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Hello and welcome back to Cult Leader. I'm your Cult Leader Spencer Henry and this is a little leader where I read the stories that you send to me and talk about whatever else is happening, going on, whatever I want to talk about, not everyone loves that listen. I've gotten some emails and reviews which always kills me when people are like, yeah, I like to show but I'm not sure.

I'm just gonna show but he talks a lot or he chitchat like this is a Sir Man, whoever they then this is a podcast that's kind of the gist of a podcast. I'm gonna be the one to drop some knowledge on yet. That's what a podcast is.

I mean, I'm not for everyone, right? I can acknowledge that this is starting off just on the tangent. Wow, this is real life baby. This is what's happening in my life right now. I'm not date line. I'm not one of those podcasts that's like, and then he went into the room.

And then I don't do that. I'm like, I'm gonna tell you a story. That's how it's always been. That's how it always will be. It's not getting better. It's not going up from here. This is where we've landed is where we are. I love it.

A lot of you guys love it. And we're just here to have a time. All right. Let me let me tell you a story. Hot dogs like God might aggressive father. He's embarrassing me. No, I hope everybody is excited for the weekend. It's Friday.

Maybe you got some Valentine's Day plans coming up on the weekend, huh? A little little love in your life. Little someone on your mind. Is it me? Am I your Valentine? You can tell me. I love a holiday. I love most holidays.

Valentine's Day does not do it for me. I don't know why it's not like I've had bad ones or bad experiences. I just don't care for it at all. But if you love it, you know, do you? I love it for you. We love love. And you don't got to be with someone else to be in love. You can be in love with yourself.

But not so in love with yourself that you think you are the reincarnate of Jesus Christ or some other saint or God or you know how it goes. We know how it goes. Also, I do want to apologize. I got some messages, got some emails, got some people letting we know that Monday's episode that I did with my sister Olivia. The audio was kind of echoey.

I use a different setup for obituary when I'm recording with Madison and unfortunately she had one of the microphones at her house when I was recording with Olivia. So I had to use one of the old microphones that I had here. And it just makes the audio super echoey.

Sorry, didn't even notice till it was too late. And then I said, well, we're on a deadline, people. And we got to get this out there. My sisters in town, we get one shot at this, which is annoying because I can hear it. And of course, I'm like, God damn it.

But then what can you do? Life short, I feel like it's when you're on the phone with a friend that you talk to all the time on the phone. And most of the time it's fine. But then one day you're on the phone with them. And it's like a little echoey. But it's like, okay, well, this is still my friend. I still know what they're saying.

Still know what they're talking to me about. Just think of it like that. I'm your friend on the phone. Valentine's Day itself has a pretty grisly history behind it.

I was initially for Monday's episode, gonna go into like the backstory of Valentine's Day and everything because that episode comes out on actual Valentine's Day. But I already had been working on this one story that I really wanted to talk about on Monday. So I'm still, I'm just gonna go with the one that I was already working on.

I've already like through researching it and everything. And I just, that's how I want to do it. And that's just what I'm gonna do. But I do have a little fun fact right. I want to talk about before we get started today.

I do have actual, I have plans this weekend. Okay. I have several plans going to see a little show this weekend. And then on Monday, I am so excited because I'm going to the Dita Von Tees Valentine's show in LA. And that is going to just be so much fun.

I've seen Dita perform her burlesque show a few times. I think I've been two or three times now. And every time I'm just like more and more amazed. She is one person. I don't think I would get star struck by a lot of people. Not because I'm cool either. I just don't have whatever that gene is. Whatever that makes you nervous.

If I met Dita Von Tees, I think I would, I think I would ban grow a little bit. One time I was at the grove and I was in this little retail store there. And she came in and she was shopping. And I was like, oh my God. There she is. Just because she is someone that is absolutely breathtaking in person. Just love her.

Anyways, Dita Von Tees is going to be my Valentine this year. Okay. But there's a lot of fucked up weird stuff around Valentine's Day. Obituary listeners, G-offs, if you're listening to this little leader right now, you already know. But King Henry, the eighth who we talk about a lot on that show was like one of the main people that implemented February 14th as Valentine's Day, which is just wild. He's just the worst.

But what I really want to talk about is something called Lupert Calia. It's a Roman feast linked to the early origins of Valentine's Day. And it is absolutely wild. So it took place from February 13th through the 15th and it was a fertility celebration held by the Romans. Animal warning again. I feel like I'm giving these all the time now. I'm sorry I keep talking about animals.

But they would begin the ceremony by sacrificing a goat and a dog in a sacred cave. The goat was slaughtered for fertility and the dog for purification purposes. After sacrificing the goat, they would cut the goats hide into strips and soak them in the blood. And then they would hit the streets of Rome where they would go around slapping women with the hides.

Which is kind of crampus vibes, right, where he would go around whipping people except this is like a hundred times worse because you're getting hit with a bloody piece of hide. The women apparently loved it because it was thought to increase fertility. This is like the rabbit foot, the magic bean. The women would then write their names and they would put all the women's names into these giant earns. And the men in their towns, their cities would choose a name from the earn.

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