Almanacs, Pheromones, and Mice Oh My!

 In our most recent reading of A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult, one section caught my eye. 

"The Power of Prediction" focused on almanacs and calendars, the ways people attempted to predict future events. It's human nature to pursue knowledge of the unknown, and what's more unknown than a future we'll never live to experience?

"Rather like a modern diary, [almanacs] contained practical information, beginning with church festivals, feast days, and market days, followed by more specific astronomical sections, with times of sunrises and sunsets. Astrological predictions about the weather, crops, and politics followed the practical section," (A History of... p. 371, DK Publishing. Kindle Edition.)

"The Old Farmer's Almanac was first published in 1792 in Dublin, N.H. With a unique blend of historical information, astronomical data and folksy wisdom, it has remained popular for centuries." - NPR

From basic updates and weather predictions to troubling thoughts about the end of the world, almanacs spread like wildfire thanks to the printing press and their appeal to the aforementioned need to understand what comes next. And as odd as the almanac may seem, it supports "a community of 75 million adults: in fact, 1 in 6 Americans (and 1 in 7 Canadians) are a member of [The Old Farmer's Almanac] community," according to their website, because yes, they have one of those. 

As we explored the printed handout in class, however, I found myself not drawn to the predictions of the future or even the funny tagline ("Useful, with a pleasant degree of humor"). Instead, I laughed out loud (inside my head) at an advertisement in the 2022 Almanac.

Promoting Athena Pheromones, this unscented perfume and cosmetics line is said to attract love and affection. Immediately I have so many thoughts.

First, why are they Athena Pheromones and not Aphrodite ones? I feel like if you're going to name a love product after a Greek goddess it should probably be the goddess of love and beauty, not wisdom and strategy. Second, almost $100 for six months of use? Maybe I'm not in tune with the pheromone market, but that seems costly. (Though if $100 twice a year pays for a happy, loving relationship, I suppose it's not terrible.) Third, what is the science behind this stuff?

About a week ago, my roommate and I somehow stumbled upon the topic of pheromone perfume. TikTok is filled with strange ads claiming certain scents of perfume trigger attentive responses from the opposite sex. Said roommate is a biology major on the pre-med track, so naturally I expected her to refute the wild idea that any one perfume scent would make you more predisposed to love. Instead, she reached into her purse and pulled out a pheromone perfume oil. (In case you're curious, she's been single her whole life.)

She has the Original Scent from Pure Instinct, who makes claims that pheromones are:

"Invisible chemicals emitted by humans — play an essential role in creating memories. By relieving stress, improving mood, and boosting confidence, they allow us to communicate instinctively while interacting with others."

Enticing quote aside, I had to do some research. Even in my own life, I've commonly heard that humans are more attracted to some scents than others, but I was under the impression that it's virtually always a case of personal preference as opposed to an innate desire built on pheromones. But what does the data say?

Several studies and groups of scientists claimed the existence of human pheromones on the grounds of sketchy, unreliable research (like the myth of women's menstrual cycles syncing). As time progressed, pheromones in other animals, like mice, were discovered under challenging research circumstances attempting to isolate the impact of pheromones from the everyday effects of smell, social learning,  memory, and sexual attraction or reproduction. 

The closest we came to confirming the sexual attraction component of pheromones came in 2010 when Jane Hurst from the University of Liverpool "discovered darcin, a single protein found in the urine of male mice. Named after the heart-throb from Pride and Prejudice, this protein not only attracts the attention of females, but also acts as a memory prompt, allowing the female to remember the male’s other distinctive odour print and where she came across it. It’s both an attractant and a learning device," (BBC 2016).

However, it was only proven present in mice, and the experiment would be nearly impossible to recreate with human beings since you can't ethically isolate and test people in the same manner.

A 2004 article from the National Library of Medicine examined two previous studies on the "effects of perfume additives, termed human pheromones by the authors." The data revealed that there was no "statistically significant increase in any of the sociosexual behaviours for the experimental groups," meaning there was no evidence to support that the substances increased the attractiveness of the wearers to the opposite sex (Winman, 2004). 

So while we each have our own natural scent or musk, if you will, whether or not we find that smell attractive on another person is reliant on a handful of other factors like what we find physically and emotionally attractive, our age, our social experiences, and more. 

Thus, the almanac's advertisements for Athena Pheromones are deeply intriguing as they're listed as unscented (when scent is a key realistic component here). However, the ad also stipulates that the product is "Not guaranteed to work for all," so I guess they're being fair.

That concludes my trip down the pheromone rabbit hole. I hope you learned something, too!