0:00

This is

0:02

a Rooster Teeth production.

0:10

There exists a puzzling manuscript that dates

0:12

back to the 13th century, though the year

0:14

of its creation remains unknown.

0:17

This book contains spells, potion

0:19

recipes, and a full-page depiction

0:21

of the devil, but nobody knows who

0:24

wrote this book or why. Today,

0:26

we separate fact from fiction, looking at the

0:28

origin of the Devil's Bible, aka

0:31

the Codex Gigas. This

0:34

is Red Web.

0:43

Welcome back, Task Force, to another episode

0:45

of Red Web, the podcast all about

0:48

mysteries, the unsolved, the unknown,

0:50

in this world that we live in. I

0:52

am your resident mystery enthusiast, Trevor Collins,

0:55

and joining me hearing about this mystery for

0:57

the very first time, Alfredo Diaz.

1:11

Alright.

1:26

So you're saying, step one, you become president of this free world,

1:29

this United States, and you say, Stockholm, I want the book. Yeah.

1:33

I want it burned. I'll do whatever it takes. That'd

1:35

be a part of my campaign. The demonic book is burned. What's

1:37

your platform? The demonic book? Gone. No

1:40

risk. Yeah.

1:41

Oh my god. I can see

1:43

it. and I'm also really excited

1:46

to be covering Red Web, which is another of my favorite

1:48

podcasts.

1:49

And I'm also very excited to be covering the Codex Gigas, which is

1:51

a book that I've been working on for the past 15 years. And

1:54

I'm excited to be covering the Codex Gigas because it is the

1:56

season. It's my favorite month of the year. Tomorrow,

1:58

as of the release,

1:59

of this episode is Halloween and

2:02

so what better time to be leaning

2:04

into it but also that reminds

2:06

me last week I wanted to give a little

2:08

week lead up the Halloween special is

2:10

out where we went to the USS Hornet

2:13

we talked about the history some ghost stories that are

2:15

famous on that ship but then we also explored

2:18

it we went all up and down some

2:20

of those 17 no excuse me 19 decks 19 of this

2:24

ship we got them are below water

2:26

not like submerged in water but like

2:29

just below water right like if it was a Titanic situation

2:32

it would have been yeah but it's not thankfully

2:35

but how something that big and heavy floats

2:37

is it still blows me away why

2:39

but Fredo I gotta just tease the task force

2:42

yeah ran into some some moments

2:45

I know your first encounters right yeah I

2:47

couldn't explain it I still can't and

2:50

honestly even the slightest

2:53

bit of those situations escalated

2:56

I was gonna hot eject out

2:58

there's a moment of this place

3:01

there is a moment where you're like I'm off the

3:03

show I'm off the ship get me out of here yeah

3:05

but I was like real talk if anything

3:08

else happens yeah to

3:10

further this situation

3:12

yeah I'm out of the ship out of the

3:14

show like out of the crew

3:17

god man it

3:19

was a good one I I've been there before

3:21

on another ghost hunt and this

3:24

was so much more fruitful than that one there

3:26

were times that I was actually startled by

3:28

sounds that had gone on some of the tech that

3:30

we had brought with us it was fascinating

3:33

so if you task force haven't seen it yet and

3:35

you want to check it out this is one of the rare

3:37

video podcasts that we have so you can go

3:40

watch us as we sit just below the main

3:42

deck as we do the podcast and then we

3:44

explore very many of these hot spots

3:46

that we died not gone to before I don't think

3:48

they allow a lot of the investigations in some of

3:51

these spots but anyway you can check that out at youtube.com

3:53

slash red web pod or use

3:55

the Rooster Teeth app and if you

3:57

are a fiend for ghost hunting and Evan

4:00

and you want to explore so much of our footage,

4:02

First Members will have access to

4:04

some deleted scenes and we're gonna upload some of

4:07

our raw, uncut, untampered with

4:09

footage. So we're gonna make that available to First Members so

4:11

you can pour over that if you want. You wanna spend

4:13

some Halloween going over some spooky footage.

4:16

It will be there for you to take a look at. And

4:18

to become a First Member, go to redwebpod.com

4:20

slash first. It's the number one way

4:23

to support this show. It's $5.99 a month. It

4:25

all goes straight to us. There's no middlemen. It's basically

4:27

our Patreon, our in-house Patreon.

4:29

So anyway, that is the Halloween special. But without further

4:32

ado, let's talk about the Codex

4:34

Gigas, also known as the

4:36

Devil's Bible. Have you ever heard of this, Fredo?

4:39

No, but I have seen

4:41

Evil Dead and- Yup,

4:43

that is a very good comic.

4:46

And it just didn't turn out well for anybody.

4:49

You know what I'm saying? So I'm very interested

4:51

to see like what's actually in the pages.

4:53

Yeah. It is a very old book. I've

4:55

given you a couple images, like one of

4:57

the book next to a man so you can see how big it

5:00

is. Yeah, it's huge. Some pictures of things

5:02

that I'm gonna talk about here in a bit, but Task Force as

5:04

always, if you wanna check out the visuals

5:06

to this thing, you can Google it, but we're also going

5:08

to post it on our socials at RedWebPod.

5:11

I mean, I've got a lot of questions, really.

5:14

I can't wait for them to be potentially answered. But

5:16

like just credibility, you know what I mean?

5:18

That type of thing. For sure. Who made this? Where

5:20

is it from? Oh yeah. Why does it exist? What's in the pages?

5:23

How does it kind of interact

5:25

with today's life? Great

5:28

questions. I don't know. I love

5:30

it. I'm curious. Yeah. because

5:33

it is vivid, right? There's a lot to talk about. Then we're

5:35

gonna talk about the history, the known history, because it has

5:38

been traced through time for its 800 years or so. And

5:41

then, of course, the theories and legends

5:43

that surround this mysterious text. So

5:45

of course, let's dive in. This

5:48

is the Codex Gicus, also

5:50

known as the Devil's Bible. It's the largest known

5:52

medieval manuscript measuring about three

5:54

feet long, okay, 92 centimeters,

5:57

and weighs 165 pounds.

5:59

or just shy of 75 kilograms.

6:02

That's a man, right? That is shy

6:05

of my weight. That is wild.

6:07

Yeah, it's a dense one. It

6:09

contains 620 pages. Too

6:13

long. Too long? Too long.

6:15

I'm reading the Stormlight Archive. That is a

6:17

light read. That's a light read from me. You're a sight

6:19

reader right up. And wouldn't you get immediate?

6:21

Yeah, I'm not getting a passing. Is there

6:23

a spark note somewhere? Yeah, I'm not getting a passing

6:25

grade on this book. That was too long. I'm

6:28

used to Brandon Sanderson, so this is a light read for me.

6:31

It is aptly titled The Codex Gigas because

6:33

that translates to giant book in

6:36

English. The pages are made of 320 sheets

6:38

of vellum, which

6:41

is made from young animal skin or membrane.

6:43

Young? So it's got to be like certain

6:46

age. I suppose so. There must be

6:49

some sort of elasticity sort of thing here. It

6:52

is believed that in the case of this text that

6:55

the animal skin that was used was

6:57

that of a donkey or calf skin.

6:59

Vellum essentially refers to parchment,

7:01

which can be made of any animal's skin. But

7:04

the pages here measure 36 by 20 inches, and

7:08

altogether this book is nine

7:10

inches thick. Since one animal

7:12

provides about two sheets of vellum, this

7:15

would mean it took around 160 animals worth of

7:18

material to complete this book. I

7:20

was just about to say what's the math on

7:23

animals because that's not, that's a lot.

7:25

We're talking. That's some demon math. You've

7:28

heard of girl math on the socials. This is demon

7:30

math. I mean, look, especially

7:33

hundreds of years ago, that's

7:36

money. It is money. That

7:38

is money. And a lot of livestock was worth way

7:41

more. And a lot of effort too.

7:43

Yeah. This stuff is handmade. A lot of, you

7:45

know, I don't know, I don't pretend to know anything about

7:47

tanning, but it goes. Right. I

7:50

mean, there's so many automized

7:52

like machines that just try and

7:54

make these mundane tasks in everyday

7:57

human life easier. Back then is a lot more

7:59

manual. 100%. Now

8:01

when it comes to the length of the book, it's quite long,

8:03

but it seems that there were a few more pages

8:06

in addition to the 620, and archivists

8:08

have observed that it appears that someone

8:10

intentionally cut some pages out. We'll talk a little

8:12

bit more about where those pages

8:15

might have gone and what they might have contained.

8:17

Reminds me a little bit of Dr. Strange where you

8:19

have some missing pages out of the forbidden

8:21

text because it has something

8:24

desirable on it. The Codex Gigas

8:26

contains the entire Latin Bible,

8:29

copies of historical texts and writings

8:32

on medical practices of the time. It

8:34

also contains instructions for exorcism.

8:36

Near the end of the text is a calendar. This

8:39

calendar has festivals and saints days,

8:41

which are days in which specific saints of the church

8:43

are celebrated. The calendar also contains a necrology

8:46

or list of deaths with 1,539 listed

8:48

death dates. According to the

8:52

National Library of Sweden, only 2.5% of these dates have

8:54

been identified. They are

8:58

only dated by month and year, but researchers

9:00

believe that the book was created somewhere between 1204

9:04

and 1230. They were able to conclude

9:06

this because they were able to identify various

9:09

people from these death dates and famous

9:11

figures lined up kind of accordingly. They

9:13

were able to conclude this kind of date

9:15

range by looking at the identified persons,

9:18

that 2.5%, but by also

9:20

looking at famous people who weren't listed

9:23

in this. Basically, any famous

9:25

person that would have died in this time zone would

9:27

have been listed in the book. And so since certain

9:30

people were missing, they said maybe it's been

9:33

this time range. Either way, most

9:35

of the names, interestingly, are in check.

9:38

I mean, look, that's bold,

9:40

man. It's a big roll

9:42

of the dice. Something like that either

9:45

greatly gives you credibility

9:48

or drastically gives you none. It's

9:50

the same people that are like, 2020, the giant

9:52

tsunami is going to

9:56

hit the entire West coast.

9:58

It'll be demolished. It doesn't happen. And

10:01

they're like, all right, but 2022. And

10:03

you're like, bro, you lost. Right.

10:06

Done. Chapter one, I was out. Right.

10:09

Exactly. Now, this book contains a lot of different things.

10:11

And that's why so much mystery and intrigue

10:13

surrounds it. But it only continues, right?

10:16

Book even contains five pages specifically

10:19

with confessions of sins, asking

10:21

for mercy just before it shows a

10:23

depiction of heaven, which I've given you

10:25

a kind of close up version on

10:27

the far right there. There's a picture of what they

10:29

drew to be heaven. And unlike the

10:32

rest of this book, these pages in

10:34

particular were written in all capital letters.

10:37

Interesting. Like, I guess, like, what

10:39

is the evil side of that?

10:42

Right. This seems more like a Catholic

10:44

thing, right? Yeah. Or it's just

10:46

like, hey, I'm trying to,

10:48

you know, like when you go to church and you go to

10:51

confession, you try to absolve yourself of your

10:53

sins by verbally saying

10:55

to a priest what your sins are. And then you

10:57

do your Hail Marys and your

11:00

prayers and whatnot. And he absolves

11:02

you and you go off and you do all that. But

11:04

like, it seems like it's something like that, which

11:07

would be more of a like

11:09

Catholic tradition. Yeah. So

11:12

my mind is like, why does this evil

11:14

book care about or why is

11:16

it evil? Right? Yeah. Why

11:19

is it evil? Or like, yeah, why is it like, hey, we want

11:21

people to confess their sins to us? Yeah. Yeah.

11:25

Especially for heaven because it's displaying heaven.

11:28

Yes. Off the rip, you're right. It

11:30

does feel like a collation of information,

11:32

some personal writings, like somebody trying to confess

11:35

their own sins, but also trying to collate a lot

11:37

of information from the time period, whether it be medical

11:39

practices or just death dates of people.

11:42

Yeah. Now where the devil

11:44

side of things comes in is actually the very next

11:46

page. So where that man is standing next to the

11:48

book on the left side, you see the depiction

11:50

of heaven, which I give in you like kind of a zoom

11:53

in version of it. On the right side, you see this

11:55

depiction of the devil. Yeah. Yeah.

11:59

Yeah.

13:59

Sifu

14:00

more against fevers. Fexus,

14:03

Arex, Master, Dino. Blood

14:05

you drink and meat you eat and in

14:07

blood you are washed. But

14:09

collect 150 claws and

14:12

lie down in a place like a yearling lamb.

14:15

Sleep now and forever and ever. Amen.

14:18

Somewhere in Europe, a seal just

14:20

cracked open. Right. A

14:23

tourist is exploring an old cathedral

14:25

or some sort of burial

14:27

mound and something went on and they're about to

14:29

get possessed. Right. And

14:31

that's because Trevor just read

14:34

from the book. So

14:36

I did translate those two Latin

14:38

lines. The first one was

14:41

Father I believe Lord forbid. And

14:43

then the third line, the second Latin line

14:45

was the master of the field Dino

14:47

or Dino how it's spelled. But

14:49

either way, it's just a very specific example to

14:51

show that there are some pieces of spells

14:54

and magic within it. Basically how

14:56

to do otherwise normal medical

14:58

things like reducing a fever. Well,

15:00

I'll take any type of new

15:02

recipe to heal fevers

15:05

and elements and all that kind of stuff. Did

15:07

you know as a quick Google,

15:10

did you know that you have you ever had

15:12

like, I grew up all

15:15

right. A lot of marks. Okay. But

15:19

growing up in two different households,

15:21

Filipinum and Mexican household,

15:23

I was always told if you got a fever,

15:26

sweat it out. Sure. Yeah. Breaks

15:29

a fever. Yeah. It's not a thing. Well,

15:32

your partner who is a nurse probably

15:34

saying that's not a thing. But that's when you like wrap

15:36

up in blankets. Yeah. Like what I have

15:38

to break the fever. Right. You encourage the heat.

15:41

It doesn't know. Oh, nothing. So I've

15:43

just been uncomfortable. Just like, yeah. Oh man.

15:46

Put that in the Codex Freitas. Yeah. When

15:49

you say it out loud, it makes perfect sense. No. Of

15:51

course it's not a thing. It did make sense to me. Your body's

15:53

heating itself up. Why don't you externally heat it? It's

15:56

trying to like, how would that heal the virus with

15:58

heat? I mean

16:00

obviously I think it takes a dangerous

16:02

level of heat to kill a virus, but

16:05

I don't know enough about the human body Does it need to

16:07

go by really? Oh,

16:10

he's frowning. Is he about to prove his own

16:12

codex correct? We

16:14

might not know Uh, let's say the-

16:18

Mm-hmm. Hey nurses in the task force

16:20

are gonna be firing off. I don't know. The thing is it's not

16:22

as- not necessarily a thing. Okay jury's

16:25

still out. It sounds like task

16:27

force let us know. I don't think it's a thing. Those buff

16:29

medical minds out there gotta let us know. I think it's in the

16:31

category of like hey, you

16:34

just ate can't swim for another 15

16:36

minutes. Oh, okay, right because of yeah,

16:38

it's like old wives tale stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

16:41

I don't know. I only eat before I swim.

16:43

Hahaha. I stay so trim. You

16:47

know what? You know what I'm imagine? Winter's

16:49

are brutal. Look

16:53

I just- I'm long tangent here. His hands up.

16:55

His hands up. Yes, imagine okay,

16:57

just because like I mean look okay,

16:59

we lead the task force. Okay, so we're like a level

17:02

above Both on paper, but

17:04

physically but I think that there's a large

17:06

room of task force members. All I

17:08

got there's these nice fancy desks

17:11

Sit-stand tables all that kind of stuff and

17:13

we have this balcony in which we come out and

17:15

once in a while and I just came out

17:17

and went yo, it's sweating It's a

17:20

bloody break of fever And then you

17:22

just hear hundreds of clicking and

17:24

clacking as the task force members

17:27

go to town on breaking this

17:29

Yeah, we're like the two muppets that were But

17:32

we come out we just ask questions. Yeah,

17:34

and then they shout back to us exactly Cacophony

17:37

of answers and we'd never get a clear

17:40

answer. I'm just saying that's why I envisioned right now

17:42

task force and so Type

17:44

away. Yeah type away. Let us know coming

17:46

back to the Codex not Fred us Gigas

17:50

in addition to the drawing of the devil. There are

17:52

many ornate illustrations of letters

17:55

spirals animals and flowers And

17:57

to add to the intrigue the entire text

17:59

appears to be handwritten in the same

18:02

handwriting throughout. Modern belief

18:04

is that there was one author behind the entire

18:06

text. At one point, it was believed

18:09

that multiple writers might have assisted

18:11

in the creation of the Codex Gigas, but the

18:13

handwriting is so uniform throughout that it

18:15

shows no signs of tiredness, no

18:17

change in mood, no shift in

18:20

health. It is so fundamental,

18:22

like a font, it is so consistently

18:24

the same that it's almost inhuman

18:27

or it must be one really well-trained

18:29

person. Damn. Yeah. Like,

18:32

imagine having to write- I can't write the same letter twice

18:34

at all. My name looks bad. Imagine having

18:37

to write hundreds of, what, 600 plus

18:39

pages. Yes. And having

18:41

to just be not necessarily immaculate,

18:44

which is honestly kind of worse, you have to

18:46

match what you've been writing the entire

18:48

time. How many- How much vellum was thrown away? Sometimes that right

18:50

might tease different just to spice

18:53

it up. Do you think that they woke up one day and was

18:55

writing and was like, oh, I gotta throw this vellum out. It's

18:57

expensive, but my tea's wrong. Dude, yeah.

18:59

Or they spill a little coffee on it.

19:02

If you think about it, I mean, look, you're joking,

19:04

but yeah. Right?

19:07

But also, and I do want to say this too, we're used

19:09

to typing, Christian's typing right now. And

19:12

I mean, he's clacking away. And

19:14

so I never really practiced my handwriting. It's still

19:17

not great. Even like 100, 200 years

19:19

ago, people were writing beautifully.

19:21

Look at the declaration. John Handtack.

19:24

So I'm like, maybe it was just a broader

19:27

skill back then, especially of a

19:29

scholarly type, somebody who was well-read and

19:31

like actually could write because

19:33

that was its own skill set back then. But

19:35

either way though, consistency is very

19:38

impressive. I do want to say though, at the time

19:40

it was common practice for multiple scribes

19:42

to contribute to transcribing a text.

19:45

But due to the uniformity of this particular handwriting, a lot

19:47

of scholars have believed that it's unlikely that

19:49

multiple people were on this one. The uniformity

19:52

of the text led some people to believe that

19:54

it was written in a very short period of time

19:56

because as you get older, your handwriting... changes,

20:00

your arm, your muscles, things change,

20:03

but also you get kind of better at

20:05

it. And so this kind of fuels

20:07

one of the core legends surrounding this

20:10

text, that it was written all in

20:12

one night. More on that later

20:14

of course, but that would be

20:16

notably impossible, which is why it is such

20:19

a popular legend around this

20:21

text. No way, ain't no way. Oh

20:23

yeah, we're gonna break that down actually right now. The National

20:25

Library of Sweden put it this way, with

20:28

the idea of one person writing this text,

20:30

they said this, quote, if the scribe worked

20:33

for six hours a day and wrote six

20:35

days a week, this means that the manuscript could

20:37

have taken about five years to complete.

20:40

If the scribe was a monk, he may only

20:42

have been able to work on it for about three hours a

20:44

day. And this means the manuscript could have taken 10

20:47

years to write. As the scribe

20:49

may also have ruled the lines to guide

20:51

the writing before he began to write,

20:54

it probably took several hours to rule one

20:56

leaf. This extends the period

20:58

it took to complete the manuscript. The

21:00

scribe also decorated the manuscript. So

21:02

this all means that the manuscript probably

21:05

took at least 20 years to finish

21:07

and could even have taken 30, end quote.

21:11

Reasonable assumptions all

21:13

throughout. 20 to 30 years

21:16

to write this thing, which adds

21:18

even more allure to the idea

21:20

that this was written in a short period of time by

21:23

one person, fueling the idea

21:25

of what we're going to talk about, the legend of the

21:27

single knight devil inspired

21:30

writings. Wow. Yeah. And

21:33

that doesn't even include all the drawings that are within this text. That's

21:36

just the rulings, the writings and some

21:38

of the decoration. So someone

21:40

could be drawing. I know there's multiple

21:43

people like someone drew and there's an artist

21:45

and then like someone that's a penny. But

21:47

that's still decades of work. Yeah,

21:50

it is. Yeah. I mean, look,

21:52

man, there's a lot of things I just go, I don't like

21:54

doing that anymore. And I can imagine

21:56

I guess like a hand cramps

21:59

the hand. Oh man, they

22:01

would have a buff hand. One

22:04

tough forearm. Is

22:06

there something that I like to do that I've

22:08

always, I mean, video games, but

22:10

even then you have a variety of different games that you play.

22:14

Possibly your variety is the subject, the chapter.

22:17

I'm just trying to think of one

22:19

thing I'd want to do consistently for 20 years.

22:22

This feels like the culmination of a lifetime

22:25

of diary-ing. You know,

22:27

dear diary, this is what happened today. But

22:30

with a kind of a specific focus. Is

22:33

this someone's life? Yes, definitely.

22:35

That's what this is. And that will fuel some of the other

22:37

theories as to who wrote this and

22:39

why. But again, we're going to get into all that. But before

22:41

I do that, I think it's important that we cover the history,

22:44

kind of how it came into modern being

22:46

and who has kind

22:48

of had their hands on it along the way. So

22:50

among the first pages of text in

22:52

the Codex Gigas, it says that the Podlajitsa

22:55

monastery pledged the book in 1295 to

22:59

the Sedlik monastery in Bohemia,

23:02

now the region of the Czech Republic or Czechia.

23:04

It is unknown where the text came from before

23:07

that. That is the earliest known accounting of

23:09

this text. As we mentioned earlier, it is

23:11

believed to have been written between 1204 and 1230 based on

23:15

the necrology written within the text

23:17

itself. Later, the monks seemed to be

23:19

low on funds and it was then purchased

23:21

by another monastery before becoming

23:24

considered one of the wonders of the world,

23:26

according to the National Library of Sweden and

23:29

gaining the interest of the Holy Roman

23:31

Emperor, Rudolf II in 1594. So

23:35

this thing immediately is off to a colorful history.

23:38

Yeah, people all over the world are

23:40

like, let me take a look at it. Let me see

23:42

it. I mean, look, the amount of work that went into

23:44

this. Yeah, for sure. I mean, even if you

23:46

don't know what's going on behind the scenes, you know

23:48

that this took a lot of effort, a

23:51

lot of knowledge, a lot of time. And that

23:53

alone is worth a lot of value.

23:55

Yeah, I mean, look, this thing,

23:57

it just spewed.

24:00

these fanciful stories that people can essentially

24:03

like make up about it or just actual

24:06

facts about it. Yeah. And then that would just

24:08

spread just about like the demon

24:11

book that was written in skin. Boom. Done.

24:13

Oh yeah. It inspires so much intrigue

24:15

already. Yeah. I mean look there are movies

24:18

that are made today that have less story

24:20

than that. I mean you even mentioned Evil

24:22

Dead. That's predicated on a book made

24:25

of human skin that sucks up a little bit

24:27

of blood every time it's got those teeth. Sucks

24:29

in some blood and then someone decides to boldly

24:32

read from it. They just kind of fumble

24:34

out some Latin. Right. And then off it

24:37

goes. Yeah. Again I'm now

24:39

thinking about somewhere in Europe. You

24:41

know someone's going, Oh my God who

24:43

read for the book?

24:46

Now what's interesting about the Holy Roman Emperor

24:49

Rudolf II, it was said that Rudolf

24:51

also owned the Voynich manuscript.

24:53

If you don't remember that one we did a whole episode

24:55

on that topic but it's another

24:58

mysterious medieval text. This

25:00

one a little bit different not so sinister. It

25:02

had pages full of drawings of mythical

25:04

plants and beings. Plants strange

25:07

to our planet. But it seemed

25:10

and it also by the way had an unknown

25:12

language that has yet to be cracked. So

25:14

it seems like this zoological

25:18

kind of what's the word or to cultural

25:20

book about plants and herbs

25:22

and things that are strange to us in an unfamiliar

25:25

language. It is a wild book in and

25:27

of itself but it just goes to show that Rudolf was interested

25:29

in these ancient mysterious

25:32

texts. Yeah I mean look people

25:34

like to collect things. This person had money

25:36

and power so like collecting weird books. I like

25:38

to like the Pokemon cards. You know. You'd be the opposite

25:40

of this Emperor. You'd collect it

25:42

to burn it. Well I'm yeah I would

25:45

get possession of it. Well I would hire

25:47

someone to get possession of it and burn it. I would be

25:49

knowing the vicinity of the planet there. Right. Lest you

25:51

be possessed. Yeah. So

25:53

Rudolf II took it to his castle on loan

25:56

in Prague due to his interest

25:58

in the occult and was particularly interested

26:00

in the portrait of the devil. It's the most iconic

26:03

part of this book. I mean, that's why it's named

26:05

the Devil's Bible after all. But he never

26:07

did return it to the monastery and died

26:10

with it still in his castle. Flashing

26:12

forward a few years at the end of the Thirty

26:14

Years War, the Swedish army

26:16

took the Codex Gigas to Stockholm

26:19

where it remains to this day.

26:22

This war went from about 1618 to 1648

26:25

and it started as a dispute between the Catholics

26:27

and the Protestants before expanding politically

26:29

involving many European countries.

26:32

The Holy Roman Empire had lost

26:34

the war which gave their estate sovereignty

26:37

and Sweden then took the book among many

26:39

other things as a spoil of war.

26:42

And then again the transition

26:44

of ownership of this book continues. While it

26:46

was at the Royal Palace Library in Stockholm,

26:49

Sweden, a wildfire broke

26:51

out on May 7th, 1697.

26:53

Now before the fire reached

26:55

the library, the librarian tasked some of

26:58

the employees with saving books from

27:00

the fire. The Codex Gigas was

27:02

among the few books considered important

27:05

enough to be removed and it was subsequently

27:07

thrown out the window in order to be saved.

27:10

See that was someone that was smart. Not

27:12

the people trying to save the book. Someone's trying to burn

27:15

that book down. Okay, so that's what it was.

27:17

Yeah, that's what it was. A mysterious fire

27:19

is going on. A mysterious fire and they

27:21

go, this reaches, it'll burn

27:23

the whole thing down including that book. It didn't get

27:25

to it. It's heavy as hell. I see someone

27:27

at the bottom of a tapestry with like a big lighter going,

27:30

oh no a wildfire! So after that

27:32

it stayed in Stockholm

27:36

but it did move around a little bit before reaching

27:38

the National Library of Sweden, also

27:41

in Stockholm, where it now remains today.

27:46

This episode of Red Web is sponsored by Children's

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Miracle Network Hospitals. Did

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You're catching them L's. At

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28:45

L for a good cause, right? Or maybe

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W for a good cause. I don't know. It could be. Let's

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hero for kids in your community, Fredo.

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We have a Red Web segment coming

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of a segment to help raise money for

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these children. It's going to be a good time. It's

29:21

going to be spooky time. We're

29:24

tampering with just uncomfortable

29:27

things for us. Yes. Yeah. I'm going

29:29

to try to keep it vague. We're going to tease

29:31

it, right? We're going to try to tackle some of our fears. We're going to read

29:33

some spooky stories and some of the donations

29:36

that will help the children will also be

29:38

set up to scare us. Let's

29:41

just keep it at that. Be like an hour

29:43

of heightened fear. Oh yeah. I'm excited.

29:46

Chris is in the background. This

29:49

man's going to get got the most. But

29:52

anyway, Task Force, sign up for Extra

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Life today to play games to change

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get started. NationalDebtRelief.com So

30:31

this leads us now to the legends

30:33

and theories.

30:34

Despite Codex Gigas' storied

30:37

history and popularity, much

30:39

about the book is still unknown. There

30:42

are many legends, myths and theories

30:44

surrounding this book, many questions just

30:46

like you asked earlier. It's unknown where

30:48

it came from, who made it, and what

30:50

purpose it ultimately serves. But we're

30:52

going to try to talk about

30:55

who created this, some of the details surrounding

30:57

that, as well as some of the curses

30:59

that are surrounding this

31:02

particular text. So one legend

31:04

says that a singular Benedictine

31:06

monk, Herman the Recluse, created

31:09

the Codex Gigas. The story

31:11

goes that he broke his vows to the church and

31:13

sinned sometime in the 13th century. What

31:16

sin he committed is unknown, or

31:19

it was so terrible that the monks kept it from

31:21

the records to keep it a secret.

31:23

Either way, Herman was said to be locked

31:25

away and mirrored while he was still

31:27

alive as a punishment. If you've

31:30

never heard that word before because I haven't, mirrored

31:32

means that he was walled up alive.

31:35

He was put inside a wall and then walled in.

31:38

Similar basically to that Edgar Allan Poe story,

31:40

the cask of Amontillado. So,

31:44

I mean, did you just instantly suffocate and die?

31:48

Not instantly, slowly. You

31:50

would be chained to the wall and then you would

31:52

be bricked in. And so you would be in a very dark,

31:54

heavily enclosed space. I'm sure

31:56

it's not oxygen permeable, but it's

31:59

not like a vacuum. him either and so I'm

32:01

sure you would essentially starve or

32:03

dehydrate to death. Jesus.

32:06

Yeah, it's brutal. But

32:09

again, it's a legend. There

32:11

are many other corners to this thing. Would it be

32:14

more brutal to do that or be

32:16

cemented to the ground except for your face

32:19

and then you're being fed and hydrated?

32:22

Oh gosh. I don't know why I just thought

32:24

about that. I think the first one, so I could just be done

32:26

in a week or two and not be, you

32:28

know, kept alive with my face out Jumanji

32:30

style. Yeah. That sounds,

32:33

oh. I don't know why I thought that was terrible. I do not like

32:35

the idea of not being able to move like that. Right. I

32:37

don't know where that would be. Clostrophobic central.

32:40

Annoying is a very light. I

32:43

would say a little bit more than annoying.

32:45

You're sitting in the ground, the foundation of a building,

32:47

your face sticking out going, well, I'm annoyed.

32:51

So the legend goes on to say that as the

32:53

final brick was laid, Herman

32:55

asked the avid or the leader of the monks for

32:58

a deal for forgiveness. And

33:01

in order to redeem himself, the Abbott

33:03

said that he had to create a book containing all

33:05

of human knowledge for the monastery in

33:08

one day. There are other versions though

33:10

that say that Herman had to create a text that would bring glory

33:13

to the monastery. And there was yet another

33:15

version that says that he was not walled up

33:17

yet. He was basically under threat of

33:19

being walled up. The punishment had been decided,

33:22

but not taken out yet. And he was given an entire

33:25

year to complete the text. Either way, these

33:27

are all very short timelines. Yeah.

33:30

This is a wild story. The whole

33:33

writing in the day, I must just scratch it off the list.

33:35

Because if he were forced to write this in the day to save

33:37

his life, it would not look this good. It

33:40

wouldn't look this good. No. Enter

33:42

the devil. Because you're right, factually impossible

33:45

to do in a day, impossible to do in a year. But

33:47

as the legend continues, as he was

33:49

getting desperate, midnight was approaching, he

33:51

prayed to the devil who in exchange

33:53

for his soul and a portrait within

33:56

the book, he assisted Herman in

33:58

finishing the Codex Gigas. before

34:00

the morning came. So since the portrait

34:02

portrayed him wearing the ermine loincloth

34:05

that we talked about before, some think that it is meant

34:07

to show the devil as the Prince of Darkness.

34:10

It's hard to believe, but the name Hermanus

34:12

Inclusus, another word for recluse

34:15

or punishment, is among the lists

34:18

of deaths in the text, the necrology

34:20

that we talked about. Hermanus Inclusus

34:22

is referred to in there, so it would

34:24

mean that Herman the Reclus almost was

34:27

listing himself within the book on November

34:30

10th in particular, though it's unknown

34:32

what year that would have been. Many have made

34:34

notes and left their mark on the Codex

34:36

Gigas across history. This could also be

34:38

why there are many pages

34:40

dedicated to admitting to sin,

34:42

because if this story is to be taken at face value,

34:45

the writer is- Yeah, with all their sins. Exactly, expunging

34:48

themselves, not only writing knowledge of human history

34:50

and everything they can to perhaps bring glory

34:52

to the monastery, but also expunge

34:55

themselves of their own wrongdoings. It's

34:57

also theorized that Herman may have dedicated his

35:00

entire life to creating the text as a religious act and

35:03

as a recluse rather than as a punishment.

35:05

To me, this makes a lot more sense for

35:08

a monk or anybody to kind of, as

35:10

you kind of indicated earlier, Fredo, to spend

35:12

their life writing such a thoughtful,

35:15

thorough text explaining spells,

35:18

magic, medicine, knowledge, their own

35:20

sins, documenting deaths over the

35:22

course of the entire span of the

35:24

history of writing this. It's a life's work.

35:27

It certainly is. They were

35:29

even copying religious texts, and perhaps

35:32

they saw that themselves as a way to overcome

35:34

their sins. Yeah, I could see that.

35:36

Yeah, I lean that way way more, for sure. Oh, 100%.

35:39

But it's just weird then, though, that you

35:41

have demonic things, right? Yeah,

35:44

but I mean, the Bible still refers to the

35:46

devil and talks about it. Good point. I'm

35:48

not fluid in Latin, that most of this book is written

35:51

in Latin, and I'm sure it could be translated.

35:53

I'm sure, in fact, because this book is actually

35:55

available online, each page is kind

35:58

of in hand. I'm sure there are. are

36:00

translations of it. So Task Force,

36:02

if you want, you can dive in and go

36:04

ham on that. If you'd like, it's too

36:06

much text to cover here. A lot.

36:08

A lot of pages. But suffice to say, whoever

36:10

made this, whoever wrote this text

36:13

was massively talented, though no

36:15

other pieces or text by them have

36:17

ever been discovered or at least connected to

36:20

them. I will say though, this doesn't seem

36:22

as evil as I thought it would be. Right.

36:25

It does sound like an evil thing. Yeah. It's

36:28

actually inspired by the legends surrounding the intrigue,

36:30

right? All the gaps in knowledge are filled

36:32

with legends is basically what's going

36:34

on. There are a lot of curses

36:36

attached to this and we're going to go over like a collection

36:39

of them and that does add a little bit of darkness

36:41

to it. But ultimately, yeah,

36:44

it sounds a lot more sinister than it is. So

36:48

speaking of that, as a result of its connections

36:50

with Lucifer, another popular legend

36:52

is that the devil's Bible is cursed.

36:55

It appears that those that hold onto

36:57

the text are destined to face tragedy.

37:00

We've talked about a few of them already, but we'll dive

37:02

in with more detail. So

37:04

after the monastery sold the Codex Gigas,

37:07

they fell from the Hasite Revolution.

37:10

This war was fought between the Hasites, a Czech

37:12

Protestant group, and the Catholics. Later,

37:15

as I mentioned, the Holy Roman Emperor kind of, air

37:18

quotes, borrowed the book and never

37:20

returned it. And not long after, he

37:22

was overthrown. When he grew older,

37:25

he suffered from depression and paranoia.

37:28

Rudolph II was stripped of power nine years

37:30

before his death in 1612 and then the castle was

37:33

plundered for the text. So you could almost

37:35

point to this text as the downfall

37:37

not only to his power, but then his

37:40

death a few years later. I mean, a

37:42

popular book like this for sure, but then

37:44

again, a lot of kings do have downfalls.

37:46

You know what I mean? Well, everybody dies.

37:49

Yeah, everybody dies. Especially

37:51

back then, people could overthrow

37:53

people. I mean, how? You

37:55

had ships where people would just mutiny,

37:58

you know? like, all right, and

38:00

someone new is in charge. Yeah. I

38:03

mean, it's an interesting timeline. It's hard

38:05

to say that it's not coincidence, because if

38:07

he got the book in 1594, and

38:09

it seems that he passed in 1612, and

38:12

then he lost power nine years before that, so about

38:15

1603-ish, then it's like a 10-year timeline. So 10

38:18

years after getting it, he lost power.

38:20

10 years after that, he passed away. So that's

38:23

a 20-year difference. Do you attribute it

38:25

to the text or the curse? Or

38:27

is it coincidence? Either way, he's

38:29

involved. Later, during the fire

38:31

of the castle in Stockholm, a witness, oh,

38:34

this is kind of morbidly hilarious.

38:36

So there was a witness that claimed, during

38:38

this fire, right, they're running around

38:40

the library, trying to save some of the books from these flames.

38:43

A witness claimed that when this particular

38:45

book flew out the window, not

38:47

only was it saved from the fire in that doing,

38:50

but it landed on somebody, injuring

38:52

them pretty badly. No. Because

38:55

it is a big, heavy book. It's a big book. So that

38:57

kind of only adds to the idea of

38:59

a curse, because of course, out of all

39:01

the time for this to happen, not only was there

39:04

a fire, but then being saved from

39:06

the fire, it said, well, I'm gonna do something, and

39:08

it hurt somebody. Some say that

39:10

this is also when some of the pages went missing,

39:12

that they flew out, because it was probably damaged

39:15

in some way when it fell, and that

39:17

maybe the pages were accidentally lost rather

39:19

than being intentionally cut out, as some

39:22

scholars have believed. Oh,

39:24

that's unfortunate. Yeah. We don't know exactly

39:26

what's lost, but we will get into a pretty

39:28

strong theory as to what was lost in

39:31

just a moment. But coming back to the fire,

39:33

the cause of the fire itself still is a mystery

39:36

as the fire watchers. Now this is a conflation

39:38

of accidents. The fire watchers were not

39:41

at their assigned locations, and

39:43

so many attribute this to the cursed

39:45

text, that the fire started when

39:48

the fire watchers weren't there, and that the

39:50

book hurt somebody, and on top of

39:52

that, the punishment for the fire watchers not

39:54

being there was that they were later executed.

39:57

Holy! So there's

39:59

a lot of the, you know. darkness surrounding this

40:01

particular moment. I guess they left their post.

40:04

At the worst time possible. The worst time. I mean,

40:06

right? Like, how many times did they leave their post and no

40:08

fires happened? Mm-hmm. In 1858,

40:11

this is centuries now later on, long

40:14

after the Codex Gigas had made its way to Stockholm,

40:16

there was a story of it published in

40:18

the Takroliga anecdote,

40:21

or in English, the hilarious anecdotes.

40:24

The story says that one of the library employees

40:26

fell asleep one night and was locked

40:28

in the building. He saw books fly from

40:30

their shelves and actually revolve around

40:32

the Codex Gigas. The morning after he

40:34

was found terrified, and he remained

40:37

so in a terrified state for many years

40:39

afterwards. Years later, a librarian

40:41

named August Strindberg claimed

40:44

to hear voices emanating from the book. Strindberg

40:46

was reportedly obsessed with the Codex Gigas and

40:49

would bring friends to read from it for hours

40:52

in the middle of the night. Pause,

40:54

red flag. That's a red flag friend right there.

40:56

100%, man.

40:58

I want you to read with me from a book that

41:01

speaks. Even this, it's like,

41:03

pass. You got some enablers, dog.

41:05

You don't have true friends. Yeah. You

41:07

know what I mean? True friends would be like, let's see what

41:09

old August is up to. Right. You got a

41:11

talking book. August, my dude,

41:14

you should stop doing this. This isn't right. Instead,

41:16

they're like, I guess I'll go hang out with August and

41:18

read the pages again. In a more real way though,

41:20

this would be exactly like Talk to Me. This

41:23

would be a group of friends rolling up next to

41:25

a haunted book and saying like, yes, the pages.

41:28

Look, look, he's floating. His eyes are rolling back in his head. Yeah. God,

41:31

what a good movie. This is such a good high to be possessed by a demon for five

41:33

seconds. Fantastic horror movie if you haven't

41:35

seen it already. Yeah, check it out. Basically the premise

41:38

is that there's a haunted object and

41:40

these teens are addicted to allowing

41:42

possession of themselves for up to 90 seconds.

41:45

Of course that is what teens would do because

41:48

there's no mortality in them yet. But I

41:50

mean, maybe that's what's happening with this Codex Gigas

41:52

in Strindberg. I don't know. Talk

41:54

to me is a lot better than the Pope's Exorcist

41:57

with Russell Crowe. Oh,

42:00

yeah, Russell Crowe. He's

42:02

out there doing like some kind of Italian accent

42:05

and he's like Anthony Hopkins as

42:07

well or was that a different no this

42:10

came out this year. Oh, that's okay This

42:12

is Russell Crowe. He's the Pope's Exorcist.

42:15

There's a demon that he has to exercise

42:18

What's the Anthony Hopkins movie? That was good though.

42:20

Terrible. The one in Italy. He's

42:22

a priest. He's exercising the right.

42:25

Yeah You gotta watch it but

42:27

please continue. Oh, no, I was saying it's

42:29

an absolute trash movie. Oh Shouldn't

42:33

watch it that being said

42:36

like I must boy. It's a trash movie. Okay The

42:38

story behind it was interesting.

42:41

There's like a demon essentially Okay, but

42:43

the demon was trying

42:46

to possess the Pope's Exorcist

42:48

Russell Crowe because previously

42:51

he possessed a High

42:53

standing I guess as an officer

42:56

like a cardinal or something Yeah I cardinal in

42:58

the church and use that person's

43:00

power and influence to do all the

43:03

evil things that happen in the Crusades. Oh Yeah,

43:07

cool, yeah, it's a great idea and so

43:09

it's like I will now want to possess

43:12

the Pope's Exorcist So I can

43:14

you know, I would again some Painous

43:18

evil massive plan. It's like that eating

43:20

premise. Yeah, that was cool And

43:23

then just you just got Russell Crowe doing Italian

43:26

accent Yeah,

43:38

that was a better Italian accent when he was an

43:40

ancient Roman yeah glad you He

43:43

does play Italians only anyway,

43:45

yeah Yeah, so related to this curse

43:47

some believe that the missing pages of the text

43:50

contain more occult practices and beliefs Which

43:52

is why they were torn out This is fascinating

43:55

and I didn't know about this going into this but some

43:57

believe that the pages contained instructions for

43:59

the day devil's prayer. But we were unable to find

44:02

any information regarding what the devil's prayer

44:04

might be or why they believed that. That's

44:06

just kind of one of the long-standing kind

44:08

of theories. Others believed that

44:10

it was instructions for the apocalypse.

44:13

We don't know if that's how to start

44:15

the apocalypse, if it's descriptions as to how

44:17

to see it coming or what it would contain,

44:20

but just information or instructions around

44:22

the apocalypse. Others believed that it's some

44:24

kind of knowledge that humans were not meant to have,

44:27

i.e. it was torn from the book. Now this

44:30

is where we get to the rule of St. Benedict. This

44:32

part is very fascinating to me. So

44:35

a note in the Codex Gigas mentions the

44:37

rule of St. Benedict, a set

44:39

of guidelines for the Benedictine monks

44:42

who we talked about a little bit earlier, but

44:44

these rules are not found in the text.

44:46

So the National Library of Sweden has concluded

44:49

from that that at least some

44:51

of the missing pages may have been dedicated

44:53

to the rule. Any of the text holders

44:55

between now and the original author could have disagreed

44:58

with this rule and been the ones to remove it. It

45:00

goes through so many hands. Yeah,

45:03

it's coupled around. So like the original

45:05

author puts it in and then any one of the authors

45:07

after takes it out. Lots of setting. A book like this,

45:10

you spend so much time meticulously

45:12

putting it together and someone's like, I don't

45:14

like that. I only thought I'm going to take it out. Perhaps

45:17

whoever tore it out disagreed with these guidelines,

45:19

but again to echo back onto

45:22

when it was thrown out the window, it's likely

45:24

that it took some damage at 165 pound three

45:26

foot book fallen from however high

45:28

up in the air, landing potentially on

45:30

a man. Yeah, you know, it could be that some

45:32

of the pages came out then too, but that

45:35

concludes the main legends and theories

45:37

that surround the Codex Gigas. Hopefully

45:39

time will reveal more about

45:41

this intriguing text, but until then it

45:43

will remain a mystery to time with

45:45

more legends filling the gaps than answers.

45:48

Not as demonic as I thought it

45:50

would be. Not as demonic, no. It's not like

45:52

it's, you know, people interested in the occult

45:54

are interested in this book, but it's not like it

45:57

actively promotes the

45:59

occult. or the

46:01

words of the devil or anything. But

46:04

the iconography of the devil is

46:07

one of the leading imageries coming from

46:09

this text. And so much mystery

46:11

and intrigue surrounding it and

46:14

the idea of curses kind of fill

46:16

in the air of like, well we don't know about

46:18

it, so let's kind of fill it in with what

46:20

could be. And a lot of that just basically

46:23

stems from that one page depiction of the

46:25

devil. I'm surprised not more stems from

46:27

the depiction of heaven right next door to that

46:30

picture of the devil, but the fascinating

46:32

book and one for the history books to

46:34

be sure. Yeah, I just walking

46:36

into a room with this thing in it, it's probably,

46:39

it's just bigger than you, right? And in terms

46:41

of the story and the history

46:45

and how old it is, I couldn't

46:47

even imagine. That's just

46:49

something that just go, that's just straight up wow.

46:52

Yeah. You just go, my God, like

46:54

this, look at this thing and all of its existence.

46:59

It's written in a totally different time, totally different century, 800

47:01

years ago. It's touched the hands

47:03

of a Roman emperor and

47:06

then that empire has since fallen. The language

47:08

it's written in has since died, right? Like

47:11

it is, if nothing else, an

47:14

amazing footprint of history to your

47:16

point. It reminds me, there's a painting, I think it's in

47:18

the Louvre where somebody got

47:20

ahold of this painting. It had been rolled up

47:22

and put away and stored and transferred. And

47:24

at some point in order to tuck it away into

47:26

a certain trunk or whatever,

47:29

it was cut in half. Someone took a sword and

47:31

just cut down the middle of it horizontally. So

47:33

that way it'd be small enough to store

47:35

away and it is now on display with

47:37

that cut forever in it, obviously, because you

47:39

can't undo it, entropy is a thing. But

47:41

it's like something so small, so quick,

47:44

these missing pages even, like

47:46

some breath of time has a permanent footprint

47:48

and you can just like, I don't know, there's something so

47:50

beautifully tangible that history

47:53

manifests in that way. I don't know. I

47:55

would love to just look at this book just so I

47:57

can imagine the hands that have been on it, the people

47:59

that wrote it. it with a person, whoever, it

48:01

is a beautiful mystery, intriguing as

48:04

it is potentially dark. This

48:06

is just to me the perfect Halloween mystery

48:08

to end this month on. Yeah, it was.

48:11

It's very intriguing. It's still,

48:13

there's just so many mysteries out there, right? We've

48:15

done hundreds of, oh, I guess we're

48:18

creeping up on 200 episodes

48:22

of Red Web, man. So a big shout out to the

48:24

task force. So you guys are the driving force on the blood

48:26

of this. Backbone

48:29

in the blood. Not sacrificing anyone again,

48:31

not cold. But you guys

48:33

are the blood life of the podcast.

48:37

We don't drink out of it. But

48:39

we still come across mysteries that are just so

48:42

different than other ones. Yeah. You

48:44

might be sure you could find similarities and everything, but

48:46

like, okay, there's this demonic skin

48:49

book. Okay. Yeah.

48:51

All right. That's just wild to me. Yeah,

48:54

dude. Last setting question. Yeah. All

48:56

right. I'm just members, uh, you know,

48:58

you figuring out the fever stuff, you wrote it down,

49:01

this is a different comment. Right. Right.

49:04

I want to answer that. I want to answer too, but if not, then you

49:06

get two for one. It all right. If you haven't

49:08

researched the fever stuff yet, but

49:10

there's, there's a book in front of

49:12

you. Got it. Okay. Yeah.

49:18

Um, it's a book in front of you. Okay. Right.

49:22

Just, it, there's no like kind

49:24

of just looks like a bland book, right?

49:26

Just sway either way in terms of like

49:29

emotion, colors, feelings or anything. I heard it's

49:31

very bland. 50% chance

49:33

that it is a book of

49:36

wishes or a 50% chance

49:38

that is a book of horrors. Okay. You

49:40

taking that? The question I have is what happens

49:43

if I take it or open it? Do I get

49:45

a wish or do I get a horror? Do

49:48

I get a take or do I get a gift? So the

49:50

thing is the, if you open it, it's wishes, you get

49:52

a ton of wishes, but if you open it, it's horrors,

49:54

you get a ton of horrors. Yeah. What

49:57

does that mean? Like, are you possessed by a beaming?

50:00

crawl out of the book and just vibe with you?

50:02

No, this needs to be detailed. Some sort of Tom Riddle

50:04

diary? I mean, I would just go

50:06

with the blank statement of like, you don't

50:08

like wishes and you're not going to like

50:10

horrors. Yeah. I've heard way too

50:13

many monkey paw stories

50:15

that I go, that's a fascinating book and immediately

50:18

put it in a crystal case. Right. I wouldn't touch

50:20

the thing with my bare skin. I'd

50:23

be like, you know, listen, 50% chance of

50:25

a wish come true and 50% that my life is

50:28

a horror film. I'm out. Yeah.

50:30

I like to dabble with that stuff. I like to watch it from

50:32

afar. Right. You know, I don't want

50:34

to know. I'm not getting involved. I've seen

50:37

enough horror movies. I'm not even touching it. I'm

50:39

walking away. If

50:42

you get wishes, it's wishes. There's no like,

50:44

oh man, I'm not gambling man. It's

50:48

like 50 50 per person. Like you

50:51

open it up and suddenly like a gold brick

50:53

falls in your lap. It hurts a little bit, but you get

50:55

it. Per person. Yeah.

50:59

The mean like, do you try to get someone else to open

51:01

the book? Be like, Hey, could you wish for this real quick?

51:03

Yeah. I ain't entering the cycle, man.

51:05

I'm not touching the book. Yeah. That's the one

51:07

thing I won't mess with. Untold horrors.

51:10

No, thanks. Task Force. Let me know. You open that book.

51:13

It's going to be a resounding change your life and you're

51:15

just like forever. You

51:18

don't got to worry about nothing. Okay. So

51:20

what it is is you and I walking back out onto that

51:22

balcony asking the task force in the

51:25

room and everyone going a resounding no, we

51:27

got a book. It's

51:30

either real good or real bad. And then one

51:32

brave soul in the back is going like, I'll

51:34

risk it for humanity. Oh, my

51:37

eyes. Yeah,

51:40

pretty much. Yeah. Oh man.

51:42

Well, again, reminder, thank you, task force for

51:44

sticking with it. God, what a fun episode. What

51:46

a fascinating hypothetical. Remember

51:49

again, if you haven't checked it out already, we got our Halloween

51:51

special. We went to the USS Hornet. We

51:53

had so much going on. And if you want to become a first

51:56

member to support this show, get this show ad

51:58

free and a bunch of other kind of. Patreon

52:00

style benefits you can go to redwebpod.com

52:03

slash first you get some deleted scenes

52:05

some uncut just raw footage from the

52:07

ship And then we'll do a follow-up a

52:10

little debrief once that episode has

52:12

had everybody pour over it We're gonna go through the comments

52:14

look at your time stamps if you've identified anything

52:17

any sound bites and eclipse and stills Especially

52:20

in that raw footage we're gonna collate all that like

52:22

we do every single year do a special one-off

52:24

case files Where we react

52:27

to your reactions right you guys are the eyes

52:29

and ears so you know get

52:31

to it Let's get tangible and also

52:33

Fredo's desperate for you to debunk some of that

52:38

No just the size no joke whatsoever

52:40

it was weird they explain it to

52:42

me there's some weirdness All

52:45

right task force see you right back here

52:47

next Monday for yet another mystery

52:49

happy home You