Hi everyone. I'm Josh, and this is The Emerald, Currents and Trends Through a Mythic Lens,

the podcast where we explore an ever-changing world and our lives in it through the lens of myth,

story, and imagination.

The Emerald. All that's podcast is made possible through patronage.

Patronage is the reason that I'm able to devote my full time to this podcast. It's a great way to support the artistic vision and to help

pay for studio time and to help cover the costs of what is an editorially intricate process,

as you can imagine. And patronage also comes with other benefits. Patrons get access to a twice

monthly study group in which a vibrant group of people discusses mythic topics and the topics that we explore on the podcast in a lot more depth and detail.

So it's a great way to dive deeper into the podcast and the topics that we explore on the podcast.

Patrons also get access to bonus content. For example, there's a couple of snippets

of interviews in this podcast episode with some pretty interesting people, and patrons get access to the

full interviews. Patronage costs as little as $6 a month, and you can find out more at patreon.com slash the Emerald Podcast.

And I also just want to say that this episode is dedicated to my mom.

In 1773, a British anthropologist named Samuel Johnson visited the Hebrides Islands in far northern Scotland, a place incidentally where my ancestors on my mother's side come from.

At that time, going to Scotland for your average Brit was like a journey to a far-off exotic land, right? So Johnson took meticulous

anthropological notes about what he saw. He wrote about the customs, the food, the landscape,

the art, the farming techniques, and he wrote about something

else, too. He wrote about the locals' mysterious penchant for seeing things that were about

to happen. From Sam Knight in The New Yorker, quote, Johnson found that second sight was nothing

unusual among the islanders.

They saw their friends fall from horses

when they were far away from home

...