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April 22, 2021 50 mins

Did a child just successfully impersonate a White House reporter? Can hypnotherapy treat certain skin conditions through the power of the mind alone? Just how many childhood games and cartoons seem sinister, when you look back on them as an adult? What's in an Mmhmm? All this and more in this week's Listener Mail.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 us always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. For several folks in the audience today,
you're here in a very real way. Because this is

(00:47):
our weekly listener mail. Behind the scenes every week, sometimes
over the weekends, Matt, Noel and I take a survey
of all the amazing, sometimes frightening correspondence we have received
from you, either through our phone number one eight three
three std w y t K, through our email conspiracy

(01:10):
at I Heart Radio, or through the various other ways
that you can reach out to us as a show
or as individuals. We mix this with great care. We
stir it in a cauldron of concepts. We add a
little bit of perspective. We take some tangents and throw
them in the mix for a little bit of chef

(01:31):
kiss of Mommy, and that's what we end up bringing
you every week, and that's we're bringing you today. Our
listener mail is going to uh, we're gonna have some
surprises for you. There's one in fact that uh there
maybe an impostor in the capital of the United States. Uh.

(01:54):
Matt was a little little irt behind the scenes when
when we asked him to tell us what this listener
mail would be about. I think, Matt, eventually you just
went fine, hypnosis. But but and then we have we
have another, um a thread from our Facebook page. Here's

(02:16):
where it gets crazy. They don't want to spoil just yet. No,
I think I I saw the same email that caught
your eye. But you dug a little deeper on this one, right, yeah,
just a little bit. Um. It's it's really just kind
of a fun, silly story also about like gosh, in
the age, the very relatively recent age of it seemingly

(02:39):
not being that hard to like infiltrate the White House
or rather, you know, government buildings, let us say on
Capitol or maybe the White House is a little tricky here,
but uh, here's a story. Luckily it's not anybody with
a nefarious intent, but we heard from a listener who
I will call Steve Um, who wrote, thus, Hello, gentleman

(03:01):
and lady, I'm wondering if you've heard about the story
of someone online contacting various legitimate news agencies, including the
Plane Dealer, c Q, roll Call and the Washington Blade. UM.
So I said, Blade really weird, but I'm gonna go
with it. Uh. And you ask for you know, press
credentials essentially to ask questions of President Biden's press secretary

(03:23):
named Jen Szaky. Guess in the p asylum. I have
not heard this name spoken yet. Um. The person in question,
I'm Steve writes, has the name Casey Lego Montague, and
she supposedly represented the new group White House News, even
though there is no such group. The questions, on the
other hand, we're legitimate, such as things like COVID nineteen,

(03:46):
travel bands, ambassadorships, any reactions to the Microsoft hack, and
President Biden's current relationship with President Barack Obama. UM, the
report is not going to detail on the answers. This
person may have been shifty in their way of asking questions,
but they do seem like questions people would like to
hear the answers too. I see this as nothing more

(04:08):
than getting a shout out at the end of the
podcast and the person who did this getting a fist
bump from from Steve UH to Casey Lego Montague. I
tipped my hat. Thank you, gentlemen and lady for making
a great podcast that I look forward to every weekday.
Steve from Ohio, Steve from Ohio. Um, Yeah, and this

(04:29):
is totally true. Uh. And apparently that Lego was was
not for nothing that middle name there um. This person,
Casey Montague, is an online like Lego gamer. And a
lot of this does stem back to UH COVID protocols because,
according to this political article four times UH in the

(04:51):
recent weeks, members of the White House Press Corps have
asked questions on behalf of colleagues who could not be
there or claiming their colleagues were unable to be there
um due to COVID restrictions and protocols. Um. And it's
a particular colleague and that colleague goes by the name
Casey Montague and does not exist is in fact you know,

(05:15):
well at least the very least is not a reporter. Um.
So yeah, this identity has been kind of popping up
here and there in the White House for a while now, um,
and that's all correct? What what what? Steve said the
outlet is White House News, which is not a real thing,
um and refers to it as w h N. And uh, yeah,

(05:35):
this was. This individual has two actual Twitter handles which
are followed by a lot of top White House actual
staffers and journalists. Um. And also has filed Freedom of
Information Act requests to obtain Saki's personal financial disclosure forms
along with disclosure forms tied to UM. At least one

(06:00):
other official that Politico found out about, and that is
the President's National Security advisor, Jake Sullivan. UM. Yeah, Montague
is is so I guess just kind of a phantom
at this point. Right. That's pretty cool, just being able
to sneak in there, get some questions off over time,
get out. That's I mean, it's pretty amazing, but also

(06:24):
terrifying that securities that lacks or duped to that easily.
One point of contention, though, I believe this person was
a roadblocks player. That's right, That's right. Uh, it says
said they're the political piece goes onto to report that
they believe that Montague. Um, their activities uh were nothing

(06:47):
short of a weird flex for their online gaming platform
of choice, which is Roadblocks. Um, and it's just that's right, Matt.
But I don't know if you know this clearly, you're
not a Roadblocks enthusiasts Apparently Roadblocks players jokingly refer to
themselves as legos. Well, yeah, because they know they're not,

(07:09):
and they it's a joke. Well, I'm just saying it's
a nod. You know, it's like pog champs and twitch
community or whatever. You know, it's like this jargon these
kids have. I'm confused that did this person actually show
up in person? Because the political article says four times
in recent weeks, members of the White House Press Corps
have relayed questions to Press Secretary Jem Psaki from someone

(07:32):
claiming to be a reporter who is not able to
be there in the room due to COVID protocols. I
it's I don't believe they have met these reporters in person.
That's because you'll see it's it's all phrased or couched
as in communication with colleagues or confidants. This is an

(07:52):
industry and because of the size of it, like imagine
you work for presidential administration and your jobs to keep
an eye on the news and analyze it, synthesize and evaluate, digested, etcetera.
Then you're just gonna start scooping up anything that feels
like it considers itself a legitimate news source, even if

(08:12):
you don't. I mean, make no mistake, there's someone in
the White House keeping an eye on info Wars. They
probably they're not keeping as close an eye on it
as they would say the editorial board of the New
York Times, but they're they're definitely trying to get as
much information about reporters and about reporting outlets as they can. This. Uh,

(08:36):
I think I can say this now. I mentioned it
a little bit off air. Uh. The Statute of Limitations
has passed for whatever number of crimes I committed in
doing this. But I impersonated a reporter and got to
interview former political candidate, former presidential candidate Howard Dean a

(08:58):
number of years ago, and their security was cartoonishly lax.
Maybe I just looked like I might be a legit
reporter from the local newspaper that I totally made up.
But literally what I did, guys, I had one of
those little notebooks I always carry, and I took the

(09:21):
I was wearing a baseball cap or I had one
in my car. You know, you always have like a
couple of changes of clothes in your car and stuff.
So I had everybody everybody should Yeah, it's a modular Okay,
I don't want to get us in. But but so
I had this. I had this hat, and I don't

(09:42):
know where this baseball cap came from. I still have it.
It's a Steeler's cap. And so I turned it backwards
and I was like, boom, this is my Clark Kent
the Superman move. I'm a reporter now. And I asked
Howard Dean if I could ask him some questions. And
I didn't immediately like Zach Galifianakis, Eric Andre this because

(10:03):
I didn't think I would get that far. So like
part way through this conversation was maybe twenty minutes, which
was a lot of time. The guy who's running for
president um, but I think eventually his handlers realized that
I had no idea what I was doing. I was
just making this up. Byway long story short, you know,
there were no consequences for me, and said, okay, you

(10:25):
just have to move on. I didn't have a press pass.
Everybody else had a press pass. No one checked me
for that. I walked in and out of this restricted
area by just looking very busy on my notepad. This
the social engineering is real. And this makes me wonder, Noel,
did Montague expect to get this far? Because I certainly didn't.

(10:47):
I would think, No, this sounds like the kind of prank.
I wonder if Montague is a child. Quite possibly I
got it because kids, he's I mean, it's you know,
my kids, Like she's up on all stuff, all this
kind of questions. Uh. And honestly, I bet a kid
reporter sometimes probably ask better questions than some of these
adult reporters. But that's just me in my hot take. Uh,

(11:10):
that's not a dis on on journalists. I think journalists
are great. But I think, you know, obviously there's certain
agendas and all that stuff. Um, but I think it's
a fabulous story. And and uh, we don't know who
Montague other than that they're a fan of roadblocks. And
I will tell you roadblocks has played predominantly by tweens
and teens. You know, it's not really really don't know

(11:32):
a lot of like grown adults playing roadblocks. Well, there's
a maybe that's not true. Maybe I know. I'm just
was gonna say that's one of the dangers of having
a a massive online game where there are a lot
of tweens and teens also playing with people who may
be adults, and you never know. That's creepy. I don't

(11:55):
want to think about that anymore. Okay, okay, that is true.
Um not not not something to take lightly for sure.
But yeah there again, there's all these Twitter accounts as
part of the kind of breadcrumbs that this person has left.
One of them, it says Casey Lego Montague, um has
been doing a little back and forth with some other
Twitter users. But there's no picture, you know, to identify

(12:17):
what anything about this person. The only thing that there
right now is uh in a nod to a previous
Strange News episode we did. Um. The background is of
the late Prince Philip and the avatar used is Tricia
uh Pie test Pietest. It's like a big YouTube person,

(12:37):
so again roadblocks and follower of YouTube influencer types, not
even no, not even influence. Let's see what this's Tricia
Pipe this is all about. I'm willing to bet that
if I haven't heard of her, it's the kind of
person like that my kid would be into and all
these like twitch streamers and stuff. It's totally under my radar. Uh,

(12:57):
let's see. Oh okay, she looks like kind of like
a train wreck Real Housewives type person. So anyway, the
jury is still out, but um, I think we can
take a quick pause after that one. Guys, what do
you think? Yeah, Ben, was your running before or after
the incident? You know it was? It was before. That's

(13:21):
my only regret. Alright, just had to ask. Alright, well,
we hatch up some more weird trolling the government schemes
of our own. We're gonna take a quick break and
then be right back with more listener mail. Okay, we're back,
and really quickly. I just want to say the YouTuber

(13:43):
that I was talking about before the break, Tricia Patis
uh now uses day them pronouns. Just wanted to be
respectful of that. This is literally a day old story,
so I didn't want to miss gender anybody. So sorry, Ben, Yeah, yeah, right,
we have returned. Uh, We're going in to a story
I wanted to share with everyone, a discussion and we
talked about off air. Uh, this is a little bit different.

(14:07):
I want to try something new with you, fellow conspiracy realists.
I want to bring many of you along. In this segment,
we talked about our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy.
We've been doing an okay job keeping up with the
phone banks, but I wanted to give our Facebook page
a little bit of t l C because I read

(14:28):
something very interesting from Casper w And let me give
you Casper's post, and then we can start talking about
some of the troubling implications of what Casper's is asking here.
Casper says, Hi, first time poster, long time listener. I
have a five year old son and we're learning how

(14:48):
to spell words, and I suggested we play Hangman until
he asked what it was. That's what I realized. I
never knew how dark of a game it is until
I was explaining this thing to my kids. I said,
you have to guess the correct letters of a word
or a phrase before a man gets hanged. So we
literally played a game that depicted a man being lynched

(15:12):
in grade school, and no one batted an eye. I'm
paraphrasing a little bit here, so I guess, says Casper.
My question for our esteemed podcast hosting community is what
is the dark side of other games we all played
in our youth that wouldn't or shouldn't be allowed today.

(15:33):
Thank you, Casper. There are fantastic responses. We can share
some of these from your fellow conspiracy realists, but before
we do, no, Matt Doc have you all ever thought
of this? I was. I was surprised that I had
never thought of the game in that way. I haven't
really thought of that game much at all in a

(15:54):
long time, since I was a kid. Probably it is
a it's a weird concept of explaining regular things that
are in our lives that we just haven't thought about
since we were kids. They just exist, but then explaining
that to a young person and the way, uh, the
way Casper did. I'm going to think about this while

(16:14):
we're continuing to talk if there's anything else that comes
to mind, But right now I can't think of anything.
My dogs are doing something. I think maybe he's a
very vicious game of any man right there trying now.

(16:34):
There was definitely some point when I was an adult
when I randomly thought about that, and I'm like, hah,
that's kind of up, but like I don't remember what
the context was. The same thing with other things that like,
when you're a kid, you're like, oh, this is cool,
like Peppu La Pew and his antics that like when
you're an adult, you're like, it's kind of weird. Not
a game, but just a thought. Yeah, that's that's exactly

(16:57):
where this conversation is going, Doc Holiday, mind reader. I
feel like this brings up to concepts, and gaming is
one of those concepts. But it's a smaller part of
the larger thing, which is just how sinister so many
seemingly innocent, you know, cartoons, games, songs, rituals of childhood

(17:24):
appear when you look back on them as an adult.
It was in conversations with our fred I believe it
was the bacologist who had supplied us those awesome cookies
last year. I have in my cabinet. By the way,
I had to eat one online, but I do have
the other one, as I keep saying, so thank you again, Ecologists.

(17:47):
But I believe it was you who it maybe and
you maybe it's one else who noticed noted that there's
a a weird approach to games that we take in
the Western world. A game seems to necessitate a winner
and a loser in an often cutthroat competition. But when

(18:09):
you think about it, that's not really how games have
to be. And when we look at some of the
world's most popular games, or some of the games we
all remember as kids, we see some crazy stuff. I'd
like to shout out Sean m who responded to Casper's
post by saying, chess sacrifice whatever it takes to complete

(18:31):
a targeted killing, so long as your aristocracy survives. That's chess.
It's definitely a one way of looking at Yeah, just
save the king whatever you do, no matter what, no
matter what the collateral damage, right, And some of those
pieces are literally meant to die, that's why they're on

(18:52):
the board. But the there's another one. Samantha H brought
up something I was not aware of concerning the history
of cake walks. We all know what cake walk is,
so according to Samantha, they haven't done two inch research
on this. She says, my elementary school used to do
cake walks to raise money for various things, and I

(19:14):
just learned recently that it actually comes from the era
of slavery, making enslaved people dance to earn a cake
for the amusement of slave owners. This is so awful.
So many lighthearted activities have such dark lots of racist fruits.
I had never heard this before either. Yeah, oh no,

(19:35):
holy cow. Yeah, this is one of those googles that
will take you down a nasty rabbit le literally this
type of history of cakewalk. Uh, and it is. It's terrible.
It's like slaves dressed up uh in you know, finery basically,
but clearly as some sort of like maccabre kind of
like you know, show um parading around, you know, with

(19:59):
this like giant cake in the middle. Uh, there's so
many images if you tie it's all, Oh my god,
it's very disturbing, but but very fascinating, and so many
historical images tied to this. I had no idea. Yeah,
this is. This reminds me of our previous work on
on the darker side of things that are generally considered good,
like the Sierra Club. Also there's one I was aware of.

(20:23):
Miranda gisel A talks about Ring around the Rosie, and
you guys have probably heard the issue with Ring around
the Rosie because it's about killing, dying. It's about getting
at some sort of Disney plague, right about sort of
form of plague. Yeah, the sixteen sixty Great Plague of London.
That is what that children's nursery rhyme is about. Uh

(20:46):
And you can see you know so many nursery rhymes,
especially those that are European and origin hearkened back to
really weird historical events like Bob Bob act sheet is
about the medieval wool tax. Okay, okay, well that duck
doug goose is duck duck goose. Okay, you guys, come on,

(21:09):
don't ruin this. Don't take this from me. I mean,
if there's any pattered here, I don't know. I'm afraid
to search for it on Brave, even though Brave is
pretty decent, powered by Baby. You can do it. There
we go. That's the tag like no, no, no, it's
fine duck dog goose and originated in Scandinavia, and it

(21:30):
was the game for taught to teach children how to
be patient and creative and clever. Oh they can have
that one for Tuck Tuck goose. So there's also this
idea that balloon animals. This comes from grant s. The
practice of making balloon animals may have some roots in
Aztec rituals. This one is unconfirmed to be clear, but granting,

(21:54):
some folks are trying to figure out whether it's true
that ancient Aztecs would take intestines of animals or people
and make decorative shapes out of them. But far be
it for us to judge the Aztecs without having solid
proof of this. We do know, or at least I
like to think that most most Americans today are very

(22:16):
well aware just how many childhood songs or chants were
originally quite racist in origin, and then had you know,
had certain racial epithets changed to animals like like like
uh like any MENI mighty maw yes exactly like that one. Uh.
You know, these these phrases were much more common not

(22:40):
too long ago, which is why the famous mystery novel
by Agatha Christie is known as Ten Little Indians today
that is not the original tighter And it's strange, right,
super strange. And I mean there's all there's phrases that thankfully,
I mean, with all our best intentions and just in general,

(23:02):
and I think we're all dudes that never ever intend
to say anything or accidentally even you know, step in
any territory that people would find offensive or in any
way you know, dismissive and any whether racially or gender
or whatever whatever. Um, but there are little things that
we get stuck in our vernacular that we have only
just recently realized are somewhat problematic, and you have to

(23:24):
like kind of train yourself out to say those things anymore.
I do still think context is king and it's all
in the usage of things. But I mean certain things,
words and phrases, and you know, games even I think
probably should be canceled. But um, yeah, it is a
situation where you just got to educate yourself. I can't.
I can't stop doing it. Then I'm sorry, how dare you?

(23:47):
You know? Uh? For everybody listening. There was a time
a while ago when when Matt and I were friends,
like we would hang out glory days, we would we
would talk about non work stuff. But that you, I
get it. I pick it up what you're putting down.
It's over. Uh all right, So we have we have

(24:07):
more examples out there. I do recommend checking out Here's
where it gets crazy, uh and seeing this post because
you can maybe share some of your own experiences, or
you can send your stories directly to us. We encourage
you to do so. I personally, I love hearing about
this because it's a form of hidden history, and history

(24:29):
is really as as I've said before, history is not static.
It is an ongoing conversation. History is a palam test.
That's the best visual metaphor. These things that happened maybe
written over, but they never really disappear. And you can
learn so much about the present day by learning the

(24:50):
origins of the things that we take for granted. With
that being said, I know that's a little heavy and
pretentious and philosophical whatever, But that being said, I thought
it would be appropriate to end on one of my
favorite lines from this thread. I will give this completely
arbitrary award for favorite comment to you, eric A, who,

(25:15):
when asked about sinister games, responded by saying Twister is
just sex in a box. That's my time, Ladies and gentlemen.
We're gonna pause for a word from our sponsor. Tip
your server. We'll be back with one more piece of
listener mail. Left hand blue. Oh yeah, okay, we're back, everybody,

(25:44):
um twister callback. So don't be disturbed, everyone sex left
hand blue, quiet story. Let's get you know what speak
king of Uh. Let's go to This is a mini uh.

(26:05):
This is a mini voicemail, and we're not going to
even really address this one, but we're going to play
it right now. You're ready for it. Hi, this is
Ronel and I'm calling from my landline from my cabin
in the middle of the forest, and I just wanted
to let you know that you both have the sexiest

(26:25):
voices and I just love listening to you talk about
conspiracy theories with your sexy voices, especially when the deeper
voice guy goes in his deep voice love it. Oh no,
come on, alright, one is perfect, alright, alright, you know right, No,

(26:47):
it's me. Oh is that you? Well, that's not true,
we both say. I can't tell. I definitely do say
it though, and then too would mean the both of us.
Who is there's three of us? Which what is she
talking about? I couldn't help but think about it when
when Ben left hand blue, I think, I, well, first off,

(27:10):
thanks so much, thanks so much for checking out the
show and giving us a call. Um. I am tempted
to think that last person is supposed to be me
because some of our other fellow listeners turned my habit
of satan into a drinking game. So I hope that
everyone is I do feeling better. I hope you only

(27:33):
got alcohol place. You don't. You don't get to own ben.
You don't get to own it. I don't. I don't
own it. I'm just the person when I from the
YouTube days, uh and in our earlier you were our
producer on those same forever. It's just my way of
showing our colleagues and people in conversation that I am
listening to them as active listening. I think that's a

(27:56):
good thing to do. I agree that, I agree. I'm
just I'm teasing, but I'm just saying it's funny because
I do find myself also saying a lot a little voice. Alright, alright, alright, guys,
All right, Juri is out. So that was playing aside.
Let's go to our actual voicemail. What that wasn't it? No?

(28:19):
It is, By the way, I'm pretty sure it's a
percent just because of that drinking game. But you know what,
we all have love, We all actually have really weirdly
distinctive voices. Have you guys noticed that she didn't say
anything about the guy that cackles all the time and
yells at his dogs. So I'm feeling I'm feeling good.
Sounds like you all need to have it off. Please,

(28:40):
don't have a contest. She was talking about Paul Mission
Control decades UM. But silence is deafening. But hey, we've
got a different voicemail we're going to play now. Uh
this this voicemail, I'm gonna lead it with us. Uh.

(29:01):
This person says, as a quote, it worked. I don't
know how it worked, but it worked. Okay, let's let's listen. Hi.
My name is Nora. I was just listening to your
UM episode on hypnosis on the Texas Range syntizing people.
I'm laughing because I'm some Texas and anyway, I just

(29:23):
think it's weird. I just wanted to, uh, maybe share
my story. When I was a kid, I was hypnotized
to alleviate a medical condition that didn't respond to any
traditional treatments. And UM, it's a long story and I
think it's really interesting. I've never known anybody else. I
know that it's done, but I don't know anybody else

(29:46):
or haven't met anybody else's actually been through that. And
you guys can give me a call if you want
to hear my story to talk about that side of
hypnosis and how the mind works. And it's really really cool.
So anyway, I love this shows your past. Yeah, the

(30:06):
podcast awesome. Keep that part in. Uh, that's that's great. Uh, Matt.
When when we were getting geared up to record the
show today, you actually had you actually had us speak
to ord directly. Yes. I was on the phone with
Nora just I was trying to talk to her right

(30:27):
before we started recording, because she mentions, you know, it's
a long story, right, and my brain was go to
I need to learn more about this. So we ended
up talking for quite a while. Sorry you missed it, nol.
We were um. I was talking to her separately, and
then just happened to jump on the zoom while I
was finishing that conversation. But let me let's talk a

(30:48):
little bit more about this before we jump in. Have
you guys ever heard of hypnotherapy being used to cure
a physical condition, like something dealing something that a dermatologist
would Okay, yeah, I have. I think the most common

(31:10):
form of hypnotherapy for a physical condition would be something
that is both physical and psychological, such as addiction, right
to tobacco, addiction to alcohol or other drugs of that ILK.
But this sounds like you're talking about a skin condition,
possibly exima something like that. Maybe, Yeah, a skin condition.

(31:33):
I've I've my brain goes to exactly where yours just went,
thinking about addiction hypnotherapy for that kind of thing, convincing,
using that technique to convince someone that they don't need
a substance, or you know, to think about something else
when that addictive thing begins to occur. In Nora's case, Oh,

(31:53):
I just want to point out, I'm also drinking a
craft of coffee as well. Monster paradise, ultra paradise, delicious um,
monster energy, all the stuff you want and don't want
at the same time. And it's great and terrible but wonderful. Okay.
So Nora was five or six years old and she

(32:16):
was dealing with warts on her hands. She said there
there was a significant work growth on her hands, and
she had been to several doctors in a small town,
and the doctors, you know, they would do the painful
treatments that many of us probably you have experienced before
with some kind of growth. I used to get him

(32:38):
under my arm pits and back of my neck. They
would literally use a scalpel or scissors to cut off
a wark and it would bleed like crazy, it was
really gross. Or they would freeze. They would freeze them
a lot of times. I had a couple of my
hands that were frozen off when I was younger. She
said that she went to several doctors physicians that did

(33:00):
these treatments on her, and the warts would grow back
and more more warts would grow and it was just
a terrible situation. They were on I think their third
or fourth doctor visit. Uh like this is again Nora
as a five or six year old with her mom
and they were just asking another physician, what can you
do for this besides these things that don't work? And

(33:23):
it was a father and son general practitioner office, at
least according to Nora's recollection and conversations with her mother,
the son was talking to them when the father was
like listening, I guess around the corner, and he kind
of peeked his head in and was like, hey, I
got a little something different that we could try. Mom,
you down, and uh, Norah's mom said, okay, let's try it.

(33:46):
They went into his office and and he sat Nora down,
this very young child. The mom was there with her
in the room, and the doctor said quietly and om ly,
I want you to interlace your fingers, so put your
fingers together. Yeah, we're doing this. And then he said,

(34:07):
I want you to stretch your arms out as high
as they can go. So she stretched her arms as
high as she could stretch them, and the ballerina style,
ballerina style, and then he asked her to separate her fingers,
and she could not, and she remembers distinctly not being
able to separate her fingers, and then slowly and methodically

(34:30):
transitioned to Okay, now I want you to separate your fingers,
and she separated her fingers, and I guess he put
her into a hypnotic state pretty quickly, at least to
her recollection. And after that, Nora went to multiple other
sessions with this doctor and her mother, and over the
course of not a long time, her words completely went away,

(34:55):
according to both her and her mother, and my, you know,
my thoughts are how right? How is this possible? This
can't be a thing. There's no way in the world
that this could possibly be a thing. Hypnosis being used
to suggest to a person or to a person's dermis

(35:16):
or epidermist, to change the way it's functioning. I I
I was hugely hugely skeptical, and I still am to
a large extent. But Nora is absolutely convinced that this
is what cured her warts. See, okay, uh, this the
thing is, we know that there is uh. We we

(35:38):
know that there are studies on hypnotherapy as a treatment
for warts, which I just learned, by the way, are
called Veruca vulgaris, which a background singer in guar Well.
It's also what the character and Willy Wonka and the
chocolate factory is named after. Veruca salt was like guy,

(36:00):
I guess, I don't know, Maybe it was just a
combination of two words, but a verruca is like a
pustule or boil ward we it does. It does seem
strange because the science, the science, it seems to be
confirmed in some places, but then people have problems with
some of the studies earlier. I think the biggest stateway

(36:23):
for anybody is not a hypnotherapist or a doctor, is
that modern science is still struggling to understand the relationship
between the mind and the body. And we know, we
know that these two categories, these two things can influence
each other in a reciprocal way, like your your gut,

(36:48):
bio can have an effect on your mind, on your
mental function. That sounds really weird, but it is also
really true. So to me, it's not out of the
realm of possibility that self hypnosis or professional hypnotherapy could
mitigate some physical conditions, especially if they're caused by um

(37:12):
something someone is mentally experiencing, like anxiety or stress. You know,
when people like their hives might flare up right because
they're very stressed. You remove the stress, the hives dissipline.
I could totally see that, I I guess. I just
didn't see the correlation between I guess with the warts
and something mentally that was going on, some something psychologically

(37:34):
going on, because I I would be skeptical that your
mind could influence your gut bacteria. Yeah. I don't know
about specifically, but some things like shingles, for example, are
caused by stress often and that is literally I mean,
it's not the same as a ward, but it's a
it's a breakout of unusual you know, kind of bumps

(37:56):
and can They can manifest differently, but every time I've
on some of it's gotten shingles is usually surrounding some
sort of very stressful time in their life. It's pretty
pretty common explanation. Yeah, so, um, I want to jump
to those some of the things you're mentioning, there have
been in just one moment. I just quickly wanted to
mention a couple of things I brought up with Nora

(38:17):
on the phone that we discussed. The first one was
that I thought maybe she was being given some kind
of topical ointment or cream alongside the hypnotherapy, or some
kind of pill or medication alongside the other stuff. But
she swears that she wasn't. Uh, and her she believes
her mom. She's spoken with her mom about this a ton.

(38:39):
It was like a story that used to tell all
the time about how the wards got cured. Um. The
mom doesn't think there was any other treatment or can't
recall because this was forty something years ago when this occurred. Um.
The other thing was that I thought perhaps the doctor
had suggested some kind of diet change or some kind

(38:59):
of you know, product change, you know, like a type
of soap or some topical thing that's going on her
hands all the time, changing pH pH levels are changing somehow,
the chemistry of her skin and the oil and the
natural oils. That is also something they can't recall or
they don't believe occurred, at least to the family. To
Nora and her mother, they believe that hip. Whatever the

(39:22):
hypnosis sessions did, that's what caused it. And I want
to I want to jump to the thing you were
talking about, Ben, because you can go to places like
I'm just gonna give you U R L jeff j E.
F F. Lazarus l A z A R U S
m D dot com and you can check out, you know,

(39:43):
patient testimonials from Jeffrey Lazarus, m D who offers medical
hypnosis for things like warts. He says he can use
medical hypnosis to permanently remove warts. Okay, I was thinking,
I also who found some stuff from pub med Yes,

(40:05):
which you know is pretty legit or tends to be so, uh,
it looked like they it looks like a one d
n U n is reporting forty one consecutive cases of
hypnotherapy used as a treatment for warts with thirty three cures. Yeah,

(40:25):
and that's from and then even nine in and there's
a case report of a child with warts and how
there are eighty two common warts on this one seven
year old female removed through hypnotic suggestion and it says.
This is what it says in the abstract. It states

(40:45):
that hypnotic suggestions were given for the facial warts to
disappear before the words from the rest of the body.
After two weeks, eight of sixteen facial warts were gone
with no other changes. Is the application that they shriveled
up or that they like dropped off or what I
guess disappeared? Um were suggested by this skin exactly? Perhaps? Okay? Interesting?

(41:10):
After three additional bi weekly sessions, all eighty two warts
were gone. That's that's good news. Yeah, but that's one
report right right. The other one talks about forty one
consecutive cases, So like, that's pretty significant. Uh. It also
taught me a term I had never heard before. I'm

(41:32):
I'm getting increasingly on board with this. I'm not going
to say I'm a certain of the efficacy in all
cases yet, but just in this short span of time,
I'm getting more and more pro hypnotherapy for warts or
should I say pro psycho dermatology. I'm so predictable. All

(41:52):
I need is a cool sounding words, and I'm like, oh, yeah,
that's legit dermatology. I love that. I think that's great.
I want to ask you as what you think, like
is hypnosis and hypnotherapy Is it in the same realm
as say something like raiki, which is like, you know,
meant to impart like a force upon the Bikey. I

(42:13):
understand that the hypnosis are meant to hijack your brain
and cause your brain to do the thing. But I
know there's still a lot of like questions around around
whether it works or not. And I think maybe the
jury is still out as is whether like science is
completely embraced hypnosis, right. I just wondered what you guys
thought if there were any parallels there in your mind. Yeah,
that's a good question. So hypnosis has efficacy and it

(42:38):
has credibility depending upon the application it's involved with. So
I'd be very I'd be very skeptical of any kind
of hypnotic regression, even with the best of intentions on
the part of the hypnotizer. But with this it's interesting.
Mayo Clinic proceedings for you know, when they studied what's

(42:59):
called hypno dermatology related to psycho dermatology, they said the
quote a review of the use of hypnosis and dermatology
supports its value for many skin conditions not believed to
be under conscious control, so ethics aside, then the best
way to test this would be to see if you

(43:20):
could hypnotize someone who doesn't have words into having words
a dastardly At that point, it's almost more like witchcraft
or something. You know. I don't know well, but maybe
it explains witchcraft, right, That's what I'm saying. It's all
the power of belief, That's my point. You know. I
think it with enough belief within oneself that a given

(43:44):
spell or incantation is possible and is in fact acting
upon you, your brain could potentially have some sort of
psycho somatic reaction. M agreed, Yeah, I mean this. I
don't know if you thought we were going to go
to this action with with you, Nora. But there is
an Australian practice, or there was an Australian practice of

(44:08):
pointing the bone at people, and you guys may have
heard about this. If someone committed a great, a great
sin or broke a taboo, then they could be in
traditional Australian communities subjected to a type of execution called
kurd dicha k you r d a I t c

(44:31):
h A. That sounds intense just based on the consonant
sounds alone, right, right. The government was some hard, hard
constance there. The idea is that through the power of
the mind, a holy man, holy person can charge this
ritualistic bone, and through pointing this at the victim, they

(45:00):
they will create a curse. And when someone is cursed
by having this bone pointed at them, by this execution method,
which is what it's considered, they become listless, apathetic, they
don't eat, they don't sleep. Their death often occurs within
mere days of being cursed, which is interesting because it
means dehydration and starvation alone cannot explain it. So it

(45:25):
is possible. Then we'll get back We're getting back to words,
I promise. But it is absolutely possible then for for
someone's mind to be powerful enough to cease their bodily
functions because they believed that they were legitimately cursed. So
you could if you can control your own ability to

(45:48):
die in that regard, then works can't be that hard, right.
It's like an auto shutdown buttons. I can see it.
And we've talked about the power of a lot on
this show. So if if, if you can convince, if
a hypnotherapist could convince you that you don't have words,

(46:09):
would they go away? M okay? I also convince you
that you don't have bad breath, and you could have
fresh minty breath without having to actually brush your teeth.
I think they'd have to hypnotize the bacteria. Yeah, which
is interesting. Well, hey, guys, this turned out to be
a great conversation, just as I think we're all hoping

(46:29):
it would. I was certainly hoping it would after hearing
that initial message. I just want to say thanks to
Nora for calling us, leaving that message, telling that story,
and talking with us. And thank you to everybody else
who we talked about today. Yes, thanks to Steve for
hipping us to this potential small child, medium child that's

(46:51):
trolling the White House Press Corps but also asking some
hard hitting questions that we need to hear the answers
to really quickly. Guys, I just want to say, if
Ben gets a drinking game for every time he says mmm,
can mac at ones? Every time he says wow, that's
up to that's up for the other part of the show,
the listeners, let us know. Yes, there's too many, too

(47:12):
many bones on the dance floor right now, guys, we
gotta we gotta point ourselves towards the end of the show.
Thank you very much to Casper, Thank you to everyone
on Here's where It Gets Crazy, best part of the show,
our fellow conspiracy realists. I so very much want to
hear about the stuff you saw in your childhood that
you later realized with sinister. Doc had an excellent example

(47:35):
with Pepe Lapu, but there are other examples out there.
There's a really weird scene in a Mark Twain claymation
thing where they talked to satan Uh. There are a
lot of nineteen thirties cartoons that look positively occult arguably
are Yeah, Pepper Lapu is basically like a rape terminator.
Really strange and and by the way, I say psychedelic

(47:55):
a lot, so that can be my drinking game. And
let us know either on that thread, we're just calling us,
contacting us directly, what sinister things you saw in childhood,
what your take on hypnosis is, and let us know
the times that you have impersonated reporters. I feel like
we we've all been there. We try to be easy
to find online. We've got Facebook, Twitter, all the good ones,

(48:19):
all the hits, all the all the slow jazz, but
if you don't like social media, you can also call
us directly. That's right. You can reach us in one
eight three three s T d W y t K
three minutes of the time your time to shine. Leave
us a message, tell us a story, ask us a question,
anything that you think would be appropriate to include on
one of our weekly listener mail episodes, the one like

(48:39):
the one you just finished listening to. If you don't
want to be on one, maybe write it's an email.
You can certainly, you know, do the voicemail as well,
but try to stick to the three minutes and just
let us know what to call you. And please do
let us know if you definitely don't want us to
use it, because we like to use them because y'all
are great. Yes, and remember YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff.
That is where you can find all of our videos

(49:01):
that have ever occurred on stuff they don't want you
to know, including these conversations. Check it out now if
you'd like. We'd love to see you over there, and
please please feel free to leave us a review on
your podcatcher of choice, particularly on Apple podcasts. We'd love
to see more reviews on there if possible if you
got the time, I'll be like, Wow, thanks, I'll find

(49:26):
it incredibly psychedelic. Um. And I'll make a deal with you, folks.
If the spirit so moves you and you write a review,
if you put in something that makes me chuckle uh
or is an inside joke, then you might just end
up on the air. So so we're incentivizing, now, that's right, yes, indeed,

(49:48):
and I think there's nothing wrong with a good incentive.
Al Right, guys, let's do this. We're gonna say, We're
gonna say the email in order, like consecutively, in order
for our previous all. Are you ready, I'll get started.
You can always email us we are conspiracy at iHeart
radio dot com. Conspiracy at i radio dot com. You

(50:12):
can always email us seven you're under sixty five days
a year and our good old fashioned email address where
we are conspiracy at I heeart radio dot com. Do
you want to give one last? Stuff they don't want

(50:45):
you to know? Is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart
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