June 3, 2021 • 60 mins
Just how many people have spotted unusual, faerie-like creatures on the frontier? Why do some medical institutions still use electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)? What if some inanimate objects are not only self-aware, but resentful? All this and more in this week's listener mail.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. It's Thursday, which means where
it's time for our weekly listener mail segment, and we're
(00:47):
going some strange places today. We are so glad that
you're joining us on this journey, this sojourn into stories
from the best part of the show, your fellow listeners.
But before we get started, guys, it was something I
needed to reiterate off air, but I wanted to ask
you all about it just while we're rolling, and for
(01:10):
all our listeners as well. I think I mentioned before
I finally they found me. I got jury duty. Did
they tell you, guys that, no, you actually got it?
Not yet. The audition is tomorrow. I don't know if
it's just to call it an audition, got it. Yeah,
I had one not too long ago, and I, you know,
I was just assured no one ever gets picked. I mean,
(01:30):
obviously some people get picked, um, but I totally got picked.
And I actually kind of I think I swayed the jury.
I think I swayed the jury. I kind of felt
like I did my civic duty and please don't ask
me to do it again for another like five years.
But Ben, godspeed, sir, and I hope you don't get picked.
I'm into it. I like, you know, I like the validation,
you know what I mean, Like, you get picked for
jury duty, you're a peer officially, it's totally appropriate for
(01:54):
the show. I actually, you know, they always asked, how
do you get that a jury duty? And you definitely
don't want to be caught trying to get out a
jury because that's totally illegal. Um. But I answered a
question very bluntly. They ask you these jury questions, you know,
something like do you think you could be you know,
completely um objective about a case? And I said something
(02:15):
the effect of, well, I do a lot of conspiracy
podcast stuff and a lot of true crime, and I
kind of feel like the government and you know, lawyers
are all inherently corrupt, and I just don't feel as
though I could be completely objective, And it sounds like
they picked me because of that, because it shows me
for that strange because you know they want honest answers.
(02:38):
You know, we'll get to the show, but real quick,
I know a lot of us listening today are possibly
screaming at their phones. Then tell them you believe in
jury nullification. It's a real thing. But the issue with
that is if you come in, uh, if you come
in too hot on jury selection and they know you're
(02:59):
like pranking numbers something, they do not respond. Well. Um,
so I will I will see if I can be
our man on the inside of the justice system. But also,
Matt Noel, the reason I'm bringing this up today is
because it makes me think that we are long overdue
for an episode on trial by jury. It's got a
(03:19):
lot of problems here in the US. That's great, yeah,
that it becomes one of the primary focuses in a
lot of true crime content exactly how a trial by
jury functions, what the problems are, and well sometimes potential
ways to fix it. But it's it's a complicated issue
and something I'd love to delve into deeper with you guys. Yeah,
(03:40):
let's absolutely do that. But before we do, or as
we're planning that, we'd love to hear your stories about
jury duty going well, going wrong, your thoughts. Uh. You know,
we do have legal professionals in the audience today as well,
so let us know conspiracy die hear Radio dot com.
You can also call us one three st d w
(04:01):
y t K. Today we are going to, uh, We're
going to hear from some people who have had their
own personal experiences, not with jury do but with things
they cannot necessarily explain. We're gonna visit folklore, philosophy, veterinary science,
and it just felt right. We're not actually going to
(04:23):
do that part. But and then we're gonna visit controversial medicine.
So Matt, what do you say? What do you say?
We begin with this really interesting story that you hipped
us too. Yes, Ben, we are heading over to a
message from Rannell. Here we go. Renell says, Hi, guys
and lady shout out to Dark Holiday over there. I
(04:46):
came across your podcast last year in the early days
of work from home boredom and was immediately hooked. I've
always been interested in unexplained and weird events, but stayed
away from the outlandish theories. So thank you for continuing
to create fascinating cont and in a thoughtful and entertaining manner.
It's very sweet. I have a story that I've been
debating sending to you that happened to me a few
(05:07):
years ago. My grandparents used to own property on a
lake off the gun Flint Trail in northern Minnesota, where
I spent a considerable amount of my summers as a kid.
There's no cell phone service and it's not unusual to
go days without seeing another person, even out on the lake.
The cabin had an upper level sunroom and deck overlooking
the woods down to the lake. Is very important for
(05:28):
the rest of the story. Upper level sunroom and a
deck overlooking the woods down to the lake. My grandpa
used to sit out on the deck at night and
would tell us stories about the glowing fairies that he
used to see while he was out there. He later
told us he had occasionally seen them pass through the
windows and into the cabin. We mostly attributed this to
(05:50):
the whiskey SODA's he would drink out on the deck
in the evenings. That's kind of funny Ronelle. Grandpa enjoyed
his whiskey, but Ronelle continues here. My Paw unfortunately passed
away in early two thousand sixteen, and I went to
visit him one last time in July with my mom
and my grandma before she put the cabin up for sale.
(06:11):
It was the night of July three, and my grandma
had already gone to sleep. The evening was clear. There
were no electrical storms that night or in the forecast.
My mom and I were in the sunroom, remember that's
the upstairs sunroom area. We had turned off all the
lights except for one over the sink and the the
adjacent kitchen, when we started to see what appeared to
(06:31):
be fireflies at the tree line outside. Now this is
a ellipsis here. I have never seen fireflies up there
before or after. The greenish white lights started to pulse
in time with each other, speeding up, and then suddenly
they all went dark and a roughly grapefruit sized sphere
(06:52):
lit up near the ground. It hovered for a short period,
moving slowly upwards. Then it started to gain speed and
quickly move up to the level of the deck, and
then it flew very fast over the roof and was gone. WHOA, right,
that was me, by the way. WHOA between first seeing
the sphere light up and it being gone was maybe
(07:13):
only five seconds or so, And shortly after it disappeared,
the light above the sink dimmed briefly. Okay, there's a
little bit more to this email. I kind of want
to save it for a second as we discussed some
of this, What does that sound like to you guys,
some firefly looking lights down by the lake, uh, you know,
(07:35):
viewing it from a higher above angle. Then all of
a sudden, those lights going away in a larger sphere
light uh being illuminated and then rising up and over
the roof. What do you guys think could be any
number of things? Will of the wisp perhaps Okay remember those? Okay?
(07:56):
All right? Um, certainly opportunities for optical illusions in that situation,
but it could be something more, especially with the water, agreed.
The water makes a big difference right there because of
possible reflections, possible all kinds of other optical illusions that
could be happening. But there's also something in there about
ball lightning, which is a really weird phenomena that occurs
(08:19):
and it's it's a real thing. It's it's not a
made up thing. Um. But again, she already mentioned there's
no electrical storm, so that weird me out a little bit.
So let's continue in the email here. If my mother
hadn't been there and seen the same thing, I would
think I was mistaken or confused about what I saw.
She grew up in Illinois and there has been ball
lightning before, but swears this was a different thing. There's
(08:43):
a pole out in the front of the cabin where
the phone and electrical line comes in, which is in
the direction that the sphere flew towards. The whole area
is composed of bedrock and magnetite, So the only reasonable
explanation we've been able to come up with is some
sort of what is this peco electric effect which could
possibly explain the light dimming afterwards. So right there there's
(09:06):
the story. Ronell attached some pictures to this message for us,
which actually shows the cabin out there in the middle
of the woods, and it also shows the vantage point
from that upper level deck where the sun room is
overlooking the dock down there by the lake. And I
thought this was a really interesting story. I don't know,
(09:26):
I mean, I I don't even know what else to
say about it besides the concept of the grandfather associating
these lights that he had seen before in the past
with fairies with being some kind of magical being that
exists out there in the woods by the lake, and
I don't I wanted to look up the folklore I
(09:46):
was thinking about you guys when I was looking some
of the stuff up. There is fair like Faye folklore
within the United States, and I don't know a ton
about it. I know that some of it originates from
indigenous people that lived on this land before you know,
the United States was ever a thing, or ever a
glint in the eye of some revolutionary um. And there's
(10:09):
some really fascinating stuff that I've never heard of, and
I think it might be worth a full episode to
to go over some of the I don't know FAYE
in the USA. That sounds wow, Why that was brilliant. No,
it's true. I think of you know, when I think
of fairy folk, I think of Midsummer Night's Dream and
more contemporarily UM a lot of Neil Gaiman's work, or
(10:32):
Sandman in particular, there's a lot of fairies that play
UM serious roles in that work, and also in Pan's Labyrinth.
Um the fairies are kind of creepy and have like
sharp nasty teeth. I kind of was into that depiction.
But all of these obviously places not said in the
United States. Well, there's there's an interesting aspect here, just
(10:52):
to interject for a second, because what we see it's
similar to the evolution of abduction stories. Right where there
were change leans, there were alleged hidden sentient groups that
would take humans for one reason or another, maybe to
(11:12):
uh go bowling with them, like in the rip fam
Winkles story, or maybe to steal their children. And then
later with the evolution of UFOs and aliens and the zeitgeist, uh,
those stories remain the same, but they just got new
things mad lived in. So what to me is what
what's fascinating about this? As I love the point you're
(11:33):
bringing up regarding pre European American folklore, uh folklore on
this continent, because those stories and those sorts of beings
exist in pretty much every culture, and it's something that
I think would be very interesting for those of us
in the crowd today who consider themselves extremely skeptical. You
(11:57):
have to ask yourself. Why was there never an entirely
skeptical community that developed independently, but instead there is a
clear line of a clear correlation. Virtually every community has
created some sort of um story or explanation or narrative
(12:18):
or mythology about these events, from you know, fay like
creatures like brownies elves, to the translation across the world
will often be something like the hidden folk, and it's strange,
it's strange little remember the little like are the borrowers,
the little people that live in your walls and stuff.
(12:38):
I always enjoyed those stories. Yes, and this is what
I wanted to bring up there. I was reading about
Cherokee legends folklore from specifically the Cherokee tribe. Part of
their mythology includes a race of immortal spirit people that
feels very similar to fairies. I don't know how similar,
at least according to some of the light reading I
(12:59):
was going on the subject. I think I think they're
called new nehe new neh he. I don't know how
to pronounce it correctly, but they are. It's translated as
the people who live anywhere or the people who live forever.
And it's a completely different um race of beings. A
it's a completely different subset of being. It's not a god,
(13:22):
it's not you know, a human. It's not a spirit
like a like a nature spirit or anything like that. Um,
it's not a ghost. It's it's it's none of these things.
It's this other, living, intelligent creature that exists almost very
much so, right, like just created from some different material
(13:43):
rather than clay or you know, like man was or
a smoke smokeless fire like the Jin. Do they have
any kind of ill intent associated with them in the folklore?
I know often spirits like that from a level at
all, Are Are they kind of neutral? I honestly don't know
enough yet. I just started learning about these mythical creatures,
and it does change. The way they're described does change
(14:06):
depending on which region you're in. With the Appalachian Mountains,
that's one of the main connective tissues for many of
the stories. But there are also stories a lot of
them surrounding fay like creatures near the Great Lakes of
the US. And this brings us back to something fascinating
about your experience right now. When you mentioned peco electric
(14:32):
the phenomenon of pezo electricity, I think all of our
our eyes lit up Peco electricity. Just to be clear
for anyone, the quick and dirty explanation of that is
the idea that certain materials can create an electric charge
when they have certain types of stress applied to them.
So it is. It is, I think a very reasonable explanation.
(14:56):
Maybe it could explain something that we're optical illusions to
explain something about what's going on with the Great Lakes.
But as we said, these stories are very old. They're
also universal. As um longtime listeners know, I have uh
roots of a sort in in Appalachia, and I can
confirm that these things, to your question, Noll, are not.
(15:20):
It's like the Jin are considered individuals first and foremost.
They might be Christian, they might be atheists, they might
follow Islam. The New Hey are similar or beans like
that are similar in that they have human relationships with
them are often kind of defined as if then so
they're supposed to be really friendly to the Cherokee and
(15:43):
that folklore, but they're in general friendly to lost wanderers.
So overall they're very h they're very Appalachian and attitude.
I would say, they'll have you, they'll have you over. Yeah,
that's great. There there's a book I want to get
our hands on called Native American Legends of the Great
Lakes and the Mississippi Valley. It's written by Catherine Barry Judson.
(16:06):
And it looks like there's a free version of it.
Oh no, it's just a preview. But there's a version
of it on archive dot org. So I want to
actually get a physical copy if possible. The only problem
is the thing is published in yeah, nineteen fourteen. Uh yeah,
I don't know. We'll see or if you got one,
send it our way, or at least tell us where
(16:27):
to find it. But yeah, I just want to say
thanks for no for sending that in as a great story.
I it sounds like you sold the cabin I guess
so maybe you won't be able to experience this particular
vantage again to see something down there, but who knows.
That's uh that area over there, gun Flint what was it?
Gun Flint Trail. It's right, it's on Lake Superior. It
(16:52):
looks really fascinates right at the edge of Canada and
the United States inside the United States. Really cool. So
thanks so much. We'll be right back with another message
from you. And we have returned. We have not returned unaccompanied.
(17:12):
We're bringing Amy with us on air. Amy, here's what
you said. Amy wrote in to say, Hi, my name
is Amy, and the name can be used. About ten
years ago, when I was still kind of young and
I'd done some dumb stuff, a doctor came to me
in the hospital room and asked if I would participate
in a treatment that would stimulate my heart rate, among
(17:33):
other things, while I was asleep. Of course I said yes,
because who doesn't want the benefits of exercising while sleeping? Amy,
you put in a question mark and two exclamation points,
which I feel is appropriate in that situation. It's the
only thing in my mind that would redeem sleep in general.
That's me editorializing with the story. Only on the morning
(17:56):
of this treatment, says Amy, while wires were being secured
my forehead, did I realized that this was electroshock treatment.
I thought of it as something from the nineteenth century
and didn't even realize it was still a thing. But
as sure was, and it was every bit as creepy
as imagined. A small room full of rhythmically beeping machines, restraints,
(18:20):
the dark of early dawn, the only time when the
anesthesiologist was available for this and the final command to
quote count backward from ted with tooth guard in place,
eyes kept shut, and mask in place. Then waking a
couple of hours later in a different room with people
asking you where you are and what year? It is?
(18:43):
No pause here for a second for you, guys. Have
you ever been in a situation, maybe post surgery or
something where you woke up and someone has to give
you like a cognitive evaluation? Thankfully no, but it terrifies me.
I've never actually been put under under, never had a surgery,
an invasive surgery. I had a bad experience with with
(19:04):
a then legal substance that gave me a really bad trip,
and when I came to, I had to be re
oriented to all consciousness. It was bad. You had to
come back from being a part of a particle of
a interconnected universe that is only learning to know itself
(19:25):
further and more intimately, and you had to get back
to the flesh bag. Right. Hey, Yeah, I was a
pixel inside an ever rotating grid and I was trying
to find my way to the center, but I didn't
understand what center was. It was bad. There is no center,
you know what. Definitely could not hold that's for sure. Yeah,
shout out to Yates and at Champ. But the the
(19:47):
the reason I ask is because anybody has been through
this knows it's enormously disconcerting feeling. And I'm not going
to say their name on error because this story perhaps
does not paint them in the best light. But my
favorite version of this is a a friend of mine
got into a pretty serious accident a number of years ago,
(20:09):
car accident, and this is a guy who was kind
of off the grid, kind of unplugged. He's the kind
of guy wouldn't have consented to go to a hospital
if he were conscious. And he got that you know,
that assessment light, flashlight in your eyes, you know, let's
check dial adship, blah blah blah, And they asked him
who the president was and he had no idea, and
(20:30):
his family had to explain, like, look, he's a little weird.
He didn't know before he got hit by a car.
He's just not tuned in. So you have to be
careful what kind of question to ask. That's why people
ask what year it is. It's something most people know.
Back to Amy, Amy, you said, now about ten years later,
I'm fine, healthy, have gameful employment, a nice home, friends,
(20:51):
and a good life where I can do whatever I
want while listening to podcast after work. I don't know
whether this procedure contributed or not. There's a lot of
contra versy about it, I know, And even as a
recipient of this treatment, I'm on the fence. I don't
remember a lot of things. It would seem like I'd
remember most good, but some bad. And it's kind of
spooky to be told about these events by friends and
(21:13):
family with no recollection. I can't help but think that
I just matured and chilled out, and that the e
c T wasn't necessary at all. Still, others swear by it. Yet,
even as a recipient, I wonder if it has any
more basis than it did in the nineteenth century. Mm hmm,
this is this is a weird one. We're talking a
(21:34):
little bit off air, Um and Amy. I think at
least a few of us agree with that kind of
mental image you have when you first hear electroshock therapy,
like no what it was to make you think? Yeah,
I mean it makes me think of like, you know,
bear bite down on this spoon while we jack your
brain with however many volts and you convulse wildly on
the on the table. I also think that people don't
(21:56):
really remember this. I think because it's traumatic. But that
movie returned into oz Um, which is very terrifying and
uh has so much nightmare fuel in it. Um. Little
Dorothy Gale beginning is in like a psychiatric facility, presumably
because she won't stop going on about oz and somewhere
over the Rainbow and they're about to give her shock
therapy when like there's a power outage or something and
(22:18):
she escapes. But yeah, you think of it as being
like a very barbaric, you know, relic of kind of
like the sand the age of the sanitarium or whatever,
you know. Um, but it is you know, the Mayo
Clinic as a page on it. That kind of demystifies it.
It is still done today under you know, anesthetics and
you know with munch lower voltage and I'm certain not
(22:40):
enough to make you spas out on the table like that,
but I can see exactly where the perceptions come from. Yeah,
the possibility here, or at least if someone tells you
the possibility, who's like selling you this as a treatment
or is it t dc S trans No t c
d S transcranials. Yeah, someone's selling you that concept of like,
(23:02):
look we can we can pass electrical an electrical charge
through your brain. And what it's gonna do. It's gonna
be amazing, all these positive things, strengthening all these connections,
making new connections. Maybe dude, you're gonna it's so great
and look all you gotta do is chill. That's all
you gotta do. Uh. It sounds amazing. Um, it also
(23:23):
sounds really dangerous, That's what I would say. So it's
both right and and I guess it's just how much
are you willing to risk? How much is science willing
to risk? If it just completely does damage to somebody
or if it really does improve you, You're gonna have
to go through a lot of trials. And I don't
think I don't think there's been enough trials. Maybe I'm
(23:46):
just not up on the research. Well, it is. It
is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. It is.
It's just like cereal. Yeah, the uh so there you go.
Electrical convulsive therapy as safe as what's that serial? The
only raisin brand? You like? You monster? I like I
(24:09):
like raisin brand crunch. Okay, all right, get it right,
I feel bad. I feel like I just called Mennonite
Amish or something. I'm sorry. There's nut clusters is what
takes it to the next level. Regular old raisin brand.
That's your Grandpa Cereal right there. I'm sorry, No self
respecting millennial should be eating raisin brand. I feel like
(24:31):
it's your mouth. It's up to you what you put
in it. I got your back, bro. But with that,
with that being said, um, you're absolutely writing there. There
is controversy behind this, and part of that controversy, part
of that controversy is inseparable from the at times troubling
history of this kind of therapy or this I would
(24:53):
even say this kind of technique because it wasn't always
used in a way that would solidly be defended as therapy.
And long time listeners you know that. I I of
course love any chance for us to talk about real
life thinking caps T M S, T dcs. UH. This
this stuff is fascinating, but like you said, Matt, there's
(25:16):
there needs to be much more research done on it. Uh.
And I say this as a guy who did mad
science together one of these transcranial direct current simulation devices. UH.
And thankfully I don't think I hurt myself, but we'll
we'll have to see in a few years. What was
it like? It was it like a metal calendar with
(25:36):
like wire leads attached to it from a car battery
or something like how d I y are we talking here? Ben?
Pretty mug diver. To be honest with you, it's um.
The main reason I felt comfortable doing it, and Matt,
you know all this is because I was it was
these things were an illegal gray area for a long time,
and I kept trying to call companies and buy one
(26:00):
of these things before endeavoring to build it myself. And
then we're all these there are all these issues which
I understand the importance of ethics and human experimentation, but
they you could like I would call places and they
would say, oh, okay, what you know what institutionary with?
You know, what's the paperwork on your study? Like I'm
(26:22):
I'm with this podcast, but it's not really about that.
This is just something I want to do. So the
study is me. The sample size is one. I'll sign
whatever you want to get rid of liability. But they
had to be careful with that because even with very
small amounts of current, right, even with lower levels of electricity.
You are messing with probably the least understood organ in
(26:47):
the human body. Right. We don't know how it works.
We don't know everything about how it works when it's
working the way it's supposed to. Uh, but we do
know that at times his story work. Ley. The use
of electro convulsive therapy as you would call it today,
(27:08):
has been said to have negative impacts of one sort
or another, like amy. What you're describing is a kind
of retrograde amnesia, right, that's one of the symptoms. I
think we all clocked. And according to the A p
A from a two thousand one report that's the American
Psychiatric Association, there is some retrograde amnesia, and in some
(27:32):
patients the recovery from this retrograde amnesia may be incomplete.
They also claim that e c T can result in
persistent or permanent memory loss. But on the flip side,
on the positive side, e c T has been used
for cases of severe depression, like not not someone just
(27:54):
saying I'm feeling down on Twitter. No, I mean it's
like people who are in danger of maybe self harm
or just are not able to function. It's certainly like
a maybe not last resort, but it's definitely up there. Um.
There's It's funny. I found a site from U T.
Southwestern Medical Center that reads like a laundry list of
like this is why this is great, and it's like
(28:15):
trying to demystify and it definitely has some good information,
but the way it's listed out, it's clearly trying to
sell you on this as a as a as a treatment. Um.
But they do use the word um, the phrase medically
uh triggered medically controlled seizure UM, so you know that
is what's happening. Um. And while they might not patients
might not jerk around convulse wildly, you know, they do
(28:39):
jerk somewhat and there are you know, some involuntary movements. UM.
But yeah, it's it's very much a thing, and it's
certainly been It's probably come a long way, but has
it though? It's like, I mean, how it doesn't get
much more spasic than Okay, we're gonna shoot some electricity
into your brain. Like we've known how to generate varying
degrees of electricity for a long time. I wonder what
(29:00):
specifically is different other than the fact that they're putting
you to sleep. It's yeah, it's not a bad question.
So a big part of it is the location, like
what what section of the brain is receiving this stimulation.
And then also another thing because because I clocked uh,
I clocked Southwestern as well. Another thing that has evolved
(29:22):
that's similar to e c T is m ST, where
which is the short for magnetic seizure therapy. You can
see why doctors probably one of this MST instead of magnets, magnets, magnets.
You know, someone figured it out. But this these treatments
(29:44):
can be important, they can have measurable positive impact. But
we have to remember again nothing occurs in a vacuum.
And the entire time that people were looking into the
use of e c T as a as a treat
for depression and specific we have to remember there was
an entirely different field of experts that were researching antidepressants,
(30:08):
and as antidepressants evolved, they became an increasingly viable and
profitable Actually, yeah, let's flip that. You're right, it became
an increasingly profitable and then viable alternative to treatments for depression.
With this in mind, when we think about these kind
(30:30):
of experiments, first we have to be really clear that
we're not doctors. This is not medical advice. But when
you are intentionally triggering a seizure in the brain, which
is what is happening with this therapy, the entire point
of it is to cause changes in brain chemistry that
(30:52):
can reverse symptoms of certain medical conditions. And that last
clause of what I just said cause changes in bringing
chemistry that can reverse symptoms of certain mental conditions. The
question is would you do would you shock yourself in
an attempt at wellness if you could simply take a pill?
(31:13):
Also on the profit mode of ECT, treatment is recommended
in like reps of ten to fifteen sessions. I'm sure
those sessions aren't cheap. And uh, antidepressants are something you
have to take on a regular basis. You don't get
you're not you know, you don't get fifteen pills of
Lexa pro and then you're better forever. It's I gotta
(31:35):
say that in hearing you describe that, Ben just now,
it makes me think of like this is sort of
the psychiatric equivalent of like banging the side of the
TV when it's like glitching out. You know, in the
hopes that you're banging will trigger the right thing among
all the other wrong things that it could also trigger,
and if you do it enough times, maybe you'll get
(31:56):
it to where the picture is like you know, tracking
correctly again, um, because it sure seems like a blunt
instrument type you know process to me. But in this case,
you're I don't know what the TV. It's like you're
adding an additional electrical plug to your television besides the
primary one, and then you plug that one into just
(32:19):
to see what happens if a little extra electricity just
for a second, you know what I mean? Like, how
how did you sell that idea in the early days?
Just like you know, what's amazing electricity? I'm just saying,
what are you guys doing this weekend? Let's you've seen
all these famous experiments where we you know, electrocute to
elephant until it dies. You've seen them. Hey, let's try
(32:42):
it on some humans. How about you just for a second,
just just like a second. I can't emphasize how much
I want that recap to really have somebody who's saying
just per second over and over again, like rights, they're writers,
they're plugging the person in there, like okay, okay, what's
that what's that? Just what? What? What? What? What? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
(33:05):
we lost them, So that's like that's why you know,
it's your point. It is intentionally causing seizures, and the
a lot of the controversy around it is whether this
is responsible use, whether the benefits outweigh the possible risk.
And that historical image just doesn't look good because in
(33:27):
the earlier days, patient slash victims were not given anesthetics,
so they were actively seizing. If you can see me
shaking around, and I'm not making light of this, this
could result in fractured bones, memory loss, a rogue's gallery
of other potentially harmful side effects. But right now, it
(33:48):
might surprise some folks to know that e c T
can be recommended because some people, for one reason or another,
cannot take uh an antidepressant. It's it's actually this surprised me.
Might surprise you too, Amy. Uh. E c T has
been specifically recommended for pregnant patients because you know, you can't.
(34:10):
You have to be very careful with what you ingest
right if you're expecting, because it will affect the child. Yeah,
but your brain is is making all those involuntary processes.
That's the thing that's like, uh, I would recommend get
you a second opinion. Does amniotic fluid conduct electricity? One
(34:31):
would think, I don't know. I mean, I know that
they're different regions, but still really just seems way off.
And then also for maybe older adults who cannot tolerate
certain side effects of drugs, Like what we're saying is
right now, the establishment has considers e C t UH controversial,
(34:53):
but they believe it does have efficacy in certain situations. Uh.
This is a topic that's endlessly fascinating on a personal level,
I think to a lot of us. UH. We may
end up diving into this in the future in a
full episode, but for now, what we would say is Amy.
(35:15):
First off, congratulations, thank you frying this fantastic letter, and
so glad to hear that you are doing well. We
want to make sure anybody who's hearing this who has
considered treatments like these are considered shooting electricity into your brain.
Take it from me, folks, I know it sounds really cool.
I am on board with it in the realist way.
(35:38):
I am tend toes down on this, but learn from
my mistakes. Don't mcgiver's stuff. You can you can buy
those kids if you're really interested. Now, I think the
laws of loose and a little bit. But if you
were messing with forces you don't really understand, and no
one really understands the human brain, get an expert. Get
(35:59):
an expert to help you through that process and advise
you on whether or not you need to consider it
in the first place. I still use those big like
suction cup things that go on your temples, or they
advanced past that. I've seen teen ones that are more
netting expandable and it kind of fits on your brain,
on your head, no sculliers. I just picture the torture
(36:21):
seeing in Princess Bride also true. Can you guys remember
that Mostly Dead. It's the machine that's supposed to like
take a year off his life with every twist of
the but you know, yeah, by making him listen to
water or something. It was weird. It wasn't clear how
that machine actually work. But you're right, he did have
(36:41):
some electrodey type things on his on his his noggin. There,
what a good story. So we ended. We ended on
that note. But please, if you if you have experience
with this as a positive or negative, we would love
to hear from you. As always, you can drop us
a line directly. We'll tell you how to do that
again at the end of the show. But for now,
(37:02):
let's take a break for a word from our sponsor,
who I don't think will be a t DCS device,
but if so, let the chips fall as they will.
We'll be back and here's more from Ken Moore microwaves.
Don't take them apart like Ben did. I should have
never told you that story. All right, and we're back,
(37:29):
and we're gonna wrap today's episode up with kind of
a fun one. It's a call back to a previous
fun email we got about Haunted in relating to our
Haunted Objects episode. We I think y'all will remember this,
especially if you're on the Here's where it Gets Crazy
Facebook group, because I believe a really clever listener made
a like movie poster about the blue ball. It was
(37:52):
like a horror movie kind of poster situation at Eric.
Thanks Ben, you're the best with with remembering names. I
remember the piece and I loved it. Uh what what
was the tagline? It was like it's time to play
with your balls or something like that. It was good.
It was and we I'm sure one of us actually
said that because we're children. But um, that was a
fun one because it was definitely like it had that
(38:14):
are you Afraid of the dark kind of vibe where
it's kind of innocuous and a little bit you know, corny,
but then it does kind of gets you in the
end where and then of course it came for one
last appearance. Um. And then you know, when you hear
stories like that about haunted objects or uh, something that
seemed just too crazy to be coincidence, you usually find
a way to justify or explain it away with a
(38:37):
coincidence or mad I believe your idea was that it
was a pack of these balls that had been purchased
in one go and they just kind of, you know,
found their way back into you know, circulation. I guess
even after one of them was thrown away, there was
another one lurking in a hamper somewhere and it just
ends up rolling along like balls do. Um. But a
(38:58):
listener named cassam and Drop wrote in with an alternate theory, Um,
that brings up a concept that I was not aware of. Um,
but it definitely is present and plenty of like pop
culture and stuff uh, something called resists. Oh boy, resistentialism, um,
the long version of it being counter phenomenal logical resistentialism.
(39:19):
We'll get to what that is in a minute, but
here's the email. Uh greeting has been mad and Noel.
While you recounted the story of a certain potentially haunted
object and discussed your theories of what could have been
causing this ball to seemingly keep reappearing, you also pose
the question as to what the ball's intentions may have been.
Did it want to play or was it intent on
tripping someone? This brought to mind the term I learned
(39:40):
several years ago. Here it is again, see if I
can do it. Counter phenomenal logical resistentialism or just resistentialism.
It refers to the possibility or belief that inanimate objects
have minds of their own and innately dislike people. Yeah,
which I just love. I no longer have the book
I read about this, and I think it was called Weird,
(40:00):
Scary and Unusual Stories and Facts. But as I recall,
it gave examples as to what else this phenomenon might explain,
including someone quote losing their keys in there, a bouncy
ball bouncing out of control, and the continuous disappearance of
spoons from a certain institution or hospital. Um, I believe
it said there was actually a study done at the
institution tracking its mysterious and repetitious decline in utensils. This
(40:24):
is true. We're gonna get to that. Well. I'm not
exactly a believer in counter phenomenological resistentialism myself. I find
it an interesting idea and a fun term. I thought
you might like to know if you didn't already, thank
you for all the work and effort you do on
the excellent show and for keeping us informed on so
many topics. They would rather we be kept in the
dark about Cassandra. And then she says to feel free
(40:44):
to use her name. Um, so we did because I
like the name Cassandra a lot. Ben, you're familiar with
this concept, um. And by the way, exactly so. Socks, you, kitchen, utensils,
you know, t shirts, Uh, so many little things like
that that I just feel like everyone has the shared
experience of constantly being you know, diminishing supply of these
(41:09):
things over time. UM. Easy to explain away and just
well they're not that big a deal. Spoons. You might
just take one with you for a picnic and leave it.
No one really cares that much, but I still think
it's a little bit ridiculous to the degree to which
I losets Ben. What was your experience with this concept
and what do you associated with? Uh? Yeah, So first
(41:33):
we have to consider that too many people this idea
is a thought experiment or a little bit purposely tongue
in cheek, you know what I mean. But it builds
on just like uh Reynauld's earlier story about folklore and
Faye in the US, the idea of this concept, resistentialism
(41:55):
builds on the very old concepts that are that are
kind of like animals, the idea that objects like humans
may have some sort of soul or sentience or their
own background palette of motivations and fears and desires. This
is a very very old concept. It's one of I
(42:17):
would argue it is one of the first things humans
did that's kind of like a religion, you know, and
it's still with us today. Like a lot of people
don't think of this as a religious act, but do
you guys name your stuff? We all know someone who
names a car, right, And so animism is the belief
(42:38):
that there are there's a multitude and innumerable multitude of
spiritual beings somehow concerned with human affairs, and just like
the faith, they can hurt you, they can harm you,
and you can't always trust them to be consistent in
that regard. So the big difference here they think it's
(42:59):
fast and eating kissandra is that uh in the idea
that that we're positing resistentialism. This idea is like a
very pessimistic version of object based animism, right. It makes
me think of like a lot of stuff from you know,
literature and pop culture, like we need the Pooh or
(43:20):
for example, like the idea that toys have a life,
you know, or the velveteen rabbit. Um. There is another
story I remember very distinctly for when I was a
kid that was clearly what toy story was based on.
I can't ram what it was called, but it was
about the old school toy being supplanted by the new
shiny toy. Um that's like a spaceman or or like
an acrobat or something like that. I'm sure it's a
(43:43):
trope that has been repeated throughout history because it its
we have this innate need or desire anyway to anthropomorphize
animals and and objects and the idea that things have personality.
But I'm with you then that it is more of
a thought experiment. I don't think anyone's actually saying your
spoons are de materializing and showing up on another planet
(44:03):
or something. Matt, I'm just gonna put this out there.
One of the most intelligent people that I've ever met,
and interesting talented. It was a former boss of of ours,
and she put into our heads, my head, the concept,
(44:25):
whether she was being serious or not, the concept that
if I treated my computer and my electronics well, if
I talked to them, if I comforted them when they
were having an issue, they would perform better and they
would not have so many issues with their software. If
I was kind to them, if I put them away gently,
if I made sure they were always clean. Uh. And
(44:48):
I swear to you I don't. I will not say
that I fully believe this, but I will say that
I somehow, in doing these little rituals of making sure
or my machine was always taking care of well, I
felt like things were going better with me and my
computer as a relationship. You know, But that doesn't that
(45:08):
also mean that you, like back when you had to
do this, made sure to always defrag your hard drive
and like don't keep your desktop to clutter because you
have this certain respect that you bring to the situation
that maybe feels like a ritual to you, but it
also translates to functional acts of maintenance that you're doing
that some people might just let go because the biggest
(45:29):
thing that causes computers have slowed down when people don't
realize their hard our drives are almost completely full, and
then they start to like, you know, log jam the
whole system. So I think it was a good piece
of advice because I think it just you. You treated
it with respect, and you gave it its due and
you you know, oiled it when it needed to be oiled.
I'm I'm now changing it to a tin man kind
(45:50):
of situation, but it's trunal. Uh. Matt and I had
the same boss, Rock sand If you're listening, you're amazing,
awesome and uh, and she really believed it, Matt, you know,
she told both of us the same thing. And I've
done it before too. But it's it's almost you could argue,
you know, like, No, I think you raised a very
(46:11):
good point. If you feel like you have a personal
relationship with a thing, you are more likely to treat
it with empathy and do like picture it liking stuff
you do. That's also another way to During the pandemic,
I think we all experienced a little bit more anthropomorphization
than we had maybe bargained for, because also in our
(46:34):
computer has the faces of all of our disembodied friends
on it, and it's literally the only contact we have
with like humanity. Yeah, well, like look at the like
here's another one. Here's another one for people even you know,
we're talking to the skeptics here right uh, and I'm
I'm with you, guys, like I Matt got in my
head too. I also talked to objects and I name them.
(46:58):
You know, I think you only have to worry if
they start talking back. But even then it is kind
of comforting. It is it is, you know what I mean,
someone's talking to me right when my machete is like,
oh you're getting out there. Then I'm like, a yeah,
good call Mark. But but the Marcus. But the the
thing I noticed and I want to hear from our
(47:20):
our friends listening today, animals were inanimate objects. I noticed
that I was anthropomorphizing a ton of stuff in my kitchen,
and I think this is universal. I realized I have
one spoon that I think of as like the bad spoon,
and I can't explain it. I'm just like it knows
what it did. It's up to something. It's the bad spoon.
(47:43):
I haven't thrown it away, and I'm I'm at it, impass.
That's definitely don't throw it away. That's the worst thing
you could do. You don't want to put that bad
energy out into the world, man, because then it's on you. Um.
But it's so funny, like the whole you're you're you're
being nice to your computer thing. Plants are living things,
but I will think of them kind of as an
animate object. Right. A lot of people talk to plants
and they say that that makes them better. Watch out,
(48:06):
Doc and I both I think have strong feelings on this.
I I do believe that plants will tend to, um,
we'll tend to have a better life if if you're
talking to them, And maybe it's just like what you're saying, Well,
maybe it's because you're interacting on that level. You're more
likely to water it, you're more likely to be aware
of health conditions in the plant. But also you know,
(48:29):
maybe they're just lonely. How long does one of these
conversations last is what I want to know, Like, is
this is this efficient for me to say, hey, buddy,
looking good? Hey, no comment is fine? Ben, okay? For
my purposes? How do I get started talking to plants?
That's my question because I really I'm not joking when
(48:50):
I said I really do want to be a good
plant dad, and I've done pretty well. But like I
sometimes over water them, and that is just as bad
as underwatering them. It just it sort of speaks to
my character. Sometimes I just like I just insist upon myself.
I just need to really nurture things until they just
crush them. You know, I'm kidding, um, But how do
(49:11):
I get started with my my plant interaction? Well, uh,
I don't know that. It sounds like we're doing a
little relationship advice, all right, So this is we're gonna do. No,
We're gonna set up a tiny mirror near the plant,
and you're gonna make eye contact with yourself, and you're
gonna hold a little therapy session, except where instead of
referring to you as you or me or NOL, you're
(49:34):
just You're You're just gonna talk to the plant, and
plant's name is going to be Sam. You're gonna say,
ye know that the plant is your father, and you're
going to uh, so you will be the son of Sam.
But I hate my father and I have to punch
the plant. The plant will talk back to you, give
you very specific instructions and sorry, no, I love this.
(49:57):
I love this idea. I do have a plant named
nige all uh that I have named So I'm I'm
on my way um with this whole idea. But but
the resistent resistentialism is, like you said, been the kind
of very cranky, pessimistic alter ego of this idea of
talking to your plants and they'll be nice to you.
We're talking to your computer and it'll you know, not
(50:18):
break um. Because this posits the objects of all kinds
hate us and want to do us harm or at
the very least inconvenience us by disappearing spontaneously. Well because yeah,
we're just using what we take. But also we're we're
look how look how the human species treats itself. You know, UM,
it treats objects in order of magnitude. Worse, we we
(50:41):
are discussing this um to the utmost of our ability, Cassandra.
But I feel like I would be remiss if I
didn't point out the etymology of this term. When we
say it's a thought experiment, when we say it's a
little tongue in cheek. It was invented or coined by
a humorist named Paul Old Jettings. It's a British writer.
(51:02):
It's kind of like a Lewis Grizzard of his day.
For anybody who remembers Lewis Grizzard or oh, what's that
other guy? He's got a sister. I'm so bad at this. Yes, David, yeah, nice,
nice would okay. I was the guy who went into Blockbuster.
(51:23):
I was like, yeah, I'm looking for that movie there's
music in a Day. You know that guy with the
face and the coach, the guy with hair, Matt, he
really mailed it. You not the manager of the John
Cusack that did have a nice face and nice hair.
I alluded to it, but didn't mention it. And we
were running long. I just want to just let everyone know.
There was a study that looked at tea spoons specifically,
(51:46):
I believe in Melbourne, Australia, at a research institute a facility,
and they like they gave him a half life score.
These teaspoons depending on where they originated, whether it was
in a common area or an area that was more
like voted to a particular branch of of research. Um.
And I think you guys should just go look into
(52:07):
that yourselves. This would be some good supplemental reading, because
we I think we've we've set our piece. Um. The
takeaway is that, yeah, a lot of teaspoons disappear. No
one copped in the office to fully removing the teaspoons
from the building. So the jury is out as so
what happened. There were a few arrant teaspoons that were
found on desktops and you know, squirreled away somewhere, maybe
(52:30):
some light hoarders or something. But there were an unungodly
amount of teaspoons that went missing. And when they applied
that statistic to like the larger you know, United Kingdom, uh,
it was staggering number. It was, you know, millions and
millions of teaspoons going missing each you know, I bet
it was. But it was a capuchin in the in
one of the ventilation shafts. You've seen it before. I've
(52:53):
seen it before. Everything everybody isn't that the ending to
a Sherlock Homes story or something where it was a
monkey with razor the whole time, stealing all the teaspoons.
It's almost always I think it was a reference to community.
I don't yeah, yeah, yeah, and he's you know, that's
the name of the monkey. Oh yeah, but uh but yeah,
(53:13):
the I am. I am a boarder, you know, nol.
I'm fascinated by studies like this. Also, I am gonna
profile and I feel like my spoon is responsible. I
like it is the subject of a horror movie, bad spoon. Right,
it's quiet, but it's like it's like the bad Seed,
(53:34):
but the bad the bad spoon. And I just just
in case anyone wants to google and look a little further,
the study was done at a place called b m J.
I'm this is not helping me. I need. I need
what the B and the M and the J actually
stand for. The British Medical Journal. That's it, The British
Medical Journal, which claims on its website anyway to be
the leading medical research, news, education, opinion, and uh some
(53:58):
other stuff in the United Kingdom. No. I literally just
said British Medical Journal off top of my head. I'm sorry, dude,
I I didn't know that was real. Okay, well it
was super helpful, Matt, because it totally is real. And
as I was saying before, they fancy themselves to be uh.
They have quite a high opinion of themselves and they
are ranked pretty highly by the journal what ranks journals,
(54:19):
so uh good on them, The Journal of Journalistic Hierarchies exactly.
You know, But I think this is a great place
to leave off today. This was fun, Like you said, Ben,
thought experiment to go through. But thanks Cassandra for the
the email. And um, I love the concept. It's gonna
give me some interesting dreams tonight, I think. And if
(54:40):
you are interested reading more Tory story esque adventures, highly
recommend the comic book series The Stuff of Legend. It's awesome.
I have no notes on it. Just check it out.
Let's know what you think. Also, let me know when
they finally sew it up. I've got to stop falling
in love with comic book series that have not ended.
(55:01):
It is the worst. Uh. While we're you know, Black
Monday murders, Sorry, Matt, but while we're waiting for those
to come out, we cannot wait to hear from you,
give us something else to read while while we're waiting
for Black Monday Murders, the Stuff of Legend, Uber Invasion,
and all those other great reads to finally finish their stories. Cassandra,
(55:21):
Amy Rinnell, everybody who has wrote in and called as always,
thank you for tuning in. We cannot wait to hear
from you. Let us know your thoughts are your fellow
listeners stories. We'd love your firsthand accounts of folklore. We'd
love your firsthand experiences with E. C. T. And we'd
love to know if you have a piece of cutlery
(55:42):
that resents you. We're easy to find online. It can
even be spoon lery whatever you want to. Yeah, well,
you can find us on Facebook and Twitter where we're
conspiracy Stuff. We are Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram. Ben,
how do you feel about Wing night Wing? Are we
(56:02):
talking comics, Matt, we're talking comics Nightwing? Oh yeah, I
I dug it just for a second. I was thinking
of shadow Hawk, which is a different one, but night
Wing used to be Robin right. Yeah, yeah, any thoughts
on night Wing. Doesn't he use like a billy club
or something. He seems like a fascist to me. I
(56:24):
don't know. He has like kind of an like a
pole that he wacks. Maybe I'm just thinking of the
word night stick. No, you're right, he has he has batons,
he does Okay, Uh, I will be completely honest. Not
everybody agrees with me on this. UM. I have a
hard time with some characters like that because they are
(56:44):
they are not superpowered, right. He doesn't have the superpower
billions of dollars like Bruce Wayne does. He's a human
who trains very hard as a work ethic and an ideology. Uh.
And I'm trying not to ding on it it at
some point in in some comics I've been reading them
and I've been thinking, Okay, you're all just people. Though,
(57:08):
well that maybe that's what's so inspiring about night Wing Man.
He's just a person that he grew up with a
family in the circus, and he's got all these skills
and now he's got a you know, do better for
his family. It brings it to what brings night Wing
to your mind? Conversation for another time, quick one before
we go, how do you feel about dark Wing duck? Oh,
(57:31):
let's get dangerous. You guys are making me sound like
a jerk. I was watching him, and I was like,
you're you know, like, do you have super duck powers?
I was trying to figure out what his powers were.
He has a grappling hook of some sort. Isn't he
a millionaire? Doesn't he play like? Isn't his alter ego
like a rich guy? I is it Scrooge in disguise? No,
it's dark. I forget what is Mallard? Some duck joke
(57:55):
his shark on the bad guy in that one. I
believe he is at some point, but there's a lot
of different Yeah, share cons in the business. I get it.
I get where he's coming from. Okay, I can't believe
I got it right. His name is Drake Mallard and
he is presumably very wealthy. Wouldn't that be the like?
(58:17):
Wouldn't that be like Jeff Bezos having the last named
person totally? Wouldn't Jeff Perberry on the nose? Hello, I
am Jeff person, smart person burgh Okay, yeah, we got
an email address or something, right? Oh, and says or
(58:37):
Jeff wouldn't back me up on the plants conversation. Doctor
came in hard on some of its of Jeff roasting.
Uh So, send your best Jeff Bezos roast to us
where Matt mentioned before, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the rest.
(58:57):
If you do not care for social media, uh that
we totally get it, go ahead and give us a
call directly. We have a phone number that's right. You
can reach us at one three s T d W
y t K. Leave a message of the sound of
Ben's dulcet tones three minutes of the time. You shall
have to tell your tale. Let us know it's okay
to use your name on the air, and we likely
(59:18):
will include it in one of our weekly listener Male episodes,
which we just wrap one so like that it'll be
like like what we just did, so make it good. Yeah.
Also remember to find us on YouTube where we are
conspiracy stuff pretty easy. Also leave a review on Apple
podcast or wherever you listen. That would be great. I'm
not saying give us five stars. I'm saying that helps.
(59:40):
It'll be cool. We'd love it. But you rate us
however you want to rate us five stars? Okay, So, um,
if you don't want to do any of that stuff,
you don't want to call, you don't want to find
us on social you don't want to rate us, you
can always still reach us via our old fashioned email address.
We are bad Spoon at I heart radio dot com,
(01:00:01):
kidding conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com, batspoone um The
La la little duh stuff they don't want you to
(01:00:29):
know is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. It's Thursday, which means where
it's time for our weekly listener mail segment, and we're
(00:47):
going some strange places today. We are so glad that
you're joining us on this journey, this sojourn into stories
from the best part of the show, your fellow listeners.
But before we get started, guys, it was something I
needed to reiterate off air, but I wanted to ask
you all about it just while we're rolling, and for
(01:10):
all our listeners as well. I think I mentioned before
I finally they found me. I got jury duty. Did
they tell you, guys that, no, you actually got it?
Not yet. The audition is tomorrow. I don't know if
it's just to call it an audition, got it. Yeah,
I had one not too long ago, and I, you know,
I was just assured no one ever gets picked. I mean,
(01:30):
obviously some people get picked, um, but I totally got picked.
And I actually kind of I think I swayed the jury.
I think I swayed the jury. I kind of felt
like I did my civic duty and please don't ask
me to do it again for another like five years.
But Ben, godspeed, sir, and I hope you don't get picked.
I'm into it. I like, you know, I like the validation,
you know what I mean, Like, you get picked for
jury duty, you're a peer officially, it's totally appropriate for
(01:54):
the show. I actually, you know, they always asked, how
do you get that a jury duty? And you definitely
don't want to be caught trying to get out a
jury because that's totally illegal. Um. But I answered a
question very bluntly. They ask you these jury questions, you know,
something like do you think you could be you know,
completely um objective about a case? And I said something
(02:15):
the effect of, well, I do a lot of conspiracy
podcast stuff and a lot of true crime, and I
kind of feel like the government and you know, lawyers
are all inherently corrupt, and I just don't feel as
though I could be completely objective, And it sounds like
they picked me because of that, because it shows me
for that strange because you know they want honest answers.
(02:38):
You know, we'll get to the show, but real quick,
I know a lot of us listening today are possibly
screaming at their phones. Then tell them you believe in
jury nullification. It's a real thing. But the issue with
that is if you come in, uh, if you come
in too hot on jury selection and they know you're
(02:59):
like pranking numbers something, they do not respond. Well. Um,
so I will I will see if I can be
our man on the inside of the justice system. But also,
Matt Noel, the reason I'm bringing this up today is
because it makes me think that we are long overdue
for an episode on trial by jury. It's got a
(03:19):
lot of problems here in the US. That's great, yeah,
that it becomes one of the primary focuses in a
lot of true crime content exactly how a trial by
jury functions, what the problems are, and well sometimes potential
ways to fix it. But it's it's a complicated issue
and something I'd love to delve into deeper with you guys. Yeah,
(03:40):
let's absolutely do that. But before we do, or as
we're planning that, we'd love to hear your stories about
jury duty going well, going wrong, your thoughts. Uh. You know,
we do have legal professionals in the audience today as well,
so let us know conspiracy die hear Radio dot com.
You can also call us one three st d w
(04:01):
y t K. Today we are going to, uh, We're
going to hear from some people who have had their
own personal experiences, not with jury do but with things
they cannot necessarily explain. We're gonna visit folklore, philosophy, veterinary science,
and it just felt right. We're not actually going to
(04:23):
do that part. But and then we're gonna visit controversial medicine.
So Matt, what do you say? What do you say?
We begin with this really interesting story that you hipped
us too. Yes, Ben, we are heading over to a
message from Rannell. Here we go. Renell says, Hi, guys
and lady shout out to Dark Holiday over there. I
(04:46):
came across your podcast last year in the early days
of work from home boredom and was immediately hooked. I've
always been interested in unexplained and weird events, but stayed
away from the outlandish theories. So thank you for continuing
to create fascinating cont and in a thoughtful and entertaining manner.
It's very sweet. I have a story that I've been
debating sending to you that happened to me a few
(05:07):
years ago. My grandparents used to own property on a
lake off the gun Flint Trail in northern Minnesota, where
I spent a considerable amount of my summers as a kid.
There's no cell phone service and it's not unusual to
go days without seeing another person, even out on the lake.
The cabin had an upper level sunroom and deck overlooking
the woods down to the lake. Is very important for
(05:28):
the rest of the story. Upper level sunroom and a
deck overlooking the woods down to the lake. My grandpa
used to sit out on the deck at night and
would tell us stories about the glowing fairies that he
used to see while he was out there. He later
told us he had occasionally seen them pass through the
windows and into the cabin. We mostly attributed this to
(05:50):
the whiskey SODA's he would drink out on the deck
in the evenings. That's kind of funny Ronelle. Grandpa enjoyed
his whiskey, but Ronelle continues here. My Paw unfortunately passed
away in early two thousand sixteen, and I went to
visit him one last time in July with my mom
and my grandma before she put the cabin up for sale.
(06:11):
It was the night of July three, and my grandma
had already gone to sleep. The evening was clear. There
were no electrical storms that night or in the forecast.
My mom and I were in the sunroom, remember that's
the upstairs sunroom area. We had turned off all the
lights except for one over the sink and the the
adjacent kitchen, when we started to see what appeared to
(06:31):
be fireflies at the tree line outside. Now this is
a ellipsis here. I have never seen fireflies up there
before or after. The greenish white lights started to pulse
in time with each other, speeding up, and then suddenly
they all went dark and a roughly grapefruit sized sphere
(06:52):
lit up near the ground. It hovered for a short period,
moving slowly upwards. Then it started to gain speed and
quickly move up to the level of the deck, and
then it flew very fast over the roof and was gone. WHOA, right,
that was me, by the way. WHOA between first seeing
the sphere light up and it being gone was maybe
(07:13):
only five seconds or so, And shortly after it disappeared,
the light above the sink dimmed briefly. Okay, there's a
little bit more to this email. I kind of want
to save it for a second as we discussed some
of this, What does that sound like to you guys,
some firefly looking lights down by the lake, uh, you know,
(07:35):
viewing it from a higher above angle. Then all of
a sudden, those lights going away in a larger sphere
light uh being illuminated and then rising up and over
the roof. What do you guys think could be any
number of things? Will of the wisp perhaps Okay remember those? Okay?
(07:56):
All right? Um, certainly opportunities for optical illusions in that situation,
but it could be something more, especially with the water, agreed.
The water makes a big difference right there because of
possible reflections, possible all kinds of other optical illusions that
could be happening. But there's also something in there about
ball lightning, which is a really weird phenomena that occurs
(08:19):
and it's it's a real thing. It's it's not a
made up thing. Um. But again, she already mentioned there's
no electrical storm, so that weird me out a little bit.
So let's continue in the email here. If my mother
hadn't been there and seen the same thing, I would
think I was mistaken or confused about what I saw.
She grew up in Illinois and there has been ball
lightning before, but swears this was a different thing. There's
(08:43):
a pole out in the front of the cabin where
the phone and electrical line comes in, which is in
the direction that the sphere flew towards. The whole area
is composed of bedrock and magnetite, So the only reasonable
explanation we've been able to come up with is some
sort of what is this peco electric effect which could
possibly explain the light dimming afterwards. So right there there's
(09:06):
the story. Ronell attached some pictures to this message for us,
which actually shows the cabin out there in the middle
of the woods, and it also shows the vantage point
from that upper level deck where the sun room is
overlooking the dock down there by the lake. And I
thought this was a really interesting story. I don't know,
(09:26):
I mean, I I don't even know what else to
say about it besides the concept of the grandfather associating
these lights that he had seen before in the past
with fairies with being some kind of magical being that
exists out there in the woods by the lake, and
I don't I wanted to look up the folklore I
(09:46):
was thinking about you guys when I was looking some
of the stuff up. There is fair like Faye folklore
within the United States, and I don't know a ton
about it. I know that some of it originates from
indigenous people that lived on this land before you know,
the United States was ever a thing, or ever a
glint in the eye of some revolutionary um. And there's
(10:09):
some really fascinating stuff that I've never heard of, and
I think it might be worth a full episode to
to go over some of the I don't know FAYE
in the USA. That sounds wow, Why that was brilliant. No,
it's true. I think of you know, when I think
of fairy folk, I think of Midsummer Night's Dream and
more contemporarily UM a lot of Neil Gaiman's work, or
(10:32):
Sandman in particular, there's a lot of fairies that play
UM serious roles in that work, and also in Pan's Labyrinth.
Um the fairies are kind of creepy and have like
sharp nasty teeth. I kind of was into that depiction.
But all of these obviously places not said in the
United States. Well, there's there's an interesting aspect here, just
(10:52):
to interject for a second, because what we see it's
similar to the evolution of abduction stories. Right where there
were change leans, there were alleged hidden sentient groups that
would take humans for one reason or another, maybe to
(11:12):
uh go bowling with them, like in the rip fam
Winkles story, or maybe to steal their children. And then
later with the evolution of UFOs and aliens and the zeitgeist, uh,
those stories remain the same, but they just got new
things mad lived in. So what to me is what
what's fascinating about this? As I love the point you're
(11:33):
bringing up regarding pre European American folklore, uh folklore on
this continent, because those stories and those sorts of beings
exist in pretty much every culture, and it's something that
I think would be very interesting for those of us
in the crowd today who consider themselves extremely skeptical. You
(11:57):
have to ask yourself. Why was there never an entirely
skeptical community that developed independently, but instead there is a
clear line of a clear correlation. Virtually every community has
created some sort of um story or explanation or narrative
(12:18):
or mythology about these events, from you know, fay like
creatures like brownies elves, to the translation across the world
will often be something like the hidden folk, and it's strange,
it's strange little remember the little like are the borrowers,
the little people that live in your walls and stuff.
(12:38):
I always enjoyed those stories. Yes, and this is what
I wanted to bring up there. I was reading about
Cherokee legends folklore from specifically the Cherokee tribe. Part of
their mythology includes a race of immortal spirit people that
feels very similar to fairies. I don't know how similar,
at least according to some of the light reading I
(12:59):
was going on the subject. I think I think they're
called new nehe new neh he. I don't know how
to pronounce it correctly, but they are. It's translated as
the people who live anywhere or the people who live forever.
And it's a completely different um race of beings. A
it's a completely different subset of being. It's not a god,
(13:22):
it's not you know, a human. It's not a spirit
like a like a nature spirit or anything like that. Um,
it's not a ghost. It's it's it's none of these things.
It's this other, living, intelligent creature that exists almost very
much so, right, like just created from some different material
(13:43):
rather than clay or you know, like man was or
a smoke smokeless fire like the Jin. Do they have
any kind of ill intent associated with them in the folklore?
I know often spirits like that from a level at
all, Are Are they kind of neutral? I honestly don't know
enough yet. I just started learning about these mythical creatures,
and it does change. The way they're described does change
(14:06):
depending on which region you're in. With the Appalachian Mountains,
that's one of the main connective tissues for many of
the stories. But there are also stories a lot of
them surrounding fay like creatures near the Great Lakes of
the US. And this brings us back to something fascinating
about your experience right now. When you mentioned peco electric
(14:32):
the phenomenon of pezo electricity, I think all of our
our eyes lit up Peco electricity. Just to be clear
for anyone, the quick and dirty explanation of that is
the idea that certain materials can create an electric charge
when they have certain types of stress applied to them.
So it is. It is, I think a very reasonable explanation.
(14:56):
Maybe it could explain something that we're optical illusions to
explain something about what's going on with the Great Lakes.
But as we said, these stories are very old. They're
also universal. As um longtime listeners know, I have uh
roots of a sort in in Appalachia, and I can
confirm that these things, to your question, Noll, are not.
(15:20):
It's like the Jin are considered individuals first and foremost.
They might be Christian, they might be atheists, they might
follow Islam. The New Hey are similar or beans like
that are similar in that they have human relationships with
them are often kind of defined as if then so
they're supposed to be really friendly to the Cherokee and
(15:43):
that folklore, but they're in general friendly to lost wanderers.
So overall they're very h they're very Appalachian and attitude.
I would say, they'll have you, they'll have you over. Yeah,
that's great. There there's a book I want to get
our hands on called Native American Legends of the Great
Lakes and the Mississippi Valley. It's written by Catherine Barry Judson.
(16:06):
And it looks like there's a free version of it.
Oh no, it's just a preview. But there's a version
of it on archive dot org. So I want to
actually get a physical copy if possible. The only problem
is the thing is published in yeah, nineteen fourteen. Uh yeah,
I don't know. We'll see or if you got one,
send it our way, or at least tell us where
(16:27):
to find it. But yeah, I just want to say
thanks for no for sending that in as a great story.
I it sounds like you sold the cabin I guess
so maybe you won't be able to experience this particular
vantage again to see something down there, but who knows.
That's uh that area over there, gun Flint what was it?
Gun Flint Trail. It's right, it's on Lake Superior. It
(16:52):
looks really fascinates right at the edge of Canada and
the United States inside the United States. Really cool. So
thanks so much. We'll be right back with another message
from you. And we have returned. We have not returned unaccompanied.
(17:12):
We're bringing Amy with us on air. Amy, here's what
you said. Amy wrote in to say, Hi, my name
is Amy, and the name can be used. About ten
years ago, when I was still kind of young and
I'd done some dumb stuff, a doctor came to me
in the hospital room and asked if I would participate
in a treatment that would stimulate my heart rate, among
(17:33):
other things, while I was asleep. Of course I said yes,
because who doesn't want the benefits of exercising while sleeping? Amy,
you put in a question mark and two exclamation points,
which I feel is appropriate in that situation. It's the
only thing in my mind that would redeem sleep in general.
That's me editorializing with the story. Only on the morning
(17:56):
of this treatment, says Amy, while wires were being secured
my forehead, did I realized that this was electroshock treatment.
I thought of it as something from the nineteenth century
and didn't even realize it was still a thing. But
as sure was, and it was every bit as creepy
as imagined. A small room full of rhythmically beeping machines, restraints,
(18:20):
the dark of early dawn, the only time when the
anesthesiologist was available for this and the final command to
quote count backward from ted with tooth guard in place,
eyes kept shut, and mask in place. Then waking a
couple of hours later in a different room with people
asking you where you are and what year? It is?
(18:43):
No pause here for a second for you, guys. Have
you ever been in a situation, maybe post surgery or
something where you woke up and someone has to give
you like a cognitive evaluation? Thankfully no, but it terrifies me.
I've never actually been put under under, never had a surgery,
an invasive surgery. I had a bad experience with with
(19:04):
a then legal substance that gave me a really bad trip,
and when I came to, I had to be re
oriented to all consciousness. It was bad. You had to
come back from being a part of a particle of
a interconnected universe that is only learning to know itself
(19:25):
further and more intimately, and you had to get back
to the flesh bag. Right. Hey, Yeah, I was a
pixel inside an ever rotating grid and I was trying
to find my way to the center, but I didn't
understand what center was. It was bad. There is no center,
you know what. Definitely could not hold that's for sure. Yeah,
shout out to Yates and at Champ. But the the
(19:47):
the reason I ask is because anybody has been through
this knows it's enormously disconcerting feeling. And I'm not going
to say their name on error because this story perhaps
does not paint them in the best light. But my
favorite version of this is a a friend of mine
got into a pretty serious accident a number of years ago,
(20:09):
car accident, and this is a guy who was kind
of off the grid, kind of unplugged. He's the kind
of guy wouldn't have consented to go to a hospital
if he were conscious. And he got that you know,
that assessment light, flashlight in your eyes, you know, let's
check dial adship, blah blah blah, And they asked him
who the president was and he had no idea, and
(20:30):
his family had to explain, like, look, he's a little weird.
He didn't know before he got hit by a car.
He's just not tuned in. So you have to be
careful what kind of question to ask. That's why people
ask what year it is. It's something most people know.
Back to Amy, Amy, you said, now about ten years later,
I'm fine, healthy, have gameful employment, a nice home, friends,
(20:51):
and a good life where I can do whatever I
want while listening to podcast after work. I don't know
whether this procedure contributed or not. There's a lot of
contra versy about it, I know, And even as a
recipient of this treatment, I'm on the fence. I don't
remember a lot of things. It would seem like I'd
remember most good, but some bad. And it's kind of
spooky to be told about these events by friends and
(21:13):
family with no recollection. I can't help but think that
I just matured and chilled out, and that the e
c T wasn't necessary at all. Still, others swear by it. Yet,
even as a recipient, I wonder if it has any
more basis than it did in the nineteenth century. Mm hmm,
this is this is a weird one. We're talking a
(21:34):
little bit off air, Um and Amy. I think at
least a few of us agree with that kind of
mental image you have when you first hear electroshock therapy,
like no what it was to make you think? Yeah,
I mean it makes me think of like, you know,
bear bite down on this spoon while we jack your
brain with however many volts and you convulse wildly on
the on the table. I also think that people don't
(21:56):
really remember this. I think because it's traumatic. But that
movie returned into oz Um, which is very terrifying and
uh has so much nightmare fuel in it. Um. Little
Dorothy Gale beginning is in like a psychiatric facility, presumably
because she won't stop going on about oz and somewhere
over the Rainbow and they're about to give her shock
therapy when like there's a power outage or something and
(22:18):
she escapes. But yeah, you think of it as being
like a very barbaric, you know, relic of kind of
like the sand the age of the sanitarium or whatever,
you know. Um, but it is you know, the Mayo
Clinic as a page on it. That kind of demystifies it.
It is still done today under you know, anesthetics and
you know with munch lower voltage and I'm certain not
(22:40):
enough to make you spas out on the table like that,
but I can see exactly where the perceptions come from. Yeah,
the possibility here, or at least if someone tells you
the possibility, who's like selling you this as a treatment
or is it t dc S trans No t c
d S transcranials. Yeah, someone's selling you that concept of like,
(23:02):
look we can we can pass electrical an electrical charge
through your brain. And what it's gonna do. It's gonna
be amazing, all these positive things, strengthening all these connections,
making new connections. Maybe dude, you're gonna it's so great
and look all you gotta do is chill. That's all
you gotta do. Uh. It sounds amazing. Um, it also
(23:23):
sounds really dangerous, That's what I would say. So it's
both right and and I guess it's just how much
are you willing to risk? How much is science willing
to risk? If it just completely does damage to somebody
or if it really does improve you, You're gonna have
to go through a lot of trials. And I don't
think I don't think there's been enough trials. Maybe I'm
(23:46):
just not up on the research. Well, it is. It
is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. It is.
It's just like cereal. Yeah, the uh so there you go.
Electrical convulsive therapy as safe as what's that serial? The
only raisin brand? You like? You monster? I like I
(24:09):
like raisin brand crunch. Okay, all right, get it right,
I feel bad. I feel like I just called Mennonite
Amish or something. I'm sorry. There's nut clusters is what
takes it to the next level. Regular old raisin brand.
That's your Grandpa Cereal right there. I'm sorry, No self
respecting millennial should be eating raisin brand. I feel like
(24:31):
it's your mouth. It's up to you what you put
in it. I got your back, bro. But with that,
with that being said, um, you're absolutely writing there. There
is controversy behind this, and part of that controversy, part
of that controversy is inseparable from the at times troubling
history of this kind of therapy or this I would
(24:53):
even say this kind of technique because it wasn't always
used in a way that would solidly be defended as therapy.
And long time listeners you know that. I I of
course love any chance for us to talk about real
life thinking caps T M S, T dcs. UH. This
this stuff is fascinating, but like you said, Matt, there's
(25:16):
there needs to be much more research done on it. Uh.
And I say this as a guy who did mad
science together one of these transcranial direct current simulation devices. UH.
And thankfully I don't think I hurt myself, but we'll
we'll have to see in a few years. What was
it like? It was it like a metal calendar with
(25:36):
like wire leads attached to it from a car battery
or something like how d I y are we talking here? Ben?
Pretty mug diver. To be honest with you, it's um.
The main reason I felt comfortable doing it, and Matt,
you know all this is because I was it was
these things were an illegal gray area for a long time,
and I kept trying to call companies and buy one
(26:00):
of these things before endeavoring to build it myself. And
then we're all these there are all these issues which
I understand the importance of ethics and human experimentation, but
they you could like I would call places and they
would say, oh, okay, what you know what institutionary with?
You know, what's the paperwork on your study? Like I'm
(26:22):
I'm with this podcast, but it's not really about that.
This is just something I want to do. So the
study is me. The sample size is one. I'll sign
whatever you want to get rid of liability. But they
had to be careful with that because even with very
small amounts of current, right, even with lower levels of electricity.
You are messing with probably the least understood organ in
(26:47):
the human body. Right. We don't know how it works.
We don't know everything about how it works when it's
working the way it's supposed to. Uh, but we do
know that at times his story work. Ley. The use
of electro convulsive therapy as you would call it today,
(27:08):
has been said to have negative impacts of one sort
or another, like amy. What you're describing is a kind
of retrograde amnesia, right, that's one of the symptoms. I
think we all clocked. And according to the A p
A from a two thousand one report that's the American
Psychiatric Association, there is some retrograde amnesia, and in some
(27:32):
patients the recovery from this retrograde amnesia may be incomplete.
They also claim that e c T can result in
persistent or permanent memory loss. But on the flip side,
on the positive side, e c T has been used
for cases of severe depression, like not not someone just
(27:54):
saying I'm feeling down on Twitter. No, I mean it's
like people who are in danger of maybe self harm
or just are not able to function. It's certainly like
a maybe not last resort, but it's definitely up there. Um.
There's It's funny. I found a site from U T.
Southwestern Medical Center that reads like a laundry list of
like this is why this is great, and it's like
(28:15):
trying to demystify and it definitely has some good information,
but the way it's listed out, it's clearly trying to
sell you on this as a as a as a treatment. Um.
But they do use the word um, the phrase medically
uh triggered medically controlled seizure UM, so you know that
is what's happening. Um. And while they might not patients
might not jerk around convulse wildly, you know, they do
(28:39):
jerk somewhat and there are you know, some involuntary movements. UM.
But yeah, it's it's very much a thing, and it's
certainly been It's probably come a long way, but has
it though? It's like, I mean, how it doesn't get
much more spasic than Okay, we're gonna shoot some electricity
into your brain. Like we've known how to generate varying
degrees of electricity for a long time. I wonder what
(29:00):
specifically is different other than the fact that they're putting
you to sleep. It's yeah, it's not a bad question.
So a big part of it is the location, like
what what section of the brain is receiving this stimulation.
And then also another thing because because I clocked uh,
I clocked Southwestern as well. Another thing that has evolved
(29:22):
that's similar to e c T is m ST, where
which is the short for magnetic seizure therapy. You can
see why doctors probably one of this MST instead of magnets, magnets, magnets.
You know, someone figured it out. But this these treatments
(29:44):
can be important, they can have measurable positive impact. But
we have to remember again nothing occurs in a vacuum.
And the entire time that people were looking into the
use of e c T as a as a treat
for depression and specific we have to remember there was
an entirely different field of experts that were researching antidepressants,
(30:08):
and as antidepressants evolved, they became an increasingly viable and
profitable Actually, yeah, let's flip that. You're right, it became
an increasingly profitable and then viable alternative to treatments for depression.
With this in mind, when we think about these kind
(30:30):
of experiments, first we have to be really clear that
we're not doctors. This is not medical advice. But when
you are intentionally triggering a seizure in the brain, which
is what is happening with this therapy, the entire point
of it is to cause changes in brain chemistry that
(30:52):
can reverse symptoms of certain medical conditions. And that last
clause of what I just said cause changes in bringing
chemistry that can reverse symptoms of certain mental conditions. The
question is would you do would you shock yourself in
an attempt at wellness if you could simply take a pill?
(31:13):
Also on the profit mode of ECT, treatment is recommended
in like reps of ten to fifteen sessions. I'm sure
those sessions aren't cheap. And uh, antidepressants are something you
have to take on a regular basis. You don't get
you're not you know, you don't get fifteen pills of
Lexa pro and then you're better forever. It's I gotta
(31:35):
say that in hearing you describe that, Ben just now,
it makes me think of like this is sort of
the psychiatric equivalent of like banging the side of the
TV when it's like glitching out. You know, in the
hopes that you're banging will trigger the right thing among
all the other wrong things that it could also trigger,
and if you do it enough times, maybe you'll get
(31:56):
it to where the picture is like you know, tracking
correctly again, um, because it sure seems like a blunt
instrument type you know process to me. But in this case,
you're I don't know what the TV. It's like you're
adding an additional electrical plug to your television besides the
primary one, and then you plug that one into just
(32:19):
to see what happens if a little extra electricity just
for a second, you know what I mean? Like, how
how did you sell that idea in the early days?
Just like you know, what's amazing electricity? I'm just saying,
what are you guys doing this weekend? Let's you've seen
all these famous experiments where we you know, electrocute to
elephant until it dies. You've seen them. Hey, let's try
(32:42):
it on some humans. How about you just for a second,
just just like a second. I can't emphasize how much
I want that recap to really have somebody who's saying
just per second over and over again, like rights, they're writers,
they're plugging the person in there, like okay, okay, what's
that what's that? Just what? What? What? What? What? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
(33:05):
we lost them, So that's like that's why you know,
it's your point. It is intentionally causing seizures, and the
a lot of the controversy around it is whether this
is responsible use, whether the benefits outweigh the possible risk.
And that historical image just doesn't look good because in
(33:27):
the earlier days, patient slash victims were not given anesthetics,
so they were actively seizing. If you can see me
shaking around, and I'm not making light of this, this
could result in fractured bones, memory loss, a rogue's gallery
of other potentially harmful side effects. But right now, it
(33:48):
might surprise some folks to know that e c T
can be recommended because some people, for one reason or another,
cannot take uh an antidepressant. It's it's actually this surprised me.
Might surprise you too, Amy. Uh. E c T has
been specifically recommended for pregnant patients because you know, you can't.
(34:10):
You have to be very careful with what you ingest
right if you're expecting, because it will affect the child. Yeah,
but your brain is is making all those involuntary processes.
That's the thing that's like, uh, I would recommend get
you a second opinion. Does amniotic fluid conduct electricity? One
(34:31):
would think, I don't know. I mean, I know that
they're different regions, but still really just seems way off.
And then also for maybe older adults who cannot tolerate
certain side effects of drugs, Like what we're saying is
right now, the establishment has considers e C t UH controversial,
(34:53):
but they believe it does have efficacy in certain situations. Uh.
This is a topic that's endlessly fascinating on a personal level,
I think to a lot of us. UH. We may
end up diving into this in the future in a
full episode, but for now, what we would say is Amy.
(35:15):
First off, congratulations, thank you frying this fantastic letter, and
so glad to hear that you are doing well. We
want to make sure anybody who's hearing this who has
considered treatments like these are considered shooting electricity into your brain.
Take it from me, folks, I know it sounds really cool.
I am on board with it in the realist way.
(35:38):
I am tend toes down on this, but learn from
my mistakes. Don't mcgiver's stuff. You can you can buy
those kids if you're really interested. Now, I think the
laws of loose and a little bit. But if you
were messing with forces you don't really understand, and no
one really understands the human brain, get an expert. Get
(35:59):
an expert to help you through that process and advise
you on whether or not you need to consider it
in the first place. I still use those big like
suction cup things that go on your temples, or they
advanced past that. I've seen teen ones that are more
netting expandable and it kind of fits on your brain,
on your head, no sculliers. I just picture the torture
(36:21):
seeing in Princess Bride also true. Can you guys remember
that Mostly Dead. It's the machine that's supposed to like
take a year off his life with every twist of
the but you know, yeah, by making him listen to
water or something. It was weird. It wasn't clear how
that machine actually work. But you're right, he did have
(36:41):
some electrodey type things on his on his his noggin. There,
what a good story. So we ended. We ended on
that note. But please, if you if you have experience
with this as a positive or negative, we would love
to hear from you. As always, you can drop us
a line directly. We'll tell you how to do that
again at the end of the show. But for now,
(37:02):
let's take a break for a word from our sponsor,
who I don't think will be a t DCS device,
but if so, let the chips fall as they will.
We'll be back and here's more from Ken Moore microwaves.
Don't take them apart like Ben did. I should have
never told you that story. All right, and we're back,
(37:29):
and we're gonna wrap today's episode up with kind of
a fun one. It's a call back to a previous
fun email we got about Haunted in relating to our
Haunted Objects episode. We I think y'all will remember this,
especially if you're on the Here's where it Gets Crazy
Facebook group, because I believe a really clever listener made
a like movie poster about the blue ball. It was
(37:52):
like a horror movie kind of poster situation at Eric.
Thanks Ben, you're the best with with remembering names. I
remember the piece and I loved it. Uh what what
was the tagline? It was like it's time to play
with your balls or something like that. It was good.
It was and we I'm sure one of us actually
said that because we're children. But um, that was a
fun one because it was definitely like it had that
(38:14):
are you Afraid of the dark kind of vibe where
it's kind of innocuous and a little bit you know, corny,
but then it does kind of gets you in the
end where and then of course it came for one
last appearance. Um. And then you know, when you hear
stories like that about haunted objects or uh, something that
seemed just too crazy to be coincidence, you usually find
a way to justify or explain it away with a
(38:37):
coincidence or mad I believe your idea was that it
was a pack of these balls that had been purchased
in one go and they just kind of, you know,
found their way back into you know, circulation. I guess
even after one of them was thrown away, there was
another one lurking in a hamper somewhere and it just
ends up rolling along like balls do. Um. But a
(38:58):
listener named cassam and Drop wrote in with an alternate theory, Um,
that brings up a concept that I was not aware of. Um,
but it definitely is present and plenty of like pop
culture and stuff uh, something called resists. Oh boy, resistentialism, um,
the long version of it being counter phenomenal logical resistentialism.
(39:19):
We'll get to what that is in a minute, but
here's the email. Uh greeting has been mad and Noel.
While you recounted the story of a certain potentially haunted
object and discussed your theories of what could have been
causing this ball to seemingly keep reappearing, you also pose
the question as to what the ball's intentions may have been.
Did it want to play or was it intent on
tripping someone? This brought to mind the term I learned
(39:40):
several years ago. Here it is again, see if I
can do it. Counter phenomenal logical resistentialism or just resistentialism.
It refers to the possibility or belief that inanimate objects
have minds of their own and innately dislike people. Yeah,
which I just love. I no longer have the book
I read about this, and I think it was called Weird,
(40:00):
Scary and Unusual Stories and Facts. But as I recall,
it gave examples as to what else this phenomenon might explain,
including someone quote losing their keys in there, a bouncy
ball bouncing out of control, and the continuous disappearance of
spoons from a certain institution or hospital. Um, I believe
it said there was actually a study done at the
institution tracking its mysterious and repetitious decline in utensils. This
(40:24):
is true. We're gonna get to that. Well. I'm not
exactly a believer in counter phenomenological resistentialism myself. I find
it an interesting idea and a fun term. I thought
you might like to know if you didn't already, thank
you for all the work and effort you do on
the excellent show and for keeping us informed on so
many topics. They would rather we be kept in the
dark about Cassandra. And then she says to feel free
(40:44):
to use her name. Um, so we did because I
like the name Cassandra a lot. Ben, you're familiar with
this concept, um. And by the way, exactly so. Socks, you, kitchen, utensils,
you know, t shirts, Uh, so many little things like
that that I just feel like everyone has the shared
experience of constantly being you know, diminishing supply of these
(41:09):
things over time. UM. Easy to explain away and just
well they're not that big a deal. Spoons. You might
just take one with you for a picnic and leave it.
No one really cares that much, but I still think
it's a little bit ridiculous to the degree to which
I losets Ben. What was your experience with this concept
and what do you associated with? Uh? Yeah, So first
(41:33):
we have to consider that too many people this idea
is a thought experiment or a little bit purposely tongue
in cheek, you know what I mean. But it builds
on just like uh Reynauld's earlier story about folklore and
Faye in the US, the idea of this concept, resistentialism
(41:55):
builds on the very old concepts that are that are
kind of like animals, the idea that objects like humans
may have some sort of soul or sentience or their
own background palette of motivations and fears and desires. This
is a very very old concept. It's one of I
(42:17):
would argue it is one of the first things humans
did that's kind of like a religion, you know, and
it's still with us today. Like a lot of people
don't think of this as a religious act, but do
you guys name your stuff? We all know someone who
names a car, right, And so animism is the belief
(42:38):
that there are there's a multitude and innumerable multitude of
spiritual beings somehow concerned with human affairs, and just like
the faith, they can hurt you, they can harm you,
and you can't always trust them to be consistent in
that regard. So the big difference here they think it's
(42:59):
fast and eating kissandra is that uh in the idea
that that we're positing resistentialism. This idea is like a
very pessimistic version of object based animism, right. It makes
me think of like a lot of stuff from you know,
literature and pop culture, like we need the Pooh or
(43:20):
for example, like the idea that toys have a life,
you know, or the velveteen rabbit. Um. There is another
story I remember very distinctly for when I was a
kid that was clearly what toy story was based on.
I can't ram what it was called, but it was
about the old school toy being supplanted by the new
shiny toy. Um that's like a spaceman or or like
an acrobat or something like that. I'm sure it's a
(43:43):
trope that has been repeated throughout history because it its
we have this innate need or desire anyway to anthropomorphize
animals and and objects and the idea that things have personality.
But I'm with you then that it is more of
a thought experiment. I don't think anyone's actually saying your
spoons are de materializing and showing up on another planet
(44:03):
or something. Matt, I'm just gonna put this out there.
One of the most intelligent people that I've ever met,
and interesting talented. It was a former boss of of ours,
and she put into our heads, my head, the concept,
(44:25):
whether she was being serious or not, the concept that
if I treated my computer and my electronics well, if
I talked to them, if I comforted them when they
were having an issue, they would perform better and they
would not have so many issues with their software. If
I was kind to them, if I put them away gently,
if I made sure they were always clean. Uh. And
(44:48):
I swear to you I don't. I will not say
that I fully believe this, but I will say that
I somehow, in doing these little rituals of making sure
or my machine was always taking care of well, I
felt like things were going better with me and my
computer as a relationship. You know, But that doesn't that
(45:08):
also mean that you, like back when you had to
do this, made sure to always defrag your hard drive
and like don't keep your desktop to clutter because you
have this certain respect that you bring to the situation
that maybe feels like a ritual to you, but it
also translates to functional acts of maintenance that you're doing
that some people might just let go because the biggest
(45:29):
thing that causes computers have slowed down when people don't
realize their hard our drives are almost completely full, and
then they start to like, you know, log jam the
whole system. So I think it was a good piece
of advice because I think it just you. You treated
it with respect, and you gave it its due and
you you know, oiled it when it needed to be oiled.
I'm I'm now changing it to a tin man kind
(45:50):
of situation, but it's trunal. Uh. Matt and I had
the same boss, Rock sand If you're listening, you're amazing,
awesome and uh, and she really believed it, Matt, you know,
she told both of us the same thing. And I've
done it before too. But it's it's almost you could argue,
you know, like, No, I think you raised a very
(46:11):
good point. If you feel like you have a personal
relationship with a thing, you are more likely to treat
it with empathy and do like picture it liking stuff
you do. That's also another way to During the pandemic,
I think we all experienced a little bit more anthropomorphization
than we had maybe bargained for, because also in our
(46:34):
computer has the faces of all of our disembodied friends
on it, and it's literally the only contact we have
with like humanity. Yeah, well, like look at the like
here's another one. Here's another one for people even you know,
we're talking to the skeptics here right uh, and I'm
I'm with you, guys, like I Matt got in my
head too. I also talked to objects and I name them.
(46:58):
You know, I think you only have to worry if
they start talking back. But even then it is kind
of comforting. It is it is, you know what I mean,
someone's talking to me right when my machete is like,
oh you're getting out there. Then I'm like, a yeah,
good call Mark. But but the Marcus. But the the
thing I noticed and I want to hear from our
(47:20):
our friends listening today, animals were inanimate objects. I noticed
that I was anthropomorphizing a ton of stuff in my kitchen,
and I think this is universal. I realized I have
one spoon that I think of as like the bad spoon,
and I can't explain it. I'm just like it knows
what it did. It's up to something. It's the bad spoon.
(47:43):
I haven't thrown it away, and I'm I'm at it, impass.
That's definitely don't throw it away. That's the worst thing
you could do. You don't want to put that bad
energy out into the world, man, because then it's on you. Um.
But it's so funny, like the whole you're you're you're
being nice to your computer thing. Plants are living things,
but I will think of them kind of as an
animate object. Right. A lot of people talk to plants
and they say that that makes them better. Watch out,
(48:06):
Doc and I both I think have strong feelings on this.
I I do believe that plants will tend to, um,
we'll tend to have a better life if if you're
talking to them, And maybe it's just like what you're saying, Well,
maybe it's because you're interacting on that level. You're more
likely to water it, you're more likely to be aware
of health conditions in the plant. But also you know,
(48:29):
maybe they're just lonely. How long does one of these
conversations last is what I want to know, Like, is
this is this efficient for me to say, hey, buddy,
looking good? Hey, no comment is fine? Ben, okay? For
my purposes? How do I get started talking to plants?
That's my question because I really I'm not joking when
(48:50):
I said I really do want to be a good
plant dad, and I've done pretty well. But like I
sometimes over water them, and that is just as bad
as underwatering them. It just it sort of speaks to
my character. Sometimes I just like I just insist upon myself.
I just need to really nurture things until they just
crush them. You know, I'm kidding, um, But how do
(49:11):
I get started with my my plant interaction? Well, uh,
I don't know that. It sounds like we're doing a
little relationship advice, all right, So this is we're gonna do. No,
We're gonna set up a tiny mirror near the plant,
and you're gonna make eye contact with yourself, and you're
gonna hold a little therapy session, except where instead of
referring to you as you or me or NOL, you're
(49:34):
just You're You're just gonna talk to the plant, and
plant's name is going to be Sam. You're gonna say,
ye know that the plant is your father, and you're
going to uh, so you will be the son of Sam.
But I hate my father and I have to punch
the plant. The plant will talk back to you, give
you very specific instructions and sorry, no, I love this.
(49:57):
I love this idea. I do have a plant named
nige all uh that I have named So I'm I'm
on my way um with this whole idea. But but
the resistent resistentialism is, like you said, been the kind
of very cranky, pessimistic alter ego of this idea of
talking to your plants and they'll be nice to you.
We're talking to your computer and it'll you know, not
(50:18):
break um. Because this posits the objects of all kinds
hate us and want to do us harm or at
the very least inconvenience us by disappearing spontaneously. Well because yeah,
we're just using what we take. But also we're we're
look how look how the human species treats itself. You know, UM,
it treats objects in order of magnitude. Worse, we we
(50:41):
are discussing this um to the utmost of our ability, Cassandra.
But I feel like I would be remiss if I
didn't point out the etymology of this term. When we
say it's a thought experiment, when we say it's a
little tongue in cheek. It was invented or coined by
a humorist named Paul Old Jettings. It's a British writer.
(51:02):
It's kind of like a Lewis Grizzard of his day.
For anybody who remembers Lewis Grizzard or oh, what's that
other guy? He's got a sister. I'm so bad at this. Yes, David, yeah, nice,
nice would okay. I was the guy who went into Blockbuster.
(51:23):
I was like, yeah, I'm looking for that movie there's
music in a Day. You know that guy with the
face and the coach, the guy with hair, Matt, he
really mailed it. You not the manager of the John
Cusack that did have a nice face and nice hair.
I alluded to it, but didn't mention it. And we
were running long. I just want to just let everyone know.
There was a study that looked at tea spoons specifically,
(51:46):
I believe in Melbourne, Australia, at a research institute a facility,
and they like they gave him a half life score.
These teaspoons depending on where they originated, whether it was
in a common area or an area that was more
like voted to a particular branch of of research. Um.
And I think you guys should just go look into
(52:07):
that yourselves. This would be some good supplemental reading, because
we I think we've we've set our piece. Um. The
takeaway is that, yeah, a lot of teaspoons disappear. No
one copped in the office to fully removing the teaspoons
from the building. So the jury is out as so
what happened. There were a few arrant teaspoons that were
found on desktops and you know, squirreled away somewhere, maybe
(52:30):
some light hoarders or something. But there were an unungodly
amount of teaspoons that went missing. And when they applied
that statistic to like the larger you know, United Kingdom, uh,
it was staggering number. It was, you know, millions and
millions of teaspoons going missing each you know, I bet
it was. But it was a capuchin in the in
one of the ventilation shafts. You've seen it before. I've
(52:53):
seen it before. Everything everybody isn't that the ending to
a Sherlock Homes story or something where it was a
monkey with razor the whole time, stealing all the teaspoons.
It's almost always I think it was a reference to community.
I don't yeah, yeah, yeah, and he's you know, that's
the name of the monkey. Oh yeah, but uh but yeah,
(53:13):
the I am. I am a boarder, you know, nol.
I'm fascinated by studies like this. Also, I am gonna
profile and I feel like my spoon is responsible. I
like it is the subject of a horror movie, bad spoon. Right,
it's quiet, but it's like it's like the bad Seed,
(53:34):
but the bad the bad spoon. And I just just
in case anyone wants to google and look a little further,
the study was done at a place called b m J.
I'm this is not helping me. I need. I need
what the B and the M and the J actually
stand for. The British Medical Journal. That's it, The British
Medical Journal, which claims on its website anyway to be
the leading medical research, news, education, opinion, and uh some
(53:58):
other stuff in the United Kingdom. No. I literally just
said British Medical Journal off top of my head. I'm sorry, dude,
I I didn't know that was real. Okay, well it
was super helpful, Matt, because it totally is real. And
as I was saying before, they fancy themselves to be uh.
They have quite a high opinion of themselves and they
are ranked pretty highly by the journal what ranks journals,
(54:19):
so uh good on them, The Journal of Journalistic Hierarchies exactly.
You know, But I think this is a great place
to leave off today. This was fun, Like you said, Ben,
thought experiment to go through. But thanks Cassandra for the
the email. And um, I love the concept. It's gonna
give me some interesting dreams tonight, I think. And if
(54:40):
you are interested reading more Tory story esque adventures, highly
recommend the comic book series The Stuff of Legend. It's awesome.
I have no notes on it. Just check it out.
Let's know what you think. Also, let me know when
they finally sew it up. I've got to stop falling
in love with comic book series that have not ended.
(55:01):
It is the worst. Uh. While we're you know, Black
Monday murders, Sorry, Matt, but while we're waiting for those
to come out, we cannot wait to hear from you,
give us something else to read while while we're waiting
for Black Monday Murders, the Stuff of Legend, Uber Invasion,
and all those other great reads to finally finish their stories. Cassandra,
(55:21):
Amy Rinnell, everybody who has wrote in and called as always,
thank you for tuning in. We cannot wait to hear
from you. Let us know your thoughts are your fellow
listeners stories. We'd love your firsthand accounts of folklore. We'd
love your firsthand experiences with E. C. T. And we'd
love to know if you have a piece of cutlery
(55:42):
that resents you. We're easy to find online. It can
even be spoon lery whatever you want to. Yeah, well,
you can find us on Facebook and Twitter where we're
conspiracy Stuff. We are Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram. Ben,
how do you feel about Wing night Wing? Are we
(56:02):
talking comics, Matt, we're talking comics Nightwing? Oh yeah, I
I dug it just for a second. I was thinking
of shadow Hawk, which is a different one, but night
Wing used to be Robin right. Yeah, yeah, any thoughts
on night Wing. Doesn't he use like a billy club
or something. He seems like a fascist to me. I
(56:24):
don't know. He has like kind of an like a
pole that he wacks. Maybe I'm just thinking of the
word night stick. No, you're right, he has he has batons,
he does Okay, Uh, I will be completely honest. Not
everybody agrees with me on this. UM. I have a
hard time with some characters like that because they are
(56:44):
they are not superpowered, right. He doesn't have the superpower
billions of dollars like Bruce Wayne does. He's a human
who trains very hard as a work ethic and an ideology. Uh.
And I'm trying not to ding on it it at
some point in in some comics I've been reading them
and I've been thinking, Okay, you're all just people. Though,
(57:08):
well that maybe that's what's so inspiring about night Wing Man.
He's just a person that he grew up with a
family in the circus, and he's got all these skills
and now he's got a you know, do better for
his family. It brings it to what brings night Wing
to your mind? Conversation for another time, quick one before
we go, how do you feel about dark Wing duck? Oh,
(57:31):
let's get dangerous. You guys are making me sound like
a jerk. I was watching him, and I was like,
you're you know, like, do you have super duck powers?
I was trying to figure out what his powers were.
He has a grappling hook of some sort. Isn't he
a millionaire? Doesn't he play like? Isn't his alter ego
like a rich guy? I is it Scrooge in disguise? No,
it's dark. I forget what is Mallard? Some duck joke
(57:55):
his shark on the bad guy in that one. I
believe he is at some point, but there's a lot
of different Yeah, share cons in the business. I get it.
I get where he's coming from. Okay, I can't believe
I got it right. His name is Drake Mallard and
he is presumably very wealthy. Wouldn't that be the like?
(58:17):
Wouldn't that be like Jeff Bezos having the last named
person totally? Wouldn't Jeff Perberry on the nose? Hello, I
am Jeff person, smart person burgh Okay, yeah, we got
an email address or something, right? Oh, and says or
(58:37):
Jeff wouldn't back me up on the plants conversation. Doctor
came in hard on some of its of Jeff roasting.
Uh So, send your best Jeff Bezos roast to us
where Matt mentioned before, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the rest.
(58:57):
If you do not care for social media, uh that
we totally get it, go ahead and give us a
call directly. We have a phone number that's right. You
can reach us at one three s T d W
y t K. Leave a message of the sound of
Ben's dulcet tones three minutes of the time. You shall
have to tell your tale. Let us know it's okay
to use your name on the air, and we likely
(59:18):
will include it in one of our weekly listener Male episodes,
which we just wrap one so like that it'll be
like like what we just did, so make it good. Yeah.
Also remember to find us on YouTube where we are
conspiracy stuff pretty easy. Also leave a review on Apple
podcast or wherever you listen. That would be great. I'm
not saying give us five stars. I'm saying that helps.
(59:40):
It'll be cool. We'd love it. But you rate us
however you want to rate us five stars? Okay, So, um,
if you don't want to do any of that stuff,
you don't want to call, you don't want to find
us on social you don't want to rate us, you
can always still reach us via our old fashioned email address.
We are bad Spoon at I heart radio dot com,
(01:00:01):
kidding conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com, batspoone um The
La la little duh stuff they don't want you to
(01:00:29):
know is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app,
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.