- The following program
contains disturbing images and dangerous stunts
that should not be tried at home.
Viewer discretion is advised.
(suspenseful music)
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.
(crowd yelling)
- 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.
(crowd cheering)
- 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.
(suspenseful music)
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.
(dramatic music)
- The Spartan warrior is one of the most feared,
legendary, disciplined, and successful warriors in history.
- [Dan] 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.
(dark pulsing music)
- [Dan] 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.
- [Dan] 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.
(whip cracking) (boy gasping)
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.
(whip cracking)
(suspenseful music)
- [Dan] 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.
(crowd cheering)
- A couple thousand years later, in 1982,
another unusual military ritual begins
in the fetid jungles of Thailand,
and remarkably, it still occurs today.
(atmospheric music)
- 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.
- [Dan] Under the tutelage of the Royal Thai Marines,
the US military begins a very unique
jungle survival training ritual called Cobra Gold.
Oh, 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.
- [Solider] Bite it! (group groaning)
- So we're talking roasted cockroaches, grilled beetles.
- And they even teach them how to eat scorpions,
which there are lots of.
(group yelling)
- [Dan] 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.
(dramatic music)
- 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.
(suspenseful music)
- 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.
(group chattering indistinctly)
- 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.
(hissing snake)
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.
- [Dan] 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.
(chopper whirring)
- 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.
(helicopter engines whirring)
- [Dan] 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.
(suspenseful music)
- 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.
- [Dan] 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.
- [Brandy] 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.
- [Dan] 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.
- [Dan] 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.
- [Dan] 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.
- [Dan] 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.
- [Dan] 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.
to honor the person, to say their final goodbyltures,
the passage from childhood into adulthood
involves celebration and smiles.
For a tribe in Brazil, it means something quite different.
(mysterious droning music)
- 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.
- [Dan] 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.
(suspenseful music)
- 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.
(tribe members chanting)
- [Dan] And if that isn't bad enough,
they have to do this again another 19 times.
(tribal instrumental music)
- 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."
(suspenseful music)
- 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.
(rumbling dark music)
- 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.
(suspenseful music)
- [Dan] 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.
- [Dan] So just who started this daring ritual of manhood?
Surprisingly, not a man.
(suspenseful music)
- 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.
(pulsing mysterious music)
- 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.
(suspenseful music)
- 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.
(dramatic insistent music)
- [Dan] 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."
(crowd cheering)
(suspenseful music)
- 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.
(dark ambient music)
- 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.
- [Dan] 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.
- [Dan] 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.
(light haunting music)
- [Dan] Don't let the laughs and liquor fool you.
Members gather at the Bohemian Grove
to hatch plans that change history.
(suspenseful music)
- 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.
- [Dan] 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.
(haunting ambient music)
- 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."
(pulsing electronic music)
- 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.
- [Dan] 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.
(dark atmospheric music)
- 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.
(suspenseful music)
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.
- [Dan] 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?"
- [Dan] 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.
- [Dan] 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.
(smack)
- 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.
- [Dan] 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.
(dramatic whoosh)
- 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.
(suspenseful music)
- 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.
- [Dan] 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."
- [Dan] Created by physician Jonathan Goddard,
the drops are a strange tincture
containing a most unusual ingredient.
(pulsing suspenseful music)
- These aren't just any drops.
These drops contain up to five pounds in one batch
of crushed human skulls.
(haunting music)
- [Dan] 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.
(dramatic music)
- [Dan] Next up, another 17th century ritual
that involves ingesting something
that sounds a little more appealing, at first.
(suspenseful music)
- 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.
(mysterious pulsing music)
- [Dan] 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.
(dog barking) 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.
(dog barking)
- I bet all of the girls in the village named Ruth
were probably pretty nervous at this point in time.
- [Dan] 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.
(pulsing ambient music)
- 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?
- [Dan] 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.
- [Dan] 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.
- [Dan] 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.
(bubbling electronic music)
- I've been to a fair few spas in my life
and they are very ritualistic,
but I've never had this one done.
(snakes hissing)
- 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.
(snakes hissing)
- 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.
- [Dan] 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.
(calming new age music)
- 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.
- [Dan] 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.
(suspenseful music)
- 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.
- [Dan] 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.
(atmospheric music)
- 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.
- [Dan] 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.
- [Dan] If you think leech facials
are a vestige of 16th century Europe,
well, you won't believe this.
(playful music)
- 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.