This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosity, a production of iHeart radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. In the early 1880s, a man known as Doc Carver wrote his horse across the open plains of Nebraska, lost in thought. Carver was adrift. He was an expert sharpshooter and he'd spent the past few years traveling around the world in touring exhibitions and vaudeville shows. He had even teamed up with another famous showman, Buffalo Bill Cody, to start their own traveling circus. But they had a bitter falling out and now Carver was striking out on his own once again. He wanted to start his own show, but he was having trouble finding a hook that people would be drawn to. He needed a fresh idea, something that no other circus was doing. As he crossed a bridge over the Platte River, his mind wandered with possibilities. Then all of a sudden he heard a deep groan. The bridge was collapsing. There was a loud snap and Carver and his horse both tumbled down toward the river. With a graceful arc, the horse dove down and splashed into the water. Carver clung to its back as it swam toward the banks. As he climbed onto the grass, Carver hopped down to check the horse for injuries. And amazingly, they had both made it out unscathed. As Carver remounted his horse and navigated it toward the road, an idea began to form in his mind. Everyone had animals in the circus, but no one else had animals doing water tricks. Soon enough, at a fairgrounds in St. Louis, Missouri, a curious audience gathered around a tall wooden ramp that rose at the edge of a deep tank of water. Doc Carver greeted the crowd and told them to prepare for something they had never seen before. A high diving horse. And then he mounted a sleek mare named Blackbess, patted her back and led her up the ramp. Once they had reached the top, Carver got Blackbess into position on a small wooden platform, waited for the crowd's anticipation to reach its peak, and then tapped his legs against the horse's sides. On command, Blackbess dove down into the tank of water. The audience gasped as they fell. They splashed into the 14-foot deep pool. And as they bobbed to the surface and Carver shook the water out of his ears, he heard the crowd cheering and whooping. Horse diving was an instant hit. Over the next few years, droves of curious spectators poured in to see Carver's traveling exhibition. He gradually expanded the operation until he had a total of six horses performing in various cities all across the country. Carver passed away in 1927, but the show, as they say, must go on. His son, Al, took over and just a year later, Al married Serona Webster, one of the first female horse divers in history who had worked for Al's father. Under their guidance, a permanent horse diving attraction was opened on the boardwalk at Atlantic City's Steel Pier. In 1931, however, tragedy struck when Sonora lost her balance and hit the water with her eyes wide open. The impact caused her retinas to detach, causing instant blindness. Despite this, though, she continued to dive, riding horses off the platform and into the tank without being able to see. Just like Daredevil, only cooler. Sonora retired in 1945, but the act kept going strong until the 1970s. That's when the audiences gradually dwindled, helped along by animal rights groups that had begun to protest the shows. And so, in 1978, the last diving horse took its final leaps off Steel Pier before the exhibit was shuttered for good. In the decade since, there have been two attempts to revive this bizarre sport, neither of which got off the ground. No pun intended, I swear. And in 1991, the story of Sonora's miraculous career was turned into a movie called Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken. She passed away in 2003, less than five months shy of her 100th birthday. Horse diving certainly was a curious bit of entertainment, but just like the vaudeville shows and sharpshooters of the Wild West, it's one that might best be left a thing of the past. So, co-op members now get everyday essentials price matched to Aldi. Sign up and start saving. Co-op, owned by you, right by you. I wasn't expecting that. Co-op member prices matched versus comparable selected products at Aldi GB. Co-op membership required. Co-op group futiles only. See co-op.co.uk slash Aldi price match. It's a famous theorem that's taught in geometry classes everywhere. A squared plus B squared equals C squared. It's meant to help us find the hypotenuse of a right angle. And it was named for the famous Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras. Now, it's easy to picture him as a sage, robed scholar, lecturing a class of engaged students about his chosen field. But if you did that, you'd only be getting a fraction of the truth. To get a much clearer picture, you have to also include a few other strange angles. His belief that souls wandered between humankind and the animals. The secrecy around his mathematical discoveries. And of course, his absolute refusal to eat beans. The school Pythagoras founded gives us the first clue of his peculiarities. It wasn't merely a lecture hall. What he created instead was more of a commune where his students lived in eight together and took an oath swearing them to absolute secrecy. To be inducted, one had to pass through secret rights. And the oath was, in Pythagoras' mind, protective to keep the world from learning truths that might destabilize the established order. This suppression of knowledge was key to a culture of silence that has kept much of the mathematician's life and works mysterious to this day. We do know that Pythagoras was obsessed with numerology and believe that numbers constituted the very core of reality. He taught his students that the distance between planets and stars created a type of cosmic music that he alone could hear. He also taught that a triangular arrangement called a tetractus could be used to align one's soul with the greater universal order. He would conduct rituals wherein his initiates would arrange and rearrange small objects into the tetractus pattern, which he believed could channel that heavenly order into the material realm. The philosopher also insisted upon a strict dietary regimen, including forbidding that any of his disciples eat beans. There was a practical reason for this, he said. He believed that legume caused flatulence could be a distraction to his teachings. It's hard to focus on sacred geometry when the lecture hall stinks. But there was a stranger, more mystical reason for disallowing beans, the belief that within them dwelled the souls of the dead. And yes, I get it, it's quite weird. But this view came from his belief in metempsicosis, or the transmigration of souls, and it led him and his followers into a life of strict vegetarianism. By avoiding the killing of animals, he hoped not to harm the souls that were transmitted between beast and man. And in this way, he could extend his beliefs into a practical everyday application. Although it's unclear to this day why beans were also spiritually excluded. There are a host of other peculiarities about the guy. For instance, tales of the mathematician walking around in golden sandals. It kept his footfalls silent, they say, as well as allowing him to walk a path of spiritual virtue. There were also rumors that he could tame wild animals, stop a raging bull in its tracks, and predict earthquakes by sensing the deep vibrations of the earth before they struck. And in all, these rumors, along with the cult-like behavior of his students and the deep secrecy around his teachings, gave him a mystical air. This mysterious persona was further supported by his students who warned of a terrible curse that would befall any man who dared spread his secret teaching. You see, the Pythagoreans believed that the universe was a living tapestry. It was woven out of the souls, numbers, and harmonies hidden to most of humankind. They guarded this tapestry fiercely, their belief that the cosmos sang in precise ratios made ordinary mathematics a sacred art, while their dietary bans and mystical rituals turned daily life into a continual rite of devotion. Even the discovery of an irrational number was treated as a sort of philosophical crisis to hide from those who could not or would not understand, lest the spread of that knowledge publicly unravel their entire worldview. And so, as time passed by, the legend of Pythagoras grew. The bean-shunning, soul-traveling mystic who claimed to hear the music of the planets became a cultural archetype, a symbol of the uneasy marriage between rational inquiry and mystical belief. Modern scholars today, armed with archaeological fragments and ancient testimonies, continue to untangle fact from fiction. But the weirder elements persist because they illuminate a world in which mathematics was not a neutral tool, but a pathway to the divine. I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was created by me, Aaron Mankey, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and Mild team and produced by Jesse Fung. Learn more about the show and the people who make it over at grimandmild.com. You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosities hardcover book available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking for an ad-free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over at patreon.com. And until next time, stay key.
