November 16, 2021 • 59 mins
We hear about this mysterious force all the time in fiction and film -- but what is it actually supposed to be? Is there any evidence that it might be real?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So have you ever felt that there was some sort
of energy, almost a palpable energy that was coming from
you or from another person? I think we've all felt
at least something like a vibe, right, Oh, absolutely, a
vibe much like the seminal nineties comedy adventure mystery classic
(00:21):
Vibeski whatever. I found it on Prime. I'm gonna watch it. Okay, God,
thank you that? But yes, uh, energy that's inside of
us that can be transferred in some way? Can it
be harnessed? Like? What could you use that for? If
(00:42):
that energy existed? That's what this episode is all about.
My gones, I'm so excited for this convo. We published
this back in July of I wonder how our ch
has changed since then. Let's find out from UFOs two
Ghosts and Government Cover. History is writtled with unexplained events.
(01:03):
You can turn back now or learn the stuff they
don't want you to now. Hello, and welcome back to
the show. My name is Matt and I am ben
uh No sleep till Brooklyn Boland here with our super
producer Noel the Iron Fist Brown. Oh, I knew that
(01:27):
was you. Oh and there's Jason. Hey, that's up, Jason, Yeah,
are what one of our bosses is named Jason. That
is true. We're not just making that up. So listeners,
as you know, usually we have some hints about the
show embedded in our super producer's nickname. But some of
(01:49):
you might be wondering, Hey, wait, Ben, why did you
give yourself a nickname in this Well there, it was
quite literal. Yes, it was quite literal and remains so. First,
of course, guys, we uh we we may have been
born yesterday, but we've been awake all night. As the
old joke goes, uh, so we know you guys, we
(02:13):
know you're not supposed to give yourself your own nickname.
That's that's a crap move. I was going to do
it if you didn't. Yeah, I am coming to you,
uh semi live, depending on when you hear this, uh
without having had any sleep. I've been awake for about
uh thirty six hours met you actually caught me trying
(02:36):
to sleep in my car in the parking deck. So
this might be a little bit of a weird podcast
on my end. That's why I have a nickname. Today.
It's gonna be great. That's how I like it. When
it gets nice and weird up in here, we send
the weird waves through these these chords and out into
your ears. So there, you know, we're today, we're gonna
(02:56):
talk about something that is a little out there. Some
of you might not really I don't know you. You
might be thinking, oh gosh, why why would they even
talk about this? Right right? But then others are are
going to are gonna go, oh man, they're finally talking
about this. Well, that happens pretty often that let's face.
And then also we will have a contention of people
who will say, this is just terrible. You're doing a
(03:20):
terrible job. But but let's let's ease into it. Here's
one for the fans of comic books. Okay, and I'm
gonna be very careful not to spoil too much of
this because if you're a fan of comic books, it
might come up in your life a few years from now.
But there is a character in Marvel Comics whose name
(03:44):
is Iron Fist and nol today, iron Fist is your namesake.
Iron Fist has the has pretty much martial arts superpowers,
and he can focus this energy that he has to
give himself uh slightly enhanced strength, but also you know,
(04:07):
superhuman reflexes. Agility, the whole nine better senses, but not
as good as Daredevil, which is important. And he has
this this one big move. The power of it changes
depending on who's writing the story at that time, where
he can focus all of this energy into one punch
(04:28):
and this punch is amazing, and when it first started,
he can only do it once a day and he
was just garbage after that. She had to be very selective,
like a smart bomb in um, you know, in an
old Atari game or something. But what was but when
he focused this thing? Uh, it had a name? What
what was this energy he was focusing? Well, it has
(04:51):
a lot of different names, depending on where you're born
and what culture surrounds you, but the most common is cheat.
Uh yes, spelled with a q I or c h I. Uh.
Here's the deal today we are talking about g is
she real? What is she? What is real? Now? I'm kidding.
(05:15):
That's a lot for one episode. Yeah, so let's just
start here. The human body is an astonishing thing. And
the more we learn about the human body, not just
the brain, but the more we learn about the human
body in general, it seems the more questions we have.
So we were gonna do a little bit of backstory, Matt,
You and I were gonna do two videos this week,
(05:38):
one with our classic format and one with a vlog,
but I was in New York on some completely non
shady business, as you may have heard me allude to
on Facebook. So we're sticking with one this week. And Uh,
I'd like to talk to you a little bit about, uh,
the video that we actually didn't make, so we can
at least get some of that story out here in
(05:59):
the audio pod cast. And then when you're talking to
other people who just watched the videos, you can say, oh, well,
if you listen to the audio show, then you would
you would know, you know, you would be on like
my level of noatude, the notatude of knowing that the
human body is crazy. Like Ben said, there are things
(06:19):
we're learning about it that I never would have believed. Uh.
I don't know even recently. It's tough for me to
believe this stuff. But it is true that the human
body produces energies. Um. There are a couple of different ones. Uh.
One of the first ones that we want to talk
about is electricity. Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but
(06:39):
it's true. Without electricity, your your brain wouldn't work. Yeah,
and that's something that we weaving the human species have
known for a little while. You know that electricity is
the great impetus that makes all the things happen, right,
all the matt things, all the null things, listener, you,
all the youth thing has happen. And there's there's a
(07:01):
pretty good article about this on the how Stuff Works
website too. Yeah, it's called how does the body make
electricity and how does it use it? And that's by
one of the writers here, Julia Layton. Yeah, and we've
got a great quotation here from the article, just to
just to put into context electricities role in the body
and the brain. When we talk about the nervous system
(07:25):
sending signals to the brain, or synapses firing, or the
brain telling our hands to contract around a door handle,
what we're really talking about is electricity carrying messages between
point A and point B. It's sort of like the
digital cable signals that carry ones and zeros that deliver
true detective to your eyeballs, except in our bodies, electrons
(07:46):
aren't flowing along a wire. Instead, an electrical charge is
jumping from one cell to the next until it reaches
its destination. Right, Yeah, I think that's a pretty good explanation.
Here's one of the things that the body also produces
that tripped you and I, al, this was unexpected light. Uh.
To paraphrase Rihanna, you do indeed shine bright like a diamond.
(08:09):
Well not not quite that right, right, absolutely not that right.
But we said, like, so we have a little here's
the deal. The human body produces a small amount of light.
In two thousand nine, Life Science and The Guardian both
reported a study that showed all human beings, in fact,
virtually all living creatures emit visible light, at least in
(08:29):
small amounts. What. Yeah, it sounds crazy, but stick with
me here. We're not talking about light that you and
I could just see with our naked eye when you're
walking around. We don't glow in the dark. We're talking
about huh. I'm so sorry to what was that song?
With my naked eye? I saw with my naked eye
eyes rain coming down? Oh yeah, yeah? Who was who
(08:55):
is that? I say it was Luscious Jackson. Luscious Jackson,
damn so Luscious? I guess Luscious? Yeah, yeah, she she understood?
Is it is it she? Or is it a he? Is?
It's like a group of people, a group of ladies,
a band, if you would, I apologize for not being
on my luscious Jackson knowledge. I apologize for interrupting you
(09:19):
with this, with his ramply thing. It's been a it's
been a long couple of days. But good save No,
I'm sorry. But back back to say. I'm not saying
we glow in the dark. But what I'm saying is that, uh,
living things emit light that is roughly a thousand times
less intense than what we could detect with our eye.
It is detectable, right, Okay, I see what you're saying,
(09:42):
similar to the way that some stars are visible only
through the aid of a telescope or something like that,
or or if you if you leave a lens open
for long enough. Okay, that makes sense. This study also
showed that the light that people admitted varied throughout the day.
It was lowest and around ten am, and it was
(10:05):
peaking around four p m T when it gradually declined. Uh.
Your face, by the way, assuming you're human, as you
hear this, UH will probably globe brighter than the rest
of your body. According to this one study we have.
I have to say that just because this hasn't been
you know, studied a lot. But it was really interesting. Yeah,
(10:27):
it is interesting, um and I can already foresee some
of the questions here, the question of like, well, ten am,
whare right? We can cranach meantime, it appears to be
tied to an individual's body clock, this slow rise and
fall of your your light source. So if you are
(10:51):
doing anything extremely important, try and time it somewhere around
four because maybe that light is having an effect that
you're not aware of. Wow, you know what, that would
be an interesting study to to see if it if
it mattered whatsoever, if there were animals that could sense
that light. Now, of course we're not talking about infrared,
and there are some animals whose vision verges into the
(11:14):
infrared spectrum, right, But anyway, that's interesting because it shows
that human beings emit things like electricity and light. And
there are other examples of course, heat, electromagnetic force, etcetera,
etcetera at all. But we started looking at this because
we wanted to ask a different, somewhat related question. But
(11:36):
what what is? What is cheat? But we've heard about it, right,
I've heard about it since I was a kid or
stories and just you know, you see all the like
acupuncture and other things that make use of this energy,
like energy redirection, healing without the stuff. But we hadn't
(11:57):
really delved very deeply into this. So get ready, folks,
we're on the diving board. Here we go, right, Okay, Yeah,
it's true, Matt. You've you've heard it before. I've heard
it before, Nol, You've heard it before. Listeners, you have to.
It's often mentioned in the context of traditional Chinese medicine,
maybe martial arts. It's also been used in fiction and
(12:18):
it's been heavily exploited by Hollywood. It's been cited as
this miraculous curative force and more. It has also been
dismissed by critics as a scam or flim flam, a superstition,
a sham. So what what is the definition of this? What?
What gives? What would we call it? Well, in Chinese
(12:39):
philosophy and Chinese medicine, she is this vital thing that
exists in everything in the universe. It's it's invisible, and
it's this unique form that's often interpreted as some sort
of energy. Let's see, well, we'll get to the whole
idea of what the energy is in a moment. But
(13:00):
for now, let's take it as let's take this as
a fact, at least for the sake of argument. Agreed
that this g is energy. So the belief in this
sort of ubiquitous energy isn't unique. It's not unique to
Chinese tradition or any of the other places that you
may have heard that it is unique to. It's uh,
it's known as in general vitalism. It's the vital energy
(13:23):
that runs all things, this belief in in some kind
of ubiquitous energies. Yes, okay, so okay, So that would
be kind of like praana in Hinduism or numa in Greek,
or even in physics. Right, even even in even in physics,
we we could also say what I'm thinking of another one, Oh,
(13:44):
the nazis real, real energy, real would be one. That's uh,
that's a deep cut for the people who listen to
our earlier Nazi stuff. That that quit quintessence, I think
is the name of it. The the fifth the fifth element,
the element of the heaven, and so it was present
in all nature and the stuff of which celestial bodies
was made. I feel like dark energy, it's a HYPOTHETI
(14:07):
hypothetical version or idea of what dark energy would be.
So basically the Force. Yes, if we want to if
we want to go full into full fiction references, then
Chi and this and this is not meant in a
derogatory way at all. This is just meant to show,
if anything, the the kind of concept, that the kind
(14:31):
of concept that the Force was building upon real life.
So so g would be in some ways like the
like a real life version of the Force. And as
we know, real life is not like a film solway. Yeah,
so I apologize to everybody who expected they would get
a lightsaber once they completed their practice, once they become
(14:53):
a che Gong master. Chee Gong is the is the
name for UH set of practices and a postures exercises
a clear slow circular movements, regulated breathing, focused meditation, things
like that. There are three different styles. They're classified as martial, medical,
or spiritual. UH. Some chee long styles are gentler like
(15:18):
tai chi and can be adapted. Others are more vigorous.
But one one of the unique features of this is
UH the ability to train the mind to direct the
body's energy or che to any part of the body.
But that's that's just to explain what che gong is.
So when we say that, we're talking about people, we're
(15:39):
talking about the practice of using she consciously. But maybe
maybe I'm getting a little ahead of our Wait, I
can't get ahead of ourselves. Maybe I'm just messing up
the show. What what does she even mean? In English? Yeah?
Ben so she in English, if it's translated is air.
(16:00):
That's what it means. Literally. While this is often seen
as an energy, as we said before, authors like Chris
Kessner argue that it's best interpreted as oxygen rather than energy,
a an essential element. Almost right, Yeah, No, Chris Kesser,
we found because he's a bit contrarian. When he talks
(16:22):
about some of this. He claims that there are a
lot of mistranslations or misconceptions, rather mistranslations of Chinese culture
and language that led to misconceptions in the West. And
for the record, I completely agree with him in principle.
I don't know how, I don't know how absolutely I
would agree with his specifics. But he claims this mistranslation
(16:45):
of of chi as energy instead of oxygen was single
handedly created by a French fellow named solid de moron Uh.
In traditional Chinese medicine. She is thought to travel through
these channels called meridians getting kept. Kesser disputes this, calling
them notes. Let's just go ahead and assume for the
rest of the show that when we're talking about G
(17:09):
and we're we're just touching on some of the high
level stuff, that that the that Chris Kesser is the
person you would go to to read about. If you
think this is I don't want to say bunk, but
if you think this is a vast misconception, this is
something different than what's on the surface, right, right, So
if we talked about acupuncture, acupuncture is insertion of needles
(17:32):
in two points along these channels or nodes, and this
is done to adjust the positive negative aspects of G
the the yang being the positive, the end being the negative,
to help maintain a balance of such of sorts and
other things can affect this balance to right, Yeah, have
you ever done acupuncture? I have not. You know, I
(17:52):
have huge I have huge issues with touching metal. Yes,
so I can't if there were like stone or wooden needles,
even if it okay, So when the metal thing, is
it just your hands touching metal or is it metal
just touching your skin. No, it's it's a body wide experience,
like my sensory um inputs her crossed and the associations
(18:16):
are unpleasant. Okay. So, so my wife tried acupuncture for
the first time not long ago. Oh no way. Yeah,
she she said she felt great afterwards. But she attributed
that to just being in a relaxed state for a
long period of time. She's very she had a very
stressful job for quite a while there, and then just
(18:36):
going into room with quiet music and someone gently touching you,
even if they're shoving a needle in you, just a
little bit, just meditating him. Yeah, so she felt great afterwards,
and but that's what she Okay, you know what, that's
kind of cool, man, That's that's amazing. I'd love to
hear more about her her experience because, as we know,
(18:57):
people have used acupuncture for very long time, and it's
popular across the world now and people swear by it.
Maw uh. And we know also that our friends over
at Stuff you Should Know have a great podcast on
acupuncture if you want to learn more about it. So
(19:19):
here's where we start to get into some of the
more divisive stuff. I know a lot of people are
not sold on acupuncture. And then a lot of people
think that Western medical institutions are suppressing acupuncture any natural
alternative medicine. So we we know those two sides of
(19:40):
the argument. Or there, let's let's bracket that for a
second and get into some of the weirder stuff with
the idea that practitioners of che gong are able to
direct the effects of ch just by using their minds
and their hands at raky massage or energy redirect feel
(20:00):
like raiky is kind of a low level version of
some of the Keygong practitioners I've seen, at least on videos. Now.
I'm not trying to diminish reiki at all. I know
several people. It's just a different thing. It's a different thing.
The key Gong masters that I've seen are the ones
that say they can create heat, they can actually create
heat with their mind in their hands, and a couple
(20:23):
other things. I think magnetism was another idea that oh
remind me at the end of the episode because I can,
I can explain some of that. Excellent, Okay, So another thing, though,
these are not the only claims you'll see people who
are young doctors or master's claim to channel their own
(20:45):
energy or air into another person's energy kind of network, right,
correcting blockages as you can imagine, ladies and gentlemen. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Western medicine takes a dim view of many of these claims.
But we've we've seen enough so far to know that
(21:05):
without going into acupuncture, making this an acupuncture podcast. Uh,
we know that the definition of G of what is
ch isn't something as cut and dry do all these misconceptions,
So maybe it's best to understand SHE in terms of
its functions and its activities, right, So it as the Uh,
(21:28):
we'll just walk through it as the qualities of both
matter and energy. Right for those who believe it exists.
It has substance without structure. It possesses qualities of energy,
but it can't be measured. I hear so many people
on the other side of the microphone now groaning or
on the other side of me, because you should be
(21:49):
able to measure something, right if it's energy. So they
would say via analogy. There's a great comparison in one
of our articles that the force of a thunderstorm could
be understand and understood in terms of its cheat because
you could measure the power of the chi in the
fallen trees and buildings in the storms aftermath. I get it,
(22:11):
but I'm a little hesitant with I'm a little hesitant
to uh totally subscribe to something because of an analogy.
Well yeah, and it makes me that analogy in particular
makes me think of the possible misinterpretation of g as
uh not energy but air or you know, the idea
(22:32):
that you can't see the wind, but you're pretty sure
that that tree was standing up earlier. Right now. There's
also we can kind of skip past the meridians stuff here,
but you know, we mentioned those meridians or those nodes
and the way that she is supposed to travel from
no to no passing through meridians. You'll hear people say
(22:53):
there's a cycle of twenty four hours, and that there's
certain times where where in a certain organ is is
more powerful, that the flow is strongest there. So the
concept here is that she is supposed to pass through
all the major channels or nodes and meridians of your body,
and that manipulating these points with pressure, heat, needles, et
(23:16):
cetera is the crux upon which so much of this
treatment hinges. You have to have the energy flow through
those points correctly. Um. So so we've talked about this,
let's talk about other functions or the main functions. Oh yeah, yeah,
there are five, right, yes, So the first one is transformation,
(23:39):
and this is the idea that she transform one type
of substance into another. Okay, so let's say the spleen.
She transforms food into she and blood. Right, Okay, that
the body and the body can use that. So use
uses both of these things that she to make everything
else work. And then the blood, well, the blood to
(24:00):
make everything else working. For right, the kidney transforms fluids
into pure essence and waste water. And then you know,
in the same way you keep going on down to
say the long and transforms air into the energy to
sustain life. So transformation is the first one. Movement would
be the second, all movement accompanied by its own chi
including growth, development, whalking, breathing, thinking that she is the
(24:25):
commander of the blood as you might have heard before.
What's the third one? Third one is protection, the idea
that she protects the body against attacked by diseases, um,
and other things. If if a person's che is weak,
that person may experience frequent illnesses because they're white blood
cells or CHI aren't doing so hot. Uh, and then
they're the fourth wound be retention, the fourth function of chi.
(24:48):
That's the idea that she keeps the organs in their
proper place. So that's the reason that you're not vomiting
up your hearts or something. Thank good. That and numerous
anatomical facts. But the uh, the idea here is that
deficiency can lead to pro lapse, bleeding disorders, excessive sweating,
(25:10):
or urination. And there's one last one. The last one
is warming. The yang aspect of kidney che keeps the
entire body warm, which is pretty nice. Um. When it
is deficient in this way, chronic cold extremities like cold
extremities as in your arms or your legs. Mostly you
(25:30):
will have decreased function in all activities that require warmth,
such as digestion or other things that go on inside
your innards. Okay, so we know that G is at
least attributed to doing a whole host of things for
the human body and of all other living entities inside
their bodies. We also know that as we went through there,
(25:52):
we were saying things like the lungs, cheat spleen, ch
that's weird, right, Yeah, those are different types of she
because Chinese medicine typically divides she in the various types
depending on source and function. So the original source of
this force would be your parents, and that she inherited
from them is known as prenatal chi. So this is
(26:15):
the basic constitution of a human being. It depends upon genetics,
the quality of the parents lives at the time of
conception and during pregnancy. This, ladies and gentlemen, if you
believe in she is your heritage. It cannot be replenished.
A healthy lifestyle, diet and breathing practices, however, can conserve
(26:35):
prenatal CHI and slow down its depletion. That's really cool.
So I'm almost thinking of it as in terms of
stem cells or something. You're stem cell chi, right, or
maybe the way that a woman only has a certain
number of eggs in her life and those can be depleted.
But um, But the argument here, of course being that
(26:58):
there's certain actions one can take to slow that loss.
But there's another type of CHI there that's just as important. Yes,
once you are postnatal, you get the postnatal she, and
this is she that's acquired or derived from food you're eating.
The stuff you're drinking, the air you're breathing. This, when
(27:20):
combined with prenatal CHI, forms the totality of the body's
power to perform all of these things. We're talking about,
all the vital functions of your body. And then there's
lung cheese, spleen she true she, which is the totality
of CHI, the results from the combination of the prenatal
and the postnatal stuff. This is responsible for all the
(27:40):
functions of the body. Takes different forms. Uh, there's there's
also uh nutritive she. You can hear about these different
types of CHI. But what what I would like to
get to is, uh, the the claims attributed to these
(28:00):
she too young masters, right, so called sometimes self professed,
let's be honest, sometimes self professed. And we're you know,
we're not here in any way to denigrate serious practitioners
of something that people believe in, but we will tell
(28:22):
you that there are quite a few claims made by
people who also claim to be ch Gong masters. And uh,
all these claims are not created equal. I mean, you
can start with stuff like someone is an acupuncturist, right, Uh,
that's that's believable. People around the world again engage in acupuncture,
(28:43):
and I know some people think it's utter bunk, some
people swear by it, but this is not an acupuncture
episode because we're going further afield, right, We're going to
the people who claim that they have superpowers. Essentially, I'm
very I'm very as you know, I'm very interest in
having superpowers. So we're aware, right, So I looked into this, uh,
(29:05):
and I just I don't want to spoil this surprise
for anybody, but let's take a closer look at some
of these, right, So, so checking can the idea that
it can give you superhuman abilities, particularly when it comes
to a standing pain. You'll see people being beaten with. Uh.
Once you hear the air quotes here, iron bars, you'll
(29:29):
see and and they may indeed be iron you know.
I wouldn't want to test it out, That's all I'm saying. Right, Yeah,
you definitely have to train, you know. It's like the
whole thing with when people say wrestling is fake, it's
there's still trained professionals. It's those athletes. Watch yourself, right,
and then and then it is true that there are
(29:50):
people who are trained to take massive amounts of damage
that would seriously injure another person. Right, absolutely, but maybe
not to a superhuman degree. You'll often here's skeptics, Darren
Brown's one who attribute these sorts of performances to just
that performances stage magic. Right. But there's another bigger one
(30:12):
that that goes back to our friend Noel the iron
Fist Brown. Oh, yes, Ben, that would be the no
punch knockout. You may have seen videos of guys who
are wearing like the Master belts in some kind of
martial arts garb, and there are a bunch of people
running up to them and they're just knocking them over.
(30:33):
You may have seen this. I watched a video like
that recently because I would. I somehow was watching an
mm A video and then it was on one of
the you know, on the right rail. Uh. It was
kind of kind of upsetting. Actually. It was one of
these practitioners who it's a video of the Master and
his students and he's just demonstrating how he can knock
(30:56):
out all of his students without touching them. And then yes,
and then he challenges and m M a fighter and
wagers lots of money and says that he can beat
him up without touching him, and the m M. A
fighter proceeds to break the guy's nose and hurt him
really badly. Is this one where the um it's old?
(31:20):
Is this the one where the guy says he'll put
up a force field? Yeah? I totally remember so this. Yeah,
this is a thing that's unfortunately fairly common to see
online now. And it is true that people can break
wood or cinder blocks with their bare hands. They're doing it.
(31:43):
They used to do it as a kid. What as
like martial arts. We're angry? Yeah, it was both. Oh okay,
did you did you break a center block? Really? No,
I've never got a center block. Buddy Scott did though. Wow? Man, right,
And that's completely possible for someone to break cinder blocks
with their bare hands. Listeners, If you train yourself right,
(32:06):
and you are safe, and you are assiduous, and you
practice and practice practice, then you too can eventually break
cinder blocks, but in a very specific way. You you
will probably still injure yourself if you go up to
a wall of cinder blocks and say, hey, guys, watch this,
I'm gonna go and guarantee that that will happen. Yeah,
(32:26):
it's gotta be. There's there's a science to it. But
when it comes to the idea of knocking someone to
the ground without touching them, there is a glaring commonality
for all of the people supposedly affected by these no
touch super punches, and it is this, they are true believers.
(32:47):
They believe this stuff really works. That's and that's not
saying Ben and I aren't saying that these videos you
were watching they're just a bunch of people faking it
and acting as though they're getting punched out. They believe
so wholeheartedly that this this master has these abilities or
even they perhaps have the abilities that it makes it
(33:08):
true for them. Right. Yeah, it's the power of suggestions,
similar to hypnosis, there being sincere. It's kind of like
gloss aalia, which is the five dollar word for speaking
in tongues, right, and what happens during that If you've
ever seen footage of this, and Matt, you and I
have watched some documentary stuff with this. I have seen
(33:31):
people do it in Tennessee. Uh. People do it in
churches as well. Yeah, And what this speaking in tongues
uh thing is is supposed to be in in various
belief systems, is a direct touch of the divine right.
(33:53):
Perhaps speaking or assumed to be speaking uh in in
a coherent manner, in a language that the human I
guess medium for this, right, the human vessel for this
has has no knowledge of Uh. We've seen some great
research on glass Alelia that that proves it is a
(34:14):
real thing. And the people who are undergoing this, just
like the people who are falling to a no touch
knockout punch, believe that it is happening. They're sincere. They're
not trying to, you know, be cool or something. It's
not like Craig is saying, all I better fall down
so I get promoted in this thing or whatever. It's
(34:38):
it's a real thing. They believe on some level that
this is the way they're supposed to act. So every
and you know, maybe I would be so excited if
I found somebody could really do this, And if you
know someone, please send them our way. Yeah, we'd love
to we'd love to see what happen in real life.
But in the fact of the manner is, at this point,
(35:00):
we haven't found anything like that. Uh. Let's go to
and oh, yeah, yeah, you've seen this, and you know
what's coming up. Yeah, there's another one. You've probably seen
videos of now, thank goodness for YouTube, Thank you YouTube,
where where someone can use their cheap hours to ignite
a orld piece of paper, a newspaper, some form of
(35:22):
flammable substance. And okay, so I we just have to
get started and say there are several of these that
are obvious hoaxes that we have seen him been proven
to be hoaxes. Um this, there's this chemical reaction that
you can obtain. I think Darren Brown didn't turn around
(35:44):
cover this scam school or something like that. The chemical
reaction is, here's what happens that the person the claiming
to have these amazing supernatural abilities holds up a newspaper.
Behind the newspaper, there's a little plastic baggy and in
that bag there there's glide, glycerol I believe, and potassium
(36:07):
main unite seven And when they crumple it up, they
combine the two elements, which creates a combustion, right reaction,
And it will take a second for the newspaper to
catch a fire. But newspaper, of course, being highly combustible,
does catch a fire. And then the people just sort
of sort of stick for you de roy around it,
(36:28):
you know. Uh, David Copperfield stage magic stuff. You can
check out that video for free online to see how
that happens. What these are just a few examples of
the outlandish stuff. And yeah, can I just take a
second to say though at this point, that I think
it is so profoundly offensive to consciously misinformed people about
(36:49):
something that is thousands and thousands year old tradition. You know,
this idea that breathing, exercising, being mindful of what you
eat and how you live. Like, who could argue with that?
That's a great idea. Call it, call it what you want,
you know what I mean. But don't don't uh, don't
(37:10):
try to swindle people by telling them that you will
have superpowers. That's very Yeah, I completely agree, it's very
scientology to me. They're also claims about the health benefits
of g gong, right, Yes, Ben, Like we said, acupuncture,
people swear that that acupuncture works not only to relieve pain,
(37:32):
but to relieve other symptoms of problems that they're having.
But currently, unfortunately, the scientifically scientifically sound studies like pure reviews,
the ones that you could point to and say, okay,
well I really understand this, and then other people in
the field understand that this is what is happening. They
they're severely lacking currently, at least by the standards of
(37:54):
Western medicine and research well and also by the standards
of some members of the Chinese scientific community. There's a
thing called the China Association of Science and Technology or
CASTE that has been conducting that had conducted wide ranging
studies of various che going practices or practitioners, and we're
(38:18):
trying to eliminate the fake ones. And they found that
there was a wide variance of stuff. There's a guy
named Dr Stephen Barrett who noted that many practice practitioners
of traditional Chinese medicine will separately see the same patient
presenting the same symptoms or or you know, telling them
(38:39):
the same symptoms and have well why widely varying diagnoses.
Um far beyond what you would call a second opinion,
just just very different stuff. And at this point, you know,
I have to ask, I have to ask you, man,
what do you think about she? It's a tough one.
(39:00):
I currently this is the way I'm going to couch this, Okay.
I currently have no evidence to believe that she is
anything outside of the elements, the chemicals and biological functions
of the natural world and my body. Okay, well that's
that's what the text of Ancient China say she is anyway.
(39:24):
Oh sure, I mean they just they just call all
of these things together g and that's and that's cool.
I'm down with that. It's just I don't believe that
it is a separate thing. I guess, right, I I see,
I see what you're what you're saying. Um, I definitely
think it has been just woefully misrepresented in at least
(39:48):
here in the West. You know, it's it's gotta be surprising.
I'd love to hear um from from some of our
other listeners here. It's gotta be surprising sometimes, especially if
you yourself. If we have anybody who practices alternative medicine
or is an authority on it, I'd love to hear
(40:08):
from you, because I'd love to hear the misconceptions that
you feel people in the West have. Yeah, I might
have this completely wrong in my viewpoint of it. Well, well,
it's just like while we were looking at this, and
when I was looking through Western research about she, one
thing that got me that I started wondering, you know,
was is this sort of like the old Chinese restaurant problem.
(40:32):
You know, when I was at when I was in college,
I would hang out with some of my friends were
four nationals right there from China, and we went to
a Chinese restaurant one time, and their reaction was very
much like what the hell is this? It was so
it was like, this is not Chinese food? Yeah, what
(40:52):
why are you pouring sugar on everything? You know? Which
is actually common reaction for people outside the stakes and anything.
But I wonder how much of it is misinterpreted. As
for the question of whether it is real, then it
has to go back to um double blind studies that
(41:13):
can prove a statistically significant thing. But of course you're
listening to this show. You want to know. If there's
stuff they don't want you to know, then what could
it be. We found two possibilities, ladies and gentlemen. One
possibility being that, uh that it's bunk. That the thing
(41:36):
that the they and the stuff they don't want you
to know are the self professed uh cheong masters who
will charge you money to listen to the air quotes
here teach you the no knockout punch. Yeah, well, or
anyone who profits off of it being a real thing,
right right. That's that's one. That's one option. Another is
(42:00):
that they would be uh the A m A or
other Western medical institutions who repress alternative therapies in hopes
of continuing the great, um, the great and brutal cycle
of profiting from people's health or lack thereof, right up? Uh,
(42:23):
that one hurts just the way you said it, even
I mean I can I can clearly see some validity
and in that at least in that the brutal cycle
does exist. Right. Maybe somebody doesn't want you to know
that we're all interconnected with this energy, Ben, and we
all are have powerful keygong masters inside of us, don't
(42:45):
avatary man. Okay, sorry, it's uh, I'm joking. That's that's possible.
But then why would somebody want to repress something like
that so they can control us, Ben through through that
common connection, through that zeitgeist. Maybe there's a film there
(43:08):
for sure, we could definitely do that before before we
go into this thing, I wanted to want to go
back to the stuff we've mentioned at the top, Uh,
the idea that people could control magnetism, right or project heat. Yes,
so these things are partially true. These are real superpowers, Asterix.
(43:33):
And you already know some of this, right because one
of the things that intense meditation teaches people to do.
And this is just this is amazing. I would be
cursing up a storm if this were not in all
ages show, because I am just really very excited. Yes,
Matt sees me almost cursing here across this. Uh. What
(43:55):
what we find is it is possible to gain control
for your normally involuntary bodily functions if you meditate frequently,
and and they're they're numerous monks of varying different religions
who are capable of doing this. You can raise and
(44:15):
lower your body temperature, you can uh increase and decrease
your heartbeat, right, and you can see this stuff and
this is this is real. This is not any kind
of um stage magic. You can see footage of monks,
for instance, who practice the thing called I think Troumo
(44:36):
or Tomo where they're they're having ice cold, wet sheets
thrown on them and they just start meditating. Yeah, and
they steam them dry, they steam dry the stuff or
and there was I think there's one European who learned
to do that and now he just jogs around. I
swear this is this guy was just jogging around, uh
(44:58):
in like show yeah, and then just antarctic weather and
whether that would have given other people frost bite and
his extremities were not suffering frostbite because he had this
control over his body. You also see people getting buried
alive with their their hands in the in the praying
position and just lowering their body responses almost like they're
(45:21):
in hibernation. That's real. That's spooky to be able to
do that. So okay, okay, sorry, uh the other thing,
I've got to go on a rant here. The other
the other thing is the ability, the magnetic ability. When
I was looking at various possible real superpowers, there's this
(45:42):
there's this friction thing that's actually happening. You remember, do
you read about this. Yeah, it's a it's a not
a magnetism. It's a stickiness, which is so much a grosser. Yeah, yeah,
it really is, and it's genetic, so it's kind of cool.
You might see the the videos of a person putting
a spoon or other metal objects on the body, on
(46:03):
their face, on their nose, on their chests, all over,
and it's like, oh man, this guy is a magnet.
Holy Moldy and his children have the same power. What
race of mutants, Well kind of, Well, it's just a
genetic condition that alters your skin. Yeah, and they have
(46:23):
a higher have a higher frictive ability. I believe things.
Things are just more likely to stick to them. They
are stickier people. That is, that is the actual thing
that's happening. There, the the other, the other thing. And
I think perhaps one of the most important takeaways from
this because I know we spend a lot of time
(46:45):
today talking about how untrue a lot of the claims
might be right and how unfair it might be too.
You know, someone who knows nothing about this stuff too
to hear these outrageous things first and then be inevitably disappointed.
(47:06):
Here here's the amazing thing. And I think you and
I have talked about this on the show, but I'll
just wave the flag again because Uh, it's fascinating. There
really is such a thing as mind over matter. It
is literal the way you think, just by the virtue
of the thought alone changes the physical world in the
(47:27):
most direct, amazing and terrifying way, which is, it changes
the structure or the ratios of areas of your brain.
We we've talked before about studies of London cab drivers, right, uh,
London cab driver's background have to take a test called
the Knowledge, and the knowledge is super ridiculously hard. People
(47:48):
are expected to fail at several times. But and the
reason so hard is because you you cannot use the GPS, etcetera.
You have to memorize all these different routes in the
way they interconnect, and a your people have become lending
cavies for you know, decades. The area of their brain
that's associated with spatial memory is larger than an average person.
(48:11):
The same thing happens with I think there was a
study of Buddhist monks who were meditating for for the
same time, right, and the area of their brain with
associated with compassion or empathy was larger, not like a
little bit, like noticeably the way that you would look
(48:31):
at someone who only worked out their left arm and
notice how much bigger their left arm is. And now,
just to clarify, we're not talking about the secret style
positive thinking getting a lot of money because you think
possibly you're finding that's not at all what we're saying here. Yeah,
(48:51):
we're talking about the kind of thoughts you have literally
changing the way your brain grows are changing um m mm,
brain grows very slowly, changing the the function perhaps is
more fair way to say it. But still that that
isn't that is an amazing thing. And if the techniques
(49:12):
of various forms of cheng can help you achieve that
kind of thing, or if they help you overall in
your life and your wellness and they uh lengthen your
lifespan or at least length in the good parts of
its right? Was it like Dennis Leary who used to say,
you know, I don't want to live till I'm ninety
(49:33):
or whatever, because the last few years are gonna suck.
I think Dennis Leary said that, but I it always
makes you nervous quoting him because I always feel like
somebody else said it first. Whoa way is that an? Yeah?
A little too much of the Louis c k. You
used your cheek to burn him, his skin his sizzling,
(49:55):
he got a burn? Notice had a pop culture reference?
Really nice. By the way, have you seen the show
this is Apropo Nothing? Have you seen the show Mr
Robot on USA Network? I have not, No, I don't.
I don't watch a lot of dude, they made that
show for us and our listeners, and I'm not getting
(50:16):
paid to promote the show. Just I'm saying give it
a chance because it's it's basically like Fight Club and
the Matrix smash them together, plus uh the illuminatis in there.
It's crazy. I love it all right, I'm gonna check
out Mr Robot and and Christians later. By the way,
(50:40):
who's Christians later on sea? Did you hear that sound cute?
That can only mean one thing. Hey, it's our moment
with no So. I watched the trailer for Mr. Robot
the other day and it looks looks really good. I
haven't seen it yet, but like there's like an Anonymous
esque Oh yeah, anymously about it really with a slightly
(51:02):
different masks, more of a mustache because they didn't want
to get sued. Can you imagine Anonymous taking someone to court? Guys,
I wanted and I'm glad we're all here. I wanted
to read a couple of tweets from our from our
last podcast because we had some people talk remember our
(51:25):
podcast that we were trying to figure out which animals, Well,
we had some people right to us with their choices.
Do you guys want to hear them, yes please, Okay,
let's see there's one rather strange one. They Uh, somebody
wanted to eat be a small animal and eat coffee. Yeah.
(51:45):
Shout out to a baby lion cub who said the
baby lion cub chose to be an Asian palm civet
because eating and pooping out coffee beans all day is
the ultimate dream job in now? Is that the coffee
that's really expensive? Yes, supposed what's good about it? Is
(52:06):
it and give you animal powers? It's just like it's
supposed to taste really good. It's got of it's kind
a certain new mommy, Yes, certain a certain you mommy.
Uh and then uh then uh kelsey Eto writes to us, says,
(52:27):
if I could be any animal, I would turn into
ter topsus dorney and be immortal. That's a little jellyfish, right.
The immortal fish turns into a baby continually. And then
we had we had some folks right in. Uh say,
don't be a cow. Uh. Jake Collins road In says,
I know it sounds weird, but I'd love to be
(52:47):
a duck skin walker, able to fly, swim and be
cute beyond reason. So sort of a one upping of mine.
I mean, I didn't think about that. But it's like,
if you're a duck, then you can fly and you
can swim, and the whole corkscrew thing. I don't know
about that. We're family show, look up duck cork screw. Uh. Yeah,
(53:11):
ducks are horrible people. If ducks were people, they would
be bad people. Um, I just based on their behavior
and like they would mainly just swim in giant pools
of golden coins. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Did you know
that you will be seriously injured if you attempt to
do that? Yeah. For some reason, there was a study
whereas the one said, how would this work? Just just
(53:34):
in case I've wasted all my time on paper? But
it would be less of a splash and more of
like a yeah, yeah, well no, I'm sorry. I just
I was excited to uh talk more about the kind
of animals who we would be, because I clearly have
my priorities aligned. But but what's on your mind with this,
with this whole cheese stuff? Oh I don't know, man,
(53:56):
I was too busy playing the new Fallout Shelter iPhone game.
What have you guys seen this? You guys familiar with
the Fallout games. I mean, I know Fallout. Yeah, so
there's a there's an iPhone Fallout game that's sort of
like a Fallout version of the SIMS where you have
your little vault dwellers and you organize them in these
various underground Fallout Shelter compartments. And it sounds really cool,
(54:17):
though it's really but are are you admitting to just
sitting there and playing a game while we Ben and
I are having this philosophical discussion about the energy inside
all of us? I'm half admitting it, but I'm not
fully admitting it. Listen, I know I actually I've got
a thing. You want to hear my thing? I want
to hear you. Yeah, I haven't. I literally have not slept. Man,
give me something. No, you got it, and you got
(54:37):
This isn't very good, But you know the band Tool
You guys familiar with the band? So their singer Maynard
James Keenan, who I think mainly just makes wine. Now
I don't think he actually sings anymore. That's not sure.
I'm kidding. I think still refuses to wear a shirt
that well. Yeah. Um, but a friend of mine a
long time ago who lived in Los Angeles told me
(54:58):
the story about um being with somebody and running into
Maynard James Keenan on the street, and for whatever reason,
like you do, his friend decided he'd shoot a bottle
rocket at him. He just happened to have one, and
maybe it wasn't a bottle rocket, it was a it
was a firecracker. Let's let's let's just it's pretty fat.
But here's what happened. So he throws the firecracker at
James Maynard James Keenan's feet, and Maynard kind of looks
(55:21):
at it and it goes out, and the guy's like, WHOA,
what do you happened there? And Mayard goes I put
it out with my mind, man, So I think Maynard's
got some serious That's great, as long as he can't
ignite the firecrackers. I'm I don't know, but I also
(55:45):
don't throw firecrackers at strangers. No, it's an odd story.
It almost sounds made up, but I like to tell it.
That's a fun story. It's like that getting tackled by
Bill Murray in the hallway of the hotel. Story, you know,
we're whispers is like in your ear, like no one's
going to believe you. Oh yeah, I'll believe you. I
often wonder how many of those stories are true. Um,
we didn't get to everybody who rode in to say
(56:07):
which animals they would transform to, but we got some.
We got some fantastic suggestions. They made me. Uh, they
made me rethink you guys, I I really, um, I
really think. Well, I well, I think we ended on
an octopus. I don't know, I think we really. I
kind of screwed us when I said no fictional animals.
(56:28):
You know, yeah, there's so many of those though, it
would have taken me a week to really narrow down
what I wanted to be. Yeah, well, let's keep thinking
like the octopus. Things seem cool because you know, there
are certain types of octopus that can transform into different
thing as a try sera corn, because there should be
try seric. Oh man, yeah, wait is it a dinosaur horse?
(56:51):
Well that's all up to your imagination, isn't. Yeah, it's
a three horned unicorn U dinosaur like creature, so all
the powers of those creatures combined. I love it. Uh
that that's that's fantastic. I hope it doesn't have scales,
but that is that is fantastic. All right, so let
(57:12):
us know what you think about ch and thank you
so much for listening. We mentioned a couple of different
articles that are on our website or parent website, how
Stuff Works dot com if you want to learn more
about this, if you haven't checked out the video we
had that came out earlier this week, our our classic
video on the alleged Dragon family. And you like to
(57:36):
hear about big brother type world domination, conspiracies, money printing
and laundering, World War two lost treasures, or counterfeiting, uh,
then check it out. I think the best teaser for that,
if you haven't seen it is that, oh, several years
back and you and I think it already started the show.
(57:58):
But several years back, two thousand nine exactly, uh, several
several different foreign nationals were arrested on their way to
Switzerland or yeah, what was the rest in Switzerland? Want
to rest in Italy attempting to smuggle what the Treasury
(58:22):
Department says were clearly counterfeit uh billion and billion dollar notes,
but they were either professionally aged or they really were
old counterfeit notes. They were spelling errors. There were spelling errors,
which isn't head giveaway uh or this is absolutelyunk, but
this is a fascinating story. Do check it out. Let
(58:44):
us know what you think. You can find us on
Facebook and Twitter, where you can see a lot of
stories that don't make it to the air for one
reason or another. But do check it out. We're active
on their own conspiracy stuff at both of those. You
can visit our websites. Stuff they Don't want you to
o dot com. And that's the end of this classic episode.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
(59:08):
you can get into contact with us in a number
of different ways. One of the best is to give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three
st d w y t K. If you don't want
to do that, you can send us a good old
fashioned email. We are conspiracy at I heart radio dot com.
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
(59:30):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
So have you ever felt that there was some sort
of energy, almost a palpable energy that was coming from
you or from another person? I think we've all felt
at least something like a vibe, right, Oh, absolutely, a
vibe much like the seminal nineties comedy adventure mystery classic
(00:21):
Vibeski whatever. I found it on Prime. I'm gonna watch it. Okay, God,
thank you that? But yes, uh, energy that's inside of
us that can be transferred in some way? Can it
be harnessed? Like? What could you use that for? If
(00:42):
that energy existed? That's what this episode is all about.
My gones, I'm so excited for this convo. We published
this back in July of I wonder how our ch
has changed since then. Let's find out from UFOs two
Ghosts and Government Cover. History is writtled with unexplained events.
(01:03):
You can turn back now or learn the stuff they
don't want you to now. Hello, and welcome back to
the show. My name is Matt and I am ben
uh No sleep till Brooklyn Boland here with our super
producer Noel the Iron Fist Brown. Oh, I knew that
(01:27):
was you. Oh and there's Jason. Hey, that's up, Jason, Yeah,
are what one of our bosses is named Jason. That
is true. We're not just making that up. So listeners,
as you know, usually we have some hints about the
show embedded in our super producer's nickname. But some of
(01:49):
you might be wondering, Hey, wait, Ben, why did you
give yourself a nickname in this Well there, it was
quite literal. Yes, it was quite literal and remains so. First,
of course, guys, we uh we we may have been
born yesterday, but we've been awake all night. As the
old joke goes, uh, so we know you guys, we
(02:13):
know you're not supposed to give yourself your own nickname.
That's that's a crap move. I was going to do
it if you didn't. Yeah, I am coming to you,
uh semi live, depending on when you hear this, uh
without having had any sleep. I've been awake for about
uh thirty six hours met you actually caught me trying
(02:36):
to sleep in my car in the parking deck. So
this might be a little bit of a weird podcast
on my end. That's why I have a nickname. Today.
It's gonna be great. That's how I like it. When
it gets nice and weird up in here, we send
the weird waves through these these chords and out into
your ears. So there, you know, we're today, we're gonna
(02:56):
talk about something that is a little out there. Some
of you might not really I don't know you. You
might be thinking, oh gosh, why why would they even
talk about this? Right right? But then others are are
going to are gonna go, oh man, they're finally talking
about this. Well, that happens pretty often that let's face.
And then also we will have a contention of people
who will say, this is just terrible. You're doing a
(03:20):
terrible job. But but let's let's ease into it. Here's
one for the fans of comic books. Okay, and I'm
gonna be very careful not to spoil too much of
this because if you're a fan of comic books, it
might come up in your life a few years from now.
But there is a character in Marvel Comics whose name
(03:44):
is Iron Fist and nol today, iron Fist is your namesake.
Iron Fist has the has pretty much martial arts superpowers,
and he can focus this energy that he has to
give himself uh slightly enhanced strength, but also you know,
(04:07):
superhuman reflexes. Agility, the whole nine better senses, but not
as good as Daredevil, which is important. And he has
this this one big move. The power of it changes
depending on who's writing the story at that time, where
he can focus all of this energy into one punch
(04:28):
and this punch is amazing, and when it first started,
he can only do it once a day and he
was just garbage after that. She had to be very selective,
like a smart bomb in um, you know, in an
old Atari game or something. But what was but when
he focused this thing? Uh, it had a name? What
what was this energy he was focusing? Well, it has
(04:51):
a lot of different names, depending on where you're born
and what culture surrounds you, but the most common is cheat.
Uh yes, spelled with a q I or c h I. Uh.
Here's the deal today we are talking about g is
she real? What is she? What is real? Now? I'm kidding.
(05:15):
That's a lot for one episode. Yeah, so let's just
start here. The human body is an astonishing thing. And
the more we learn about the human body, not just
the brain, but the more we learn about the human
body in general, it seems the more questions we have.
So we were gonna do a little bit of backstory, Matt,
You and I were gonna do two videos this week,
(05:38):
one with our classic format and one with a vlog,
but I was in New York on some completely non
shady business, as you may have heard me allude to
on Facebook. So we're sticking with one this week. And Uh,
I'd like to talk to you a little bit about, uh,
the video that we actually didn't make, so we can
at least get some of that story out here in
(05:59):
the audio pod cast. And then when you're talking to
other people who just watched the videos, you can say, oh, well,
if you listen to the audio show, then you would
you would know, you know, you would be on like
my level of noatude, the notatude of knowing that the
human body is crazy. Like Ben said, there are things
(06:19):
we're learning about it that I never would have believed. Uh.
I don't know even recently. It's tough for me to
believe this stuff. But it is true that the human
body produces energies. Um. There are a couple of different ones. Uh.
One of the first ones that we want to talk
about is electricity. Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but
(06:39):
it's true. Without electricity, your your brain wouldn't work. Yeah,
and that's something that we weaving the human species have
known for a little while. You know that electricity is
the great impetus that makes all the things happen, right,
all the matt things, all the null things, listener, you,
all the youth thing has happen. And there's there's a
(07:01):
pretty good article about this on the how Stuff Works
website too. Yeah, it's called how does the body make
electricity and how does it use it? And that's by
one of the writers here, Julia Layton. Yeah, and we've
got a great quotation here from the article, just to
just to put into context electricities role in the body
and the brain. When we talk about the nervous system
(07:25):
sending signals to the brain, or synapses firing, or the
brain telling our hands to contract around a door handle,
what we're really talking about is electricity carrying messages between
point A and point B. It's sort of like the
digital cable signals that carry ones and zeros that deliver
true detective to your eyeballs, except in our bodies, electrons
(07:46):
aren't flowing along a wire. Instead, an electrical charge is
jumping from one cell to the next until it reaches
its destination. Right, Yeah, I think that's a pretty good explanation.
Here's one of the things that the body also produces
that tripped you and I, al, this was unexpected light. Uh.
To paraphrase Rihanna, you do indeed shine bright like a diamond.
(08:09):
Well not not quite that right, right, absolutely not that right.
But we said, like, so we have a little here's
the deal. The human body produces a small amount of light.
In two thousand nine, Life Science and The Guardian both
reported a study that showed all human beings, in fact,
virtually all living creatures emit visible light, at least in
(08:29):
small amounts. What. Yeah, it sounds crazy, but stick with
me here. We're not talking about light that you and
I could just see with our naked eye when you're
walking around. We don't glow in the dark. We're talking
about huh. I'm so sorry to what was that song?
With my naked eye? I saw with my naked eye
eyes rain coming down? Oh yeah, yeah? Who was who
(08:55):
is that? I say it was Luscious Jackson. Luscious Jackson,
damn so Luscious? I guess Luscious? Yeah, yeah, she she understood?
Is it is it she? Or is it a he? Is?
It's like a group of people, a group of ladies,
a band, if you would, I apologize for not being
on my luscious Jackson knowledge. I apologize for interrupting you
(09:19):
with this, with his ramply thing. It's been a it's
been a long couple of days. But good save No,
I'm sorry. But back back to say. I'm not saying
we glow in the dark. But what I'm saying is that, uh,
living things emit light that is roughly a thousand times
less intense than what we could detect with our eye.
It is detectable, right, Okay, I see what you're saying,
(09:42):
similar to the way that some stars are visible only
through the aid of a telescope or something like that,
or or if you if you leave a lens open
for long enough. Okay, that makes sense. This study also
showed that the light that people admitted varied throughout the day.
It was lowest and around ten am, and it was
(10:05):
peaking around four p m T when it gradually declined. Uh.
Your face, by the way, assuming you're human, as you
hear this, UH will probably globe brighter than the rest
of your body. According to this one study we have.
I have to say that just because this hasn't been
you know, studied a lot. But it was really interesting. Yeah,
(10:27):
it is interesting, um and I can already foresee some
of the questions here, the question of like, well, ten am,
whare right? We can cranach meantime, it appears to be
tied to an individual's body clock, this slow rise and
fall of your your light source. So if you are
(10:51):
doing anything extremely important, try and time it somewhere around
four because maybe that light is having an effect that
you're not aware of. Wow, you know what, that would
be an interesting study to to see if it if
it mattered whatsoever, if there were animals that could sense
that light. Now, of course we're not talking about infrared,
and there are some animals whose vision verges into the
(11:14):
infrared spectrum, right, But anyway, that's interesting because it shows
that human beings emit things like electricity and light. And
there are other examples of course, heat, electromagnetic force, etcetera,
etcetera at all. But we started looking at this because
we wanted to ask a different, somewhat related question. But
(11:36):
what what is? What is cheat? But we've heard about it, right,
I've heard about it since I was a kid or
stories and just you know, you see all the like
acupuncture and other things that make use of this energy,
like energy redirection, healing without the stuff. But we hadn't
(11:57):
really delved very deeply into this. So get ready, folks,
we're on the diving board. Here we go, right, Okay, Yeah,
it's true, Matt. You've you've heard it before. I've heard
it before, Nol, You've heard it before. Listeners, you have to.
It's often mentioned in the context of traditional Chinese medicine,
maybe martial arts. It's also been used in fiction and
(12:18):
it's been heavily exploited by Hollywood. It's been cited as
this miraculous curative force and more. It has also been
dismissed by critics as a scam or flim flam, a superstition,
a sham. So what what is the definition of this? What?
What gives? What would we call it? Well, in Chinese
(12:39):
philosophy and Chinese medicine, she is this vital thing that
exists in everything in the universe. It's it's invisible, and
it's this unique form that's often interpreted as some sort
of energy. Let's see, well, we'll get to the whole
idea of what the energy is in a moment. But
(13:00):
for now, let's take it as let's take this as
a fact, at least for the sake of argument. Agreed
that this g is energy. So the belief in this
sort of ubiquitous energy isn't unique. It's not unique to
Chinese tradition or any of the other places that you
may have heard that it is unique to. It's uh,
it's known as in general vitalism. It's the vital energy
(13:23):
that runs all things, this belief in in some kind
of ubiquitous energies. Yes, okay, so okay, So that would
be kind of like praana in Hinduism or numa in Greek,
or even in physics. Right, even even in even in physics,
we we could also say what I'm thinking of another one, Oh,
(13:44):
the nazis real, real energy, real would be one. That's uh,
that's a deep cut for the people who listen to
our earlier Nazi stuff. That that quit quintessence, I think
is the name of it. The the fifth the fifth element,
the element of the heaven, and so it was present
in all nature and the stuff of which celestial bodies
was made. I feel like dark energy, it's a HYPOTHETI
(14:07):
hypothetical version or idea of what dark energy would be.
So basically the Force. Yes, if we want to if
we want to go full into full fiction references, then
Chi and this and this is not meant in a
derogatory way at all. This is just meant to show,
if anything, the the kind of concept, that the kind
(14:31):
of concept that the Force was building upon real life.
So so g would be in some ways like the
like a real life version of the Force. And as
we know, real life is not like a film solway. Yeah,
so I apologize to everybody who expected they would get
a lightsaber once they completed their practice, once they become
(14:53):
a che Gong master. Chee Gong is the is the
name for UH set of practices and a postures exercises
a clear slow circular movements, regulated breathing, focused meditation, things
like that. There are three different styles. They're classified as martial, medical,
or spiritual. UH. Some chee long styles are gentler like
(15:18):
tai chi and can be adapted. Others are more vigorous.
But one one of the unique features of this is
UH the ability to train the mind to direct the
body's energy or che to any part of the body.
But that's that's just to explain what che gong is.
So when we say that, we're talking about people, we're
(15:39):
talking about the practice of using she consciously. But maybe
maybe I'm getting a little ahead of our Wait, I
can't get ahead of ourselves. Maybe I'm just messing up
the show. What what does she even mean? In English? Yeah?
Ben so she in English, if it's translated is air.
(16:00):
That's what it means. Literally. While this is often seen
as an energy, as we said before, authors like Chris
Kessner argue that it's best interpreted as oxygen rather than energy,
a an essential element. Almost right, Yeah, No, Chris Kesser,
we found because he's a bit contrarian. When he talks
(16:22):
about some of this. He claims that there are a
lot of mistranslations or misconceptions, rather mistranslations of Chinese culture
and language that led to misconceptions in the West. And
for the record, I completely agree with him in principle.
I don't know how, I don't know how absolutely I
would agree with his specifics. But he claims this mistranslation
(16:45):
of of chi as energy instead of oxygen was single
handedly created by a French fellow named solid de moron Uh.
In traditional Chinese medicine. She is thought to travel through
these channels called meridians getting kept. Kesser disputes this, calling
them notes. Let's just go ahead and assume for the
rest of the show that when we're talking about G
(17:09):
and we're we're just touching on some of the high
level stuff, that that the that Chris Kesser is the
person you would go to to read about. If you
think this is I don't want to say bunk, but
if you think this is a vast misconception, this is
something different than what's on the surface, right, right, So
if we talked about acupuncture, acupuncture is insertion of needles
(17:32):
in two points along these channels or nodes, and this
is done to adjust the positive negative aspects of G
the the yang being the positive, the end being the negative,
to help maintain a balance of such of sorts and
other things can affect this balance to right, Yeah, have
you ever done acupuncture? I have not. You know, I
(17:52):
have huge I have huge issues with touching metal. Yes,
so I can't if there were like stone or wooden needles,
even if it okay, So when the metal thing, is
it just your hands touching metal or is it metal
just touching your skin. No, it's it's a body wide experience,
like my sensory um inputs her crossed and the associations
(18:16):
are unpleasant. Okay. So, so my wife tried acupuncture for
the first time not long ago. Oh no way. Yeah,
she she said she felt great afterwards. But she attributed
that to just being in a relaxed state for a
long period of time. She's very she had a very
stressful job for quite a while there, and then just
(18:36):
going into room with quiet music and someone gently touching you,
even if they're shoving a needle in you, just a
little bit, just meditating him. Yeah, so she felt great afterwards,
and but that's what she Okay, you know what, that's
kind of cool, man, That's that's amazing. I'd love to
hear more about her her experience because, as we know,
(18:57):
people have used acupuncture for very long time, and it's
popular across the world now and people swear by it.
Maw uh. And we know also that our friends over
at Stuff you Should Know have a great podcast on
acupuncture if you want to learn more about it. So
(19:19):
here's where we start to get into some of the
more divisive stuff. I know a lot of people are
not sold on acupuncture. And then a lot of people
think that Western medical institutions are suppressing acupuncture any natural
alternative medicine. So we we know those two sides of
(19:40):
the argument. Or there, let's let's bracket that for a
second and get into some of the weirder stuff with
the idea that practitioners of che gong are able to
direct the effects of ch just by using their minds
and their hands at raky massage or energy redirect feel
(20:00):
like raiky is kind of a low level version of
some of the Keygong practitioners I've seen, at least on videos. Now.
I'm not trying to diminish reiki at all. I know
several people. It's just a different thing. It's a different thing.
The key Gong masters that I've seen are the ones
that say they can create heat, they can actually create
heat with their mind in their hands, and a couple
(20:23):
other things. I think magnetism was another idea that oh
remind me at the end of the episode because I can,
I can explain some of that. Excellent, Okay, So another thing, though,
these are not the only claims you'll see people who
are young doctors or master's claim to channel their own
(20:45):
energy or air into another person's energy kind of network, right,
correcting blockages as you can imagine, ladies and gentlemen. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Western medicine takes a dim view of many of these claims.
But we've we've seen enough so far to know that
(21:05):
without going into acupuncture, making this an acupuncture podcast. Uh,
we know that the definition of G of what is
ch isn't something as cut and dry do all these misconceptions,
So maybe it's best to understand SHE in terms of
its functions and its activities, right, So it as the Uh,
(21:28):
we'll just walk through it as the qualities of both
matter and energy. Right for those who believe it exists.
It has substance without structure. It possesses qualities of energy,
but it can't be measured. I hear so many people
on the other side of the microphone now groaning or
on the other side of me, because you should be
(21:49):
able to measure something, right if it's energy. So they
would say via analogy. There's a great comparison in one
of our articles that the force of a thunderstorm could
be understand and understood in terms of its cheat because
you could measure the power of the chi in the
fallen trees and buildings in the storms aftermath. I get it,
(22:11):
but I'm a little hesitant with I'm a little hesitant
to uh totally subscribe to something because of an analogy.
Well yeah, and it makes me that analogy in particular
makes me think of the possible misinterpretation of g as
uh not energy but air or you know, the idea
(22:32):
that you can't see the wind, but you're pretty sure
that that tree was standing up earlier. Right now. There's
also we can kind of skip past the meridians stuff here,
but you know, we mentioned those meridians or those nodes
and the way that she is supposed to travel from
no to no passing through meridians. You'll hear people say
(22:53):
there's a cycle of twenty four hours, and that there's
certain times where where in a certain organ is is
more powerful, that the flow is strongest there. So the
concept here is that she is supposed to pass through
all the major channels or nodes and meridians of your body,
and that manipulating these points with pressure, heat, needles, et
(23:16):
cetera is the crux upon which so much of this
treatment hinges. You have to have the energy flow through
those points correctly. Um. So so we've talked about this,
let's talk about other functions or the main functions. Oh yeah, yeah,
there are five, right, yes, So the first one is transformation,
(23:39):
and this is the idea that she transform one type
of substance into another. Okay, so let's say the spleen.
She transforms food into she and blood. Right, Okay, that
the body and the body can use that. So use
uses both of these things that she to make everything
else work. And then the blood, well, the blood to
(24:00):
make everything else working. For right, the kidney transforms fluids
into pure essence and waste water. And then you know,
in the same way you keep going on down to
say the long and transforms air into the energy to
sustain life. So transformation is the first one. Movement would
be the second, all movement accompanied by its own chi
including growth, development, whalking, breathing, thinking that she is the
(24:25):
commander of the blood as you might have heard before.
What's the third one? Third one is protection, the idea
that she protects the body against attacked by diseases, um,
and other things. If if a person's che is weak,
that person may experience frequent illnesses because they're white blood
cells or CHI aren't doing so hot. Uh, and then
they're the fourth wound be retention, the fourth function of chi.
(24:48):
That's the idea that she keeps the organs in their
proper place. So that's the reason that you're not vomiting
up your hearts or something. Thank good. That and numerous
anatomical facts. But the uh, the idea here is that
deficiency can lead to pro lapse, bleeding disorders, excessive sweating,
(25:10):
or urination. And there's one last one. The last one
is warming. The yang aspect of kidney che keeps the
entire body warm, which is pretty nice. Um. When it
is deficient in this way, chronic cold extremities like cold
extremities as in your arms or your legs. Mostly you
(25:30):
will have decreased function in all activities that require warmth,
such as digestion or other things that go on inside
your innards. Okay, so we know that G is at
least attributed to doing a whole host of things for
the human body and of all other living entities inside
their bodies. We also know that as we went through there,
(25:52):
we were saying things like the lungs, cheat spleen, ch
that's weird, right, Yeah, those are different types of she
because Chinese medicine typically divides she in the various types
depending on source and function. So the original source of
this force would be your parents, and that she inherited
from them is known as prenatal chi. So this is
(26:15):
the basic constitution of a human being. It depends upon genetics,
the quality of the parents lives at the time of
conception and during pregnancy. This, ladies and gentlemen, if you
believe in she is your heritage. It cannot be replenished.
A healthy lifestyle, diet and breathing practices, however, can conserve
(26:35):
prenatal CHI and slow down its depletion. That's really cool.
So I'm almost thinking of it as in terms of
stem cells or something. You're stem cell chi, right, or
maybe the way that a woman only has a certain
number of eggs in her life and those can be depleted.
But um, But the argument here, of course being that
(26:58):
there's certain actions one can take to slow that loss.
But there's another type of CHI there that's just as important. Yes,
once you are postnatal, you get the postnatal she, and
this is she that's acquired or derived from food you're eating.
The stuff you're drinking, the air you're breathing. This, when
(27:20):
combined with prenatal CHI, forms the totality of the body's
power to perform all of these things. We're talking about,
all the vital functions of your body. And then there's
lung cheese, spleen she true she, which is the totality
of CHI, the results from the combination of the prenatal
and the postnatal stuff. This is responsible for all the
(27:40):
functions of the body. Takes different forms. Uh, there's there's
also uh nutritive she. You can hear about these different
types of CHI. But what what I would like to
get to is, uh, the the claims attributed to these
(28:00):
she too young masters, right, so called sometimes self professed,
let's be honest, sometimes self professed. And we're you know,
we're not here in any way to denigrate serious practitioners
of something that people believe in, but we will tell
(28:22):
you that there are quite a few claims made by
people who also claim to be ch Gong masters. And uh,
all these claims are not created equal. I mean, you
can start with stuff like someone is an acupuncturist, right, Uh,
that's that's believable. People around the world again engage in acupuncture,
(28:43):
and I know some people think it's utter bunk, some
people swear by it, but this is not an acupuncture
episode because we're going further afield, right, We're going to
the people who claim that they have superpowers. Essentially, I'm
very I'm very as you know, I'm very interest in
having superpowers. So we're aware, right, So I looked into this, uh,
(29:05):
and I just I don't want to spoil this surprise
for anybody, but let's take a closer look at some
of these, right, So, so checking can the idea that
it can give you superhuman abilities, particularly when it comes
to a standing pain. You'll see people being beaten with. Uh.
Once you hear the air quotes here, iron bars, you'll
(29:29):
see and and they may indeed be iron you know.
I wouldn't want to test it out, That's all I'm saying. Right, Yeah,
you definitely have to train, you know. It's like the
whole thing with when people say wrestling is fake, it's
there's still trained professionals. It's those athletes. Watch yourself, right,
and then and then it is true that there are
(29:50):
people who are trained to take massive amounts of damage
that would seriously injure another person. Right, absolutely, but maybe
not to a superhuman degree. You'll often here's skeptics, Darren
Brown's one who attribute these sorts of performances to just
that performances stage magic. Right. But there's another bigger one
(30:12):
that that goes back to our friend Noel the iron
Fist Brown. Oh, yes, Ben, that would be the no
punch knockout. You may have seen videos of guys who
are wearing like the Master belts in some kind of
martial arts garb, and there are a bunch of people
running up to them and they're just knocking them over.
(30:33):
You may have seen this. I watched a video like
that recently because I would. I somehow was watching an
mm A video and then it was on one of
the you know, on the right rail. Uh. It was
kind of kind of upsetting. Actually. It was one of
these practitioners who it's a video of the Master and
his students and he's just demonstrating how he can knock
(30:56):
out all of his students without touching them. And then yes,
and then he challenges and m M a fighter and
wagers lots of money and says that he can beat
him up without touching him, and the m M. A
fighter proceeds to break the guy's nose and hurt him
really badly. Is this one where the um it's old?
(31:20):
Is this the one where the guy says he'll put
up a force field? Yeah? I totally remember so this. Yeah,
this is a thing that's unfortunately fairly common to see
online now. And it is true that people can break
wood or cinder blocks with their bare hands. They're doing it.
(31:43):
They used to do it as a kid. What as
like martial arts. We're angry? Yeah, it was both. Oh okay,
did you did you break a center block? Really? No,
I've never got a center block. Buddy Scott did though. Wow? Man, right,
And that's completely possible for someone to break cinder blocks
with their bare hands. Listeners, If you train yourself right,
(32:06):
and you are safe, and you are assiduous, and you
practice and practice practice, then you too can eventually break
cinder blocks, but in a very specific way. You you
will probably still injure yourself if you go up to
a wall of cinder blocks and say, hey, guys, watch this,
I'm gonna go and guarantee that that will happen. Yeah,
(32:26):
it's gotta be. There's there's a science to it. But
when it comes to the idea of knocking someone to
the ground without touching them, there is a glaring commonality
for all of the people supposedly affected by these no
touch super punches, and it is this, they are true believers.
(32:47):
They believe this stuff really works. That's and that's not
saying Ben and I aren't saying that these videos you
were watching they're just a bunch of people faking it
and acting as though they're getting punched out. They believe
so wholeheartedly that this this master has these abilities or
even they perhaps have the abilities that it makes it
(33:08):
true for them. Right. Yeah, it's the power of suggestions,
similar to hypnosis, there being sincere. It's kind of like
gloss aalia, which is the five dollar word for speaking
in tongues, right, and what happens during that If you've
ever seen footage of this, and Matt, you and I
have watched some documentary stuff with this. I have seen
(33:31):
people do it in Tennessee. Uh. People do it in
churches as well. Yeah, And what this speaking in tongues
uh thing is is supposed to be in in various
belief systems, is a direct touch of the divine right.
(33:53):
Perhaps speaking or assumed to be speaking uh in in
a coherent manner, in a language that the human I
guess medium for this, right, the human vessel for this
has has no knowledge of Uh. We've seen some great
research on glass Alelia that that proves it is a
(34:14):
real thing. And the people who are undergoing this, just
like the people who are falling to a no touch
knockout punch, believe that it is happening. They're sincere. They're
not trying to, you know, be cool or something. It's
not like Craig is saying, all I better fall down
so I get promoted in this thing or whatever. It's
(34:38):
it's a real thing. They believe on some level that
this is the way they're supposed to act. So every
and you know, maybe I would be so excited if
I found somebody could really do this, And if you
know someone, please send them our way. Yeah, we'd love
to we'd love to see what happen in real life.
But in the fact of the manner is, at this point,
(35:00):
we haven't found anything like that. Uh. Let's go to
and oh, yeah, yeah, you've seen this, and you know
what's coming up. Yeah, there's another one. You've probably seen
videos of now, thank goodness for YouTube, Thank you YouTube,
where where someone can use their cheap hours to ignite
a orld piece of paper, a newspaper, some form of
(35:22):
flammable substance. And okay, so I we just have to
get started and say there are several of these that
are obvious hoaxes that we have seen him been proven
to be hoaxes. Um this, there's this chemical reaction that
you can obtain. I think Darren Brown didn't turn around
(35:44):
cover this scam school or something like that. The chemical
reaction is, here's what happens that the person the claiming
to have these amazing supernatural abilities holds up a newspaper.
Behind the newspaper, there's a little plastic baggy and in
that bag there there's glide, glycerol I believe, and potassium
(36:07):
main unite seven And when they crumple it up, they
combine the two elements, which creates a combustion, right reaction,
And it will take a second for the newspaper to
catch a fire. But newspaper, of course, being highly combustible,
does catch a fire. And then the people just sort
of sort of stick for you de roy around it,
(36:28):
you know. Uh, David Copperfield stage magic stuff. You can
check out that video for free online to see how
that happens. What these are just a few examples of
the outlandish stuff. And yeah, can I just take a
second to say though at this point, that I think
it is so profoundly offensive to consciously misinformed people about
(36:49):
something that is thousands and thousands year old tradition. You know,
this idea that breathing, exercising, being mindful of what you
eat and how you live. Like, who could argue with that?
That's a great idea. Call it, call it what you want,
you know what I mean. But don't don't uh, don't
(37:10):
try to swindle people by telling them that you will
have superpowers. That's very Yeah, I completely agree, it's very
scientology to me. They're also claims about the health benefits
of g gong, right, Yes, Ben, Like we said, acupuncture,
people swear that that acupuncture works not only to relieve pain,
(37:32):
but to relieve other symptoms of problems that they're having.
But currently, unfortunately, the scientifically scientifically sound studies like pure reviews,
the ones that you could point to and say, okay,
well I really understand this, and then other people in
the field understand that this is what is happening. They
they're severely lacking currently, at least by the standards of
(37:54):
Western medicine and research well and also by the standards
of some members of the Chinese scientific community. There's a
thing called the China Association of Science and Technology or
CASTE that has been conducting that had conducted wide ranging
studies of various che going practices or practitioners, and we're
(38:18):
trying to eliminate the fake ones. And they found that
there was a wide variance of stuff. There's a guy
named Dr Stephen Barrett who noted that many practice practitioners
of traditional Chinese medicine will separately see the same patient
presenting the same symptoms or or you know, telling them
(38:39):
the same symptoms and have well why widely varying diagnoses.
Um far beyond what you would call a second opinion,
just just very different stuff. And at this point, you know,
I have to ask, I have to ask you, man,
what do you think about she? It's a tough one.
(39:00):
I currently this is the way I'm going to couch this, Okay.
I currently have no evidence to believe that she is
anything outside of the elements, the chemicals and biological functions
of the natural world and my body. Okay, well that's
that's what the text of Ancient China say she is anyway.
(39:24):
Oh sure, I mean they just they just call all
of these things together g and that's and that's cool.
I'm down with that. It's just I don't believe that
it is a separate thing. I guess, right, I I see,
I see what you're what you're saying. Um, I definitely
think it has been just woefully misrepresented in at least
(39:48):
here in the West. You know, it's it's gotta be surprising.
I'd love to hear um from from some of our
other listeners here. It's gotta be surprising sometimes, especially if
you yourself. If we have anybody who practices alternative medicine
or is an authority on it, I'd love to hear
(40:08):
from you, because I'd love to hear the misconceptions that
you feel people in the West have. Yeah, I might
have this completely wrong in my viewpoint of it. Well, well,
it's just like while we were looking at this, and
when I was looking through Western research about she, one
thing that got me that I started wondering, you know,
was is this sort of like the old Chinese restaurant problem.
(40:32):
You know, when I was at when I was in college,
I would hang out with some of my friends were
four nationals right there from China, and we went to
a Chinese restaurant one time, and their reaction was very
much like what the hell is this? It was so
it was like, this is not Chinese food? Yeah, what
(40:52):
why are you pouring sugar on everything? You know? Which
is actually common reaction for people outside the stakes and anything.
But I wonder how much of it is misinterpreted. As
for the question of whether it is real, then it
has to go back to um double blind studies that
(41:13):
can prove a statistically significant thing. But of course you're
listening to this show. You want to know. If there's
stuff they don't want you to know, then what could
it be. We found two possibilities, ladies and gentlemen. One
possibility being that, uh that it's bunk. That the thing
(41:36):
that the they and the stuff they don't want you
to know are the self professed uh cheong masters who
will charge you money to listen to the air quotes
here teach you the no knockout punch. Yeah, well, or
anyone who profits off of it being a real thing,
right right. That's that's one. That's one option. Another is
(42:00):
that they would be uh the A m A or
other Western medical institutions who repress alternative therapies in hopes
of continuing the great, um, the great and brutal cycle
of profiting from people's health or lack thereof, right up? Uh,
(42:23):
that one hurts just the way you said it, even
I mean I can I can clearly see some validity
and in that at least in that the brutal cycle
does exist. Right. Maybe somebody doesn't want you to know
that we're all interconnected with this energy, Ben, and we
all are have powerful keygong masters inside of us, don't
(42:45):
avatary man. Okay, sorry, it's uh, I'm joking. That's that's possible.
But then why would somebody want to repress something like
that so they can control us, Ben through through that
common connection, through that zeitgeist. Maybe there's a film there
(43:08):
for sure, we could definitely do that before before we
go into this thing, I wanted to want to go
back to the stuff we've mentioned at the top, Uh,
the idea that people could control magnetism, right or project heat. Yes,
so these things are partially true. These are real superpowers, Asterix.
(43:33):
And you already know some of this, right because one
of the things that intense meditation teaches people to do.
And this is just this is amazing. I would be
cursing up a storm if this were not in all
ages show, because I am just really very excited. Yes,
Matt sees me almost cursing here across this. Uh. What
(43:55):
what we find is it is possible to gain control
for your normally involuntary bodily functions if you meditate frequently,
and and they're they're numerous monks of varying different religions
who are capable of doing this. You can raise and
(44:15):
lower your body temperature, you can uh increase and decrease
your heartbeat, right, and you can see this stuff and
this is this is real. This is not any kind
of um stage magic. You can see footage of monks,
for instance, who practice the thing called I think Troumo
(44:36):
or Tomo where they're they're having ice cold, wet sheets
thrown on them and they just start meditating. Yeah, and
they steam them dry, they steam dry the stuff or
and there was I think there's one European who learned
to do that and now he just jogs around. I
swear this is this guy was just jogging around, uh
(44:58):
in like show yeah, and then just antarctic weather and
whether that would have given other people frost bite and
his extremities were not suffering frostbite because he had this
control over his body. You also see people getting buried
alive with their their hands in the in the praying
position and just lowering their body responses almost like they're
(45:21):
in hibernation. That's real. That's spooky to be able to
do that. So okay, okay, sorry, uh the other thing,
I've got to go on a rant here. The other
the other thing is the ability, the magnetic ability. When
I was looking at various possible real superpowers, there's this
(45:42):
there's this friction thing that's actually happening. You remember, do
you read about this. Yeah, it's a it's a not
a magnetism. It's a stickiness, which is so much a grosser. Yeah, yeah,
it really is, and it's genetic, so it's kind of cool.
You might see the the videos of a person putting
a spoon or other metal objects on the body, on
(46:03):
their face, on their nose, on their chests, all over,
and it's like, oh man, this guy is a magnet.
Holy Moldy and his children have the same power. What
race of mutants, Well kind of, Well, it's just a
genetic condition that alters your skin. Yeah, and they have
(46:23):
a higher have a higher frictive ability. I believe things.
Things are just more likely to stick to them. They
are stickier people. That is, that is the actual thing
that's happening. There, the the other, the other thing. And
I think perhaps one of the most important takeaways from
this because I know we spend a lot of time
(46:45):
today talking about how untrue a lot of the claims
might be right and how unfair it might be too.
You know, someone who knows nothing about this stuff too
to hear these outrageous things first and then be inevitably disappointed.
(47:06):
Here here's the amazing thing. And I think you and
I have talked about this on the show, but I'll
just wave the flag again because Uh, it's fascinating. There
really is such a thing as mind over matter. It
is literal the way you think, just by the virtue
of the thought alone changes the physical world in the
(47:27):
most direct, amazing and terrifying way, which is, it changes
the structure or the ratios of areas of your brain.
We we've talked before about studies of London cab drivers, right, uh,
London cab driver's background have to take a test called
the Knowledge, and the knowledge is super ridiculously hard. People
(47:48):
are expected to fail at several times. But and the
reason so hard is because you you cannot use the GPS, etcetera.
You have to memorize all these different routes in the
way they interconnect, and a your people have become lending
cavies for you know, decades. The area of their brain
that's associated with spatial memory is larger than an average person.
(48:11):
The same thing happens with I think there was a
study of Buddhist monks who were meditating for for the
same time, right, and the area of their brain with
associated with compassion or empathy was larger, not like a
little bit, like noticeably the way that you would look
(48:31):
at someone who only worked out their left arm and
notice how much bigger their left arm is. And now,
just to clarify, we're not talking about the secret style
positive thinking getting a lot of money because you think
possibly you're finding that's not at all what we're saying here. Yeah,
(48:51):
we're talking about the kind of thoughts you have literally
changing the way your brain grows are changing um m mm,
brain grows very slowly, changing the the function perhaps is
more fair way to say it. But still that that
isn't that is an amazing thing. And if the techniques
(49:12):
of various forms of cheng can help you achieve that
kind of thing, or if they help you overall in
your life and your wellness and they uh lengthen your
lifespan or at least length in the good parts of
its right? Was it like Dennis Leary who used to say,
you know, I don't want to live till I'm ninety
(49:33):
or whatever, because the last few years are gonna suck.
I think Dennis Leary said that, but I it always
makes you nervous quoting him because I always feel like
somebody else said it first. Whoa way is that an? Yeah?
A little too much of the Louis c k. You
used your cheek to burn him, his skin his sizzling,
(49:55):
he got a burn? Notice had a pop culture reference?
Really nice. By the way, have you seen the show
this is Apropo Nothing? Have you seen the show Mr
Robot on USA Network? I have not, No, I don't.
I don't watch a lot of dude, they made that
show for us and our listeners, and I'm not getting
(50:16):
paid to promote the show. Just I'm saying give it
a chance because it's it's basically like Fight Club and
the Matrix smash them together, plus uh the illuminatis in there.
It's crazy. I love it all right, I'm gonna check
out Mr Robot and and Christians later. By the way,
(50:40):
who's Christians later on sea? Did you hear that sound cute?
That can only mean one thing. Hey, it's our moment
with no So. I watched the trailer for Mr. Robot
the other day and it looks looks really good. I
haven't seen it yet, but like there's like an Anonymous
esque Oh yeah, anymously about it really with a slightly
(51:02):
different masks, more of a mustache because they didn't want
to get sued. Can you imagine Anonymous taking someone to court? Guys,
I wanted and I'm glad we're all here. I wanted
to read a couple of tweets from our from our
last podcast because we had some people talk remember our
(51:25):
podcast that we were trying to figure out which animals, Well,
we had some people right to us with their choices.
Do you guys want to hear them, yes please, Okay,
let's see there's one rather strange one. They Uh, somebody
wanted to eat be a small animal and eat coffee. Yeah.
(51:45):
Shout out to a baby lion cub who said the
baby lion cub chose to be an Asian palm civet
because eating and pooping out coffee beans all day is
the ultimate dream job in now? Is that the coffee
that's really expensive? Yes, supposed what's good about it? Is
(52:06):
it and give you animal powers? It's just like it's
supposed to taste really good. It's got of it's kind
a certain new mommy, Yes, certain a certain you mommy.
Uh and then uh then uh kelsey Eto writes to us, says,
(52:27):
if I could be any animal, I would turn into
ter topsus dorney and be immortal. That's a little jellyfish, right.
The immortal fish turns into a baby continually. And then
we had we had some folks right in. Uh say,
don't be a cow. Uh. Jake Collins road In says,
I know it sounds weird, but I'd love to be
(52:47):
a duck skin walker, able to fly, swim and be
cute beyond reason. So sort of a one upping of mine.
I mean, I didn't think about that. But it's like,
if you're a duck, then you can fly and you
can swim, and the whole corkscrew thing. I don't know
about that. We're family show, look up duck cork screw. Uh. Yeah,
(53:11):
ducks are horrible people. If ducks were people, they would
be bad people. Um, I just based on their behavior
and like they would mainly just swim in giant pools
of golden coins. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Did you know
that you will be seriously injured if you attempt to
do that? Yeah. For some reason, there was a study
whereas the one said, how would this work? Just just
(53:34):
in case I've wasted all my time on paper? But
it would be less of a splash and more of
like a yeah, yeah, well no, I'm sorry. I just
I was excited to uh talk more about the kind
of animals who we would be, because I clearly have
my priorities aligned. But but what's on your mind with this,
with this whole cheese stuff? Oh I don't know, man,
(53:56):
I was too busy playing the new Fallout Shelter iPhone game.
What have you guys seen this? You guys familiar with
the Fallout games. I mean, I know Fallout. Yeah, so
there's a there's an iPhone Fallout game that's sort of
like a Fallout version of the SIMS where you have
your little vault dwellers and you organize them in these
various underground Fallout Shelter compartments. And it sounds really cool,
(54:17):
though it's really but are are you admitting to just
sitting there and playing a game while we Ben and
I are having this philosophical discussion about the energy inside
all of us? I'm half admitting it, but I'm not
fully admitting it. Listen, I know I actually I've got
a thing. You want to hear my thing? I want
to hear you. Yeah, I haven't. I literally have not slept. Man,
give me something. No, you got it, and you got
(54:37):
This isn't very good, But you know the band Tool
You guys familiar with the band? So their singer Maynard
James Keenan, who I think mainly just makes wine. Now
I don't think he actually sings anymore. That's not sure.
I'm kidding. I think still refuses to wear a shirt
that well. Yeah. Um, but a friend of mine a
long time ago who lived in Los Angeles told me
(54:58):
the story about um being with somebody and running into
Maynard James Keenan on the street, and for whatever reason,
like you do, his friend decided he'd shoot a bottle
rocket at him. He just happened to have one, and
maybe it wasn't a bottle rocket, it was a it
was a firecracker. Let's let's let's just it's pretty fat.
But here's what happened. So he throws the firecracker at
James Maynard James Keenan's feet, and Maynard kind of looks
(55:21):
at it and it goes out, and the guy's like, WHOA,
what do you happened there? And Mayard goes I put
it out with my mind, man, So I think Maynard's
got some serious That's great, as long as he can't
ignite the firecrackers. I'm I don't know, but I also
(55:45):
don't throw firecrackers at strangers. No, it's an odd story.
It almost sounds made up, but I like to tell it.
That's a fun story. It's like that getting tackled by
Bill Murray in the hallway of the hotel. Story, you know,
we're whispers is like in your ear, like no one's
going to believe you. Oh yeah, I'll believe you. I
often wonder how many of those stories are true. Um,
we didn't get to everybody who rode in to say
(56:07):
which animals they would transform to, but we got some.
We got some fantastic suggestions. They made me. Uh, they
made me rethink you guys, I I really, um, I
really think. Well, I well, I think we ended on
an octopus. I don't know, I think we really. I
kind of screwed us when I said no fictional animals.
(56:28):
You know, yeah, there's so many of those though, it
would have taken me a week to really narrow down
what I wanted to be. Yeah, well, let's keep thinking
like the octopus. Things seem cool because you know, there
are certain types of octopus that can transform into different
thing as a try sera corn, because there should be
try seric. Oh man, yeah, wait is it a dinosaur horse?
(56:51):
Well that's all up to your imagination, isn't. Yeah, it's
a three horned unicorn U dinosaur like creature, so all
the powers of those creatures combined. I love it. Uh
that that's that's fantastic. I hope it doesn't have scales,
but that is that is fantastic. All right, so let
(57:12):
us know what you think about ch and thank you
so much for listening. We mentioned a couple of different
articles that are on our website or parent website, how
Stuff Works dot com if you want to learn more
about this, if you haven't checked out the video we
had that came out earlier this week, our our classic
video on the alleged Dragon family. And you like to
(57:36):
hear about big brother type world domination, conspiracies, money printing
and laundering, World War two lost treasures, or counterfeiting, uh,
then check it out. I think the best teaser for that,
if you haven't seen it is that, oh, several years
back and you and I think it already started the show.
(57:58):
But several years back, two thousand nine exactly, uh, several
several different foreign nationals were arrested on their way to
Switzerland or yeah, what was the rest in Switzerland? Want
to rest in Italy attempting to smuggle what the Treasury
(58:22):
Department says were clearly counterfeit uh billion and billion dollar notes,
but they were either professionally aged or they really were
old counterfeit notes. They were spelling errors. There were spelling errors,
which isn't head giveaway uh or this is absolutelyunk, but
this is a fascinating story. Do check it out. Let
(58:44):
us know what you think. You can find us on
Facebook and Twitter, where you can see a lot of
stories that don't make it to the air for one
reason or another. But do check it out. We're active
on their own conspiracy stuff at both of those. You
can visit our websites. Stuff they Don't want you to
o dot com. And that's the end of this classic episode.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
(59:08):
you can get into contact with us in a number
of different ways. One of the best is to give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three
st d w y t K. If you don't want
to do that, you can send us a good old
fashioned email. We are conspiracy at I heart radio dot com.
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
(59:30):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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