Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that gives you a proper fright… and that’s before we get to the ghost stories. I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me is Shea! I'm Shea, and this week I learned that people taking livestock medicine do so, because they want to be in stable condition. This Week’s Beer 307 from Black Tooth Brewing * Aaron: 7* Shea: 6 We're Ready To Believe You Ghost Stories Of the 18th and a half century... Duck Dodgers could only wish they were this cool. The search for specters has long enthralled the world. That glimpse, however brief, beyond the vale. To rest assured in the knowledge that there is an afterlife — and that you can exploit it for quick fame and financial favor. To look upon the infinite unknown and say to yourself "yeah, I can probably use this to throw rocks at people"... 'Tis a time honored quest you know. And so it was in 18th century, in the Southeast Australian State of Victoria anyway... Common amusements of the era, ghost stories became a cultural focus in Australia following a June 9th, 1860, lecture at the Mechanics Institute in Melbourne. A packed house had come to see Archibald Michie speak on the subject of ghosts and hauntings. He argued that while a man "may be wiser", having "read physiology, … studied insanity and the various forms of delusion springing from morbid action of the brain" such a man, has lost forever the supernatural shudder, the terrifically delicious creeping of the hair, and the heart coming up into the mouth, attendant on his listening to, or reading of, for the first time, a good authentic, and by justices of peace attested, ghost story. Waldron, 2014Archibald Michie Basically, his take was that, while only a credulous idiot would buy into such obvious superstition, ghost stories as campfire entertainment... well that was down right delightful. Soon after, David Blair, also of Melbourne gave a talk titled ‘A Plea for Ghosts’. His take was significantly more... Ghost-Hunters meets Christendom. He was followed shortly thereafter by Dr. Hickson at the Mechanics Institute on 2, September 1864, whose talk boiled down to a ye-oldie smart-guy's version of "electricity is f*^&ing magic and might be ghost-force ya'll". While I don't know if he was part of an eco-terrorist cell, living in Australia during the terrible times definitely makes him tuff enough to join Avalanche! Still, Mako energy aside, ghosts remained entirely the stuff if the imagination and the public was enthralled because even literally nothing is more fun that watching your milk leg curddle. Stories of ghosts, apparitions, and other unexplainable phenomenon ran rampant and were the cornerstone of any good evening or social gathering. For example, the story of a headless ghost animal that prowled the night, stocking victims in lonely alleyways, intent on making them its next, gruesome meal... throat-meal I suppose, being headless and all. That is, until the fearless night-watchers finally capture the beast, revealing it to be a cat with its head trapped in a lobster tin, which, dispassionately, was only cursed by way of not being able to put the video to ye-oldie YouTube. [Waldron, 15] Or perhaps you prefer the story of a Castlemaine stockman terrified by the night-time violences visited upon travelers by a rule-63 Headless Horsewoman...