. Right. So I guess my argument to that is it's really disappointing that they immediately were like, ooh, business opportunity. Ooh, religion disappointing? Because it's like, okay, if this you guys believe or didn't, whatever it is, if this is symbolizing something that Jesus Christ was buried in and you're using it as a business opportunity,

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Martin, you and Martin Luther agree. Yeah. Many things. I was just going to say Martin Luther, man, he was the one who exposed the Catholic church and is really the history is very weak on this, but,

And he's basically what started the whole, you know, Protestantism movement, you know, and split off from the Catholic church and was like, they're doing it wrong. We don't need all this stuff. We also don't need all these people in between us and God. Because that was the thing about the Catholic church is you got to go to, you know, you got to go to the priest and the priest has to communicate things. Like your relationship with God wasn't as personal as it is in other denominations. So it was like, but yeah, I...

I think all of us want to know, like, what do they need all this money for? Well, it's because of the structure of the church. They have all these people that work within the church, you know, and then also they needed money to expand. They want a Catholic Catholicism around the world and hence why it's one of the world, you know, I don't know what it is now. I don't think it's might be top three or something, but.

But yeah, I mean, you look at where Catholicism spread across the world. I'm actually curious. What are the top three religions in the world? Do you think Christianity is just grouped into that? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Catholicism would be under Christianity. Yeah. So Islam's belief in Jesus Christ. Yeah. Two. Right. So yeah, Christianity is one. Wow. Even above Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, traditional folk religions. You're saying? Christianity, approximately 31.2% of the world's population. Wow. And

And I do want to just say, because I don't want any Catholics getting mad at me, the Catholic Church has also done a lot of good for people. I mean, and I'm saying this because my family that are Catholics as well. And the Catholics do do a ton of charity. They have a lot of social programs. There's a lot of...

A lot of that money is spent in really good places. It's not just like they're all just like rolling in dough. And you know what I mean? So I don't want people to get the wrong idea. And I didn't want it to come across. I was more so just at this time. It's odd to me that they're already like running around being like, look here. Yeah. Yep. Right. And, you know, seemingly so close to when it was discovered. They're automatically like, how can we make a business?

deal out of this right well this is the age of empires yeah you know so it's like they uh they want to have their empire you know it's just humanity that's what stinks you know it's wild to me we really are programmed to be greedy yep we really are but they would argue that it's in the name of god you know what i mean like they wouldn't they wouldn't look at it the same way that that you would they would be like well we're doing this for

To build this temple for God here on earth and to spread his message and bring as many people into the religion as possible. And therefore, that is a good thing and a good thing to spend money on. That's true. I don't think necessarily it was like all these...

you know, priests. And I mean, you might, you could make the argument now like, oh, the Pope has this fancy castle, you know, this palace that he lives in and they have their own country and they're exempt from all these things. Does the Pope have a private jet? Probably. I think at one point in time, I know Pope Francis, there were many things that he, like for one, he had the gold that was stitched into all of the Pope's clothes taken out. Yeah, he's a cool Pope. He's a real one. He's a real one. The Pope does not actually fly with people

normal commercial airlines but only charters the whole plane but no private jet but they do charter entire entire planes which makes sense kind of the same thing yeah honestly it might be worse but it's a giant commercial airline i don't know i don't know

So if you've been listening to the show for a while, you know how much I truly love our next sponsor, Stitch Fix. And I have been a paying customer of Stitch Fix for years, far before they even started sponsoring our shows. And I truly love the service. I have recommended it to so many of my friends and family and has made my life so much easier because I hate shopping. I hate shopping.

I don't have a great sense of fashion, to be honest, and Stitch Fix makes it all so much easier for me. Because the truth is, shopping and figuring out your style can just be overwhelming. I think we've all been in that situation where you're trying to get dressed in the morning and you don't even know where to start, or you're trying to plan an outfit for the night before and you're just like,

Do these things clash? Can these go together? There's all these different fashion rules. It gets confusing. But with Stitch Fix, you just give your stylist your size, your style, your budget preferences, and then you order boxes when you want and how you want. There's no subscription required. And my stylist sends me just-for-me pieces plus

plus outfit recommendations and styling tips as well. And then I keep what I love and send back the rest. It's so easy. My stylist sends me personalized pieces and the fit is always flawless. And the longer you've been a Stitch Fix customer, the better the boxes are going to be because your stylist truly does learn your style preferences and your budget preferences as well. And a Stitch Fix for the whole fam. Yeah, they've got it for kids now. For men. Dogs. I don't think they have dogs yet.

That would be cool. That could be their next business venture. Well, you could put Stitch Fix toddler clothing on your dog. Yeah, there's no rules. You can put adult stuff on the dogs. But really, like I always say, the best part for me is no mall, no stores, no crowds, no stress. Just personalized looks that I'm going to love. And Stitch Fix makes it all so easy because they have that prepaid mailer and you just shove everything that you need.

Just don't happen to jive with into the bag and send it on back. Personal styling for everyone. Get started today at stitchfix.com slash mile higher. That's stitchfix.com slash mile higher. It's back to the shroud, back to the shroud.

A fire in 1532 actually damaged the Shroud, resulting in four holes that were burned through the linen. And miraculously, though, the image of the man's body was undamaged, which is very interesting. The Shroud was moved to Turin in the 17th century, where a chapel connected to the city's cathedral was built to house it specifically. It got its own chapel. And from then on, the House of Savoy tried to cover up the Shroud's history and potential fraud,

and even tried to make the shroud popular outside of Turin, creating painted copies that became, quote, relics by contact, and at least 50 of these copies still exist today. Even the popes who have previously tried to cast doubt on the shroud's legitimacy began to say that it was the true shroud and encouraged pilgrims to visit Turin and see it, and this would end in the 20th century. And while the shroud lost its popularity in the 1800s,

Its first photograph in 1898 renewed its notoriety. While the image was always faint in photographic negative, it was not only identical to the classic renditions of Jesus, but also three-dimensional. This is when the shroud science truly began. So, syndenology, which is the scientific study of the Shroud of Turin, has rigorously studied the shroud since the early 20th century.

And most scientists really fall into one of two camps. There's the hardcore believers that the shroud is authentic, and then those who doubt its validity. However, typically all those involved

have respected scientific careers outside of their shroud studies. Zoologist Paul Vignan and Ulysses Chevalier were the first to establish scientific syndenology. While both men were Catholic, what's interesting is that Ulysses was a priest who denied the shroud's authenticity. He was actually the one responsible for publishing the earliest medieval documents that called the relic a fake. In 1978, scholars and researchers founded STIRP,

Shroud of Turin Research Project. I'm sorry, I just had to. It's S-T-U-R-P, Shturp. Shturp. Yeah. It reminds me of that TikTok where they're like, perp. He won't let me perp. Shturp. We love Shturp. Big fans of Shturp. We love Shturp, okay? While the group had differing opinions on the Shroud's origin, their main focus was figuring out how the heck did the image get made in the first place, man? That's the mystery here. How did this happen?

Some suggested that it resulted from a body coming into contact with the cloth, with, you know, blood, sweat, and body oil leaving an imprint, as this is kind of the theory that many learn in Catholic school, you know, even if it falls short of calling it an authentic relic. But some even suggested it could have resulted from medieval or early photography or maybe magic. You never know.

If the linen had some photographic qualities, as far as I know, that's pretty unlikely. But maybe the image was projected using pinholes over a long exposure period, and it could have resulted in the photographic negative image left on the shroud. Very few people actually believe in this theory. But the most interesting theory comes from Professor John P. Jackson, who runs the Shroud of Torrance Center in Colorado Springs. Our neighbor. Yeah, just down the block. John theorized that out. The moment of resurrection.

Jesus's body emitted ultraviolet radiation that stained the shroud with his image. Now, there's a lot more science that goes into this. This sounds like, what? Yeah, like John's paper on it is nearly 40 pages long. Yes. Like it's really intense work he's doing to explain this. Yes, and a similar scientist is nuclear engineer Bob Rucker, who's been a nuclear engineer for 40 years, who has dopamines.

dove into the science of this thing. I found a clip of him attempting to explain this on a YouTube channel to somebody. And I just want to show you a short clip because he kind of breaks it down a little bit. Who is this? I show the image of the face. Who is this? Two criterion. One, he was crucified exactly like Jesus was crucified. Criterion number two, an extremely brief, intense burst of radiation from his dead body

produced the front and back images of his body on the cloth and produced new carbon-14 on the cloth, which shifted the carbon date. Now, if you look through all of the historical documentation that's available to humanity, there's only one person and one event that could satisfy these two criteria, and that is Jesus and the resurrection. This is the first time we have scientific evidence

Proving Jesus' resurrection. Just so you can see, I mean, here's a nuclear engineer who's very confident that this is scientific evidence of not only that Jesus died, but that he was resurrected. That there's only one human on this planet that could have something like this happen after Earth.

They're revived. Well, I mean, that's what I will say about the syndenology in general is that like all these dudes are smart, like no matter what way you fall on it, whether it be a real the real thing or a fake. It's like these are guys who are way above me in terms of research. And, you know, even if you don't believe in the resurrection, they they do have some

enough to prove what they believe is right. You know, and I'll give them that. I'll definitely give them that. Yeah. But I would say, how does this prove that it was Jesus? Right. Because we don't know that it was Jesus. For all we know, this could have been a lot of other people. You know what I mean? Could have been an extraterrestrial for all we know. I mean... Oh, here comes the comments for you. Hey, you know what? It could have been

A lot of, you know, a lot of different people. No, I think that's a fair question. I think it's very fair. Nobody fucking knows at the end of the day. People like to say they do. Yes. If you're looking at it through the lens of Christianity, of course, there's only one person that, you know, came back from the dead in this manner. Jesus Christ. But then if you look at other religious doctrine, there's lots of other instances of that.

people coming back from the dead, especially prominent religious leaders. Now, the argument would be, well, the location this was found, the time period in which it was found, what is the likelihood that it's anybody other than Jesus? Yeah, you got me there. But again, this is a theory still, you know what I mean? They still, he's giving a very educated theory based on nuclear physics and all these other things.

But it's still a complete mystery and the authenticity is still in question, you know. But I think it comes down... So another argument people make is, well, how do we know that this type of energy would be released and have this sort of effect on a fabric if we've never been able to measure this before? We don't have any other instances in modern science that...

gives us data to back this up. So again, it's just a hypothesis based on a lot of science, but can the scientific method be applied through and through on this hypothesis? I don't think so, because how do you prove that? We've never had anybody in known history that any of us have lived around, have been around where somebody has resurrected from the dead, period. I think you need to debate, Bob. Well, Bob, if you're out there, let's do it. So

Back to Jackson here, Mr. John Jackson. We'll talk about him a little bit more.

but they maintain that the shroud is the true burial cloth of Jesus and they point to the unique stigmata presented on the fabric. While the crucifixion is often depicted with the nails going through Jesus' palms and feet, the shroud appears to show the wounds and resulting bloodstains coming from his wrists and ankles. Only two victims of crucifixion have ever been discovered by archaeologists, with one showing that the nail was driven through their ankles just as depicted in the shroud. John

John and others maintain that there is no paint on the fabric and say that the bloodstains match an AB-positive blood type. And even going further, they claim that the Sudarium of Oviedo, though it doesn't have the image of anyone's face, it also has bloodstains that are type AB. John also possesses the most accurate shroud recreation, which matches perfectly with the image that is shown on the shroud when wrapped around a body. John also maintains that when you wrap the Sudarium over the head...

It matches the bloodstains on the shroud. John and others also point to the Prey Codex, which is a 12th century Hungarian text that seemingly shows Jesus wrapped in a shroud at his burial. They believe the heavy illustration of the fabric's weave in the image is a rendition of the shroud's herringbone pattern. So John believes that the shroud can be traced back to the 6th century BCE, not the 1300s. He believes that the shroud and the mandylion

another miraculous image lost to time, are the same object. Now, the mandylion is a legendary towel that Jesus used to wipe his face, which retained his image. After that, the mandylion was supposedly protected by the Knights Templar and eventually brought to France in the 1300s. However, this is all speculation, and while John may be a respected scientist in his own right, his studies on the Shroud of Turin may involve, you know, a little bit of the

Faith. Starting with the cloth itself. While believers in the Shroud say that it matches Jewish burial standards of the time, others disagree. Skeptics state that while the linen and cotton cloths were available, and if the Bible were to be believed, Jesus would have been wrapped in the finest around, of course. However, herringbone knits were not common at all.

The Bible clearly states that Jesus' body and head were wrapped in two different cloths, a shroud for the body and a sudarium for the head. It was not typical for the ancient Semites to use a single shroud to wrap the entire body. And what about the prey codex? According to art historians, medieval Hungarians often depicted gravestones and markers with that zigzagged pattern, and it is not an intense rendition of the shroud's herringbone knit. Only researchers associated with stirrup have found the blood on the shroud to be authentic.

Other researchers and some within STIRP found that the bloodstains were pigments often used throughout the Middle Ages. One researcher even recreated many of the shroud's characteristics using medieval dyes and paints.

And when you take a look at these, you know, they're definitely not perfect, but there's definitely some resemblances there for sure. However, the final nail in the coffin came in 1988 when a section of the shroud was cut and examined using carbon-14 dating techniques. It's important to note here that the carbon dating was not authorized by STIRP and its members have contested the findings since 1988 and came out with their own in 2024. Instead, it was approved by the safekeeper of the shroud and the Vatican.

Three laboratories received samples taken from a single strip. And I've heard different things, but it sounds like people who dispute this carbon dating said it came from the end of the actual shroud itself, that it wasn't anywhere near the actual imprint. So there's that. But all three of these returned findings dating the shroud to between 1260 and 1390, which is around the same time that it first appeared in France. The

However, to this day, Sterp denies these findings.

If you watch any given video on the Shroud of Turin or even news coverage, you'll find that the carbon data is, quote, called into question every few years and that STIRP did their own analysis that just happened to return a result of the cloth being from the first century using wide angle x-ray scans. So like I mentioned, this topic came up in August of 2024 when it was released that this

Wide angle x-ray scattering was used to take a look at a tiny sample from the shroud, which is in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. And they said that the results of, you know, this cloth after going through, you know, using this wide angle x-ray scattering technology, basically this sample dated from AD 55 through 74, which is consistent with the theory that the shroud is a 2000 year old relic.

There's a lot of issues with that. However, I will say the wide angle x-ray scattering or waxes is the acronym for it seems to be a bit more precise because it's specifically used for dating textiles and the structural degradation of materials. Whereas carbon dating determines the age of organic materials based on the decay of carbon-14 because a lot of their arguments are also

well, you know, it went through a fire. So wouldn't that affect the carbon-14 in the shroud? And so I get that too. But there's some other issues with it. And I think just overall, if you think about it, this thing has exchanged hands so many times. It's very evident that it's been repaired. The chain of custody has not been tracked. You know what I mean? Like who knows

where it's been, what it's been through, what it's been environmentally subjected to, it seems like it'd be a very difficult period to determine an exact age of this thing. But, I mean, what do I know? I do want to point out that the researchers who conducted this new study with the X-ray probe of the Shroud in 2024 did say and conclude in the report that a more accurate X-ray probe

of more samples taken from the Shroud of Turin needs to confirm the results of their study. So we're talking about a teeny, teeny, tiny sample that was taken to get this 2000 year plus date. Yeah, this is interesting. I think ultimately it was to disprove the carbon dating. They want to prove that this is from that time period, but even then, it doesn't prove anything beyond...

This this came from that time period. You know what I mean? It still doesn't take us directly to Jesus. Well, and, you know, the the this peaceful science forum that is kind of disputing their findings there. They even said that they were only able to collect five data points and they were just like, that's not enough to to say it's from any time period at all. You couldn't even say it was from yesterday with this amount.

You know, so that's why it's like I think with the with STIRP, they're doing their best. And again, they're real scientists. They are real scientists who are who are rigorously STIRP. I do respect STIRP, but I do. I do think that they or at least maybe it's not even on them for saying this is from 2000 years ago. I think from the small amount of data they collected, they were able to interpret that and then.

news sources pushed it as nope, 2000 years old. We did it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And the article I was quoting from was from Fox News. That goes. That goes. So they claim that the methods used in 1988 were unreliable and fabricated and that the laboratories did not conduct blind tests. They even claim that the piece used for testing came from a 15th century repair to the cloth after a fire.

However, STIRP was present when the piece of cloth was cut and did not make any issues known until after the results were published. They also claim that pollination from the shroud's exhibitions throughout the centuries would have corrupted the test, even though carbon-14 has nothing to do with pollination or pollution.

stirp also claims that they refuse to do another test because they don't want to damage the fabric further well that is partly true carbon dating hasn't advanced much since the 1980s and any current tests would likely yield the same results and what's more interesting than the shroud's authenticity is how the image was made this is really the fascinating part to this day scientists and artists have been unable to recreate the image

on the cloth exactly using known methods. Perhaps there was a lost art in the Middle Ages that remains to be rediscovered. So what do you think, Josh? Is the shroud real or fake? And why do you think people are so obsessed with it? Because we don't know. We love a good...

Don't know. We love a mystery. I think people are very split on it. I'm curious to see what our viewers and listeners think. Oh, it's going to be split? Where do you stand on this? You think the Shroud of Turin is legitimately an imprint of Jesus and this happened when he resurrected from the dead? Or is this...

possibly, I mean, I do struggle with it just being medieval, you know, forgery, you know, there's some type of fake, fake relic. I think, I think this is, it's very bizarre, no matter which way you look at it, it's very bizarre, but just like all the other ancient mysteries out there, I think it's,

A, it could be some form of technology that they had that we don't know about that created this possibly. And I get that it looks like the classic rendition of Jesus, but one could argue that a lot of people from this time period could have looked like the imprint of this man, right? Very true. So, I mean, it's very, very difficult to say whether or not this originated from

From the tomb. Well, on this podcast, we certainly aren't going to be the ones to decide that. We're going to figure it out today. Yeah. Let us know in the comments. It's fascinating. I'm very fascinated by this. I am too. And I honestly do see why a lot of Christians point to this as...

legitimate artifact and legitimate proof that the crucifixion of Jesus happened and this was his resurrection. Because if there was somebody that could emit this ultraviolet radiation, this type of energy upon resurrection, yeah, I mean, son of God, potentially. Yeah.

Potential. Or, you know, or it's some other ancient mysticism that we're not aware of, which I tend to follow along. Which especially when we talk about the Emerald Tablet and stories that are far older than this and go back even further. I think there's a lot of ancient mysticism and technology and just flat out things that we would call magic that existed that we don't understand. And we, I feel like

a lot of historians and archaeologists because they're basing history upon what we find, artifacts that we find and we date them and everything else. But there's, I feel like there's so much more out there that we just haven't found that's either been destroyed, lost to time,

And just like with the paranormal, you know, there's things that just can't be explained and we'll probably never know the answer to them because we either don't have the knowledge or understanding to do it. Maybe the current laws of physics and science and things that, you know, the knowledge that we have right now, we're not able to understand it. And maybe one day we will. I don't know. And humans hate that shit. Yeah, totally. We want to know and we want to know now.

Of course. But that does bring us to the emerald tablet of Thoth, which over the years on this show, I've always said Thoth. And it seems like some people do pronounce it as Thoth. I've heard it as Toth. Toth. You know, a million different ways. I like Thoth. Although Toth is fun too because it kind of sounds like toast. Okay. I like Thoth. Toth, I think, is...

Pretty, pretty accurate with the H kind of being silent, Toth. All right, I'll go with, I'll roll with Toth today. Okay. However, it's not just Christianity that claims to have relics significant to humankind's history. In the Middle Ages, a book called the Secretum Sectorum was widely circulated throughout the Middle East and Europe. And the book, whose title translates to The Secret of Secrets, claims to be made up of letters from Aristotle to Alexander the Great about philosophy and history.

The book was so widely read that it may have been the second most circulated book in the Middle and Medieval Ages, second only to the Bible. Now, one of the passages describes a story related to Aristotle's four elemental principles, heat, cold, moisture, and dryness. The story goes that these principles came with the Roman philosopher Balanus when he entered a chamber underneath the statue of Hermes.

Trismegistus, or Thrice Great as he's known, a first century BCE philosopher who's said to be a combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Toth, as well as the Christian figure Enoch. According to the story, Balanus entered the chamber to discover the tomb of Hermes, and seated in the chamber was an old man holding a tablet with this written on it. And there's a lot of renditions of this story. Some say that

Hermes, you know, the corpse of Hermes was sitting on a throne clutching a tablet that was a emerald stone, like a crystal, you could say. But on this tablet was written as follows.

Hold on for this one. "'Tis true without lying, certain and most true, that which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like which is below, to do the miracle of one only thing. And as all things have been and arose from one by the mediation of one, so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation. The sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse."

The father of all perfection, the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, sweetly with great industry. It ascends from the earth to heaven, and again it descends to the earth and receives the force of things superior and inferior. By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world, and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you. Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing.

So was the world created. From this are, and do come, admiral adaptations, where of the means is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegistus. I have three parts of philosophy of the whole world, that which I have said of the operation the sun has accomplished and ended.

Like I said, there's a lot of it. This is the interpretation from the Secretum Sectorum. But if you look at the Hermetic texts, a simpler, I would say, kind of similar passage would be as above, so below, so within, so without, is the second Hermetic principle. But it's basically sort of the same philosophical idea that

What occurs here on earth also occurs in, you know, the heavens, the, you know, the planes above us, you know, they're very much interconnected and related. Kind of this universal interconnectedness is a very...

basic understanding of this principle, which I really love. And I don't know, I think it's really interesting, just like the lineage of it as well as like the secretum sectorum itself was, you know, a Latin translation of ancient Arabic translations of ancient Greek writings of potentially ancient Egyptian writings. And then since then, it's just been translated a million, even Isaac Newton has a translation of the Emerald Tablet. So it's like this is, it's been

Passed around by so many like great thinkers. I think that's just like a very fascinating element of this whole story. So the meanings behind the cryptic texts are manifold. Some believe that it is just the philosophy on how everything is related and others think it's about transformation. And others believe that it is instructions on how to create the philosopher's stone. Once made, the philosopher's stone can transform base metals into gold.

like King Midas. It is central to medieval alchemy, which was started by the teaching of Hermes, Trismegistus. Now, Hermeticism and alchemy are closely related as they believe everything is connected and linked through transformation. While the philosopher Stone embodies this through the possibility of turning metal into gold, some also think it's the key to immortality. In 1939, American New Age philosopher Dr. M. Doriel published The Emerald Tablets of Thothis,

Toth the Atlantean. And in it, Doriel claimed to have found the long-lost emerald tablet hidden in a secret chamber underneath the Great Pyramid of Giza. And not only that, it wasn't just this single tablet as described in Aristotle's story, but a collection of emerald tablets that told the secrets of the world and history of Atlantis. According to Doriel, Hermes Trismegistus and Toth was a priest-king in Atlantis 13th.

38,000 years ago. He was not only tasked with keeping the secrets of Atlantis and the history of the world, but also recorded the key to immortality throughout the tablets with what would become the Philosopher's Stone.

Because according to Doriel, after Atlantis sunk, Toth and his followers migrated to Egypt, where he not only founded the kingdom of ancient Egypt, but had the Great Pyramid constructed to house the history of Atlantis, its scientific achievements, and the truth behind its sinking. Doriel believes the words in his text respond to mental vibrations within the reader.

Now, Doriel is an interesting guy. He founded the Brotherhood of the White Temple, which is still based out of our backyard, Colorado Springs. Should take a field trip sometime. But the Brotherhood isn't the only New Age philosophy that came from the teachings of Hermes. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a lot of people know about this or have heard about it, also followed the teachings of Toth and claimed to know how to make the Philosopher's Stone. And unfortunately, they believe it is made out of fermenting your own

p love that because i think golden dawn golden urine dawn meaning morning best time to collect urine so there you go put the two and two together which is a very a very fascinating group of characters out of the uh famous occultist uh alistair crowley was a member of the golden dawn future lights out episode

But many 18th century philosophers believed that it was made of urine. And these findings were even documented in the contemporary book, The Book of Aquarius. Now, The Book of Aquarius was published anonymously online, and it provided a step-by-step process for making this philosopher's stone. It even had a forum on the website for people to discuss their findings. It's all very bizarre because it all just kind of popped up randomly online. But then after a while, you know, there's a forum on the website. People were spending time

a long, long time trying to make the philosopher's stone. I mean, the process, this wasn't something that could be made overnight. We're talking months to even years of serious alchemy.

to make this happen. I mean, it was a long painstaking process. And of course, there were some people that really took it seriously and really tried. They'd post pictures of the remnants of, you know, after they extracted the tiny, tiny particles out of the pee and let it crystallize and then ran it back through again. You had to do everything perfect or you could fuck it up. But

But the website was mysteriously taken down after a while, and then it went back online and the forum was suddenly missing, probably because people were drinking their pee. And the author realized like, yeah, this is probably not a good idea. I don't want to be possibly held liable for this. But the author would later admit on online forums that he wrote the book of Aquarius as a new alchemist and that the book itself was more about his process rather than the long awaited truth about the philosopher's stone and whether or not it could actually be done. You know, it's kind of a fun kind of science project in a way, right?

Doriel's writings on Toth were largely discredited after he was discovered that, hey, guess what? You know, when you heard he went to Egypt, he went under the pyramid, got the tablet. Well, he never even went to Egypt and this was confirmed via his passport. But not only that, the dude was not a doctor at all. He dropped out of high school, believe it or not, dropped out of high school and he was a cab driver and he never even studied hermetic philosophy, which is shameful, honestly.

But the Emerald Tablet's historical importance is extremely real. I want to stress that. The writings on the Emerald Tablet, which dates back to the 9th century through early Arabic translations, but it's even possibly older than that, created alchemy and hermetic philosophy. Not only is hermeticism essential to modern New Age philosophies associated with Carl Jung and even the work of Sigmund Freud, but alchemy predated what would become modern chemistry, which is super interesting.

And we could do an entire episode on mysticism surrounding alchemy and hermeticism, and even really the Emerald Tablet. I mean, it and Toth and his connection to Atlantis. I mean, it is there is so much there. I mean, people literally write books about this stuff. But the Emerald Tablet is definitely something that people debate its existence altogether. People debate the translations of the Emerald Tablet. There's a lot of people in the New Age world, I would say,

that have even done their own translations of it. One I can think of that you may have heard of, Billy Carson. He has actually a book on Amazon you can buy. I think I bought a copy of it. And he breaks it down in a more simpler, and he's probably taking other translations than sort of interpreting it himself based on his knowledge of ancient Egypt and mysticism. But it is a very interesting topic that I'm curious if you'd want to know more about.

Um, because we could definitely dive into it more. Uh, but it, you know, it's all, all kind of interconnected and it just goes to show to, you know, Christianity has their relics. There's even relics that predate many of those. And there's, you know, going back to all the ancient civilizations of the world, you know, there's, there's this underlying theme of mysticism that, that flows throughout all of them. And I think that's the takeaway here is, you know, are things as cut and dry and, you know,

as simple as, you know, here's, you know, here's somebody who claimed to be the son of God who, you know, was crucified and then, you know, imprinted himself on this, the shroud, or is there something more going on? Was there more people like Jesus out there that, you know, if you really want to get into new age mysticism, um, my, my grandparents are really the ones who introduced me. My grandmother specifically really introduced me to

mysticism and sort of these new age philosophies. And Edgar Cayce is the sleeping prophet, a very interesting guy. If there's any mystics out there who I think were legit, I think Edgar Cayce was pretty legit. After hearing everything your grandparents have said about him, I definitely do too. Yeah. Especially your grandma. She was a goat. Rest in peace, Jane. Yeah. She was amazing. But I think there's...

You know, there's a term called the ascended masters. And one of the ascended masters was Jesus. But there was also others. Some would argue Muhammad, the prophet, was one of those ascended masters. Buddha and a lot of other prophets that came along who were enlightened beings, who were operating at a higher level of consciousness than the rest of us, and were also tapped into this ancient

uh, ancient philosophies and things that may or may not have originated from some lost civilization or, you know, something that's undiscovered at this point. But I think I like to look at it all with an open mind and I'm, I'm very open to the idea that the Shroud of Turin maybe is perhaps an imprint of Jesus because I think whether or not I believe, you know, the, the, all the Christian philosophy around Jesus and everything, I do think that Jesus

I think that Jesus likely existed and I think he was likely a pretty enlightened individual based on his teachings and based on the stories in the Bible and the things that he said and that he did align with a lot of other prophets and, you know, enlightened individuals that have walked this planet at any point in time. So is it possible that these enlightened beings would have maybe had more energy, you know, whatever type of energy we want to call this,

um, that resided within them because they are divine beings, ascended masters, so to speak, that they could have, you know, he, what he did die and maybe he did resurrect. I don't know, but there's again, a lot of other stories of other prophets that also resurrected. I know in Buddhism, there's definitely stories of, um, enlightened individuals that, uh, resurrected themselves. And so it's like,

If you think about it one track minded, I get why you'd be so protective over it. But if you look at the bigger picture and you look at the world as a whole and humanity as a whole and all of the religions as a whole, it comes back to what hermetic philosophy is trying to tell us. There's an interconnectedness between all of us, between us and the cosmos. And it's all interconnected. We're all here together. And that is my TED Talk. Thank you for coming. I love that.

So I'm very open to all of it. I love it. I've got the Kabbalion right here. This is like my Bible now. Is it really? Yeah. It's interesting stuff, you know. I've read the Bible several times. It's been years. But I think there's a lot of good to take from that. I like to take the good from all these books. I think there's a lot of good things, a lot of good messages. I think what deters a lot of people from religion now is

All the hypocrisy that goes on within it. Yeah. And not following the true principles of the prophets, of the people that are in them. Yeah. Well, I always tell you, I think some of your best traits, because you, whatever, I don't want to get all sappy, but obviously I think my husband is like one of the most amazing people that I've ever known. And I think a lot of your great qualities have come from your religious upbringing and things that you learned. You know, I'm thankful for it because I think it,

It's allowed me to, because I understand that side of it, which as we just saw, a majority of the planet believes in Christianity. So I'm thankful that I have enough knowledge. I'm certainly not a scholar or anything, but I know enough about it that I understand the religion. I understand why the significance of the shroud. Absolutely. I mean, that is

That would be absolutely insane if it is confirmed that Jesus Christ, this is him. Like if they were able to, I don't know how they do this, but like I think most of us would want like DNA evidence, you know, like or genealogy is able to somehow trace. Run it through ancestry. Run it, you know, run it all the way back to, and I don't think we'll ever be able to do that. But if we were, that would be pretty groundbreaking, right? And then if we could apply that to all these other ancient things.

All I got to say is I think it's not a bad idea to keep digging for answers and keep seeking it out because we're all just misunderstood. Everybody's misunderstood these days. It's true. We're all misunderstood. And that's why we're all fighting. And we got to find a level playing field. And we all got to admit that at the end of the day, we're all just...

Humans trying to make sense of this shit. Yeah, we're just relying on faith. All of us are relying on faith every single day. Whether you're religious or not, we all rely on this faith that we wake up tomorrow and get to breathe the air again. We rely on faith that that's going to happen. We don't know that it's going to happen. Something could happen in the middle of the night and that's the end of my existence. But we go to bed with the faith that I'm going to wake up the next morning and I'm going to get out of bed

And take a breath. If you look at it from that point of view, I don't know where I'm going with this, but this is getting taken a wild turn. But that point of view, I think on the simplest level, we are all human.

the same. We're all operating from the same wavelength. And what's happened is that certain aspects of religion have attempted to separate us and separate and make us feel like we're different from one another and that we are not the same because of X, Y, Z, and that I have the truth. I have the right version of events when it's very obvious. If you look at, if you really look at things that, yes, there's a lot of things that, that makes sense and that

There's a lot of factual evidence to back up a lot of things, but it's just one part of the bigger puzzle here. It's just one part. But if you can look at all the pieces together and you can start putting it all together, you start realizing like, whoa.

Actually, they're not so different from we are. They're looking at this the same way that I am. They have a similar figure that they're looking at. Maybe they are part of the same club. Maybe they're part of the same fountain of knowledge and wisdom. And one would say creator. You know what I mean? So I don't know. That's my philosophy talk. Thank you for coming. I liked that. Thank you, Josh. But I just want to tie it all together and leave you with a good message.

you know, my next sermon will be 930 this Sunday. No, but I love this stuff. I think it's interesting. I love thinking about where we came from and how we got here and where this knowledge came from because it's far more fantastical than I think a lot of us realize. And there's a lot of shit we don't know. A lot of shit we don't know. Yeah. Ain't that the truth. That's what makes it fun though. Being a human. Yeah. Just trying to figure it out. I think that's, I always say this, but part of the soul's development, which is like the one thing

theory or like spiritual belief I really have is that we're here to develop, to learn, and that's really our sole purpose and to have fun along the way. Well, hopefully you had fun with us today. This was like an OG Mile Higher episode. I love it, man. It feels so good to just sit here and roll, man. I know. I love listening to you and you're on a roll. I know people, I know so many of you probably haven't even tuned in because you're like, ah, they're not doing true crime today.

Yeah. We know that our core audience really just likes the true crime. I just want to say I appreciate every single one of you that did tune into today and especially sat through to the end because y'all are the real ones, you know, here for the, you know, all the discussions. If you are still tuned in, comment a real one. Yeah. Just comment curious. A real one. A real one. Mm hmm.

But let us know your thoughts on all these. Let us know about the Shroud of Turin specifically. And, you know, what do you think about the Emerald Tablets and or Emerald Tablet, I should say. And this new discovery, man, let's see where it goes. If we find out that there's a whole civilization underneath it.

All the pyramids and these things really do exist. It's going to break. I want to believe that. I truly think that in our lifetime, we are going to have some ground, just earth shattering discoveries. I hope so. Dude, humanity needs that. Completely blow our minds to the point where we're like, whoa, okay.

We're not as smart as we think. We're not as developed as we think. We're not as advanced as we think. And maybe when that type of thing happens that it will create more unity among us because I feel like we're just more divided than ever, or at least in recent history. But anyway, very interesting. Let us know also if there's any other topics kind of in this realm that you'd like to see us explore or dive more into. I would love to do that. I always love learning about these things.

But that is going to be it for us today, guys. Thank you so much for joining. And I also want to echo Josh. We really do appreciate all of you, especially those of you who have been with us for years or some of you that have been with us since we started this show in our basement and the marshmallow days blabbing. Oh, my God. Don't even bring that up. I've been a song for so long. Oh, the cringe. But you know what? It's part of our history. It's part of our journey, man. Mm hmm.

It led us here. So, hey, we're doing something right. That's right. And now we have Ian. Yes. Everybody loves Ian. Ian, you've become like a real star of this show. I love you guys. I think I said that last episode too. I think we always end like this now. Oh my God, I love you so much. We are not paying Ian to say that, by the way. They're not paying me at all. No. He's not.

He's just here. I love it, man. Out of the passion. He's a volunteer. Love of the game. It's an internship. He's doing unpaid. But yeah, there is also so much love in the comments, not from last week's episode, the one before that for Tom and Ian. I just appreciate that you guys love our team so much and show us all so much support. We

You know, it drives us to come back here week after week and do more of this and just hang out with you guys. We do. We're so grateful. It doesn't get lost on us. I love this show so much. So much. Yeah, that's going to be it for Mile Higher podcast today. We want to hear from you on everything we talked about. So let us know your thoughts. And we'll see you next week. But until then, keep on taking your mind a mile higher.