Original subtitles

- The following program

Contains disturbing images and dangerous stunts

That should not be tried at home.

Viewer discretion is advised.

Imagine taking a headfirst leap of faith

From a 100-foot tower

With only a vine tied to your ankle.

- It dates back about 1,500 years

And it involves a boy who is coming of age into manhood.

- How about drinking cobra's blood

To cement a brotherly bond?

- The ritual behind it is not just for hydration,

It's not just for consuming nutrients,

You are ingesting the power of this cobra

To unleash it on your enemies in the battlefields.

- Or burying yourself alive to achieve enlightenment.

- He does this all the way until his heart gives out.

- These are the rituals so surprising,

They are truly unbelievable.

Throughout history, young men hoping to become warriors

Have gone through tests of courage,

Strength, and mental fortitude.

For the young boys of sparta, it's all of those things,

But also, you are not allowed to cry.

- The spartan warrior is one of the most feared,

Legendary, disciplined, and successful warriors in history.

preparation for battlefield victory

Starts young, very young.

- At birth, young spartan boys are dipped in wine.

The ones who cry are sent off to become slaves.

The ones who don't cry are admitted to warrior training.

- Spartan boys are trained in toughness.

At age seven, they are turned over to the state,

And there, they become a part of a company of other boys

Where they live, work, and study together.

They go barefoot.

They're not allowed to wear shoes.

They don't bathe.

- Additionally, to make the boys tough,

They're given very minimal clothing.

It's this little cloak.

So during the winter, they're getting extremely cold,

Being exposed to the elements.

in the spartan camps,

Becoming a warrior is about three things,

Strength, survival, and suffering.

- They have to make their own beds with their own hands,

And it's made out of plant matter

That they pull from the riverbanks.

- These boys are deliberately malnourished

And that's done for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, so that they don't get fat and lazy.

And then secondly, because they're malnourished,

They'll constantly be looking for ways to feed themselves.

It's an idea toward developing resourcefulness.

this gives the boys an edge in

Their next important test, how to steal.

- There's a wheel of cheese that's placed on an altar

And these spartan guards all have whips

And the boys are told to go in and try to steal the cheese

And dodge the whips.

- They're gonna use cunning and guile

As a means to try to get beyond the guards

And get to the cheese.

Then, if they're caught, they are publicly beaten.

Even that is training,

Because if they're caught and they're beaten in public,

They'll feel a compulsion to maintain a stoic appearance.

They don't want to endure the public humiliation

Of breaking under the beating.

They have to always maintain this warrior outlook.

once they turn 12,

Young spartans are ready for their final test,

And it's a doozy.

- They're forced to endure a month-long survival challenge.

They're sent out into the wilderness by themselves

With a spear and a blanket.

- They have a variety of challenges

That they have to survive,

Food, water, shelter,

Surviving the elements, surviving predators.

- Sure, the lions and the pack of wolves come.

You got your spear and blanket.

- This is a world in which citizenship

Is not something that automatically falls on you.

You earn it by succeeding,

By passing the series of rituals and trials,

And if you survive that final ritual, you become a citizen.

You have earned the right to marry and have children,

And you earn the right to be called a warrior.

- A couple thousand years later, in 1982,

Another unusual military ritual begins

In the fetid jungles of thailand,

And remarkably, it still occurs today.

- Cobra gold is a joint exercise

Between the us military and the thai military.

After 1975, the united states is no longer

On active military operations in southeast asia,

So the united states is a little bit out of touch

With the way that you have to fight to survive

In the jungle environment of southeast asia.

under the tutelage of the royal thai marines,

The us military begins a very unique

Jungle survival training ritual called cobra gold.

And warning, it's a little hard to stomach.

- So in cobra gold, they start off

With eating pieces of trees, vegetation, grass,

Any type of edible flower, any type of plant.

Then, they progress on to the bugs.

bite it!

- So we're talking roasted cockroaches, grilled beetles.

- And they even teach them how to eat scorpions,

Which there are lots of.

that's when the practice takes a turn

Into something stranger and grosser.

- They also teach them how to bite

The heads off of chickens using only their teeth,

In case they lose their knives.

- You're being taught how to live off of the jungle

And how to survive off of animals that seem like

They would otherwise be very dangerous to you,

But if you know how,

You can kill them and survive off of them.

- While biting heads off chickens

And slurping up scorpions seems crazy,

The culmination of cobra gold

Is where it really earns its stripes.

It even scares me, and I've seen ghosts.

- What the ritual is really named after

Is the final grand finale of the buffet, and this is cobra.

- What the thai people show them

Is one way you can give yourself

Both hydration and sustenance is by finding a cobra,

A deadly snake, and drinking its blood.

- Even though it doesn't seem like it

In a jungle environment,

It is easy to become dehydrated

Just as a result of sweat from high temperatures,

And so the snake's blood will provide hydration.

- The legend has it, the more deadly your cobra is,

The more that you will consume the cobra's power.

So the ritual behind it is not just for hydration,

It's not just for consuming nutrients,

You are ingesting the power of this cobra

And able to unleash it on your enemies in the battlefield.

today, the power of the cobra gold ritual

Has spread across the world,

Becoming the ultimate bonding experience

For warrior brothers.

- Now, it's evolved to be

The largest multinational military exercise in the world.

It includes 29 nations, including the us and thailand,

And also south korea, vietnam, and japan.

- Cobra gold provides this strong bond

Between our military and these foreign nations

That we may one day be called on to fight side-by-side with.

The kind of bond that can only be developed

Through enduring harsh circumstances.

when I mention mummies, you might think egypt,

But preparing bodies for the afterlife

Goes far beyond the valley of the kings,

And some people don't even wait to die

Before starting the process.

- In the ninth century ad, a japanese monk named kobo daishi

Founds a school of buddhism

Called shingon buddhism.

- This type of buddhism,

According to daishi and his followers,

Its goal is to attain ultimate enlightenment,

And to do that, what

One is supposed to do

Is they're supposed to give up

The simple common pleasures of life.

- They live in the mountains, they live like hermits.

They forage for their food.

They rid themselves of anything that pretty much

Any of us would consider good and pleasurable

In this very, very difficult, hard lifestyle.

it's not enough to attain enlightenment in life,

They want to reach nirvana in the afterlife

And shingon leader kobo daishi

Decides to show his followers it can be done.

as he nears the end of his life,

Kobo daishi crawls into his own tomb,

Denies himself everything,

Including the sustenance of life.

- We're talking no food, no water, no nothing,

And he dedicates himself 100%

To being truly one with himself.

He does this practice all the way until his heart gives out.

- Kobo daishi doesn't think of this as suicide

Because he plans on returning

To the life of the living.

According to shingon beliefs,

Kobo daishi will return from the afterlife

In 5.67 million years.

but his followers get curious,

And a few years later, opened daishi's tomb.

What they find is unbelievable.

- His body is incredibly well-preserved.

There seems to be no real signs of decay

As you would see on a normal corpse.

His skin is still intact, muscle is still intact.

- He just looks like he might be sleeping.

His followers recognize that he seems to have achieved

Everything that he set out to do,

Enlightenment, and they worship him.

kobo daishi's followers are convinced

They too can achieve life after death,

So over the next 900 years, they evolve his arduous ritual

Into an even more torturous process known as

"sokushinbutsu" or "buddha in this body."

- It begins with the denial of food and drink,

Sometimes involving fasts that, unbelievably,

Can last up to 4,000 days.

After a certain point, the initiate will consume

The sap of a chinese lacquer tree.

- This special brew makes the human body so toxic

That insects want nothing to do with it,

So they leave it alone, thus allowing it to stay

That much more preserved for a longer period of time.

drinking this lethal brew,

There's only one thing left to do.

- The monk is put into a small pine box

And lowered 10 feet into the ground.

There's charcoal put on top of him,

And there is a small pine rod

That the monk can use to breathe from the inside.

They don't want to asphyxiate.

There's also a bell inside the box.

As the monk is meditating, they ring the bell

To let people above know that they're still alive.

- Once the bell ringing ceases,

They will then formally bury the body.

It will be left buried for 1,000 days,

After which it is exhumed.

If it shows no signs of physical decomposition,

Then the monk has attained the idealized state

And will be placed on holy display.

the japanese government

Eventually outlaws sokushinbutsu,

But not before many more attempt it.

- From the year 1081 to 1903,

Hundreds of monks attempt this, but only 17 succeed.

- As a matter of fact, you can see these monks.

They are on display in japan.

You can go and see their bodies.

- They don't look like they're sleeping.

They don't look alive, but they are preserved.

They sit in the lotus position forever.

Their bodies hardened in place,

And many of them while on display have sunglasses on.

That's because the one thing

That does decompose and rot away are your eyeballs.

- Displaying the deceased after they've been preserved

Is practiced in a number of cultures around the world,

But an indigenous group in indonesia

Has turned such a ritual into an art form.

- While waiting to make funeral arrangements,

Some toraja people keep their dead

In their house for weeks, if not for years.

- The toraja people firmly believe that a family member

Is not dead until they are buried in the ground.

As a matter of fact, until they're buried,

The family member who has passed on

Is referred to as "makula" or just sick.

- So if someone says, "how's your grandmother?"

You'd say, "grandmother is ill,"

But grandmother might actually be

Slowly mummifying around your kitchen table.

the key to the torajan afterlife ritual

Is the way the body is preserved by loved ones.

- They can't let the body decompose in the house,

Because if they leave it alone,

Eventually, it's going to wither away and rot

And it's not going to smell well.

- They wrap the bodies in cloth,

And the cloth has been doused in formaldehyde,

And this wrapping process continues,

And once you have done that enough times,

The body itself has dried out

To a point that it has basically been mummified.

- Families interact with the family member

As though he or she is still very much present.

- People talk to the body.

People dress the body.

People offer it things like cigarettes.

During mealtime, they make the body a plate,

Because again, it is not seen as dead yet.

It is only seen as sick.

- The longer the body is kept at home,

The more money can be saved for a funeral

And thus the more elaborate the funeral.

- In the united states,

The wedding is the thing that people save money for.

They have to save for their kid's wedding

Or for their own wedding, their grandchildren's wedding.

In torajan culture,

It's the funeral that you save money for,

And these can be outlandishly expensive and lavish

Because you want people to come and celebrate

The person who has died, and you can't celebrate them well

If you don't have enough money to do it.

- This can range in dollar amounts

From $50,000 to literally $500,000.

- While the family saves up,

The body continues to be on display

For the community to come by and pay their respects

To honor the person, to say their final goodbyes,

To make sure they get the proper sendoff.

In many cultures,

The passage from childhood into adulthood

Involves celebration and smiles.

For a tribe in brazil, it means something quite different.

- Deep in the amazon jungle,

The aspiring young men of the satere-mawe tribe

Have to endure the most excruciating

Rite of passage imaginable,

The wearing of two gloves, each filled with bullet ants.

- You don't want to encounter a bullet ant.

Their sting feels like you've been shot by a gun.

It hurts really bad

- And that's just one ant.

Each glove? Filled with hundreds of ants.

on the day of the ritual,

The village buzzes with anticipation.

The first order of business, round up some ants.

- Members of the tribe will go out into the amazon jungle

And collect all of these bullet ants,

Hundreds of bullet ants.

Elders of the community will blow smoke on these ants

As a way to pacify them, right,

To sort of lull them to sleep.

- The elders take them and they weave them into the gloves,

With the stingers pointing hand ward,

So whoever puts on these gloves is in for a painful day.

- I mean, imagine the feeling, there are hundreds of bullets

Piercing your own flesh repeatedly.

- The boy must keep his hands

In the gloves for 10 minutes.

These boys will sometimes enter a trance-like dance

To sort of detach themselves mentally

From what they're going through physically

To make sure that they can withstand

The excruciating amount of pain.

and if that isn't bad enough,

They have to do this again another 19 times.

- You must really want to be a man.

You have to get stung not just anywhere in your body,

But in one of the places with the most nerve endings,

In your hand, and you have to endure this for 10 minutes,

And then do it for a total of 20 times.

I'd be like, "you know what? I'll pass.

I'll just be a boy forever. Call me peter pan."

- While enduring pain might make a man in the amazon,

Boys of the vanuatu tribe in the southwest pacific

Must take a leap of faith that could kill them.

- About 1,000 miles off the coast of australia,

On one of nearly 80 islands of what's called vanuatu,

Local boys practice a rite of passage called

Land diving or nanggol.

- It dates back about 1,500 years,

And it involves a boy who is

Coming of age into manhood

To climb up a 100-foot tower.

- Once they reach the top of the tower,

They take two thick, stretchy vines

And they tie them to their ankles.

What they will then do

Is they will stand atop this wooden tower

And they just dive onto the earth.

the goal is to brush the ground

With the lightest of touches.

Picking the right vine can be the difference

Between success and a funeral.

- The land diving ritual takes place every year

From April to June when the land is at its wettest

And the vines are at their stretchiest.

- There have been instances where boys have gone land diving

And they end up breaking bones,

Shattering parts of their body.

It's incredibly dangerous.

- The job of selecting the vines for each boy

Is left up to trusted elders,

And they do so based on the height and weight of the boy.

So talk about a process to make sure

You treat your elders with respect?

This is it, because any miscalculation can be fatal.

- A successful jump means the boy is now a man.

It also brings good luck to the village,

And that usually means an excellent yam harvest.

so just who started this daring ritual of manhood?

Surprisingly, not a man.

- A wife is being abused by her husband.

She flees him, she climbs up into a tree,

Attaches vines to her legs, and dives from the tree,

Saved by these springy, moist, strong vines.

- Her husband, seeing this, attempts the same thing,

But when he jumps, he dies.

- Women in the area begin jumping for fun,

Inspired by the woman's act of marital defiance.

- But to avert the shame

Of being shown up by women of the village,

The males claim this ritual for their own.

- If this ritual sounds familiar, it should,

Because it's become a recreational activity

That's been scaring the pants off people

For more than 50 years.

- In the 1970s, a man by the name of a.J. Hackett

Visits the island and he sees land diving being performed,

And he is fascinated, he's intrigued,

And he also thinks "I could make some money off of this."

- He asks the locals if he can make a version of land diving

That he can share outside of vanuatu,

And he makes a few safety modifications along the way,

And ends up calling it bungee jumping.

five million people worldwide

Have tried bungee jumping,

But land diving isn't something you can just try.

- To this day, this ritual remains,

And when tourists visit vanuatu,

The island residents perform the ritual for them,

And quite often, of course, a tourist would think,

"hey, can I try?"

And the answer is "absolutely not.

You're not a member of our community.

Take your butt outta here and go bungee jumping."

Take your butt outta here and go bungee jumping."

Take your butt outta here and go bungee jumping."

- Do you pinky swear?

Well, I sure as heck don't.

As innocuous as this childhood oath may seem,

It has a seriously dark origin story.

- The yakuza, the infamous japanese crime syndicate,

Begins a ritual that is actually known as finger shortening.

They call it "yubitsume,"

Which is the act of amputating your own finger

Using a super sharp knife,

And this would be used as a punishment

For disobeying the rules of the organization.

- You are required to cut off the uppermost portion

Of your left pinky, wrap in some kind of a cloth,

And present as ceremonially to the authority figure

Who you have offended.

- First infraction? One knuckle.

Second infraction? Next knuckle.

You could tell someone's level of infractions

In their crime syndicate

By how many knuckles they have left.

in a move that seems to defy logic,

The ritual makes its way to american playgrounds,

Thankfully transformed.

- Not quite as brutal,

But a pinky swear is the most solemn form of swear.

Nobody breaks that bond.

- As it turns out, oath rituals don't get

Any less outlandish the older you get,

Even for the planet's most powerful people.

- Bohemian club is set up in san francisco in 1872,

And basically, this is

A club for journalists,

For people who are exploring

And thinking about ideas.

The cool kids, if you will.

Ronald reagan, richard nixon, kissinger is in the club.

but the city is no place to forge fraternal bonds.

That happens in a hidden forest in northern california

Called bohemian grove.

- It's really like the ultimate sleepaway

Summer camp for

Rich and famous men.

They sleep in tents, they drink heavily,

And they also network.

don't let the laughs and liquor fool you.

Members gather at the bohemian grove

To hatch plans that change history.

- No less than the manhattan project was agreed upon here.

J. Robert oppenheimer first breaches the idea

At bohemian grove.

We can thank atomic weaponry and atomic power

For what happens at bohemian grove.

before getting down to business,

The retreat kicks off with an odd ritual.

This is when things get weird.

- The retreat begins with an ornate ceremony

Called "the cremation of care."

The idea being that we are here

To take the weight of power off of our shoulders.

We're leaving behind the cares of the outer world.

- A boat known as "the ferry of care" contains an effigy

In the shape of a body known as "the body of care"

And it is sent across the body of water

To these dark, mysterious, hooded figures.

- This effigy is placed at the feet

Of this 40-foot owl structure

That's covered in moss and leaves, and it is set afire,

And so is immolated the cares of the world,

And so is sealed a bond of privacy among members.

- This 40-foot owl statue,

This shrine, is so important to these men,

They've actually come up with a name for it

That has deep meaning for them.

They call it "the owl."

- And apparently, the owl speaks with the voice

Of famed newsman walter cronkite.

An owl that sounds like walter cronkite?

Super weird, but that's how the rich and powerful get down.

I am walter cronkite,

And that's the way it is.

The bohemian club is still active today,

Planning who knows what, because remember,

What happens in the grove stays in the grove.

To date, bohemian grove has a several decades long

Waiting list for admission.

Wonder when I'll get my invite?

But I digress.

Talking owls might seem tame compared to this next ritual

Performed by members of another powerful secret society.

- Founded in 1832, skull and bones will become the first

Of what will later be called the "ancient eight consortium"

Of yale's secret societies.

So shrouded in secrecy is the skull and bones

That when two bonesmen, george w. Bush and john kerry,

Run against each other in the 2004 presidential election,

The media pestered them constantly on

"what was it like in the skull and bones?"

And zip. Mum's the word.

Neither of them say a single thing about it.

another thing they're keeping in the vault,

The secret society's unusual initiation ritual.

- To become a member of skull and bones,

It all begins with a ritual that takes place every spring

And is known as "tap night."

The men dress up in their suits

And they stand there and they wait.

- Literally, someone will come up behind them,

Tap them on the shoulder and say,

"skull and bones. Do you accept?"

and if you say yes, you're led to an ominous looking

Building called "the tomb,"

And are henceforth known as a neophyte.

- From the first moment that the neophyte enters the tomb,

He's greeted by two members,

A bag is placed over his head.

- They are surrounded by figures in various macabre garb,

Including that of the devil himself.

They are then compelled to strip bare their clothing

And physically wrestle with other neophytes.

after all the tapping, beating, stripping,

And wrestling, the initiate meets his maker, sort of.

- They make you lie in a coffin, naked,

In front of everyone,

And then offer up a detailed recounting

Of your sexual history.

- They then read the oath of secrecy

And they drink a red, viscous fluid

That's supposed to be blood from an upended skull.

Afterwards, the pledge is slapped in the face

With the devil's tail.

- To wrap it all up,

He kneels before a person dressed as the pope.

The pope is seated in a chair in full pope garb.

On his left foot, there is a white slipper,

And that foot is resting on a human skull.

The initiate walks up, kisses the foot of the pope,

And at that moment, becomes a bonesman.

They are now a member of the skull and bones.

if drinking blood and foot kissing

Doesn't sound like your thing,

Membership does have its privileges.

- Apparently, if you're a bonesman,

You get thousands of dollars upon graduation,

Access to mansions and different buildings

Around the country, around the world,

And some of the most powerful people in american history

Have been members of skull and bones.

- Health rituals are a part of our everyday lives.

Catch a cold?

Eat chicken noodle soup and pop a few aspirin.

Works like a charm.

But 400 years ago, one british king

Embraces a different healing ritual,

One in which the cure might be worse than the disease.

- King charles ii knows how to party.

By golly, he makes sure to have as much fun as you can fit

Into one lifespan.

- He has multiple mistresses,

12 illegitimate children.

He also is consuming delicacies left and right,

Fatty, rich meats and delicious wines, day in and day out.

the king's party boy lifestyle

Finally gets the better of him

And he falls victim to gout and a stroke.

- He wants something to make him

Feel better after his stroke,

And so he decides that the most incredible thing he can do

Is choose an almost magical implement

Called "goddard's drops."

created by physician jonathan goddard,

The drops are a strange tincture

Containing a most unusual ingredient.

- These aren't just any drops.

These drops contain up to five pounds in one batch

Of crushed human skulls.

charles ii's doctors begin ritualistically

Administering goddard's drops to him every day.

- King charles ii becomes so enamored of his drops

That he ultimately buys the formula for 6,000 pounds,

Which roughly translates to half a million in today's money.

At that point, they stop being "goddard's drops"

And they start being called "the king's drops."

- It doesn't actually cure him.

In fact, there's some suggestion that,

Because his physicians are giving him 40 drops a day

As he's ailing at the end of his life,

That it's probably the drops that hastened

His final end in 1685.

next up, another 17th century ritual

That involves ingesting something

That sounds a little more appealing, at first.

- The salem witch trials truly begin with erratic behavior,

Showed on the part of a few young women,

In particular, a young woman known as elizabeth paris,

More commonly known as betty.

- Betty and several other young girls

Are suffering convulsions and acting erratically,

And everything is going wrong in salem.

- Betty is examined by the local doctor, william griggs,

Who can't find anything physically wrong with her.

That's when they decide it has to be witchcraft.

- Enter the paris family's neighbor, mary sibley,

Who believes she has the answer.

A witch cake.

- Mary sibley's cake

Is a little bit different than your average cake.

It's rye, it's ashes, something personal of betty's,

And then there's one last ingredient,

A dash of betty's urine.

that last ingredient isn't the icing on the cake,

It's the key to making the dough do its thing.

- That is right.

You have to take the urine of the affected individual

And then mix it in with this rye flour,

And then you bake a cake that kind of looks a little bit

Like this ball with spikes on it.

- And when baked, it has to be fed to something particular

To figure out if betty is a witch,

And that's something particular

Is the paris's family dog.

poor dog.

- The folk belief around this witch's cake

Is that feeding it to a dog will induce in the dog

The same symptoms that are displayed by the accused witch.

- More bizarre still is that the dog

Is meant to fall into a trance

And then somehow, dog speaks and says the name of the witch.

- I bet all of the girls in the village named ruth

Were probably pretty nervous at this point in time.

after the paris family dog has eaten the cake,

The results are in, and as for betty's fate?

- Betty paris gets off.

Her dog does not rat her out.

- In this particular instance,

The witch cake ritual doesn't definitively

Mark out a specific person as a witch.

- Over the next year, the witch's cake

Is considered a valid tool of justice

And serves as a device of mass hysteria

To point fingers at increasing numbers of victims.

- That's one cake I do not want the recipe for.

Next up, some hygiene rituals

That promise a different kind of transformation.

- We all have our morning rituals.

For some of us, it's a hot shower.

For others, a quick wash of the face.

Some can only manage to brush their teeth

Before getting out the door.

The citizens of ancient rome,

They like mouthwash, and the go-to flavor?

Well let's just say it's not cinnamon or mint.

- If you're living in ancient rome

And you want the freshest of breath to start the day,

Why not grab the finest cup

Of urine, swish it around,

And gargle and spit?

as wild as it sounds,

This very strange and very natural teeth cleaning agent

Actually works really well.

- Should you distill urine for long enough,

It can become ammonia.

Mix it with water and voila,

A not necessarily palatable,

But a very functional teeth-whitening,

Teeth-preserving agent.

the ritual becomes so popular, in fact,

That it turns into big business

For urine collectors throughout the eternal city.

- When you walk through public spaces,

There are pots that you can go to

To relieve yourself if necessary.

- They are turned into ammonia over time

And redistributed out and it is quite a lucrative business.

- So popular does the urine mouthwash become

That the government puts a tax on urine.

Imagine that, a pee tax.

it even coins a turn of phrase

That somehow has a positive connotation.

- Today, if you go to rome

And you see somebody with exceptionally white teeth,

There is a common saying, I don't know what in italian,

But it translates to, "you're full of piss."

- I'll stick to regular mouthwash, thanks.

But if you're still looking for natural self-care trends,

There's a new one to get you to relax,

But it's not for the squeamish.

- I've been to a fair few spas in my life

And they are very ritualistic,

But I've never had this one done.

- Instead of a massage therapist laying hands on you,

You instead have snakes placed upon your body

And their whole job is to crawl and slither over your body

As you lay there.

- And contrary to popular misconception,

Snakes are not slimy,

And the reason this might actually feel good

Is that snakes are very muscular animals,

So simply placing them on your body,

They are gonna be just sort of clinging

And moving around a little bit,

And that motion, you know, maybe it can be

Kind of therapeutic and work out

Some of the tension in your muscles.

so where can one go to get said snake massage?

- It's become very popular in thailand, in russia,

And in fact, even in new york city,

You can pay $300 an hour to be embraced

By a boa constrictor.

- You can get one of these snake massages,

Which is led by a snake handler dubbed "serpent tessa."

People who do this ritual

Claim that it lowers their blood pressure.

Some claim that it even lessens their anxiety.

Some even say that it helps them

To overcome their fear of snakes.

although serpent tessa's snakes sound scary,

There is a skincare ritual that can suck the life

Right out of you, or at least the color.

- Bloodletting, the practice of letting out blood

In order to help the body rejuvenate its defenses,

Get rid of infections,

It's been used for thousands of years.

in the 16th century, european women find a way

To use bloodletting to make a fashion statement.

- You've probably seen paintings of 16th century noblewomen

And they have these wonderfully powder white complexions.

There's a reason for that.

It turns out,

Bloodletting can be used for cosmetic purposes.

And how are you going to get the blood out of your face

To make it pale like that?

Well, you're going to elicit the help of some friends.

- Simply the temporary application of a leech,

Let it suck your blood for a bit, and then take it off.

- Leeches have three jaws and over a hundred teeth,

So they are the perfect thing to suck the blood,

To suck the color, directly from your face.

and where do they get these leeches?

Let's just say a lot of rich aristocratic women

Suddenly take up gardening.

- You've got noblewomen pinning them on

Behind their ears, to their neck,

Generally places where, you know,

The scar wouldn't be too much.

if you think leech facials

Are a vestige of 16th century europe,

Well, you won't believe this.

- You can actually get a leech facial today

If you wanted to.

- For $200, you can go to a specialist

Who will take a leech, attach it under your chin,

And then ultimately rub both the extracted blood

And the leech secretions into and around your face.

Supposedly, it gives you a lovely glow.

- These unusual rituals reveal many interesting things

About us humans.

Some of them might seem strange,

Others downright terrifying,

But all of them are truly unbelievable.

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