January 27, 2026 • 62 mins
How much power does the mind wield over physical matter? Could certain human beings, through the force of focused thought alone, walk on fire, lay on nails, and survive being buried alive for days at a time? Listen in to learn more about the fact, fiction and controversy surrounding the famous feats of the mystics.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realist. We are returning to you with a
classic episode. This is for all of our fellow fans
of time life, books for your coffee table, Mysteries of
the Unknown, the Mind versus.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Matter, mind, Science of the Mind, Feats of the mystics.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Have have you, guys, ever seen some of these tricks
we're going to talk about, like walking on fire, laying
on nails, being buried alive, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, yeah, I watched the finale of that show called
The Office, the American version, or maybe it wasn't the finale,
it was close to the finale, I can't remember. It
was on that show they walked on, they walked all,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It was a team building exercise, yes, iracle. And as
it turns out, laying on nails isn't like much of
a feet at all. Your body kind of balances out
and you're not gonna ever really sing on.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Same with running across coals, depending on how you do it.
So we decided back in twenty twenty five years ago
now almost to figure out the science behind how this works,
to figure out the philosophical stuff, and to see whether
there was indeed anything supernatural about it. We can't wait
to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Mett,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul.
Mission control decands, most.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
Importantly, you are you.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. We're entering today's episode with an
image that may be familiar to everyone, especially fans of
film in the West, and it's a somewhat stereo typical
image that of the Indian mystic often called a fake
here fakir someone using the power of the mind to
(02:09):
accomplish seemingly extraordinary feats. A fakir is a Muslim or
a Hindu religious ascetic, traditionally a mendicant monk who is
sometimes thought of as a miracle worker. And we've heard
the tales, right they sound they have. Let's be diplomatic.
They range in plausibility. The idea is this, through intense meditation,
(02:33):
these individuals are able to do things like walk on
fire without being burned. They can be buried alive for
days at a time, they can lie on a bed
of nails with no injury, and allegedly they can even
do things like levitate or survive for forty days without
food or water. So what is happening here? Today's question?
(02:55):
Could the mind alone be responsible for these astonished, seemingly
miraculous feats. Here are the facts.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
First of all, really quickly, though you literally just described
all stuff that's like David Blaine type material. I think
he's done all of those things. I think he's survived
for however long without food, and you know, walked on
broken eat, swallowed glasses, and peaked up frogs. I don't know.
I'm wondering if that's if he's got some of these abilities.
(03:25):
But let's get to the facts. For sure, the mind
is absolutely capable of extraordinary feats. In a previous episode,
we've explored things that could technically be considered mind over matter,
the most widely acknowledged examples being the human mind affecting
physical changes within the human body, specifically the brain. And
(03:47):
we're not talking about telekinesis yet, but there is evidence
for this that is super fascinating. Let's start with mental
health and the immune system.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, we know for sure that someone's mental state can
actually affect whether or not they are vulnerable to specific
certain diseases. It can also affect how quickly someone recovers
from something or how well their immune system responds to
something that is invading their body. Again, that sounds weird,
(04:20):
but again, the mind is kind of the control mechanism
for a lot of these things, even the ones that
occur without our conscious input. Right, there's a professor named
Steve Colt. He's a professor of medicine and psychiatry at
the University of California in Los Angeles. He has been
looking at this link between the way people feel emotions
(04:42):
essentially and the way that can affect biology. So that
link between biology and emotion and Steve Colt, this professor
explains that the immune system has two essential programs that
can run. One that's going to fight off viral infections
viruses like corona, and then another that fights bacterial infections.
(05:02):
And this one causes the body to become inflamed. Is
what it's called inflammation. You like red warm, You've you've
had it before somewhere in your body, I assure you. Now,
this bacterial fighting program, the one that causes inflammation and
a response like that, it has a really big downside.
(05:24):
In an effort to keep everything healthy, to keep your
immune cells functioning, the ones that actually fight that good fight,
the body can also cause tissue damage through this process
and this program that it runs to protect itself. That's
a that's a big problem, right.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
Mm hmm right.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
And and his work shows us pretty conclusively that what
we would commonly call negative experiences maybe in a cancer
diagnosis or depression PTSD, and interestingly enough, lower socioeconomic states,
which should which I wish people wo talk about more often,
and all of these things, all of these things that
(06:03):
could be at the very least described as downers, are
also associated with increased activity of inflammation genes in your
immune cells. That's not completely a horrible thing, because it
seems logical then that if a negative experience and negative
emotions lead to problems with your immune system, positive experiences
(06:27):
like happiness might have the opposite effect. And this leads
Professor Cole to ask himself a very strange question. How
he asks can an immune cell register and abstract concept
like happiness and something philosophers have argued about before the
dawn of recorded.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Time, and skeptics out there, including those in this room,
may think, well, there's got to be some kind of
explanation there with like a biochemical reaction, something that gets
released when you're feeling happiness, as we because we know,
and we've talked about in previous episodes that the brain
releases all kinds of varying chemicals depending on what you're feeling,
(07:09):
everything from love to hate. And you know, perhaps there's
something there happening, but perhaps it's different than that, it's bigger.
Let's let's keep our minds open as we go through this.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, and you know, philosophy talks about this. I think
it's a platonic concept, the idea of you diamonia, which
is happy. It's like happiness, but it's not. It's more
of like a sense of purpose and well being, and
kind of it's a bigger concept than just like I'm
happy right now. It's more of like a life happiness.
Then I'm momentarily happy because I'm cuddling a puppy. And
(07:45):
that is the concept that Professor Cole kind of leaned on,
and one of the categories is this you dimonic happiness,
the idea of well being and all of that stuff
that with that purpose. And then there's hedonic, which again
would you think of as being like hedonistic, which is
experiencing being flooded with positive emotions he talks about you,
(08:08):
dimonic happiness is more like, I said, that direction in life,
having like an internal compass and knowing that you're doing
the right thing, even connectedness to like the universe or
the idea of a god or what have you. And
he led a study where eighty healthy adults took questionnaires
about their sense of well being, which were used to
(08:28):
assess their level of you, dimonic and hedonic happiness. Then
he drew blood to study how their immune cells reacted,
and the response summed up in the Atlantic is pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
That's correct. The researchers found that a high score on
you demonic well being correlated with a more favorable genetic
expression profile. This means that when you feel that you
are part of something bigger, that's you demonic happiness. When
you feel like you matter in the universe, you have
(09:03):
a destiny, You're going in a direction. Your immune cells
show high levels of anti viral responses and low levels
of inflammatory response. This means, when we think about it,
oddly enough, all those people that were once called hippies
turned out in a way to be right. Positive vibes matter.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
Bro or whatever you would say.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Things that boost this sense, this eudaemonic well being, Things
like meditation reduce that inflammatory activity, increase anti viral response,
they improve the function of specific strains of immune cells,
and then they also lead to higher antibody production. That
(09:47):
is real mind over matter.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Yes, and we as we do on the show all
the time. That is one specific study, right. It doesn't
mean that's the end all, be all truth of the matter,
but it definitely appears to. Are you showing us that
it's a possibility, right.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And that's a good point, Matt, because Professor Cole has
worked extensively in this field. So that's one study to
give you a snapshot, but you can read more about
his work to your heart's content on your browser of choice.
And this idea, this weird relationship of mind over matter,
because that's really what we're talking about when we talk
(10:25):
about the claims of various mystics. This idea goes much
further than just an anti viral response. Next, we have
to talk about not just meditation, but taxi drivers, Buddhist monks,
the human brain.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
What do these all have in common?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
It's weird.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
I know that was clickbaity, but it got us there.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yes, you may recall an episode we did a little
while back on real life Superhumans. Does anybody remember a
fellow named Iceman or wim Hoff?
Speaker 5 (10:59):
Yo?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Is he the one who cometh?
Speaker 3 (11:02):
He?
Speaker 1 (11:04):
If enough he stayeth, he don't dieth?
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Yea, that's superpower.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, dude, he's world renowned. He's been on numerous I
don't I don't know which television shows, but a ton
He's been featured all over the place because he has
a real superpower. He can withstand the most freezing temperatures
that are available. We're talking temperatures that would kill most
(11:32):
mortal humans such as I uh. It's intense stuff. And
he doesn't do it like he wasn't born with some
special DNA. What he does is mind over body techniques
including it's it's mostly breathing techniques seriously, and and body
movements like flexing muscles and tensing things. And he increases
(11:55):
his temperature. He increases his internal temperature with his mind and.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Just breathing, like, yeah, he also exposes himself to cold
temperatures more than the average person, but that doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Sweet, so as that's sort of the equivalent of like
taking a little bit of poison over time so that
when a snake bites you you're immune. No, it's really
just like.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I'll tell you what it's like. I'll tell you what
it's like, And I'm not comparing myself to you, Iceman,
if you're listening, you you are a god among men.
Spicy things like capsaius in levels and exposing yourself to
higher and higher doses over time. Not unlike poison in this,
it's more of your mind deciding that the pain doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
It's changing the threshold, it's changing your but right, it's
just sort of like like raising the bar for your
threshold of pain or what you can handle. It's not
necessarily the same as like giving yourself building up an
immunity to something that actually affects your body and could
kill you. It's more. But I'm still confused. It's like,
what about things like frostbite? Like what about things that like,
you know, if you touch us a surface, it's so cold,
(13:01):
it affects your skin, it can rip the skin right off.
I mean, there's all kinds of crazy things that can happen.
Does he how does he deal with that?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
He has limits. Typically, the feats that you will see
him accomplish again through the power of the mind are
things like running marathons and freezing weather, barefoot, sitting for
extended amounts of time, meditating in as you said, Matt,
conditions that would kill an ordinary person. The specific he
(13:29):
calls it the whim Hoff technique, and you can learn it,
this specific pattern of breathing and meditation. But he didn't
make this up out of whole cloth. There have been
other people who have been conquering their nervous system responses
through meditation for years, and in some cases it begins
to physically affect their brains. Before we move on, if
(13:51):
you want to learn more about wim Hoff and other
real life superpowers, we have two podcasts on it because
we kept finding really really bizarre things. I also still
have a list somewhere of and I don't want to
offend anyone of the superpowers that I arbitrarily thought were
like not to the threshold of us being able to
(14:14):
put them in a real life Superpowers episode.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
The Great Lakes. Guys, right, yes.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
Yeah, like the door Man exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
But when we talk about these superpowers, when we talk
about mind over matter, we we get it.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Everybody's saying, guys, you get it. Meditation. It makes you
feel better and your body does a little better and
you may not freeze to death quite as quickly. What
gives meditation does much more than that. And we have
two stunning examples. The first one Buddhist monks speaking stereotypes.
The stereotype of Buddhist monks is that they meditate all
(14:52):
the time.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Well, I'm sorry to keep belaboring the point here, but
back to wim Hof just for two seconds, if you
would indulge me. Ben, I'm looking at some of this guy,
and he's a fascinating looking character. He has that uh,
that that shirpa kind of vibe that you were talking
about at the top of the show. That's the wrong term.
But I see an image of him in a bath
of ice with like measurement little suction cups on his body.
(15:14):
So I'm assuming like this stuff has been verified, like
I mean, it's not some kind of like hoax Like
you guys both seem to be fully on board with
this guy's abilities. Uh would would you do you think
sciences as well? Or is there still like the juries
out as to like, is he really doing this with
his mind? I see a peach.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I can assure you this guy is legit. He is real.
I have watched uncut shots of this dude doing crazy
stuff there. Yeah, it's real.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I love it. Okay, I'm sold. But there is research
beyond just this gentleman that that dates back much farther,
showing that the Buddhist monks who spend long hours meditating
on a regular basis have somehow managed to slow the
aging of their brain. In one particular case, brain scans
verify that a forty one year old monk named youngay
(16:04):
mengyor Renpushet had managed to retain the brain of a
thirty three year old person. His brain is essentially functioning
at a capacity eight years better than what it actually
should be, eight years younger. He has managed to slow
(16:26):
the aging of his brain.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I want to bring up just a point of contention
here that i'd love to get somebody's, like y'all's opinion on,
and then also you listening, I wonder if there's anything
happening there where the complications of young Gay's life are
slightly less than that of someone existing, let's say, just
(16:51):
in a city who's running around meeting a bunch of
different people, tackling varying problems in bringing new information and
in at all times that they're processing at all times,
not getting as much sleep. Like I wonder, I wonder
how it seems like a difficult thing to compare like
(17:12):
those two people's experiences. I guess in like how the
brain functions.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Yeah, yeahah, And.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I don't mean to project this because I don't know
if this is correct at all, but it does seem
like the life of a monk is so very different
and the essentially the input that goes into the brain
is so vastly different.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I probably have the brain of a seventy five year
old man, honestly, with all of the rapid fire multitasking
and lack of sleep and like you said, just the
existence in a much more fast paced world and shorter
attention span, you know. Whereas like it's a really good question,
like if if reading and studying and meditating is exercise,
(17:53):
you know what, what is little nuggety bits of information
that we uh as as modern humans, you know, tend
to build our lives around what is that? Is that
just junk food? Is our brain atrophying because we're only
feeding it little bits at a time, as opposed to
longer form stuff that maybe works it out better. I
don't know, this is all hypothetical. I'm just asking what
(18:13):
you guys think.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
So Matt, to answer your question, I would say that
this is a tremendous This is a tremendous issue in
the methodology because with long hours of meditation also comes
long hours of what we call focused attention, so you're
not to your point, no shooting off femails or kind
(18:36):
of living in the adhd environment that is foisted upon
us by the modern era when everything is connected and people,
for some ridiculous reason get mad if you don't instantly
respond to their text, which what is that?
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Anyhow?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
The big part of this is that this isn't just
a study with one monk. This is one example, but
we see that these long periods of time are like
when we say brain is younger, what we're really talking
about is neuroplasticity, which tends to degrade over time. Something
(19:12):
this person is doing and meditation scientists believe is a
big part of it, based on.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
Other studies they've done.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Something this person is doing is allowing them to retain
neuroplasticity at a level that should not be happening. Because
think about this. If we wanted to disprove this, or
if we wanted to not disprove, but to separate the
conflation of a quote unquote simpler life and Buddhist meditation,
(19:40):
then we would want to have a study where we
take someone else who is probably not as inundated with technology, communication, pollution,
new variables of day to day life, and say a
city but doesn't practice meditation. We would want to compare
the two and I think physically we would see some
common hellal but mentally it looks like focused thought, mind
(20:04):
over matter is the is the prime mover in this situation.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, I think the next step also, you do that study,
you do studies then as well of city folk who
are you know, working every day, have a family, busy
lifestyle who also meditate on a regular basis.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
That's great.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
See where everything lies? Just you know, I'm just putting
it out there. Who knows, let's talk about Let's talk
about something else. No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I love what you're saying, and I love the idea
that we're pitching research to post grads and listening to
the show. This is what if you're after that grant money,
come to us if you need a really weird idea,
because furthermore, that meditation physically changes part of the brain.
It doesn't just preserve it, you know what I mean.
(20:53):
We're not keeping the boat just on the top side
of the ocean. We're building bigger decks on the vessel.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Speaking of decks, I really just want to find out
if I'm meditating about magic cards all day, is that
equivalent to me, you know, doing the practices of Buddhist monk.
Because if it is the same, then we're good to go.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Right What if I like Binge a really smart television
series over the course of three days, does that count?
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Maybe?
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Yeah? It can't hurt you, right.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Can it? Though I feel like I'm definitely going to
get dementia. I'm just putting that.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
I mean, it's if.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Look, it's twenty twenty. We are aware of so many
terrible things, you know. If Like when I hear someone
say that they're doing great and they're okay, I don't
believe them, and if I do believe them, I think
that they're just not which sounds terrible and cynical. But
(21:54):
but we do know, we do know this is this
goes beyond the power of mind over matter, goes beyond
that association of meditation, esoteric breathing techniques.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
And so on.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
As a matter of fact, if you have ever been
to London, you have encountered or at least seen somebody
with phenomenal power over their brain. They've actually they've physically
changed their brains, and not on purpose. It's it's We
did a car stuff episode about this years ago.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
I don't even know how many.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
If you want to drive one of those famous black
cabs in London, you cannot use a GPS to pass
to get You have to instead memorize thousands and thousands
and thousands of streets and thousands of alternate roots between
these streets from any given place within a certain circumference
of the city. This test is so hard that people
(22:51):
just call it the knowledge. And there are these kids,
these young these young folks, riding around on like little
motor scooters trying to memorize streets. That's all they do
all the time all day so they can pass the knowledge,
which has on a good day a fifty percent fail
rate pretty consistently.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Do London cabbies make like a really good wage.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
The black cabs are expensive?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, dah you you've you've heard us
mentioned this before. I think it's the same whim Hoff
episode where it's something beyond normal learning. What's happening here
is these people who are studying for this knowledge, who
get the knowledge, they are physically altering their brains. They're
like the folds are changing, the physical makeup is changing. Uh,
(23:37):
it's it's intense stuff. It's mental exercise and it's working. Like,
how crazy is.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
That your thoughts are changing? Like, imagine if you looked
at your hand and you thought so much about your
hand that your hand your your right hand or your
left hand.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Both can I do?
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Two hands I would do for this exercise, you know,
teach your own so you hold up, just hold up
a hand, it's convenient to you. And imagine if you
stared at this hand for hours a day for years,
and then you held up your other hand you didn't
stare at And let me do a trick of the letter.
It was like way smaller. That's that's what's happening with
(24:19):
the people who take the knowledge and work as black
cap taxi drivers. Their hippocampus specifically, this is the scientific term.
I read this in the study. I'm not saying this
to be glib. Their hippocampus balloons balloons.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And they have better spatial memory than far beyond that
of the average human person. And this may come at
a cost to other other types of memories. But the
important part is they thought enough about something and it
physically changed their body. And these are these are profound examples. Yes,
(25:00):
and they're familiar to longtime listeners. But a lot of
us are probably in the audience saying, hang on, this
isn't the whole story, right, what about people you guys
talked about mystics. Right, you're telling us about people who slowly,
over a period of years or decades, do have power
of mind over matter. But their mind is the matter
(25:21):
they're affecting tends to be the human brain. Are there
people who really can, for example, lie on a bed
of nails without bleeding, walk across fire and not be burned.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
It's firewalking.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
It's the stuff of legend. It is often associated with
divinity or some sort of mental capacity beyond what we
know today. But could someone actually do this?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
The answer is maybe a little more complicated than you'd
like to think, and we're going to get into it
right afterward from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Here's where it gets crazy. So good news, Yes, people
can really do these things. In fact, this may be
even better news. It is nowhere near as difficult as
you might think. And yes, your mental state, the correct mindset,
is important, but that's far from the only ingredient in
(26:25):
the recipe here. Some folks are perhaps going to take
this as bad news. They might see us as debunking this.
But other folks, you know, in the audience may feel
empowered firewalking. That's what it's called a little bit misleading.
But but how does firewalking work?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
By a walk with me?
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Oh oh boy, Lynch, I thought about I had that
plane while I was looking at some of this stuff.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Just imagining him, like interrogating a small I think a
capuchin maybe or primate.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
I love his voice through the Lynch voice. But firewalking
nowadays seems like a kind of isolated practice. It's not
something a lot of people get together to do with
their friends on the weekend all the time. We have
this stereotype that squarely places it in India, right, But
(27:22):
people have been doing this for thousands of years in
places across the globe. The earliest documented reference does go
back to India in twelve hundred BC. But you'll see firewalkers.
You'll see people calling themselves firewalkers in Spain, Greece, Fiji, Polynesia,
and there's nothing supernatural about it. There is zero supernatural
(27:47):
stuff at play here. You can probably do it yourself,
but don't don't legally.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
We are not telling you to do this. It's a
bad idea.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Don't go to the er with your feet all messed
up and say that Ben, Matt and Noel told me
this would be a cool thing to do, because we're not.
We're just saying you're probably physically capable of doing it.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Yes, I would say, don't do it unless you have
production and insurance. Like the cast of the Office.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
That's again the same thing. That's a very epic moment.
Team building. It's team building, that's right, Probly probably not
something that most offices to get approved as a team
building exercise, but I like the gesture.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
I couldn't even get a budget for us to play
laser tag, which is ridiculous. But should I watch The
Office or here? I haven't seen the US version that is.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Wild, Yes you should. And the second season of Community.
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
I have seen The Office all the way through, probably
nine times. It's like my comfort food show. I just
put it on when I want to feel okay.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
So let's talk about what firewalking actually is, or you
know what it generally refers to. There's usually a nice
long bed of coals, really hot coals, stuff that'll burn
you for sure. Now let's say it's about ten feet long.
Then on one end you've got human beings, actual human
beings with no shoes, no foot coverings whatsoever, lined up
(29:17):
ready to just walk across it and guess what happens
they do. In the instance of some of the mystics
we're talking about, a lot of times it will be
an individual person that is taking a walk across the
coals and then maybe waiting for a moment and taking
a walk back across the coals. And it really is
just science. It's something that science can pretty quickly answer.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Sadly, I don't know if it's sad, it's pretty I
find it inspiring.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
It was mystic. Man, it was incredible. It was mind blowing,
at least for me, I remember it.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
But when there was magic in the world, guys, there's
still science came along.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
It just has nothing to do with coals on the croud.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Okay, yeah, it's true, because I mean, you don't see,
there's a lot of work that goes into making one
of these scenarios. You know, like when you hire the
company to make your coal pit for your team building exercise.
They show up well in advance of the actual exercise,
and they got to dig a trench first, and then
they got to lay out the coals. They got to
light them, and you probably would notice that these coals
aren't like flame and hot. You're not shooting like, you know,
(30:21):
an accelerant on them. They're not shooting flames out left
and right. They're basically embers. They've been allowed to burn
down to the point that they're not, you know, actually
actively on fire anymore.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
But embers are hot.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
They are they can be hotter than a thousand degrees fahrenheit.
But then you turn us onto this fact. This is
fascinating there because of the actual coal And by the way,
so firewalking is kind of as a misnomer, would be
more accurately described as coal walking, Ben, as you pointed
out to us, And the carbon structure of coal is
(31:04):
really bad at conducting heat. So if you kind of
zip along, you know, hot footedly, you're gonna there's a
little bit of a lag in how quickly it conducts
heat from the coal to your actual bare feet.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
And that's why you don't see a bunch of people
getting together to have either a social rite of passage
or a corporate team building exercise by walking on a
ten foot row of burning metal sheet pants. Oh you
don't do it.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
There's a reason.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
There's a science to this. Yeah, coal is just a terrible,
terrible conductor of heat. Water also has a high thermal capacity,
so you don't see the prep work before you see
that amazing walk. There are hours of people very carefully organizing,
igniting the coal, and then letting it burn down while
(31:58):
they smooth it out. They let the wood burn so
that the embers don't retain water, and they use specific
types of wood, so hardwood embers like cherry and maple,
like glow red orange, look hot, but they don't burn
as hot as other types of wood like olive wood,
and you know the firewalk pros know this, the Tony
(32:21):
Robbins of the world and so on.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
That's right. And another major factor here is essentially what
I do with my grill, what maybe you do with
your grill when you're cooking, if you set the coals up,
if you cook with coals, but you set coals up
kind of in a pile you set on fire.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Then once the pyramid right like almost, yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Well, once fire's going, you spread that baby out, so
you've got essentially a flat layer of coals across the
entirety of that surface. The same thing is happening here.
The coals are then spread out specifically so that you're
not going to when you place your foot on top
of it, you're not going to go into coals, right,
You're not gonna surround your foot with a step with coals.
(33:04):
You're gonna step across one single layer or as close
to one single layer as possible.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
You might also, uh might also dip your feet in
some water. And that is because when liquid meets intense heat,
it forms an insulating, albeit temporary layer of steam. This
is something called selia didn't frost effect.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Sorry, I'm sorry, sir, what was that?
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Oh yeah it was I meant to say, celia didn't
frost effect.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Okay, I just want to make sure I got it.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
It's the reason why you can lick your the tip
of your fingers and then snuff out a candle without
hurting yourself.
Speaker 5 (33:43):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
And yes, we are pronouncing that correctly. It does have
to be screamed.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
So yeah, it's in all caps anywhere that it's printed right, right.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
So with with all this, you know, like what you
were saying earlier, we do you see a pace mattering
because if you have prepared this way, your wood's right,
your your surface is flat, there's not actual flame being emitted.
And you just walk at a brisk pace, you know
what I mean. You walk like it's kind of cold
(34:14):
outside and you're in a hurry. Then you are going
to receive a relatively small amount of harmless heat with
each step. But that changes very quickly if you saunter
too much or you meander, and it'll changes. Yeah, it
also changes if you run. It just it gets worse
on either side of the spectrum.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Just slow and steady. That's what the tortoise was talking about,
or the turtle or whatever other slow animal in that
parable you want to.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Oh, you don't want to run, So it really is
all about just like a nice even continue across. Wow.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
You know, it's it's funny that it is so simple
like that, and it does seem like anybody could do
it and it's not hard necessarily, But and that really
isn't the point, at least in a lot of the
ways it was done in the past and the way
it's viewed as a ritual, right, it is more about
(35:11):
mind over body, almost convincing yourself that it's going to
be okay if I do this, or I have the
mental strength to go through with this thing that seems terrifying.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, it's some of thing it could mean, like it's
a little bit different. But if you're someone who's terrified
of like roller coasters or heights, heights, let's just say,
let's just simplify it, and then you psych yourself out
to go on a really terrifying roller coaster, that's mind
over matter as well, because you know, in reality that
thing could break down and eject you, you know, at
the very top of the of the you know, biggest loop,
(35:44):
and you could fall to your death. You accept that
that's a possibility. But you submit yourself to this situation
and agree and agree with yourself with your mind that
you're going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
And you get a no fear T shirt at the
end time remember those.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Oh yeah, you know what, no spoilers. But now that
I think about it, that's really what the office episode
was all about.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Oh really, I thought you were about to say I
still have those T shirts and I was shaking my
head and I was.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Thinking, I knew it. I know he's still well, of.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Course, Oh no, all my shirts are now like UFC,
M m A shirts, you know, all the really really
good ones. No, wait, like this one. I think this
is a UFC shirt somewhere.
Speaker 5 (36:28):
I've got a yeah, I have.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I have a bunch of shirts. They're just names of
podcasts from announcements where they handed us shirts and I
was and I was like, well, I'm not gonna keep
buying shirts now. So I have that's where.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I have a Stamps dot Com shirt that says something
about podcasts, like I made a podcast and all I
got was this lousy Stamps dot Com shirt or something wrong.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Someone someone was bound to do that.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
But okay, So if you're a perspective.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Cole walker, it's fine to call yourself a firewalker, just
know that you are being intentionally misleading. If you walk
too slowly, your feet will sink into the coal, You'll
go through those temporary insulators, and your day will take
a bad turn because these folks will burn like any
other ordinary person. If you go too fast, you will
(37:22):
run the risk of kicking up embers, burning yourself again
like any other person. Or you'll be doing everything right
and a little piece of coal gets stuck between your toes. Also,
you have to add you could slip and fall and
that can turn fatal pretty quickly, so be very cautious. Also,
we're not telling you to do it, We're just telling
you how it works. You may be asking yourself, hey,
(37:45):
why is this always shown happening at night so often?
That's all in the pr it's the bizazz, baby. It
turns out that firewalking at night minimizes the visibility of
the ash that covers the coal. Ash is another just
trash heat conductor. It's terrible at it, and when it
(38:08):
covers these coals, it blocks the heat. So during the
daytime it might look like people are just making a
great to do about a weird, crumbly gray pathway, but
if you show it at night, it looks like things
are on fire.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Now, I minimizes the the bad optics and maximizes the
good optics because you're not gonna they're not gonna seem
nearly as glowy during the day, right.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Exactly exactly, And so this is all calculated and explain
this way, it may seem more like a simple science experiment,
even though it is risky. But to a point you
made earlier, Matt, we have to remember that this occurs
as a rite of passage, so people experiencing this are
(38:53):
viewing it through the lens of ritual. Just because it's
not supernatural doesn't mean it can't be a fundamentally transformative act.
Ordinary things can change your life.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Yeah, that's right, just like the first box of magic
cards you ever get. Hey, well, we're gonna keep going
down this pathway of looking at some of the more
seemingly mystical things that mystics do, and we'll tell you
more about them after another word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Okay, so if you're still with us after we pretty
much demystified walking on Cole's thanks for coming back.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
I hope you had a good break.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
This is something, honestly, Matt Nol, this is something that
just I think Chuck would say it squiggs me out.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
I can tell.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, it's it's another very popular thing, lying down on
beds of sharp nails with out without being harmed physically.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
But Ben, it's not the sharp part this squiggs you out.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
It's the materials, right, the metals. Yeah, no, I I
I get it partly. I think a lot of us
out there get it. Ben, maybe not to the extent
that you experienced it, but yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Does, even though you could do it safely.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
Guys.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
For me, honestly, it's like the same idea of being
forced into a bathtub filled with dangly key rings.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
It's just it's just unclean.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
That one triggered me.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
I don't understand why, because.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
It's all their hands on you.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
You know, that's true, that's true, That's very true. But yeah,
this is an interesting one and one that I I
you know, this is actually the kind of thing that
you might even see if you if you've been to
a Myrtle Beach esque type town where they have a
place called Ripley's believe it or not. You may have
experienced one of these situations yourself.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Oh yeah, sure, and you know, look, I hope you're
still around for the ride for this one. Everybody. We
are doing some myth busting over here. But this concept,
this practice, the act of laying down on a bed
of nails, has a really mundane explanation. It's pretty basic science.
(41:29):
It has to do with weight distribution like overall and
pressure placement essentially, like pressure per square inch essentially.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yep, and our colleague and friend of the show, Tracy Wilson,
who you may recognize from stuff you missed in history class,
did a great breakdown of this from the house stuff workstays,
that's exactly what you're talking about, Matt, and she brings
up the example of a person in high heeled shoes.
(42:01):
I didn't know this, but if you are walking in
high heeled shoes, you are exerting more pressure on the
ground than an elephant. And it's entirely due to this
distribution you're talking about, Matt. Like, in mathematical terms, pressure
is equal to force divided by area.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
So and wait wait wait wait that's true.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Yes, yes, so an elephant will tend to weigh more
than the average person. Yes, not the not the body
shame elephants or people. But its feet have so much
more surface area than the pointy heel of the shoe.
So despite despite the weight, overall the real estate where
that weight connects is much smaller in the shoes, so
(42:45):
there's there's more force.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
There are four points of contact with an elephant. Right, wow,
that's mind blowing. Ben, thank you for that, and Tracy, geez.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
So what if you fell from a very high height
onto one of these beds of nails?
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Different stare right, Yeah, very very much so, because now
you have we say, fall. But if you think about it,
gravity is just pulling you viciously, so you're not You're
not in control then of your of your speed or approach.
So imagine, just to mess with everybody's mind. I don't
know if we're Paul, I don't know if you're going
(43:20):
to do sound effects for.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
This, No, don't, okay, So.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Imagine that you have, unfortunately stepped on a nail. This
is not a thought exercise for a lot of us
in the audience today. This is a terrible memory. Your
foot is exerting a tremendous amount of pressure on a
very very tiny point of connection the tip of the nail,
and so.
Speaker 5 (43:44):
That's the sound effect.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I'll do the so so the nail goes into your foot,
you scream, your partner is like, oh my god, you're
ruining prom or something like that.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Are there, They're like.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Harry, Harry, and then you get and then you get
tetanus and you die.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Now, I always say, whenever I think of this, I
think of that scene at Home Alone. That kid was sadistic.
He really really overdid it with those poor wet bandits.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
I mean, you would think after the first trap someone
would say we should go.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
That that's true. This kid is way this kid is demonic.
He's obviously a psychopath. You know, we and we we
are no match for him.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Yeah, because like think about that.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
It feels to.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Me that the dark heart of Home Alone is that
Kevin would have done that to anyone.
Speaker 5 (44:46):
Who went in the house.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
The male postal worker, a relative. He just wanted the blood.
I think he just wanted the blood.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Guys, come on, come on now, it's.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Actually about the magic. It's about the magic of Christmas.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Let's be real, guess, which is also kind of about Okay, Nope, nope,
we've got a Christmas episode that you check out.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Lady so hard ruin Christmas.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
We've ruined magic, Now we've ruined home alone, and now we've.
Speaker 5 (45:13):
Ruined Christmas not at all.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
You know, Santa Claus is the number one most popular
conspiracy theory for most US children. We can't ruin Christmas.
As a matter of fact, Christmas is part of the
reason this show exists if you look at the structure,
like the philosophical framework of discovering what is or isn't true.
So it's true a nail will mess up your foot,
(45:36):
but it is also true that you can lay on
a bed of nails. Well, yeah, Matt, I love that
you just have nails.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I have a tiny little nail here.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
You just have imagine hundreds of.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
These, we think, so we hang out in person, I'm
going to do an experiment.
Speaker 5 (45:55):
Well just be like.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Hey, Matt, do you happen to have any nails?
Speaker 3 (45:59):
And I'm always with nail, Always.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
With nails, because you never know when you'll have to
make a bed of nails. And this is safer than
a single nail. Safer with a lot of coffeats.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
There's another one that this brings to mind when you
see like suspension artists who have hooks that go through
their skin or they can hang either from like two
points of contact from their shoulders or prone with like
multiple hooks, and you know, your mind immediately thinks, oh,
those are going to rip out and they're going to fall,
(46:34):
and they're going to be completely shredded. Their backs are
going to be shredded. But it's the same concept, right,
It's all about weight distribution with those as well.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
It's about weight distribution. That's I would say that's an
order of magnitude more complicated, however, because the people who
are the people who are inserting those hooks have to
have a pretty good knowledge of human anatomy and physiology
if they want to avoid lasting harm.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
But yes, the thing with.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
A bed of nails is that we still have just
the tiny, the tiny point of contact like you saw
in Matt's nail collection, but we have a bunch of
them and they're all close together, so collectively this is
a lot of surface area for the human body. They
distribute the pressure of your you know, not yet carcass
(47:24):
and voila. Usually everything goes all right. Your body will
not put enough pressure on any single individual nail for
it to break your skin, which means we can extend this. Heck,
throw a second bed of nails on top of yourself
while we're there, and they get one of your buddies
to break a cinder block on it, and if everything
goes according to plan, you're gonna be okay. Again, we're
(47:48):
not telling you to do this.
Speaker 5 (47:49):
We're just saying.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
You're gonna look super awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
We're not not telling you to do this. We are
do this. Don't do any of this. Okay, good, But
you're also you know, you're in your your own master
of your own destiny at the end.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Of the Yeah, we're just telling you that all your
crushes will fall in love with you. Your boss will
see it and they'll say, that's the kind of inities.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Guys, guys, the lawyer phone is ringing. It's just so if.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
You have experienced this without like before, hearing from us,
we played no part in this.
Speaker 5 (48:27):
We're just giving you information.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
We do want to hear your story, though, because one
of the most dangerous parts of this practice has nothing
to do when you actually lying there with beds of
nails being on top of you or even center blocks.
The real dangerous part is getting yourself on and off
the thing. Once you get on there, you're fine.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
But yeah, whatever, Yeah, it goes right through. But they're
pretty close together though, right, that's the whole point. So
they're definitely together. So even your hand, if you're not
putting a ton away on it would still the whole
principle would hold you. No, maybe it wouldn't. It's too focused.
I think it needs to be more distributed than that,
more widely. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Gotta take it easy, like a Sunday morning man, like
soft rock in an elevator. You got to lay that
groove on slow.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
But what if they were knives though, Guys, what if
they were knives?
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Different same people have attempted things im im principle. It's
something that would work just from the concept of the
pressure and distribution, and you will see people who are
doing those things are purporting to do so. I guess
when someone check me on this. It would obviously depend
(49:47):
on the knife, right, you wanted to play it safe.
You could just blunt the tip of the knife, which
is probably what someone someone's nails in the past. But
I'm just speculating here. If feels like maybe it's the
difference between somebody juggling with bowling pins and then somebody
juggling with you know, tennis balls or something I'm sorry,
(50:11):
something more dangerous lit torches and.
Speaker 5 (50:16):
Chainsaws.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Well, the Internet did not deliver on bed of knive,
but it did deliver a really grizzly photo of a
dude in the hospital had been stabbed in the face.
So thanks Internet. Something else, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Good, I've got just the thing for you, piercing the body.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Oh yeah, what we were just talking about, like suspension, right,
and also like putting nail or another sharp object through
your cheek or into your nose or down your throat.
A lot of that stuff has to do, like you said,
been with knowledge of human anatomy where it's actually going
remaining calm. Is there anything else to that?
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Preparation practice is having an instructor? Yeah, uh, And you
can you can read some great articles on what are
called human block ads. You can see some uh there's
some fantastic forums on how to safely conduct suspension.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
But again that's none of none of those things or
things that you want to just watch a YouTube video
and attempt for you to do yourself. But the point
is people are able to do these. There are two
other things that we should mention when we're talking about
other feats, just briefly, because these might be future episodes.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
One is the idea of being.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
Buried alive consensually saying, hey, I've thought about it. Put
me in the ground and then take me out and uh,
you know, let's see what happens.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
Yeah, it doesn't seem real. And we found instances, historical
alleged instances where people have been buried for elongated periods
of time. I think think the one that we got
for this was from a long time ago. Someone was
supposedly buried for forty days. Who is that right?
Speaker 5 (52:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
That was his name is jesusty days?
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Those three days?
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Only three? Yeah, I need to brush up on my
Bible verses.
Speaker 3 (52:17):
Yeah. His name was Sadu Haridas. Yeah he was. This
was allegedly to have occurred in eighteen thirty seven. He
was buried alive for forty days and survived.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
And there it's interesting because there were multiple eyewitness accounts
and they they sound just unimpressed enough for me to
think at.
Speaker 5 (52:43):
Least a few of them are true. These people did
get fooled.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
There's one British guy who who recounts the story and
says they dug him up in like within half an
hour he was kind of back to normal, but he
is still really frail and feeble. And then half an
hour after that was just he would talk to people
who asked him questions and uh, he still looked really weak.
We were convinced it happened, and so we left.
Speaker 5 (53:09):
That's how that's what they did.
Speaker 3 (53:11):
That's sound I mean, that sounds unbelievable to me. But
the thing is, everybody, there might be something to this.
That doesn't mean that that particular story is true and
there wasn't some kind of swindling or weirdness going on there,
but there could be something to this, right, and it's
something that we might be talking about later. No spoilers though.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
Okay, No, you're right, Matt, you're right.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
It's hard to bite our tongues on this one. But uh,
this is this is a future episode. We think we
figured it out and not again, not necessarily in a
debunking way. We found something, uh, and we want to
bring it to you soon. But while we're here, we're
talking about feats. There's another big one. I think it's
(53:58):
interesting uh, because it's one of the more extreme, it's
one of the more controversial. It's one that is pretty divisive.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
That shouldn't be possible.
Speaker 1 (54:10):
It's impossible. That's why it's divisive. It's divisive because it's
physically impossible. Back in twenty ten, there was a guy
named Plade Johnny, and he's a religious teacher. Some people
considered him a prophet. He was about eighty two in
twenty ten and he was located in Gujarata. He claimed
(54:31):
that he had not consumed get this, any food or
any water of any sort in more than seventy years.
This occurred after an encounter he had with divinity when
he was eleven years old, and so science came to
bear A doctor Sakir Shah, the director of neuroscience at
(54:52):
the Sterling Hospital in Ahmedabad, decided to investigate. He and
a team monitor Johnny for ten days in two thousand
and three, during which time they confirmed that he did
not eat anything, drink anything, urinate, or generate bowel movements,
which is a really unnecessarily formal way to say he
(55:13):
wasn't pooping.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
Those are all superpowers in and of themselves, each of those.
So yeah, the broad portfolio of freakish abilities.
Speaker 3 (55:22):
There, Well, there are two. There are two schools of
thought here, though. The first is ten days. People fast
for a long time. People who are serious about fasting
can do that.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
With food.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
But water is a different story because uh, let's technically
maybe that's not the right word. Scientifically, according to what
we understand about humans and bodies and water, you shouldn't
be able to go more than I would say maximum
four days? Is that about right? Without water? And they're
(55:57):
saying they monitored him for ten days and he didn't
take in any water or expel anything any of the
by products of water. Seems that seems impossible.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
It does, and that's why they went back with the guy.
In twenty ten. They monitored him again, and this time
they extended the monitoring period to fifteen days. They got
the same results. No urine, no feces, no food, no drink,
and outside of a couple of very limited circumstances that
(56:32):
we're not going to talk about just yet, this is impossible.
And I hate to be the downer here, but Nightline
got wind of this and they went to investigate. They
saw what this man was calling his or what had
been described as his cave to studio apartment, and on
(56:55):
video you can see that this apartment as a refrigerator.
When the people working for Night Live asked one of
this teacher's followers, hey, it's a very reasonable question.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
Why does a guy.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Who doesn't have to eat, why does he need a refrigerator?
And then the follower apparently became very very defensive refuse
the crew entry into the dwelling, and they walked away
with it still being a mystery.
Speaker 3 (57:20):
Hmmm, doesn't sound like a mister Urado me. But maybe
he's just got an ice maker in there and he
needs the ice for another purpose, right, Maybe the ice
isn't to drink, it's to cool down something, or to
feed some houseplants, or can.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
Gently caress his body with you know, yeah alone times.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
Allies, I like it he practices his wim Hoff meditation.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
That was the full circle, guys, full circle open.
Speaker 1 (57:49):
I don't I mean, we don't want to be seem
like we're being entirely dismissive. These are just the things
that we know to be true about this case. Please
do not attempt to start for yourself. Please do not
attempt to be a breath arean or anything. This stuff
is dangerous, and every technique we've described has given people
(58:10):
serious injuries at some point over history. So if you
want to achieve these sorts of things, and what you'll
need to do is study with the experts in these
in these feats, right, find someone who has walked over
coles and look at their feet first before you decide
whether or not you're going to pay them to teach you.
Speaker 3 (58:30):
But now find your own David Blaine to a bunch
of balloons and go up way too high and then
jump down with a parachute.
Speaker 1 (58:38):
Or get someone like Darren Brown to convince you that
you did it and you just don't remember it.
Speaker 5 (58:45):
That's a great idea.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
It seems then that the question of mind over matter
in the world of mysticism is often at least misrepresented.
We know thought can alter the structure of the human
brain to the point where where if you maybe listening
to a bunch of podcasts might do something to your
brain too. We don't know yet, because podcasts haven't been
around long enough for us to find out. But it
(59:09):
also turns out that many of the physical feats that
are thought to be the result of mental or cognitive
superpowers turn out to be the clever, ritualized application of
well established scientific principles. We can dismiss some of these
folks as hoaxters and frauds, but there's one crazy thing here.
We have to remember. The primary tool they are using
(59:32):
to trick the crowds and the followers isn't a prop
like a nail. It's not some coals and some ash.
The primary tool is their mind, which means they are
wielding mind over matter. Maybe not as much, but they're
using their mind to exert influence over the minds of others.
(59:54):
So we ended up with mind over mind, which sounds
way less.
Speaker 3 (59:58):
I don't know they're using your mind is a weapon too. No, No, that's.
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
True, at least as far as we know now. We
may be off base. The one thing we didn't talk
about was the levitation, right, the purported acts of levitation.
We also didn't talk about the infamous but rarely witnessed
trick of climbing up a rope that's not you know,
that's not attached to anything seemingly, and we want to
(01:00:28):
hear from you. Have you witnessed physical feats that cannot
be explained by ordinary means. We're talking seemingly superhuman whim
Hoff kind of stuff. If so, let us know we
want to hear from you, because, as always, we want
to see actual cases of this. How amazing would that be?
Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
First put in a call to us one eight three
three std wytk, leave us a message, tell us what
you saw, send us some I don't know pictures or
something on one of our socials or something, and immediately
after that, call James Randy or whoever is representing him
in his hotline and collect a million dollars or whatever
(01:01:11):
their bounty is right now for something intensely like esp
powers or something mystic like that. But first call us
one A three three std wy t k m hmm.
Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
If you don't want to use a telephone, maybe you
got germ, you know, aphobia or something like that, or
you don't like handling plastic, or I don't know what
a pun's made of these days? Who knows? Another mystery.
We'll stort that one out later. You can use social
media to get in touch with us. We are on
Facebook or on Instagram, or on Twitter or conspiracy stuff,
conspiracy stuff show one of those. You're gonna find us.
(01:01:45):
We recommend highly that you join our Facebook group here's
where it gets crazy. Just name a name, associate with
the show, any of the three of us, any of
our super producers, a joke for Ben, you know, anything
to let us know that you're aware of what the
show is and you're in lots of fun meme exchanges
and communication between conspiracy realists and we hop into the
(01:02:07):
fun as well.
Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
And if none of that quite bags or badgers, never fear.
We have one more way that you can always contact us,
Rain or Shine until we get black bagged. It's our
email address where we.
Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they don't want
(01:02:43):
you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realist. We are returning to you with a
classic episode. This is for all of our fellow fans
of time life, books for your coffee table, Mysteries of
the Unknown, the Mind versus.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Matter, mind, Science of the Mind, Feats of the mystics.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Have have you, guys, ever seen some of these tricks
we're going to talk about, like walking on fire, laying
on nails, being buried alive, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, yeah, I watched the finale of that show called
The Office, the American version, or maybe it wasn't the finale,
it was close to the finale, I can't remember. It
was on that show they walked on, they walked all,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It was a team building exercise, yes, iracle. And as
it turns out, laying on nails isn't like much of
a feet at all. Your body kind of balances out
and you're not gonna ever really sing on.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Same with running across coals, depending on how you do it.
So we decided back in twenty twenty five years ago
now almost to figure out the science behind how this works,
to figure out the philosophical stuff, and to see whether
there was indeed anything supernatural about it. We can't wait
to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Mett,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul.
Mission control decands, most.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
Importantly, you are you.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. We're entering today's episode with an
image that may be familiar to everyone, especially fans of
film in the West, and it's a somewhat stereo typical
image that of the Indian mystic often called a fake
here fakir someone using the power of the mind to
(02:09):
accomplish seemingly extraordinary feats. A fakir is a Muslim or
a Hindu religious ascetic, traditionally a mendicant monk who is
sometimes thought of as a miracle worker. And we've heard
the tales, right they sound they have. Let's be diplomatic.
They range in plausibility. The idea is this, through intense meditation,
(02:33):
these individuals are able to do things like walk on
fire without being burned. They can be buried alive for
days at a time, they can lie on a bed
of nails with no injury, and allegedly they can even
do things like levitate or survive for forty days without
food or water. So what is happening here? Today's question?
(02:55):
Could the mind alone be responsible for these astonished, seemingly
miraculous feats. Here are the facts.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
First of all, really quickly, though you literally just described
all stuff that's like David Blaine type material. I think
he's done all of those things. I think he's survived
for however long without food, and you know, walked on
broken eat, swallowed glasses, and peaked up frogs. I don't know.
I'm wondering if that's if he's got some of these abilities.
(03:25):
But let's get to the facts. For sure, the mind
is absolutely capable of extraordinary feats. In a previous episode,
we've explored things that could technically be considered mind over matter,
the most widely acknowledged examples being the human mind affecting
physical changes within the human body, specifically the brain. And
(03:47):
we're not talking about telekinesis yet, but there is evidence
for this that is super fascinating. Let's start with mental
health and the immune system.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, we know for sure that someone's mental state can
actually affect whether or not they are vulnerable to specific
certain diseases. It can also affect how quickly someone recovers
from something or how well their immune system responds to
something that is invading their body. Again, that sounds weird,
(04:20):
but again, the mind is kind of the control mechanism
for a lot of these things, even the ones that
occur without our conscious input. Right, there's a professor named
Steve Colt. He's a professor of medicine and psychiatry at
the University of California in Los Angeles. He has been
looking at this link between the way people feel emotions
(04:42):
essentially and the way that can affect biology. So that
link between biology and emotion and Steve Colt, this professor
explains that the immune system has two essential programs that
can run. One that's going to fight off viral infections
viruses like corona, and then another that fights bacterial infections.
(05:02):
And this one causes the body to become inflamed. Is
what it's called inflammation. You like red warm, You've you've
had it before somewhere in your body, I assure you. Now,
this bacterial fighting program, the one that causes inflammation and
a response like that, it has a really big downside.
(05:24):
In an effort to keep everything healthy, to keep your
immune cells functioning, the ones that actually fight that good fight,
the body can also cause tissue damage through this process
and this program that it runs to protect itself. That's
a that's a big problem, right.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
Mm hmm right.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
And and his work shows us pretty conclusively that what
we would commonly call negative experiences maybe in a cancer
diagnosis or depression PTSD, and interestingly enough, lower socioeconomic states,
which should which I wish people wo talk about more often,
and all of these things, all of these things that
(06:03):
could be at the very least described as downers, are
also associated with increased activity of inflammation genes in your
immune cells. That's not completely a horrible thing, because it
seems logical then that if a negative experience and negative
emotions lead to problems with your immune system, positive experiences
(06:27):
like happiness might have the opposite effect. And this leads
Professor Cole to ask himself a very strange question. How
he asks can an immune cell register and abstract concept
like happiness and something philosophers have argued about before the
dawn of recorded.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Time, and skeptics out there, including those in this room,
may think, well, there's got to be some kind of
explanation there with like a biochemical reaction, something that gets
released when you're feeling happiness, as we because we know,
and we've talked about in previous episodes that the brain
releases all kinds of varying chemicals depending on what you're feeling,
(07:09):
everything from love to hate. And you know, perhaps there's
something there happening, but perhaps it's different than that, it's bigger.
Let's let's keep our minds open as we go through this.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, and you know, philosophy talks about this. I think
it's a platonic concept, the idea of you diamonia, which
is happy. It's like happiness, but it's not. It's more
of like a sense of purpose and well being, and
kind of it's a bigger concept than just like I'm
happy right now. It's more of like a life happiness.
Then I'm momentarily happy because I'm cuddling a puppy. And
(07:45):
that is the concept that Professor Cole kind of leaned on,
and one of the categories is this you dimonic happiness,
the idea of well being and all of that stuff
that with that purpose. And then there's hedonic, which again
would you think of as being like hedonistic, which is
experiencing being flooded with positive emotions he talks about you,
(08:08):
dimonic happiness is more like, I said, that direction in life,
having like an internal compass and knowing that you're doing
the right thing, even connectedness to like the universe or
the idea of a god or what have you. And
he led a study where eighty healthy adults took questionnaires
about their sense of well being, which were used to
(08:28):
assess their level of you, dimonic and hedonic happiness. Then
he drew blood to study how their immune cells reacted,
and the response summed up in the Atlantic is pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
That's correct. The researchers found that a high score on
you demonic well being correlated with a more favorable genetic
expression profile. This means that when you feel that you
are part of something bigger, that's you demonic happiness. When
you feel like you matter in the universe, you have
(09:03):
a destiny, You're going in a direction. Your immune cells
show high levels of anti viral responses and low levels
of inflammatory response. This means, when we think about it,
oddly enough, all those people that were once called hippies
turned out in a way to be right. Positive vibes matter.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
Bro or whatever you would say.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Things that boost this sense, this eudaemonic well being, Things
like meditation reduce that inflammatory activity, increase anti viral response,
they improve the function of specific strains of immune cells,
and then they also lead to higher antibody production. That
(09:47):
is real mind over matter.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Yes, and we as we do on the show all
the time. That is one specific study, right. It doesn't
mean that's the end all, be all truth of the matter,
but it definitely appears to. Are you showing us that
it's a possibility, right.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And that's a good point, Matt, because Professor Cole has
worked extensively in this field. So that's one study to
give you a snapshot, but you can read more about
his work to your heart's content on your browser of choice.
And this idea, this weird relationship of mind over matter,
because that's really what we're talking about when we talk
(10:25):
about the claims of various mystics. This idea goes much
further than just an anti viral response. Next, we have
to talk about not just meditation, but taxi drivers, Buddhist monks,
the human brain.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
What do these all have in common?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
It's weird.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
I know that was clickbaity, but it got us there.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yes, you may recall an episode we did a little
while back on real life Superhumans. Does anybody remember a
fellow named Iceman or wim Hoff?
Speaker 5 (10:59):
Yo?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Is he the one who cometh?
Speaker 3 (11:02):
He?
Speaker 1 (11:04):
If enough he stayeth, he don't dieth?
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Yea, that's superpower.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, dude, he's world renowned. He's been on numerous I
don't I don't know which television shows, but a ton
He's been featured all over the place because he has
a real superpower. He can withstand the most freezing temperatures
that are available. We're talking temperatures that would kill most
(11:32):
mortal humans such as I uh. It's intense stuff. And
he doesn't do it like he wasn't born with some
special DNA. What he does is mind over body techniques
including it's it's mostly breathing techniques seriously, and and body
movements like flexing muscles and tensing things. And he increases
(11:55):
his temperature. He increases his internal temperature with his mind and.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Just breathing, like, yeah, he also exposes himself to cold
temperatures more than the average person, but that doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Sweet, so as that's sort of the equivalent of like
taking a little bit of poison over time so that
when a snake bites you you're immune. No, it's really
just like.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I'll tell you what it's like. I'll tell you what
it's like, And I'm not comparing myself to you, Iceman,
if you're listening, you you are a god among men.
Spicy things like capsaius in levels and exposing yourself to
higher and higher doses over time. Not unlike poison in this,
it's more of your mind deciding that the pain doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
It's changing the threshold, it's changing your but right, it's
just sort of like like raising the bar for your
threshold of pain or what you can handle. It's not
necessarily the same as like giving yourself building up an
immunity to something that actually affects your body and could
kill you. It's more. But I'm still confused. It's like,
what about things like frostbite? Like what about things that like,
you know, if you touch us a surface, it's so cold,
(13:01):
it affects your skin, it can rip the skin right off.
I mean, there's all kinds of crazy things that can happen.
Does he how does he deal with that?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
He has limits. Typically, the feats that you will see
him accomplish again through the power of the mind are
things like running marathons and freezing weather, barefoot, sitting for
extended amounts of time, meditating in as you said, Matt,
conditions that would kill an ordinary person. The specific he
(13:29):
calls it the whim Hoff technique, and you can learn it,
this specific pattern of breathing and meditation. But he didn't
make this up out of whole cloth. There have been
other people who have been conquering their nervous system responses
through meditation for years, and in some cases it begins
to physically affect their brains. Before we move on, if
(13:51):
you want to learn more about wim Hoff and other
real life superpowers, we have two podcasts on it because
we kept finding really really bizarre things. I also still
have a list somewhere of and I don't want to
offend anyone of the superpowers that I arbitrarily thought were
like not to the threshold of us being able to
(14:14):
put them in a real life Superpowers episode.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
The Great Lakes. Guys, right, yes.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
Yeah, like the door Man exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
But when we talk about these superpowers, when we talk
about mind over matter, we we get it.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Everybody's saying, guys, you get it. Meditation. It makes you
feel better and your body does a little better and
you may not freeze to death quite as quickly. What
gives meditation does much more than that. And we have
two stunning examples. The first one Buddhist monks speaking stereotypes.
The stereotype of Buddhist monks is that they meditate all
(14:52):
the time.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Well, I'm sorry to keep belaboring the point here, but
back to wim Hof just for two seconds, if you
would indulge me. Ben, I'm looking at some of this guy,
and he's a fascinating looking character. He has that uh,
that that shirpa kind of vibe that you were talking
about at the top of the show. That's the wrong term.
But I see an image of him in a bath
of ice with like measurement little suction cups on his body.
(15:14):
So I'm assuming like this stuff has been verified, like
I mean, it's not some kind of like hoax Like
you guys both seem to be fully on board with
this guy's abilities. Uh would would you do you think
sciences as well? Or is there still like the juries
out as to like, is he really doing this with
his mind? I see a peach.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I can assure you this guy is legit. He is real.
I have watched uncut shots of this dude doing crazy
stuff there. Yeah, it's real.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I love it. Okay, I'm sold. But there is research
beyond just this gentleman that that dates back much farther,
showing that the Buddhist monks who spend long hours meditating
on a regular basis have somehow managed to slow the
aging of their brain. In one particular case, brain scans
verify that a forty one year old monk named youngay
(16:04):
mengyor Renpushet had managed to retain the brain of a
thirty three year old person. His brain is essentially functioning
at a capacity eight years better than what it actually
should be, eight years younger. He has managed to slow
(16:26):
the aging of his brain.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I want to bring up just a point of contention
here that i'd love to get somebody's, like y'all's opinion on,
and then also you listening, I wonder if there's anything
happening there where the complications of young Gay's life are
slightly less than that of someone existing, let's say, just
(16:51):
in a city who's running around meeting a bunch of
different people, tackling varying problems in bringing new information and
in at all times that they're processing at all times,
not getting as much sleep. Like I wonder, I wonder
how it seems like a difficult thing to compare like
(17:12):
those two people's experiences. I guess in like how the
brain functions.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Yeah, yeahah, And.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I don't mean to project this because I don't know
if this is correct at all, but it does seem
like the life of a monk is so very different
and the essentially the input that goes into the brain
is so vastly different.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I probably have the brain of a seventy five year
old man, honestly, with all of the rapid fire multitasking
and lack of sleep and like you said, just the
existence in a much more fast paced world and shorter
attention span, you know. Whereas like it's a really good question,
like if if reading and studying and meditating is exercise,
(17:53):
you know what, what is little nuggety bits of information
that we uh as as modern humans, you know, tend
to build our lives around what is that? Is that
just junk food? Is our brain atrophying because we're only
feeding it little bits at a time, as opposed to
longer form stuff that maybe works it out better. I
don't know, this is all hypothetical. I'm just asking what
(18:13):
you guys think.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
So Matt, to answer your question, I would say that
this is a tremendous This is a tremendous issue in
the methodology because with long hours of meditation also comes
long hours of what we call focused attention, so you're
not to your point, no shooting off femails or kind
(18:36):
of living in the adhd environment that is foisted upon
us by the modern era when everything is connected and people,
for some ridiculous reason get mad if you don't instantly
respond to their text, which what is that?
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Anyhow?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
The big part of this is that this isn't just
a study with one monk. This is one example, but
we see that these long periods of time are like
when we say brain is younger, what we're really talking
about is neuroplasticity, which tends to degrade over time. Something
(19:12):
this person is doing and meditation scientists believe is a
big part of it, based on.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
Other studies they've done.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Something this person is doing is allowing them to retain
neuroplasticity at a level that should not be happening. Because
think about this. If we wanted to disprove this, or
if we wanted to not disprove, but to separate the
conflation of a quote unquote simpler life and Buddhist meditation,
(19:40):
then we would want to have a study where we
take someone else who is probably not as inundated with technology, communication, pollution,
new variables of day to day life, and say a
city but doesn't practice meditation. We would want to compare
the two and I think physically we would see some
common hellal but mentally it looks like focused thought, mind
(20:04):
over matter is the is the prime mover in this situation.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, I think the next step also, you do that study,
you do studies then as well of city folk who
are you know, working every day, have a family, busy
lifestyle who also meditate on a regular basis.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
That's great.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
See where everything lies? Just you know, I'm just putting
it out there. Who knows, let's talk about Let's talk
about something else. No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I love what you're saying, and I love the idea
that we're pitching research to post grads and listening to
the show. This is what if you're after that grant money,
come to us if you need a really weird idea,
because furthermore, that meditation physically changes part of the brain.
It doesn't just preserve it, you know what I mean.
(20:53):
We're not keeping the boat just on the top side
of the ocean. We're building bigger decks on the vessel.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Speaking of decks, I really just want to find out
if I'm meditating about magic cards all day, is that
equivalent to me, you know, doing the practices of Buddhist monk.
Because if it is the same, then we're good to go.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Right What if I like Binge a really smart television
series over the course of three days, does that count?
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Maybe?
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Yeah? It can't hurt you, right.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Can it? Though I feel like I'm definitely going to
get dementia. I'm just putting that.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
I mean, it's if.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Look, it's twenty twenty. We are aware of so many
terrible things, you know. If Like when I hear someone
say that they're doing great and they're okay, I don't
believe them, and if I do believe them, I think
that they're just not which sounds terrible and cynical. But
(21:54):
but we do know, we do know this is this
goes beyond the power of mind over matter, goes beyond
that association of meditation, esoteric breathing techniques.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
And so on.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
As a matter of fact, if you have ever been
to London, you have encountered or at least seen somebody
with phenomenal power over their brain. They've actually they've physically
changed their brains, and not on purpose. It's it's We
did a car stuff episode about this years ago.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
I don't even know how many.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
If you want to drive one of those famous black
cabs in London, you cannot use a GPS to pass
to get You have to instead memorize thousands and thousands
and thousands of streets and thousands of alternate roots between
these streets from any given place within a certain circumference
of the city. This test is so hard that people
(22:51):
just call it the knowledge. And there are these kids,
these young these young folks, riding around on like little
motor scooters trying to memorize streets. That's all they do
all the time all day so they can pass the knowledge,
which has on a good day a fifty percent fail
rate pretty consistently.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Do London cabbies make like a really good wage.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
The black cabs are expensive?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, dah you you've you've heard us
mentioned this before. I think it's the same whim Hoff
episode where it's something beyond normal learning. What's happening here
is these people who are studying for this knowledge, who
get the knowledge, they are physically altering their brains. They're
like the folds are changing, the physical makeup is changing. Uh,
(23:37):
it's it's intense stuff. It's mental exercise and it's working. Like,
how crazy is.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
That your thoughts are changing? Like, imagine if you looked
at your hand and you thought so much about your
hand that your hand your your right hand or your
left hand.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Both can I do?
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Two hands I would do for this exercise, you know,
teach your own so you hold up, just hold up
a hand, it's convenient to you. And imagine if you
stared at this hand for hours a day for years,
and then you held up your other hand you didn't
stare at And let me do a trick of the letter.
It was like way smaller. That's that's what's happening with
(24:19):
the people who take the knowledge and work as black
cap taxi drivers. Their hippocampus specifically, this is the scientific term.
I read this in the study. I'm not saying this
to be glib. Their hippocampus balloons balloons.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And they have better spatial memory than far beyond that
of the average human person. And this may come at
a cost to other other types of memories. But the
important part is they thought enough about something and it
physically changed their body. And these are these are profound examples. Yes,
(25:00):
and they're familiar to longtime listeners. But a lot of
us are probably in the audience saying, hang on, this
isn't the whole story, right, what about people you guys
talked about mystics. Right, you're telling us about people who slowly,
over a period of years or decades, do have power
of mind over matter. But their mind is the matter
(25:21):
they're affecting tends to be the human brain. Are there
people who really can, for example, lie on a bed
of nails without bleeding, walk across fire and not be burned.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
It's firewalking.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
It's the stuff of legend. It is often associated with
divinity or some sort of mental capacity beyond what we
know today. But could someone actually do this?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
The answer is maybe a little more complicated than you'd
like to think, and we're going to get into it
right afterward from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Here's where it gets crazy. So good news, Yes, people
can really do these things. In fact, this may be
even better news. It is nowhere near as difficult as
you might think. And yes, your mental state, the correct mindset,
is important, but that's far from the only ingredient in
(26:25):
the recipe here. Some folks are perhaps going to take
this as bad news. They might see us as debunking this.
But other folks, you know, in the audience may feel
empowered firewalking. That's what it's called a little bit misleading.
But but how does firewalking work?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
By a walk with me?
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Oh oh boy, Lynch, I thought about I had that
plane while I was looking at some of this stuff.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Just imagining him, like interrogating a small I think a
capuchin maybe or primate.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
I love his voice through the Lynch voice. But firewalking
nowadays seems like a kind of isolated practice. It's not
something a lot of people get together to do with
their friends on the weekend all the time. We have
this stereotype that squarely places it in India, right, But
(27:22):
people have been doing this for thousands of years in
places across the globe. The earliest documented reference does go
back to India in twelve hundred BC. But you'll see firewalkers.
You'll see people calling themselves firewalkers in Spain, Greece, Fiji, Polynesia,
and there's nothing supernatural about it. There is zero supernatural
(27:47):
stuff at play here. You can probably do it yourself,
but don't don't legally.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
We are not telling you to do this. It's a
bad idea.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Don't go to the er with your feet all messed
up and say that Ben, Matt and Noel told me
this would be a cool thing to do, because we're not.
We're just saying you're probably physically capable of doing it.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Yes, I would say, don't do it unless you have
production and insurance. Like the cast of the Office.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
That's again the same thing. That's a very epic moment.
Team building. It's team building, that's right, Probly probably not
something that most offices to get approved as a team
building exercise, but I like the gesture.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
I couldn't even get a budget for us to play
laser tag, which is ridiculous. But should I watch The
Office or here? I haven't seen the US version that is.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Wild, Yes you should. And the second season of Community.
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
I have seen The Office all the way through, probably
nine times. It's like my comfort food show. I just
put it on when I want to feel okay.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
So let's talk about what firewalking actually is, or you
know what it generally refers to. There's usually a nice
long bed of coals, really hot coals, stuff that'll burn
you for sure. Now let's say it's about ten feet long.
Then on one end you've got human beings, actual human
beings with no shoes, no foot coverings whatsoever, lined up
(29:17):
ready to just walk across it and guess what happens
they do. In the instance of some of the mystics
we're talking about, a lot of times it will be
an individual person that is taking a walk across the
coals and then maybe waiting for a moment and taking
a walk back across the coals. And it really is
just science. It's something that science can pretty quickly answer.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Sadly, I don't know if it's sad, it's pretty I
find it inspiring.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
It was mystic. Man, it was incredible. It was mind blowing,
at least for me, I remember it.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
But when there was magic in the world, guys, there's
still science came along.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
It just has nothing to do with coals on the croud.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Okay, yeah, it's true, because I mean, you don't see,
there's a lot of work that goes into making one
of these scenarios. You know, like when you hire the
company to make your coal pit for your team building exercise.
They show up well in advance of the actual exercise,
and they got to dig a trench first, and then
they got to lay out the coals. They got to
light them, and you probably would notice that these coals
aren't like flame and hot. You're not shooting like, you know,
(30:21):
an accelerant on them. They're not shooting flames out left
and right. They're basically embers. They've been allowed to burn
down to the point that they're not, you know, actually
actively on fire anymore.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
But embers are hot.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
They are they can be hotter than a thousand degrees fahrenheit.
But then you turn us onto this fact. This is
fascinating there because of the actual coal And by the way,
so firewalking is kind of as a misnomer, would be
more accurately described as coal walking, Ben, as you pointed
out to us, And the carbon structure of coal is
(31:04):
really bad at conducting heat. So if you kind of
zip along, you know, hot footedly, you're gonna there's a
little bit of a lag in how quickly it conducts
heat from the coal to your actual bare feet.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
And that's why you don't see a bunch of people
getting together to have either a social rite of passage
or a corporate team building exercise by walking on a
ten foot row of burning metal sheet pants. Oh you
don't do it.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
There's a reason.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
There's a science to this. Yeah, coal is just a terrible,
terrible conductor of heat. Water also has a high thermal capacity,
so you don't see the prep work before you see
that amazing walk. There are hours of people very carefully organizing,
igniting the coal, and then letting it burn down while
(31:58):
they smooth it out. They let the wood burn so
that the embers don't retain water, and they use specific
types of wood, so hardwood embers like cherry and maple,
like glow red orange, look hot, but they don't burn
as hot as other types of wood like olive wood,
and you know the firewalk pros know this, the Tony
(32:21):
Robbins of the world and so on.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
That's right. And another major factor here is essentially what
I do with my grill, what maybe you do with
your grill when you're cooking, if you set the coals up,
if you cook with coals, but you set coals up
kind of in a pile you set on fire.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Then once the pyramid right like almost, yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Well, once fire's going, you spread that baby out, so
you've got essentially a flat layer of coals across the
entirety of that surface. The same thing is happening here.
The coals are then spread out specifically so that you're
not going to when you place your foot on top
of it, you're not going to go into coals, right,
You're not gonna surround your foot with a step with coals.
(33:04):
You're gonna step across one single layer or as close
to one single layer as possible.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
You might also, uh might also dip your feet in
some water. And that is because when liquid meets intense heat,
it forms an insulating, albeit temporary layer of steam. This
is something called selia didn't frost effect.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Sorry, I'm sorry, sir, what was that?
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Oh yeah it was I meant to say, celia didn't
frost effect.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Okay, I just want to make sure I got it.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
It's the reason why you can lick your the tip
of your fingers and then snuff out a candle without
hurting yourself.
Speaker 5 (33:43):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
And yes, we are pronouncing that correctly. It does have
to be screamed.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
So yeah, it's in all caps anywhere that it's printed right, right.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
So with with all this, you know, like what you
were saying earlier, we do you see a pace mattering
because if you have prepared this way, your wood's right,
your your surface is flat, there's not actual flame being emitted.
And you just walk at a brisk pace, you know
what I mean. You walk like it's kind of cold
(34:14):
outside and you're in a hurry. Then you are going
to receive a relatively small amount of harmless heat with
each step. But that changes very quickly if you saunter
too much or you meander, and it'll changes. Yeah, it
also changes if you run. It just it gets worse
on either side of the spectrum.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Just slow and steady. That's what the tortoise was talking about,
or the turtle or whatever other slow animal in that
parable you want to.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Oh, you don't want to run, So it really is
all about just like a nice even continue across. Wow.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
You know, it's it's funny that it is so simple
like that, and it does seem like anybody could do
it and it's not hard necessarily, But and that really
isn't the point, at least in a lot of the
ways it was done in the past and the way
it's viewed as a ritual, right, it is more about
(35:11):
mind over body, almost convincing yourself that it's going to
be okay if I do this, or I have the
mental strength to go through with this thing that seems terrifying.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, it's some of thing it could mean, like it's
a little bit different. But if you're someone who's terrified
of like roller coasters or heights, heights, let's just say,
let's just simplify it, and then you psych yourself out
to go on a really terrifying roller coaster, that's mind
over matter as well, because you know, in reality that
thing could break down and eject you, you know, at
the very top of the of the you know, biggest loop,
(35:44):
and you could fall to your death. You accept that
that's a possibility. But you submit yourself to this situation
and agree and agree with yourself with your mind that
you're going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
And you get a no fear T shirt at the
end time remember those.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Oh yeah, you know what, no spoilers. But now that
I think about it, that's really what the office episode
was all about.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Oh really, I thought you were about to say I
still have those T shirts and I was shaking my
head and I was.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Thinking, I knew it. I know he's still well, of.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Course, Oh no, all my shirts are now like UFC,
M m A shirts, you know, all the really really
good ones. No, wait, like this one. I think this
is a UFC shirt somewhere.
Speaker 5 (36:28):
I've got a yeah, I have.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I have a bunch of shirts. They're just names of
podcasts from announcements where they handed us shirts and I
was and I was like, well, I'm not gonna keep
buying shirts now. So I have that's where.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I have a Stamps dot Com shirt that says something
about podcasts, like I made a podcast and all I
got was this lousy Stamps dot Com shirt or something wrong.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Someone someone was bound to do that.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
But okay, So if you're a perspective.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Cole walker, it's fine to call yourself a firewalker, just
know that you are being intentionally misleading. If you walk
too slowly, your feet will sink into the coal, You'll
go through those temporary insulators, and your day will take
a bad turn because these folks will burn like any
other ordinary person. If you go too fast, you will
(37:22):
run the risk of kicking up embers, burning yourself again
like any other person. Or you'll be doing everything right
and a little piece of coal gets stuck between your toes. Also,
you have to add you could slip and fall and
that can turn fatal pretty quickly, so be very cautious. Also,
we're not telling you to do it, We're just telling
you how it works. You may be asking yourself, hey,
(37:45):
why is this always shown happening at night so often?
That's all in the pr it's the bizazz, baby. It
turns out that firewalking at night minimizes the visibility of
the ash that covers the coal. Ash is another just
trash heat conductor. It's terrible at it, and when it
(38:08):
covers these coals, it blocks the heat. So during the
daytime it might look like people are just making a
great to do about a weird, crumbly gray pathway, but
if you show it at night, it looks like things
are on fire.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Now, I minimizes the the bad optics and maximizes the
good optics because you're not gonna they're not gonna seem
nearly as glowy during the day, right.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Exactly exactly, And so this is all calculated and explain
this way, it may seem more like a simple science experiment,
even though it is risky. But to a point you
made earlier, Matt, we have to remember that this occurs
as a rite of passage, so people experiencing this are
(38:53):
viewing it through the lens of ritual. Just because it's
not supernatural doesn't mean it can't be a fundamentally transformative act.
Ordinary things can change your life.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Yeah, that's right, just like the first box of magic
cards you ever get. Hey, well, we're gonna keep going
down this pathway of looking at some of the more
seemingly mystical things that mystics do, and we'll tell you
more about them after another word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Okay, so if you're still with us after we pretty
much demystified walking on Cole's thanks for coming back.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
I hope you had a good break.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
This is something, honestly, Matt Nol, this is something that
just I think Chuck would say it squiggs me out.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
I can tell.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, it's it's another very popular thing, lying down on
beds of sharp nails with out without being harmed physically.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
But Ben, it's not the sharp part this squiggs you out.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
It's the materials, right, the metals. Yeah, no, I I
I get it partly. I think a lot of us
out there get it. Ben, maybe not to the extent
that you experienced it, but yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Does, even though you could do it safely.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
Guys.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
For me, honestly, it's like the same idea of being
forced into a bathtub filled with dangly key rings.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
It's just it's just unclean.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
That one triggered me.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
I don't understand why, because.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
It's all their hands on you.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
You know, that's true, that's true, That's very true. But yeah,
this is an interesting one and one that I I
you know, this is actually the kind of thing that
you might even see if you if you've been to
a Myrtle Beach esque type town where they have a
place called Ripley's believe it or not. You may have
experienced one of these situations yourself.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Oh yeah, sure, and you know, look, I hope you're
still around for the ride for this one. Everybody. We
are doing some myth busting over here. But this concept,
this practice, the act of laying down on a bed
of nails, has a really mundane explanation. It's pretty basic science.
(41:29):
It has to do with weight distribution like overall and
pressure placement essentially, like pressure per square inch essentially.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yep, and our colleague and friend of the show, Tracy Wilson,
who you may recognize from stuff you missed in history class,
did a great breakdown of this from the house stuff workstays,
that's exactly what you're talking about, Matt, and she brings
up the example of a person in high heeled shoes.
(42:01):
I didn't know this, but if you are walking in
high heeled shoes, you are exerting more pressure on the
ground than an elephant. And it's entirely due to this
distribution you're talking about, Matt. Like, in mathematical terms, pressure
is equal to force divided by area.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
So and wait wait wait wait that's true.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Yes, yes, so an elephant will tend to weigh more
than the average person. Yes, not the not the body
shame elephants or people. But its feet have so much
more surface area than the pointy heel of the shoe.
So despite despite the weight, overall the real estate where
that weight connects is much smaller in the shoes, so
(42:45):
there's there's more force.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
There are four points of contact with an elephant. Right, wow,
that's mind blowing. Ben, thank you for that, and Tracy, geez.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
So what if you fell from a very high height
onto one of these beds of nails?
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Different stare right, Yeah, very very much so, because now
you have we say, fall. But if you think about it,
gravity is just pulling you viciously, so you're not You're
not in control then of your of your speed or approach.
So imagine, just to mess with everybody's mind. I don't
know if we're Paul, I don't know if you're going
(43:20):
to do sound effects for.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
This, No, don't, okay, So.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Imagine that you have, unfortunately stepped on a nail. This
is not a thought exercise for a lot of us
in the audience today. This is a terrible memory. Your
foot is exerting a tremendous amount of pressure on a
very very tiny point of connection the tip of the nail,
and so.
Speaker 5 (43:44):
That's the sound effect.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I'll do the so so the nail goes into your foot,
you scream, your partner is like, oh my god, you're
ruining prom or something like that.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Are there, They're like.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Harry, Harry, and then you get and then you get
tetanus and you die.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Now, I always say, whenever I think of this, I
think of that scene at Home Alone. That kid was sadistic.
He really really overdid it with those poor wet bandits.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
I mean, you would think after the first trap someone
would say we should go.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
That that's true. This kid is way this kid is demonic.
He's obviously a psychopath. You know, we and we we
are no match for him.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Yeah, because like think about that.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
It feels to.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Me that the dark heart of Home Alone is that
Kevin would have done that to anyone.
Speaker 5 (44:46):
Who went in the house.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
The male postal worker, a relative. He just wanted the blood.
I think he just wanted the blood.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Guys, come on, come on now, it's.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Actually about the magic. It's about the magic of Christmas.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Let's be real, guess, which is also kind of about Okay, Nope, nope,
we've got a Christmas episode that you check out.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Lady so hard ruin Christmas.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
We've ruined magic, Now we've ruined home alone, and now we've.
Speaker 5 (45:13):
Ruined Christmas not at all.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
You know, Santa Claus is the number one most popular
conspiracy theory for most US children. We can't ruin Christmas.
As a matter of fact, Christmas is part of the
reason this show exists if you look at the structure,
like the philosophical framework of discovering what is or isn't true.
So it's true a nail will mess up your foot,
(45:36):
but it is also true that you can lay on
a bed of nails. Well, yeah, Matt, I love that
you just have nails.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I have a tiny little nail here.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
You just have imagine hundreds of.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
These, we think, so we hang out in person, I'm
going to do an experiment.
Speaker 5 (45:55):
Well just be like.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Hey, Matt, do you happen to have any nails?
Speaker 3 (45:59):
And I'm always with nail, Always.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
With nails, because you never know when you'll have to
make a bed of nails. And this is safer than
a single nail. Safer with a lot of coffeats.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
There's another one that this brings to mind when you
see like suspension artists who have hooks that go through
their skin or they can hang either from like two
points of contact from their shoulders or prone with like
multiple hooks, and you know, your mind immediately thinks, oh,
those are going to rip out and they're going to fall,
(46:34):
and they're going to be completely shredded. Their backs are
going to be shredded. But it's the same concept, right,
It's all about weight distribution with those as well.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
It's about weight distribution. That's I would say that's an
order of magnitude more complicated, however, because the people who
are the people who are inserting those hooks have to
have a pretty good knowledge of human anatomy and physiology
if they want to avoid lasting harm.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
But yes, the thing with.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
A bed of nails is that we still have just
the tiny, the tiny point of contact like you saw
in Matt's nail collection, but we have a bunch of
them and they're all close together, so collectively this is
a lot of surface area for the human body. They
distribute the pressure of your you know, not yet carcass
(47:24):
and voila. Usually everything goes all right. Your body will
not put enough pressure on any single individual nail for
it to break your skin, which means we can extend this. Heck,
throw a second bed of nails on top of yourself
while we're there, and they get one of your buddies
to break a cinder block on it, and if everything
goes according to plan, you're gonna be okay. Again, we're
(47:48):
not telling you to do this.
Speaker 5 (47:49):
We're just saying.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
You're gonna look super awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
We're not not telling you to do this. We are
do this. Don't do any of this. Okay, good, But
you're also you know, you're in your your own master
of your own destiny at the end.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Of the Yeah, we're just telling you that all your
crushes will fall in love with you. Your boss will
see it and they'll say, that's the kind of inities.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Guys, guys, the lawyer phone is ringing. It's just so if.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
You have experienced this without like before, hearing from us,
we played no part in this.
Speaker 5 (48:27):
We're just giving you information.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
We do want to hear your story, though, because one
of the most dangerous parts of this practice has nothing
to do when you actually lying there with beds of
nails being on top of you or even center blocks.
The real dangerous part is getting yourself on and off
the thing. Once you get on there, you're fine.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
But yeah, whatever, Yeah, it goes right through. But they're
pretty close together though, right, that's the whole point. So
they're definitely together. So even your hand, if you're not
putting a ton away on it would still the whole
principle would hold you. No, maybe it wouldn't. It's too focused.
I think it needs to be more distributed than that,
more widely. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Gotta take it easy, like a Sunday morning man, like
soft rock in an elevator. You got to lay that
groove on slow.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
But what if they were knives though, Guys, what if
they were knives?
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Different same people have attempted things im im principle. It's
something that would work just from the concept of the
pressure and distribution, and you will see people who are
doing those things are purporting to do so. I guess
when someone check me on this. It would obviously depend
(49:47):
on the knife, right, you wanted to play it safe.
You could just blunt the tip of the knife, which
is probably what someone someone's nails in the past. But
I'm just speculating here. If feels like maybe it's the
difference between somebody juggling with bowling pins and then somebody
juggling with you know, tennis balls or something I'm sorry,
(50:11):
something more dangerous lit torches and.
Speaker 5 (50:16):
Chainsaws.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Well, the Internet did not deliver on bed of knive,
but it did deliver a really grizzly photo of a
dude in the hospital had been stabbed in the face.
So thanks Internet. Something else, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Good, I've got just the thing for you, piercing the body.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Oh yeah, what we were just talking about, like suspension, right,
and also like putting nail or another sharp object through
your cheek or into your nose or down your throat.
A lot of that stuff has to do, like you said,
been with knowledge of human anatomy where it's actually going
remaining calm. Is there anything else to that?
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Preparation practice is having an instructor? Yeah, uh, And you
can you can read some great articles on what are
called human block ads. You can see some uh there's
some fantastic forums on how to safely conduct suspension.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
But again that's none of none of those things or
things that you want to just watch a YouTube video
and attempt for you to do yourself. But the point
is people are able to do these. There are two
other things that we should mention when we're talking about
other feats, just briefly, because these might be future episodes.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
One is the idea of being.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
Buried alive consensually saying, hey, I've thought about it. Put
me in the ground and then take me out and uh,
you know, let's see what happens.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
Yeah, it doesn't seem real. And we found instances, historical
alleged instances where people have been buried for elongated periods
of time. I think think the one that we got
for this was from a long time ago. Someone was
supposedly buried for forty days. Who is that right?
Speaker 5 (52:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
That was his name is jesusty days?
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Those three days?
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Only three? Yeah, I need to brush up on my
Bible verses.
Speaker 3 (52:17):
Yeah. His name was Sadu Haridas. Yeah he was. This
was allegedly to have occurred in eighteen thirty seven. He
was buried alive for forty days and survived.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
And there it's interesting because there were multiple eyewitness accounts
and they they sound just unimpressed enough for me to
think at.
Speaker 5 (52:43):
Least a few of them are true. These people did
get fooled.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
There's one British guy who who recounts the story and
says they dug him up in like within half an
hour he was kind of back to normal, but he
is still really frail and feeble. And then half an
hour after that was just he would talk to people
who asked him questions and uh, he still looked really weak.
We were convinced it happened, and so we left.
Speaker 5 (53:09):
That's how that's what they did.
Speaker 3 (53:11):
That's sound I mean, that sounds unbelievable to me. But
the thing is, everybody, there might be something to this.
That doesn't mean that that particular story is true and
there wasn't some kind of swindling or weirdness going on there,
but there could be something to this, right, and it's
something that we might be talking about later. No spoilers though.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
Okay, No, you're right, Matt, you're right.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
It's hard to bite our tongues on this one. But uh,
this is this is a future episode. We think we
figured it out and not again, not necessarily in a
debunking way. We found something, uh, and we want to
bring it to you soon. But while we're here, we're
talking about feats. There's another big one. I think it's
(53:58):
interesting uh, because it's one of the more extreme, it's
one of the more controversial. It's one that is pretty divisive.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
That shouldn't be possible.
Speaker 1 (54:10):
It's impossible. That's why it's divisive. It's divisive because it's
physically impossible. Back in twenty ten, there was a guy
named Plade Johnny, and he's a religious teacher. Some people
considered him a prophet. He was about eighty two in
twenty ten and he was located in Gujarata. He claimed
(54:31):
that he had not consumed get this, any food or
any water of any sort in more than seventy years.
This occurred after an encounter he had with divinity when
he was eleven years old, and so science came to
bear A doctor Sakir Shah, the director of neuroscience at
(54:52):
the Sterling Hospital in Ahmedabad, decided to investigate. He and
a team monitor Johnny for ten days in two thousand
and three, during which time they confirmed that he did
not eat anything, drink anything, urinate, or generate bowel movements,
which is a really unnecessarily formal way to say he
(55:13):
wasn't pooping.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
Those are all superpowers in and of themselves, each of those.
So yeah, the broad portfolio of freakish abilities.
Speaker 3 (55:22):
There, Well, there are two. There are two schools of
thought here, though. The first is ten days. People fast
for a long time. People who are serious about fasting
can do that.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
With food.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
But water is a different story because uh, let's technically
maybe that's not the right word. Scientifically, according to what
we understand about humans and bodies and water, you shouldn't
be able to go more than I would say maximum
four days? Is that about right? Without water? And they're
(55:57):
saying they monitored him for ten days and he didn't
take in any water or expel anything any of the
by products of water. Seems that seems impossible.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
It does, and that's why they went back with the guy.
In twenty ten. They monitored him again, and this time
they extended the monitoring period to fifteen days. They got
the same results. No urine, no feces, no food, no drink,
and outside of a couple of very limited circumstances that
(56:32):
we're not going to talk about just yet, this is impossible.
And I hate to be the downer here, but Nightline
got wind of this and they went to investigate. They
saw what this man was calling his or what had
been described as his cave to studio apartment, and on
(56:55):
video you can see that this apartment as a refrigerator.
When the people working for Night Live asked one of
this teacher's followers, hey, it's a very reasonable question.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
Why does a guy.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Who doesn't have to eat, why does he need a refrigerator?
And then the follower apparently became very very defensive refuse
the crew entry into the dwelling, and they walked away
with it still being a mystery.
Speaker 3 (57:20):
Hmmm, doesn't sound like a mister Urado me. But maybe
he's just got an ice maker in there and he
needs the ice for another purpose, right, Maybe the ice
isn't to drink, it's to cool down something, or to
feed some houseplants, or can.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
Gently caress his body with you know, yeah alone times.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
Allies, I like it he practices his wim Hoff meditation.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
That was the full circle, guys, full circle open.
Speaker 1 (57:49):
I don't I mean, we don't want to be seem
like we're being entirely dismissive. These are just the things
that we know to be true about this case. Please
do not attempt to start for yourself. Please do not
attempt to be a breath arean or anything. This stuff
is dangerous, and every technique we've described has given people
(58:10):
serious injuries at some point over history. So if you
want to achieve these sorts of things, and what you'll
need to do is study with the experts in these
in these feats, right, find someone who has walked over
coles and look at their feet first before you decide
whether or not you're going to pay them to teach you.
Speaker 3 (58:30):
But now find your own David Blaine to a bunch
of balloons and go up way too high and then
jump down with a parachute.
Speaker 1 (58:38):
Or get someone like Darren Brown to convince you that
you did it and you just don't remember it.
Speaker 5 (58:45):
That's a great idea.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
It seems then that the question of mind over matter
in the world of mysticism is often at least misrepresented.
We know thought can alter the structure of the human
brain to the point where where if you maybe listening
to a bunch of podcasts might do something to your
brain too. We don't know yet, because podcasts haven't been
around long enough for us to find out. But it
(59:09):
also turns out that many of the physical feats that
are thought to be the result of mental or cognitive
superpowers turn out to be the clever, ritualized application of
well established scientific principles. We can dismiss some of these
folks as hoaxters and frauds, but there's one crazy thing here.
We have to remember. The primary tool they are using
(59:32):
to trick the crowds and the followers isn't a prop
like a nail. It's not some coals and some ash.
The primary tool is their mind, which means they are
wielding mind over matter. Maybe not as much, but they're
using their mind to exert influence over the minds of others.
(59:54):
So we ended up with mind over mind, which sounds
way less.
Speaker 3 (59:58):
I don't know they're using your mind is a weapon too. No, No, that's.
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
True, at least as far as we know now. We
may be off base. The one thing we didn't talk
about was the levitation, right, the purported acts of levitation.
We also didn't talk about the infamous but rarely witnessed
trick of climbing up a rope that's not you know,
that's not attached to anything seemingly, and we want to
(01:00:28):
hear from you. Have you witnessed physical feats that cannot
be explained by ordinary means. We're talking seemingly superhuman whim
Hoff kind of stuff. If so, let us know we
want to hear from you, because, as always, we want
to see actual cases of this. How amazing would that be?
Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
First put in a call to us one eight three
three std wytk, leave us a message, tell us what
you saw, send us some I don't know pictures or
something on one of our socials or something, and immediately
after that, call James Randy or whoever is representing him
in his hotline and collect a million dollars or whatever
(01:01:11):
their bounty is right now for something intensely like esp
powers or something mystic like that. But first call us
one A three three std wy t k m hmm.
Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
If you don't want to use a telephone, maybe you
got germ, you know, aphobia or something like that, or
you don't like handling plastic, or I don't know what
a pun's made of these days? Who knows? Another mystery.
We'll stort that one out later. You can use social
media to get in touch with us. We are on
Facebook or on Instagram, or on Twitter or conspiracy stuff,
conspiracy stuff show one of those. You're gonna find us.
(01:01:45):
We recommend highly that you join our Facebook group here's
where it gets crazy. Just name a name, associate with
the show, any of the three of us, any of
our super producers, a joke for Ben, you know, anything
to let us know that you're aware of what the
show is and you're in lots of fun meme exchanges
and communication between conspiracy realists and we hop into the
(01:02:07):
fun as well.
Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
And if none of that quite bags or badgers, never fear.
We have one more way that you can always contact us,
Rain or Shine until we get black bagged. It's our
email address where we.
Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they don't want
(01:02:43):
you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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