this post has bean coming

Pythagoras had a fear of beans. Like, he was terrified of beans. He believed they had the capacity to hold souls, and it would be wrong to eat or disturb souls. (He also didn't eat meat) This included prohibiting even the touching of beans, or looking at them for too long. The way he was eventually murdered even had beans play a role in it. His assassins lit the house he was staying at on fire, and chased him out towards a bean field. When Pythagoras realized that they were bean stalks that he was observing, he said, "I would rather die than go in there!" and was then killed.

Some answers to the question of why:

1) Gastronomical problems. A gross theory, but the reasoning behind the idea of beans containing souls stems from the flatulence caused by legumes. The souls are supposedly contained in the gas. Perhaps Pythagoras had more than the usual amounts of gas.

2) It was a requirement to form his cult. Pythagoras had a cult-like following of people who believed the same ideas about beans and other strange followings. At the time, you had to have perhaps one ridiculous practice in order to be a cult leader.

3) There's actually no known word for the fear of beans specifically. While there are names for the fear of youths (Ephebophobia) and the fear of being tickled by feathers (Pteronophobia) there is no bean phobia. Some suggest legumaphobia, but others say that is too broad. There are support websites for people who are afraid of beans and -- whether real or not -- they present some strange characters. 

4) Perhaps there's some kind of hallucinatory aspect to beans -- since there are still people who think beans are out to kill them, it might still be around. In the way that you shouldn't eat certain berries because of the threat of hallucinagens (or death) maybe beans trigger this response in the descendants of Pythagoras.

5) Look, some people don't want to eat their vegetables. Why eat protein from beans when you can eat protein from cows? (note: Pythagoras was a vegetarian. I don't know how he survived)

6) BEAN is 2 + 5 + 1 + 19 which = 27. 27 is only divisible by 9 and 3. 9 minus 3 is 6. Eating beans is practically praising 666.

7) A childhood tale turned wrong: Pythagoras was told as a child a story about a bean family in order to teach him about kindness. He associated eating beans to eating kindness.

(This is also an adaptation of a post from my old blog. I didn't change much of anything in this one.)