Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We are
Speaker 1: officially into Halloween episode. We sure are, I mean, if
Speaker 1: it were up to me, like we say, we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't keep any other um history calendar like Black
Speaker 1: History Month. We don't really heed that too much because
Speaker 1: we like to cover that kind of history all year round.
Speaker 1: I feel the same about Halloween. We should just be
Speaker 1: doing spooky things about bats and ghosts at every every
Speaker 1: turn we possibly can. But now it is officially October
Speaker 1: in Halloween time. I know not everyone wants Halloween all
Speaker 1: the time like I do. UM. The person we're talking
Speaker 1: about today, Johann George strip For, is a little bit tricky.
Speaker 1: He's kind of a slippery snake in the historical record,
Speaker 1: and like some of our other Halloween episodes, uh, the one,
Speaker 1: we're not quite as fast to historical record because they
Speaker 1: kind of don't exist, and the ones that do exist
Speaker 1: have been purposely clouded by Johan and his followers and
Speaker 1: his detractors. Everyone kind of told a different version of
Speaker 1: stories involving him, and thus confusion. UM. One thing I'll
Speaker 1: also mentioned we went with the spelling of Schrepford as
Speaker 1: sc h r e p f e R. You will
Speaker 1: also see it in lieu of that first e and
Speaker 1: oh with an umlund over it. Just if you're going
Speaker 1: looking for more information now, you might want to do
Speaker 1: two searches to give the results for both of those.
Speaker 1: UM guided that this morning looking for artwork, uh to
Speaker 1: go on our social media, and still the best I
Speaker 1: could do was artwork of a person who was inspired
Speaker 1: by him, and not anything directly related to him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's he's like I said, he's difficult to pin down.
Speaker 1: There are also some um works of art that we're
Speaker 1: done about him that are clearly fanciful, right, Like they're
Speaker 1: like someone imagining what it was like to be at
Speaker 1: one of his spiritual events. UM. The other thing I
Speaker 1: want to say, even though this is for me a
Speaker 1: jolly time of Halloween talk, Um, this one is one
Speaker 1: of those episodes and I feel like we have had
Speaker 1: to make this particular heads up so many times that
Speaker 1: I should apologize lately. Uh. This is another episode where
Speaker 1: we do discuss um death by suicide, So I want
Speaker 1: to make sure if that's not for somebody that they
Speaker 1: know to to hop right out of this one. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it it comes up a good bit towards the end,
Speaker 1: So I know that. But yes, uh, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be some necromancy, some Charlatanism and some weirdness and some
Speaker 1: people who don't want to believe that anything spiritual could
Speaker 1: be disproved. Right. Yeah, So, as Holly just alluded to,
Speaker 1: what we know about Johann George Schrepfer's origins is actually
Speaker 1: pretty slim on details. He is believed to have been
Speaker 1: born in Nuremberg in seventeen thirty eight, although sometimes you'll
Speaker 1: see sources claim seventeen thirty nine. He didn't really receive
Speaker 1: a formal education and was often described as having coarse behavior,
Speaker 1: so it's generally believed that he grew up poor. We
Speaker 1: really don't know anything about his parents, though he said
Speaker 1: to have had siblings who he was not close to.
Speaker 1: Shrepp for himself was known to also tell wildly differing
Speaker 1: versions of his origins, and this was also true of
Speaker 1: his eventual followers. It's just not possible to feel confident
Speaker 1: about really any of it, even when you're looking at
Speaker 1: articles written by historical scholars. The details are so different
Speaker 1: and cases that I'm like, well, I can't go to
Speaker 1: Germany and dig through the records, and I don't speak German,
Speaker 1: so that wouldn't help anyway. So I'm just gonna have
Speaker 1: to point out where there's disparity. At some point, Johan
Speaker 1: is said to have started working as a cooper, although
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem to be something he did for long.
Speaker 1: It's also not something that comes up in every version
Speaker 1: of his story. The Seven Years War started in seventeen
Speaker 1: fifty six, although you will sometimes see that extended to
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty four, as the French and Indian War began
Speaker 1: that year, and it's one of the many conflicts that
Speaker 1: overlap in this larger conflict. Additionally, sometimes the start is
Speaker 1: given uh much earlier, on a much longer timeline of
Speaker 1: being more than twenty years long, because it's origin points
Speaker 1: involve other conflicts even before that. So as a crash course,
Speaker 1: and we're doing this just to give you a sense
Speaker 1: of what was going on in the world when Schrepfur
Speaker 1: was alive. Here are the basic basics of the Seven
Speaker 1: Years War, which had all of Europe's major power bases
Speaker 1: involved Prussia and Great Britain, got into a fight with
Speaker 1: France and Austria, and the Austrian Habsburgs were trying to
Speaker 1: regain Silesia. All of this is tied into the War
Speaker 1: of the Austrian Succession, which started in seventeen forty. It's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that the length of the Seven
Speaker 1: Years War gets a little stretchy. But this war was
Speaker 1: also pretty amieble like in its geographical spread. In North America.
Speaker 1: Most of the conflict was based on this tug of
Speaker 1: war between England and France regarding each of their claims
Speaker 1: on territory and their trade potential. It also reached into
Speaker 1: India and West Africa and the Caribbean, and if you
Speaker 1: remember our episode on the Black Hole of Calcutta, that
Speaker 1: was part of the Seven Years War as well. This
Speaker 1: whole thing has been called the First World War on occasion,
Speaker 1: most notably by Sir Winston Churchill, and that is probably
Speaker 1: how it felt from a European perspective. For sure, all
Speaker 1: of the countries involved were weakened financially by the whole
Speaker 1: war effort, and they all lost a lot of men,
Speaker 1: not just to the conflict but to disease, and that
Speaker 1: of course would have been true of the civilian population
Speaker 1: as well, especially the disease spread through the warfare. It
Speaker 1: is unsurprising that in the wake of a massive and
Speaker 1: lengthy conflict like this, there was a sort of sense
Speaker 1: in Europe that the world had changed, but there wasn't
Speaker 1: really a clear vision of what it had changed into
Speaker 1: or what the future was going to look like. And
Speaker 1: as a consequence, people were unsettled and seeking refuge or
Speaker 1: guidance in the ideas of philosophy and religion and mysticism,
Speaker 1: and Johann George Shreffer found a path in that uncertainty
Speaker 1: to gaining his own power and wealth, although ultimately that
Speaker 1: path would lead him to an early death. Shreft first
Speaker 1: served in the Prussian Army during the Seven Years War,
Speaker 1: though in seventeen sixty one he appeared in like Szig
Speaker 1: and he lived and worked there from then on, so
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like he stayed in the military all
Speaker 1: the way until the war ended later in the seventeen sixties.
Speaker 1: In August of seventeen sixty one, he became a citizen
Speaker 1: of Leipzig and started operating a wine tavern in the city.
Speaker 1: Just a month later, he married a tailor's daughter from
Speaker 1: Leipzig named Johanna Katerina Hair and then after several years
Speaker 1: in the business, Johan left his first tavern. He started
Speaker 1: running a coffee shop in the center of town called Vice.
Speaker 1: Later's coffee were shopped and that was at the corner
Speaker 1: of cluster Gas and Barfuscassen. If you look at that
Speaker 1: intersection today you can see it's still pretty much right
Speaker 1: at the center of Leipzig. That business wasn't when that
Speaker 1: shrep first started from scratch. It had already been in operation.
Speaker 1: It was well known when he took it over in
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty nine that would become the epicenter of his
Speaker 1: mystical demonstrations. At some point in his life, Schrepfer became
Speaker 1: involved in free masonry, and as we've covered on the
Speaker 1: show before, freemasonry grew out of Stonemason guilds of the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages and then expanded to include members outside of
Speaker 1: that vocation. Freemason groups, which were organized into lodges, were
Speaker 1: spread throughout Europe and became numerous enough that they started
Speaker 1: to organize in groups of lodges under Grand lodges. The
Speaker 1: first of those Grand lodges was founded in seventeen seventeen
Speaker 1: in England, and because of the widespread nature of the lodges,
Speaker 1: some of them began to incorporate different symbolism and rituals
Speaker 1: into their philosophies and meetings. There's really some debate about
Speaker 1: whether Strepper really became a member of the Freemasons or
Speaker 1: if you may have just been part of a group
Speaker 1: in Nuremberg, but at the time he was showing interest
Speaker 1: in the group in Leipzig. There were two primary branching
Speaker 1: ideologies within Freemasonry. One was what's often called the Scottish
Speaker 1: Lodge or the Templar Lodge, and that was considered the
Speaker 1: group of rict observance. They sought to attain a full
Speaker 1: understanding of the world and spiritual matters, was often referred
Speaker 1: to as highest knowledge, and they were doing that through research.
Speaker 1: And then the other was a group that was more
Speaker 1: aligned with Rosicrucianism. This branch sought knowledge and understanding through
Speaker 1: means that we might describe today as metaphysical or even paranormal,
Speaker 1: and this could include everything from practicing magic to contacting
Speaker 1: the spirit realm. Streppord was a lot more interested in
Speaker 1: the more mystical ideology. Yeah, this is a very simplified
Speaker 1: version of all of the things going on in freemasonry.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's one of those topics that every
Speaker 1: time it comes up we have to caveat that, like
Speaker 1: partially because it was a secret society and it still exists,
Speaker 1: but much more secretive at this point. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of mock nations of it that are we only
Speaker 1: know through various accounts that again contradict each other. Right,
Speaker 1: Like that whole Templar thing, there's some that believe that
Speaker 1: the Knights of tem Plar could somehow be contacted through
Speaker 1: through various means and like regain power and um, there
Speaker 1: was a lot going on. There's also the idea that
Speaker 1: there were rose agrusions that joined the Freemasons to kind
Speaker 1: of plant those more mystical seeds and like start this division.
Speaker 1: I did not dig into all of that, just know
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of stuff like that going on
Speaker 1: in the backdrop of this story. At this point, though,
Speaker 1: the main lodge of Leipzig, which was called Minerva zoom Zircle,
Speaker 1: which is Minerva to the Circle in English. Um, and
Speaker 1: Minerva was in the strict observance camp, which Shrubber found frustrating,
Speaker 1: and he came to the conclusion that such a limited
Speaker 1: approach to gaining knowledge of spiritual matters was a corruption
Speaker 1: of the goals of Freemasonry, and that Minerva Lodge was
Speaker 1: inherently unprincipled. So he started his own lodge out of
Speaker 1: the coffee house, and the member roster of his lodge
Speaker 1: actually grew pretty rapidly because, in breaking from the mainstream Freemasons,
Speaker 1: Shrepford took in members who had been denied entry into Minerva.
Speaker 1: He also admitted women into his lodge, which was absolutely
Speaker 1: forbidden by Freemasonry at the time. That's a whole other
Speaker 1: complicated issue. Uh. And because he was quite charismatic, Shrepfer
Speaker 1: also managed to lure away members of the Minerval Lodge
Speaker 1: who had been in good standing but also felt like
Speaker 1: they weren't learning everything they could. He also publicly spoke
Speaker 1: out against the Minerval Lodge. He claimed that his new
Speaker 1: group was closer to the ideals of Freemasonry, and he
Speaker 1: went so far as to write and distribute a pamphlet
Speaker 1: about freemasonry. He distributed that all over the town. This
Speaker 1: was considered a really aggressive thing to do because in
Speaker 1: that pamphlet he disclosed detailed information about the Minerval Lodge
Speaker 1: initiation rituals. These were considered Freemason secrets. He also accused
Speaker 1: the Leipsig Lodge of taking money from members as part
Speaker 1: of promoting them to higher levels of masonry, and of
Speaker 1: lying to new members by promising them more knowledge and
Speaker 1: enlightenment than they could actually deliver. I had to say
Speaker 1: he was sort of a genius of a smear campaign, right,
Speaker 1: Like he knew exactly how to position this whole thing
Speaker 1: to be, Like, they are exploiting your desire for knowledge.
Speaker 1: I will show you knowledge, and I'm not corrupt like them. Uh.
Speaker 1: That smear campaign was not well received, but Shrefford continued
Speaker 1: to escalate his accusations until he had gotten so aggressive
Speaker 1: about it he was finally arrested for disorderly conduct over it.
Speaker 1: He was also sentenced to what is listed in the
Speaker 1: historical record as two hundred are sprugle if you speak German.
Speaker 1: I hope I did not offend you with that, because
Speaker 1: that translates in the kindest terms two lashes on the behind.
Speaker 1: The literal translation that I got when running it through
Speaker 1: an internet translator was a little less appropriate for an
Speaker 1: all ages show for a clean rated podcast. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: in addition to that physical punishment, he also had to
Speaker 1: sign a document that acknowledged his crime and its consequences
Speaker 1: to be punished in the papers of the town. And
Speaker 1: while presses did indeed run that document with shrepford signature,
Speaker 1: he claimed that the signature was forged and that he
Speaker 1: had never been punished. He continued to say publicly that
Speaker 1: the freemasonry of the Minerva Lodge was illegitimate. But though
Speaker 1: many thought he was being a nuisance and a pain
Speaker 1: in the neck, he was able to acquire a letter
Speaker 1: from the Grand Master of Freemasonry in Germany that validated
Speaker 1: him as a freemason. Not only did this give validation
Speaker 1: to his sort of separate branch order, but it also
Speaker 1: meant that he could go to the Manerval Lodge if
Speaker 1: he wanted to, even as he continued to speak out
Speaker 1: against it. And yes, it is absolutely valid to wonder
Speaker 1: if that document was legit. Coming up, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: the nature of the meetings that shrep Fer's coffee house. First,
Speaker 1: we will pause for a quick sponsor break. We mentioned
Speaker 1: Johann Schrepfer's Coffee House Lodge and its policy to admit
Speaker 1: people that Minerva Lodge would not. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: it was open to anyone. Prospective members had to pass
Speaker 1: a screening, which was conducted by Schrepfer himself. And this
Speaker 1: is where we really have to start discussing what the
Speaker 1: Coffee House Lodge was actually doing at its meetings and initiations.
Speaker 1: We mentioned already that Schrepfer was interested in the more
Speaker 1: mystical approach to attaining higher knowledge. So Johan's leadership of
Speaker 1: these meetings at the coffee House quickly turned into demonstrations
Speaker 1: of necromancy. For a quick point of clarification here, a
Speaker 1: lot of times in modern pop culture storytelling, necromancy is
Speaker 1: associated with things like reanimating the dead, But the real
Speaker 1: definition of necromancy is conjuring spirits of the dead, are
Speaker 1: communicating with the dead, often as a divination tool or
Speaker 1: in a wider sense, using magic or sorcery. So when
Speaker 1: we say Schrepfer was engaging in necromancy, that's what we're
Speaker 1: talking about, the sense of conjuring spirits, not reanimating the dead. No,
Speaker 1: this is not a zombie story. I apologize if you
Speaker 1: were hoping from these conjurings have been called performances and
Speaker 1: Shrepfer is usually described as a Charlottean, but his ability
Speaker 1: to convince people who attended these meetings that they were
Speaker 1: in the presence of other worldly spirits was pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: In these ritual Schrepfer would show his followers either what
Speaker 1: he called numatis or pneumatic necromancy, which he straight up
Speaker 1: just called directly to spirits, or as an alternate elementary
Speaker 1: or elementary necromancy, in which he used light to bring
Speaker 1: forth spirits. Accounts of these ceremonies described seeing apparitions that
Speaker 1: were clear as day to everybody present, although they had
Speaker 1: a vapor like quality because Shepford would call up spirits
Speaker 1: from other time periods. Their clothing was described as having
Speaker 1: been appropriately period. Although how many of the people giving
Speaker 1: these accounts were experts on historical clothing. That's certainly worth wondering.
Speaker 1: I know, I'll see something in a movie and be like,
Speaker 1: that looks great and it is super wrong. All you
Speaker 1: need to do to know how not correct people have
Speaker 1: various time period clothing is do a search for Victorian
Speaker 1: dress on the Internet and you'll get a million Edwardian
Speaker 1: things Like this isn't necessarily like a big important problem.
Speaker 1: Let's you're doing it. I'm just saying it's worth questioning
Speaker 1: the account of correct period dress in these spirits. Right. So,
Speaker 1: attendees also marveled at seeing spirits in various emotional states,
Speaker 1: including just obvious distress. Shrepfer put his conjured spirits into
Speaker 1: three categories, which were good, medium, and damned. I don't
Speaker 1: know why that scale tickles me, cracks me up, like
Speaker 1: you're good, you're damned, Medium, like like is that partially damned?
Speaker 1: I don't know what I feel like this inspired the
Speaker 1: good place. I think you're not far off. It's a
Speaker 1: similar approach. So these ceremonies began late at night, usually midnight,
Speaker 1: and as the methodologies of set up are examined, things,
Speaker 1: of course start to seem pretty suspicious. So, for one,
Speaker 1: Shrepford would insist that no one could stand up from
Speaker 1: the table where they were seated during these That was,
Speaker 1: according to Johann, because they would be in sere is
Speaker 1: danger if they did, and he could not control the
Speaker 1: spirits if humans were up and moving around. One way
Speaker 1: Stretford convinced people that he truly was conjuring the spirits
Speaker 1: of the dead was by bringing spectral versions of famous
Speaker 1: people to the seance table that includes prior podcast subject
Speaker 1: Johann Friedrich Struancy and his friend Intervaled Brent, who were
Speaker 1: executed in seventeen seventy two for manipulating King Christian the
Speaker 1: seventh of Denmark by exploiting his mental instability. The trial
Speaker 1: and execution had been widely reported throughout Europe, and so
Speaker 1: this would have been a really thrilling and sensational duo
Speaker 1: to appear in spectral form at these seances. Not only
Speaker 1: did they appear to shred first followers, they also did
Speaker 1: so while holding their decapitated heads. That would be um,
Speaker 1: That would be a wower, very dramatic. Yes, Shrepford did
Speaker 1: not keep these ceremonies confined just to his coffee house.
Speaker 1: He actually traveled with them. He performed several such necromancy
Speaker 1: rituals in Dresden in seventeen seventy three and seventy four,
Speaker 1: and in some instances when he was doing these, he
Speaker 1: would do tricks like send a spirit away on an
Speaker 1: errand far away and then have them return with some
Speaker 1: sort of evidence of their projection elsewhere, like a note
Speaker 1: that was signed by someone known to be in another
Speaker 1: town or city, to show his command of the spirit world.
Speaker 1: Shrepfor once conjured a spirit that appeared to the gather
Speaker 1: people surrounded by flames and pleading for the necromancer Shrepfor
Speaker 1: to torture him no more. In that particular instance, Johan
Speaker 1: said that it had been too dangerous a trick and
Speaker 1: that he would never repeat it. He also would not
Speaker 1: take requests. A person attending one of his ceremonies couldn't
Speaker 1: in the course of the ceremony asked for a specific
Speaker 1: person to be brought forth from the afterlife. Who was
Speaker 1: called was generally entirely up to Shrepfor, and he would
Speaker 1: also perform magic, sometimes out in the open of the countryside,
Speaker 1: allegedly causing storms to run in or to cause stars
Speaker 1: to shift their brightness. When a ritual or ceremony was over,
Speaker 1: Shpford used familiar religious symbols and tools to wrap things up.
Speaker 1: He brought out a crucifix that he said helped keep
Speaker 1: attendants safe. He would bless the people who were present.
Speaker 1: He would also use holy water, although whether this water
Speaker 1: truly had been blessed is not known. He also used
Speaker 1: these things to bring himself down from the experience. He
Speaker 1: was said to have had to fight off demonic energies
Speaker 1: as he performed his rituals, and the crucifix, he told
Speaker 1: his followers was a way to help keep himself as
Speaker 1: well as them safe. He made it clear that he
Speaker 1: could be killed by this very dangerous work. I feel
Speaker 1: like he's such a great showman. Uh and Johan's interviews
Speaker 1: with potential new members. Remember we were talking about who
Speaker 1: he let in was right in line theatrically with the
Speaker 1: secret meetings. So these encounters with potential members would begin
Speaker 1: pretty benignly with a little bit of chat. He would
Speaker 1: ask the person about their thoughts on spirituality in the afterlife,
Speaker 1: and he would claim then that the integrity of the
Speaker 1: applicant was reflected in glasses of water which he had
Speaker 1: had set out on the table between them. So he
Speaker 1: would pick up the water and examine it, and if
Speaker 1: it was cloudy when he looked at it, or it
Speaker 1: tasted odd, he would proclaim that the person's intentions were
Speaker 1: not genuine and they should not be admitted. But if
Speaker 1: the water was clear and tasted correct to Shrepfor, they
Speaker 1: were accepted and initiated because they were trustworthy. This whole
Speaker 1: system was of course devised by Shrepfor It's not as
Speaker 1: though you could point to any written ancient text and
Speaker 1: see this weird water ritual, so no one could ever
Speaker 1: claim that he had executed this examination incorrectly. As his
Speaker 1: group of followers grew, Shrepfort made another bold move in
Speaker 1: mid seventeen seventy four. He staged a coup at the
Speaker 1: Minerva Lodge. He literally went into a meeting with a
Speaker 1: pistol and forced the lodge master out at gunpoint, and
Speaker 1: then appointed himself as the new master. And this worked.
Speaker 1: We have talked about Shrepford drawing a lot of followers
Speaker 1: while also courting legal trouble for harassing the Freemason Lodge
Speaker 1: of Leipzig, But one of the things we have not
Speaker 1: talked about a whole lot is his critics, and he
Speaker 1: had a lot. This is not a case where modern
Speaker 1: eyes can really look at what he was doing in
Speaker 1: the seventeen sixties and seventeen seventies and say, oh, clearly
Speaker 1: he was in Charlottan and people then were fools. You
Speaker 1: can't have any sort of superiority about that because people
Speaker 1: at the time we're saying that, and he was deeply controversial,
Speaker 1: as you might imagine as someone who walks into a
Speaker 1: private meeting with a weapon and takes over would be
Speaker 1: and launching a public campaign of criticism against the existing
Speaker 1: Minerva Freemason Lodge and then creating his own group of followers.
Speaker 1: Shepherd had also established his own faction of defenders. By
Speaker 1: the time he took over the Freemason Lodge, his followers
Speaker 1: were ready to go up against any detractors. It's often
Speaker 1: played out in writing and the papers of the day
Speaker 1: as doubters sent spies to his ceremonies and seances to
Speaker 1: try to get proof that this whole thing was a fraud.
Speaker 1: There were accounts from some planted attendees that they recognized
Speaker 1: some of the ghosts as people they knew and their
Speaker 1: everyday lives. In one instance, a doubter quietly locked the
Speaker 1: door to the ceremony room as he entered, which resulted
Speaker 1: in the spirits not being able to get in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was like a clear hey, you know why you
Speaker 1: can't conjure spirits because I locked the door, dude. Um.
Speaker 1: But his believers were absolutely not having this when even
Speaker 1: when they were confronted with these cases where people had
Speaker 1: obviously thwarted Schrepfer's performances, his believers dug in. They were
Speaker 1: into hiredly certain that they had seen the veil between
Speaker 1: the physical world and the spirit realm fall, and that
Speaker 1: Schrepfer had caused it and was orchestrating these amazing things.
Speaker 1: And the thing was, no one was able to come
Speaker 1: up with a solid idea regarding how exactly he had
Speaker 1: accomplished some of the things that they had seen. Even
Speaker 1: the skeptics were a little troubled by this. We're going
Speaker 1: to circle back to this in a moment. One very
Speaker 1: common theory that's often discussed in all of this, particularly
Speaker 1: in the case of Schrepfer's hardcore believers, is that he
Speaker 1: was manipulating their state of mind in various ways. Often
Speaker 1: the descriptions of the pre seance rituals involved things like fasting.
Speaker 1: Then the attendees were given some refreshments, which Schrepfer provided.
Speaker 1: One item that comes up repeatedly in stands out as
Speaker 1: kind of odd is salad. But there was it was
Speaker 1: also punched. There was a whole lot of punch. So
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible that people who had eaten for a while,
Speaker 1: we're then put into a very dark room and given
Speaker 1: something intoxicating, they would probably buy into some things that
Speaker 1: might not pass scrutiny in the light of day with
Speaker 1: a clear head. They were not drinking a bunch of
Speaker 1: punch on a mostly empty stomach. Listen, if I don't
Speaker 1: eat enough protein on a regular basis, I see spirits.
Speaker 1: I mean coming up, We're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: claims that started to unravel shrep first public persona, and
Speaker 1: we will get to all of that after we hear
Speaker 1: from the sponsors. To keep stuff you missed in history
Speaker 1: class going in sevent shrep Fer claimed that he was
Speaker 1: a French nobleman and that his name was Baron stein
Speaker 1: von Steinbach. When he visited Dresden to perform at court,
Speaker 1: he was not appearing as himself. He had basically taken
Speaker 1: on this other persona. This lie caught up to him
Speaker 1: pretty quickly when a French envoy to Saxony heard of
Speaker 1: the alleged French noble with connections to the spirit realm
Speaker 1: and asked shrepp for for documentation of his French lineage.
Speaker 1: This obviously fell apart, but Schrepfer is said to have
Speaker 1: performed quite a thrilling and terrifying seance even after his
Speaker 1: unmasking by all of this, but though he had supporters there,
Speaker 1: he also had a lot of people that wanted him gone,
Speaker 1: and this whole like pretending to be someone he wasn't
Speaker 1: had not helped matters, so he soon left, dresseden and
Speaker 1: went back to Leipzig. Throughout all of this, and even
Speaker 1: when money was tight for a lot of people in
Speaker 1: Saxony and Leipzig specifically, Shrepfer always seemed to be doing
Speaker 1: okay financially. Most of his money at this point seems
Speaker 1: to have been coming from high ranking believers who were
Speaker 1: loaning him money with the understanding that he was using
Speaker 1: it to further his work of achieving an understanding of
Speaker 1: the highest knowledge and that he was going to share
Speaker 1: that knowledge with them. There also appears to have been
Speaker 1: a promise that he was using his clairvoyant abilities to
Speaker 1: solve the financial problems of the region, but the debts
Speaker 1: and the false promises were quickly outpacing his ability to
Speaker 1: live up to them. Yeah, it's unclear if that weird
Speaker 1: choice to pretend to be a French noble might have
Speaker 1: been part of an effort in a money making scheme.
Speaker 1: We don't really know, but on the night of October seventh,
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy four, Shrepford is said to have performed a
Speaker 1: seance at his coffee house, and his ritual had been
Speaker 1: so powerful as to bring several spirits to the group.
Speaker 1: So many spirits and in such strong manifestations, it was
Speaker 1: said that Shrepfer suggested that instead of closing the normal way,
Speaker 1: that everyone present leave and just allow the spirits to
Speaker 1: disperse on their own. There are also accounts that he
Speaker 1: had a dinner with some of his closest friends that night,
Speaker 1: but some time after midnight, Johan suggested they all go
Speaker 1: for a walk, and he told those that were with
Speaker 1: him that they were going to be part of another
Speaker 1: significant happening and indicated that it was singular and unusual,
Speaker 1: like basically, we're going to go into the woods and
Speaker 1: I'm going to show you something very special. They went
Speaker 1: to a forest known as the Rosenthal and shrep Fur
Speaker 1: peeled off from the group. Shortly thereafter, a shot was
Speaker 1: heard and Shrepfer was found dead, apparently of suicide. Most
Speaker 1: of the accounts of the people who were with Johan
Speaker 1: in the forest that night indicated that he was, as
Speaker 1: we just stated, dead when they found him, but there
Speaker 1: were a few people who claimed he was not dead
Speaker 1: but injured, and that he had vanished before them as
Speaker 1: though he was crossing through the veil that he had
Speaker 1: so frequently skirted, as he had in these seances. For
Speaker 1: some there were hopes that the death was part of
Speaker 1: what would be Shrepfer's greatest performance of necromancy, that he
Speaker 1: would raise his own spirit from the beyond on. Surely
Speaker 1: that would prove the depth of his enlightened knowledge. But
Speaker 1: the evidence that Shrepford left behind was void of any
Speaker 1: mystical promise. Quite the contrary, he had written letters to
Speaker 1: his closest friends telling them that he intended to end
Speaker 1: his life. He had also told his wife this. He
Speaker 1: left behind a heavy parcel. It said it contained, he claimed,
Speaker 1: the secrets he wanted his followers to know. So imagine
Speaker 1: holding such a box full of possibility, and then the
Speaker 1: disappointment of opening it to find underclothes and rocks there
Speaker 1: was nothing in there. Now, this is another point where
Speaker 1: we find two very different versions of this story specifically
Speaker 1: related to this package of rocks and underclothes, although no
Speaker 1: one seems to have any variation on the fact that
Speaker 1: it contained those items and nothing mystical, But in one
Speaker 1: version that parcel is opened before Shrepford's death, and that
Speaker 1: is the moment at which he realized he had been
Speaker 1: revealed to fraud and had no way out. We should
Speaker 1: note too that though his death was ruled a suicide,
Speaker 1: there have been from the moment it happens, people who
Speaker 1: ardently believed that someone else was involved, and either that
Speaker 1: he was murdered or that he was forced to take
Speaker 1: his own life. Even after his death, Johann George Schrepfer
Speaker 1: was an issue of debate. In seventeen seventy five, so
Speaker 1: just a year after he died, theologian Christian August Crucius
Speaker 1: wrote an opinion article about Schrepfer and his work, in
Speaker 1: which he cited an account by an observer who remained anonymous.
Speaker 1: He was basically saying, I talked to a person who
Speaker 1: said this. Chrusis main concern was not even whether the
Speaker 1: necromancer was the real deal or not. It was the
Speaker 1: fact that he had blasphemously combined Catholic and Pagan rituals,
Speaker 1: something Crutius saw as a harbinger of the Antichrist's coming.
Speaker 1: But that publication was itself criticized as being extremist and
Speaker 1: alarmist and lacking in real critical thinking. As discussion of
Speaker 1: Schrepfer's work and Crusius's take on it continued, there emerged
Speaker 1: a fairly popular take, particularly among intellectuals, that one Shrepford
Speaker 1: had been a charlatan, and two his believers were people
Speaker 1: who were gullible or people who were just playing desperate
Speaker 1: to find a little hope, or in the case of Freemasons,
Speaker 1: were people who fully expected some sort of enlightening and
Speaker 1: mystical phenomena to be shown to them, because that was
Speaker 1: kind of the promise. One of the great German words
Speaker 1: that I came across while reading about this whole debate
Speaker 1: among scholars and theologians was hocus pocus strika, which is
Speaker 1: hocus pocus pranks. I love that word to some degree.
Speaker 1: Shred Fer's brief blaze as a mystical leader, remember this
Speaker 1: only happened over the course of a couple of years,
Speaker 1: had kind of opened the door to discussing the idea
Speaker 1: of magic and mysticism among intellectuals in a way that
Speaker 1: was current and had real world implications. While no historians
Speaker 1: would agree that Shepford was not actually conjuring spirits, there
Speaker 1: is some debate about whether he might have thought that
Speaker 1: he was. Some of his personal writing does, according to historians,
Speaker 1: seem to suggest that he was trying to truly devise
Speaker 1: a magical system that explained ways to connect with the
Speaker 1: spirit realm. Yeah, there are some theories that like, even
Speaker 1: though he was staging things, he saw those any actors
Speaker 1: or tools he was using as kind of like ways
Speaker 1: that he was helping to manifest things that he may
Speaker 1: have believed. I don't know that I buy into that,
Speaker 1: but it's an interesting way to look at it. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are two artifacts associated with Shrepford that are part
Speaker 1: of the collection of the Museum natural in Cabinet Waldenburg.
Speaker 1: Through these items we get a little more information about
Speaker 1: exactly how Shrepford convinced people that he had brought forth
Speaker 1: spirits with his rituals we mentioned earlier in the epoch,
Speaker 1: so that even skeptics had difficulty figuring out how Strepford
Speaker 1: might be achieving some of the visual effects that they
Speaker 1: saw in his seance performances. And the connection between that
Speaker 1: mystery and these objects is through one of shred first friends,
Speaker 1: Johann Heinrich Linked. The younger Link had a father with
Speaker 1: the exact same name, and sometimes even in places you
Speaker 1: would think would get it right. It's the elder Link
Speaker 1: that shrep Fir's name is connected to. That's impossible though.
Speaker 1: Johann Heinrich Link, the Elder died in seventeen thirty four
Speaker 1: before Sherepford was even born. Link the Younger, like his father,
Speaker 1: was a pharmacist. That's part of the problem with those
Speaker 1: two getting confused. There is also another Johan Link that
Speaker 1: spells his name slightly differently, that also worked in naturalism
Speaker 1: and botany. They all three get very, very very mixed
Speaker 1: up in the historical record. But Link the Younger that
Speaker 1: we're talking about today was a member of the Minerva Lodge,
Speaker 1: and Link is said to have met Schrepfer because Shrepford
Speaker 1: needed the help of a pharmacist to prepare the various
Speaker 1: things that he gave his followers in preparation for ceremonies.
Speaker 1: But it turned out that Link was also a hobbyist
Speaker 1: in the area of things like optics, and that is
Speaker 1: how we discover two devices that were listed in Link's
Speaker 1: personal catalog as having been used in spiritual demonstrations that
Speaker 1: he staged with Schrepfer in the garden of his house.
Speaker 1: The first of these objects as a magic lantern. This
Speaker 1: is a sort of proto slide projector, consisting of a
Speaker 1: metal box with a slit in it. The user would
Speaker 1: insert a small painted glass plate into that slit. With
Speaker 1: a light source inside the box a candle. An image
Speaker 1: would be projected through a simple lens, and there was
Speaker 1: also a small chimney shaped attachment to the tops of
Speaker 1: the hot air from the candle could escape. The other
Speaker 1: item in the museum collection associated with Strepfer and Link
Speaker 1: working together is a geyster costom or ghost box. This
Speaker 1: is a variation on lantern of magica. It's made to
Speaker 1: look like a miniature coffin. It's very cool. Um. So
Speaker 1: these two items pretty clearly point out that they are
Speaker 1: using focus focus. Uh. There were though, people who theorized
Speaker 1: that something like these objects was being used in shrep
Speaker 1: Fers gathering. Uh, it just had never been proven. And
Speaker 1: in that back and forth about morality and gullibility that
Speaker 1: we talked about playing out in the press in the
Speaker 1: years following Shrepfer's death, writer Frederick Nikolai had gotten pretty
Speaker 1: close to describing this illusion, writing quote, as for me,
Speaker 1: I think the whole thing is an artificial scam. If
Speaker 1: the other circumstances agree, then I would have the suspicion
Speaker 1: that a magic lantern was primarily used there. The following
Speaker 1: circumstances also strengthened my suspicion of a magic lantern. The
Speaker 1: spirits seemed to move without moving their feet, only as
Speaker 1: if floating. By moving the image in the magic lantern,
Speaker 1: one can let the operation float away, but not in
Speaker 1: part any particular movement to the feet. For the same reason,
Speaker 1: the spirits must have carried their arms and hands on
Speaker 1: their chests. They also appear in different light. The faces
Speaker 1: of the spirits looked like formed haze, which can even
Speaker 1: be accomplished by means of smoke. The two mirrors in
Speaker 1: which he often used to look give further reason for
Speaker 1: this suspicion. These objects have given shep for an interesting
Speaker 1: legacy that's outside of any of his mystical claims or controversies.
Speaker 1: He's often cited as an inspiration for the phantasmagoria hard
Speaker 1: theater trend that started in Europe and the decades after
Speaker 1: his death. Talked about that trend on the show before
Speaker 1: some promoters even advertised their shows as being shrep foresque
Speaker 1: and it is an illustration of one of those that
Speaker 1: will be on our social media, uh when we post
Speaker 1: about this episode. Yes, yeah, Shreffer is a weird one.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting to me because he is one where
Speaker 1: if you do any reading on him, and there isn't
Speaker 1: a lot in English language, most of it is in German.
Speaker 1: But it's almost as though every person who has ever
Speaker 1: written about him takes a very different approach to it
Speaker 1: and focuses on like a different aspect of his short
Speaker 1: but very fascinating life. Um. Like, some will focus a
Speaker 1: lot on that claim that he was a French noble
Speaker 1: and that he was using that. Some will focus more
Speaker 1: on like the idea of him as a necromancer. Others
Speaker 1: will focus more on him kind of waging this war
Speaker 1: with freemasons. But they're all kind of happening simultaneously in
Speaker 1: a very very just over the course of a couple
Speaker 1: of years. So uh, it's a fascinating thing to try
Speaker 1: to pull apart such a brief period of time of
Speaker 1: one person that is kind of jam packed with so
Speaker 1: much weirdness. Um. I have a couple of pieces of
Speaker 1: listener male. The first one is from our listener Katherine,
Speaker 1: who writes about Henry the Eight's armor. Sure, it's high.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed hearing about the field of Cloth of Gold
Speaker 1: in today's episode. I had never heard of it before.
Speaker 1: When you mentioned Henry's armor, it made me think of
Speaker 1: this video I saw years ago. A man in typical
Speaker 1: Nights armor races through an obstacle course against a firefighter
Speaker 1: and soldier wearing first light and then full gear armor.
Speaker 1: It's surprising how nimble all of them are while wearing
Speaker 1: such cumbersome outfits. Uh, and then attaches a picture of
Speaker 1: her kitty who thinks nothing is better than completely messing
Speaker 1: up the table cloth, unless it's maybe playing with an
Speaker 1: ice cube. That cat is real cute and it looks
Speaker 1: very autumnal. So I'm very very happy. Uh, Katie, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for this one. I had mentioned in
Speaker 1: that episode on field of Cloth of Gold or behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, I don't remember which, that there is a
Speaker 1: a museum video. I think I listed it in the
Speaker 1: show notes for the main episode that you can go
Speaker 1: see where someone has put on like that, that very
Speaker 1: very articulated armor of his and they're showing just how
Speaker 1: much movement it had. So I wanted to mention that
Speaker 1: because it is fascinating. Yeah, I watched that video when
Speaker 1: we got that email, and uh I had I don't
Speaker 1: remember how many minutes long it was, but I was like,
Speaker 1: what a nice little break to start my day watching
Speaker 1: this uh um. And I am still talking about butterfly
Speaker 1: so uh but this is one of such joy and discovery.
Speaker 1: Several people have written to us to mention that, yes,
Speaker 1: absolutely still happening, kids visiting uh monarch um, you know
Speaker 1: science setups. I do want to mention because our listener
Speaker 1: Anna wrote or Anna, I'm not sure which way she
Speaker 1: pronounces it, that she gave a shout out to the
Speaker 1: Detroit Zoo, which has apparently a permanent uh and excellent
Speaker 1: butterfly exhibits. So if you're in that area, check that
Speaker 1: one out. But my other listener mail is actually from
Speaker 1: our listener Christine, who it's hello. I am so happy
Speaker 1: to finally have something to share with you at the
Speaker 1: perfect time. A couple of weeks ago, I was traveling
Speaker 1: in Quebec and stopped at this roadside hotel. I was
Speaker 1: walking my pup along the parking lot not far from
Speaker 1: the highway and saw something yellow and black in the milkweed.
Speaker 1: With a wasp allergy in the family, I am always
Speaker 1: attuned to yellow and black bugs, but as I look closer,
Speaker 1: my heart skipped a beat. I have known for years
Speaker 1: that milkweed is important to monarch butterflies, but I have
Speaker 1: never seen monarch caterpillars in real life, let alone at
Speaker 1: a roadside hotel. There were four that I could see,
Speaker 1: and I didn't look very hard. Check out the photos attached.
Speaker 1: I've also attached to photo of what I think is
Speaker 1: a cartoon, but you mentioned they don't tend to do
Speaker 1: that on the milkweed. After a long long drive, seeing
Speaker 1: these beauties completely brought me peace. I'm also sharing photos
Speaker 1: from our travels of Dexter. My beagle puppy, who will
Speaker 1: be one in mid September, says, by the way, did
Speaker 1: you ever have T shirts made for people who have
Speaker 1: listened to the entire stuff you missed in history class catalog?
Speaker 1: I still have about two D fifty to go, but
Speaker 1: I feel the will be an achievement I will be
Speaker 1: very proud of the answer to that question is yes.
Speaker 1: It's on our T public site and it says I
Speaker 1: have my PhD in s y um. I think HC.
Speaker 1: I literally am liked. Am I getting these letters out
Speaker 1: of order because I will do it to and I'm
Speaker 1: not looking directly at it. Um, but she shared her
Speaker 1: beautiful pictures of monarchs. It's not completely unheard of for
Speaker 1: them to put I don't think um one of their
Speaker 1: cocoons on milkweed. It's just not as common as as
Speaker 1: other things. But we have to talk about this beagle
Speaker 1: puppy because Dexter is extraordinary. Beagles are very much beloved
Speaker 1: in the fry household. That is my husband's favorite, favorite
Speaker 1: kind of dog. He grew up with a beagle mix
Speaker 1: that he absolutely adored named Digby. Um. So this dog
Speaker 1: is weaponized, cute, It's the cutest thing on the planet
Speaker 1: and dangerous because beagles are smart and they will take
Speaker 1: your credit card and buy things, is what I think
Speaker 1: in my head. Um, they won't. Really, Dexter's an angel,
Speaker 1: I have no doubt. But Christine, thank you because that
Speaker 1: is such a joyous little discovery moment and I love
Speaker 1: the idea that people are are out looking for butterflies
Speaker 1: more than ever now. Uh, if you would like to
Speaker 1: share any such moments of discovery or information, you can
Speaker 1: do that. It's easy as pie. You can just write
Speaker 1: to us at History Podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find us on social media as Missed
Speaker 1: in History pretty much everywhere, and you can subscribe to
Speaker 1: the podcast on the iHeart radio app or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History
Speaker 1: Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.